You might want to look at the Freedesktop Base Directory Spec. It defines the use of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME (default: ~/.config/) and $XDG_CACHE_HOME (default: ~/.cache/) as a root for applications to store their configuration data and temporary cached data, respectively. I would think that the app itself should ask you where you want to save data files and whatnot.
Few apps implement the spec, but hopefully that will change soon.
Wait until you get out and have to explain away that 2.8 GPA (3.6 in your major and 2.0 in the other crap). Employers and graduate schools are more impressed with GPAs than you might think, at least in my experience.
Well, I haven't had to explain my 2.8 GPA to any employer. I've been out of school a little over a year, and I've been working since the day I finished (minus a little vacation here and there...). I'm now on my second job (I switched by choice, not necessity).
However, I definitely agree with you about grad school. Everyone I know who has gone the grad school route has emphasised the importance of GPA (though it's still nowhere near as important as, say, recommendation letters).
My experience, and anecdotal evidence, is that your college credentials really only matter for your first real post-graduation job, if at all. After that, potential employers only want to know about your work experience. And, as the saying (sorta) goes, it really is who you know. But, unlike the saying, it's who you know, coupled with what you know. Put differently, who you know will get you in the door, and what you know will keep you inside.
Of course, as with any experience-based opinions, YMMV.
Monad? Now, why does that make me think of a contraction for another way of saying "single testicle"? I know a lot of people make fun of OSS naming practices, but this really takes the cake...
Err... how so? Maybe I just didn't phrase that well, or I misunderstood your idea.
Say you're sitting at PC A. You create an account with your credit card company so you can pay your bills online. You go through this process with your browser, and it generates a password for you that conforms to that site's password policy. Now when you go there you need only enter your master passphrase, and it uses the previously-generated password for that site.
So then you go and sit down at PC B and you want to pay your credit card bill. How does PC B know what the site's password is?
Um, if PHP apps break because the PHP devs can't handle writing good code, how is this Apache's fault?
It's a moot point, as the PHP devs maintain that mod_php itself is thread-safe, but may link to various extension libraries that may or may not be thread-safe. This is neither Apache's fault nor PHP's fault. Apache2 can be run in 1.x-style non-threaded mode, so there shouldn't be any compatibility problems. If there are, then that's surely the fault of PHP, not of Apache.
On what do you base that assertion? According to sf.net, gaim 1.1.0 for windows has about 85,000 downloads, while the other flavors of gaim (source tarballs, RPMs) have around 20,000. While that *is* a big difference, I'm "almost certain" that the vast majority of non-windows gaim users get gaim through other sources (distro updates, for example), whereas pretty much all windows gaim users get gaim from sf.net.
But, of course, I have nothing but intuition to back that up, so my assertion is just as unsupported (but, IMO, more likely) than yours.
And by the way, as the gaim devs will tell you, it's "gaim" or "Gaim", but never "GAIM".
I recall that MS used to use Akamai to mirror their website. If they still are, that would explain the non-Windows OSes in the list (which I can't see right now, as Netcraft isn't responding for some reason).
Can anyone who knows about legal stuff probably explain to me if such a disclaimer is of any use for a BT tracker?
In a word, no.
Here's another disclaimer: "People are free to walk through this door, but I often enjoy shooting people that walk through this door. I cannot be held responsible for the result if you walk through this door."
Sure, that's a bit absurd, but the fact still remains that suprnova.org is facilitating copyright infringement. I believe the reason the original Napster was brought down was because it was proven that the administrators of the Napster servers *could* monitor and control the content of the network. For a website, it's trivial for an admin to police the contents of the site.
Of course, IANALBIKABALS (I Am Not A Lawyer But I Know A Bit About Legal Stuff).
I never said that it isn't the case that people tend to be more distracted on the phone than they are talking to someone sitting next to them. I merely believe that it doesn't *have* to be the case. Conscientious/responsible people *can* make a conscious decision to pay more attention to the road than the phone. Sadly, it doesn't seem to happen too often.
Frankly, if it was certain that the plane was going to be used in the same manner as those that struck the WTC - that is, as kamikaze projectiles - I'd rather prefer that the military shot down the plane, regardless of who was on it. The end result is the same: everyone on the plane dies, with the important difference being that no one at the plane's target died.
Now, if they lied about it, that's a shame, but I certainly understand why: because of people like you that don't seem to understand that the good of the many must take precedence over the good of the (relative) few.
That's the thing I really don't get. I don't see how talking on a phone is all that different from having a conversation with someone in the passenger seat next to you. Or maybe singing along to a song on the radio. Sure, there's a slight difference, but it's really only psychological - you may feel like concentrating on a phone call means diverting your attention to something external to your current location, whereas talking to someone next to you doesn't necessarily have the same effect.
So basically it's a matter of discipline. If I'm on the phone in the car (always using a headset), I pay attention to the road no less than I would if I were talking to someone sitting next to me. If I miss something in the conversation because that's not where my primary attention is, that's fine; I just ask the other party to repeat what they said. Any reasonable person should understand that when you're driving, your concentration isn't fully - or even primarily - on them.
So this whole thing just boils down to taking responsibility. It's a shame that so many people seem to act irresponsibly, but legislating it away isn't the answer. Talking on the phone during long lonely car trips has kept me from zoning out due to boredom on occasion. I'd hate to lose the *safety* of being able to do that due to a bunch of morons that can't use a cell phone responsibly.
All that is fine: I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but you're missing the point, which is that I don't care whether someone (an "outsider" or otherwise) is voicing a unpopular opinion. You just don't physically attack someone for disagreeing with you. That's pigheaded, moronic, and immature, and, at least in the US, a criminal act.
Don't try and bring up the guns subject. While I'm no card-carrying NRA member, and I don't (and never plan to) own a gun myself, I believe a person has every right to own a firearm. "You guys carry guns" is a bit disingenuous: very few people in the US actually *carry* guns. Perhaps you should try associating with a less unsavory crowd when traveling abroad?
But I'll agree with you - people are people, and they often hate unfavorable opinions voiced by people they consider "outsiders". It's a shame that some people react with violence rather than reason.
No. He never said it was okay that you would be physically attacked; you made that up so check yourself before saying "grow up".
What he's saying is that if you, as an American, express your ignorant and unwelcome opinion about Northern Ireland in a pub in London you should expect to get your ass handed to you. He's not justifying anything; he's explaining why the grandparent got the reactions he did.
Try reading again. He said "you are really really not allowed to say this" and "we're not in the mood for that talk coming from you". To me, that sounds like an endorsement of the beating this guy took. Perhaps I'm mistaken in my reading of intent, but at best, it's apologist nonsense.
I think you're merely proving the parent poster's point.
I'm 23. I had nothing to do with funding Northern Ireland terrorists, and I wasn't in a position to do anything about it. So you're saying that if I were to express an unpopular opinion, it's all right if I'm physically attacked?
Essentially, you're saying that it's ok to physically beat someone up for expressing an unpopular opinion. From how it sounds, it seems like the parent was almost killed by a group of idiot Brits. That's just unacceptable. That's beyond unacceptable: it's reprehensible and inhuman. I don't care how much you don't like someone's opinion, you don't attack them. Grow up.
As to your final comment, if you were over here in the States and we were in the same bar, and you suggested that the US had no business in the Middle East, I'd raise my glass in your honor and buy you a drink. That's just me, of course, though I figure a good 49% of the country would do the same.
I have an EE degree, not a CS degree, but I took quite a few CS classes in college, and most of the work I do and have done since then (both professionally and as a hobby) have been programming-related.
I took one class in which the purpose of the class was to teach a language (C++ in my case). The basic intro CS class (CS 100) used Java as a teaching tool, and you could learn it as you went.
Other than that, I took classes in algorithms, structures, discrete math, OS design, etc. Learning languages is easy. Knowing C, I picked up perl in a few days (granted, perl is a constant learning experience). Knowing C and perl, I picked up PHP in an afternoon. Etc., etc. When I get around to it, I want to teach myself Lisp (or probably Scheme). I imagine this'll be a bit harder, but I have no doubt that I'll be able to do it, because my classes have given me tools I can use to learn anything I want.
Also agreed on the math: I went up through differential equations and linear algebra, but I wish I had taken some of the really hardcore stuff. You just can't teach yourself that kind of material, at least not within a reasonable timeframe, and you need a lot more discipline than I have.
I guess I'm more talking about ongoing, current influence. Sure, RMS's idea for the GPL (which he didn't actually write himself, but it's the concept that matters) really fueled the early Free Software landscape, but I don't feel like I see RMS doing all that much today, while Torvalds is (despite his low-keyed attitude) a pretty high-profile figure in the OSS world. And, regardless of what your or I may believe, RMS is generally looked down upon for his somewhat fanatical attitude toward Free Software. I don't deny that he had a vision and stuck to it, but that's just how things are. On the flip side, I think Torvalds' pragmatic approach is a bit more palatable to most people.
I guess the point that I was trying to make with that last paragraph is that, while RMS essentially started the Free Software movement, I don't feel that it would have gone very far without someone like Torvalds to actually do something huge with it. (Yes, I know that RMS wrote a lot of the original GNU toolset, but, again, what good are Free tools if you don't have a Free OS to run them on?)
On his own, Linux would not have become the corporate success that it is on its way to becomming, that is thanks to IBM, Suse, Red Hat et al.
How does that in any way make Torvalds less of an influential executive? IMO, the fact that these companies are willing to invest their livelihood in what started out as Torvalds' pet project speaks volumes about how influential he is.
It's high time that influence in the tech world is gained not by rhetoric and marketing, but by being a reasonable, credible, respectable person with a boatload of techincal talent.
Put another way, "influence" doesn't just comprise the things a person actually does, but includes all the indirect effects of a person's actions. He *started* the Linux kernel. Could someone else have done it? Probably. But he's the one that actually went and did it, and he's maintained a vision for it and nominal control over it during the past 13-odd years.
Did he create the Free Software movement? No. But if he hadn't created Linux, I see OSS more of a fringe thing, composed mainly of fanatical followers of RMS. What good are Free programs if you don't have a Free OS to run them on? (Note that RMS himself has very little influence outside the OSS world, and I'd argue that his influence *inside* the OSS world isn't all that much either.)
I disagree. In smaller projects, your supposition might hold water, but not for most well-established projects. The larger ones tend to have a pretty large userbase, and the more-experienced users tend to help out the newbies, whether it's on a mailing list or discussion forum. From what I've seen, this works remarkably well, as often it's the case that the more experienced users ran into similar problems, found answers, and are willing to pass them along.
The problem is in the case of smaller projects. Realise that most open source developers code in their spare time. They can't act as the support contact for every single user of their software. Development-related questions and discussions are generally welcome, but incessant repeated newbie questions and feature requests (more often than not phrased more like demands than requests) are frowned upon.
Is the system perfect? No, of course not. Sometimes newbies get flamed when perhaps their only offence was posting to a development list when their question was better-suited to a user list. Sometimes newbies get upset when their ideas are shot down, and decide to make an issue of it rather than deferring to a developer's judgement, and a flame war ensues.
Sure, I see problems. I see flames, and I see "clueless" newbies being shoved off. But overall, I see friendly people - both developers and experienced users - trying to help new users with their trouble.
My guess is that you've fallen victim to someone who should have cooled off before posting, and that's soured your experience. Just as you say to the parent poster, you personally may have had bad experiences, but that doesn't mean that all - or even a majority of - new users have bad experiences.
My perspective is probably a bit biased: I'm currently a developer on a good-sized OSS project with a good number of developers, and of a piece of software I'm writing myself. I'm also a user of many pieces of other OSS software, and I subscribe to several user and developer mailing lists, and try to help out and offer constructive criticism and suggestions when appropriate. I also remember being a newbie several years ago. I usually managed to figure out things by myself, but when I couldn't, I always found eager and willing people that helped me get back on track. I've literally never been flamed by one of these so called "self-important 3l337 Hax0rz". That's not to say they don't exist, but I think nowadays they're more of a vocal minority.
I could go on a bit more, I suppose, but we're already somewhat OT as it is...
Slashdot Mirror
You might want to look at the Freedesktop Base Directory Spec. It defines the use of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME (default: ~/.config/) and $XDG_CACHE_HOME (default: ~/.cache/) as a root for applications to store their configuration data and temporary cached data, respectively. I would think that the app itself should ask you where you want to save data files and whatnot.
Few apps implement the spec, but hopefully that will change soon.
However, I definitely agree with you about grad school. Everyone I know who has gone the grad school route has emphasised the importance of GPA (though it's still nowhere near as important as, say, recommendation letters).
My experience, and anecdotal evidence, is that your college credentials really only matter for your first real post-graduation job, if at all. After that, potential employers only want to know about your work experience. And, as the saying (sorta) goes, it really is who you know. But, unlike the saying, it's who you know, coupled with what you know. Put differently, who you know will get you in the door, and what you know will keep you inside.
Of course, as with any experience-based opinions, YMMV.
Monad? Now, why does that make me think of a contraction for another way of saying "single testicle"? I know a lot of people make fun of OSS naming practices, but this really takes the cake...
Supported network (Webcasting/Streaming) protocols
Err... how so? Maybe I just didn't phrase that well, or I misunderstood your idea.
Say you're sitting at PC A. You create an account with your credit card company so you can pay your bills online. You go through this process with your browser, and it generates a password for you that conforms to that site's password policy. Now when you go there you need only enter your master passphrase, and it uses the previously-generated password for that site.
So then you go and sit down at PC B and you want to pay your credit card bill. How does PC B know what the site's password is?
What happens when you want to log in to a website with which you have an existing account from another computer than the one you usually use?
Um, if PHP apps break because the PHP devs can't handle writing good code, how is this Apache's fault?
It's a moot point, as the PHP devs maintain that mod_php itself is thread-safe, but may link to various extension libraries that may or may not be thread-safe. This is neither Apache's fault nor PHP's fault. Apache2 can be run in 1.x-style non-threaded mode, so there shouldn't be any compatibility problems. If there are, then that's surely the fault of PHP, not of Apache.
But.....
What. Does. God. Need. With. A. Slashdot?
Yeah, though in this case I'm more looking for the "-10 Lighten-up-it-was-a-joke" moderation.
On what do you base that assertion? According to sf.net, gaim 1.1.0 for windows has about 85,000 downloads, while the other flavors of gaim (source tarballs, RPMs) have around 20,000. While that *is* a big difference, I'm "almost certain" that the vast majority of non-windows gaim users get gaim through other sources (distro updates, for example), whereas pretty much all windows gaim users get gaim from sf.net.
But, of course, I have nothing but intuition to back that up, so my assertion is just as unsupported (but, IMO, more likely) than yours.
And by the way, as the gaim devs will tell you, it's "gaim" or "Gaim", but never "GAIM".
I recall that MS used to use Akamai to mirror their website. If they still are, that would explain the non-Windows OSes in the list (which I can't see right now, as Netcraft isn't responding for some reason).
Here's another disclaimer: "People are free to walk through this door, but I often enjoy shooting people that walk through this door. I cannot be held responsible for the result if you walk through this door."
Sure, that's a bit absurd, but the fact still remains that suprnova.org is facilitating copyright infringement. I believe the reason the original Napster was brought down was because it was proven that the administrators of the Napster servers *could* monitor and control the content of the network. For a website, it's trivial for an admin to police the contents of the site.
Of course, IANALBIKABALS (I Am Not A Lawyer But I Know A Bit About Legal Stuff).
Is it just me, or did anyone first think for a minute that he was talking about the "Game Boy Hackers"? Eh, guess I'm not much of a football fan...
I never said that it isn't the case that people tend to be more distracted on the phone than they are talking to someone sitting next to them. I merely believe that it doesn't *have* to be the case. Conscientious/responsible people *can* make a conscious decision to pay more attention to the road than the phone. Sadly, it doesn't seem to happen too often.
Studies, blah. People can overcome the psychology of the situation if they decide to stop acting like nitwits.
Frankly, if it was certain that the plane was going to be used in the same manner as those that struck the WTC - that is, as kamikaze projectiles - I'd rather prefer that the military shot down the plane, regardless of who was on it. The end result is the same: everyone on the plane dies, with the important difference being that no one at the plane's target died.
Now, if they lied about it, that's a shame, but I certainly understand why: because of people like you that don't seem to understand that the good of the many must take precedence over the good of the (relative) few.
That's the thing I really don't get. I don't see how talking on a phone is all that different from having a conversation with someone in the passenger seat next to you. Or maybe singing along to a song on the radio. Sure, there's a slight difference, but it's really only psychological - you may feel like concentrating on a phone call means diverting your attention to something external to your current location, whereas talking to someone next to you doesn't necessarily have the same effect.
So basically it's a matter of discipline. If I'm on the phone in the car (always using a headset), I pay attention to the road no less than I would if I were talking to someone sitting next to me. If I miss something in the conversation because that's not where my primary attention is, that's fine; I just ask the other party to repeat what they said. Any reasonable person should understand that when you're driving, your concentration isn't fully - or even primarily - on them.
So this whole thing just boils down to taking responsibility. It's a shame that so many people seem to act irresponsibly, but legislating it away isn't the answer. Talking on the phone during long lonely car trips has kept me from zoning out due to boredom on occasion. I'd hate to lose the *safety* of being able to do that due to a bunch of morons that can't use a cell phone responsibly.
All that is fine: I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but you're missing the point, which is that I don't care whether someone (an "outsider" or otherwise) is voicing a unpopular opinion. You just don't physically attack someone for disagreeing with you. That's pigheaded, moronic, and immature, and, at least in the US, a criminal act.
Don't try and bring up the guns subject. While I'm no card-carrying NRA member, and I don't (and never plan to) own a gun myself, I believe a person has every right to own a firearm. "You guys carry guns" is a bit disingenuous: very few people in the US actually *carry* guns. Perhaps you should try associating with a less unsavory crowd when traveling abroad?
But I'll agree with you - people are people, and they often hate unfavorable opinions voiced by people they consider "outsiders". It's a shame that some people react with violence rather than reason.
I think you're merely proving the parent poster's point.
I'm 23. I had nothing to do with funding Northern Ireland terrorists, and I wasn't in a position to do anything about it. So you're saying that if I were to express an unpopular opinion, it's all right if I'm physically attacked?
Essentially, you're saying that it's ok to physically beat someone up for expressing an unpopular opinion. From how it sounds, it seems like the parent was almost killed by a group of idiot Brits. That's just unacceptable. That's beyond unacceptable: it's reprehensible and inhuman. I don't care how much you don't like someone's opinion, you don't attack them. Grow up.
As to your final comment, if you were over here in the States and we were in the same bar, and you suggested that the US had no business in the Middle East, I'd raise my glass in your honor and buy you a drink. That's just me, of course, though I figure a good 49% of the country would do the same.
Exactly.
I have an EE degree, not a CS degree, but I took quite a few CS classes in college, and most of the work I do and have done since then (both professionally and as a hobby) have been programming-related.
I took one class in which the purpose of the class was to teach a language (C++ in my case). The basic intro CS class (CS 100) used Java as a teaching tool, and you could learn it as you went.
Other than that, I took classes in algorithms, structures, discrete math, OS design, etc. Learning languages is easy. Knowing C, I picked up perl in a few days (granted, perl is a constant learning experience). Knowing C and perl, I picked up PHP in an afternoon. Etc., etc. When I get around to it, I want to teach myself Lisp (or probably Scheme). I imagine this'll be a bit harder, but I have no doubt that I'll be able to do it, because my classes have given me tools I can use to learn anything I want.
Also agreed on the math: I went up through differential equations and linear algebra, but I wish I had taken some of the really hardcore stuff. You just can't teach yourself that kind of material, at least not within a reasonable timeframe, and you need a lot more discipline than I have.
I guess I'm more talking about ongoing, current influence. Sure, RMS's idea for the GPL (which he didn't actually write himself, but it's the concept that matters) really fueled the early Free Software landscape, but I don't feel like I see RMS doing all that much today, while Torvalds is (despite his low-keyed attitude) a pretty high-profile figure in the OSS world. And, regardless of what your or I may believe, RMS is generally looked down upon for his somewhat fanatical attitude toward Free Software. I don't deny that he had a vision and stuck to it, but that's just how things are. On the flip side, I think Torvalds' pragmatic approach is a bit more palatable to most people.
I guess the point that I was trying to make with that last paragraph is that, while RMS essentially started the Free Software movement, I don't feel that it would have gone very far without someone like Torvalds to actually do something huge with it. (Yes, I know that RMS wrote a lot of the original GNU toolset, but, again, what good are Free tools if you don't have a Free OS to run them on?)
It's high time that influence in the tech world is gained not by rhetoric and marketing, but by being a reasonable, credible, respectable person with a boatload of techincal talent.
Put another way, "influence" doesn't just comprise the things a person actually does, but includes all the indirect effects of a person's actions. He *started* the Linux kernel. Could someone else have done it? Probably. But he's the one that actually went and did it, and he's maintained a vision for it and nominal control over it during the past 13-odd years.
Did he create the Free Software movement? No. But if he hadn't created Linux, I see OSS more of a fringe thing, composed mainly of fanatical followers of RMS. What good are Free programs if you don't have a Free OS to run them on? (Note that RMS himself has very little influence outside the OSS world, and I'd argue that his influence *inside* the OSS world isn't all that much either.)
I disagree. In smaller projects, your supposition might hold water, but not for most well-established projects. The larger ones tend to have a pretty large userbase, and the more-experienced users tend to help out the newbies, whether it's on a mailing list or discussion forum. From what I've seen, this works remarkably well, as often it's the case that the more experienced users ran into similar problems, found answers, and are willing to pass them along.
The problem is in the case of smaller projects. Realise that most open source developers code in their spare time. They can't act as the support contact for every single user of their software. Development-related questions and discussions are generally welcome, but incessant repeated newbie questions and feature requests (more often than not phrased more like demands than requests) are frowned upon.
Is the system perfect? No, of course not. Sometimes newbies get flamed when perhaps their only offence was posting to a development list when their question was better-suited to a user list. Sometimes newbies get upset when their ideas are shot down, and decide to make an issue of it rather than deferring to a developer's judgement, and a flame war ensues.
Sure, I see problems. I see flames, and I see "clueless" newbies being shoved off. But overall, I see friendly people - both developers and experienced users - trying to help new users with their trouble.
My guess is that you've fallen victim to someone who should have cooled off before posting, and that's soured your experience. Just as you say to the parent poster, you personally may have had bad experiences, but that doesn't mean that all - or even a majority of - new users have bad experiences.
My perspective is probably a bit biased: I'm currently a developer on a good-sized OSS project with a good number of developers, and of a piece of software I'm writing myself. I'm also a user of many pieces of other OSS software, and I subscribe to several user and developer mailing lists, and try to help out and offer constructive criticism and suggestions when appropriate. I also remember being a newbie several years ago. I usually managed to figure out things by myself, but when I couldn't, I always found eager and willing people that helped me get back on track. I've literally never been flamed by one of these so called "self-important 3l337 Hax0rz". That's not to say they don't exist, but I think nowadays they're more of a vocal minority.
I could go on a bit more, I suppose, but we're already somewhat OT as it is...