So you're going to boycott any company with assholes on their boards of directors, are ya?
Better start doing some serious investigating, since 99% of the big-boys in this country are gonna have someone that someone somewhere hates on their boards. Looks like you're gonna have a tough time buying anything in this country, and that includes sleeping, eating, hell, even wiping your ass after you crap.
I came late to this party, but this is as good a place as any to insert my $0.02.
I disagree, the comments posted here simply reflect the frustration that I would expect in this situation. Regardless of the many H1-b posters who have reported a parity of earnings, it is a fact that US companies do use loopholes in the program to unfair advantage. As people who have paid taxes over the years, and whose earnings have been plowed back into local and national economies, are we racist or jingoist to believe that we deserve better treatment? I don't believe so.
I am not familiar with Sun's case, but it certainly seems suspicious on the surface. To those who defend such actions, claiming it's all just competition, I'd like to offer a few statistics.
Unless you truly believe that a US worker has never lost a job to a younger, lower paid H1-b, or you believe that when this happens it is always because the H1-b worker is superior to the Us worker in job knowledge and ability, then you must know it's NOT about competition, it's about U.S. corporate greed. For example, some older numbers from Business Week:
"The average executive of a major US corporation made 42 times more than a typical worker in 1980. By 1990, that ratio was 85 times and in 1998, it had reached a staggering 419 times. "
In a similar time period, averages for other countries ranged from around 10 to 110 times. What is it about top US-corporate big-wigs that justifies this disparity? Are they that much better than their international counterparts? Admitted that these are older numbers, but to this date, American executive compensation shows the highest such ratios in the world, in both good times and bad! In fact, during massive layoffs and restructurings, such executive are all too frequently rewarded.
Bottom line, the Sun's of the world can find qualified US workers, and they can afford to pay them, but they won't.
Typically, I am not one to run crying to the government for help, but clearly something is wrong here. At the very least it is time to show our disapproval of such actions with our wallets whenever possible.
The other posts have got you on your 50% statistic, for my part I'd like to remind you that the original poster talked about "supporting" terrorism - I buy gas so I can take my children to school, and myself to work so I can provide for them. Does this mean I "support" terrorism, I think NOT!
One might argue that if even a few pennies of each of my fuel purchases goes to support blowing up innocents, that is too much - and in a total vacuum of other information, I would agree.
But who's to say which country my 12 galons comes from on any trip to the pump? In addition, I pay taxes to a government that ostensibly is charged with handling such things (OK, OK, I agree that's a stretch, but I do pay taxes!) So either I should be given the choice to purchase alternative fuel vehicles, or recieve protection from accidentally funding terrorsim with oil purchases, or be absolved of paying any taxes at all, and be all on my own for such things.
One can only do so much, my priorities have to be:
1. My family
2. My extended family and friends
3. My community
4. My country
5. My planet
The truth is that nothing any moral, law-abiding US citizen does supports terrorism. Trickle-down economics will put some small portion of my purchases into the pockets of terrorists, and I'll do my best to minimize the effect, but it is also up to each of us to demand that our government, which we pay for, take immediate action to stop the flow of oil money by climbing out of the hip-pocket of the American auto and oil industries and start doing what is right for the long-term health of our country.
Oh I see, because it's hard, we shouldn't bother? I think the article's whole thrust was that we should try solving the problems.
Its oh so much easier to spend the 100 billion on destroying, then rebuilding Iraq.
It's simple to obtain the budget for the R&D - don't go to war the savings provide the budget. Don't get me wrong, I'm no dove, and when it's warranted, there's nothing I like more than watching our boys kick some major ass, but in this case, the money could be better spent elsewhere.
I for one would rather fight terror with economics, not bombs. How many terrorists do you think could afford the plane ticket out here if it weren't for oil?
I have said this before and I'll still say this - by giving a computer at a very early age, you are curtailing their abilities to think all by themselves.
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I couldn't disagree more vehemently.
I have said this before and I'll say it again, the most important components of education in any time of a childs life comes from his or her parents!
My children, ages 3 and 5 each have their own computer (G3 iMac, thank you). They use them about an hour a day, and these are their single posession with which they never seem to become bored. My daughter, the oldest, has had her computer for almost two years. She also hikes, plays outside, serves tea to her stuffed animals, builds lego buildings, paints, and takes spanish class in her pre-school. In addition to a fertile imagination, she also solves problems quite well thank you, and, by the way, she is also totally comfortable using software. She has grown into a wonderful, creative, and articulate 5-year-old human being precisely because my wife and I withhold no educational opportunities from her, including computers. Instilling a life-long love of learning is a parents primary responsibility, and the parent who ignores the reality that computers are an important part of modern life in our society, are the ones doing a disservice to their children.
I am lucky enough to be able to afford these tools for my children, I suspect many Maine parents, or any others for that matter, may not be. So I strongly support computers for kids of any age, but NOT as a replacement for strong parental involvement in their lives.
Re:Insights?
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F'd Companies
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· Score: 3, Informative
Actually I have to disagree - "business types" are exactly who need to read this, lest they not learn from their mistakes.
During my time with failed "dot-com X" during 1999 - 2002, we constantly tracked the downfalls of our 'competitors' via f'd company. Almost every one was highly funded and run by "business types". In fact, during the whole time I only met two college-kid basement startup types, and they had sold to MS and retired as millionaires.
That being said, I'm pretty sure the business types have learned a little since then, so the material in this book may be a bit dated. We won't see boom-times like the late-90's again - man what an era!
My intention was not to spread FUD regarding the GPL, merely to comment on the reasons behind the perception of it's "viral" nature.
While I agree with your point, I stand by my earlier statement, except that I retract the "clearly" part. Even people within the free software and open-source communities are not wholy in agreement on what constitutes a breach of the GPL. If I took you're argument at face value, then I could link to any library I wanted and not release my own source, yet I have seen proprietary products pulled for doing just this.
It may have something to do with this section:
"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
I have worked with Lawyers who have interpretted this (perhaps erroneously) to mean that dynamic linking would trigger the GPL'ing of the proprietary part, because dependency, by it's very nature, may indicate that the proprietary work cannot function without the presence of the dependency. The exception are dependencies like database drivers, where a choice exists between multiple possible means of satisfying the dependency and the proprietary code will function equally well with any of the possible choices.
Further, one might argue that by not distributing the dependency together with the proprietary code, one could escape this clause, since it's really distribution that the GPL is concerned with anyway. However for any project, properietary or otherwise, targeted at a 'standard' user base, it is pretty much accepted that the product should run upon installation, and not require the acquisition of additional separate components. For end-user types of products market forces dictate that the product ship with all of its dependencies.
I was under the impression that resolving this dillema was what the LGPL was all about, which is why I continue to prefer that license when mixing and matching code components.
"But that doesn't mean that the GPL is "is inimical to the standard economical model and way of doing business.". Plenty of companies are contributing to GPL'd projects (where appropriate for their business models) and making money off of it."
Well, actually it does. Noone is arguing that there are companies who have found ways to contribute GPL'd code and still make a little money, usually by service and support. The post spoke of the standard economic model, which in a software product sense, continues to be licensing fee based, at least for software-product companies.
Also, to clarify MO!s point in the previous reply, here is the section of the GPL that causes fits for corporate lawyers:
"2.b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
Clearly any code that either statically or dynamically links to GPL code falls under this statement, but notice the intentionally vague use of the terms "contains or is derrived" instead of the word "links". I have heard this section imply that merely using a GPL'd JDBC driver in your java program causes the whole program to fall under the GPL (Note: I don't neccessarily agree with the interprettation, merely use it as an example of the confusion caused). This is why people speak of the GPLs "Viral Nature".
Further to Apples situation, the GPL goes on to say:
"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
The inclusion of the GNU tools (like gcc) falls under "aggregation", and thus has no effect on the Apple-proprietary code-base.
In general, when attempting to preserve the proprietary nature of a product, I will only use open-source code licensed under LGPL, BSD, or Apache style licenses, however, I'm not a lawyer, so your mileage my vary.
...But if you really need to save images you could use revolutionary, ground-breaking algorithms like base64 or uuencode to save your PNG format images into the text stream as well!
It seems to me that formats like PNG, and the algorithms used to encode binary data as ascii could be easily 'rediscovered' and reimplemented even thousdands of years from now.
Wow! I hadn't thought about it like that before...
This may be unbelievable, but I've never downloaded an illegal copy of any music, movie or TV show. But I do purchase CDs, which I then copy and remix for my own personal use; and I purchase DVDs, which I play on any player, including my PC, and which I may copy to my disk for my own personal viewing.
Any DRM that would keep me from performing these basic fair-use actions would immediately be circumvented (if possible) in any way possible including the downloading of various cracks and hacks from various nefarious sources.
So.. The whole DRM thing has turned a law-abiding media-consumer like myself into a media pirate and tacit supporter of the very hackers the Media conglomerates want to fight!
I say bring it on, I've already picked out my black hat...
First, being ashamed of doing VB is silly, don't sweat it, and don't pay attention to idiots who tell you otherwise. I've used VB since it was just 'B' and spent most of my career doing hard-core MS-centric projects and getting paid handsomely for it, thank you. During that decade long period I have:
Bought a new car every two years
Met and married a beautiful woman
Purchased a nice home in an expensive neighborhood
Bought a sailboat
Had two wonderful children
That being said, I was finally able to get off the Windows treadmill by adopting Java. I now use Mac OS X exclusively at home.
Java GUIs have a bad rep for being slow, but alot of that is changing, and rapidly. Check out Eclipse and the SWT project. I would easily use even Swing for what you've described. Add in a killer IDE like Borland JBuilder and you have the same things you enjoyed in VB only now its on Windows, Linux, and OS X.
As for compiling, what exactly are you doing? Java now ships with JIT compilers that convert bytecode to native code on-the-fly. Of course you have little control over this process, so it's still not as optimal as hand-optimized C, but hey, what is.
For me, Java has now completely replaced VB, and with a far better, more flexible language to boot. I am completely free of MS constraints as well and the bonanza of open-source Java projects out there just makes the geek in me weep with joy. VB has been good to me, but it just can't compete.
I have two children and agree with your rebuttal to the original post completely. I find it somewhat ironic that parenting is being discussed on Slashdot, but I'll bite. I wanted to add an additional perspective.
In all the discussion, it seems as though everyone is defining 'kids' as either teenagers or children older than 7 or 8 years.
In my experience, kids A LOT younger than that are using computers. My 4 year old daughter has her own computer, and is already able to navigate and solve kids games targeted at the 5 - 8 range. Essentially she understands visual navigation of computer UIs before she can even read.
I plan on having that "not all people are good" talk with her when she turns 5, and she is already gradually coming to realize it in other ways(she already knows about calling 911, and avoiding strangers), but I wanted to let her have just 5 years of innocence first (is that so wrong?).
More and more kids are going to grow up in wired houses, and this type of thing provides me, the parent, with one more tool to raise my kids to be computer-literate, from a very young age. No responsible parent is going to see the kids.us domain as an excuse to park their children in front of the computer alone all day -- it will be a good filter mechanism that might allow me to turn my back for 10 or 15 minutes and give the kid a chance to explore on her own -- I'll still be checking back in to double-check that the content police are doing their job!
I for one am happy to see some sensible legislation come out on this subject for once.
Forgive me for plagiarizing, but your argument stands for any treatment of any methodology, to wit:
For _________________ to work out, you and your team need to have outstanding ability.
__________________ is great, but add into it a shaky designer, a loner in the team, or a disillusioned manager, and the whole thing will crash down in flames.
With ________________, you either fly high or crash badly.
Software develoment is hard. XP is a method that does not favor the incompetent, the loners, or the arogant. If you can find a team with none of these qualities, then you have a shot at XP.
I myself employ parts of XP, especially testing and continuous user-involvement, many of the projects so near and dear to slashdotters hearts would have done well to employ some of the tenants of XP from the beginning.
Even though I'm coming late to the thread, I had to notice that the reaction to stevenp's post was largly negative. What is up with the generally poor opinion of Java?
stevenp IS RIGHT -- real businesses are doing real work with the technologies he's mentioned. I have not been unemployed for a day during the current downturn, and in fact have changed jobs (upwardly) three times in the past three years. Why? BECAUSE I CAN DO JAVA.
Anyone who thinks Java is unusably slow has either not used it since before the advent of JITs or is just not paying attention.
Anyone would do well to learn java - it is likely to be critical. You know all those mobile devices that are on the horizon. (Hint: apps for those won't be running on.NET). You want skills that'll still be in demand years down the road, learn Java my friend.
I tried to distill confidence in my coworkers, but when I shoved them in the copper kettle and turned up the heat and pressure, there arrose such screaming that it was interrupting my work. So I settled on instilling confidence in them instead.
Seriously though, I don't have any 'Dummies' books, but I have several alleged beginner books, despite that fact that I have been doing what I do (Java coding) for years now. The bottom line is, I don't have a photographic memory, so those old books have saved my ass any number of times. I'm the only Java guy in an organization of hard-core C-coders, I have 'The beginners guide to C' on my desk, and instead of causing a lack of confidence in my coworkers, they actually appreciate that I care enough about the project to put myself into their world...
I'm afraid, as a recent 'switcher' I'm not too familiar with the older hardware. This is from the Apple site:
"Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required."
If you fall into any of these, the upgrade is definately worth it. I've also been told that boosting RAM and moving to Jaguar helps even if quartz extreme can't be used by the hardware, but I don't have personal experience with that.
Meanwhile, I hope you stay patient with Apple -- take it from a recent convert, the things they are up to seem very exciting, just look at the acceptance the OS is getting from communities (like slashdot) of hard-core geeks all the way to the corporate world. I really think Apple has a shot at throwing a wrench into the status quo that had become the pc industry...
Well, I can't agree with you about some of this, I think OS X *is* the big deal here, but that's not why I'm posting.
I'm curious, is the graphics card in your powerbook supported for quartz-extreme? If so, I recommend at least doubling your RAM and upgrading to Jaguar, I personally guarantee you that the performance increase will be very noticeable and very pleasant.
This thread should begin and end with your post, WatertonMan. Bottom line, like everything else about OS X it seems, it all depends.
Me, I use OS X-Jaguar on a dual-Ghz G4 w/ 1 gig RAM. It is the fastest system I have ever used, but I haven't used intel systems past about 1.25 Ghz. It's way faster than the Win2k (1.25 Ghz, 256MB RAM) I use at work, and faster that the intel-redhat install I played with before 'switching' (800Mghz, 512 MB RAM). An interesting, purely anecdotal note, it boots up in roughly a quarter of the time it takes the Windows machine to fire up.
I second the motion that memory is the critical factor, and at $50 for 512MB, its an easy performance upgrade. Also, forget about 10.1.x, if you're not using Jaguar, you're missing the point.
I couldn't agree more - perfect security can't be had at any price (the recent sniper attacks prove that). However, consider this. The 9/11 attacks succeeded because, with the exception of the Pennsylvania crash, the passengers didn't know or couldn't believe, at least not until it was too late, that they weren't the victims of a 'normal' hyjacking (i.e. one that was survivable). Post 9/11, as it has often been observed, we won't see this method of attack again, not because of racial profiling or airport screening measures, but because the pilots, attendants and passengers won't let it happen again, even at the risk of their own lives.
Our security, at least against some types of attack, can be improved without liberty-depleting initiatives, it's called taking responsibility. All of us must together use our vigilance to resist these sorts of attacks, using the proper authorities and channels, and to continue to resist giving up any freedoms at all. I won't make a political statement about US foreign policy here, but you can also fight back by voting and using your wallet intelligently, right here at home.
I don't think I was ever more proud to be an American than when, only a week after 9/11, late night comics were making jokes about the terrorists and the incident. Think of that message, and how it must piss off the terrorists, this is yet another way to fight back: Don't loose your sense of humor. They hate it when we don't cower in fear and allow our country to collapse!
It's been my experience that the hard-numbers I've found, when taken alone, still don't seem to answer the question. Even the most seemingly objective benchmarks can be argued either way - there's just too much religion on the subject.
Bottom line, you have to decide for yourself. If you know someone with a Mac, ask 'em if you can play around for an hour, or go hang out at CompUSA or an Apple store and bug the folks there for an hour.
I'm biased, I converted from PC after years of using Windows and a brief and generally positive flirtation with Linux (Rehat's 6.2 thru 7-ish). I have a dual-gig G4 tower and I NEVER notice a speed problem, my daughter has a 600Mhz G3 iMac and it's slowish - BUT, what are you going to use it for?
I know a developer here where I work who works all day on an older G4 Powerbook laptop - he loves it. I myself use my Mac for coding in Java and it's awsome, I love the fact that I can run just about any Java-related open source project I want. That being said, I'm sure there are uses where the Mac won't be the best choice, and there is the issue of making sure all your favorite software has a Mac version, and re-buying if you use commercial apps.
If I had the spare cash, I'd be buying that new 1Ghz Poerbook right now!
While I agree that.NET concepts are cool, the reason is because much of the concept is so obviously based on Java, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
I further believe that the.NET implementation would probably turn out to be marginally faster even in a truly fair comparison. It doesn't surprise me that Microsoft engineers working on a Microsoft platform could optimize more heavily than java, which at some point must run up against the constraints of the JVM implementation on the given platform.
BUT -- raw speed isn't the issue all the time. A quick google turned up the fact that MS has between 40% and 49% of the server OS market (depending on whose figures you believe). Linux at about 25% and everyone else. I write java code for a company with a significant number of customer who are either wholly in the 51% or run mixed environments.
Here's the kicker -- it is totally possible for java to realize the write once run anywhere promise on the server side, we're doing it. The fact that we don't have to port the app from platform to platform is a significant saving for us. Our customers enjoy greater compatibility, faster updates, increased feature set and LOWER PRICES. Our more adventurous customers then lower their TCO even more by running the app on any of the extremely well-written open-source app servers available.
MS trained us to view discussions such as these in business terms, not technical ones -- and they loose the argument on business terms.
(and yes, I do know.NET is being ported to other platforms, but if I can't use it today, it may as well not exist).
I don't have the second edition (yet) but I do have the very latest Flannagan - which covers JS 1.5.
I see only a small overlap in the DOM and CSS coverage. Flannagan's book is all javascript beginning to end and covers coding in JS in much greater depth. Frankly, I agree with some posters that to much JavaScript on public web sites is generally a 'bad thing' but I've been developing a web interface to a complex data replication system, where offloading some of the UI-work onto the client can be useful and is generally acceptable -- Flannagan's book has saved my ass over and over.
If you're going to be bringing out a complex web-based application - start with Flannagan and move to DHTML when/if you need to.
For anyone who doesn't know, its JavaScript-The definitive Guide, by David Flannagan.
Let's get some perspective...You've posted argumentative and (in my case) somewhat derogatory comments to several posters who were just answering your question. In each case the poster was just saying essentially "live and let live" you either want OS X or you don't.
Oh - I get it your question was rhetorical, either that, or you forgot to preface it with "Java programmers need not reply", BTW, Over the past decade, I've programmed for Windows, Linux, Unix (Solaris), and now Mac OS X.
I'm only guilty of liking my Mac more, so sorry if that's not geeky enough for you, but it was no reason to insult me.
Slashdot Mirror
You were joking right?
So you're going to boycott any company with assholes on their boards of directors, are ya?
Better start doing some serious investigating, since 99% of the big-boys in this country are gonna have someone that someone somewhere hates on their boards. Looks like you're gonna have a tough time buying anything in this country, and that includes sleeping, eating, hell, even wiping your ass after you crap.
Best of luck to you.
I came late to this party, but this is as good a place as any to insert my $0.02.
I disagree, the comments posted here simply reflect the frustration that I would expect in this situation. Regardless of the many H1-b posters who have reported a parity of earnings, it is a fact that US companies do use loopholes in the program to unfair advantage. As people who have paid taxes over the years, and whose earnings have been plowed back into local and national economies, are we racist or jingoist to believe that we deserve better treatment? I don't believe so.
I am not familiar with Sun's case, but it certainly seems suspicious on the surface. To those who defend such actions, claiming it's all just competition, I'd like to offer a few statistics.
Unless you truly believe that a US worker has never lost a job to a younger, lower paid H1-b, or you believe that when this happens it is always because the H1-b worker is superior to the Us worker in job knowledge and ability, then you must know it's NOT about competition, it's about U.S. corporate greed. For example, some older numbers from Business Week:
"The average executive of a major US corporation made 42 times more than a typical worker in 1980. By 1990, that ratio was 85 times and in 1998, it had reached a staggering 419 times. "
In a similar time period, averages for other countries ranged from around 10 to 110 times. What is it about top US-corporate big-wigs that justifies this disparity? Are they that much better than their international counterparts? Admitted that these are older numbers, but to this date, American executive compensation shows the highest such ratios in the world, in both good times and bad! In fact, during massive layoffs and restructurings, such executive are all too frequently rewarded.
Bottom line, the Sun's of the world can find qualified US workers, and they can afford to pay them, but they won't.
Typically, I am not one to run crying to the government for help, but clearly something is wrong here. At the very least it is time to show our disapproval of such actions with our wallets whenever possible.
The other posts have got you on your 50% statistic, for my part I'd like to remind you that the original poster talked about "supporting" terrorism - I buy gas so I can take my children to school, and myself to work so I can provide for them. Does this mean I "support" terrorism, I think NOT!
One might argue that if even a few pennies of each of my fuel purchases goes to support blowing up innocents, that is too much - and in a total vacuum of other information, I would agree.
But who's to say which country my 12 galons comes from on any trip to the pump? In addition, I pay taxes to a government that ostensibly is charged with handling such things (OK, OK, I agree that's a stretch, but I do pay taxes!) So either I should be given the choice to purchase alternative fuel vehicles, or recieve protection from accidentally funding terrorsim with oil purchases, or be absolved of paying any taxes at all, and be all on my own for such things.
One can only do so much, my priorities have to be:
The truth is that nothing any moral, law-abiding US citizen does supports terrorism. Trickle-down economics will put some small portion of my purchases into the pockets of terrorists, and I'll do my best to minimize the effect, but it is also up to each of us to demand that our government, which we pay for, take immediate action to stop the flow of oil money by climbing out of the hip-pocket of the American auto and oil industries and start doing what is right for the long-term health of our country.1. My family
2. My extended family and friends
3. My community
4. My country
5. My planet
Oh I see, because it's hard, we shouldn't bother? I think the article's whole thrust was that we should try solving the problems.
Its oh so much easier to spend the 100 billion on destroying, then rebuilding Iraq.
It's simple to obtain the budget for the R&D - don't go to war the savings provide the budget. Don't get me wrong, I'm no dove, and when it's warranted, there's nothing I like more than watching our boys kick some major ass, but in this case, the money could be better spent elsewhere.
I for one would rather fight terror with economics, not bombs. How many terrorists do you think could afford the plane ticket out here if it weren't for oil?
I have said this before and I'll still say this - by giving a computer at a very early age, you are curtailing their abilities to think all by themselves.
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I couldn't disagree more vehemently.
I have said this before and I'll say it again, the most important components of education in any time of a childs life comes from his or her parents!
My children, ages 3 and 5 each have their own computer (G3 iMac, thank you). They use them about an hour a day, and these are their single posession with which they never seem to become bored. My daughter, the oldest, has had her computer for almost two years. She also hikes, plays outside, serves tea to her stuffed animals, builds lego buildings, paints, and takes spanish class in her pre-school. In addition to a fertile imagination, she also solves problems quite well thank you, and, by the way, she is also totally comfortable using software. She has grown into a wonderful, creative, and articulate 5-year-old human being precisely because my wife and I withhold no educational opportunities from her, including computers. Instilling a life-long love of learning is a parents primary responsibility, and the parent who ignores the reality that computers are an important part of modern life in our society, are the ones doing a disservice to their children.
I am lucky enough to be able to afford these tools for my children, I suspect many Maine parents, or any others for that matter, may not be. So I strongly support computers for kids of any age, but NOT as a replacement for strong parental involvement in their lives.
Actually I have to disagree - "business types" are exactly who need to read this, lest they not learn from their mistakes.
During my time with failed "dot-com X" during 1999 - 2002, we constantly tracked the downfalls of our 'competitors' via f'd company. Almost every one was highly funded and run by "business types". In fact, during the whole time I only met two college-kid basement startup types, and they had sold to MS and retired as millionaires.
That being said, I'm pretty sure the business types have learned a little since then, so the material in this book may be a bit dated. We won't see boom-times like the late-90's again - man what an era!
My intention was not to spread FUD regarding the GPL, merely to comment on the reasons behind the perception of it's "viral" nature.
While I agree with your point, I stand by my earlier statement, except that I retract the "clearly" part. Even people within the free software and open-source communities are not wholy in agreement on what constitutes a breach of the GPL. If I took you're argument at face value, then I could link to any library I wanted and not release my own source, yet I have seen proprietary products pulled for doing just this.
It may have something to do with this section:
"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
I have worked with Lawyers who have interpretted this (perhaps erroneously) to mean that dynamic linking would trigger the GPL'ing of the proprietary part, because dependency, by it's very nature, may indicate that the proprietary work cannot function without the presence of the dependency. The exception are dependencies like database drivers, where a choice exists between multiple possible means of satisfying the dependency and the proprietary code will function equally well with any of the possible choices.
Further, one might argue that by not distributing the dependency together with the proprietary code, one could escape this clause, since it's really distribution that the GPL is concerned with anyway. However for any project, properietary or otherwise, targeted at a 'standard' user base, it is pretty much accepted that the product should run upon installation, and not require the acquisition of additional separate components. For end-user types of products market forces dictate that the product ship with all of its dependencies.
I was under the impression that resolving this dillema was what the LGPL was all about, which is why I continue to prefer that license when mixing and matching code components.
"But that doesn't mean that the GPL is "is inimical to the standard economical model and way of doing business.". Plenty of companies are contributing to GPL'd projects (where appropriate for their business models) and making money off of it."
Well, actually it does. Noone is arguing that there are companies who have found ways to contribute GPL'd code and still make a little money, usually by service and support. The post spoke of the standard economic model, which in a software product sense, continues to be licensing fee based, at least for software-product companies.
Also, to clarify MO!s point in the previous reply, here is the section of the GPL that causes fits for corporate lawyers:
"2.b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
Clearly any code that either statically or dynamically links to GPL code falls under this statement, but notice the intentionally vague use of the terms "contains or is derrived" instead of the word "links". I have heard this section imply that merely using a GPL'd JDBC driver in your java program causes the whole program to fall under the GPL (Note: I don't neccessarily agree with the interprettation, merely use it as an example of the confusion caused). This is why people speak of the GPLs "Viral Nature".
Further to Apples situation, the GPL goes on to say:
"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
The inclusion of the GNU tools (like gcc) falls under "aggregation", and thus has no effect on the Apple-proprietary code-base.
In general, when attempting to preserve the proprietary nature of a product, I will only use open-source code licensed under LGPL, BSD, or Apache style licenses, however, I'm not a lawyer, so your mileage my vary.
And not only that...
...But if you really need to save images you could use revolutionary, ground-breaking algorithms like base64 or uuencode to save your PNG format images into the text stream as well!
It seems to me that formats like PNG, and the algorithms used to encode binary data as ascii could be easily 'rediscovered' and reimplemented even thousdands of years from now.
Wow! I hadn't thought about it like that before...
This may be unbelievable, but I've never downloaded an illegal copy of any music, movie or TV show. But I do purchase CDs, which I then copy and remix for my own personal use; and I purchase DVDs, which I play on any player, including my PC, and which I may copy to my disk for my own personal viewing.
Any DRM that would keep me from performing these basic fair-use actions would immediately be circumvented (if possible) in any way possible including the downloading of various cracks and hacks from various nefarious sources.
So.. The whole DRM thing has turned a law-abiding media-consumer like myself into a media pirate and tacit supporter of the very hackers the Media conglomerates want to fight!
I say bring it on, I've already picked out my black hat...
First, being ashamed of doing VB is silly, don't sweat it, and don't pay attention to idiots who tell you otherwise. I've used VB since it was just 'B' and spent most of my career doing hard-core MS-centric projects and getting paid handsomely for it, thank you. During that decade long period I have:
That being said, I was finally able to get off the Windows treadmill by adopting Java. I now use Mac OS X exclusively at home.
Java GUIs have a bad rep for being slow, but alot of that is changing, and rapidly. Check out Eclipse and the SWT project. I would easily use even Swing for what you've described. Add in a killer IDE like Borland JBuilder and you have the same things you enjoyed in VB only now its on Windows, Linux, and OS X.
As for compiling, what exactly are you doing? Java now ships with JIT compilers that convert bytecode to native code on-the-fly. Of course you have little control over this process, so it's still not as optimal as hand-optimized C, but hey, what is.
For me, Java has now completely replaced VB, and with a far better, more flexible language to boot. I am completely free of MS constraints as well and the bonanza of open-source Java projects out there just makes the geek in me weep with joy. VB has been good to me, but it just can't compete.
I have two children and agree with your rebuttal to the original post completely. I find it somewhat ironic that parenting is being discussed on Slashdot, but I'll bite. I wanted to add an additional perspective.
In all the discussion, it seems as though everyone is defining 'kids' as either teenagers or children older than 7 or 8 years.
In my experience, kids A LOT younger than that are using computers. My 4 year old daughter has her own computer, and is already able to navigate and solve kids games targeted at the 5 - 8 range. Essentially she understands visual navigation of computer UIs before she can even read.
I plan on having that "not all people are good" talk with her when she turns 5, and she is already gradually coming to realize it in other ways(she already knows about calling 911, and avoiding strangers), but I wanted to let her have just 5 years of innocence first (is that so wrong?).
More and more kids are going to grow up in wired houses, and this type of thing provides me, the parent, with one more tool to raise my kids to be computer-literate, from a very young age. No responsible parent is going to see the kids.us domain as an excuse to park their children in front of the computer alone all day -- it will be a good filter mechanism that might allow me to turn my back for 10 or 15 minutes and give the kid a chance to explore on her own -- I'll still be checking back in to double-check that the content police are doing their job!
I for one am happy to see some sensible legislation come out on this subject for once.
So true..
Forgive me for plagiarizing, but your argument stands for any treatment of any methodology, to wit:
For _________________ to work out, you and your team need to have outstanding ability.
__________________ is great, but add into it a shaky designer, a loner in the team, or a disillusioned manager, and the whole thing will crash down in flames.
With ________________, you either fly high or crash badly.
Software develoment is hard. XP is a method that does not favor the incompetent, the loners, or the arogant. If you can find a team with none of these qualities, then you have a shot at XP.
I myself employ parts of XP, especially testing and continuous user-involvement, many of the projects so near and dear to slashdotters hearts would have done well to employ some of the tenants of XP from the beginning.
Even though I'm coming late to the thread, I had to notice that the reaction to stevenp's post was largly negative. What is up with the generally poor opinion of Java?
.NET). You want skills that'll still be in demand years down the road, learn Java my friend.
stevenp IS RIGHT -- real businesses are doing real work with the technologies he's mentioned. I have not been unemployed for a day during the current downturn, and in fact have changed jobs (upwardly) three times in the past three years. Why? BECAUSE I CAN DO JAVA.
Anyone who thinks Java is unusably slow has either not used it since before the advent of JITs or is just not paying attention.
Anyone would do well to learn java - it is likely to be critical. You know all those mobile devices that are on the horizon. (Hint: apps for those won't be running on
I bet that distills confidence in coworkers.
I tried to distill confidence in my coworkers, but when I shoved them in the copper kettle and turned up the heat and pressure, there arrose such screaming that it was interrupting my work. So I settled on instilling confidence in them instead.
Seriously though, I don't have any 'Dummies' books, but I have several alleged beginner books, despite that fact that I have been doing what I do (Java coding) for years now. The bottom line is, I don't have a photographic memory, so those old books have saved my ass any number of times. I'm the only Java guy in an organization of hard-core C-coders, I have 'The beginners guide to C' on my desk, and instead of causing a lack of confidence in my coworkers, they actually appreciate that I care enough about the project to put myself into their world...
I'm afraid, as a recent 'switcher' I'm not too familiar with the older hardware. This is from the Apple site:
"Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required."
If you fall into any of these, the upgrade is definately worth it. I've also been told that boosting RAM and moving to Jaguar helps even if quartz extreme can't be used by the hardware, but I don't have personal experience with that.
Meanwhile, I hope you stay patient with Apple -- take it from a recent convert, the things they are up to seem very exciting, just look at the acceptance the OS is getting from communities (like slashdot) of hard-core geeks all the way to the corporate world. I really think Apple has a shot at throwing a wrench into the status quo that had become the pc industry...
And what would be even better news for MySQL AB is if they could figure out how to get people to pay for something they can get for free...
Well, I can't agree with you about some of this, I think OS X *is* the big deal here, but that's not why I'm posting.
I'm curious, is the graphics card in your powerbook supported for quartz-extreme? If so, I recommend at least doubling your RAM and upgrading to Jaguar, I personally guarantee you that the performance increase will be very noticeable and very pleasant.
Best of Luck to you...
This thread should begin and end with your post, WatertonMan. Bottom line, like everything else about OS X it seems, it all depends.
Me, I use OS X-Jaguar on a dual-Ghz G4 w/ 1 gig RAM. It is the fastest system I have ever used, but I haven't used intel systems past about 1.25 Ghz. It's way faster than the Win2k (1.25 Ghz, 256MB RAM) I use at work, and faster that the intel-redhat install I played with before 'switching' (800Mghz, 512 MB RAM). An interesting, purely anecdotal note, it boots up in roughly a quarter of the time it takes the Windows machine to fire up.
I second the motion that memory is the critical factor, and at $50 for 512MB, its an easy performance upgrade. Also, forget about 10.1.x, if you're not using Jaguar, you're missing the point.
Thanks for the clear-headed comments.
I couldn't agree more - perfect security can't be had at any price (the recent sniper attacks prove that). However, consider this. The 9/11 attacks succeeded because, with the exception of the Pennsylvania crash, the passengers didn't know or couldn't believe, at least not until it was too late, that they weren't the victims of a 'normal' hyjacking (i.e. one that was survivable). Post 9/11, as it has often been observed, we won't see this method of attack again, not because of racial profiling or airport screening measures, but because the pilots, attendants and passengers won't let it happen again, even at the risk of their own lives.
Our security, at least against some types of attack, can be improved without liberty-depleting initiatives, it's called taking responsibility. All of us must together use our vigilance to resist these sorts of attacks, using the proper authorities and channels, and to continue to resist giving up any freedoms at all. I won't make a political statement about US foreign policy here, but you can also fight back by voting and using your wallet intelligently, right here at home.
I don't think I was ever more proud to be an American than when, only a week after 9/11, late night comics were making jokes about the terrorists and the incident. Think of that message, and how it must piss off the terrorists, this is yet another way to fight back: Don't loose your sense of humor. They hate it when we don't cower in fear and allow our country to collapse!
It's been my experience that the hard-numbers I've found, when taken alone, still don't seem to answer the question. Even the most seemingly objective benchmarks can be argued either way - there's just too much religion on the subject.
Bottom line, you have to decide for yourself. If you know someone with a Mac, ask 'em if you can play around for an hour, or go hang out at CompUSA or an Apple store and bug the folks there for an hour.
I'm biased, I converted from PC after years of using Windows and a brief and generally positive flirtation with Linux (Rehat's 6.2 thru 7-ish). I have a dual-gig G4 tower and I NEVER notice a speed problem, my daughter has a 600Mhz G3 iMac and it's slowish - BUT, what are you going to use it for?
I know a developer here where I work who works all day on an older G4 Powerbook laptop - he loves it. I myself use my Mac for coding in Java and it's awsome, I love the fact that I can run just about any Java-related open source project I want. That being said, I'm sure there are uses where the Mac won't be the best choice, and there is the issue of making sure all your favorite software has a Mac version, and re-buying if you use commercial apps.
If I had the spare cash, I'd be buying that new 1Ghz Poerbook right now!
While I agree that .NET concepts are cool, the reason is because much of the concept is so obviously based on Java, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
.NET implementation would probably turn out to be marginally faster even in a truly fair comparison. It doesn't surprise me that Microsoft engineers working on a Microsoft platform could optimize more heavily than java, which at some point must run up against the constraints of the JVM implementation on the given platform.
.NET is being ported to other platforms, but if I can't use it today, it may as well not exist).
I further believe that the
BUT -- raw speed isn't the issue all the time. A quick google turned up the fact that MS has between 40% and 49% of the server OS market (depending on whose figures you believe). Linux at about 25% and everyone else. I write java code for a company with a significant number of customer who are either wholly in the 51% or run mixed environments.
Here's the kicker -- it is totally possible for java to realize the write once run anywhere promise on the server side, we're doing it. The fact that we don't have to port the app from platform to platform is a significant saving for us. Our customers enjoy greater compatibility, faster updates, increased feature set and LOWER PRICES. Our more adventurous customers then lower their TCO even more by running the app on any of the extremely well-written open-source app servers available.
MS trained us to view discussions such as these in business terms, not technical ones -- and they loose the argument on business terms.
(and yes, I do know
I don't have the second edition (yet) but I do have the very latest Flannagan - which covers JS 1.5.
I see only a small overlap in the DOM and CSS coverage. Flannagan's book is all javascript beginning to end and covers coding in JS in much greater depth. Frankly, I agree with some posters that to much JavaScript on public web sites is generally a 'bad thing' but I've been developing a web interface to a complex data replication system, where offloading some of the UI-work onto the client can be useful and is generally acceptable -- Flannagan's book has saved my ass over and over.
If you're going to be bringing out a complex web-based application - start with Flannagan and move to DHTML when/if you need to.
For anyone who doesn't know, its JavaScript-The definitive Guide, by David Flannagan.
alannon -
Thanks for taking the words right out of my mouth! I was working up a response myself, but you said it better than I could, mine closed with:
"...unless Apple goes out of business first."
If I had a dollar for every anti-Apple rant that ended this way, I could buy Apple!
Um, dude..
Let's get some perspective...You've posted argumentative and (in my case) somewhat derogatory comments to several posters who were just answering your question. In each case the poster was just saying essentially "live and let live" you either want OS X or you don't.
Oh - I get it your question was rhetorical, either that, or you forgot to preface it with "Java programmers need not reply", BTW, Over the past decade, I've programmed for Windows, Linux, Unix (Solaris), and now Mac OS X.
I'm only guilty of liking my Mac more, so sorry if that's not geeky enough for you, but it was no reason to insult me.