I always find punitive damages a fascinating difference between the US and Canada (where we don't have them). It probably reduces the effectiveness of lawsuits as deterrents in some cases, but on the other hand I think we have a lot less frivolous law suits (why would you sue McDonald's for spilling coffee on yourself when the best you could possibly get is the cost of a new skirt and a little bit for pain and suffering?).
Re:Where's the beef?
on
Opencroquet
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· Score: 4, Informative
OK, so it's not even remotely an OS - just yet another attempt at a useful 3d GUI which could conceivably one day run on specialized hardware.
Sure it is - it just happens to be running on top of another layer at the moment. Nothing prevents that layer from disappearing and letting the system run directly on the hardware. All you need to do is implement the bae set of primitives.
Just like a lisp machine (except 3d graphics somehow play into it?) Woohoo! You can hack the OS while you write a letter to grandma!
It's true. It is written in smalltalk after all. This is actually one of the coolest things about developing in Squeak. When the debugger doesn't do something the way you want, you can just subclass it and change it so it does!
No pesky memory protection, no cumbersome file permissions! I'm freeeeee! Hey, stop reading my email!
When he says "everything can be modified" - he is speaking theoretically. As I understand it, a lot of work is going into developing a permission system (if memory serves, I think they're playing with a capabilities-based system) and this work certainly needs to be completed before people are going to start opening their worlds up to... well the World:)
The Croquet team is well aware of the issues there - it's just not their primary focus yet.
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I always find punitive damages a fascinating difference between the US and Canada (where we don't have them). It probably reduces the effectiveness of lawsuits as deterrents in some cases, but on the other hand I think we have a lot less frivolous law suits (why would you sue McDonald's for spilling coffee on yourself when the best you could possibly get is the cost of a new skirt and a little bit for pain and suffering?).