XML is unreadable compared to today's programming languages because of it's verbosity. You simply can't fit the relevant information in a space small enough to get a good overview of your statement or expression. In addition you have to constantly filter out all the irrelevant tag-bullshit. It is not un-interpretable but you simply can not read it without staring on it for a few minutes like you could most normal code.
Creating a script to change 4-space-tabs to 8-space-tabs is 1 (short) line of shell-script (sed actually) without XML. I don't think your XML code for that would be simpler...
# The following setting describes the number of idle worker threads
# Use caution with values higher than 100 as this might slow down disk access due to file locking issues
# For further information see/usr/share/doc/example-0.1/README.openfiles
# The default value is 10
# idleworkers=10
# Miminum Value is 1, maximum value is 255
idleworkers=25
The parsing is easy and you have enough documentation in place to decide between the reasonable values and info where you can find more information on issues concerning this setting.
With your XML way you have no documentation directly in the file. If you have a config file all settings should be documented in there and if you have a data file you should be able to have one documentation for an example entry at the beginning of the file. The "name=value" syntax is a lot easier to parse than XML and allows you to store the settings in memory in the way you want.
Actually this is the only thing you can hope for. You will never eliminate all security holes (given that the system is in active development and gets new drivers,...). The only think you can hope for is making compromising the system as hard as possible.
A better way would be real routing with firewall. That way we probably had IPv6 today already. NAT has a bad name for delaying a real solution for the address-space problem while the pain of changing will be even greater for every month and year we wait (due to more hosts having to change).
The difference being e.g. that in Linux some apps just don't run as root (most IRC-clients e.g.) while in windows lots of apps don't run unless you are root (Admin). So lazy people will get problems with Linux running as root that are bigger than having to type the root password a few times and will start running as user.
As a world citizen I like suicide bombers more than nuclear missiles. They rarely tend to leave radiation when they explode and don't kill thousands of people.
Perhaps you could be a little more specific about what your jobs are. Perhaps someone could then point out a way to do them in Linux (or someone gets the idea to develop a matching program). If you don't tell anyone what you need don't rant when you don't get it.
Don't forget there is a world outside your small box named US. A lot of countries haven't introduced any new copyright laws and the eagerness of the US to do so will encourage this behaviour in some countries around the world. Not everyone follows the US example, there are quite a few countries who do just the opposite.
I would say that the market should decide, not some arbitrary placed law. If people think his book/movie/... is worth it they will probably help him make the next one.
I would say to him that he shouldn't judge others by his own motives. If his movie is really good he will probably get a lot more than the $20 back. If it is bad,...
Who wants to encourage the production of expensive, bad movies anyway?
I would rather have Mr Home User using Windows or some other crap and have the diversity of distros we had for the past years. Who the hell said every Operating System must cater to any users needs?
That is another thing most rpm-based distros never get right.
You have to upgrade your system with CDs every once in a while instead of simply upgrading by downloading the newest versions of your installed packages.
And who said GUI is better than text-files for configuration? Did anyone test that under unbiased conditions (new computer users who know neither)? Sure you are used to GUI dialogs in Windows but for how long did you use config files until you decided they are soooo much worse than a GUI?
XML is unreadable compared to today's programming languages because of it's verbosity. You simply can't fit the relevant information in a space small enough to get a good overview of your statement or expression. In addition you have to constantly filter out all the irrelevant tag-bullshit. It is not un-interpretable but you simply can not read it without staring on it for a few minutes like you could most normal code.
Creating a script to change 4-space-tabs to 8-space-tabs is 1 (short) line of shell-script (sed actually) without XML. I don't think your XML code for that would be simpler...
Don't create problems where there are none: KISS
If the programmers work with something other than the published text the published one isn't technically the source-code.
Your mistake shows another big problem with XML: You can't embed it into HTML Pages without lots of escaping.
I would like to have something like this:
/usr/share/doc/example-0.1/README.openfiles
# The following setting describes the number of idle worker threads
# Use caution with values higher than 100 as this might slow down disk access due to file locking issues
# For further information see
# The default value is 10
# idleworkers=10
# Miminum Value is 1, maximum value is 255
idleworkers=25
The parsing is easy and you have enough documentation in place to decide between the reasonable values and info where you can find more information on issues concerning this setting.
With your XML way you have no documentation directly in the file. If you have a config file all settings should be documented in there and if you have a data file you should be able to have one documentation for an example entry at the beginning of the file. The "name=value" syntax is a lot easier to parse than XML and allows you to store the settings in memory in the way you want.
Actually this is the only thing you can hope for. You will never eliminate all security holes (given that the system is in active development and gets new drivers,...). The only think you can hope for is making compromising the system as hard as possible.
A better way would be real routing with firewall. That way we probably had IPv6 today already. NAT has a bad name for delaying a real solution for the address-space problem while the pain of changing will be even greater for every month and year we wait (due to more hosts having to change).
The difference being e.g. that in Linux some apps just don't run as root (most IRC-clients e.g.) while in windows lots of apps don't run unless you are root (Admin). So lazy people will get problems with Linux running as root that are bigger than having to type the root password a few times and will start running as user.
When I read about that rule no longer being valid (yes, I RTFA) I just thought: "Boy, you never did phone support, did you?".
As a world citizen I like suicide bombers more than nuclear missiles. They rarely tend to leave radiation when they explode and don't kill thousands of people.
Or perhaps the test for a Anti-Satellite weapon before it is used against military satellites.
Perhaps you could be a little more specific about what your jobs are. Perhaps someone could then point out a way to do them in Linux (or someone gets the idea to develop a matching program). If you don't tell anyone what you need don't rant when you don't get it.
Don't forget there is a world outside your small box named US. A lot of countries haven't introduced any new copyright laws and the eagerness of the US to do so will encourage this behaviour in some countries around the world. Not everyone follows the US example, there are quite a few countries who do just the opposite.
I would say that the market should decide, not some arbitrary placed law. If people think his book/movie/... is worth it they will probably help him make the next one.
I would say to him that he shouldn't judge others by his own motives. If his movie is really good he will probably get a lot more than the $20 back. If it is bad, ...
Who wants to encourage the production of expensive, bad movies anyway?
Only if you try to sell information for more than their perceived worth.
I would rather have Mr Home User using Windows or some other crap and have the diversity of distros we had for the past years. Who the hell said every Operating System must cater to any users needs?
That is another thing most rpm-based distros never get right.
You have to upgrade your system with CDs every once in a while instead of simply upgrading by downloading the newest versions of your installed packages.
Bad idea. How do you prevent old libraries with security holes on your system with this?
But Gentoo users would never do that because rpm sucks.
It is the reason most of us went away from redhat, suse or other rpm-based distros in the first place.
It is better than calling them "features"
More like:
emerge game
wait 30 minutes
start game that is working out of the box (ebuild)
That reminds me of Windows Gaming (when using a get-work-done-OS for real work).
And who said GUI is better than text-files for configuration? Did anyone test that under unbiased conditions (new computer users who know neither)? Sure you are used to GUI dialogs in Windows but for how long did you use config files until you decided they are soooo much worse than a GUI?