Erlang is an older established language designed for parallel processing.
Erlang was first developed in 1986, making it about a decade older than Java or Ruby. It is younger than Perl or C, and just a tad older than Python. It is a mature language with a large support community, especially in industrial applications. It is time tested and proven.
It is also Open source and offers many options for commercial support.
Before anyone at DARPA thinks that they can design a better language for concurrent parallel programming then I think they should be forced to spend 1 year learning Ada, and a second year working in Ada. If they survive they will most likely be cured of the thought that the Defense department can design good programming languages
Who would like to bet that some big pharmaceutical company has a patented medication just for 'Bitterness'.
Of course they can't get the health insurance companies to pay for expensive prescriptions unless it is a mental disorder. Otherwise taking the medication would be an 'elective' treatment, not a medical requirement.
It is a well established scientific fact that 100% of terrorists use a readily available, totally unregulated oxidizing agent to maintain their very existence here on God's green Earth!
This extremely destructive agent has been used in nuclear missile propulsion systems, high explosive devices, and is a leading cause of infrastructure collapse!
Known as 'Element 8' This substance must be banned! Our wise and benevolent leaders have been combining Element 8 with simple carbon atoms in order to render it harmless and reduce its availability to the terrorists. These valiant efforts are opposed by environmental activists who are merely duped by our socialist enemies!
Write to your Congressman and Senator today and have them join the fight to ban 'Element 8', before it is used to destroy us all!
You are correct, and your comments point to another example of 'good enough' and cheaper winning in the market place.
Think about the Itanium pure 64-bit chip architecture and the 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture that AMD developed. Itanium was technically far superior. Intel even developed an emulation mechanism for support of older software.
But x86-64 was 'good enough' and a lot cheaper. They were both innovative designs. The x86-64 much less so, but still innovative.
Now Intel sells many more chips with the AMD extensions than it sells Itaniums.
'Good enough' and cheaper.
This is why Microsoft fears Linux. Linux is 'good enough' and cheaper. Bill Gates made Billions selling 'good enough' and cheaper, now he faces a product that 'out-cheapers' his. MS products do some things better than Linux, but Linux does some things better than MS. Both are 'good enough', Linux is cheaper.
But investors should not worry. Apple used to be the market leader in the Micro Computer market (they weren't called personal computers until the Eighties). The Apple II was the single best selling microcomputer. It took Apple 4 years to sell its 1 Millionth Apple II. Now that Apple only has 5% market share many people think it is done for! The opposite is true. Apple sells 10-15 Million Macs each quarter, 40 to 60 Million units each year. It has much less market share but is a much larger wealthier company than when it was the market leader.
Microsoft may lose market share over the next 20 years, but it will probably be a much larger wealthier company. It will justify its market niche by selling those extra features you mention. Linux will be the low cost generic kind of OS, and MS will have some specialty boutique OS's with extra features that meet specific needs.
MS should not try to copy Apple though, they should think in terms of business needs. encryption for financial markets and medical records, interfaces with robotic industrial equipment so the front office can automate factory and warehouse supply needs with third party vendors, innovate in terms of business instead of design and art like Apple does.
Business automation is a bigger market than computer games. Gaming seems to be the only narket MS has been doing well in. Gaming is a big market in terms of money, but guys in suits never take games seriously (their loss: it is as big as Hollywood in yearly profits). Microsoft can do better than just set top boxes and media centers.
With the debut of Windows 3.1 'good enough' became the accepted norm in computing.
You could pay more for a NeXT workstation, a Sun workstation, or even a Mac. However Windows 3.1 was 'good enough'. Most people didn't need networking support built in, or the compilers or software that was available for the other platforms.
You could have gone all multimedia with a fancy Amiga that did incredible sound and graphics, but 16 colors and trading files via floppy was 'good enough' for the majority of people. You could add hardware and software to Windows 3.1 computers if you really had a need to network them. The computers Windows ran on were capable of displaying better graphics (games that booted to DOS showed this), but Windows 3.1 was 'good enough'.
Windows 3.1 really did make computers easier to use. Macs, Amigas and NeXT did a 'better' job of making computers easier for people, but Windows 3.1 did a 'good enough' job at making things easier. At about US$2,400.00, a mid range computer with Win 3.1 on it was a lot cheaper than the competition. It was 'good enough' and cheaper.
The history of economics shows that 'good enough' and cheap wins.
Think of the 'best' hamburger that you ever ate...
Did you think of a plain old McDonald's hamburger? Probably not. In any scale of human measure (taste, smell, satisfaction) McDonald's hamburgers rarely rank as 'best'. But measured in market share the McDonald's hamburger is the best.
Ford's Model T was not as fast or as fancy or as comfortable or as good in quality as the hand crafted automobiles it competed with. But thanks to mass production and economies of scale it was cheaper and it was 'good enough'. Ford and other mass produced vehicles dominated the market. There are still purpose built vehicles, but they are a small specialty segment of the market.
'Good enough' and cheap is always the 'best' when you consider things from a market dominance point of view. What a human thinks is 'best' and what the market thinks is 'best' are not the same thing.
If Microsoft wants to compare imaginary not yet released software to actual software, I set let them and Google play games with beta releases. The rest of us have actual work to do.
Notice how police and security organizations fit this description so well...
There are often police and security personnel at or near sensitive facilities, including government, military or other high profile sites or places where large numbers of people congregate
Police and security personnel often engage in surveillance, including recording or monitoring activities, drawing diagrams, note taking, use of cameras, binoculars or other vision-enhancing devices or possessing floor plans or blueprints of key facilities
Police and security personnel elicit and have obtained information regarding the operation, security and personnel-related information regarding key facilities. This has been done by mail, fax, e-mail, telephone or in person.
Police and security personnel often engage in tests and attempts to measure reaction times to security breaches or to penetrate physical security barriers or procedures in order to assess strengths and weaknesses
Police and security personnel stockpile supplies of items that could be used in a terrorist act by others. This may include the acquisition of explosives, weapons, harmful chemicals, flight manuals, law enforcement or military equipment, uniforms, identification badges or the equipment to manufacture false identification
Police and security personnel are often in the presence of Suspicious Persons: Someone who does not appear to belong in a workplace, neighborhood or business establishment due to their behavior, including unusual questions or statements they make
Police and security personnel often engage in Dry Runs/Trial Runs: Behavior that appears to be preparation for an act. Their activities could include mapping out routes and determining the timing of traffic lights and flow
Police and security personnel engage in the deployment of assets: Placing people, equipment and supplies into position to commit an act. This is the last opportunity to alert authorities before the act occurs
Why do so many cops have those cheesy 'cop mustaches'? Is there some cultish religious significance or just bad grooming?
Seems like the Virginia state police has painted a picture of the average terrorist that describes themselves much more accurately than it describes anyone on Slashdot.
If you stick with Windows you have to retrain them every four or five years, and if you switch from Windows you have to retrain them. So you have to retrain no matter what.
Of course with Open Source you get to set the schedule and work it into your budget. With Windows you get a year or two window that Redmond chooses for you to make the switch.
In WWII Japanese troop strength was determined by tracking logistics. Judging the amount of water requested delivered to islands allowed the allies to determine troop levels on those islands.
user@ubuntu_box$ sudo su [sudo] password for user: < type your user password and hit enter > root@ubuntu_box:/home/user#
Not as clean as pure su to root (you have to type 'sudo su' instead of just typing 'su' and you use your user password instead of a root password), but you now have a root prompt until you type exit or ctrl-d.
As a youth, all of my snow shoveling and lawn mowing money was spent at The American Science Center on Northwest Highway in Chicago.
It now has a new location and name, American Science and Surplus. This store has all of the pre-packaged gadgety gizmos the commercial science stores have, plus surplus electronic and mechanical equipment to use in more creative projects.
It was the fault of this store that I ended up majoring in Physics. I know many other kids that ended up being engineers and scientists because of the projects that this store supplied the hardware to make. Chemistry, Physics, Biology, electronics, mechanical; whatever your interest this place has the material you need to explore it!
The purpose if Intellectual Ventures is to harass and intimidate Microsoft competitors, but to do so in a way that Microsoft can keep its hands clean.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen have contributed knowledge and expertise to many 'think tanks' for fee and for free. Why the secrecy here?
Microsoft is a ruthless competitor with a long history of dirty tricks. They didn't invent FUD (Check w/ IBM for that), but they are masters of FUD-foo.
Intellectual Ventures needs to have a large enough portfolio to bring pressure to bear where Microsoft wants that pressure applied. It does not matter to Microsoft that IV succeeds or fails in law suits, as long as Microsoft competitors can be harassed, intimidated and drained of funds.
All of this may be completely legal. Is it unethical? that depends on your ethics. For many people in the business world, if something is not illegal, then it is not unethical to do that something.
While I'm a firm believer in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I think it is good to see Red Hat developers (or any developers) looking to future needs and being allowed to devote development time towards those needs.
Xorg isn't broken for most users right now, but planning and creating alternatives is a good idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Bing gives us what Google already gave us 10 years ago. This is a major advance for Microsoft.
They used to be the company that gave us what Apple gave us a decade ago, now they are the company that gives us what Google gave us a decade ago.
It's good to see that Microsoft is not stagnating, but is still able to trail way behind its competitors always trying to be something it isn't.
I miss the Microsoft of the 1980's, when they actually had products that weren't copies of everybody else's products.
Erlang is an older established language designed for parallel processing.
Erlang was first developed in 1986, making it about a decade older than Java or Ruby. It is younger than Perl or C, and just a tad older than Python. It is a mature language with a large support community, especially in industrial applications. It is time tested and proven.
It is also Open source and offers many options for commercial support.
Before anyone at DARPA thinks that they can design a better language for concurrent parallel programming then I think they should be forced to spend 1 year learning Ada, and a second year working in Ada. If they survive they will most likely be cured of the thought that the Defense department can design good programming languages
Who would like to bet that some big pharmaceutical company has a patented medication just for 'Bitterness'.
Of course they can't get the health insurance companies to pay for expensive prescriptions unless it is a mental disorder. Otherwise taking the medication would be an 'elective' treatment, not a medical requirement.
The terrorists have H-Bombs! Your information resources are amazing!
DHMO contains Element 8! Every DHMO caused death is an Element 8 caused death.
Element 8, on its own, can kill in many ways that DHMO cannot!
Element 8 is used to make dihydrogen monoxide!
DHMO is another way that Element 8 kills innocent people everyday.
It is a well established scientific fact that 100% of terrorists use a readily available, totally unregulated oxidizing agent to maintain their very existence here on God's green Earth!
This extremely destructive agent has been used in nuclear missile propulsion systems, high explosive devices, and is a leading cause of infrastructure collapse!
Known as 'Element 8' This substance must be banned! Our wise and benevolent leaders have been combining Element 8 with simple carbon atoms in order to render it harmless and reduce its availability to the terrorists. These valiant efforts are opposed by environmental activists who are merely duped by our socialist enemies!
Write to your Congressman and Senator today and have them join the fight to ban 'Element 8', before it is used to destroy us all!
</sarcasm>
You are correct, and your comments point to another example of 'good enough' and cheaper winning in the market place.
Think about the Itanium pure 64-bit chip architecture and the 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture that AMD developed. Itanium was technically far superior. Intel even developed an emulation mechanism for support of older software.
But x86-64 was 'good enough' and a lot cheaper. They were both innovative designs. The x86-64 much less so, but still innovative.
Now Intel sells many more chips with the AMD extensions than it sells Itaniums.
'Good enough' and cheaper.
This is why Microsoft fears Linux. Linux is 'good enough' and cheaper. Bill Gates made Billions selling 'good enough' and cheaper, now he faces a product that 'out-cheapers' his. MS products do some things better than Linux, but Linux does some things better than MS. Both are 'good enough', Linux is cheaper.
But investors should not worry. Apple used to be the market leader in the Micro Computer market (they weren't called personal computers until the Eighties). The Apple II was the single best selling microcomputer. It took Apple 4 years to sell its 1 Millionth Apple II. Now that Apple only has 5% market share many people think it is done for! The opposite is true. Apple sells 10-15 Million Macs each quarter, 40 to 60 Million units each year. It has much less market share but is a much larger wealthier company than when it was the market leader.
Microsoft may lose market share over the next 20 years, but it will probably be a much larger wealthier company. It will justify its market niche by selling those extra features you mention. Linux will be the low cost generic kind of OS, and MS will have some specialty boutique OS's with extra features that meet specific needs.
MS should not try to copy Apple though, they should think in terms of business needs. encryption for financial markets and medical records, interfaces with robotic industrial equipment so the front office can automate factory and warehouse supply needs with third party vendors, innovate in terms of business instead of design and art like Apple does.
Business automation is a bigger market than computer games. Gaming seems to be the only narket MS has been doing well in. Gaming is a big market in terms of money, but guys in suits never take games seriously (their loss: it is as big as Hollywood in yearly profits). Microsoft can do better than just set top boxes and media centers.
With the debut of Windows 3.1 'good enough' became the accepted norm in computing.
You could pay more for a NeXT workstation, a Sun workstation, or even a Mac. However Windows 3.1 was 'good enough'. Most people didn't need networking support built in, or the compilers or software that was available for the other platforms.
You could have gone all multimedia with a fancy Amiga that did incredible sound and graphics, but 16 colors and trading files via floppy was 'good enough' for the majority of people. You could add hardware and software to Windows 3.1 computers if you really had a need to network them. The computers Windows ran on were capable of displaying better graphics (games that booted to DOS showed this), but Windows 3.1 was 'good enough'.
Windows 3.1 really did make computers easier to use. Macs, Amigas and NeXT did a 'better' job of making computers easier for people, but Windows 3.1 did a 'good enough' job at making things easier. At about US$2,400.00, a mid range computer with Win 3.1 on it was a lot cheaper than the competition. It was 'good enough' and cheaper.
The history of economics shows that 'good enough' and cheap wins.
Think of the 'best' hamburger that you ever ate...
Did you think of a plain old McDonald's hamburger? Probably not. In any scale of human measure (taste, smell, satisfaction) McDonald's hamburgers rarely rank as 'best'. But measured in market share the McDonald's hamburger is the best.
Ford's Model T was not as fast or as fancy or as comfortable or as good in quality as the hand crafted automobiles it competed with. But thanks to mass production and economies of scale it was cheaper and it was 'good enough'. Ford and other mass produced vehicles dominated the market. There are still purpose built vehicles, but they are a small specialty segment of the market.
'Good enough' and cheap is always the 'best' when you consider things from a market dominance point of view. What a human thinks is 'best' and what the market thinks is 'best' are not the same thing.
"Do I see any serious problems with this story? Uh, yeah, maybe one or two..."
How about the fact tha Vista SP2 is not "in the marketplace" at all.
It hasn't been released yet and is still an RC candidate in beta testing!
If Microsoft wants to compare imaginary not yet released software to actual software, I set let them and Google play games with beta releases. The rest of us have actual work to do.
Did I say the police were terrorists?
I thought I said that the description they came up with applies to themselves more closely than it does to the typical Slashdotter.
Hey, its their description not mine.
Notice how police and security organizations fit this description so well...
Why do so many cops have those cheesy 'cop mustaches'? Is there some cultish religious significance or just bad grooming?
Seems like the Virginia state police has painted a picture of the average terrorist that describes themselves much more accurately than it describes anyone on Slashdot.
As already reported on Slashdot people don't know if it is Windows or not anymore.
If you stick with Windows you have to retrain them every four or five years, and if you switch from Windows you have to retrain them. So you have to retrain no matter what.
Of course with Open Source you get to set the schedule and work it into your budget. With Windows you get a year or two window that Redmond chooses for you to make the switch.
Mantissa thinks 4 is "Do not mention GNU/Linux, do not mention open source (it might frighten away Windows admins)"
none of them can sustain fusion.
The only man made devices that have produced true fusion are Hydrogen bombs. (They are not sustainable)
Everything else is 'getting close', and has been since the late 1950's.
I stand by my comment. We need workable controlled fusion to make a fusion powered drive. Until then it is not science, just fiction.
Get real people, or go hang out with Fleischmann and Pons.
Shouldn't we have 'workable fusion' first in order to base the starship's propulsion system on it?
If we don't have to develop a workable fusion engine first, then they should use my idea. It will allow travel at twice the speed of light.
All we need is fairy dust and unicorn piss to power it.
In WWII Japanese troop strength was determined by tracking logistics. Judging the amount of water requested delivered to islands allowed the allies to determine troop levels on those islands.
There are no non-critical systems in war time.
Try the following:
user@ubuntu_box$ sudo su
[sudo] password for user: < type your user password and hit enter >
root@ubuntu_box:/home/user#
Not as clean as pure su to root (you have to type 'sudo su' instead of just typing 'su' and you use your user password instead of a root password), but you now have a root prompt until you type exit or ctrl-d.
Pearls of mathematical wisdom.
Get this book
As a youth, all of my snow shoveling and lawn mowing money was spent at The American Science Center on Northwest Highway in Chicago.
It now has a new location and name, American Science and Surplus. This store has all of the pre-packaged gadgety gizmos the commercial science stores have, plus surplus electronic and mechanical equipment to use in more creative projects.
It was the fault of this store that I ended up majoring in Physics. I know many other kids that ended up being engineers and scientists because of the projects that this store supplied the hardware to make. Chemistry, Physics, Biology, electronics, mechanical; whatever your interest this place has the material you need to explore it!
The purpose if Intellectual Ventures is to harass and intimidate Microsoft competitors, but to do so in a way that Microsoft can keep its hands clean.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen have contributed knowledge and expertise to many 'think tanks' for fee and for free. Why the secrecy here?
Microsoft is a ruthless competitor with a long history of dirty tricks. They didn't invent FUD (Check w/ IBM for that), but they are masters of FUD-foo.
Intellectual Ventures needs to have a large enough portfolio to bring pressure to bear where Microsoft wants that pressure applied. It does not matter to Microsoft that IV succeeds or fails in law suits, as long as Microsoft competitors can be harassed, intimidated and drained of funds.
All of this may be completely legal. Is it unethical? that depends on your ethics. For many people in the business world, if something is not illegal, then it is not unethical to do that something.
While I'm a firm believer in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I think it is good to see Red Hat developers (or any developers) looking to future needs and being allowed to devote development time towards those needs.
Xorg isn't broken for most users right now, but planning and creating alternatives is a good idea.
RPG?
Did you work on system 38 or AS400?
It finds my old web page hosted on delphi.com. I wrote that HTML on an Apple IIgs in 1996 or so.
That is cool.
Of course the link doesn't work and the archive no longer contains the page. But it was in Google's index.
I hope COBOL wasn't the cause the seemingly random noun capitalization above (boldfaced by me).
Nasty habit ingrained by years of programming mainframes. Symptoms include a strange aversion to the words 'go' and 'to'.