Features such as implementing the separate directory levels in a path as buttons, splitting the directory view pane in the same window, implementing both a "places" and a directory tree view and adding a toolbar to let the user select how to display the files are features which are not around for 40 years. If that wasn't enough, implementing them in the exact same way to the point of even mimicking the layout which was premièred by Dolphin a hand full of years ago cannot be explained as a 40 year old tradition. Nautilus is being made into a Dolphin clone and the screenshots speak for themselves.
You lack imagination. If you don't like Qt strings, use your plain old strings in your algorithmic code, and render to the Qt string type as appropriate.
You don't have a clue about what you are talknig about. You cannot use Qt without passing parameters to and receiving data from Qt's methods, which you cannot do without being forced to use Qt's data types extensively. Your imagination will only help if you depend on it to turn a blind eye and forget that you are forced to convert your data structures back and forth with Qt's types in order to keep using Qt's components.
The only differences between that pair of screenshots consists on a couple of dock window widgets which are pretty much never used on KDE's Dolphin and are turned off by default. I use KDE exclusively on a daily basis and I had to look at the screenshot to learn that KDE's Dolphin had an Info dock window and if you happen to use Dolphin then the window config you will get will be exactly the same config as the one Nautilus is sporting on it's screenshot.
It does appear that Nautilus' people are taking many many lessons from (let's not say ripping off) KDE's Dolphin. I mean, if you compare Nautilus' demo screenshot and you use KDE's Dolphin (please ignore the command line at the bottom and info dock widget at the right) on a daily basis you will be hard pressed to find any differences.
It appears you have a very odd definition of what "not forcing" means. Qt doesn't offer support in all of Qt's classes for STL containers and/or the standard C++ string objects. You cannot write a Qt app without being forced to use Qt's QString and/or Qt's containers. The only way you may use C++'s standard components is if you bring additional bloat and complexity to the application by converting Qt's data types and containers back and forth with STL's, which quite plainly sucks in multiple ways.
But then again, if you had any experience writing apps with Qt and if you had the displeasure of having to incorporate a third party C++ component which relies on the STL you would realize that Qt does in fact forces the programmers to use Qt's containers and data structure. On the other hand, if you never had to deal with this problem then you would have no problem attempting to label that fact as bullshit.
I second the idea that Qt kicks ass. Nonetheless, the design decision behind Qt's policy of forcing the programmers to drop the STL in favour of Qt's components such as container classes and string... Well, it sucks. It imposes on the programmer a non-standard way of doing things, it is a royal pain in the ass to integrate 3rd party components that rely on the STL and it plainly sucks to be forced to use a less mature API.
My main concern isn't Mono's license by itself but the objective behind GPL purge. It is stated in the article that the reason behind it is to, and I quote:
We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop
So the Mono people are intentionally opening the doors to allow closed-source components to be a part, possibly even a fundamental part, of the whole Mono platform. I don't know how exactly is it possible to maintain a platform open when you, as the platform's gatekeeper, are intentionally embracing proprietary components.
Not that I really have a lot of personal experience with it, but I do know there are a lot of businesses (and government) out there that won't even touch GPL (proper, not LGPL) software for the licensing ramifications if they were to extend it, etc.
Could you please provide an example of those lots of businesses and governments that "won't even touch the GPL" due to licensing ramifications?
Does this sign the closing of the Mono project? And can anyone tell me, since this fundamentalist stance against the GPL and the alleged impending patent sword hovering over the Mono users' heads, what exactly is there to attract people to adopt it as their developing platform?
I once rewrote a bit of software that some MIT grads did. Theirs was 20K lines of C++, used 110 MB ram (constantly newing and deleting), used dozens of threads (constantly spawning and harvesting), and drove the system to its knees (90% system, 10% user load). My 2K (yes, one-tenth) lines of straight C used 5 threads (preallocated), a configurably preallocated ring buffer (about 100K in practice), and used less than 5% of user time with no measurable system load. And I was able to do this adding functionality and improving the reliability. Very few defects in 2000 lines of C.
That's nice and all. I'm currently finishing my master's and for my thesis I'm writing an application in C++ and therefore I believe I'm in a similar situation as your MIT grads were. The thing is, in paper I have 1 year to finish my project, which could only start 2 months into the school year. Then it isn't very possible to properly design the application because, as the software is part of a research project, you are by definition learning the stuff as you go along. On top of that you have the ever common screw ups -- bugs, redesigns, rewrites... you name it. And if that wasn't enough, you have to do that part time, while juggling classes, meetings and presentations.
That is a recipe for disaster. It isn't at all possible to spit out a perfectly oiled, academically immaculate application under those circumstances. Heck, I'm just a couple of months into my project and I already compiled a small list of features I should rewrite but that I can't as I can't afford the time. So it's perfectly natural that when someone looks into my code they say "hey, I can write this a whole lot better than him". Yes, you can. So can I, actually. Yet, I had to write that under circumstances that made it a whole lot harder to do a better job at it.
Nonetheless, as you can attest to it, your MIT grads' application, although with it's flaws, does run just fine. Not perfectly but fine nonetheless. And if it's possible for some third party to pick up their work and reproduce the exact same functionality under less time and with such an ease that the people rewriting it can have the luxury of looking into details such as preallocating threads and ring buffers then that's a good sign they successfully accomplish what they aimed to do. And that's what really count.
It appears you failed to read the article. The only people who claim that the mud volcano was caused by the earthquake are the people from the drilling company and those with financial ties to the drilling company, in order to avoid paying compensation. Geologists, on the other hand, state that the May 2006 earthquake was merely coincidental, that the intensity of that earthquake at the volcano's area was only magnitude two and that what triggered the event was the drilling operations.
You failed to realize that similar incidents already caused devastating results. So, a 3.4 earthquake now may be much of a disaster but that doesn't mean that sort of stuff can't be extremely damaging.
What you are describing isn't a problem with the exception system, as you are free to craft your exception-handling system so that it informs you exactly where the exception was thrown. If you want to blame someone then blame those who failed to learn how to use them.
If you believe that just because someone has more cash on them that person somehow automatically deserves to have better health than those who are poorer than them then you should feel bad for yourself. Those who enjoy having more money should benefit from all the luxuries that their money can buy them. Yet, being healthy must not be a luxury. It should be an universal right, that each and every person should benefit equally, independent of income or liquidity.
Slippery slope arguments only fool the ones that make them. The world is literally filled with examples of how beneficial nationalized health care systems are to a society. You cannot avoid that by trying to claim that some absurd, incomparable and even fictitious public system is somehow bad for you.
And while we are at it, you failed to mention public transportation systems, public utilities services such as water and sanitation, law enforcement, fire departments, etc... That's a lot of success and vital cases to be ignored.
This isn't really something that the majority of Linux users need, or want compiled into their kernel.
So it's great that they don't need, nor they are forced to, have this kernel module in their kernel. And it is also great that, as everyone (including you) has access to the source code, it is possible to cherry pick what feature to have in the OS kernel. Isn't linux awesome?
For them, it's just another layer of complexity - something which linux zealots routinely lambast Microsoft for.
Source, please? Or are you mindlessly throwing baseless accusations?
It'll be interesting to see how many distros include it in their kernel compiles by default.
My guess is not many. But you know what? As it's a kernel module, if a distro doesn't include it then you can include it and if a distro does include it then you can also remove it. Isn't linux awesome?
Personally if you need this kind of installation, you better be sharper enough to recompile the support into the kernel.
And thankfully that's what linux gives you. More so, even if you don't need it you can also remove it. It's an odd bloat to have, being able to not only remove hand-picked features right out of the OS kernel and but also add them if you see fit. Isn't linux awesome?
I've been using linux as my main OS for the past 6 to 7 years and in all this time I never experienced any linux lockup., not even back in the beginning where we couldn't do away with compiling software by hand (where the "you need to know how to program to use linux!" was born) and when the only way to make my DSL modem work was to run a weird, convoluted shell script through the command line. So, that "lockup" accusation is, at least, very odd, particularly in this day and age.
Moreover, that weird accusation of "file permissions errors" and the need to have IT staff hired with the sole purpose of "fixing drivers" and "edit config files" also sounds like bullshit to me, specially in today's world and even after the GP stated that their workstations worked with XP and win2k, a pair of OSes which are more problematic, less stable and with a less extensive hardware support than today's popular linux distributions.
And of course, let's not forget that the GP made a point in launching that long-winded anti-linux troll while intentionally keeping out fundamental details such as what linux distribution was supposed to be installed, not to mention that it was posted anonymously. To put it in other words, the GP wrote that post intending to attack the entire linux world, insinuating that that sort of problem affects each and all distros and not a specific one, and it did it so intending to be a troll.
So, it would only be seen as "-1 truth hurts" if you didn't read the post and you also considered a "your mother is a whore" type of post as "-1 truth hurts". It's not, it is meant to insult and it is perfectly void of any objective statement.
I strongly disagree on two points. First, to say that the average Slashdot reader honestly has the public good in mind when talking about copyright policy is laughable. The most frequent post simply amounts to "damn those big companies, I'll do what I want."
I can't (nor can anyone) speak for all slashdotters. Yet, I believe the explanation of why everyone should be able to freely access copyrighted works without the author's explicit authorization if it's for personal use and the commercial distribution isn't affected (yes, it's a long winded description but necessary to explicitly state what we are talking about) resides exactly in the oppressive power that "capitalist" copyright, a copyright definition that is based on the concept that all copyrighted works are pure commercial products instead of the expression of the human spirit and a means to advance mankind, grants to those "big companies". If the "big companies" benefit from a quasi-totalitarian control over works they control so that they can persecute anyone who happens to look the wrong way at their work then society as a whole will be inevitably asphyxiated. You will no longer benefit from having a culture, you will not be able to express yourself as you see fit and, more importantly, you will not be able to educate yourself. Those rights, which should be unalienable, will become a luxury, only accessible to those who can afford it. To put it in other words, your society will regress and stagnate. Please see how medieval europe was before the invention of the printing press - That's what a totalitarian control on the distribution of copyrighted works causes.
Next, I personally disagree with your view on the purpose of copyrights. While I accept that copyright law has gotten completely out of hand with absurd extensions on the lifetime of copyrights, I vehemently oppose the idea that there should be varying levels of protections based on the "intended use" of the work. If an copyright holder would like to specifically allow exemptions for educational use or non-commercial use, he has that right. However, there should not be a law that forces the holder to allow such exemptions.
It's pretty much obvious that legally granting access to copyrighted works without the author's explicit authorization is not only acceptable but also vital. If that isn't the case then, for a start, public libraries would not be possible. Then, the access to education would not be an universal right but a privilege of the well-to-do masses. As a consequence, progress would be hindered and your society would stagnate. And last but not least, you would cease to have culture. That would cause completely absurd and inexplicable situations as being legally barred from singing the happy birthday song in someone's birthday, barring kids from drawing their favorite cartoons, not being able to cheer for your favorite sports team... you name it. Heck, even the access to your jurisdiction's laws would be taken away from you, opening the way to a Kafkaesque society. And what for? For some random corporation to enjoy a larger profit? After all, your copyright is not being granted to the authors but to legal organizations who control them.
So please reconsider. Is all this really acceptable?
But you have both direct responsibility for the splinter in your own eyes and the power to personally do anything meaningful about it. Your neighbour, on the other hand, is half a world away and, in practical terms, it may be so distant to you that it could as well be a fabricated country that only exists in the media. And as if that wasn't enough, this isn't an "either/or" thing. If you feel compelled to criticize and complain about something half a world away then you should also feel the need to fight that exact same issue in your own home, even though in your own eyes it may be simply a "splinter" instead of a "log".
You seem to be confused. If we can talk about a copyright law consensus on slashdot, that consensus would be that copyright is there to benefit the authors but it should not be used as a weapon to hinder any social, cultural and educational use of any copyrighted work. That, oddly enough, is the premises where the french copyright tradition is built upon. That is the reason why commercial distribution of an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work is frowned upon (i.e., piracy) but if you can (or at least should) be able to freely access copyrighted works without the need for an authorization of the copyright owner if it's strictly for personal use and your distribution does not have any meaningful and measurable impact on the commercial distribution. It's straight forward and it has been the norm in an awful lot of countries, at least until the US started to force it's version of copyright law onto the world.
How exactly do you indoctrinate children and violate their parents' religious beliefs by exposing their children to scientific facts? Moreover, even the vatican claims that evolution does not violate Christian doctrine. So what exactly is being taught in school that you believe is violating anyone's religious beliefs? Complex numbers? The law of gravity?
It appears that the problem with those kids' parents isn't religiousness but arrogant idiocy thinly disguised as religious fervour.
Slashdot Mirror
Playboy article? I guess the real news here is that someone actually reads playboy for the articles. Who knew?
Features such as implementing the separate directory levels in a path as buttons, splitting the directory view pane in the same window, implementing both a "places" and a directory tree view and adding a toolbar to let the user select how to display the files are features which are not around for 40 years. If that wasn't enough, implementing them in the exact same way to the point of even mimicking the layout which was premièred by Dolphin a hand full of years ago cannot be explained as a 40 year old tradition. Nautilus is being made into a Dolphin clone and the screenshots speak for themselves.
You don't have a clue about what you are talknig about. You cannot use Qt without passing parameters to and receiving data from Qt's methods, which you cannot do without being forced to use Qt's data types extensively. Your imagination will only help if you depend on it to turn a blind eye and forget that you are forced to convert your data structures back and forth with Qt's types in order to keep using Qt's components.
The only differences between that pair of screenshots consists on a couple of dock window widgets which are pretty much never used on KDE's Dolphin and are turned off by default. I use KDE exclusively on a daily basis and I had to look at the screenshot to learn that KDE's Dolphin had an Info dock window and if you happen to use Dolphin then the window config you will get will be exactly the same config as the one Nautilus is sporting on it's screenshot.
It does appear that Nautilus' people are taking many many lessons from (let's not say ripping off) KDE's Dolphin. I mean, if you compare Nautilus' demo screenshot and you use KDE's Dolphin (please ignore the command line at the bottom and info dock widget at the right) on a daily basis you will be hard pressed to find any differences.
It appears you have a very odd definition of what "not forcing" means. Qt doesn't offer support in all of Qt's classes for STL containers and/or the standard C++ string objects. You cannot write a Qt app without being forced to use Qt's QString and/or Qt's containers. The only way you may use C++'s standard components is if you bring additional bloat and complexity to the application by converting Qt's data types and containers back and forth with STL's, which quite plainly sucks in multiple ways.
But then again, if you had any experience writing apps with Qt and if you had the displeasure of having to incorporate a third party C++ component which relies on the STL you would realize that Qt does in fact forces the programmers to use Qt's containers and data structure. On the other hand, if you never had to deal with this problem then you would have no problem attempting to label that fact as bullshit.
I second the idea that Qt kicks ass. Nonetheless, the design decision behind Qt's policy of forcing the programmers to drop the STL in favour of Qt's components such as container classes and string... Well, it sucks. It imposes on the programmer a non-standard way of doing things, it is a royal pain in the ass to integrate 3rd party components that rely on the STL and it plainly sucks to be forced to use a less mature API.
And by "mono platform" I mean "mono development platform". They are not the same thing.
My main concern isn't Mono's license by itself but the objective behind GPL purge. It is stated in the article that the reason behind it is to, and I quote:
So the Mono people are intentionally opening the doors to allow closed-source components to be a part, possibly even a fundamental part, of the whole Mono platform. I don't know how exactly is it possible to maintain a platform open when you, as the platform's gatekeeper, are intentionally embracing proprietary components.
Could you please provide an example of those lots of businesses and governments that "won't even touch the GPL" due to licensing ramifications?
Does this sign the closing of the Mono project? And can anyone tell me, since this fundamentalist stance against the GPL and the alleged impending patent sword hovering over the Mono users' heads, what exactly is there to attract people to adopt it as their developing platform?
That's nice and all. I'm currently finishing my master's and for my thesis I'm writing an application in C++ and therefore I believe I'm in a similar situation as your MIT grads were. The thing is, in paper I have 1 year to finish my project, which could only start 2 months into the school year. Then it isn't very possible to properly design the application because, as the software is part of a research project, you are by definition learning the stuff as you go along. On top of that you have the ever common screw ups -- bugs, redesigns, rewrites... you name it. And if that wasn't enough, you have to do that part time, while juggling classes, meetings and presentations.
That is a recipe for disaster. It isn't at all possible to spit out a perfectly oiled, academically immaculate application under those circumstances. Heck, I'm just a couple of months into my project and I already compiled a small list of features I should rewrite but that I can't as I can't afford the time. So it's perfectly natural that when someone looks into my code they say "hey, I can write this a whole lot better than him". Yes, you can. So can I, actually. Yet, I had to write that under circumstances that made it a whole lot harder to do a better job at it.
Nonetheless, as you can attest to it, your MIT grads' application, although with it's flaws, does run just fine. Not perfectly but fine nonetheless. And if it's possible for some third party to pick up their work and reproduce the exact same functionality under less time and with such an ease that the people rewriting it can have the luxury of looking into details such as preallocating threads and ring buffers then that's a good sign they successfully accomplish what they aimed to do. And that's what really count.
It appears you failed to read the article. The only people who claim that the mud volcano was caused by the earthquake are the people from the drilling company and those with financial ties to the drilling company, in order to avoid paying compensation. Geologists, on the other hand, state that the May 2006 earthquake was merely coincidental, that the intensity of that earthquake at the volcano's area was only magnitude two and that what triggered the event was the drilling operations.
You failed to realize that similar incidents already caused devastating results. So, a 3.4 earthquake now may be much of a disaster but that doesn't mean that sort of stuff can't be extremely damaging.
What you are describing isn't a problem with the exception system, as you are free to craft your exception-handling system so that it informs you exactly where the exception was thrown. If you want to blame someone then blame those who failed to learn how to use them.
If you believe that just because someone has more cash on them that person somehow automatically deserves to have better health than those who are poorer than them then you should feel bad for yourself. Those who enjoy having more money should benefit from all the luxuries that their money can buy them. Yet, being healthy must not be a luxury. It should be an universal right, that each and every person should benefit equally, independent of income or liquidity.
Slippery slope arguments only fool the ones that make them. The world is literally filled with examples of how beneficial nationalized health care systems are to a society. You cannot avoid that by trying to claim that some absurd, incomparable and even fictitious public system is somehow bad for you.
And while we are at it, you failed to mention public transportation systems, public utilities services such as water and sanitation, law enforcement, fire departments, etc... That's a lot of success and vital cases to be ignored.
This isn't really something that the majority of Linux users need, or want compiled into their kernel.
So it's great that they don't need, nor they are forced to, have this kernel module in their kernel. And it is also great that, as everyone (including you) has access to the source code, it is possible to cherry pick what feature to have in the OS kernel. Isn't linux awesome?
For them, it's just another layer of complexity - something which linux zealots routinely lambast Microsoft for.
Source, please? Or are you mindlessly throwing baseless accusations?
It'll be interesting to see how many distros include it in their kernel compiles by default.
My guess is not many. But you know what? As it's a kernel module, if a distro doesn't include it then you can include it and if a distro does include it then you can also remove it. Isn't linux awesome?
Personally if you need this kind of installation, you better be sharper enough to recompile the support into the kernel.
And thankfully that's what linux gives you. More so, even if you don't need it you can also remove it. It's an odd bloat to have, being able to not only remove hand-picked features right out of the OS kernel and but also add them if you see fit. Isn't linux awesome?
I've been using linux as my main OS for the past 6 to 7 years and in all this time I never experienced any linux lockup., not even back in the beginning where we couldn't do away with compiling software by hand (where the "you need to know how to program to use linux!" was born) and when the only way to make my DSL modem work was to run a weird, convoluted shell script through the command line. So, that "lockup" accusation is, at least, very odd, particularly in this day and age.
Moreover, that weird accusation of "file permissions errors" and the need to have IT staff hired with the sole purpose of "fixing drivers" and "edit config files" also sounds like bullshit to me, specially in today's world and even after the GP stated that their workstations worked with XP and win2k, a pair of OSes which are more problematic, less stable and with a less extensive hardware support than today's popular linux distributions.
And of course, let's not forget that the GP made a point in launching that long-winded anti-linux troll while intentionally keeping out fundamental details such as what linux distribution was supposed to be installed, not to mention that it was posted anonymously. To put it in other words, the GP wrote that post intending to attack the entire linux world, insinuating that that sort of problem affects each and all distros and not a specific one, and it did it so intending to be a troll.
So, it would only be seen as "-1 truth hurts" if you didn't read the post and you also considered a "your mother is a whore" type of post as "-1 truth hurts". It's not, it is meant to insult and it is perfectly void of any objective statement.
But the goggles! They do nothing!
I can't (nor can anyone) speak for all slashdotters. Yet, I believe the explanation of why everyone should be able to freely access copyrighted works without the author's explicit authorization if it's for personal use and the commercial distribution isn't affected (yes, it's a long winded description but necessary to explicitly state what we are talking about) resides exactly in the oppressive power that "capitalist" copyright, a copyright definition that is based on the concept that all copyrighted works are pure commercial products instead of the expression of the human spirit and a means to advance mankind, grants to those "big companies". If the "big companies" benefit from a quasi-totalitarian control over works they control so that they can persecute anyone who happens to look the wrong way at their work then society as a whole will be inevitably asphyxiated. You will no longer benefit from having a culture, you will not be able to express yourself as you see fit and, more importantly, you will not be able to educate yourself. Those rights, which should be unalienable, will become a luxury, only accessible to those who can afford it. To put it in other words, your society will regress and stagnate. Please see how medieval europe was before the invention of the printing press - That's what a totalitarian control on the distribution of copyrighted works causes.
It's pretty much obvious that legally granting access to copyrighted works without the author's explicit authorization is not only acceptable but also vital. If that isn't the case then, for a start, public libraries would not be possible. Then, the access to education would not be an universal right but a privilege of the well-to-do masses. As a consequence, progress would be hindered and your society would stagnate. And last but not least, you would cease to have culture. That would cause completely absurd and inexplicable situations as being legally barred from singing the happy birthday song in someone's birthday, barring kids from drawing their favorite cartoons, not being able to cheer for your favorite sports team... you name it. Heck, even the access to your jurisdiction's laws would be taken away from you, opening the way to a Kafkaesque society. And what for? For some random corporation to enjoy a larger profit? After all, your copyright is not being granted to the authors but to legal organizations who control them.
So please reconsider. Is all this really acceptable?
But you have both direct responsibility for the splinter in your own eyes and the power to personally do anything meaningful about it. Your neighbour, on the other hand, is half a world away and, in practical terms, it may be so distant to you that it could as well be a fabricated country that only exists in the media. And as if that wasn't enough, this isn't an "either/or" thing. If you feel compelled to criticize and complain about something half a world away then you should also feel the need to fight that exact same issue in your own home, even though in your own eyes it may be simply a "splinter" instead of a "log".
You can link youtube videos with a time jump tag. For example, this clip jumps to 4m28s, more or less.
You seem to be confused. If we can talk about a copyright law consensus on slashdot, that consensus would be that copyright is there to benefit the authors but it should not be used as a weapon to hinder any social, cultural and educational use of any copyrighted work. That, oddly enough, is the premises where the french copyright tradition is built upon. That is the reason why commercial distribution of an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work is frowned upon (i.e., piracy) but if you can (or at least should) be able to freely access copyrighted works without the need for an authorization of the copyright owner if it's strictly for personal use and your distribution does not have any meaningful and measurable impact on the commercial distribution. It's straight forward and it has been the norm in an awful lot of countries, at least until the US started to force it's version of copyright law onto the world.
How exactly do you indoctrinate children and violate their parents' religious beliefs by exposing their children to scientific facts? Moreover, even the vatican claims that evolution does not violate Christian doctrine. So what exactly is being taught in school that you believe is violating anyone's religious beliefs? Complex numbers? The law of gravity?
It appears that the problem with those kids' parents isn't religiousness but arrogant idiocy thinly disguised as religious fervour.