When you get older and mature, you never get to be the same person you was in your youth. People change and you're not likely to enjoy to do the same things as you did in the past.
Lucas seems to have lost that magical touch of old.
The average Joe doesn't use tabs, nor he knows how to block ads or perhaps block images from the server. He will not use Firefox unless someone replaces its cool Firefox logo with the blue e.
The average Joe knows how to point-and-click and that's about it. How do you think Microsoft got where it is today? Why do you think marketeers everywhere still invest in internet ads despite so few returns? Because all you need to get people to visit your site is a flashing banner and the point-and-click action to happen...
People are not gonna buy it if it runs on Sun's hardware alone. First OpenSolaris -- if it ever sees the light of day -- will have to match the many hardware ports Linux enjoys today. I don't think that's easy. And then, i don't see the point of Sun opening Solaris for everyone if it's gonna likely dilute the sales of their real cash-cow: their hardware.
Unless the license talks about freedom and fees...:)
I wouldn't bother with real hardware to play them, though, as i already have the spc files for the soundtracks i cared and regularly play them with some software emulator. Yes, there are software emulators for sound chips, you insensitive clod!
Most of them are available as input plugins for popular sound players.
heh, there sure are a lot of Java folks roaming around here.
How can one explain the parent post dissing dynamically typed languages being "Insightful" no matter how reasonable and objective replies about good reasons to use "scripting" languages are.
They have python-envy. That's why they created Groovy, a java-alike with Java syntax but typeless, rather than giving Jython a run for its money.
For someone used with just a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail...
But i was talking about Lisp of old, as opposed to C.
Still, i don't think it's fair to compare ahead-of-time compiled Lisp performance with JITted Java code. Yep, despite all the hype about JIT and optimizing compilers in theory able to produce faster code on-the-fly than any traditional compiler, the fact is that for that to work you should discount the time taken for the compilation of methods, which is then already compiled to native code and used thereupon. Problem is: Java has such a huge framework of classes that you're most likely always seeing new ones being compiled at any given time. Not to mention memory taken...
I'm afraid JITted code to be as fast as traditional compiled code is just an urban legend propagated by some large companies to make PHBs happy...
And no, it is not the functional paradigm of Lisp, it's the dynamic/static typing showdown thing over and over, Lisp (or Perl/Python) representing dynamic typing and high productivity and low performance (though no more with Lisp) and C (Java/C#) representing static, fast and low level programming paradigm.
Can any fan of the Perl, PHP, or Python explain why they are better than java or C# for LARGE applications?
Allow me...
Strict type-checking is extremely useful, and I believe essential, for large applications. With strict type-checking and OOPS, the compiler does a lot of the work to ensure that the correct objects are passed to functions and that they are initialized, etc.
You don't tell. Well, first of all, not only the compiler does a lot of work to ensure corret type checking: you have to do that yourself too! You can go completely bananas of so much type declarations for anything and everything you want to do. It's tons of variable declarations and then boxing and unboxing via typecasts.
Ever realized you're doing a lot of low-level bookkeeping yourself so that the compiler can correctly work? One of the very selling points for dynamically/latent typed languages is exactly that you leave that sort of low-level stuff to the run-time and is able to be more productive by actually focusing on the system, rather than stupid technical details.
Yeah, there's a performance penalty for leaving type checking to the runtime, but there's also a lot of productivity gains. So, it's up to you ( or your boss ): what is more important, developer time or runtime performance.
Sadly, it's one of those things like the CPU vs Memory penalties.
But with any scripting language, you have to run the application to catch even trivial bugs like misspelled methods and incorrect argument types.
The testing phase is inevitable in the development cycle. Here i am at work, with my C# compiler from within VS.NET saying everything's ok. Running it says it's not. Oh well...
Test, test, test.
I'm sure scripting languages have their place, but I've NEVER written a large script, without eventually wishing that I'd originally used a strict language.
You should never write a large script. That's just plain wrong. Leave large scripts to the likes of automated scripting-writing scripts like automake or autoconf.
Large scripts, with global variables sprinkled all around is a thing from the distant past, from whence tools like Perl evolved. Today "scripting" languages are full-fledged general-purpose programming languages, supporting most modern software engineering paradigms, patterns and best practices . You should use all you (hopefully) learned about software enginnering, like modularization, OOP, AOP and anything in between and apply that to the (rapid!) development of high-level systems with such wonderful tools.
I want a language that's tighter than a straightjacket.
Surely, it seems creative, flexible languages like Python or Ruby won't ever please you with that way of thinking.
Don't know why the hell people modded this funny. It is very serious. But then again, most of the code-monkeys enterprises like to hire for quick hacks for low salaries wouldn't ever be able to use nor understand Lisp.
Of course, VB lusers can laugh at Lisp, since they don't understand it, but some very large companies use Lisp as the base for their systems, like Intercontinental Airlines (using C++ like assembly for critical sections) and Yahoo.
ah, the eternal dynamic/productive/high-level/slow vs static/unproductive/low-level/fast debacle.
Nice to see the Lisp vs C flame still going strong these days...:)
Nice to see too both have many intelectual descendents which are very good on their own.
And finally, nice to see that both sides of the same coin have seen such widespread adoption to this day, proof that more than one way of thinking is a good thing.
He means a clean, uncluttered, light design like the one Google pionnered by banning lots of columns altogether in tiny unreadable fonts and flash ads sprayed everyone and a pop-up or two during page load like it was common-place before Google succeeded.
Hi, folks. I'm posting this in the spreadfirefox forums too.
People associate the blue "e" IE logo with "the internet". Well, it just happens that "internet" starts with "i".
Somehow, i think a nice bright red or orange (for firefox) "i" SVG logo or something would help spread an alternative browser far more than better technology or geeky friends.
Apple as an "i" line of products and is very good at nice designs. It would be great if they did something in that lines to stop the evil blue "e" from monopolizing people's hearts.
But of course, it would be best if it was an openly, non-patented or copyrighted logo, so that ANY alternative browsers could use it.
I know the FireFox logo is a good thing and looks damn good and helps getting FireFox due recognition, but the "i" logo could be used for very tiny icons like the Windows taskbar one, where a fox around the globe is barely recognizable.
I'm not a talented graphics guy, but someone should do it. And linux distributions at least should use it for either lynx, Konqueror, Mozilla or FireFox given the user's preference for default browser.
It's a shame most users only listen to the lame "music" the recording industry puts out, encoded in compressed but still large formats like MP3 or WMAudio. Lots of great music was created that run on chips, the so called chiptunes, ranging from the simple MIDI formats, going to MODs, videogame sound chips and other synthethizers.
And that was the real force behind Winamp and its very huge list of emulated sound chips in the form of plugins: relive the astounding Amiga games music, MOD tracks, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, PSX game music, it's all there, you name it. Windows Media Player has got none of that and never likely will since the plugins development was driven by an enthusiastic crowd of developers and WMP doesn't exactly inspire that.
We have decent (not great, but passable) word processors and spreadsheet programs.
I don't think the likes of OpenOffice or Gnumeric are merely "passable". Gotta love Gnumeric.
Good web browsers.
Ah! Media theses days!... i was under the impression the Mozilla Firefox was the best browser we had today, bar none. Thanks for clarifying that up and put it to where it belongs.
I'm curious, though, as how low would you rank IE, then....
But when people talk about why they use Windows, it's because of Outlook and the calendar.
I call it BS. People use Windows because that's what came in the box, because it's what everyone else uses and because they're most likely not even aware that alternatives exist. Heck, i don't even think the regular Joe is aware of such words as "Microsoft", "Windows" or "Internet Explorer". He likely just refers to "internet" or "word".
But anyway, a calendaring solution is coming from the Mozilla Foundation and couple that with Firebird, and you have and Outlook killa.
Or you can use the more robust Ximian Evolution software.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Lucas himself, the _SAME PERSON_
When you get older and mature, you never get to be the same person you was in your youth. People change and you're not likely to enjoy to do the same things as you did in the past.
Lucas seems to have lost that magical touch of old.
What happened to the old Unix way? Is it any hard to grep a bookmark file?
With Novell guys all the rage through the list, i wonder if mono will finally get into Linux desktops?
As you may well know, it's an open-source implementation of publicly available and ECMA-standardized Microsoft's .Net API + plus a few more.
artificial intelligence to produce better results than Google
I'd call this "artificial intelligence" the Comunist Party and the "better results" controled flow of information...
Nice to see a democrat suportful of free speech.
Python will be running on Parrot. So everything will be ok. ( i hope )
I agree.
The average Joe doesn't use tabs, nor he knows how to block ads or perhaps block images from the server. He will not use Firefox unless someone replaces its cool Firefox logo with the blue e.
The average Joe knows how to point-and-click and that's about it. How do you think Microsoft got where it is today? Why do you think marketeers everywhere still invest in internet ads despite so few returns? Because all you need to get people to visit your site is a flashing banner and the point-and-click action to happen...
what will happen when OpenSolaris is release?
People are not gonna buy it if it runs on Sun's hardware alone. First OpenSolaris -- if it ever sees the light of day -- will have to match the many hardware ports Linux enjoys today. I don't think that's easy. And then, i don't see the point of Sun opening Solaris for everyone if it's gonna likely dilute the sales of their real cash-cow: their hardware.
Unless the license talks about freedom and fees... :)
I wouldn't bother with real hardware to play them, though, as i already have the spc files for the soundtracks i cared and regularly play them with some software emulator. Yes, there are software emulators for sound chips, you insensitive clod!
Most of them are available as input plugins for popular sound players.
otherwise M$ would go bankrupt... :)
ASP .NET, like I mentioned yesterday no longer pushes ActiveX crap onto the client.
No, they just push the usual plethora of proprietary IE-only javascript extensions. For instance, the client-side validators.
Application providers will realize (they've already begun to) that it makes no point targetting IE if your clients suddenly move to...
Stop right there!
If they do realize that, you should owe that to the fact that open-standards compliant browsers exist, despite a 90+% obsolete browser.
I think it's huge win already for browsers like FireFox to at least make people aware that the blue e icon isn't the same thing as the internet.
heh, there sure are a lot of Java folks roaming around here.
How can one explain the parent post dissing dynamically typed languages being "Insightful" no matter how reasonable and objective replies about good reasons to use "scripting" languages are.
They have python-envy. That's why they created Groovy, a java-alike with Java syntax but typeless, rather than giving Jython a run for its money.
For someone used with just a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail...
I was aware of that paper.
But i was talking about Lisp of old, as opposed to C.
Still, i don't think it's fair to compare ahead-of-time compiled Lisp performance with JITted Java code. Yep, despite all the hype about JIT and optimizing compilers in theory able to produce faster code on-the-fly than any traditional compiler, the fact is that for that to work you should discount the time taken for the compilation of methods, which is then already compiled to native code and used thereupon. Problem is: Java has such a huge framework of classes that you're most likely always seeing new ones being compiled at any given time. Not to mention memory taken...
I'm afraid JITted code to be as fast as traditional compiled code is just an urban legend propagated by some large companies to make PHBs happy...
It's in the P part of LAMP.
And no, it is not the functional paradigm of Lisp, it's the dynamic/static typing showdown thing over and over, Lisp (or Perl/Python) representing dynamic typing and high productivity and low performance (though no more with Lisp) and C (Java/C#) representing static, fast and low level programming paradigm.
I thought the original post was clear enough.
Some very large companies use VB too.
But then again, most of the code-monkeys enterprises like to hire for quick hacks for low salaries
Why i'm not surprised?
Can any fan of the Perl, PHP, or Python explain why they are better than java or C# for LARGE applications?
Allow me...
Strict type-checking is extremely useful, and I believe essential, for large applications. With strict type-checking and OOPS, the compiler does a lot of the work to ensure that the correct objects are passed to functions and that they are initialized, etc.
You don't tell. Well, first of all, not only the compiler does a lot of work to ensure corret type checking: you have to do that yourself too! You can go completely bananas of so much type declarations for anything and everything you want to do. It's tons of variable declarations and then boxing and unboxing via typecasts.
Ever realized you're doing a lot of low-level bookkeeping yourself so that the compiler can correctly work? One of the very selling points for dynamically/latent typed languages is exactly that you leave that sort of low-level stuff to the run-time and is able to be more productive by actually focusing on the system, rather than stupid technical details.
Yeah, there's a performance penalty for leaving type checking to the runtime, but there's also a lot of productivity gains. So, it's up to you ( or your boss ): what is more important, developer time or runtime performance.
Sadly, it's one of those things like the CPU vs Memory penalties.
But with any scripting language, you have to run the application to catch even trivial bugs like misspelled methods and incorrect argument types.
The testing phase is inevitable in the development cycle. Here i am at work, with my C# compiler from within VS.NET saying everything's ok. Running it says it's not. Oh well...
Test, test, test.
I'm sure scripting languages have their place, but I've NEVER written a large script, without eventually wishing that I'd originally used a strict language.
You should never write a large script. That's just plain wrong. Leave large scripts to the likes of automated scripting-writing scripts like automake or autoconf.
Large scripts, with global variables sprinkled all around is a thing from the distant past, from whence tools like Perl evolved. Today "scripting" languages are full-fledged general-purpose programming languages, supporting most modern software engineering paradigms, patterns and best practices . You should use all you (hopefully) learned about software enginnering, like modularization, OOP, AOP and anything in between and apply that to the (rapid!) development of high-level systems with such wonderful tools.
I want a language that's tighter than a straightjacket.
Surely, it seems creative, flexible languages like Python or Ruby won't ever please you with that way of thinking.
I agree.
Don't know why the hell people modded this funny. It is very serious. But then again, most of the code-monkeys enterprises like to hire for quick hacks for low salaries wouldn't ever be able to use nor understand Lisp.
Of course, VB lusers can laugh at Lisp, since they don't understand it, but some very large companies use Lisp as the base for their systems, like Intercontinental Airlines (using C++ like assembly for critical sections) and Yahoo.
ah, the eternal dynamic/productive/high-level/slow vs static/unproductive/low-level/fast debacle.
Nice to see the Lisp vs C flame still going strong these days... :)
Nice to see too both have many intelectual descendents which are very good on their own.
And finally, nice to see that both sides of the same coin have seen such widespread adoption to this day, proof that more than one way of thinking is a good thing.
the GUI is made in OpenGL, if i'm not mistaken.
It makes it very portable. And slower.
He means a clean, uncluttered, light design like the one Google pionnered by banning lots of columns altogether in tiny unreadable fonts and flash ads sprayed everyone and a pop-up or two during page load like it was common-place before Google succeeded.
oh, my! i can't believe it! Microsoft is truly evil!
Hi, folks. I'm posting this in the spreadfirefox forums too.
People associate the blue "e" IE logo with "the internet". Well, it just happens that "internet" starts with "i".
Somehow, i think a nice bright red or orange (for firefox) "i" SVG logo or something would help spread an alternative browser far more than better technology or geeky friends.
Apple as an "i" line of products and is very good at nice designs. It would be great if they did something in that lines to stop the evil blue "e" from monopolizing people's hearts.
But of course, it would be best if it was an openly, non-patented or copyrighted logo, so that ANY alternative browsers could use it.
I know the FireFox logo is a good thing and looks damn good and helps getting FireFox due recognition, but the "i" logo could be used for very tiny icons like the Windows taskbar one, where a fox around the globe is barely recognizable.
I'm not a talented graphics guy, but someone should do it. And linux distributions at least should use it for either lynx, Konqueror, Mozilla or FireFox given the user's preference for default browser.
cheap music
I'd rather listen to quality music, but hey, that's just me...
It's a shame most users only listen to the lame "music" the recording industry puts out, encoded in compressed but still large formats like MP3 or WMAudio. Lots of great music was created that run on chips, the so called chiptunes, ranging from the simple MIDI formats, going to MODs, videogame sound chips and other synthethizers.
And that was the real force behind Winamp and its very huge list of emulated sound chips in the form of plugins: relive the astounding Amiga games music, MOD tracks, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, PSX game music, it's all there, you name it. Windows Media Player has got none of that and never likely will since the plugins development was driven by an enthusiastic crowd of developers and WMP doesn't exactly inspire that.
We have decent (not great, but passable) word processors and spreadsheet programs.
I don't think the likes of OpenOffice or Gnumeric are merely "passable". Gotta love Gnumeric.
Good web browsers.
Ah! Media theses days!... i was under the impression the Mozilla Firefox was the best browser we had today, bar none. Thanks for clarifying that up and put it to where it belongs.
I'm curious, though, as how low would you rank IE, then....
But when people talk about why they use Windows, it's because of Outlook and the calendar.
I call it BS. People use Windows because that's what came in the box, because it's what everyone else uses and because they're most likely not even aware that alternatives exist. Heck, i don't even think the regular Joe is aware of such words as "Microsoft", "Windows" or "Internet Explorer". He likely just refers to "internet" or "word".
But anyway, a calendaring solution is coming from the Mozilla Foundation and couple that with Firebird, and you have and Outlook killa.
Or you can use the more robust Ximian Evolution software. :)