(please don't think I'm being argumentative, I'm just interested, that's all)
Whilst we have fewer phone companies in the UK, we do have several and none of them are under the control of the government. AFAIK they've agreed between each other (and OFTEL which is a regulatory body) to share billing information for national local calls. The owner of the number (eg the ISP) pays the telco an amount in addition the amount that the end-user pays, so in the end the right telco gets its money, no matter which telco the end-user uses.
And of course, that last paragraph shows me that I'm being dumb, since I'd forgotten that you lucky people don't pay for local calls. (what's the smilie for a lightbulb flickering over an idiot's head?)
If you are in a rural area/small town, you still have a good chance of having a local dailup
Do you not have a "national" local code in the US? In the UK we've got 0345/0870 and others that denote a call to be charged at the local rate which makes connecting to an ISP quite simple, anywhere in the UK.
However, a client base of about 300 is way too pessimistic. I run a Uni network with 15000 regular users (30000 registered users, but like most students, most of them don't turn up every day of the week). We've got 30+ NW4.11 servers. The clients all run NT4.0. Spiffy.
A lot of people have been passing comments such as "IBM's already pushing Linux", as though it's a valid competitor for medium installations (such as ours) or larger. Without some sort of directory, managing that many users is pig-awful (I know, I ran an NT3.51 service for a while). So far as I know, Linux alone doesn't have a directory, although you can run NDS on it.
Finally, the Active Directory that Microsoft are pushing is just a kludge built on top of a fifteen year old kludge. I know full well it will succeed eventually, but merely by power of marketing. It will never match the NDS technically.
Rob. (a happy NT Workstation user, who uses a proper NOS for serving, and tinkers with Linux to keep his nerdish instincts alive)
He can't say he's lost any fraction of zero sales that would sound in damages.
The softco's argument could be: 'The user used an old copy of Microsoft Word 2.0. This stopped them needing to buy a copy of Word 2000. This denied us a sale.'
If you define using it right as putting it all back in the cardboard box, then using it as a paperweight, then maybe
Score:2 (Insightful?)
Purlease, give me strength. Here's a refrain I'd like to here more people saying:
"Linux is great" "Windows NT/2000 is great" "Linux crashes" "Windows NT/2000 crashes" "Linux is right for some tasks" "Windows NT/2000 is right for some tasks" "Blender runs brilliantly in Windows NT/2000" "Blender runs brilliantly in Linux"
There is no difference to the end user between Linux and Windows NT/2000. Us nerds may get heated about Microsoft, but at root, both OSes are pretty good, and we could easily use either to get an honest days work done.
I write this from a Windows 2000 PC that has not blue-screened since installation (Day one of CD going to select customers) and which runs Povray/Blender/gimp/ssh etc. all day without complaint (gimp crashes, but it's not exactly a mainstream Windows NT app, and the crashes have dropped since the latest release). My home machine runs RH6.2 in much the same way.
Your mileage may vary, but telling us about third-hand experience of a troublesome installation doesn't really advance the discussion, does it?
The rate of change is accelerating faster than an old fart like me can keep up with anymore. Sure, I can learn new technologies -- the problem is I can't learn them ALL. The younger folks certainly have me at a disadvantage.
Um, I think you're being too kind to youngsters. As a fellow thirty-something I feel I'm keeping up-to-date with as much useful tech as I was in my twenties. I also realise they I didn't "go deep" back then, prefering to pile up the nerd-points with more and more languages/tool-kits etc.
Recently I've started interviewing people to join the company I work for (a UK university) and I'm seeing the same sort of thing in other young applicants. The older applicants may not have "the latest craze" (tm) on their CV, but you can bet your bottom dollar that their understanding of important technologies will be far better than the youngsters.
If you get the chance, take a look at the 1400x1050 screen on Dell's Inspirons. I use a 17" Trinitron at work and the LCD at home. The LCD is easier on my eyes over a period of time. YMMV
Does the presence of unusual constructs mean that Perl code cannot be maintained?
We often see the accusation that Perl is unmaintainable: I suspect that the blame lies with the coders, rather than the language itself.
Perl has a very handy construct that can render almost all code highly maintainable:
# # it looks like this #
Any language can be the source of unmaintainable code; it's up to us to use the power of the language in a sensible way.
Your example (mysub(2) = 15) is unmaintainable, but I suspect most sensible coders would have called the function something clearer than "mysub". And if necessary they may even have put a clarifying comment next to it.
Rob. (C++ and Perl coder, with an occasional dash of Python - Zope rules!)
At the grave risk of joining a religious war, may I make the following suggestion:
If you're going to criticise a language, at least have the decency to spell it correctly. The language is Perl, not Pearl.
And a question: do you actually use Perl? Thousands of us do, some make a living out of it, others write incredibly useful software which underpins your day-to-day use of the internet. Perl doesn't deserve obscurity; it and its kin (Python, PHP et al.) deserve to be recognised.
I drive a closed-source car running on petrol I bought with a closed-source credit/smart card. My VCR is closed-source, as is my oven/central heating system/washing machine/PC. I don't own a DVD player, but you can bet your bottom dollar it would be closed-source.
All of the above are "good enough". Closed source doesn't equal bad. Closed source is merely worse, by some criteria, than open source.
Rob. (happily mixing it in a open/closed source world)
Slashdot Mirror
(please don't think I'm being argumentative, I'm just interested, that's all)
Whilst we have fewer phone companies in the UK, we do have several and none of them are under the control of the government. AFAIK they've agreed between each other (and OFTEL which is a regulatory body) to share billing information for national local calls. The owner of the number (eg the ISP) pays the telco an amount in addition the amount that the end-user pays, so in the end the right telco gets its money, no matter which telco the end-user uses.
And of course, that last paragraph shows me that I'm being dumb, since I'd forgotten that you lucky people don't pay for local calls. (what's the smilie for a lightbulb flickering over an idiot's head?)
Thanks,
Rob.
HAS your CAPS key gone WRONG? :-)
I can't see that the physical size of a country has any impact on a phone code.
Rob.
If you are in a rural area/small town, you still have a good chance of having a local dailup
Do you not have a "national" local code in the US? In the UK we've got 0345/0870 and others that denote a call to be charged at the local rate which makes connecting to an ISP quite simple, anywhere in the UK.
Just curious, that's all.
Rob.
Nice point about the virus stuff.
However, a client base of about 300 is way too pessimistic. I run a Uni network with 15000 regular users (30000 registered users, but like most students, most of them don't turn up every day of the week). We've got 30+ NW4.11 servers. The clients all run NT4.0. Spiffy.
A lot of people have been passing comments such as "IBM's already pushing Linux", as though it's a valid competitor for medium installations (such as ours) or larger. Without some sort of directory, managing that many users is pig-awful (I know, I ran an NT3.51 service for a while). So far as I know, Linux alone doesn't have a directory, although you can run NDS on it.
Finally, the Active Directory that Microsoft are pushing is just a kludge built on top of a fifteen year old kludge. I know full well it will succeed eventually, but merely by power of marketing. It will never match the NDS technically.
Rob. (a happy NT Workstation user, who uses a proper NOS for serving, and tinkers with Linux to keep his nerdish instincts alive)
Let's see one of those newfangled Next Gen systems try to last half of that time.
Playstation (1, not 2) is 5 years old this year.
Rob.
He can't say he's lost any fraction of zero sales that would sound in damages.
The softco's argument could be: 'The user used an old copy of Microsoft Word 2.0. This stopped them needing to buy a copy of Word 2000. This denied us a sale.'
Rob.
I liked the link you pointed us to, especially the feature us farmers have been waiting for - the "Dairy Alarm". 649 dollars well spent I'd say.
Rob.
If you define using it right as putting it all back in the cardboard box, then using it as a paperweight, then maybe
Score:2 (Insightful?)
Purlease, give me strength. Here's a refrain I'd like to here more people saying:
"Linux is great"
"Windows NT/2000 is great"
"Linux crashes"
"Windows NT/2000 crashes"
"Linux is right for some tasks"
"Windows NT/2000 is right for some tasks"
"Blender runs brilliantly in Windows NT/2000"
"Blender runs brilliantly in Linux"
There is no difference to the end user between Linux and Windows NT/2000. Us nerds may get heated about Microsoft, but at root, both OSes are pretty good, and we could easily use either to get an honest days work done.
I write this from a Windows 2000 PC that has not blue-screened since installation (Day one of CD going to select customers) and which runs Povray/Blender/gimp/ssh etc. all day without complaint (gimp crashes, but it's not exactly a mainstream Windows NT app, and the crashes have dropped since the latest release). My home machine runs RH6.2 in much the same way.
Your mileage may vary, but telling us about third-hand experience of a troublesome installation doesn't really advance the discussion, does it?
Rob.
The rate of change is accelerating faster than an old fart like me can keep up with anymore. Sure, I can learn new technologies -- the problem is I can't learn them ALL. The younger folks certainly have me at a disadvantage.
Um, I think you're being too kind to youngsters. As a fellow thirty-something I feel I'm keeping up-to-date with as much useful tech as I was in my twenties. I also realise they I didn't "go deep" back then, prefering to pile up the nerd-points with more and more languages/tool-kits etc.
Recently I've started interviewing people to join the company I work for (a UK university) and I'm seeing the same sort of thing in other young applicants. The older applicants may not have "the latest craze" (tm) on their CV, but you can bet your bottom dollar that their understanding of important technologies will be far better than the youngsters.
Rob.
If you get the chance, take a look at the 1400x1050 screen on Dell's Inspirons. I use a 17" Trinitron at work and the LCD at home. The LCD is easier on my eyes over a period of time. YMMV
Rob.
I'm thirty and my eyes are still okay, so don't worry yourself unnecessarily.
Rob.
How about giving the stuff away and charging for any future customisations a particular customer needs?
Rob.
Does the presence of unusual constructs mean that Perl code cannot be maintained?
We often see the accusation that Perl is unmaintainable: I suspect that the blame lies with the coders, rather than the language itself.
Perl has a very handy construct that can render almost all code highly maintainable:
#
# it looks like this
#
Any language can be the source of unmaintainable code; it's up to us to use the power of the language in a sensible way.
Your example (mysub(2) = 15) is unmaintainable, but I suspect most sensible coders would have called the function something clearer than "mysub". And if necessary they may even have put a clarifying comment next to it.
Rob. (C++ and Perl coder, with an occasional dash of Python - Zope rules!)
At the grave risk of joining a religious war, may I make the following suggestion:
If you're going to criticise a language, at least have the decency to spell it correctly. The language is Perl, not Pearl.
And a question: do you actually use Perl? Thousands of us do, some make a living out of it, others write incredibly useful software which underpins your day-to-day use of the internet. Perl doesn't deserve obscurity; it and its kin (Python, PHP et al.) deserve to be recognised.
Rob.
(maybe I'm taking a joke seriously, but...)
Yu, the Espresso has a mains power supply. Even soccer mum (?) doesn't have a mains supply in her car, typically.
May I remind you that laptops (which will run in a soccer mum's car) have been around for a few years now.
Rob.
I drive a closed-source car running on petrol I bought with a closed-source credit/smart card. My VCR is closed-source, as is my oven/central heating system/washing machine/PC. I don't own a DVD player, but you can bet your bottom dollar it would be closed-source.
All of the above are "good enough". Closed source doesn't equal bad. Closed source is merely worse, by some criteria, than open source.
Rob. (happily mixing it in a open/closed source world)
Whoa there. I suspect Xerox might have something to say to you about the source of the desktop metaphor.
Rob.