I have been a big fan of the original article for many years, and much of it is still relevant.
The marginalia referred to in this thread don't amount to much; they lack continuity with the article, and come across as the querulous interjections of an adolescent schoolboy. The commentator has a number of valid points (which I don't dispute), but he has a long way to go before he approaches Stephenson's calibre as a writer.
Bottom line: if anybody is going to "revisit" the article, my preference would be for the original author to do so.
And Windows users just love find's graphical interface.
Well, Windows does have a graphical interface to a "find" utility. At least, IIRC it did in Win98, and I doubt if it has been dropped since.
Not so sure about grep though; you might just have to fork out squillions of dollars for that if you can't get the GNU or BSD versions to compile on a winbox. Good luck.
I notice, though, that noone appears to have have attempted to port vi to winbloze, for which many will remain eternally grateful...:-) And Windows users just love find's graphical interface
I don't think I've come across an instance where find [path] -iname "*file*" or grep -r [content] [path] hasn't done the trick. Not much incentive to spend hundreds of smackeroos to do the same thing...
A great deal has been spouted about RMS on Slashdot and elsewhere about his principles, prosetylising, choice of nomenclature and more ad hominem remarks regarding his personal hygiene.
I have never met him personally, but I prefer to regard him as a person who has an extensive record of creating useful tools for the benefit of everybody in the community, and as such, someone who is perfectly entitled to suggest principles along which the software development community should run.
I find it somewhat tiring to read continual criticisms of his standpoint from those who have contributed nothing whatsoever.
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his
novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how
insignificant," said the master.
"Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The
lesson is over for today," he said.
In a world of distributed computing, who is going to wear the cost of multiple and/or site licences when they have already forked out for development of the distributed apps in the first place?
Seems to me that the open source platforms are well and truly set to crucify MS in this market. Why pay for a platform when you don't have to?
Accountability, at all levels of an organization, inevitably leads to higher efficiency and increased productivity.
On what planet do you live? A classic example of the folly of this argument is the issue of accountability re. public servants' travel.
Here in Australia, public servants are required to make bookings with airlines at grossly inflated (usually by 400%) fares purely because under the regulations the fare has to be refundable in the event of the person pulling a no-show.
It seems to me that accountability is only applied at the echelons of an organisation which actually perform any useful work. Nobody ever seems to require the senior management to be accountable.
I'm inclined to suspect that a more telling reason why the community isn't interested in Microsoft's source it that they're fed up with Microsoft's behaviour and want some form of credible alternative.
Trouble is, I'm not so sure there is one. From my own point of view as an exclusively *nix user (and consequently well accustomed to the various quirks and foibles of OSS software when applied to Linux on the desktop) is that there is an expectation that if one has to pay for software then it should be "safe" somehow.
However, having had lots of exposure to Apple's OS X over recent weeks - or rather, more specifically, OS X applications (since I have no issues with the Darwin kernel) I have found they tend to suffer from the same types of inadequacies (and often bugs) as the OSS equivalents. I started out with high expectations of quality, i.e. that things would "just work" and be easily configurable. I was disappointed to find that some things (particularly re. networking) needed at least as much tinkering and frustration as they do under Linux or BSD, and the overall look and feel of the desktop lacks quite a number of configuration options I have become used to under Gnome, KDE or even (sometimes) Windows.
You can't tell professionals to use your software and then tell them you won't fix what they don't like about it.
And when did the Photoshop developers last embrace the criticisms of users with open arms? I didn't think so.
Graphic artists (myself included) will pay $800 for a Photoshop license because Photoshop already works the way they need it to work.
Read: I'm used to using Photoshop now, so that's why I paid $800 for a licence.
I'm not saying Photoshop sucks, or doesn't suit your purposes. What I am saying is that it is worth learning to use any tool properly, even if you get it free, gratis and for nothing.
Err... Am I the only one here who actually likes the GIMP UI? (And yes, I do use the GIMP almost every day.)
OK, I have never tried it on Windows, but on Linux Metacity for all its faults (and they are legion) does a reasonable job of keeping the components where I can find them.
Seems to me that the main complaint is that the GIMP doesn't follow the conventions set by MS Paint or Photoshop, and as far as I'm concerned, that is unfair. It doesn't follow that just because people are too lazy to learn how to use a tool effectively, there must be something wrong with the tool.
I understand your irony, and your point is valid; however, I'm not talking about the legal system, which is itself shaped by social mores, i.e. to regulate behaviour prevalent at the time.
What I'm talking about is a more general societal attitude where it is perfectly acceptable to piss off thousands of people to make a (relatively) small profit for minimal effort, rather than doing anything worthwhile.
From where I've been counting since about 1996, the US has always been the main source of spam, but I've never been surprised by this:
It is a symptom of a society where any level of dishonesty is legally acceptable, and is socially acceptable if it pays (hence the number of spammers with intact limbs). It is also a symptom of the greed and gullibility of individuals who are so easily sucked in by offers of something too good to be true.
it is safe to say France is a nominal enemy. Not that they would ever have the balls to oppose us openly, but it is openly acknowledged that it is a goal of French policy to reduce the influence of the US in world affairs. This means they, as a matter of offical policy, oppose any US action which would tend to increase US influence/prestige/national security...
Maybe you should visit your nearest pharmacy and ask for something for redness around the neck area.
The point you appear to have misconstrued is other nations' reactions to an overbearing US presence in world politics.
I am not French (or American, for that matter) but I and many others see no reason why the US has any claim to any "moral" high ground, and most particularly see little justification for wanton interference with other sovereign states.
...we civillians have been lucky enough to use around the world, and always remember that.
I doubt if luck has much to do with it, given who paid for the system in the first place. However...
GPS has always been of dubious reliability when US military action is imminent or currently happening. Over the last couple of years I have seen any number of situations (as a yachtsman) where I have got better fixes with clock and sextant than with GPS.
We tend to forget that the latter was primarily intended as a military tool, and we should expect performance to go down the spout whenever the US military machine gets itchy trousers.
That's why all the fancy outdoor/hiking/camping shops had a hard time selling GPS sets when the US decided to bomb the crap out of Iraq.
I did notice your grinnie, but there are many who will fail to appreciate that there is a difference between following the recipe in Gentoo's handbook and building your own non- or anti-distro from scratch, regardless of the fact that compilation of packages happens in both cases.
Note, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Gentoo's approach, just that it has no more geek cachet than, say, Slackware or Debian.
When you run a multinational corporation, regardless of it's industry, you must be personally satisfied that all applicable laws are satisfied.
Therein lies the rub: multinationals deliberately set up shop in out-of-the-way places in order to circumvent laws applicable in their own countries, or to put it baldly, to to elsewhere what they are not allowed to do at home.
You are comparing a terrorist attack against an accident.
An "accident" which is a direct consequence of wilful negligence on this scale is no accident, it is a situation waiting to happen.
God knows how many other similar situations like this exist in the world, but those responsible are putting people's lives just as surely at risk. If anything, the profit-line motivation makes them more criminally culpable than terrorists attempting to underline a political or religious point.
the 'net was founded on principles of consensual anarchy.
That's right. So maybe we should track spammers down and hold them on the ground while we carve "THOU SHALT NOT SPAM" into their backs with a knife, or, better still, an oxy torch.
I can't believe that this act actually does something GOOD for the consumer - something that customers can already do, but have to pay a virtual arm and leg for - and you twist it around into a conspiracy.
If you reread my post, you'll see that I twisted nothing. A point I neglected to mention is that in the "freeer" countries (;-)) you do not have to pay for this information in any case. I think you might be confusing me with a parent poster, so just lighten up, huh?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. like American culture, or military intelligence. The list goes on, of course...
On Linux this nag goes away if you simply say you're already registered. Is it different on winboxes?
The marginalia referred to in this thread don't amount to much; they lack continuity with the article, and come across as the querulous interjections of an adolescent schoolboy. The commentator has a number of valid points (which I don't dispute), but he has a long way to go before he approaches Stephenson's calibre as a writer.
Bottom line: if anybody is going to "revisit" the article, my preference would be for the original author to do so.
Well, Windows does have a graphical interface to a "find" utility. At least, IIRC it did in Win98, and I doubt if it has been dropped since.
Not so sure about grep though; you might just have to fork out squillions of dollars for that if you can't get the GNU or BSD versions to compile on a winbox. Good luck.
I notice, though, that noone appears to have have attempted to port vi to winbloze, for which many will remain eternally grateful... :-) And Windows users just love find's graphical interface
I don't think I've come across an instance where find [path] -iname "*file*" or grep -r [content] [path] hasn't done the trick. Not much incentive to spend hundreds of smackeroos to do the same thing...
I have never met him personally, but I prefer to regard him as a person who has an extensive record of creating useful tools for the benefit of everybody in the community, and as such, someone who is perfectly entitled to suggest principles along which the software development community should run.
I find it somewhat tiring to read continual criticisms of his standpoint from those who have contributed nothing whatsoever.
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master.
"Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.
-- "The Tao of Programming"
Seems to me that the open source platforms are well and truly set to crucify MS in this market. Why pay for a platform when you don't have to?
Err... Without your employees, (unless you work for yourself) you don't have a business. Therefore, your employees are probably your biggest asset.
If you treat them as a liability, you deserve to be well and truly fucked over.
On what planet do you live? A classic example of the folly of this argument is the issue of accountability re. public servants' travel.
Here in Australia, public servants are required to make bookings with airlines at grossly inflated (usually by 400%) fares purely because under the regulations the fare has to be refundable in the event of the person pulling a no-show.
It seems to me that accountability is only applied at the echelons of an organisation which actually perform any useful work. Nobody ever seems to require the senior management to be accountable.
Trouble is, I'm not so sure there is one. From my own point of view as an exclusively *nix user (and consequently well accustomed to the various quirks and foibles of OSS software when applied to Linux on the desktop) is that there is an expectation that if one has to pay for software then it should be "safe" somehow.
However, having had lots of exposure to Apple's OS X over recent weeks - or rather, more specifically, OS X applications (since I have no issues with the Darwin kernel) I have found they tend to suffer from the same types of inadequacies (and often bugs) as the OSS equivalents. I started out with high expectations of quality, i.e. that things would "just work" and be easily configurable. I was disappointed to find that some things (particularly re. networking) needed at least as much tinkering and frustration as they do under Linux or BSD, and the overall look and feel of the desktop lacks quite a number of configuration options I have become used to under Gnome, KDE or even (sometimes) Windows.
And when did the Photoshop developers last embrace the criticisms of users with open arms? I didn't think so.
Graphic artists (myself included) will pay $800 for a Photoshop license because Photoshop already works the way they need it to work.
Read: I'm used to using Photoshop now, so that's why I paid $800 for a licence.
I'm not saying Photoshop sucks, or doesn't suit your purposes. What I am saying is that it is worth learning to use any tool properly, even if you get it free, gratis and for nothing.
OK, I have never tried it on Windows, but on Linux Metacity for all its faults (and they are legion) does a reasonable job of keeping the components where I can find them.
Seems to me that the main complaint is that the GIMP doesn't follow the conventions set by MS Paint or Photoshop, and as far as I'm concerned, that is unfair. It doesn't follow that just because people are too lazy to learn how to use a tool effectively, there must be something wrong with the tool.
What I'm talking about is a more general societal attitude where it is perfectly acceptable to piss off thousands of people to make a (relatively) small profit for minimal effort, rather than doing anything worthwhile.
It is a symptom of a society where any level of dishonesty is legally acceptable, and is socially acceptable if it pays (hence the number of spammers with intact limbs). It is also a symptom of the greed and gullibility of individuals who are so easily sucked in by offers of something too good to be true.
New around here, are you?
:-D
it is safe to say France is a nominal enemy. Not that they would ever have the balls to oppose us openly, but it is openly acknowledged that it is a goal of French policy to reduce the influence of the US in world affairs. This means they, as a matter of offical policy, oppose any US action which would tend to increase US influence/prestige/national security...
Maybe you should visit your nearest pharmacy and ask for something for redness around the neck area.
The point you appear to have misconstrued is other nations' reactions to an overbearing US presence in world politics.
I am not French (or American, for that matter) but I and many others see no reason why the US has any claim to any "moral" high ground, and most particularly see little justification for wanton interference with other sovereign states.
I doubt if luck has much to do with it, given who paid for the system in the first place. However...
GPS has always been of dubious reliability when US military action is imminent or currently happening. Over the last couple of years I have seen any number of situations (as a yachtsman) where I have got better fixes with clock and sextant than with GPS.
We tend to forget that the latter was primarily intended as a military tool, and we should expect performance to go down the spout whenever the US military machine gets itchy trousers.
That's why all the fancy outdoor/hiking/camping shops had a hard time selling GPS sets when the US decided to bomb the crap out of Iraq.
I suppose it can only be a sad indictment that this comment was modded +1 Funny.
Maybe I left my sense of humour in my other jacket...
Err, LFS is not a distro at all. In fact, it's almost exactly the opposite, but it's the first step in making your own distro.
Note, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Gentoo's approach, just that it has no more geek cachet than, say, Slackware or Debian.
Therein lies the rub: multinationals deliberately set up shop in out-of-the-way places in order to circumvent laws applicable in their own countries, or to put it baldly, to to elsewhere what they are not allowed to do at home.
An "accident" which is a direct consequence of wilful negligence on this scale is no accident, it is a situation waiting to happen.
God knows how many other similar situations like this exist in the world, but those responsible are putting people's lives just as surely at risk. If anything, the profit-line motivation makes them more criminally culpable than terrorists attempting to underline a political or religious point.
That's right. So maybe we should track spammers down and hold them on the ground while we carve "THOU SHALT NOT SPAM" into their backs with a knife, or, better still, an oxy torch.
If you reread my post, you'll see that I twisted nothing. A point I neglected to mention is that in the "freeer" countries (;-)) you do not have to pay for this information in any case. I think you might be confusing me with a parent poster, so just lighten up, huh?