jbuilder is a bloated piece of crap. it was pretty good somewhere around version 5 or 6, but since that time, you need damn near a cray to run it. what pisses me off the most is that you can't get older versions. viva la open source!! it also shows how much better the OSS dev model is than the closed version. jbuilder just doesn't hold candle to netbeans or eclipse. to get the same functionality, you had to spend hundreds for the pro or ent. version. i personally use jedit for most of my development, but i am not working on huge projects.
I wrote my MA thesis ( link ) on a related subject, computers and writing. Though more geeky than most teachers, I firmly believe that computers have no place in the education curriculum. Now, as part of a technology core, or school-to-career, or electives, fine. But absolutely nowhere near a core classes. Okay, a little bias here because I teach history as well as programming, but students need to read books and learn to write the old fashion way. I am not surprised by the results, only that it is taking this ling for some common sense to creep back into the thinking. Considering how much money and effort from all sectors of the industry (including/.'s beloved Apple. disclaimer: I own two ibooks.) has been pumped into education, it should not shock anyone the level of beholdeness to technology that permeates our schools. For far too many teachers, a project is now powerpoint, and the lab is a week off. I really do want to scream.
I am a teacher and can share a similar experience:
1) district tech people will get freebies er, um, demos, from microsoft. you know, windows server, visual studio, etc., to "tryout" as it were. gonna influence their decision
2) people will already have 1000's of prior docs in.doc,.xls, and.ppt. OO.org won't do a good enough job on those. plus, asking teachers (and I am one by the way)to learn something new is going to be impossible, no matter how close the two really are.
3) "if it's free, it can't be good" and "it's what they use in the real world" will prevail. schools are no longer institutions of learning, but exist simply to train workers. i could cry. we don't read nor write nor think anymore. sorry to kvetch. but, there is a mindset about "Office" and you're just a salmon.
4) teachers get a copy for home. so they think they're getting a steal. kinda hard to overcome that.
5) here's the glimmer of hope. set up a small lab with OO.org. since the really expensive thing for schools is hardware (software is actually pretty cheap. they want to get the kids hooked.) set up a linux thin client lab, or a linux lab with older computers. then use OO.org there. the other thing is this: since you can't give Office to the kids, but you can OO.org, make a technology plan to have a "give the kids a CD day". perhps if the kids turn in work in.sxw it might be a start.
6) another alternative. since much school hardware is OOOOLLLLDDDD, try abiword. it's small and fast. that'll get them interested in OSS.
look, I've been a teacher for ten years and been excited and shot down too many times to tell you. am I cynical, sure. you're going up against a beauracracy who doesn't care about saving money. remember, they have to do budget burning too. saving them money screws that up. sad but true. i hope you get this far down.
how much java comaptibility
on
GCC 4.0.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
i am interested in the java compatibility. i figure it probably won't do swing, but will it support, or is will it do say gtk/java native. that'd be sweet. i know Qt/kde has had a java bridge for a while, but i really haven't played to much with it. flame java all you want, it's not a geek language. no obfuscated java, no java monks. BFD. sure that'd nix the whole write-once run anywhdere thing. but hell, what a great opportunity to build and test apps under a jre then compile them, to native.
I think the difference is this: does Apple use undocumented API's to purposely cripple, outright break, or unfairly compete with third party vendors. The list is long when dealing with microsoft, all the way back to dr. dos. if Apple did this, say a photo-manipulation app that competed with say, adobe, then there'd be room to bitch if if they used undocumented and secret API's to speed up rendering. or perhaps they have a secret network protocol that is used to connect os x clients to os x servers only. it sounds like their desktop features are designed to compete with windows, which makes the API's not relevant. and unlike windows, there really is a mac way to do things, which apple really wants to enforce. they don't care if someone is screwing around with xcode and comes up with some neato little $5 shareware app, they are concerned with big commercial apps and they want them to do things a certain way, the mac experience. like it or not, that's what they do. if it's to enforce application uniformity than that's hardly a sin.
don't get all excited, i have MAC filtering. plus, i port forward to a linux box that's pretty secure. root can't remote log in, and no user is allowed to su. and the router blocks all outbound traffic on taht box to only port 23.
now, is it 100% safe? hell, i got snipped (3 kids!!) a year ago, and all the tests came back blanks, but don't think that every month i still don't cross my fingers then let out a sigh of relief when my wife gets cranky and moody. oh wait, a/.er with a wife. that means he actually gets some. holy shit.
i don't think it's possible because i'm already behind a proxy server. i wrote a simple php script to garb the pages and spit it back line by line. but that only works for text. i think i'm stuck with either ssh -X or VNC. i did consider something like that but there's no way to the outside world from the network unless i tunnel. oh well.
my district uses bess too. i found a simple way around it though. they don't block port 22/23 so i just ssh -X into my linux box at home from my ibook at school. and no, it's not for pR0n. most blogs don't get past the filter and i'm unable to read most blogs nor can i post to mine unless i do so. and by the way, i post on my conference period, or at lunch.
no, not new, just not paying attention, what with all the natalie portmans, soviet russias, goatses, hot grits, dead bsd's and apples, i forgot. sorry. won't happen again. i'll spend the next 2 weeks using windows. no ibook for me. but hey it'll be just in time for tiger. and 3 years from now, it'll be time for longhorn...........maybe.
my momma said never respond to anonymous cowards, but here goes: first off, if you're copying a file from one folder to another, on os x (don't know about the darwin part) it is simply linked. if it's copying from a disk image or from a removable drive, it takes a few seconds to copy a 17mb file, and you can do anything in the background. you're simply full of crap to say it takes 20 minutes. now, if it has trouble reading the file, or it is corrupt ot something, that's another story.
yeah, it's all about control. the principals have quite a bit of latitude to spend money except when it comes to technology. they make up all kinds of excuses about support and maintanence, as if they actually do much of that. the other problem we get is that our tech people are what's called classified employees, not certificated (like teachers). so, they're on a different, and lower, pay scale. which means that we're getting the least capable tech people. AND, since they can't so easily be replaced, it is a secure job, probably the most secure tech jobs around. in my wife's school, the interent is a hit and miss proposition. the tech guy hasn't a clue half the time. oh well.
middle school. taught there 7 years. lots of fun. anyways, here's a funny story.
to get digital school money, we need to have some x:y ratio of computers to students, so the district goes out and buys alot of pentium 120's w/32MB ram. there actually sitting around collecting dust at my school, but we have "computers". so, I snag several and bring them into my classroom, scrounge a switch, and turn them into X clients running off my P3 933 mandrake box. 6 computers running moz, OO.org, etc., great. kids use them without a problem. so, i pitch the idea to the principal, because we have a "lab" full of pentium 120's and 166's that take 10 minutes to start and are practically worthless once running, as they have to load up the novell client, anti-virus, lock down, security, etc., etc. software not to mention windoze. the lab was fully funcitoning, just never used. it was like a root canal with no anasthesia. and all we'd need is an application server, a dual pentium rig, big hard drives, lots of memory. $3000 tops. and we'd have a screaming lab. she's interested. I pitch it to the district and it gets shot down like a duck on opening day.
here's the {funniest|saddest} part: this was in late spring, when the next years funding proposals, etc. take place. the next year, our resident technidiot spends his time breaking down the literally 100+ old pentiums, stacking up the 1GB hard drives, organizing the 8MB SIMMs, etc. the only thing I could think to relate was he was doing graves registration duty. better to eliminate any possibiltiy than actually have a lab that the kids could use. part of the reason the computer were never used was because it costs about $300-$350 to put a workstation in front of a kid even if you give us the hardware. and 100 X $300...
he argued that they want to "standardize" on windows, as if he didn't realize how stupid and uninformed that comment was. he was concerned they wouldn'tbe able to use word. hell, we were still using word97 in 2002. As if Abi or OO aren't capable of typing papers, etc.
Where I teach, the tech people are linux-phobic. They are adamant about "keeping linux off the network" yet aren't so pissy about OS X (which probably means they've been reading Gartner). Of course, the highlight was a few years ago when I was running linux my older laptop, surfing the net, and doing my grades (through wine no less), and the school's distrtict tech guy asks how I can do this since "novell doesn't support linux." I guess our network admin never heard of, what's that thingy called? oh yeah, TCP/IP.
i tried installing it on my wife's P3 700 256MB system, and it really ran poorly, and all she wanted to do was use photoshop CS for her business. i had to buy her a new P4 workstation. maybe there were hardware issues, maybe it was a fresh install, not an oem one, maybe whatever. but then again, i'm not a windows guru. i haven't run windows, even a dual boot box, since like '98. i ran linux (rh 6.0 -> 6.2 -> mandrake 7.0+ ) until i bought an ibook in '02.
everything usb. in fact, i scrounged up an older wireless usb trackball from my school that was donated from a busniess, plugged it in, works. usb keyboards are not too expensive if you need one. the mac minis are really nice. i tried talking the old man into one, but went with an emac instead, which is cool because i gave my kids his old imac, which runs panther great. seriously, try running a XP on a 5-6 year old PC, it's a disaster, even if you have a gig of ram. as for *nix, i've been working on some web tutorials using all free software, inkscape, gimp, php, etc., and it runs great.
for all the fuss of the ms tax, hardwre compatiblity, etc., just by an ibook or PB. unless you do kernel development on x86, or linux specific development, there's nothing that runs on linux that can't be run under fink or open darwin. not to mention all the commercial apps that run without wine, crossover, et al. i know i'll get flamed, but i have been winfree since '98. really. i've run linux on my desktops since then. but it's more than software. the hardware itself is better. the battery life, keyboard, screen, etc. plus, wireless works flawlessly under os x. if you need a pc to dual boot, buy a thinkpad, they have i think the best comaptibility, and ibm has been fairly good about that. dell sucks. their laptops are throwaways given to road warriors because they come with warranties and it's easier to just send them back.
now, if you want a pure kde or gnome desktop, you can still do it, but there is little advantage versus running X under os x. everything open source app is there, just a compile away. if you want to spend sub $500, buy a refurbed thinkpad on ebay froma reputable source. otherwise, save yourself the trouble and by a mac.
still leaving what in the 90's? you could definitely leave the music. hell, metallica and U2 sold out, rap became mainstream, grunge was wretched, and all a band had to do was make a flashy video, show up at some political rally, and swear on live tv. what ever the hell happened to musicianship?
my bad. it is vancouver island. also, can't help but laugh at the straights of juan de fuca. i kept aksing my wife "juan de fuca?". of course, she said no. women!!
several years ago the wife and i went to BC. went to victoria island and vacnouver. victoria island had to be the most beautiful place on earth. we noticed they said "aboot". the other thing we noticed is that smoking required by law, or so it seemed.
Slashdot Mirror
lazarus makes horribly large binaries, the simplest gui hello world is 1 meg or so
than it's compteting with visual basic, not delphi.
jbuilder is a bloated piece of crap. it was pretty good somewhere around version 5 or 6, but since that time, you need damn near a cray to run it. what pisses me off the most is that you can't get older versions. viva la open source!! it also shows how much better the OSS dev model is than the closed version. jbuilder just doesn't hold candle to netbeans or eclipse. to get the same functionality, you had to spend hundreds for the pro or ent. version. i personally use jedit for most of my development, but i am not working on huge projects.
I wrote my MA thesis ( link ) on a related subject, computers and writing. Though more geeky than most teachers, I firmly believe that computers have no place in the education curriculum. Now, as part of a technology core, or school-to-career, or electives, fine. But absolutely nowhere near a core classes. Okay, a little bias here because I teach history as well as programming, but students need to read books and learn to write the old fashion way. I am not surprised by the results, only that it is taking this ling for some common sense to creep back into the thinking. Considering how much money and effort from all sectors of the industry (including /.'s beloved Apple. disclaimer: I own two ibooks.) has been pumped into education, it should not shock anyone the level of beholdeness to technology that permeates our schools. For far too many teachers, a project is now powerpoint, and the lab is a week off. I really do want to scream.
I am a teacher and can share a similar experience:
.doc, .xls, and .ppt. OO.org won't do a good enough job on those. plus, asking teachers (and I am one by the way)to learn something new is going to be impossible, no matter how close the two really are.
.sxw it might be a start.
1) district tech people will get freebies er, um, demos, from microsoft. you know, windows server, visual studio, etc., to "tryout" as it were. gonna influence their decision
2) people will already have 1000's of prior docs in
3) "if it's free, it can't be good" and "it's what they use in the real world" will prevail. schools are no longer institutions of learning, but exist simply to train workers. i could cry. we don't read nor write nor think anymore. sorry to kvetch. but, there is a mindset about "Office" and you're just a salmon.
4) teachers get a copy for home. so they think they're getting a steal. kinda hard to overcome that.
5) here's the glimmer of hope. set up a small lab with OO.org. since the really expensive thing for schools is hardware (software is actually pretty cheap. they want to get the kids hooked.) set up a linux thin client lab, or a linux lab with older computers. then use OO.org there. the other thing is this: since you can't give Office to the kids, but you can OO.org, make a technology plan to have a "give the kids a CD day". perhps if the kids turn in work in
6) another alternative. since much school hardware is OOOOLLLLDDDD, try abiword. it's small and fast. that'll get them interested in OSS.
look, I've been a teacher for ten years and been excited and shot down too many times to tell you. am I cynical, sure. you're going up against a beauracracy who doesn't care about saving money. remember, they have to do budget burning too. saving them money screws that up. sad but true. i hope you get this far down.
Microsoft: Where do we want to steal from today?
i am interested in the java compatibility. i figure it probably won't do swing, but will it support, or is will it do say gtk/java native. that'd be sweet. i know Qt/kde has had a java bridge for a while, but i really haven't played to much with it. flame java all you want, it's not a geek language. no obfuscated java, no java monks. BFD. sure that'd nix the whole write-once run anywhdere thing. but hell, what a great opportunity to build and test apps under a jre then compile them, to native.
I think the difference is this: does Apple use undocumented API's to purposely cripple, outright break, or unfairly compete with third party vendors. The list is long when dealing with microsoft, all the way back to dr. dos. if Apple did this, say a photo-manipulation app that competed with say, adobe, then there'd be room to bitch if if they used undocumented and secret API's to speed up rendering. or perhaps they have a secret network protocol that is used to connect os x clients to os x servers only. it sounds like their desktop features are designed to compete with windows, which makes the API's not relevant. and unlike windows, there really is a mac way to do things, which apple really wants to enforce. they don't care if someone is screwing around with xcode and comes up with some neato little $5 shareware app, they are concerned with big commercial apps and they want them to do things a certain way, the mac experience. like it or not, that's what they do. if it's to enforce application uniformity than that's hardly a sin.
3 is the problem. we already have a proxy server on port 8080. so i think i'm kinda screwed.
don't get all excited, i have MAC filtering. plus, i port forward to a linux box that's pretty secure. root can't remote log in, and no user is allowed to su. and the router blocks all outbound traffic on taht box to only port 23.
/.er with a wife. that means he actually gets some. holy shit.
now, is it 100% safe? hell, i got snipped (3 kids!!) a year ago, and all the tests came back blanks, but don't think that every month i still don't cross my fingers then let out a sigh of relief when my wife gets cranky and moody. oh wait, a
i don't think it's possible because i'm already behind a proxy server. i wrote a simple php script to garb the pages and spit it back line by line. but that only works for text. i think i'm stuck with either ssh -X or VNC. i did consider something like that but there's no way to the outside world from the network unless i tunnel. oh well.
my district uses bess too. i found a simple way around it though. they don't block port 22/23 so i just ssh -X into my linux box at home from my ibook at school. and no, it's not for pR0n. most blogs don't get past the filter and i'm unable to read most blogs nor can i post to mine unless i do so. and by the way, i post on my conference period, or at lunch.
no, not new, just not paying attention, what with all the natalie portmans, soviet russias, goatses, hot grits, dead bsd's and apples, i forgot. sorry. won't happen again. i'll spend the next 2 weeks using windows. no ibook for me. but hey it'll be just in time for tiger. and 3 years from now, it'll be time for longhorn...........maybe.
my momma said never respond to anonymous cowards, but here goes: first off, if you're copying a file from one folder to another, on os x (don't know about the darwin part) it is simply linked. if it's copying from a disk image or from a removable drive, it takes a few seconds to copy a 17mb file, and you can do anything in the background. you're simply full of crap to say it takes 20 minutes. now, if it has trouble reading the file, or it is corrupt ot something, that's another story.
yeah, it's all about control. the principals have quite a bit of latitude to spend money except when it comes to technology. they make up all kinds of excuses about support and maintanence, as if they actually do much of that. the other problem we get is that our tech people are what's called classified employees, not certificated (like teachers). so, they're on a different, and lower, pay scale. which means that we're getting the least capable tech people. AND, since they can't so easily be replaced, it is a secure job, probably the most secure tech jobs around. in my wife's school, the interent is a hit and miss proposition. the tech guy hasn't a clue half the time. oh well.
If I'm pressing keys on the keyboard obviously I want the computer to do something with them.
it did. it ignored them.
you insensitive clod. so, did you attend harvard?
middle school. taught there 7 years. lots of fun. anyways, here's a funny story.
to get digital school money, we need to have some x:y ratio of computers to students, so the district goes out and buys alot of pentium 120's w/32MB ram. there actually sitting around collecting dust at my school, but we have "computers". so, I snag several and bring them into my classroom, scrounge a switch, and turn them into X clients running off my P3 933 mandrake box. 6 computers running moz, OO.org, etc., great. kids use them without a problem. so, i pitch the idea to the principal, because we have a "lab" full of pentium 120's and 166's that take 10 minutes to start and are practically worthless once running, as they have to load up the novell client, anti-virus, lock down, security, etc., etc. software not to mention windoze. the lab was fully funcitoning, just never used. it was like a root canal with no anasthesia. and all we'd need is an application server, a dual pentium rig, big hard drives, lots of memory. $3000 tops. and we'd have a screaming lab. she's interested. I pitch it to the district and it gets shot down like a duck on opening day.
here's the {funniest|saddest} part: this was in late spring, when the next years funding proposals, etc. take place. the next year, our resident technidiot spends his time breaking down the literally 100+ old pentiums, stacking up the 1GB hard drives, organizing the 8MB SIMMs, etc. the only thing I could think to relate was he was doing graves registration duty. better to eliminate any possibiltiy than actually have a lab that the kids could use. part of the reason the computer were never used was because it costs about $300-$350 to put a workstation in front of a kid even if you give us the hardware. and 100 X $300...
he argued that they want to "standardize" on windows, as if he didn't realize how stupid and uninformed that comment was. he was concerned they wouldn'tbe able to use word. hell, we were still using word97 in 2002. As if Abi or OO aren't capable of typing papers, etc.
Where I teach, the tech people are linux-phobic. They are adamant about "keeping linux off the network" yet aren't so pissy about OS X (which probably means they've been reading Gartner). Of course, the highlight was a few years ago when I was running linux my older laptop, surfing the net, and doing my grades (through wine no less), and the school's distrtict tech guy asks how I can do this since "novell doesn't support linux." I guess our network admin never heard of, what's that thingy called? oh yeah, TCP/IP.
i tried installing it on my wife's P3 700 256MB system, and it really ran poorly, and all she wanted to do was use photoshop CS for her business. i had to buy her a new P4 workstation. maybe there were hardware issues, maybe it was a fresh install, not an oem one, maybe whatever. but then again, i'm not a windows guru. i haven't run windows, even a dual boot box, since like '98. i ran linux (rh 6.0 -> 6.2 -> mandrake 7.0+ ) until i bought an ibook in '02.
somebody will patent blow jobs, then my wife will have alegal excuse.
everything usb. in fact, i scrounged up an older wireless usb trackball from my school that was donated from a busniess, plugged it in, works. usb keyboards are not too expensive if you need one. the mac minis are really nice. i tried talking the old man into one, but went with an emac instead, which is cool because i gave my kids his old imac, which runs panther great. seriously, try running a XP on a 5-6 year old PC, it's a disaster, even if you have a gig of ram. as for *nix, i've been working on some web tutorials using all free software, inkscape, gimp, php, etc., and it runs great.
for all the fuss of the ms tax, hardwre compatiblity, etc., just by an ibook or PB. unless you do kernel development on x86, or linux specific development, there's nothing that runs on linux that can't be run under fink or open darwin. not to mention all the commercial apps that run without wine, crossover, et al. i know i'll get flamed, but i have been winfree since '98. really. i've run linux on my desktops since then. but it's more than software. the hardware itself is better. the battery life, keyboard, screen, etc. plus, wireless works flawlessly under os x. if you need a pc to dual boot, buy a thinkpad, they have i think the best comaptibility, and ibm has been fairly good about that. dell sucks. their laptops are throwaways given to road warriors because they come with warranties and it's easier to just send them back.
now, if you want a pure kde or gnome desktop, you can still do it, but there is little advantage versus running X under os x. everything open source app is there, just a compile away. if you want to spend sub $500, buy a refurbed thinkpad on ebay froma reputable source. otherwise, save yourself the trouble and by a mac.
Only if you're unlucky/still leaving in the 90s
still leaving what in the 90's? you could definitely leave the music. hell, metallica and U2 sold out, rap became mainstream, grunge was wretched, and all a band had to do was make a flashy video, show up at some political rally, and swear on live tv. what ever the hell happened to musicianship?
my bad. it is vancouver island. also, can't help but laugh at the straights of juan de fuca. i kept aksing my wife "juan de fuca?". of course, she said no. women!!
several years ago the wife and i went to BC. went to victoria island and vacnouver. victoria island had to be the most beautiful place on earth. we noticed they said "aboot". the other thing we noticed is that smoking required by law, or so it seemed.