Re:The real 90s versus outdated 00s software
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Java Is So 90s
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· Score: 1
I have to wonder if Sun would be better off open-sourcing its class library, or maybe even the JVM. This would open the door to a lot of spinoffs, which might really give Java a boost. The barrier to starting from scratch on a JRE is just too high. I can understand Sun not giving away the goods when they thought they had a hot item, but if it's true that Java is losing ground to C# (and the article gives statistics which support this assertion), perhaps Sun would be better off with a smaller piece of a larger (Java) pie.
Re:Don't Flame Me Because I'm Beautiful ...
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Java Is So 90s
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· Score: 1
When will I see a constructive article comparing and contrasting the two and inviting a civil conversation and an acknowledgement that there are fans on both sides?
Actually the article goes a fair bit beyond flaming by citing statistics about the number of fans on both sides, and the trends in those statistics. Perhaps you'd prefer something more technical, but a quantifiable shift in popularity is newsworthy.
Alternately, perhaps the participants know it is fake and choose not to let on. I always suspect this when I see a hypnotism show. I think many of them aren't really "under," but it's a matter of peer pressure, and "hey! I'm on stage in front of everybody!" TV exposure is valuable, and I think a lot of the "reality" shows get overwhelmed by wannabe actors who just want to parlay an appearance into a career in entertainment.
Re:The real 90s versus outdated 00s software
on
Java Is So 90s
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· Score: 1
The wrong thing about Java is the Virtual machine implementation.... A language is just a BNF diagram specification which describes the syntax of the program, and all of its reserved words.
From a practical standpoint, a language is exactly as fast as its fastest implementation on a platform available to you. It would be nice if we could dream up wonderful language features and simply wish away their impact on performance, but it doesn't work that way. Language design impacts performance. You can't make up nice features like guaranteed type safety and then yell "not my problem!" and run away when it doesn't run well.
I say this even though I personally think it's a tragedy that Java didn't take over the world. To my brain (which runs C++) it seems so much simpler and more general than this LAMP trainwreck.
I'm sorry, did you just *complain* about people focusing on text editing in Emacs - which is a text editor whose main "problem" is bloat / feature creep?
That's exactly what I'm saying. Despite your false preconceptions, it is extremely useful to treat a shell as a text buffer, to which text is appended by executing commands. That's why shell mode is an essential function of emacs rather than bloat.
If the preconception of emacs as just a text file editor was ever true, it's been outdated for decades by now. Emacs is a true IDE for many different tasks. It has bloaty features (which you never even load), but it's wrong to lump in criticism of important functions like shell mode, text mode windowing, and compiler output parsing. Without them, I would be less productive.
Well, IIRC it has been pretty dramatic. Not like ebay and google which started making money pretty early on, before they got big. RedHat was another small company losing a little money until their IPO. Then in 1999 they had a big IPO and their price zoomed into the stratosphere, at least 5x what it is today. And by then they were losing big money. Within 2 years of the IPO their stock price plunged from a max of 150 down to about 3. Companies like ebay and yahoo survived the wild ride too, but at least they had some income at this point. RedHat had almost nothing. Then they killed off their support for the free version a lot of people here on slashdot wrote them off.
Fast forward a few years and they're achieving solid growth and turning a nice profit.
I wish I could find more historical data, such as their annual losses and profits, but I only found their stock price. I wonder if anybody has done a nice writeup of the company's short, turbulent history and the factors behind their current success?
Are you a geek, who wants a productive interface? KDE is the way to go - actually, I prefer Windowmaker myself.
OTOH, are you an end user who wants a simplified UI? Gnome is the way to go.
This dichotomy is entirely new to me, as of this article. I always thought of Gnome and KDE as two equivalent products duking it out for no particular reason, presumably historical. So if now they're actually specializing and there's some basis for choosing between them, I'd say that's a great thing!
I'm an FVWM user too, but I can and do run konqueror for graphical file management of my photo collection (and integrated EXIF editing, woot!) I think it may run some daemons in the background, but if so at least it launches them automatically.
That's unreasonable. I use the CLI every day, and a GUI multiplies my productivity by allowing me to have multiple terminals open simultaneously. At the moment I have 26 xterms spread among 6 workspaces.
I adopted emacs about 6 years ago for precisely this reason. You can run as many shells as you want, copy and paste text from one to the other (and to/from open files), quickly search and repeat previous commands, and tile your shells and files across the screen. All quickly and efficiently from the keyboard. And it's all scriptable. I have scripts that start a bunch of shells and execute a different command in each, for instance.
To me the shell mode is the "killer app" of emacs, yet it never seems to come up in the arguments about emacs because people fixate on text editing.
So I think as a desktop replacement, the 17" PowerBook with its 4 hour battery life, large screen and 6 pound weight (half of the review unit) is a lot more practical, and at $2,500 it's even a bit cheaper.
I think this thing is designed for games. A PowerBook doesn't fill that role.
But you're forgetting the most popular competitor of all in the market for Internet Tablets: nothing, for $0. Most people don't think they're worth the money. The market is clearly waiting for a better value, not just a different point on the existing price/performance curve.
With the slower proc and shared RAM, and limited software library, is this anything more than a somewhat enhanced Palm like device?
I think the screen width of 800 pixels would put it in a different class. That's the minimum usable size for a decent web client IMHO. Even 640x480 is pushing it on a Palm-sized device - the pixels are very tiny. (Not that I'd ever want a grainy screen, but at some point more pixels just look better instead of also equating to more screen real estate).
Unless you work for a company that is publicly listed, since SEC regulations call for the permanent archiving (on "non-editable" media) of all electronic communications.
Not phone calls. But you might want to avoid voicemail!
If its private and confidential, keep it on paper (preferably typed with a typewriter). Digital information will always be too insecure.
Oh boy, I'd love to see you start up an FDIC-approved bank running solely on paper! (No telephones or electronic funds transfers either, since those are increasingly digital). Just think of all the jobs you'd create in typing and pony express riding. And customers would flock for the awesome check-kiting potential.
Looking at the motivation this guy has, I can't really see how it can be good.
What? Are you implying that greed is not always good? It's elementary Econ. 101: he has the supply, and spammers have the demand. Were he not to unleash this vulnerability on all of us, he'd be violating his sacred fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. Besides, he and the buyer are both consenting adults, what right do we have to interfere with their freedom? Don't you think the invisible hand will solve this issue for us?
I guess Ebay rules are just like actual laws: it doesn't really matter whether you actually broke one; there are so many laws, some very vague, that almost anything can fall under one law or another with a bit of rationalization. Just look at the Constitution, today's federal govt. is completely different from that of 1788, even though the federal govt. is supposedly established by the Constitution which has hardly changed at all.
All your examples and the whole issue of monopoly is irrelevant. The OpenDocument debate isn't about govt. telling private companies what to do. It's about govt. setting internal policies for itself.
There are lots of techies who'd like control over their own desktops, but how far would they get if they tore into their bosses for unfairly creating a Microsoft monopoly within the company by standardizing the enterprise on Windows?
It used to be that one could tell the fake news, such as Weekly World News, National Enquirer, etc., but recently many reporters are either faking news or just regurgitating press releases.
Were things that much better in the old days, or did we just not know?
H. G. Wells' novel is about a Martian invasion of Earth at the end of the 19th century, as related by a narrator seeing the events unfold in England.
Contemporary newspapers reported panic ensued, with people fleeing the area, and others thinking they could smell the poison gas or could see the flashes of the fighting in the distance. Later studies suggested this "panic" was far less widespread than newspaper accounts suggested. However, it remains clear that many people were caught up--to one degree or another--in the confusion that followed.
Firstly the fact that some people took it seriously, and secondly the fact that the news media initially over-reported reaction to the radio show. Either that or the Wikipedia account is a complete fabrication:)
I think nostalgia for the good old days of reporting goes back to one particular time, the post-Watergate era when the field hit its high point.
I realize this current Wikipedia matter is a big deal for Mr. Seigenthaler, then again I would never have even heard of him if not for this.
However, working at a big company that decides you are one of the best programmers in [demography] probably means you can earn piles of cash doing what you love.
Piles of cash, I think not. Put an 30th percentile programmer and a 99th percentile programmer next to each other at a big company and wait 5 years. The better developer will distinguish him/herself, and even make more money. But not that much more, unless the ace progresses to a leadership role. And in that case the extra money is really for leadership rather than programming. Unfortunately I don't think there's a great career path in programming. Maybe it's the same for all technical work.
CEO's are there to manage people, not tell Joe Beancounter that he forgot to carry a 1.
Is that what Bernie thought too? Didn't work out too good, what with the biggest chapter 11 in US history. And by the way it wasn't "1" they forgot to carry, it was $12e9.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to wonder if Sun would be better off open-sourcing its class library, or maybe even the JVM. This would open the door to a lot of spinoffs, which might really give Java a boost. The barrier to starting from scratch on a JRE is just too high. I can understand Sun not giving away the goods when they thought they had a hot item, but if it's true that Java is losing ground to C# (and the article gives statistics which support this assertion), perhaps Sun would be better off with a smaller piece of a larger (Java) pie.
Alternately, perhaps the participants know it is fake and choose not to let on. I always suspect this when I see a hypnotism show. I think many of them aren't really "under," but it's a matter of peer pressure, and "hey! I'm on stage in front of everybody!" TV exposure is valuable, and I think a lot of the "reality" shows get overwhelmed by wannabe actors who just want to parlay an appearance into a career in entertainment.
I say this even though I personally think it's a tragedy that Java didn't take over the world. To my brain (which runs C++) it seems so much simpler and more general than this LAMP trainwreck.
If the preconception of emacs as just a text file editor was ever true, it's been outdated for decades by now. Emacs is a true IDE for many different tasks. It has bloaty features (which you never even load), but it's wrong to lump in criticism of important functions like shell mode, text mode windowing, and compiler output parsing. Without them, I would be less productive.
Fast forward a few years and they're achieving solid growth and turning a nice profit.
I wish I could find more historical data, such as their annual losses and profits, but I only found their stock price. I wonder if anybody has done a nice writeup of the company's short, turbulent history and the factors behind their current success?
I don't know how RedHat lasted long enough to start thriving, it seems like they used to lose money year after year.
He said "The truth is that I don't care if they know Perl or something else."
I'm an FVWM user too, but I can and do run konqueror for graphical file management of my photo collection (and integrated EXIF editing, woot!) I think it may run some daemons in the background, but if so at least it launches them automatically.
Sheesh, next thing you know we'll have Hollywood celebrities weighing in on politics!
To me the shell mode is the "killer app" of emacs, yet it never seems to come up in the arguments about emacs because people fixate on text editing.
But you're forgetting the most popular competitor of all in the market for Internet Tablets: nothing, for $0. Most people don't think they're worth the money. The market is clearly waiting for a better value, not just a different point on the existing price/performance curve.
Such high resolution seems more important for CAD than Quake. But the benchmarks are all about games. What is ATI's intended market?
All your examples and the whole issue of monopoly is irrelevant. The OpenDocument debate isn't about govt. telling private companies what to do. It's about govt. setting internal policies for itself. There are lots of techies who'd like control over their own desktops, but how far would they get if they tore into their bosses for unfairly creating a Microsoft monopoly within the company by standardizing the enterprise on Windows?
I'm reminded of the War of the Worlds radio show:
Firstly the fact that some people took it seriously, and secondly the fact that the news media initially over-reported reaction to the radio show. Either that or the Wikipedia account is a complete fabricationI think nostalgia for the good old days of reporting goes back to one particular time, the post-Watergate era when the field hit its high point.
I realize this current Wikipedia matter is a big deal for Mr. Seigenthaler, then again I would never have even heard of him if not for this.
I don't know what they'll actually do, but the link I provided says "The target is $12 for a 12-inch display with near-zero power consumption."
Thanks for the link by the way.