The article didn't seem to suggest that people try to program in English. The only example I saw was that of adding up a bunch of numbers in a set, and I thought it was spot-on about that issue. Everything in Java and C happens at the element level. But Lisp has a MAP function, and APL has reduction, and even BASIC can add A+B, where A and B are arrays. The higher-level operations that eliminate most of the explicit looping structures have been available for years but noboby ever builds them into new languages. In fact, language design seems to be moving backward as all three of those languages were designed in the 1960's.
>Power: domination, beyond what is required for a >healthy business, is what Bill wants. He does not >care for profits. He no longer cares about making >a good business and cool software (I think >perhaps many years ago he did).
Well, Microsoft Basic was a joke. It didn't even have functions, just GOSUB's and two-character variables. Xitan Disk Basic and Q-Basic were both much better products. Both had real functions and Q-Basic had multi-character (more than 2) character variable names.
QDOS consisted largely of code pirated from CP/M; they didn't even bother to root out the concealed copyright notices. Gary Kildall was able to bring an IBM PC into court and type an Easter-egg command to display the Digital Research copyright.
After Bill ripped it off from Seattle Computer Works, who ripped it off from Digital Research, IBM had to finish it up because Microsoft didn't have any O/S programmers.
This cost Microsoft about 3 cents in earnings this quarter, taking their earnings from 23 cents to 20 cents. So it might depress earnings by 4 percent for one year. Not a bad price to pay for blowing away yet another competitor.
Microsoft has a business policy of starving its competition out of business. They call it "cutting off their air supply." Microsoft will give away its product, if necessary, in order to accomplish this. I think they also have signed distributors up to exclusive agreements (don't carry any of our competitor's products, if you want to carry Microsoft). The Feds are unwilling or unable to change this situation. So for many products, consumers only have one choice.
Wasn't it a Windows lockup that took out Los Angeles air traffic control system last month? I think the procedure tells them to reboot once a month and they just forgot.
They never steal anything, like GUI's, disk compression, the Spyglass web browser, Palm PC's, handwriting recognition tablets, MS/DOS, or Borland's development staff. Steve really has the moral high ground here.
The thing to do is to cut down trees and bury them, so they won't release their trapped CO2. Use all the paper towels you can, quick! Also, disposable diapers and newspapers are very healthy for the environment as they are good ways of sequestering CO2 in landfills. Do your bit for the environment by printing out that extra Linux source-code listing, and when you're done, make sure it goes in a landfill.
We should all be nice to Microsoft because they would never bug their competitors' hotel rooms, perjure themselves in court, open their source code to China while claiming in court that opening it would damage national security, sabotage their competitors' applications by changing their API's, or promise delivery dates that they know they cannot meet in order to starve their competition. Everyone knows Linus does that kind of stuff all the time.
We should all be nice to Microsoft because they treat everyone so fairly. They never commit perjury, hide evidence, lock vendors into shipping only Microsoft O/S's, break competitor's applications in subtle ways, customize their websites so that competitive browsers don't work, set out to destroy their competition and "smile while pulling the trigger", or reveal their source code to China while claiming in court that opening it up would jeopardize national security.
Here is a list of legal actions against Microsoft, at http://www.aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html. Ballmer is uncomfortable with retail-level thievery but very accustomed to wholesale-level.
In 2002, Microsoft was sued by SPX over the NetMeeting whiteboard, by Burst for patent infringement, by Network Commerce, Sun, BE, and AOL.
MSN put in code that ruined Opera's display of Microsoft websites, by testing specifically for the Opera browser and shifting images sideways. Opera settled with Microsoft for this but agreed to hide the terms of the settlement.
How many other things has Steve stolen and gotten away with? Cheating, getting caught, and paying settlements is a way of life.
If it went down for three hours, now it's got to run for 3400 years in order to make up the claimed operational availability:
"The Harris-developed VSCS - based on independent, distributed processors and switches - allows air traffic controllers to establish all air-to-ground and ground-to-ground communications with pilots and other air traffic controllers. The system offers unprecedented voice quality, touch-screen technology, dynamic reconfiguration capabilities to meet changing needs, and an operational availability of 0.9999999."
It's not a question of agenda versus no agenda, when 90% of newpaper journalists vote Democrat. It's a question of being upfront about one's agenda versus hiding it.
In all other occupations, conflicts of interest are routinely divulged; for some reason in mainstream journalism, they are routinely hidden. Why is this?
Slashdot Mirror
The article didn't seem to suggest that people try to program in English. The only example I saw was that of adding up a bunch of numbers in a set, and I thought it was spot-on about that issue. Everything in Java and C happens at the element level. But Lisp has a MAP function, and APL has reduction, and even BASIC can add A+B, where A and B are arrays. The higher-level operations that eliminate most of the explicit looping structures have been available for years but noboby ever builds them into new languages. In fact, language design seems to be moving backward as all three of those languages were designed in the 1960's.
Correction: C-Basic (not q-basic) had multi-character variable names. CBasic compiled
to an intermediate form like Java does.
>Power: domination, beyond what is required for a >healthy business, is what Bill wants. He does not >care for profits. He no longer cares about making >a good business and cool software (I think >perhaps many years ago he did).
Well, Microsoft Basic was a joke. It didn't even have functions, just GOSUB's and two-character variables. Xitan Disk Basic and Q-Basic were both much better products. Both had real functions and Q-Basic had multi-character (more than 2) character variable names.
QDOS consisted largely of code pirated from CP/M; they didn't even bother to root out the concealed copyright notices. Gary Kildall was able to bring an IBM PC into court and type an Easter-egg command to display the Digital Research copyright.
After Bill ripped it off from Seattle Computer Works, who ripped it off from Digital Research, IBM had to finish it up because Microsoft didn't have any O/S programmers.
This cost Microsoft about 3 cents in earnings this quarter, taking their earnings from 23 cents to 20 cents. So it might depress earnings by 4 percent for one year. Not a bad price to pay for blowing away yet another competitor.
Maybe it's some secret section in the Act of Which We Do Not Speak.
We can always breed Nuclear-powered chickens
http://peacecountry0.tripod.com/cold_fusion.htm
Careful measurements of the calcium intake and output of chickens suggest that chickens transmute silicon into calcium.
Microsoft has a business policy of starving its competition out of business. They call it "cutting off their air supply." Microsoft will give away its product, if necessary, in order to accomplish this. I think they also have signed distributors up to exclusive agreements (don't carry any of our competitor's products, if you want to carry Microsoft). The Feds are unwilling or unable to change this situation. So for many products, consumers only have one choice.
Apparently the FAA has decided to equip this Windows system with a bell that goes off after 30 days to remind the operator to reboot it.
:)
But at least it fails reliably
It's an overflow in a 32-bit counter.
:)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216641/EN-US/
But it's stable once it crashes
Wasn't it a Windows lockup that took out Los Angeles air traffic control system last month? I think the procedure tells them to reboot once a month and they just forgot.
That would seem to me to be a stability issue.
ALL copies of Windows are pirated in virtue of the fact that they were produced by the biggest pirates on the planet.
They never steal anything, like GUI's, disk compression, the Spyglass web browser, Palm PC's, handwriting recognition tablets, MS/DOS, or Borland's development staff. Steve really has the moral high ground here.
Right, you are welcome to use products produced by Digital Research, Netscape, Burst, SPX, Borland, or Caldera.
Oh, wait...
Your Jedi mind tricks will not work on me, boy.
The thing to do is to cut down trees and bury them, so they won't release their trapped CO2. Use all the paper towels you can, quick! Also, disposable diapers and newspapers are very healthy for the environment as they are good ways of sequestering CO2 in landfills. Do your bit for the environment by printing out that extra Linux source-code listing, and when you're done, make sure it goes in a landfill.
Page 29 of the Microsoft File, by Wendy Goldman Rohm.
We should all be nice to Microsoft because they would never bug their competitors' hotel rooms, perjure themselves in court, open their source code to China while claiming in court that opening it would damage national security, sabotage their competitors' applications by changing their API's, or promise delivery dates that they know they cannot meet in order to starve their competition. Everyone knows Linus does that kind of stuff all the time.
We should all be nice to Microsoft because they treat everyone so fairly. They never commit perjury, hide evidence, lock vendors into shipping only Microsoft O/S's, break competitor's applications in subtle ways, customize their websites so that competitive browsers don't work, set out to destroy their competition and "smile while pulling the trigger", or reveal their source code to China while claiming in court that opening it up would jeopardize national security.
Here is a list of legal actions against Microsoft,
at http://www.aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html. Ballmer is uncomfortable with retail-level thievery but very accustomed to wholesale-level.
In 2002, Microsoft was sued by SPX over the NetMeeting whiteboard, by Burst for patent infringement, by Network Commerce, Sun, BE, and AOL.
MSN put in code that ruined Opera's display of Microsoft websites, by testing specifically for the Opera browser and shifting images sideways. Opera settled with Microsoft for this but agreed to hide the terms of the settlement.
How many other things has Steve stolen and gotten away with? Cheating, getting caught, and paying settlements is a way of life.
Right, which is sort of my point. This information is hard to come by because it's not routinely divulged by the newsprint media.
If it went down for three hours, now it's got to run for 3400 years in order to make up the claimed operational availability:
"The Harris-developed VSCS - based on independent, distributed processors and switches - allows air traffic controllers to establish all air-to-ground and ground-to-ground communications with pilots and other air traffic controllers. The system offers unprecedented voice quality, touch-screen technology, dynamic reconfiguration capabilities to meet changing needs, and an operational availability of 0.9999999."
It's not a question of agenda versus no agenda, when 90% of newpaper journalists vote Democrat. It's a question of being upfront about one's agenda versus hiding it.
In all other occupations, conflicts of interest are routinely divulged; for some reason in mainstream journalism, they are routinely hidden. Why is this?
Would the Swiss model of decentralized government be a good one for Iraq? Why or why not?
The Voyager TV series had some Flash Gordon-style stuff set in the holodeck that I thought was pretty well done.