To ask if Java were new we would use it today, while valid as an abstract and absolute measure, is irrelevant in today's software world context.
Java is HUGELY entrenched in today's business software market, probably even more so if one weights by overall company valuation (i.e. Java's market share by company valuation is substantial, perhaps even dominant).
Open sourcing it matters since Java's growth and maintenance matter, as the investment in Java is substantial and unlikely to change any time soon.
Java's never gonna be the hot young thing in programming again (if it ever was), but that's irrelevant to the question of open sourcing it. Java has substantial value, and open sourcing software of value matters. Doing things that alter the growth and maintenance plans of a heavily vested technology matter.
Further, this:
Today it's possible to do anything with Java, but no one developer can do everything -- there simply aren't enough hours in the day to learn it all.
is a tautology. No developer can do everything with C++ either, that doesn't lessen its value or relevance. Neither does Java's complexity or unwieldiness lessen the value gained in being able to learn from and modify how it has implemented things.
I personally don't get this constant desire on some people's part to denigrate Java. Some sort of Comp Sci elitism for the business language?
Claiming open sourcing Java doesn't matter is like claiming open sourcing windows wouldn't matter; the same arguments apply. Windows is unwieldy and complex, and competing software generally does things better than windows.
The masses = programmers building business software.
The masses tend to use established languages with established frameworks, because their bosses say so.
Their bosses say so because they(the bosses) don't want to pay for re-inventing and then maintain the proverbial wheel.
Hence, no matter how hotshit/elegant/orgasm-inducing/LISP-ish/un-PERL-ish/whatever a language is, if doesn't have a viable persistence model and/or mvc, etc... corporate folk won't use it.
It was also encouraged in some part by the fact that the first clock which worked reliably on a ship, which you refer to, was invented by the Englishman John Harrison. This book, which discusses the inventor and his invention, is quite interesting and worth a read.
The original mean went through Paris, but shifted to Greenwich as a result of the aforementioned invention, and the naval political pull the British earned as a result.
I think, for reasons that will hopefully enrage the people doing it, "intelligent design" studies should be publicly funded on the off chance that some future mutated version of it becomes useful in some part of science. Though I doubt it will look anything like the stuff I see now.
Studies?!? Publicly funded studies?!?! What, Iraq isn't enough of a money pit for the american taxpayers? What would "studies" of ID involve? Prayer? Peyote? Assembling a catalogue of biological traits with little to no fossil record on how they came to be and ascribing them to God?
The very problem with ID is that there is nothing to "study", nothing to test. Perhaps one should instruct God to design a winged monkey?
The thing that drives me absolutely apeshit about ID is that one of the greatest gifts humanity has is our capacity for rational thought, and when people purposely switch it off to adhere to some dogmatic crap, it takes that gift for granted.
If there is an afterlife, don't you think St. Peter/Osiris/Charon/whoever would ask "and what did you do with this awesome ability you were blessed with?"
The fact that you've only deprecated a bullshit hack like autoSpaceLikeWord95(which still requires that implementers must implement support for it), in fact proves that: a) the issue hasn't been resolved, just trivially mitigated enough for your truthiness spinning to just barely squeak buy as not an outright lie to anyone non technical b) *proves* nothing of the sort
That OpenOffice, SunOffice, and any other office suite has to implement handling for something called "autoSpaceLikeWord95" *proves* that the standard is in at least some parts an XML dump of MS Office's data model, and also *proves* that you're a corporate shill and/or idiotic MS/MS-funded PR hack to be spouting such misleading and self-contradictory rhetorical shit.
If anyone tried to introduce a new markup standard for the web, for example, with something like that, they'd get ridden out on a rail, unless you jackasses managed to buy out that process too.
You cannot distract from the simple fact that: a) a standard should be platform independent b) were I to implement some software supporting OOXML, I would have to handle crap like autoSpaceLikeWord95 c) if I ever submitted a schema with an attribute or element named thusly, I would be shitcanned as soon as the CTO finished wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, and rightly so
The Minister slammed software patents. Microsoft is slamming FOSS. While MS's slam, in and of itself, is flawed, it's also somewhat irrelevant. A piece of software that isn't patented isn't necessarily FOSS.
Consider the one-click buying patent, a favourite whipping boy(rightly so). This could be implemented with.NET, silverlight, VBScript, MSSQL, on windows server 2003, and not patented.
The MS exec is trying to make a flawed implication(that absence of software patents == FOSS), because they think it helps their argument. That it doesn't help their argument is part and parcel to MS's failure to understand the FOSS movement.
In other words, MS is doubly wrong, and Linux pwns Steve Ballmer in the ear.
As an atheist myself, I'm sure he would take it in the spirit it was given, one of respect and admiration for his accomplishments, and sadness at his passing, the opinions of a semantic nitpicker and pompous shithead(i.e. you) notwithstanding.
A good point. A lot of ideas he conceived/incubated/popularized have done much for humanity. Aside from his watershed prose, his ideas are a testament to human ingenuity and imagination.
Flash's market share is definitely changing, I would even go so far as to categorize it as evolving (intelligently designed?!?!).
Less and less do I see the annoying flash "site intros", and full flash sites have plateaued, I'd hypothesize they are weighed down by the increased maintenance costs, but flash has found increased usage with youtube and the like, as well as newgrounds and the like.
I realise you mentioned these two points, but here's what you missed: Flex/ActionScript 3 is getting serious attention from the Enterprise Application space.
For those who don't know, Flash's scripting language underwent essentially a rebuild recently; it's now fully ECMAScript compliant and to devs who speak C++ or Java, it's not that hard to learn. (e.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript and read about the current version). The thing about doing stuff with CSS, javascript, HTML, AJAX, etc... is that enterprise devs, who've learned mostly Java or C++, and not had to deal with one piece of code doing wildly different things on one platform vs. another, etc... have a hard time adapting to the non-standards compliant and divergent browsers. Also, many enterprise app owners would like to do things that are difficult/impractical in the AJAX models, e.g. charting (don't tell me SVG, good luck getting that to run on IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari).
Nothing has hit the public mainstream yet (I'd bet good money google's cooking up some sexeh stuff), but the new flash platform has definitely garnered attention in spaces where it used to be perceived as a technology for making ad banners. I believe their market share is increasing, not decreasing. Flex is, in the parlance of our times, hot shit.
Wait a minute, let me get this straight, you can turn a card upside down or sideways?!?! That's awesome!
I think I just had a stroke.... of genius!
What if you turn the card upside down and sideways? That's a whole new paradigm on the approach to card movement that no one's ever thought of before. I call it full vertical and semi tranversal inversion of a rectangular semi-rigid laminated paper pictographic and/or textual display unit. I invented it! It's mine!!!
Not that I'm a fan of his or anything, but Chavez was democratically elected. If all it took to be called a dictator was being a blowhard with some odd policies that haven't panned out so well, and foreigners wondering what the hell your country was smoking to have elected such a douche, then I know a certain schmuck in the white house who's a dictator.
"Not reading the summary" is the new "Not reading TFA"./. shall have crossed the event horizon when people no longer even read the headline, and just offer random noise disguised as comments, which will then be modded insightful.
Oh, wait...
Fixed that for ya.
Lets hope that is enough muscle strength to stop a judge running wild in favor of a bunch of offshore bankers
No, let's hope it isn't. I'm not saying I think wikileaks should be shut down. I'm saying that I loathe the notion that what it takes to get it back up is "muscle". I hope the wikileaks suppression order is rescinded because of sound legal arguments.
That's probably unlikely. Keep in mind that a higher orbit requires more than just altitude, it also requires angular velocity. The explosion would have to impart enough kinetic energy to not just overcome the gravitational potential to reach the altitude of other sats, but also to impart the necessary angular velocity about the earth.
The US military is probably aware of the max velocity of debris from their different ordinance. As much as the US administration is full of morons, the physicists designing the ordinance and planning stuff like this are quite competent.
Slashdot Mirror
To ask if Java were new we would use it today, while valid as an abstract and absolute measure, is irrelevant in today's software world context.
Java is HUGELY entrenched in today's business software market, probably even more so if one weights by overall company valuation (i.e. Java's market share by company valuation is substantial, perhaps even dominant).
Open sourcing it matters since Java's growth and maintenance matter, as the investment in Java is substantial and unlikely to change any time soon.
Java's never gonna be the hot young thing in programming again (if it ever was), but that's irrelevant to the question of open sourcing it. Java has substantial value, and open sourcing software of value matters. Doing things that alter the growth and maintenance plans of a heavily vested technology matter.
Further, this:
is a tautology. No developer can do everything with C++ either, that doesn't lessen its value or relevance. Neither does Java's complexity or unwieldiness lessen the value gained in being able to learn from and modify how it has implemented things.
I personally don't get this constant desire on some people's part to denigrate Java. Some sort of Comp Sci elitism for the business language?
Claiming open sourcing Java doesn't matter is like claiming open sourcing windows wouldn't matter; the same arguments apply. Windows is unwieldy and complex, and competing software generally does things better than windows.
The masses = programmers building business software.
The masses tend to use established languages with established frameworks, because their bosses say so.
Their bosses say so because they(the bosses) don't want to pay for re-inventing and then maintain the proverbial wheel.
Hence, no matter how hotshit/elegant/orgasm-inducing/LISP-ish/un-PERL-ish/whatever a language is, if doesn't have a viable persistence model and/or mvc, etc... corporate folk won't use it.
and then slashdot linked to them.
The original mean went through Paris, but shifted to Greenwich as a result of the aforementioned invention, and the naval political pull the British earned as a result.
But vegetarians don't eat fish, fish being animal rather than vegetable (or mineral). So do they still need the supplements?
hell yes, do you know how much meth is in texas?!?
Wait, I'm confused, you're saying the Harkonnens are jewish?
The fact that you've only deprecated a bullshit hack like autoSpaceLikeWord95(which still requires that implementers must implement support for it), in fact proves that:
a) the issue hasn't been resolved, just trivially mitigated enough for your truthiness spinning to just barely squeak buy as not an outright lie to anyone non technical
b) *proves* nothing of the sort
That OpenOffice, SunOffice, and any other office suite has to implement handling for something called "autoSpaceLikeWord95" *proves* that the standard is in at least some parts an XML dump of MS Office's data model, and also *proves* that you're a corporate shill and/or idiotic MS/MS-funded PR hack to be spouting such misleading and self-contradictory rhetorical shit.
If anyone tried to introduce a new markup standard for the web, for example, with something like that, they'd get ridden out on a rail, unless you jackasses managed to buy out that process too.
You cannot distract from the simple fact that:
a) a standard should be platform independent
b) were I to implement some software supporting OOXML, I would have to handle crap like autoSpaceLikeWord95
c) if I ever submitted a schema with an attribute or element named thusly, I would be shitcanned as soon as the CTO finished wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, and rightly so
Tell me you're not dumb enough to be posting from work?
You've *kind of* touched on an important point. ;)
.NET, silverlight, VBScript, MSSQL, on windows server 2003, and not patented.
The Minister slammed software patents. Microsoft is slamming FOSS. While MS's slam, in and of itself, is flawed, it's also somewhat irrelevant. A piece of software that isn't patented isn't necessarily FOSS.
Consider the one-click buying patent, a favourite whipping boy(rightly so). This could be implemented with
The MS exec is trying to make a flawed implication(that absence of software patents == FOSS), because they think it helps their argument. That it doesn't help their argument is part and parcel to MS's failure to understand the FOSS movement.
In other words, MS is doubly wrong, and Linux pwns Steve Ballmer in the ear.
As an atheist myself, I'm sure he would take it in the spirit it was given, one of respect and admiration for his accomplishments, and sadness at his passing, the opinions of a semantic nitpicker and pompous shithead(i.e. you) notwithstanding.
A good point. A lot of ideas he conceived/incubated/popularized have done much for humanity. Aside from his watershed prose, his ideas are a testament to human ingenuity and imagination.
God speed, Mr. Clarke.
Whoops, mis-modded you as flamebait, so I'm replying to undo it. Sorry about that.
I couldn't disagree more.
Flash's market share is definitely changing, I would even go so far as to categorize it as evolving (intelligently designed?!?!).
Less and less do I see the annoying flash "site intros", and full flash sites have plateaued, I'd hypothesize they are weighed down by the increased maintenance costs, but flash has found increased usage with youtube and the like, as well as newgrounds and the like.
I realise you mentioned these two points, but here's what you missed: Flex/ActionScript 3 is getting serious attention from the Enterprise Application space.
For those who don't know, Flash's scripting language underwent essentially a rebuild recently; it's now fully ECMAScript compliant and to devs who speak C++ or Java, it's not that hard to learn. (e.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript and read about the current version). The thing about doing stuff with CSS, javascript, HTML, AJAX, etc... is that enterprise devs, who've learned mostly Java or C++, and not had to deal with one piece of code doing wildly different things on one platform vs. another, etc... have a hard time adapting to the non-standards compliant and divergent browsers. Also, many enterprise app owners would like to do things that are difficult/impractical in the AJAX models, e.g. charting (don't tell me SVG, good luck getting that to run on IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari).
Nothing has hit the public mainstream yet (I'd bet good money google's cooking up some sexeh stuff), but the new flash platform has definitely garnered attention in spaces where it used to be perceived as a technology for making ad banners. I believe their market share is increasing, not decreasing. Flex is, in the parlance of our times, hot shit.
Wait a minute, let me get this straight, you can turn a card upside down or sideways?!?! That's awesome! I think I just had a stroke.... of genius! What if you turn the card upside down and sideways? That's a whole new paradigm on the approach to card movement that no one's ever thought of before. I call it full vertical and semi tranversal inversion of a rectangular semi-rigid laminated paper pictographic and/or textual display unit. I invented it! It's mine!!!
Not that I'm a fan of his or anything, but Chavez was democratically elected. If all it took to be called a dictator was being a blowhard with some odd policies that haven't panned out so well, and foreigners wondering what the hell your country was smoking to have elected such a douche, then I know a certain schmuck in the white house who's a dictator.
Don't forget NAMBLA!
Yes, I know, "their" not "they're". It's friday, it's 5:30 and I have to work this weekend, so grammar nazis can all go swing.
You go to war with the self-powered cloaking armor you have...
That's probably unlikely. Keep in mind that a higher orbit requires more than just altitude, it also requires angular velocity. The explosion would have to impart enough kinetic energy to not just overcome the gravitational potential to reach the altitude of other sats, but also to impart the necessary angular velocity about the earth.
The US military is probably aware of the max velocity of debris from their different ordinance. As much as the US administration is full of morons, the physicists designing the ordinance and planning stuff like this are quite competent.