15-30% improvement on integer code is nice, but the license is very corporate and not Free. Basically you can use the compiler for evaluation only and you cannot redistribute the compiler at all, for money or otherwise.
Personally I will not be using or even evaluating this compiler on my Multia (and that thing need all the optimization it can get).
I was going to mention Qt since I find it to be a very clean interface, but you've already decided. But I find it curious: you first say that license doesn't matter, then you blast Qt for having a "boring" license. What gives?
If you read the article, he says that the license does matter.
I really like the API that BeOS presents to the application developer. Basically what you get is a message queue, and messages are delivered to whatever widget has registered to receive them. Messages can come not only from the Input Server (i.e. the mouse and keyboard), but also from other threads within and without your own program. Thus scripting is quite possibly in BeOS.
Also, I don't mind that all of the GUI classes for things like buttons, lists, and scroll bars are consistent and clean.
All of the above is basically highly opinionated personal preference, of course. Also it helps if you don't hate C++.
I will address your last point, please don't consider this flamebait.
Canada and every other country in the western hemisphere is free to spend their money on things besides defense not becaue of their superior political system, but as a matter of geographical convenience. The United States is so heavily armed that, for example, a Mexican Navy would be pretty silly. It is fairly obvious that if anyone tried to attack Canada the United States armed forces would be all over them instantly.
I wouldn't gloat about Canada's lack of defense spending. It is the result of a beneficial proximity with a world power for which you should feel fortunate.
-jwb (paying for the world's safety)
P.S. note that I don't agree with the way in which our military is capriciously employed.
I have always found this logic disturbing. What leads you to believe that life must be found in Earth-like conditions? Perhaps Earth-like life can only be found in Earth-like conditions, but to assert that life in general can only exist above temperature t, in the presence of a certain amount of water, with a particular nitrogen/oxygen ratio, is really unimaginative.
I don't think that we should rule out sectors of the universe as containing no life on the sole basis that we wouldn't be confortable there.
Outsource the email to my company, Critical Path! Our service is robust and scalable. 25K users would be a drop in our bucket and it will probably cost a lot less than your time and several machines. We have POP, IMAP, web-based mail, other goodies. Check the website.
I hope this doesn't tick anyone off. I really do believe that it is a solution to consider.
Apple is always hyping their stuff beyond reason. You may be aware that the PPC is twice as faster as a P-II [when the compiler optimizes a certain function to no-op -Ed.]! Maybe they mean that the AirPort is ten times faster than the good old AppleTalk port? Or maybe directly connected parallel cable networking?
Apple is a company that has been lying to themselves and us for the last 15 years. This is not expected to stop
You might remember that amazon.com has hired the chief of distribution away from Wal-mart. Wal-mart has the most efficient and inexpensive inventory distribution system in the world.
If Webvan is plotting to usurp UPS and FedEx in the pacakge distribution business, they have a lot of catching up to do. The scale of operation of UPS and FedEx is huge, and the barriers to entry are high. It takes a looooong time to build up an operation like that, including the time-to-market on such durable products as cargo-outfitted 747s.
UPS and FedEx are very efficient operations. They also make tons of cash, and can fford to lower their prices temporarily to squeeze out a bit player like WebVan.
That's what you think. At Texas A&M University they have developed a system which mounts a very nice optical camera atop the police car. While the cop is driving around, the camera automatically acquires and scans license plate numbers, and automatically runs them through a database looking for wanted criminals, stolen vehicles, [insert paranoia here]. All of this is done with sub-second response times.
But Wired News is still one of the best news sources on the web, even though the lower number of articles makes it a shadow of its former glory.
Wired News is less than a shadow. I still scan the headlines every day, but there is rarely an article worth reading. Wired News used to publish (gasp!) editorial commentary by Katz (Media Rant) and others. But we no longer get anything but news reports and very poor attempts at humor in the stock market wrap-ups.
Let us define a "normal" person as a person who buys and uses a computer without ever opening the case. Why would the normal person be better off with a motherboard that has no slots? The only advantage for the user is cost.
FYI, I do think that the way we do it now is the One True Way. Defined an open bus protocol (PCI, SCSI, USB, 1394, &c), let the specialized manufacturers make their specialized parts, and let the consumer choose which they need. Intel is not the market leader in all segments, and one design cannot meet all people's needs. For low end PCs, you can stick a bunch of commodity hardware on the bus and ship it. For nice hardware you can carefully select your components and make something you'll really love.
Don't forget about the integrators like Compaq, Dell, and Micron. The closer Intel gets to making an all-in-one motherboard, the closer these resellers are to just sticking their label on a box and providing technical support. I'm sure they don't want that. Common bus interfaces currently allow the PC manufacturers to differentiate on features and performance.
Last point: I don't see the inherent simplicity in having an integrated monitor, as opposed to one which is not irreversibly attached.
You may notice the picture of the so-called FlexATX motherboard. The one with no slots of any kind whatsoever, and only IDE and USB connectors. You know, the flexible one:)
Also, I am pretty sure that we all decided that integrated monitors and computers were a bad idea a long time ago (except for thos boneheads at Apple). I dunno about the average slashdotter, but my current monitor has lasted me through six different systems. Who (besides the display manufacturers) wants a montitor that has to be upgraded at the same pace as the CPU.
More examples of the manufacturers giving us what they want us to have, instead of what we want them to give us.
But it's not going to be cheaper than the dual Socket 370 motherboards that are starting to emerge. And these are from established makers, not random fabs that are wholly owned by never-heard-of-them holding companies.
Your statements about Metroworks' x86 code generator are very wrong. The code spat out by their codegen is highly inefficient. Metrowerks tools were shipped with BeOS R3 x86. They were replaced in R4 with a GNU toolchain and an accompanying system-wide significant performance increase. Things were so bad with Metrowerks that people were cross-compiling on Windows.
I am not familiar with any cross-licensing agreement that they may have with IBM, but it has not produced a quality compiler in practice.
This is wonderful news that a first rate hardware vendor has open-sourced the drivers for their flagship product. No drivers for BeOS and other plaforms will spring up soon.
A related piece of good news for the Linux 3D community is the news from XFree86 that a pre-4.0 build will be available in July 1999. Check it out over at xfree86.org.
Yesterday I invented a time-travel device powered by cold fusion.
Do the math on this one folks. The only way he can claim that kind of mileage at 600 MPH is if either the coefficient of drag approaches zero or the fuel has an incredible chemical energy per unit volume. We know the first is unlikely because the car doesn't have any particularly revolutionary shape. As for the second, let's just say that you wouldn't be buying it at your local Mobil station.
I really like the way IBM is contributing to Open Source software. Instead of trying to use the time of developers for free, IBM is actually contributing to many prjects in useful ways. They are doing this in places where they know that the open software is going to help their business.
One case is the Perl DBI driver for DB2. IBM is directly involved in developing DBD::DB2, they support it, and the code is free. They do this becuase they recognize that most want to mix and match web servers with databases, and Perl is a great way to talk to the database from Apache, IIS, or a CGI environment.
Also, IBM has contributed in significant ways to the Apache project, and they have a considerable presence in the java development community.
I say hooray for IBM, they are showing the world how Open Source software and proprietary software can interact simbiotically in a profitable business.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I will not be using or even evaluating this compiler on my Multia (and that thing need all the optimization it can get).
-jwb
Everyone yapping about emacs and vi(m). Does it have ed emulation? Does it integrate with xed? Ed is the standard! -jwb
If you read the article, he says that the license does matter.
-jwb
Also, I don't mind that all of the GUI classes for things like buttons, lists, and scroll bars are consistent and clean.
All of the above is basically highly opinionated personal preference, of course. Also it helps if you don't hate C++.
-jwb
You must fight the implementation of UCITA in your state!
-jwb
What were you planning to do with all the water that the fule cell produces? -jwb
What were you planning to do with all the water that the fuel cell produces? -jwb
Canada and every other country in the western hemisphere is free to spend their money on things besides defense not becaue of their superior political system, but as a matter of geographical convenience. The United States is so heavily armed that, for example, a Mexican Navy would be pretty silly. It is fairly obvious that if anyone tried to attack Canada the United States armed forces would be all over them instantly.
I wouldn't gloat about Canada's lack of defense spending. It is the result of a beneficial proximity with a world power for which you should feel fortunate.
-jwb (paying for the world's safety)
P.S. note that I don't agree with the way in which our military is capriciously employed.
I don't think that we should rule out sectors of the universe as containing no life on the sole basis that we wouldn't be confortable there.
I hope this doesn't tick anyone off. I really do believe that it is a solution to consider.
-jwb
Apple is a company that has been lying to themselves and us for the last 15 years. This is not expected to stop
-jwb
If Webvan is plotting to usurp UPS and FedEx in the pacakge distribution business, they have a lot of catching up to do. The scale of operation of UPS and FedEx is huge, and the barriers to entry are high. It takes a looooong time to build up an operation like that, including the time-to-market on such durable products as cargo-outfitted 747s.
UPS and FedEx are very efficient operations. They also make tons of cash, and can fford to lower their prices temporarily to squeeze out a bit player like WebVan.
-jwb
-jwb
$ cat whois.sh
#!/bin/sh
whois $1 | grep -v "portion thereof"
$ alias whois=whois.sh
-jwb
-jwb
Wired News is less than a shadow. I still scan the headlines every day, but there is rarely an article worth reading. Wired News used to publish (gasp!) editorial commentary by Katz (Media Rant) and others. But we no longer get anything but news reports and very poor attempts at humor in the stock market wrap-ups.
-jwb
-jwb
FYI, I do think that the way we do it now is the One True Way. Defined an open bus protocol (PCI, SCSI, USB, 1394, &c), let the specialized manufacturers make their specialized parts, and let the consumer choose which they need. Intel is not the market leader in all segments, and one design cannot meet all people's needs. For low end PCs, you can stick a bunch of commodity hardware on the bus and ship it. For nice hardware you can carefully select your components and make something you'll really love.
Don't forget about the integrators like Compaq, Dell, and Micron. The closer Intel gets to making an all-in-one motherboard, the closer these resellers are to just sticking their label on a box and providing technical support. I'm sure they don't want that. Common bus interfaces currently allow the PC manufacturers to differentiate on features and performance.
Last point: I don't see the inherent simplicity in having an integrated monitor, as opposed to one which is not irreversibly attached.
-jwb
Also, I am pretty sure that we all decided that integrated monitors and computers were a bad idea a long time ago (except for thos boneheads at Apple). I dunno about the average slashdotter, but my current monitor has lasted me through six different systems. Who (besides the display manufacturers) wants a montitor that has to be upgraded at the same pace as the CPU.
More examples of the manufacturers giving us what they want us to have, instead of what we want them to give us.
-jwb
-jwb
I am not familiar with any cross-licensing agreement that they may have with IBM, but it has not produced a quality compiler in practice.
-jwb
-jwb
A related piece of good news for the Linux 3D community is the news from XFree86 that a pre-4.0 build will be available in July 1999. Check it out over at xfree86.org.
-jwb
Do the math on this one folks. The only way he can claim that kind of mileage at 600 MPH is if either the coefficient of drag approaches zero or the fuel has an incredible chemical energy per unit volume. We know the first is unlikely because the car doesn't have any particularly revolutionary shape. As for the second, let's just say that you wouldn't be buying it at your local Mobil station.
-jwb
One case is the Perl DBI driver for DB2. IBM is directly involved in developing DBD::DB2, they support it, and the code is free. They do this becuase they recognize that most want to mix and match web servers with databases, and Perl is a great way to talk to the database from Apache, IIS, or a CGI environment.
Also, IBM has contributed in significant ways to the Apache project, and they have a considerable presence in the java development community.
I say hooray for IBM, they are showing the world how Open Source software and proprietary software can interact simbiotically in a profitable business.
-jwb