I'm not defending the US, or saying that it couldn't, or shouldn't, be a better world citizen. But I'm pointing out that it's hypocritical and pointless to blame the world's problems on it, just as it's hypocritical and pointless to blame a country's problems on its politicians. The problems start at home, in such microcosmic situations as the competition between siblings, friends, and rivals. Everything else is just extrapolation from these sorts of basic human behaviors.
Well, one `advantage' of that is that blame dilutes itself to homeopathic levels...
I pretty much blame by own countrymen and myself for the influencing going on. But I blame others too. Just consider my country and the three or four countries neighboring it, where dictatorships were organized, backed and staged by the US, which resulted in more suffering than any argument even Kissinger could advance to justify...
Well, most people do not seem to have lots of objections to providing a unified interface to see in one place the configuration settings for unrelated apps: that's how configuration settings have been stored since ever: somewhere in your filesystem...
Only that `unified interface' is quite weak: you do not get much further than the POSIX semantics for file handling. And sharing, locking, notifications and other goodies are essentially non-existing. And, of course, it is unified up to the point when you need to interpret the bytes that you read from the configuration files, as there is absolutely no standard for that. You are saying that most people find this non-gconf situation sane?
IME people who complain about gconf (i) have never actually used it and (ii) are not even aware of the problems classic configuration files present ("no one will be running two intances of the same app at the same time, so we'll just overwrite the conf file when something changes...")
Sure, gconf is waaay far from perfect. But `there is an app, essentially unrelated to gconf, which presents the data stored in gconf's database in a way similar to the Windows register' is not exactly a complaint worth taking into account. Of course, `it provides an unified interface to configuration settings' not only is not a complaint worth taking into account but plainly shows that the one using it, well, should not be commenting on software design.
Organizing something which is naturally of a hierarchical nature in a hierarchical way is not exactly an original contribution of MS... You can look at your friendly/etc directory to see a predecessor of gconf.
Further, whenever I try to install someone non-trivial on Linux, I wish I got questions. Instead, I get standard error output! I usually spend an hour or so trying to resolve some dependency error, or debug on obtuse error when trying to use some very well-intentioned but buggy (in my experience) utility for automating it (e.g. apt-get).
Have you used a modern distro in the last 5 years?
Ah, right. The good ol' argument whereby battered spouses are to be blamed.
You have to ponder, too, the way in which people accept to be `influenced'. It is mostly through corrupt (even when they are legal) practices, not infrequently (and quite frequently in a non-distant past) fostered by the main entertainer. Not unlike the way in which the immense majority of USians supported the decision to wage war on Iraq.
Well, (good) Computer scientists are not worthless when doing computer science (you know, basic research, essentially a more or less subset of math). What you want them to do is not computer science; by your logic, you can also say that mathematicians make really worthless welders and you could probably s/Computer Science degree/welding experience/ in your job description with the same end result, as welders are probably payed less that `real engineers', too...
You could remove the reference to Computer Science altogether. What you want is a software engineer, clearly, and a computer scientist---even a very good one---is not a software engineer: he has not been trained to be one (although he may end up being quite good at it, of course)
If you propose to drop nuclear bombs all over $COUNTRY, I object strongly, you do it anyways, and then, a little later, I support your poor attempt at a plan to somehow contain the radiation (*), does that mean that now I am supporting the plan to drop nuclear bombs? (I have no idea if that's a clear depiction of that CNN is doing in reality: I'm just trying to understart your point of view)
(*) Not that that'd be possible, but bear with me.
For quite awhile they did... MSNBC still does... CNN has wised up (in my opinion) and is beginning to support it...
So you are saying that CNN, after everything that's happened now is supporting the whole debacle? Are they believing now in the existence of the famous mass destruction weapons, too?
The US would be quite entertaining, had it not such an influence on everyone else...
Have you considered rewriting the job description so that it makes it apparent that you do not want a CS guy but a software engineer? Because, you know, what you mention is hardly related to actual computer science...
Much though I have a knee-jerk reaction against anything to do with the governemt, I have found it to be depressing how uninterested for-profit competitive companies are in doing any kind of science.
Heh. Maybe you should look at the evidence not only regarding the interest of for-profit competitive companies in doing science, but in their interest in doing anything not directly linked to their profit, and you'd see that being generally against government involvement is a pretty dumb position.
...wanting my software to do what I want it to, and in a manner convenient to me, makes me a whore? I'm sorry, but computers are merely a tool, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to use them in the way most effective to you. The stupidity in suggesting that someone is a "whore" for wanting that is profound.
You make it sound like the act of picking a tool is completely devoid of moral implications and you seem to believe that the possible efficiency gained by a particular choice automatically trumps the consequences that that choice might entail. Even within the extremely specific realm of computer software, it is easy to provide examples that you are wrong on both accounts.
I am sorry, but the truth does not come from the gut. Rational analysis of the available information provides the closest thing to truth we can come up.
"All of Debian" probably includes support for more architectures than any version of Windows has ever even run on and apps allowing you to do so many different things that most humans are not even able to go through a list of their descriptions and understand what the apps are for. Are you seriously comparing that to what's shipped with Vista and the size of it?
I don't know what makes you and most others think security through obscurity does not work. Every single successful security has some part which is obscured from everybody else. For some it is algorithms, for others some key information. Obscuring your ATM key from all others has generally worked. Obscuring private key for every body else has also worked fine.
You clearly do not understand what `obscurity' refers to in `security through obscurity does not work'.
Well, there is a difference from violating a patent you have never even heard about and pretending not to see the license blurb on all the source files of a GPLed project, wouldn't you say?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, one `advantage' of that is that blame dilutes itself to homeopathic levels...
I pretty much blame by own countrymen and myself for the influencing going on. But I blame others too. Just consider my country and the three or four countries neighboring it, where dictatorships were organized, backed and staged by the US, which resulted in more suffering than any argument even Kissinger could advance to justify...
Well, most people do not seem to have lots of objections to providing a unified interface to see in one place the configuration settings for unrelated apps: that's how configuration settings have been stored since ever: somewhere in your filesystem...
Only that `unified interface' is quite weak: you do not get much further than the POSIX semantics for file handling. And sharing, locking, notifications and other goodies are essentially non-existing. And, of course, it is unified up to the point when you need to interpret the bytes that you read from the configuration files, as there is absolutely no standard for that. You are saying that most people find this non-gconf situation sane?
IME people who complain about gconf (i) have never actually used it and (ii) are not even aware of the problems classic configuration files present ("no one will be running two intances of the same app at the same time, so we'll just overwrite the conf file when something changes...")
Sure, gconf is waaay far from perfect. But `there is an app, essentially unrelated to gconf, which presents the data stored in gconf's database in a way similar to the Windows register' is not exactly a complaint worth taking into account. Of course, `it provides an unified interface to configuration settings' not only is not a complaint worth taking into account but plainly shows that the one using it, well, should not be commenting on software design.
Organizing something which is naturally of a hierarchical nature in a hierarchical way is not exactly an original contribution of MS... You can look at your friendly /etc directory to see a predecessor of gconf.
Have you used a modern distro in the last 5 years?
Ah, right. The good ol' argument whereby battered spouses are to be blamed.
You have to ponder, too, the way in which people accept to be `influenced'. It is mostly through corrupt (even when they are legal) practices, not infrequently (and quite frequently in a non-distant past) fostered by the main entertainer. Not unlike the way in which the immense majority of USians supported the decision to wage war on Iraq.
Well, (good) Computer scientists are not worthless when doing computer science (you know, basic research, essentially a more or less subset of math). What you want them to do is not computer science; by your logic, you can also say that mathematicians make really worthless welders and you could probably s/Computer Science degree/welding experience/ in your job description with the same end result, as welders are probably payed less that `real engineers', too...
*Sigh*
You could remove the reference to Computer Science altogether. What you want is a software engineer, clearly, and a computer scientist---even a very good one---is not a software engineer: he has not been trained to be one (although he may end up being quite good at it, of course)
You have a strange logic...
If you propose to drop nuclear bombs all over $COUNTRY, I object strongly, you do it anyways, and then, a little later, I support your poor attempt at a plan to somehow contain the radiation (*), does that mean that now I am supporting the plan to drop nuclear bombs? (I have no idea if that's a clear depiction of that CNN is doing in reality: I'm just trying to understart your point of view)
(*) Not that that'd be possible, but bear with me.
For one thing, you cannot put a corporation in jail.
So you are saying that CNN, after everything that's happened now is supporting the whole debacle? Are they believing now in the existence of the famous mass destruction weapons, too?
The US would be quite entertaining, had it not such an influence on everyone else...
Have you considered rewriting the job description so that it makes it apparent that you do not want a CS guy but a software engineer? Because, you know, what you mention is hardly related to actual computer science...
Heh. Maybe you should look at the evidence not only regarding the interest of for-profit competitive companies in doing science, but in their interest in doing anything not directly linked to their profit, and you'd see that being generally against government involvement is a pretty dumb position.
So you started app A expecting it to behave like app B, and it did not. And you were surprised and disappointed. Gee.
...wanting my software to do what I want it to, and in a manner convenient to me, makes me a whore? I'm sorry, but computers are merely a tool, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to use them in the way most effective to you. The stupidity in suggesting that someone is a "whore" for wanting that is profound.You make it sound like the act of picking a tool is completely devoid of moral implications and you seem to believe that the possible efficiency gained by a particular choice automatically trumps the consequences that that choice might entail. Even within the extremely specific realm of computer software, it is easy to provide examples that you are wrong on both accounts.
I am sorry, but the truth does not come from the gut. Rational analysis of the available information provides the closest thing to truth we can come up.
Ah, if it were that simple! You have to keep in mind that the US is quite good at exporting its domestic madness...
"liars and traitors". You surely seem to have swallowed the pill...
"All of Debian" probably includes support for more architectures than any version of Windows has ever even run on and apps allowing you to do so many different things that most humans are not even able to go through a list of their descriptions and understand what the apps are for. Are you seriously comparing that to what's shipped with Vista and the size of it?
You clearly do not understand what `obscurity' refers to in `security through obscurity does not work'.
Well, there is a difference from violating a patent you have never even heard about and pretending not to see the license blurb on all the source files of a GPLed project, wouldn't you say?
Actually, any embassy from X is considered X's territory, for all country values of X.
To Microsoft. If a PDF reader can crash the OS, it's their bug.
Anything that depends on competent programmers being in the audience is doomed to fall.
Do you have a link for that ESR post?