Microsoft isn't really good at explaining itself in a rational manner because Bill has his head up his ass, and will not let his technical team talk. Instead his marketing team is in charge of explaining to the world what they do. As a result,.NET to me is something as low-level and small as a binary format specification (similar to COM objects), and as high-level and strategic as 'the end of non-distributed computing, and the emergance of <ooooh>Web Services</ooooh>'. Something that is so broad in breadth is not a clear definition in my books.
Is there anyone out there that knows why.NET should supercede COM or CORBA? Why the functionality of Web Services isn't merely provided as an implementation in COM model?
COM is a beautiful specification and model (so is CORBA - and the two are almost identical in fact)... they are compact enough to actually be usable in kernel mode (WMI providers in Windows are COM interfaces). So what is our eternal ass rash that makes us want to get the better suped up version of the same old shit?
I don't know about other programmers, and how they feel of all of this, but a new standard evolving every 5 years is way to much for me. And as such, I have yet to be convinced I should start learning anything in.NET. What have you, comrades, to say about this? Have you started using.NET, and have seen fundamental differences in principle that make obsolescence for COM a MUST?
On a side note, kudos to Mono for doing this work.
Please explain your point of view, because I just can't understand why people are running away from COM as if it were the plague... and into this new swamp that is.NET.
I guess time will tell. Only a select few of us have the luxury of being able to delve to the outter edges of human knowledge. And I for one, am surely not one of them.
In the mean time though, I have a very anthropo/sociological suggestion for you (no matter how right or wrong the theory proves to be), being humble will get you a long way... And I do not say this because my feelings are hurt. No, being humble is a very intellectual process that keeps your eyes open to your own mistakes - it just so happens that being humble also attracts sympathy and support - as opposed to the skepticism and witch hunting you all seem to be currently subjected to.
Good luck. And do repost this article when the time comes as a celebratory comment!
(On a side note, I'm still very surprised that you hold IQ tests so high up in your esteem... But that's a completely different tangent that I have no desire to pursue).
Yes, the Win32 PE format (portable executable) has a checksum field which is 'normally' not used.
It *is* checked for *some* critical system images however... I know for sure that some files in/system32 (so called 'KnownDlls') are among this list.
Note though, that this checksum is to prevent accidental data corruption and not maintain system security integrity; since the checksum field is actually in the file itself, it can be updated after a virus/haxxor has patched the target file.
Hmmm... Seriously then, I don't know what to answer (we are at a stale mate), because I read this in his biographical book.
I guess it is up to both of us to be diligent and go do the research in hard facts (links on the web won't work since you say that this is a common misconception).
Hey, I've had my IQ measured around 150 several times. And you know what... I feel like no genius in particular. In fact, most well educated people will measure over 120 quite easily. It doesn't mean much...
If there's anything that annoys me from this whole story, and the way it's been presented (and I concede that Mills has little to do with this) is the manner in which his inventions are presented: not humble. I'm skeptical, yes... but I don't expect him to give a flashlight that works with hydrinos either. What I do expect, is for him/whoever is supporting him to have the humility of not saying "there are interestingly excited plasmas" therefor his theory is right, therefor Quantum mechanics have been toppled.
Remember how Einstein at first decided there must be a cosmological constant when he discovered the universe should be expanding? He might have been a genius, but he was wrong... and he later dubbed that as the biggest mistake of his life.
This is very a important point: even Greats like Einstein made the mistake of changing the fundamental rules in order to support what apparently was an impossible scenario.
Saying that quantum physics is wrong*, tossing it in the air, and basically discrediting a centuries' work from some of the most brilliant minds the human race has produced will require WAY MORE than 'an overexcited plasma stream'.
* here's a quote with said 'lack of humility': Mills's camp responds: Fraud? Let's talk about fraud. Quantumists have us living in myriad dimensions filled with "probability waves" and unobservable "virtual particles" that flit in and out of existence, and they say we may one day slip through wormholes in space to visit other universes or go back in time.
This post just for Slashdot's record of the Luddite-souled party-poopers that [we] are.
I agree with you, but I must make a comment for the records before this article gets archived:
Einstein did fail some highschool math class. (I don't recall which precise year it was)
The part that most people don't know, or chose to ignore, is that when he started doing physics, he realized his math skills were not sufficient at all, so he 'brushed up' on it so he could use it to prove his theories.
That, I think is the greatest lesson to be learned from him: if you aren't born with a gift, it doesn't mean you can't make up for it... and also, even if you are born with a gift, that doesn't mean jack shit if you don't use it well (rimshot to all the underachievers of the world - maybe even including me a bit).
You downloaded each and everyone of those applications you call 'necessities'. *You* are the one who made the choice.
I personally installed RealPlayer a long time ago, and then said "no thanks", and have never used it since. Same for netscape mind you. But also, until Quicktime fixed it's horrendous interface and constant nagging, I didn't use it either.
When I setup a new Win box, I get a fixed list of administration tools for FREE (as in beer) from sysinternals.com, I get Winrar/Winzip for free with a proper nag screen that doesn't hog memory, just gently reminds you that you have been using it for the 400th consecutive day without paying. And a few open source things like wget and netcat and the like from google.
I have yet to get nags on my screen.
All I have to say is be careful what you complain about as a user, because what you want you just might get...
(Stupid) People complained about "DLL Hell" for the longest time, and now we are ALL cursed with Windows File Protection - a hybrid 'security' scheme set up so that even administrators couldn't replace/delete critical files (why? because all the stupid people ran as admin).
Complain about nagware, and who knows, maybe free stuff like Winzip and winamp will disapear too, and enter the world of Web Services.
It's not just BlackLight Power's work in bombs, rockets, and rusty ships that has the military's attention. Mills has stacks of proprietary research on artificial intelligence. In what he calls Brain Child Systems, Mills has done the math for a reasoning machine with consciousness.
The more I read this guy, the more the hairs on my back stand straight.
My uncle had a saying, that I just can't keep out of my mind as I'm reading all this:
Except we need a revolution in atomic science to make sense of things. How come we can get over 200 completely unique elements with nothing more than three different subatomic particles? And while you're at it, how come they can form molecules that have nothing in common with any of the parent elements?
Please mod this guy as funny.
Have you noticed how computers only have 1s and 0s. And yet you can have software that is as different as Windows and Linux?
(Quantum Chemistry, and molecular chemistry is very very well understood right now. Everything, from why most life is likely carbon based (as opposed to silicate based like in Aliens) to why cyanide kills us humans is provable given very 'simple' quantum assumption/rules. Sure, the schroedinger equation might be hard to solve. But it's been solved, and the answers have been used...)
In fact, this is much more than 'the circle of life' as in "lion eats elk, and then dies, and fertilizes grass of elk"...
No, HP is phasing out Alpha to brandish Itanium. So it's like HP's grandfather just died so now they can take care of their own children.
The processor on which I discovered for the first time what super-scalar execution meant ...
Also the processor which for some odd reason doesn't support rotate (or was it shift?) operations =)... <sniff still>.
Maybe it's time I actually went out and bought one now, they'll soon be like vintage Cadillacs.
On another note, HP has got some major huevos man, making such a drastic shift in technology requires it.
I sure hope Itaniums happen. 256 integer registers makes me drool.... DROOOOOL
I think that your fears are not firmly grounded in reality.
Ok, do you realize how much more dangerous than a simple propane tank a hydrogen tank is? I'm lazy, and it's late at night, so I won't search and caugh you up numbers, but Hyrdrogen is one of the elements with the highest combustion energy release to weight ratio...
In fact, one of the reasons why hydrogen powered engines weren't a reality fifty years ago is because of how extremely hot they get.
Now, I wouldn't worry about having my scuba gear fail. I don't worry about my propane tanks in a kitchen... But I am still pretty damn careful about propane.
Hydrogen. No sir... that's a bit too much for me to handle.
I don't know about you, and I'm not trying to be snob or stylish or anything, but if I go to HMV, 40% of the Jazz collection attracts my attention. That's a whole floor of CDs probably 500 days worth of music.
Your idea is right, but your conclusion isn't. A mainframe is stable as hell... The application (a HMO's appointment handling system)running on it, will crash and burn like any other application.
So it doesn't answer really why mainframes are still around.
If anything could be said in detriment to mainframes, it could only be at the hardware level (like hotswapping CPUs, and IO devices), but Sun machines can already do that sort of stuff...
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft isn't really good at explaining itself in a rational manner because Bill has his head up his ass, and will not let his technical team talk. Instead his marketing team is in charge of explaining to the world what they do. As a result, .NET to me is something as low-level and small as a binary format specification (similar to COM objects), and as high-level and strategic as 'the end of non-distributed computing, and the emergance of <ooooh>Web Services</ooooh>'. Something that is so broad in breadth is not a clear definition in my books.
Is there anyone out there that knows why .NET should supercede COM or CORBA? Why the functionality of Web Services isn't merely provided as an implementation in COM model?
COM is a beautiful specification and model (so is CORBA - and the two are almost identical in fact)... they are compact enough to actually be usable in kernel mode (WMI providers in Windows are COM interfaces). So what is our eternal ass rash that makes us want to get the better suped up version of the same old shit?
I don't know about other programmers, and how they feel of all of this, but a new standard evolving every 5 years is way to much for me. And as such, I have yet to be convinced I should start learning anything in .NET. What have you, comrades, to say about this? Have you started using .NET, and have seen fundamental differences in principle that make obsolescence for COM a MUST?
On a side note, kudos to Mono for doing this work.
What's the purpose of such a thing?
Are you also trying to peel off CORBA reliance?
Please explain your point of view, because I just can't understand why people are running away from COM as if it were the plague... and into this new swamp that is .NET.
Amen!
/.
Well, who knows, maybe the book I read was misinformed. Or maybe my memory of it has melded into that of the Urban Myth.
In any case though, I'm glad to see some intelligent conversing and argumentation on
In the mean time though, I have a very anthropo/sociological suggestion for you (no matter how right or wrong the theory proves to be), being humble will get you a long way... And I do not say this because my feelings are hurt. No, being humble is a very intellectual process that keeps your eyes open to your own mistakes - it just so happens that being humble also attracts sympathy and support - as opposed to the skepticism and witch hunting you all seem to be currently subjected to.
Good luck. And do repost this article when the time comes as a celebratory comment!
(On a side note, I'm still very surprised that you hold IQ tests so high up in your esteem... But that's a completely different tangent that I have no desire to pursue).
It *is* checked for *some* critical system images however... I know for sure that some files in /system32 (so called 'KnownDlls') are among this list.
Note though, that this checksum is to prevent accidental data corruption and not maintain system security integrity; since the checksum field is actually in the file itself, it can be updated after a virus/haxxor has patched the target file.
I guess it is up to both of us to be diligent and go do the research in hard facts (links on the web won't work since you say that this is a common misconception).
If there's anything that annoys me from this whole story, and the way it's been presented (and I concede that Mills has little to do with this) is the manner in which his inventions are presented: not humble. I'm skeptical, yes... but I don't expect him to give a flashlight that works with hydrinos either. What I do expect, is for him/whoever is supporting him to have the humility of not saying "there are interestingly excited plasmas" therefor his theory is right, therefor Quantum mechanics have been toppled.
Remember how Einstein at first decided there must be a cosmological constant when he discovered the universe should be expanding? He might have been a genius, but he was wrong... and he later dubbed that as the biggest mistake of his life.
This is very a important point: even Greats like Einstein made the mistake of changing the fundamental rules in order to support what apparently was an impossible scenario.
Saying that quantum physics is wrong*, tossing it in the air, and basically discrediting a centuries' work from some of the most brilliant minds the human race has produced will require WAY MORE than 'an overexcited plasma stream'.
* here's a quote with said 'lack of humility': Mills's camp responds: Fraud? Let's talk about fraud. Quantumists have us living in myriad dimensions filled with "probability waves" and unobservable "virtual particles" that flit in and out of existence, and they say we may one day slip through wormholes in space to visit other universes or go back in time.
This post just for Slashdot's record of the Luddite-souled party-poopers that [we] are.
In fact, this system would be best suited for systems which aren't OSS... such as windows =)
crowd boos... stones and rotten tomatoes fly as author runs for cover
Einstein did fail some highschool math class. (I don't recall which precise year it was)
The part that most people don't know, or chose to ignore, is that when he started doing physics, he realized his math skills were not sufficient at all, so he 'brushed up' on it so he could use it to prove his theories.
That, I think is the greatest lesson to be learned from him: if you aren't born with a gift, it doesn't mean you can't make up for it... and also, even if you are born with a gift, that doesn't mean jack shit if you don't use it well (rimshot to all the underachievers of the world - maybe even including me a bit).
You downloaded each and everyone of those applications you call 'necessities'. *You* are the one who made the choice.
I personally installed RealPlayer a long time ago, and then said "no thanks", and have never used it since. Same for netscape mind you. But also, until Quicktime fixed it's horrendous interface and constant nagging, I didn't use it either.
When I setup a new Win box, I get a fixed list of administration tools for FREE (as in beer) from sysinternals.com, I get Winrar/Winzip for free with a proper nag screen that doesn't hog memory, just gently reminds you that you have been using it for the 400th consecutive day without paying. And a few open source things like wget and netcat and the like from google.
I have yet to get nags on my screen.
All I have to say is be careful what you complain about as a user, because what you want you just might get...
(Stupid) People complained about "DLL Hell" for the longest time, and now we are ALL cursed with Windows File Protection - a hybrid 'security' scheme set up so that even administrators couldn't replace/delete critical files (why? because all the stupid people ran as admin).
Complain about nagware, and who knows, maybe free stuff like Winzip and winamp will disapear too, and enter the world of Web Services.
It's not just BlackLight Power's work in bombs, rockets, and rusty ships that has the military's attention. Mills has stacks of proprietary research on artificial intelligence. In what he calls Brain Child Systems, Mills has done the math for a reasoning machine with consciousness.
The more I read this guy, the more the hairs on my back stand straight.
My uncle had a saying, that I just can't keep out of my mind as I'm reading all this:
"Someone who knows everything knows nothing."
Please mod this guy as funny.
Have you noticed how computers only have 1s and 0s. And yet you can have software that is as different as Windows and Linux?
(Quantum Chemistry, and molecular chemistry is very very well understood right now. Everything, from why most life is likely carbon based (as opposed to silicate based like in Aliens) to why cyanide kills us humans is provable given very 'simple' quantum assumption/rules. Sure, the schroedinger equation might be hard to solve. But it's been solved, and the answers have been used...)
Hey, IANAL, but methinks this guy is not only an ass hole, but also a naive asshole.
My bets are on never.
Indeed.
In fact, this is much more than 'the circle of life' as in "lion eats elk, and then dies, and fertilizes grass of elk"...
No, HP is phasing out Alpha to brandish Itanium. So it's like HP's grandfather just died so now they can take care of their own children.
(do I make sense at 4 in the AM?)
The processor on which I discovered for the first time what super-scalar execution meant ...
Also the processor which for some odd reason doesn't support rotate (or was it shift?) operations =)... <sniff still>.
Maybe it's time I actually went out and bought one now, they'll soon be like vintage Cadillacs.
On another note, HP has got some major huevos man, making such a drastic shift in technology requires it.
I sure hope Itaniums happen. 256 integer registers makes me drool.... DROOOOOL
Dude, those are some really nice comments (in whole - they seem)... you gotta try and find who said them =)
Ok, do you realize how much more dangerous than a simple propane tank a hydrogen tank is? I'm lazy, and it's late at night, so I won't search and caugh you up numbers, but Hyrdrogen is one of the elements with the highest combustion energy release to weight ratio...
In fact, one of the reasons why hydrogen powered engines weren't a reality fifty years ago is because of how extremely hot they get.
Now, I wouldn't worry about having my scuba gear fail. I don't worry about my propane tanks in a kitchen... But I am still pretty damn careful about propane.
Hydrogen. No sir... that's a bit too much for me to handle.
Do I really want to be carrying around pressurized containers of hydrogen near me? Near my servers? in my house?
While it sounds like science fiction, fuel cell technology is now readily available to industrial users!
I mean, first thing I think of when I hear "imagine a machine that inhales oxygen" is piles of passed out sysadmins in the server room floor.
Landsat-7 covers the entire surface of the earth every 16 days.
Frick man, that's a LOT of surface to cover.
Frankly, I'm too amazed by this to come up with a whity remark to make this post any more interesting...
I have roughly 60 Gigs worth of mp3s, and, I SHIT YOU NOT: I haven't even scratched the surface of what I want in terms of Jazz.
500 is just a number, and I'm pretty sure I'll get there pretty quickly if I can afford it.
I don't know about you, and I'm not trying to be snob or stylish or anything, but if I go to HMV, 40% of the Jazz collection attracts my attention. That's a whole floor of CDs probably 500 days worth of music.
And that's *only* jazz.
Your idea is right, but your conclusion isn't. A mainframe is stable as hell... The application (a HMO's appointment handling system)running on it, will crash and burn like any other application.
So it doesn't answer really why mainframes are still around.
If anything could be said in detriment to mainframes, it could only be at the hardware level (like hotswapping CPUs, and IO devices), but Sun machines can already do that sort of stuff...
Good luck getting any non british person to understand your humour mate =)