The article mentions a great point, which is that no government agency should use proprietary formatted commercial software. This means no more MS Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, etc., unless they are saved as RTFs and CSVs.
I would love to see some work done on open standard file formats for common office applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets (that include formulas!), presentation, charting, calendars, small databases (like for FoxPro or Access), etc.
I know there are open source apps for these things, but you still have to translate the files from one format to another. Ideally, a single XML standard would exist that allows all the applications to use each other's files.
"History teaches us that as far as innovation is concerned, open beats proprietary every time. You have only to look at the history of the UNIX operating system to see this effect. Many of the innovations that were incorporated into commercial UNIX systems (as well as many of the foundational technologies for the Internet) were developed in universities as extensions to the original work at Bell Labs. Once AT&T took UNIX commercial, under a restrictive license, that work stopped, and didn't burst into flower again until Linux, a free implementation, took over leadership of UNIX operating system development."
When you close everything off, only enough innovation is done to perpetuate the monopoly, and no one else can share in the innovation to help further it.
The only thing with more bizarre fads than cheap, efficient housing is perpetual motion machines.
Take a look at Xanadu and Monolithic Domes. You can build houses from bales of hay, chunks of sod, or into hillsides.
Most new housing concepts don't take off. One that unfortunately has is the trend of making houses out of cheap, pressed lumber and using shoddy fixtures. I don't like feeling like I can't lean on a wall or slam a door in many modern homes. Even homes costing USD$300K+ are built with flimsy parts now. I can't imagine how much worse it would feel living in an overgrown cubicle.
You beat me to this post, but thanks for making the point.
I used to be involved in pharmaceutical marketing project, and these companies spend most of their time racing to make new products to get everyone to use so that when the patent on their previous drug runs out, everyone will switch to the new stuff rather than going generic.
Look at Nexium. It came out right when the patent for Prilosec was set to expire. Or Glucovance and Glucophage XR came out right when the patent for Glucophage expired.
The point is that the patents last just long enough to make the invention useless. Perhaps one solution would be to simply shorten the duration of patents, since R&D efforts happen on a much faster scale now.
"It just replaces Microsoft, a monopoly by one, with a global development effort, a monopoly by all, as it were (which, of course, is really no monopoly at all)."
From the article link (not the whitepaper): "In turn, this most 'anti-IP' of licenses is arguably doing more to foster innovation than patents or copyrights ever have."
Patents and copyrights are about making money, NOT fostering innovation.
Where in my post did it say that broadband was useless for everyone?
Where did I say that I should decide what you can use?
Didn't I mention that use broadband myself?
IIRC, my post simply says I don't like the stupid points that broadband advertisers use over and over in their commercials, considering that MOST of the people they're advertising to don't need broadband.
Most advertising in general focuses around making you feel like you need something that you don't, but broadband ads can't even get that right. They just seem like blatand plugs to get you to buy something even THEY recognize as useless.
I pretty much have broadband for similar reasons. Just for the record, though, there is work being done on WinModems for linux.
Now, why you'd want a WinModem in the first place is beyond me. If I have a modem, it is going to be external so I can see the blinking lights and hit the power switch if necessary.
Don't get me wrong... I well remember the days of dial-up access.
I happen to hate dial-up. I got broadband because I tend to be a technophile. (I'd be more of one if I had more money, but that's a different story.;)
Anyway, I'm certainly no stranger to busy signals and dropped connections. There's no way I'm going back to dial-up. But, I tend to get a lot of use out of my broadband connection. For most people, I still think it's overkill.
I'm tired of seeing and hearing all the broadband commercials that make high-speed connectivity seem like such a panacaea.
Such ads usually concentrate on some particular aspect of broadband that makes it superior to dial-up. For instance:
1) No waiting to connect! Now seriously, of ALL the reasons to go to broadband, this is the most idiotic. Since most people aren't running servers on their home systems , the connect time isn't that big of a deal. I have also seen DSL systems that still require you to actively connect to the network, and it takes about the same time as a 56K handshake.
2) I get my email in seconds! I guess this is just because we get so much spam or something. I rarely receive an email that huge attachments.
3) Watching streaming video I have yet to see streaming video on the web worth watching. Maybe I'm not looking in the right spot or something, but until I can watch DVD quality movies online, I don't care about streaming video.
4) Listening to streaming audio This is much more plausible, but probably doesn't justify the much higher cost of broadband vs. dial-up. I do like listening to streaming audio.
Dial-up is more practical simply because it is far less expensive, and is more than adequate for most users.
Now, when it comes to:
5) Getting the latest linux distros that are upwards of 400 MB and... 6) Downloading tons of pr0n
In central Texas (south Austin/San Marcos area), there is a local provider called Grande that provides cable Internet service at speeds of up to 2.5 Mb for much cheaper than Time-Warner.
Why did you take the test IF you weren't considering joining the military?
We had to take it. I don't remember if they told us what the ASVAB test was even for before we took it. I remember many of us being surprised when we discovered the test was proctored by a bunch of miltary people.
Anyway, I have no intention of ever joining the military. Authority and I do not tend to get along real well. If the test weren't required and I had known what it was for, I guarantee you I wouldn't have taken it.
Is this anything like "The Last Starfighter"? The Army is monitoring everyone's scores, so if you kill enough terrorists, 20 minutes later a recruiter is knocking at your front door.
Amusing side note:
When in high school, we had to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). I did pretty well, and soon recruiters were calling me from every branch of the armed forces. One day, my girlfriend was over and we were sitting on my bed when the phone rang. I picked up. "Hello?" "Hi! Have you ever considered joining the National Guard?"
At this point, my GF reaches over and tickles me on the side. I start laughing and immediately an idea pops into my head.
"Brian, STOP it!!" *girlish giggle* "Who is that, your brother?" "No... he's my... umm... friend."
I did not receive a SINGLE call from the military after that. This means that somewhere there is a database accessible to all branches of the armed services which has my name and a little checkbox marked "gay".
I believe morality is the same way. Morality isn't arbitrary. It doesn't change with each generation. It doesn't change based on your geographical location. It isn't determined by a vote. God is the standard of morality. He is the unchanging Truth.
So we should still be stoning homosexuals, executing children who "dishonor" their parents, etc.? This was morally correct behavior according to the Bible, but do we practice these things nowadays? No. Why? We find them immoral. If you want to practice Old Testament morality, go for it, but don't be surprised when you get arrested.
Yes, people have abused God's name to justify horrible acts.
You haven't been reading your Bible much, because Yahweh endorses those things.
What I do understand is that we have the Bible as God's Word.
Not really. The meaning of "the Word of God" is from ancient Jewish mysticism which said that words have power. The first "Word of Creation" is what God was. Basically, a single word spoken that brought God and all of reality into existance. The "Word of God" refers to the creative "word", not to the Bible. The Bible as you know it didn't exist until just a few hundred years ago.
If you don't believe in some kind of god or higher authority, how do you decide what is moral?
The same way you do.
Just what "feels right"?
Exactly. You don't follow strict Biblical law for the same reason no one else does. It feels wrong. MOST humans have gut reactions to certain behaviors. If we didn't, we could all act as impulsively as we want and all of us would end up dying off. We have feelings that tend to reward good behaviors (helping others) and punish bad behaviors (harming others).
Cultural influence can play a role, especially in promoting bad behavior as being good, but people still manage to overcome it. If not, there would still be slavery in this country. In the 16-1700s, slavery was not just ok, it was morally justified, often using the Bible to support it. Many felt that it was our moral imperative to own slaves. But other people, not persuaded by the cultural directives, knew better and eventually slavery was banished.
>>First, I would teach what memory is, and how instructions are followed in memory and the concept of algorithms. The next thing would be variables, followed by pointers.
>Wait, you think this is design? This is not design. This is "how a computer works", which is *not* what people should be thinking about when they design programs.
The only "how a computer works" things I mentioned were memory (which is an important concept for moving on to pointers if you're going to teach C/C++/ASM), and the vague "following instructions" (which gives you a basis for explaining procedural algorithms).
I will readily admit, however, that my example was highly biased towards procedural or possibly OO programming. I've never used anything like LISP or Prolog, and honestly wouldn't know how to begin explaining their programming paradigms.
>What I mean by that is that students should be instructed in the intellectual process of designing solutions to problems, or working out ways to accomplish tasks, rather than just showing them how a CPU works, how a compiler works, and a few "Patterns" and then telling them to figure out the rest for themselves.
I agree. That's why I didn't go into detail about how CPUs and compilers work. That wouldn't be my goal at all. I would definitely teach a few patterns, but then I'd teach them how to translate them into a real programming language. After that, you'd have to use everything you've taught and go over "real world" type examples, teaching them how to break down each problem into workable chunks and solve them.
>I'd just like to get off my chest the fact that it is impossible by definition to teach programming by just teaching syntax.
I would say that you actually could teach design without teaching syntax first.
First, I would teach what memory is, and how instructions are followed in memory and the concept of algorithms. The next thing would be variables, followed by pointers. Then subroutines and parameter passing. Finally, data structures and "meta" structures like linked lists, stacks, etc.
You can actually explain every bit of this without a programming language, and without actually writing a single program on a computer. Along the way, you can have students write out basic programs in pseudocode on paper. This allows them to learn some code structure without relying on the compiler to and run-time environment to test everything.
After this, you can start from the beginning and go over the pseudocode programs and teach them how to phrase the same things in a particular language like C or Perl.
One thing I've noticed about people with poor backgrounds in software design and problem solving is that they may be able to write basic code in one language, but if they have to switch languages, they're totally lost.
To other readers, please note: I'm not necessarily advocating this approach. I'm merely suggesting it as a possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
The article mentions a great point, which is that no government agency should use proprietary formatted commercial software. This means no more MS Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, etc., unless they are saved as RTFs and CSVs.
I would love to see some work done on open standard file formats for common office applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets (that include formulas!), presentation, charting, calendars, small databases (like for FoxPro or Access), etc.
I know there are open source apps for these things, but you still have to translate the files from one format to another. Ideally, a single XML standard would exist that allows all the applications to use each other's files.
What else is protecting reproduction rights about if not making money?
No one goes off to get patents and copyrights just to have them.
"History teaches us that as far as innovation is concerned, open beats proprietary every time. You have only to look at the history of the UNIX operating system to see this effect. Many of the innovations that were incorporated into commercial UNIX systems (as well as many of the foundational technologies for the Internet) were developed in universities as extensions to the original work at Bell Labs. Once AT&T took UNIX commercial, under a restrictive license, that work stopped, and didn't burst into flower again until Linux, a free implementation, took over leadership of UNIX operating system development."
When you close everything off, only enough innovation is done to perpetuate the monopoly, and no one else can share in the innovation to help further it.
Just to further the point you made...
;)
You said:
"Pharmaceutical companies spend vastly more on marketing than they do on R&D."
Very true. Apparently, so does Microsoft...
Surely it can't cost them that much to steal all those ideas.
Take a look at Xanadu and Monolithic Domes. You can build houses from bales of hay, chunks of sod, or into hillsides.
Most new housing concepts don't take off. One that unfortunately has is the trend of making houses out of cheap, pressed lumber and using shoddy fixtures. I don't like feeling like I can't lean on a wall or slam a door in many modern homes. Even homes costing USD$300K+ are built with flimsy parts now. I can't imagine how much worse it would feel living in an overgrown cubicle.
I used to be involved in pharmaceutical marketing project, and these companies spend most of their time racing to make new products to get everyone to use so that when the patent on their previous drug runs out, everyone will switch to the new stuff rather than going generic.
Look at Nexium. It came out right when the patent for Prilosec was set to expire. Or Glucovance and Glucophage XR came out right when the patent for Glucophage expired.
The point is that the patents last just long enough to make the invention useless. Perhaps one solution would be to simply shorten the duration of patents, since R&D efforts happen on a much faster scale now.
Agreed. When I wrote my post, I was only considering the modern use of copyright/patents.
From the whitepaper this time:
"It just replaces Microsoft, a monopoly
by one, with a global development effort, a monopoly by all, as it were (which, of course, is really no
monopoly at all)."
Right. It's a polypoly.
From the article link (not the whitepaper):
"In turn, this most 'anti-IP' of licenses is arguably doing more to foster innovation than patents or copyrights ever have."
Patents and copyrights are about making money, NOT fostering innovation.
Obviously it implements a semaphore. ;)
Where in my post did it say that broadband was useless for everyone?
Where did I say that I should decide what you can use?
Didn't I mention that use broadband myself?
IIRC, my post simply says I don't like the stupid points that broadband advertisers use over and over in their commercials, considering that MOST of the people they're advertising to don't need broadband.
Most advertising in general focuses around making you feel like you need something that you don't, but broadband ads can't even get that right. They just seem like blatand plugs to get you to buy something even THEY recognize as useless.
So why all the vitriol?
Now, why you'd want a WinModem in the first place is beyond me. If I have a modem, it is going to be external so I can see the blinking lights and hit the power switch if necessary.
Don't get me wrong... I well remember the days of dial-up access.
;)
I happen to hate dial-up. I got broadband because I tend to be a technophile. (I'd be more of one if I had more money, but that's a different story.
Anyway, I'm certainly no stranger to busy signals and dropped connections. There's no way I'm going back to dial-up. But, I tend to get a lot of use out of my broadband connection. For most people, I still think it's overkill.
I'm tired of seeing and hearing all the broadband commercials that make high-speed connectivity seem like such a panacaea.
Such ads usually concentrate on some particular aspect of broadband that makes it superior to dial-up. For instance:
1) No waiting to connect!
Now seriously, of ALL the reasons to go to broadband, this is the most idiotic. Since most people aren't running servers on their home systems , the connect time isn't that big of a deal. I have also seen DSL systems that still require you to actively connect to the network, and it takes about the same time as a 56K handshake.
2) I get my email in seconds!
I guess this is just because we get so much spam or something. I rarely receive an email that huge attachments.
3) Watching streaming video
I have yet to see streaming video on the web worth watching. Maybe I'm not looking in the right spot or something, but until I can watch DVD quality movies online, I don't care about streaming video.
4) Listening to streaming audio
This is much more plausible, but probably doesn't justify the much higher cost of broadband vs. dial-up. I do like listening to streaming audio.
Dial-up is more practical simply because it is far less expensive, and is more than adequate for most users.
Now, when it comes to:
5) Getting the latest linux distros that are upwards of 400 MB and...
6) Downloading tons of pr0n
well, broadband just can't be beat.
In central Texas (south Austin/San Marcos area), there is a local provider called Grande that provides cable Internet service at speeds of up to 2.5 Mb for much cheaper than Time-Warner.
Apparently "The New Republic" doesn't have a broadband connection, either. ;)
Great... now I'm worth even MORE dead than alive!
Now when your grandparents die, you don't have to have a funeral; you can just leave them in the house during the estate sale.
bytesmythe
That's the SAME combination I have on my luggage!
(An exabyte is 1,000 terabytes and a terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.)
Isn't a 1,000 terabytes a petabyte?
We had to take it. I don't remember if they told us what the ASVAB test was even for before we took it. I remember many of us being surprised when we discovered the test was proctored by a bunch of miltary people.
Anyway, I have no intention of ever joining the military. Authority and I do not tend to get along real well. If the test weren't required and I had known what it was for, I guarantee you I wouldn't have taken it.
Is this anything like "The Last Starfighter"? The Army is monitoring everyone's scores, so if you kill enough terrorists, 20 minutes later a recruiter is knocking at your front door.
Amusing side note:
When in high school, we had to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). I did pretty well, and soon recruiters were calling me from every branch of the armed forces. One day, my girlfriend was over and we were sitting on my bed when the phone rang. I picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hi! Have you ever considered joining the National Guard?"
At this point, my GF reaches over and tickles me on the side. I start laughing and immediately an idea pops into my head.
"Brian, STOP it!!" *girlish giggle*
"Who is that, your brother?"
"No... he's my... umm... friend."
I did not receive a SINGLE call from the military after that. This means that somewhere there is a database accessible to all branches of the armed services which has my name and a little checkbox marked "gay".
So we should still be stoning homosexuals, executing children who "dishonor" their parents, etc.? This was morally correct behavior according to the Bible, but do we practice these things nowadays? No. Why? We find them immoral. If you want to practice Old Testament morality, go for it, but don't be surprised when you get arrested.
Yes, people have abused God's name to justify horrible acts.
You haven't been reading your Bible much, because Yahweh endorses those things.
What I do understand is that we have the Bible as God's Word.
Not really. The meaning of "the Word of God" is from ancient Jewish mysticism which said that words have power. The first "Word of Creation" is what God was. Basically, a single word spoken that brought God and all of reality into existance. The "Word of God" refers to the creative "word", not to the Bible. The Bible as you know it didn't exist until just a few hundred years ago.
If you don't believe in some kind of god or higher authority, how do you decide what is moral?
The same way you do.
Just what "feels right"?
Exactly. You don't follow strict Biblical law for the same reason no one else does. It feels wrong. MOST humans have gut reactions to certain behaviors. If we didn't, we could all act as impulsively as we want and all of us would end up dying off. We have feelings that tend to reward good behaviors (helping others) and punish bad behaviors (harming others).
Cultural influence can play a role, especially in promoting bad behavior as being good, but people still manage to overcome it. If not, there would still be slavery in this country. In the 16-1700s, slavery was not just ok, it was morally justified, often using the Bible to support it. Many felt that it was our moral imperative to own slaves. But other people, not persuaded by the cultural directives, knew better and eventually slavery was banished.
Flooz? Oh, wait... never mind.
>Wait, you think this is design? This is not design. This is "how a computer works", which is *not* what people should be thinking about when they design programs.
The only "how a computer works" things I mentioned were memory (which is an important concept for moving on to pointers if you're going to teach C/C++/ASM), and the vague "following instructions" (which gives you a basis for explaining procedural algorithms).
I will readily admit, however, that my example was highly biased towards procedural or possibly OO programming. I've never used anything like LISP or Prolog, and honestly wouldn't know how to begin explaining their programming paradigms.
>What I mean by that is that students should be instructed in the intellectual process of designing solutions to problems, or working out ways to accomplish tasks, rather than just showing them how a CPU works, how a compiler works, and a few "Patterns" and then telling them to figure out the rest for themselves.
I agree. That's why I didn't go into detail about how CPUs and compilers work. That wouldn't be my goal at all. I would definitely teach a few patterns, but then I'd teach them how to translate them into a real programming language. After that, you'd have to use everything you've taught and go over "real world" type examples, teaching them how to break down each problem into workable chunks and solve them.
>I'd just like to get off my chest the fact that it is impossible by definition to teach programming by just teaching syntax.
Amen to that. :)
-- bytesmythe
I would say that you actually could teach design without teaching syntax first.
First, I would teach what memory is, and how instructions are followed in memory and the concept of algorithms. The next thing would be variables, followed by pointers. Then subroutines and parameter passing. Finally, data structures and "meta" structures like linked lists, stacks, etc.
You can actually explain every bit of this without a programming language, and without actually writing a single program on a computer. Along the way, you can have students write out basic programs in pseudocode on paper. This allows them to learn some code structure without relying on the compiler to and run-time environment to test everything.
After this, you can start from the beginning and go over the pseudocode programs and teach them how to phrase the same things in a particular language like C or Perl.
One thing I've noticed about people with poor backgrounds in software design and problem solving is that they may be able to write basic code in one language, but if they have to switch languages, they're totally lost.
To other readers, please note: I'm not necessarily advocating this approach. I'm merely suggesting it as a possibility.