The grow or perish mentality is related to the fact that capitalism requires an entity, be it a person or a corporation, to perform better than its peers/competitors.
It isn't a requirement. There are millions of sole-proprietors and small business owners who are perfectly happy with "a slice of the pie." Even in pure capitalism, there is plenty of room for the non-frothing non-rabid non-egomaniac business people out there. The business people who thrive in their dog-eat-dog worlds most likely brought all that upon themselves, because it ain't rocket science to open up a cozy little restaurant or shop in SmallTown, USA.
The article actually mentions a specific moment when the author understood that Sun has no future.
People like this author who are so black-and-white on the issues are people who have real issues of their own. If this guy thinks he has finally once-and-for-all understood all the universe and Sun's place within it, then he must also expect that he will be considered a god among the world's peoples for the next several millenia (hey, it worked for Jesus and Mohammad). In other words, this guy is an ass.
Given that the sun is a huge ball of fusion-driven hellfire, I'd say the wolves, bears, and cougars lose. Hell, even in a game of rock-paper-sissors, the sun wins every time. Who can win when they are broken down violently into their bare elements and baked in a plasma furnace for the next billion years? Go sun!
When Midi becomes more important than how a web application launches and myriad other failures in their client strategy, I would suspect there are still domain experts better than the ones Sun hired who could do a better job in a non-proprietary environment.
The issue is that there are thousands of domains who all want to make sure the cake is their flavor, texture, color, number of layers, and brand of icing. Web-based apps really are just a niche in all of this. As far as Webstart goes, I've read other threads where people praise it, so Sun must have gotten a few things right.
To game developers or musicians, Midi and Java2D is leagues ahead of web apps in importance. To real-time developers the threading model and scheduling is ahead of web apps. To embedded developers, the memory footprint is more important. To academics, whether the language supports various object oriented semantics is more important.
Java is just following most things Sun has ever done. They come up with some really neat stuff that people still find things to complain about, and, then, those people become the biggest hypocrits in the world by going out and using something like.NET or Perl or Mono or Python or Ruby instead only to get burned by all the things they never thought about when slamming Java (or any platform with any perceived flaw that makes it suck, for that matter).
There is little that Java does that can't be done in C (Apache does CGI quite nicely), but millions of developers choose Java, including for web apps, if only due to the fact that the overloaded '+' string operator and garbage collection saves them hundreds of lines of code and thousands of malloc bugs. Couple that with a solid threading model, collections APIs, easy networking, damn good portability, and a thousand other things Java does really well, whether it does web apps flawlessly out of the box is really just a non-issue.
I don't even work for Sun, but I have to recognize just how crappy programming in C is for large applications and have to point out that Java really was a big step forward, no matter the criticism.
Oh, god, like you are so damned important. Sun is being whined at by thousands of people, each with a different "but I want this" and "but I want that." Do you think Sun are omnipotent and can do it all?
Look at Java and how it has come along over the years. It has always been progressing and in very non-trivial ways (the JRE has a full-blown software MIDI subsystem for cripes sake). Just because your little corner in the world hasn't been peed on, yet, doens't make Sun incompetent or evil.
The choice (and any potential lock-in) is really in what APIs you use, which is no different from a C++ programmer choosing between DirectX or OpenGL.
It isn't potential lock-in with.NET, it is real lock-in. There no parallel between.NET and C++/DirectX/OpenGL, because.NET includes all the Microsoft-dependent functionality that a C++ programmer could use portable libraries for (Qt, OpenGL, POSIX). C++ is much much more portable and open than.NET, because C++ can be compiled and run on many platforms. If Mozilla or OpenOffice.org were written in C#, exactly how many platforms would it run on? Windows...and Windows.
Okay (10.5GHz - epsilon) for inefficiency in SMP. Still, such a configuration potentially has 15 times the computational power relative to the pared-down Celeron in the XBox. PPC is generally a stronger architecture than Celeron/Pentium III, unless Microsoft neuters them in an effort to make the next XBox affordable. Couple that with decent graphics and sound subsystems, and the next XBox could very well be at least 30 times faster than my current desktop computer (yeah, I have an old computer...I guess it matches my crappy TV set).
They deserve our pity...
on
JOE Hits 3.0
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· Score: 1
...enjoyed by us console freaks who still miss the old DOS days, and cannot finish understanding vi's modes...
Vi has only three modes: command, input, and last line. Command mode is for navigation and entering input and last line modes, input mode is for input, and last line mode is for file operations, ed commands, and searching.
Okay, everyone, let's count...1...2...uh...uh...what comes after 2? No wonder the 'D' in DOS stands for "dumb."
I'd suggest you use disposable E-mail addresses every time your mail will be available on the web.
They don't necessarily need be disposible, just separate. It's like having two phone lines, where one is unlisted and only for family and friends. The other phone line can get caller ID and an answering machine for screening.
Any "Scientist" that takes Evolution and the Big Bang as fact are idiots. QED.
No good scientist would take evolution and the big bang as absoulte fact, anyway. Scientists who really do take them as absolute fact are quacks. Regardless, taking Genesis literally still is in the domain of the mentally-challenged.
Now, that this boat was used to ensure the survival of all the creatures of Earth during a giant flood -- maybe not.
Well, perhaps only part of the earth flooded. The ark really could have been some insane man's quest to save the world, when all he had to do was look over the nearest mountain range to see dry land as far as he could see... Poor guy.
How about them pesky dinosaurs? It's pretty hard to reconcile the bible with the abundance of archaeoligcal evidence that shows that dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years before the first humans showed up.
Any "Christian" who takes Genesis literally is an idiot. QED.
Well, atleast the parent wasn't delusional that he was a genius - he merely said that da Vinci was one.
Actually, I, too, scored very well on tests and was always that loser in the 99% percentile. Yet, I consisently will mis-type "genius" (my post above isn't the first time). I'm pretty convinced that those tests exist simply to create awkward social strata in schools. That the state school boards can claim to use them for statistical analysis is merely a side effect.
I looked at Tex, and it didn't look as if you could print within a rectangle, which was placed in an arbitrary, but specified location, and wrap and/or trim within the rectangle area.
I haven't used them, but it looks like LaTeX's concept of "boxes" might fit the bill.
Yeah, that Leondardo fella from Vinci... what a loser!
The main flaw in your argument is that it ignores the difference between Leonardo da Vinci and the rest of us. Leonardo da Vinci was a fucking genious. The rest of us are either retarded, moronic, or vegetable wannabe.
Also, the "swiss army knife" of employees has been and will be around for a long time. They are called "system administrators" and "secretaries." It sounds like you fall into the "system administrator" category.
If you print ps output, and print out a pdf generated from that same ps, the paper representation looks different; the margins are different, where text appears is different.
Be double-sure that all the tools have similar default settings. Is the PS to PDF converter assuming A4 instead of Letter or vice versa? These kind of things can lead to the inconsistency you mention. Otherwise, I have had extrememly good luck with the PS and PDF output from LaTeX.
Problem is, latex is a BEAR to get text placed in specific places and constrained to specific rectangle areas. I tried, but never did figure that out.
Fine-grained control in LaTeX is possible via TeX (or even just using PostScript for the truly hard-core). Also, the whole point to LaTeX was to alleviate the burden of typesetting large documents by having the software do most of it automatically. The strength of LaTeX is literally just typing away, running the latex and dvips commands, and having a gorgeous document as a result.
I also recommend the Kopka and Daly book listed below in the "people also shopped for..." section. It was the textbook for engineering students at my uni back in the day. Quite good.
Also, the documentation directories in the standard TeTeX distribution are very helpful, once you learn the basics.
Further, make bare bones template files of standard things (reports, letters)--and use them!
How fast does a console need to be before increases in performance simply make for no visual improvement on a TV's crappy resolution? It seems there has to be some point of diminishing returns. Will real-time raytracing take over, eventually? Or will everyone be laughing at me still holding onto my 15 year old monophonic TV while they all have HTDV and THX waking up the dead in China?
Is that what C# looks like? No wonder people call it a complete Java rip-off. I'd bet that there are C# programs out there that would compile under javac with little effort!
Slashdot Mirror
The grow or perish mentality is related to the fact that capitalism requires an entity, be it a person or a corporation, to perform better than its peers/competitors.
It isn't a requirement. There are millions of sole-proprietors and small business owners who are perfectly happy with "a slice of the pie." Even in pure capitalism, there is plenty of room for the non-frothing non-rabid non-egomaniac business people out there. The business people who thrive in their dog-eat-dog worlds most likely brought all that upon themselves, because it ain't rocket science to open up a cozy little restaurant or shop in SmallTown, USA.
The article actually mentions a specific moment when the author understood that Sun has no future.
People like this author who are so black-and-white on the issues are people who have real issues of their own. If this guy thinks he has finally once-and-for-all understood all the universe and Sun's place within it, then he must also expect that he will be considered a god among the world's peoples for the next several millenia (hey, it worked for Jesus and Mohammad). In other words, this guy is an ass.
I don't really think Sun is a cougar.
Given that the sun is a huge ball of fusion-driven hellfire, I'd say the wolves, bears, and cougars lose. Hell, even in a game of rock-paper-sissors, the sun wins every time. Who can win when they are broken down violently into their bare elements and baked in a plasma furnace for the next billion years? Go sun!
When Midi becomes more important than how a web application launches and myriad other failures in their client strategy, I would suspect there are still domain experts better than the ones Sun hired who could do a better job in a non-proprietary environment.
.NET or Perl or Mono or Python or Ruby instead only to get burned by all the things they never thought about when slamming Java (or any platform with any perceived flaw that makes it suck, for that matter).
The issue is that there are thousands of domains who all want to make sure the cake is their flavor, texture, color, number of layers, and brand of icing. Web-based apps really are just a niche in all of this. As far as Webstart goes, I've read other threads where people praise it, so Sun must have gotten a few things right.
To game developers or musicians, Midi and Java2D is leagues ahead of web apps in importance. To real-time developers the threading model and scheduling is ahead of web apps. To embedded developers, the memory footprint is more important. To academics, whether the language supports various object oriented semantics is more important.
Java is just following most things Sun has ever done. They come up with some really neat stuff that people still find things to complain about, and, then, those people become the biggest hypocrits in the world by going out and using something like
There is little that Java does that can't be done in C (Apache does CGI quite nicely), but millions of developers choose Java, including for web apps, if only due to the fact that the overloaded '+' string operator and garbage collection saves them hundreds of lines of code and thousands of malloc bugs. Couple that with a solid threading model, collections APIs, easy networking, damn good portability, and a thousand other things Java does really well, whether it does web apps flawlessly out of the box is really just a non-issue.
I don't even work for Sun, but I have to recognize just how crappy programming in C is for large applications and have to point out that Java really was a big step forward, no matter the criticism.
Vote Daffy Duck for president, he'll sure do a better job.
Yeah, but when they find out Elmer Fudd is the VP, they realize it's the whole same thing all over again.
Oh, god, like you are so damned important. Sun is being whined at by thousands of people, each with a different "but I want this" and "but I want that." Do you think Sun are omnipotent and can do it all?
Look at Java and how it has come along over the years. It has always been progressing and in very non-trivial ways (the JRE has a full-blown software MIDI subsystem for cripes sake). Just because your little corner in the world hasn't been peed on, yet, doens't make Sun incompetent or evil.
The choice (and any potential lock-in) is really in what APIs you use, which is no different from a C++ programmer choosing between DirectX or OpenGL.
.NET, it is real lock-in. There no parallel between .NET and C++/DirectX/OpenGL, because .NET includes all the Microsoft-dependent functionality that a C++ programmer could use portable libraries for (Qt, OpenGL, POSIX). C++ is much much more portable and open than .NET, because C++ can be compiled and run on many platforms. If Mozilla or OpenOffice.org were written in C#, exactly how many platforms would it run on? Windows...and Windows.
It isn't potential lock-in with
"mono a mono"
This cross product just might produce all the sides to the Slashdot discussion regarding Mono, including all the monkeys.
10.5 GHz? It doesn't work that way.
Okay (10.5GHz - epsilon) for inefficiency in SMP. Still, such a configuration potentially has 15 times the computational power relative to the pared-down Celeron in the XBox. PPC is generally a stronger architecture than Celeron/Pentium III, unless Microsoft neuters them in an effort to make the next XBox affordable. Couple that with decent graphics and sound subsystems, and the next XBox could very well be at least 30 times faster than my current desktop computer (yeah, I have an old computer...I guess it matches my crappy TV set).
...enjoyed by us console freaks who still miss the old DOS days, and cannot finish understanding vi's modes...
Vi has only three modes: command, input, and last line. Command mode is for navigation and entering input and last line modes, input mode is for input, and last line mode is for file operations, ed commands, and searching.
Okay, everyone, let's count...1...2...uh...uh...what comes after 2? No wonder the 'D' in DOS stands for "dumb."
I'd suggest you use disposable E-mail addresses every time your mail will be available on the web.
They don't necessarily need be disposible, just separate. It's like having two phone lines, where one is unlisted and only for family and friends. The other phone line can get caller ID and an answering machine for screening.
What is the natural history of the infamous red-headed stepchild? Where did this line of homo sapien subspecies arise? Ireland? Madagascar?
Any "Scientist" that takes Evolution and the Big Bang as fact are idiots. QED.
No good scientist would take evolution and the big bang as absoulte fact, anyway. Scientists who really do take them as absolute fact are quacks. Regardless, taking Genesis literally still is in the domain of the mentally-challenged.
But I agree, it'd be quite difficult to climb Arafat ...
That's what she said.
Now, that this boat was used to ensure the survival of all the creatures of Earth during a giant flood -- maybe not.
Well, perhaps only part of the earth flooded. The ark really could have been some insane man's quest to save the world, when all he had to do was look over the nearest mountain range to see dry land as far as he could see... Poor guy.
How about them pesky dinosaurs? It's pretty hard to reconcile the bible with the abundance of archaeoligcal evidence that shows that dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years before the first humans showed up.
Any "Christian" who takes Genesis literally is an idiot. QED.
Well, atleast the parent wasn't delusional that he was a genius - he merely said that da Vinci was one.
Actually, I, too, scored very well on tests and was always that loser in the 99% percentile. Yet, I consisently will mis-type "genius" (my post above isn't the first time). I'm pretty convinced that those tests exist simply to create awkward social strata in schools. That the state school boards can claim to use them for statistical analysis is merely a side effect.
In short, I'm the smartest idiot I know.
I looked at Tex, and it didn't look as if you could print within a rectangle, which was placed in an arbitrary, but specified location, and wrap and/or trim within the rectangle area.
I haven't used them, but it looks like LaTeX's concept of "boxes" might fit the bill.
Yeah, that Leondardo fella from Vinci... what a loser!
The main flaw in your argument is that it ignores the difference between Leonardo da Vinci and the rest of us. Leonardo da Vinci was a fucking genious. The rest of us are either retarded, moronic, or vegetable wannabe.
Also, the "swiss army knife" of employees has been and will be around for a long time. They are called "system administrators" and "secretaries." It sounds like you fall into the "system administrator" category.
If you print ps output, and print out a pdf generated from that same ps, the paper representation looks different; the margins are different, where text appears is different.
Be double-sure that all the tools have similar default settings. Is the PS to PDF converter assuming A4 instead of Letter or vice versa? These kind of things can lead to the inconsistency you mention. Otherwise, I have had extrememly good luck with the PS and PDF output from LaTeX.
Problem is, latex is a BEAR to get text placed in specific places and constrained to specific rectangle areas. I tried, but never did figure that out.
Fine-grained control in LaTeX is possible via TeX (or even just using PostScript for the truly hard-core). Also, the whole point to LaTeX was to alleviate the burden of typesetting large documents by having the software do most of it automatically. The strength of LaTeX is literally just typing away, running the latex and dvips commands, and having a gorgeous document as a result.
I also recommend the Kopka and Daly book listed below in the "people also shopped for..." section. It was the textbook for engineering students at my uni back in the day. Quite good.
Also, the documentation directories in the standard TeTeX distribution are very helpful, once you learn the basics.
Further, make bare bones template files of standard things (reports, letters)--and use them!
Hey, I heard that Linus is really a dude!
How fast does a console need to be before increases in performance simply make for no visual improvement on a TV's crappy resolution? It seems there has to be some point of diminishing returns. Will real-time raytracing take over, eventually? Or will everyone be laughing at me still holding onto my 15 year old monophonic TV while they all have HTDV and THX waking up the dead in China?
Is that what C# looks like? No wonder people call it a complete Java rip-off. I'd bet that there are C# programs out there that would compile under javac with little effort!