Actually you should leave your PC on 24/7. This avoids damage related to constantly heating and cooling the device (hard drives in particular are subject to this problem). Of course, when it does fail one day it will be catastrophic; but you should have a good disaster recovery plan for that...
On the other hand you should turn off your monitor (whether it is an LCD or a CRT) when you are done for the day; this extends the monitor's life because things that produce light have a tendency to burn out after X amount of use (a good example is the light bulb - which always burns out 10% sooner than anticipated).
"Co-opetition" is a pretty common business buzzword, often uttered in the same sentence as "synergy" and "solution".
So, you agree then that it is a weasel word?
Clichés and jargon that is not necessary (and most of it is not necessary) serve only to point us toward the weak link in the armor of the given statements. I was pointing out the interesting phenomenon of the sheer amount of these terms presented by Microsoft employees, and the interesting connotations of the words chosen.
One thing Microsoft knows well is the art of 'co-opetition' - competing and also cooperating....or maybe 'co-opting' the competition?
Where do they get these guys? No one I know talks like Microsofties - which gives me the feeling I'm listening to a snake oil/car salesman. They slip up in little ways that gives you a picture of the inner truth - that is only possible if they are keeping a tight reign on their inner voice for public consumption.
Space is essentially the only frontier we have left...
Actually the oceans make up most of the surface area of the Earth - and we have not even scratched the surface of that vast area.
Instead of dragging fishing nets through it without understanding the impacts, maybe we should spend some time determining how to sustain its bounty - while exploring its unsolved mysteries that might provide solutions to other problems.
In reply to the parent: the word 'leech' comes to mind.
From the begining the Microsoft crew has ridden the back of the PC industry. Not only have they blood-sucked consumers, they have made life hell for developers by leveraging their monopoly on the desktop to suppress standards, maniacal attempts to bring all developers to a mediocre 'good enough' level of capabilities (considering they are competing directly with the same developers they support, this is not surprising).
When your company gets so big that it can control whole markets and squelch true competition - then you have a responsibility to society to use that power in ways that are not detrimental to minority groups or society as a whole.
Microsoft has been shown to be a bad custodian of their monopoly power. They were rightfully convicted of anti-trust violations. To clarify what a trust is, I refer to the dictionary:
When companies think their only responsibility lies with the shareholders - they will make decisions that are not in the best interests of society. When they control major markets and whole industries - this combination can be very detrimental to innovation and competition of those markets - not to mention peripheral impacts (environmental etc).
As a person I am held to certain standards of behavior. If Microsoft were a person I would not turn my back on him. Sadly Microsoft is getting preferential treatment (slap on the wrist - as one example from the Anti-Trust case) that no reasonable person could justify towards a real person under the same circumstances.
While it may be true that the output of a so-called 'good' programmer and 'poor' programmer are identical, the output's quality varies.
What this means (using arbitrary numbers) is if a good programmer takes X iterations to finalize a deliverable, the poor programmer may take X * 10 (for the sake of argument 10 times longer) to produce something that can be deployed. In other words, most of the output of a very good programmer is useful, whereas most of the output of a very poor programmer is garbage.
Even if it takes only two times or some fraction of time above 1 - over the course of many projects this will add up. The programmers who are good will be able to outperform 'poor' programmers over a fixed time span.
The sad part of all of this is the attempt to discredit these kind of arguments tends to erode what ever leverage 'good' developers can use to get just compensation for their efforts - leading management to think their programmers are interchangeable and replaceable gears in a machine. This leads them to hire based on this assumption, and make decisions regarding outsourcing based on these decisions. This ultimately leads to mediocre software, cost overruns, and missed due dates.
In a reaction to that I advise anyone who is now a 'programmer' to reinvent themselves as 'integrators', 'system developers', 'system architects' etc - expand your knowledge beyond a narrowly defined area to become more valuable to your employers/clients. Pursue higher education in your field (I would recommend a computer science degree to start off). Gain a deep understanding of everything surrounding your software - so you create better software and you also become a resource for hardware, network and operational considerations.
Overspecialization is the death knell of your career.
Using an iterative (spiral) development model you would have avoided this problem because as the layers of the onion are put on - you release it to end users, then you get feedback, modify your requirements to reflect the changes, and roll those changes into the next iteration - approaching a point of equilibrium.
Unless you are building for a problem that is easily understood (if I pull out the graphite rods the core will overheat), you will never have a complete specification before you begin implementation. Assuming otherwise is the folly of traditional (waterfall) methods. This is particularly true when dealing with UIs - human perception and needs are not subject to scientific axioms - other than 'Murphy's Law'.
Sadly, most development shops are still doing projects like it's the 1960s.
So, anyway, whilst PHP isn't directly Linux, it is part of the whole "Linux experience", along with Apache and Sendmail et al...
You can also say PHP, Apache, and Sendmail are part of the Solaris, or FreeBSD or HPUX or Unixware etc... experience. So it does not follow that Linux should be singled out.
Similarly saying I don't use Linux on the desktop is also irrelevant because that same desktop can be run under Solaris, FreeBSD, etc...
X windows, as an example of a key application that users interact with the operating system, is not Linux. Singling out Linux I think speaks to Microsoft's game plan - which you yourself link to staving off migrations from Windows to the most popular free POSIX distribution. That is not cynicism - that is observational fact (Microsofts rigged 'independent' TCO / 'get the facts' propaganda, many instances of embrace, extend, and destroy initiatives, and the antitrust case that they lost) - Microsoft does not play by the rules.
They stack the deck in their favor by breaking interoperability in various ways (taking advantage of loopholes in standards to break an open implementation - so their closed implementation becomes the standard) and then leveraging their monopoly on the desktop to attempt to corner the market. That is anticompetitive and morally repugnant. I think you would have to be naive not to see what they have done, and continue to do. There is good reason to be cynical with regard to Microsoft; if Microsoft was a person I would not turn my back on them.
Okay. I thought your reply was a bit tongue-in-cheek - so I replied that way on my own. When I think of Linux vs. Windows I don't think of peripheral tools and apps - most of which, at least on the free/open source side, will run on both platforms.
My question was directed at OS specific functionality - and you could even eliminate the windowing system as a point of reference if it were not imbedded in Windows (X windows is not the only windowing system for unices). What most folks think of as 'the operating system' is really just a visual abstraction layer overtop of the operating system's core functionality.
Obviously Linux is the biggest threat (although that is laughable because there are other kernels out there that could also do the same job - both free and proprietary; you chop off the head of one, and another appears to replace it) - so my question was an attempt to elicit a true response: "what is your agenda" with the lab? Many of us assume, probably rightfully, that it is not a true attempt to learn how to make Windows interoperate, as much as an attempt to find problems in Linux to discredit it, determine where they can leverage their embrace and extend modus operandi to gain advantage, and 'innovate' their own products using previously developed ideas in FOSS.
PHP does not really fall into that arena; it is valid to say - 'what about PHP in all of this?', but not necessarily with regard to Linux in particular.
My original point is that your post had nothing to do with the discussion at all, and was just "Dude, I'm so much cooler than that."
My intention was to highlight alternatives that most folks don't think about - or rail against - many vociferously, and dogmatically without taking the alternatives seriously. Just because something has market share does not make it a better implimentation (compare Apple and Microsoft OSs as a simple example of that).
I am not implying that I am 'cooler' because of my choices - that is your interpretation of my words (in fact being 41 - I know I am not 'cooler' than anyone). I just wanted to respond to a post that had nothing to do with my original post regarding the question for Microsoft's Linux lab - the original reply took a deviation - so I used that deviation as an opportunity to provide a little enlightenment regarding other options along the same lines - no less than that reply did.
Your perception of my reply as being motivated a certain way is incorrect - no matter how much you want it to be otherwise. That is all I am trying to get across to you.
Your assumptions are incorrect and obviously based upon the same buzz words most CIOs use to make erroneous decisions regarding infrastructure.
Our Oracle DB requires special utilities and the care of a DBA to back it up and restore it 'properly'. If our DBA gets run over by a bus we are SOL. You can stop the database and backup all the files involved - but it is an ugly proposition not amenable to automation.
I have many gigabytes worth of data in a ZODB - it is one single file, that I can backup while the system is running, and I can do it easily using existing CLI tools. Restoration is simply bringing down the application, copying the backup file into place, then restart the application - a matter of seconds usually. It is as scalable as a conventional RDBMS without the overhead - and the structures stored in it can be defined on the fly with no table redesigns or other administrative and design overhead that gets in the way of delivering working applications to my customers. Object databases are the future of data storage and obviate the need for an RDBMS.
Additionally, the ZODB has the ability to roll-back all changes made from the last packing of the database. You could also couple it with a version control system (such as CVS) to further provide restorability of individual objects back to 0-day if you really needed that level of recall.
Finally, when you hold up javascript next to python - one looks like a cobbled together mess, and the other is elegant (I'll give you a hint - python is the elegant one). For maintainability and ease of programming (and not having to embed said program into my content) python wins hands down.
For what I do these tools function perfectly and make my job a breeze compared to the hassles I've lived through doing things the old 'standard' way. I've used the other tools with varying success (javascript, perl, RDBMSs, java, ASPDB etc.) - and was able to get more done and lower costs and maintenance overhead using the tools I described. This has nothing to do with 'cool' and everything to do with being effective on the job. Have you tried other things than what is standard operating practice? I don't know about you, but I am always trying to find better ways to do my job.
Many KDE features are showing up in the latest version (Vista?) of Windoze.
This is probably a bad idea to copy FOSS - because if you don't differentiate your product there will be no impetus to move to it - particularly considering the price differential ( $0 vs $$$ ). Of course it could just be that 'embrace and extend' paradigm Microsoft has brought to a high artform. I would be interested to see how they 'extend' (i.e. break compatibility with) various standards in the coming years.
Our PMs, with one exception, do not understand software development. As such, they make bad assumptions regarding what needs to be done on a project.
So, I end up holding their hands and telling them how to do their job. Of course, on the next project I will get another PM - and the whole process starts over.
It would be better to do away with the PM, and raise my salary just 50% what that PM was making to do the same job. This would save the company quite a bit of dough over the long term and I would be properly compensated - particularly given the 'we've got to have this widget NOW!!!' syndrome that is prevalent with management.
They greatly appreciate what we do; they disrespect our interests in getting fairly compensated for it.
It's either the Lottery or dogfood for my retirement I fear...
I'd rather slit my wrists than use PHP or.NET for web - or any other programming.
I use Python on the backend (connected to an object data store) and TAL/XML on the front end. This all running on a Linux box with Medusa serving HTTP requests. This set up will run on any machine - including a Windoze box (why you would want to when you can wipe that blecherous OS and run Linux or FreeBSD instead...)
This ensures that I can easily manage content display consistently from the backend without worrying about whether one browser supports a particular javascript specification or not - and I don't have to embed any logic or number crunching in the document itself.
Of course that is beside the point - what exactly does this have to do with the original question?
I thought was really interesting is the fact that they allow you to still program it to use as a one button mouse...Those people that want the simplicity of a one button mouse surely won't be the ones changing the settings to disable the other buttons. After all, that sounds awfully hard to do!
I am guessing here - but knowing Apple (and for that matter Microshaft) interfaces I would assume there is no 'programming' going on here. Instead the user is presented with a GUI interface where they can switch off or on the various configuration options - probably with a pretty picture of a mouse that illustrates the outcome of what the user is asking.
I wouldn't consider that 'awfully hard' or 'programming' for that matter - compared to modifying an/etc/X11/XF86Config or xorg.conf file in X to do the same thing under some flavor of *nix. Although, it would probably be quicker:
vi/etc/X11/XF86Config # *edit and save the file* startx
I find it extremely useful to document the data structure returned from some funky API call - particularly useful for date/time constructs and other things where what is returned is not at all intuitive and/or riddled with exceptions:
# The datetime() subroutine in date.pm returns the following array items: # # 0 = year in blecherous two digit format: 05 = 2005 or 1905 (need conversion utility for that!) # 1 = month in the following format: 0=January, 1=February, 2=March, etc... # 2 = day of the month. Note: days 10 have no leading zero! # 3 = day of the week in the following format: 0=Sunday, 1=Monday, etc... # 4 = hour. Note: hours 10 have no leading zero! # 5 = minute. Note: minutes 10 have no leading zero! # 6 = second. Note: seconds 10 *DO* have leading zero! import date; @mydate=datetime;
Later, when I have to extract the data out of the array - or more importantly have to troubleshoot why the output date/time information is off, I can easily interpret the results (e.g. why is $mydate[0] a 4 digit number? Did someone change the library module?).
# Note: Non-functional example code for illustrative purposes only...
Those who can - do. Those who can't - are stuck with whatever DRM dross Redmond, or Cupertino care to provide.
Good luck on your rethinking...if you are avoiding Microsoft and Apple - that only leaves:
FreeBSD, Linux - and a stable of lesser known (and probably less easy to use - versus a Unix/clone anyway) OSs.
I would spend the time finding a good Linux distro that does what you need. Sorry - I had to say it. I can't fathom another solution (maybe OS2 - but that is old, and IBM is no longer supporting it).
I would be interested to see what you find - I could be wrong (I am not omnipotent after all).
From looking at the site, it appears most of the actual implementation is done by graduate students or PHD researchers - which might explain some of the choices made.
Nevertheless the mission of the W3C is: "To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web." It says nothing about implementing said protocols or guidelines - so anything we get from them that works is a plus imho. Additionally, the Amaya browser/xml editor has some very neat capabilities (annotating existing webpages - without altering the actual website of the originating document, mathematical formulas and vector graphics) that certainly make it a very good technology testbed. Finally all of the code they generate is GPL and OSI license equivalent. Given that and the fact that their Director is Tim Berners-Lee - I can cut them some slack.
Given its mission, I would go here first if I intended to implement those standards. Apparently Mozilla, IE, and other browsers do not think its important to do a complete implementation this go-round. Some of that might be ameliorated with plugins...if you really need some specific display functionality not covered by your favorite browser (that presumes you could implement a plugin yourself - or have friends who can do it for you).
Re:I liked Internet Explorer 7 the first time...
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 1
I guess I won't be going to Las Vegas any time soon...:)
Slashdot Mirror
You know what Bill says about this: "It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly, so you should look into that." :P
Actually you should leave your PC on 24/7. This avoids damage related to constantly heating and cooling the device (hard drives in particular are subject to this problem). Of course, when it does fail one day it will be catastrophic; but you should have a good disaster recovery plan for that...
On the other hand you should turn off your monitor (whether it is an LCD or a CRT) when you are done for the day; this extends the monitor's life because things that produce light have a tendency to burn out after X amount of use (a good example is the light bulb - which always burns out 10% sooner than anticipated).
"Co-opetition" is a pretty common business buzzword, often uttered in the same sentence as "synergy" and "solution".
So, you agree then that it is a weasel word?
Clichés and jargon that is not necessary (and most of it is not necessary) serve only to point us toward the weak link in the armor of the given statements. I was pointing out the interesting phenomenon of the sheer amount of these terms presented by Microsoft employees, and the interesting connotations of the words chosen.
One thing Microsoft knows well is the art of 'co-opetition' - competing and also cooperating. ...or maybe 'co-opting' the competition?
Where do they get these guys? No one I know talks like Microsofties - which gives me the feeling I'm listening to a snake oil/car salesman. They slip up in little ways that gives you a picture of the inner truth - that is only possible if they are keeping a tight reign on their inner voice for public consumption.
Space is essentially the only frontier we have left...
Actually the oceans make up most of the surface area of the Earth - and we have not even scratched the surface of that vast area.
Instead of dragging fishing nets through it without understanding the impacts, maybe we should spend some time determining how to sustain its bounty - while exploring its unsolved mysteries that might provide solutions to other problems.
In reply to the parent: the word 'leech' comes to mind.
From the begining the Microsoft crew has ridden the back of the PC industry. Not only have they blood-sucked consumers, they have made life hell for developers by leveraging their monopoly on the desktop to suppress standards, maniacal attempts to bring all developers to a mediocre 'good enough' level of capabilities (considering they are competing directly with the same developers they support, this is not surprising).
When your company gets so big that it can control whole markets and squelch true competition - then you have a responsibility to society to use that power in ways that are not detrimental to minority groups or society as a whole.
Microsoft has been shown to be a bad custodian of their monopoly power. They were rightfully convicted of anti-trust violations. To clarify what a trust is, I refer to the dictionary:
trust
Definition: responsibility
Synonyms: account, care, charge, custody, duty, guard, guardianship, keeping, liability, moment, obligation, protection, safekeeping, trusteeship, ward
When companies think their only responsibility lies with the shareholders - they will make decisions that are not in the best interests of society. When they control major markets and whole industries - this combination can be very detrimental to innovation and competition of those markets - not to mention peripheral impacts (environmental etc).
As a person I am held to certain standards of behavior. If Microsoft were a person I would not turn my back on him. Sadly Microsoft is getting preferential treatment (slap on the wrist - as one example from the Anti-Trust case) that no reasonable person could justify towards a real person under the same circumstances.
These guys would probably do the job - and they have quite a bit of experience porting Linux applications. The guy who runs the site was the founder of Loki Software - the now defunct Linux software company.
The key point I think you are missing:
While it may be true that the output of a so-called 'good' programmer and 'poor' programmer are identical, the output's quality varies.
What this means (using arbitrary numbers) is if a good programmer takes X iterations to finalize a deliverable, the poor programmer may take X * 10 (for the sake of argument 10 times longer) to produce something that can be deployed. In other words, most of the output of a very good programmer is useful, whereas most of the output of a very poor programmer is garbage.
Even if it takes only two times or some fraction of time above 1 - over the course of many projects this will add up. The programmers who are good will be able to outperform 'poor' programmers over a fixed time span.
The sad part of all of this is the attempt to discredit these kind of arguments tends to erode what ever leverage 'good' developers can use to get just compensation for their efforts - leading management to think their programmers are interchangeable and replaceable gears in a machine. This leads them to hire based on this assumption, and make decisions regarding outsourcing based on these decisions. This ultimately leads to mediocre software, cost overruns, and missed due dates.
In a reaction to that I advise anyone who is now a 'programmer' to reinvent themselves as 'integrators', 'system developers', 'system architects' etc - expand your knowledge beyond a narrowly defined area to become more valuable to your employers/clients. Pursue higher education in your field (I would recommend a computer science degree to start off). Gain a deep understanding of everything surrounding your software - so you create better software and you also become a resource for hardware, network and operational considerations.
Overspecialization is the death knell of your career.
Using an iterative (spiral) development model you would have avoided this problem because as the layers of the onion are put on - you release it to end users, then you get feedback, modify your requirements to reflect the changes, and roll those changes into the next iteration - approaching a point of equilibrium.
Unless you are building for a problem that is easily understood (if I pull out the graphite rods the core will overheat), you will never have a complete specification before you begin implementation. Assuming otherwise is the folly of traditional (waterfall) methods. This is particularly true when dealing with UIs - human perception and needs are not subject to scientific axioms - other than 'Murphy's Law'.
Sadly, most development shops are still doing projects like it's the 1960s.
So, anyway, whilst PHP isn't directly Linux, it is part of the whole "Linux experience", along with Apache and Sendmail et al...
You can also say PHP, Apache, and Sendmail are part of the Solaris, or FreeBSD or HPUX or Unixware etc... experience. So it does not follow that Linux should be singled out.
Similarly saying I don't use Linux on the desktop is also irrelevant because that same desktop can be run under Solaris, FreeBSD, etc...
X windows, as an example of a key application that users interact with the operating system, is not Linux. Singling out Linux I think speaks to Microsoft's game plan - which you yourself link to staving off migrations from Windows to the most popular free POSIX distribution. That is not cynicism - that is observational fact (Microsofts rigged 'independent' TCO / 'get the facts' propaganda, many instances of embrace, extend, and destroy initiatives, and the antitrust case that they lost) - Microsoft does not play by the rules.
They stack the deck in their favor by breaking interoperability in various ways (taking advantage of loopholes in standards to break an open implementation - so their closed implementation becomes the standard) and then leveraging their monopoly on the desktop to attempt to corner the market. That is anticompetitive and morally repugnant. I think you would have to be naive not to see what they have done, and continue to do. There is good reason to be cynical with regard to Microsoft; if Microsoft was a person I would not turn my back on them.
Okay. I thought your reply was a bit tongue-in-cheek - so I replied that way on my own. When I think of Linux vs. Windows I don't think of peripheral tools and apps - most of which, at least on the free/open source side, will run on both platforms.
My question was directed at OS specific functionality - and you could even eliminate the windowing system as a point of reference if it were not imbedded in Windows (X windows is not the only windowing system for unices). What most folks think of as 'the operating system' is really just a visual abstraction layer overtop of the operating system's core functionality.
Obviously Linux is the biggest threat (although that is laughable because there are other kernels out there that could also do the same job - both free and proprietary; you chop off the head of one, and another appears to replace it) - so my question was an attempt to elicit a true response: "what is your agenda" with the lab? Many of us assume, probably rightfully, that it is not a true attempt to learn how to make Windows interoperate, as much as an attempt to find problems in Linux to discredit it, determine where they can leverage their embrace and extend modus operandi to gain advantage, and 'innovate' their own products using previously developed ideas in FOSS.
PHP does not really fall into that arena; it is valid to say - 'what about PHP in all of this?', but not necessarily with regard to Linux in particular.
If I had points I would mod this reply up 'Funny'.
(ah - at least I think you are trying to be humorous, right?)
My original point is that your post had nothing to do with the discussion at all, and was just "Dude, I'm so much cooler than that."
My intention was to highlight alternatives that most folks don't think about - or rail against - many vociferously, and dogmatically without taking the alternatives seriously. Just because something has market share does not make it a better implimentation (compare Apple and Microsoft OSs as a simple example of that).
I am not implying that I am 'cooler' because of my choices - that is your interpretation of my words (in fact being 41 - I know I am not 'cooler' than anyone). I just wanted to respond to a post that had nothing to do with my original post regarding the question for Microsoft's Linux lab - the original reply took a deviation - so I used that deviation as an opportunity to provide a little enlightenment regarding other options along the same lines - no less than that reply did.
Your perception of my reply as being motivated a certain way is incorrect - no matter how much you want it to be otherwise. That is all I am trying to get across to you.
Your assumptions are incorrect and obviously based upon the same buzz words most CIOs use to make erroneous decisions regarding infrastructure.
Our Oracle DB requires special utilities and the care of a DBA to back it up and restore it 'properly'. If our DBA gets run over by a bus we are SOL. You can stop the database and backup all the files involved - but it is an ugly proposition not amenable to automation.
I have many gigabytes worth of data in a ZODB - it is one single file, that I can backup while the system is running, and I can do it easily using existing CLI tools. Restoration is simply bringing down the application, copying the backup file into place, then restart the application - a matter of seconds usually. It is as scalable as a conventional RDBMS without the overhead - and the structures stored in it can be defined on the fly with no table redesigns or other administrative and design overhead that gets in the way of delivering working applications to my customers. Object databases are the future of data storage and obviate the need for an RDBMS.
Additionally, the ZODB has the ability to roll-back all changes made from the last packing of the database. You could also couple it with a version control system (such as CVS) to further provide restorability of individual objects back to 0-day if you really needed that level of recall.
Finally, when you hold up javascript next to python - one looks like a cobbled together mess, and the other is elegant (I'll give you a hint - python is the elegant one). For maintainability and ease of programming (and not having to embed said program into my content) python wins hands down.
For what I do these tools function perfectly and make my job a breeze compared to the hassles I've lived through doing things the old 'standard' way. I've used the other tools with varying success (javascript, perl, RDBMSs, java, ASPDB etc.) - and was able to get more done and lower costs and maintenance overhead using the tools I described. This has nothing to do with 'cool' and everything to do with being effective on the job. Have you tried other things than what is standard operating practice? I don't know about you, but I am always trying to find better ways to do my job.
You might try it before you put it down out of hand.
Many KDE features are showing up in the latest version (Vista?) of Windoze.
This is probably a bad idea to copy FOSS - because if you don't differentiate your product there will be no impetus to move to it - particularly considering the price differential ( $0 vs $$$ ). Of course it could just be that 'embrace and extend' paradigm Microsoft has brought to a high artform. I would be interested to see how they 'extend' (i.e. break compatibility with) various standards in the coming years.
Our PMs, with one exception, do not understand software development. As such, they make bad assumptions regarding what needs to be done on a project.
So, I end up holding their hands and telling them how to do their job. Of course, on the next project I will get another PM - and the whole process starts over.
It would be better to do away with the PM, and raise my salary just 50% what that PM was making to do the same job. This would save the company quite a bit of dough over the long term and I would be properly compensated - particularly given the 'we've got to have this widget NOW!!!' syndrome that is prevalent with management.
They greatly appreciate what we do; they disrespect our interests in getting fairly compensated for it.
It's either the Lottery or dogfood for my retirement I fear...
I'd rather slit my wrists than use PHP or .NET for web - or any other programming.
I use Python on the backend (connected to an object data store) and TAL/XML on the front end. This all running on a Linux box with Medusa serving HTTP requests. This set up will run on any machine - including a Windoze box (why you would want to when you can wipe that blecherous OS and run Linux or FreeBSD instead...)
This ensures that I can easily manage content display consistently from the backend without worrying about whether one browser supports a particular javascript specification or not - and I don't have to embed any logic or number crunching in the document itself.
Of course that is beside the point - what exactly does this have to do with the original question?
What are your marching orders for the Linux lab? (are you looking at interoperability with Windows - or is there something else on the agenda?)
I thought was really interesting is the fact that they allow you to still program it to use as a one button mouse...Those people that want the simplicity of a one button mouse surely won't be the ones changing the settings to disable the other buttons. After all, that sounds awfully hard to do!
/etc/X11/XF86Config or xorg.conf file in X to do the same thing under some flavor of *nix. Although, it would probably be quicker:
/etc/X11/XF86Config
I am guessing here - but knowing Apple (and for that matter Microshaft) interfaces I would assume there is no 'programming' going on here. Instead the user is presented with a GUI interface where they can switch off or on the various configuration options - probably with a pretty picture of a mouse that illustrates the outcome of what the user is asking.
I wouldn't consider that 'awfully hard' or 'programming' for that matter - compared to modifying an
vi
# *edit and save the file*
startx
I find it extremely useful to document the data structure returned from some funky API call - particularly useful for date/time constructs and other things where what is returned is not at all intuitive and/or riddled with exceptions:
# The datetime() subroutine in date.pm returns the following array items:
#
# 0 = year in blecherous two digit format: 05 = 2005 or 1905 (need conversion utility for that!)
# 1 = month in the following format: 0=January, 1=February, 2=March, etc...
# 2 = day of the month. Note: days 10 have no leading zero!
# 3 = day of the week in the following format: 0=Sunday, 1=Monday, etc...
# 4 = hour. Note: hours 10 have no leading zero!
# 5 = minute. Note: minutes 10 have no leading zero!
# 6 = second. Note: seconds 10 *DO* have leading zero!
import date;
@mydate=datetime;
Later, when I have to extract the data out of the array - or more importantly have to troubleshoot why the output date/time information is off, I can easily interpret the results (e.g. why is $mydate[0] a 4 digit number? Did someone change the library module?).
# Note: Non-functional example code for illustrative purposes only...
Those who can - do. Those who can't - are stuck with whatever DRM dross Redmond, or Cupertino care to provide.
Good luck on your rethinking...if you are avoiding Microsoft and Apple - that only leaves:
FreeBSD, Linux - and a stable of lesser known (and probably less easy to use - versus a Unix/clone anyway) OSs.
I would spend the time finding a good Linux distro that does what you need. Sorry - I had to say it. I can't fathom another solution (maybe OS2 - but that is old, and IBM is no longer supporting it).
I would be interested to see what you find - I could be wrong (I am not omnipotent after all).
I used to be a system admin, now I do development.
I had a couple of 'Pizza Hut' cupons laying around - so I gave them a treat.
There is much truth to your statement:
The key members of the organization are 3 universities which manage operations of the W3C (MIT CSAIL (USA), ERCIM (France), and Keio Univ. (Japan)). That being said, members of the organization are also businesses (like Microsoft, IBM, and Intel)
From looking at the site, it appears most of the actual implementation is done by graduate students or PHD researchers - which might explain some of the choices made.
Nevertheless the mission of the W3C is: "To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web." It says nothing about implementing said protocols or guidelines - so anything we get from them that works is a plus imho. Additionally, the Amaya browser/xml editor has some very neat capabilities (annotating existing webpages - without altering the actual website of the originating document, mathematical formulas and vector graphics) that certainly make it a very good technology testbed. Finally all of the code they generate is GPL and OSI license equivalent. Given that and the fact that their Director is Tim Berners-Lee - I can cut them some slack.
Given its mission, I would go here first if I intended to implement those standards. Apparently Mozilla, IE, and other browsers do not think its important to do a complete implementation this go-round. Some of that might be ameliorated with plugins...if you really need some specific display functionality not covered by your favorite browser (that presumes you could implement a plugin yourself - or have friends who can do it for you).
I guess I won't be going to Las Vegas any time soon... :)