There is nothing evil about that system, and in fact it is remarkably fair and workable quite frequently
Bill Gates and Starving Homeless People in the same country is not my idea of a "remarkably fair system".
Just because people try to make it appear as if the only alternative to capitalism is a system pulled out of Marx's ass (Communism), doesn't make Capitalism any better.
RESEARCH a better system.
Use modern technology to electronically track the market in order to be able to apply ANY market rules with an automatic system, and not a totalitarian regime.
The possibilities of non-capitalistic markets are very much ignored, especially putting modern technology to use to implement them, which is a shame, because then people like you try to claim Capitalism is good.
I'll give you this cure you desperately want, (and only I can give you), and you'll enslave yourself to me for the rest of your life Ok, sounds fair.
at some point it would be nice to have keywords (something like what "apropos/man -k" is to man pages) for packaging systems. I don't like having to go on the net to find commands/packages to get when I need a program to do "whatever".
In Debian, you can use apt-cache search anything which is probably what you're looking for..
However, it will only search your listings, that are downloaded via apt-get update (I believe), but it works offline.
printf debugging is possible. But debugging with debuggers IS productive, and unlike many people think, it DOES take skill and practice.
You have to know to ask the right questions, and place the breakpoints in the right locations.
If you are stepping through code for hours, you are doing something wrong.
Generally, you should always have a strongly-defined input->output for each piece of code, and debugging your code should consist of finding the exact point where the code generates unexpected output from your input (or state or condition). Step in the code to find the exact point it breaks more specifically.
This, ofcourse, is for the case when your output (meaning not only actual output, but getting wrong things done) is simply wrong for some reason. For the case of crashes/etc, integrated debuggers usually make seg. faults trivial to understand via the immediate stack trace, local-scope watches, etc. that jump up automatically, and allow you to even change a bit of code, set the program counter to another location, compile, and continue the program's run from where you wish (no need to restart it). This, however, is a specific VC++ trait, and I wish I could find it in more environments..
I use both methods to debug, but I find debuggers simply more productive.
Which C++ framework (/library) did you use?
I used to find C++ quite a bad language, for example, until I learned how to implement true OO concepts in C++, and that the standard C++ library is simply crap.
Using Qt, I can be a lot more productive, and hardly ever need to think about memory management. This really makes me wish a library like Qt could be used for non-GUI programming, because its the only library I know of implementing true OO concepts to create a comprehensive framework to work with, without having to fall back on ugly C-functions to work with, making the code an ugly hybrid of C++-style and C-style crap.
Other than that, I don't see how Java would be more productive, especially with its lack of multiple inheritance (and if you claim, like others, this is a sign of bad design, I can enumarate more than one case in which you need it for a good design), its lack of nice syntatic sugar (overload operators, for one), etc.
Do you believe Java is more productive than C++ in general, or just more productive than C++ in a specific setting you used it - with the crappy standard library?
Please take a look at the Qt interfaces and how comprehensive they are before answering.
.. as it may make functional languages so much more optimizable than C\C++ compilers as to almost obselete C\C++ completely (Used solely for the simplicity of their optimization).
The Itanium is not about 64-bits, or more than 4 GB of RAM (That the PPro and above can do, as a lot of people missed in a few threads), its all about VLIW, or at least, that's all that is *important* about it. As others mentioned, Many 64 bit processors already exist.
The reason purely functional languages would be more optimizable is simply the fact that with purely functional languages, it is easy to find instructions to run in parallel, and the compiler can easily use the VLIW to its advantage, and put many instructions in parallel, whereas a typical C or C++ compiler would have a very difficult time finding things to run in parallel.
I never said Gnome couldn't, I said KDE is not un-innovative if the default look is Windows-ish.
Gnome is internally more like Windows than KDE is, that was my point, not that it looks like Windows.
Take a look at the interior KDE design. Far superior to the rest, and very very different from Windows (unlike Gnome). The widget set can look like anything, if the default look is somewhat similar to Windows, so what? KDE is a lot more than a widget set.
The FBC reports that "Free operating systems will be banned from being used or shown on personal computers for the next decade. The restriction, which is being imposed by Microsoft (MS), is designed to protect the substantial investments made by national software companies who do not want their software markets undermined by free software.
You really should try Debian.. No package messup will ever be so great as to require a reinstall (unless you delete your package state and all your backup, then a reinstall might be less trouble).
You really have no match for apt with pure tarballs.
There is work in Linux and several other Unixen to move to a capability based systems and implement the principle of least privelege
As pointed out by the main EROS engineer (if it is right to put it that way), Linux and other systems can never evolve to pure capability systems.
Internally, Linux uses capabilities, but that does not matter at all, as the external API of the system is not capability-based, and can never be one. In order for it to be capability based, the change will be so huge, you wouldn't recognize Linux in the other end. Pure capability systems have to be built from the ground up, because a combination of ACL and Capability systems seems to always end up worse than both.
Another issue with capability systems is that the machine state becomes more complex to set up, while implementing the principle of least privilege, and simplicity. The simplest solution is EROS's, to use Orthogonal Persistancy. This makes a file system obselete and redundant, and only a prone-ness to security holes, not to mention it is the basis of all which is UNIX. This means UNIX will never be able to EFFECTIVELY implement pure capability systems, not while remaining a UNIX.
P.S:
This UNIX comment applies to Windows as well, which is of the same class of security mechanisms (ACL's). (Not to mention various other systems that are not capability-based)
How many more thefts and breakins will it require, until people realize that for security, the principle of least privelege MUST be implemented!
This principle CANNOT exist in a UNIX system, which has very rough granulity to its security, and is based on very huristic security methods that form an extremely complex, impossible to secure system.
Most people gave up, "all systems are hackable", and basically give up the search for more secure technologies. I, on the other hand, am more optimistic.
The positive side of these cases, imo, is that people may finally start looking for more security in their systems, and divert the efforts from various near-useless OS kernels (that hardly add any functionality, albeit adding some elegance and sometimes even performance), to CAPABILITY based systems, which are the best security systems we can implement, and truly implement the principle of least privelege.
EROS technology is the future, it truly is the solution to all of this.
Progress will not be made, until we dump the unsecure designs of the past.
Just because YOU lack the mental ability, or are just too ignorant to grasp Darwin's theory, does not make everybody who does stupid.
A pile of transistors does not have any genetic base that can spontaniously modify (from radiation/mutation), whereas life, obviously does. Darwin also did not claim a cell came into existance from a bunch of molecules bumping into each other, Darwin took the cell's existance as a basis for his work.
The connection of nurves/blood-vessels and most everything else would not be much of a problem, as those do get developed to accomodate for the body's new structure. Note some a-bomb radiation victims DID grow arms in weird places, and had all 'perfectly connected together'. The genes that make up the blood vessels and nurves are already written in a way that is 'general' enough to work for a modified gene pool.
Also note that your analogy is also invalid because of no spontanious modification. A program that randomly creates software WILL create useful software at times (And that is easily proven), which is exactly what happens to genes by radiation and mutation.
There are small software projects that show random mutation and radiation on a software base create new 'useful species' of such software.
And as a final note, human civilization is NOT going through Natural selection, mostly. Humans no longer need much "fitness" in order to survive. He would survive just as well with or without a third arm, and therefore, that would not be evolved. If he could use a third arm in nature, it might just have a good chance of evolving.
A) Skill is a resource: thus has economic value. B) The resulting product may be infinitely reproduced with virtually no costs: thus has no economic value.
I think this is basically what is said. However, in order to apply A, in capitalist (inflexible) market, you must 'unnaturally' defy B.
An example to clarify it: - Company A makes a piece of software B. Company A deserves an economic reward for its work.
- Piece of software B can be distributed to all people, with no physical barrier. Since economic prices/constraints are supposed to represent such physical barriers, one is not appropraite here. (A price on a physical product represents the physical constraint of supplying, considering the demand).
Didn't anyone else notice "This program is published under GPL version 2, or any newer version"? Perhaps this is not the right way to spell it out, but simply referring the license to the newewst current GPL may resolve the problem once the newest GPL resolves its problems, wouldn't it?
That does not make the OS's job any less important for achieving security. The policy Linux and other OS's (with or without formal specifications) provide as a security-frame is very weak. A much stronger mechanism is EROS's. EROS is an OS created as a research project, and is most probably providing the most secure mechanisms that ever existed. Surprisingly enough, EROS is now under GPL, yet it is not currently developed using the 'chaotic' opensource model. However, it also does not conform to 'formal' specifications that I know of, but rather creates specifications of its own (whether or not those are formal, I do not know to determine), and some of those were proven secure. I think this strengthens the point that was already mentioned - the release model (opensource VS. closed source) is not at all related to how well the design was tested and designed. While it is true that testing a design and creating solid specifications for it helps to achieve better security, it is not, as the professor says, related to the distribution license. In addition to the development model, the release model is also linked to security, but not in the way the professor mentions. Opensource releases increase security and reliability, and so do formal tests and specifications. The combination of both is what we should strive for.
I wouldn't want a Structural Engineer building a bridge by trial and error.
This is quite a foolish thing to say, because the analogy is compeletely invalid. A program design that fails results in a few hours, or dozens of hours of reprogramming, whereas a bridge design that fails may lead to quite a lot more.
I'm not sure this is completely on-topic, but I wanted to mention that here in Israel, microwave radiation is the center of a lot of attention now. It seems that a lot of research suggests this is likely to be one of the more central causes of cancer amongst Modern civilization.
The cell-phone companies around here have to hide antennas all over the cities, because they are simply not given the licenses to install such antennas.
Israel was boomed with cell-phone (microwave-based) communication, and it seems as one of the only places to start taking its effects on the health seriously.
Is it truly that dangerous, or just unjustified panic?
Old topics aren't new on Slashdot, but this is the first time I encounter one I personally know. A big article in one of the last issues of 'Scientific American' mentions this, and appearantly, timothy didn't care to mention the name of this technology is 'Swarm Intelligence', based on the idea of forming a large intelligent colony, of small dumb individuals. This sort of mechanism is not only in bee and ant colonies, but also found in the brain, where a 'neuron colony' forms an intelligent entity. Such networks were ALREADY developed, and employed in factories, scheduling algorithms, and network routing.
Slashdot Mirror
There is nothing evil about that system, and in fact it is remarkably fair and workable quite frequently
Bill Gates and Starving Homeless People in the same country is not my idea of a "remarkably fair system".
Just because people try to make it appear as if the only alternative to capitalism is a system pulled out of Marx's ass (Communism), doesn't make Capitalism any better.
RESEARCH a better system.
Use modern technology to electronically track the market in order to be able to apply ANY market rules with an automatic system, and not a totalitarian regime.
The possibilities of non-capitalistic markets are very much ignored, especially putting modern technology to use to implement them, which is a shame, because then people like you try to claim Capitalism is good.
I'll give you this cure you desperately want, (and only I can give you), and you'll enslave yourself to me for the rest of your life Ok, sounds fair.
at some point it would be nice to have keywords (something like what "apropos/man -k" is to man pages) for packaging systems. I don't like having to go on the net to find commands/packages to get when I need a program to do "whatever".
In Debian, you can use apt-cache search anything which is probably what you're looking for..
However, it will only search your listings, that are downloaded via apt-get update (I believe), but it works offline.
printf debugging is possible. But debugging with debuggers IS productive, and unlike many people think, it DOES take skill and practice.
You have to know to ask the right questions, and place the breakpoints in the right locations.
If you are stepping through code for hours, you are doing something wrong.
Generally, you should always have a strongly-defined input->output for each piece of code, and debugging your code should consist of finding the exact point where the code generates unexpected output from your input (or state or condition). Step in the code to find the exact point it breaks more specifically.
This, ofcourse, is for the case when your output (meaning not only actual output, but getting wrong things done) is simply wrong for some reason. For the case of crashes/etc, integrated debuggers usually make seg. faults trivial to understand via the immediate stack trace, local-scope watches, etc. that jump up automatically, and allow you to even change a bit of code, set the program counter to another location, compile, and continue the program's run from where you wish (no need to restart it). This, however, is a specific VC++ trait, and I wish I could find it in more environments..
I use both methods to debug, but I find debuggers simply more productive.
Java is a lot more productive than C++.
Which C++ framework (/library) did you use?
I used to find C++ quite a bad language, for example, until I learned how to implement true OO concepts in C++, and that the standard C++ library is simply crap.
Using Qt, I can be a lot more productive, and hardly ever need to think about memory management. This really makes me wish a library like Qt could be used for non-GUI programming, because its the only library I know of implementing true OO concepts to create a comprehensive framework to work with, without having to fall back on ugly C-functions to work with, making the code an ugly hybrid of C++-style and C-style crap.
Other than that, I don't see how Java would be more productive, especially with its lack of multiple inheritance (and if you claim, like others, this is a sign of bad design, I can enumarate more than one case in which you need it for a good design), its lack of nice syntatic sugar (overload operators, for one), etc.
Do you believe Java is more productive than C++ in general, or just more productive than C++ in a specific setting you used it - with the crappy standard library?
Please take a look at the Qt interfaces and how comprehensive they are before answering.
OO programming is great.
Data hiding and abstraction is great.
Implementing the wheel again in every piece of code is not great.
Perhaps you should learn the PHILOSOPHY behind OO programming at some point, rather than the syntax words behind its C++ implementaiton.
.. as it may make functional languages so much more optimizable than C\C++ compilers as to almost obselete C\C++ completely (Used solely for the simplicity of their optimization).
The Itanium is not about 64-bits, or more than 4 GB of RAM (That the PPro and above can do, as a lot of people missed in a few threads), its all about VLIW, or at least, that's all that is *important* about it. As others mentioned, Many 64 bit processors already exist.
The reason purely functional languages would be more optimizable is simply the fact that with purely functional languages, it is easy to find instructions to run in parallel, and the compiler can easily use the VLIW to its advantage, and put many instructions in parallel, whereas a typical C or C++ compiler would have a very difficult time finding things to run in parallel.
I never said Gnome couldn't, I said KDE is not un-innovative if the default look is Windows-ish.
Gnome is internally more like Windows than KDE is, that was my point, not that it looks like Windows.
The second major gripe is window management. How do I tell KDE's window manager that I want a non-KDE app/window (like XMMS) to always be on top?
Just open the window-ops menu.
This is typically mapped to Alt-F3.
Select xmms window, Alt-F3, O
Take a look at the interior KDE design. Far superior to the rest, and very very different from Windows (unlike Gnome). The widget set can look like anything, if the default look is somewhat similar to Windows, so what? KDE is a lot more than a widget set.
The FBC reports that "Free operating systems will be banned from being used or shown on personal computers for the next decade. The restriction, which is being imposed by Microsoft (MS), is designed to protect the substantial investments made by national software companies who do not want their software markets undermined by free software.
You really should try Debian.. No package messup will ever be so great as to require a reinstall (unless you delete your package state and all your backup, then a reinstall might be less trouble).
You really have no match for apt with pure tarballs.
There is work in Linux and several other Unixen to move to a capability based systems and implement the principle of least privelege
As pointed out by the main EROS engineer (if it is right to put it that way), Linux and other systems can never evolve to pure capability systems.
Internally, Linux uses capabilities, but that does not matter at all, as the external API of the system is not capability-based, and can never be one. In order for it to be capability based, the change will be so huge, you wouldn't recognize Linux in the other end. Pure capability systems have to be built from the ground up, because a combination of ACL and Capability systems seems to always end up worse than both.
Another issue with capability systems is that the machine state becomes more complex to set up, while implementing the principle of least privilege, and simplicity. The simplest solution is EROS's, to use Orthogonal Persistancy. This makes a file system obselete and redundant, and only a prone-ness to security holes, not to mention it is the basis of all which is UNIX. This means UNIX will never be able to EFFECTIVELY implement pure capability systems, not while remaining a UNIX.
P.S:
This UNIX comment applies to Windows as well, which is of the same class of security mechanisms (ACL's). (Not to mention various other systems that are not capability-based)
How many more thefts and breakins will it require, until people realize that for security, the principle of least privelege MUST be implemented!
This principle CANNOT exist in a UNIX system, which has very rough granulity to its security, and is based on very huristic security methods that form an extremely complex, impossible to secure system.
Most people gave up, "all systems are hackable", and basically give up the search for more secure technologies. I, on the other hand, am more optimistic.
The positive side of these cases, imo, is that people may finally start looking for more security in their systems, and divert the efforts from various near-useless OS kernels (that hardly add any functionality, albeit adding some elegance and sometimes even performance), to CAPABILITY based systems, which are the best security systems we can implement, and truly implement the principle of least privelege.
EROS technology is the future, it truly is the solution to all of this.
Progress will not be made, until we dump the unsecure designs of the past.
www.eros-os.org
In fact, I think this can store more information than the human brain.
Isn't the brain's storage size roughly equivalent to a computer's 2 GB's?
Just because YOU lack the mental ability, or are just too ignorant to grasp Darwin's theory, does not make everybody who does stupid.
A pile of transistors does not have any genetic base that can spontaniously modify (from radiation/mutation), whereas life, obviously does.
Darwin also did not claim a cell came into existance from a bunch of molecules bumping into each other, Darwin took the cell's existance as a basis for his work.
The connection of nurves/blood-vessels and most everything else would not be much of a problem, as those do get developed to accomodate for the body's new structure. Note some a-bomb radiation victims DID grow arms in weird places, and had all 'perfectly connected together'. The genes that make up the blood vessels and nurves are already written in a way that is 'general' enough to work for a modified gene pool.
Also note that your analogy is also invalid because of no spontanious modification.
A program that randomly creates software WILL create useful software at times (And that is easily proven), which is exactly what happens to genes by radiation and mutation.
There are small software projects that show random mutation and radiation on a software base create new 'useful species' of such software.
And as a final note, human civilization is NOT going through Natural selection, mostly. Humans no longer need much "fitness" in order to survive.
He would survive just as well with or without a third arm, and therefore, that would not be evolved.
If he could use a third arm in nature, it might just have a good chance of evolving.
A) Skill is a resource: thus has economic value.
B) The resulting product may be infinitely reproduced with virtually no costs: thus has no economic value.
I think this is basically what is said.
However, in order to apply A, in capitalist (inflexible) market, you must 'unnaturally' defy B.
An example to clarify it:
- Company A makes a piece of software B.
Company A deserves an economic reward for its work.
- Piece of software B can be distributed to all people, with no physical barrier. Since economic prices/constraints are supposed to represent such physical barriers, one is not appropraite here.
(A price on a physical product represents the physical constraint of supplying, considering the demand).
Linux is advancing quite well, and since it is, by definition it has a direction.
As it seems, many people think Microsoft's products are not even close to compete with the "Directionless Unix clone", which is good enough a reason.
Didn't anyone else notice "This program is published under GPL version 2, or any newer version"? Perhaps this is not the right way to spell it out, but simply referring the license to the newewst current GPL may resolve the problem once the newest GPL resolves its problems, wouldn't it?
That does not make the OS's job any less important for achieving security.
The policy Linux and other OS's (with or without formal specifications) provide as a security-frame is very weak.
A much stronger mechanism is EROS's. EROS is an OS created as a research project, and is most probably providing the most secure mechanisms that ever existed.
Surprisingly enough, EROS is now under GPL, yet it is not currently developed using the 'chaotic' opensource model.
However, it also does not conform to 'formal' specifications that I know of, but rather creates specifications of its own (whether or not those are formal, I do not know to determine), and some of those were proven secure.
I think this strengthens the point that was already mentioned - the release model (opensource VS. closed source) is not at all related to how well the design was tested and designed. While it is true that testing a design and creating solid specifications for it helps to achieve better security, it is not, as the professor says, related to the distribution license.
In addition to the development model, the release model is also linked to security, but not in the way the professor mentions. Opensource releases increase security and reliability, and so do formal tests and specifications. The combination of both is what we should strive for.
I wouldn't want a Structural Engineer building a bridge by trial and error.
This is quite a foolish thing to say, because the analogy is compeletely invalid. A program design that fails results in a few hours, or dozens of hours of reprogramming, whereas a bridge design that fails may lead to quite a lot more.
I'm not sure this is completely on-topic, but I wanted to mention that here in Israel, microwave radiation is the center of a lot of attention now.
It seems that a lot of research suggests this is likely to be one of the more central causes of cancer amongst Modern civilization.
The cell-phone companies around here have to hide antennas all over the cities, because they are simply not given the licenses to install such antennas.
Israel was boomed with cell-phone (microwave-based) communication, and it seems as one of the only places to start taking its effects on the health seriously.
Is it truly that dangerous, or just unjustified panic?
a utopian capitalist world is an oxymoron.
Old topics aren't new on Slashdot, but this is the first time I encounter one I personally know. A big article in one of the last issues of 'Scientific American' mentions this, and appearantly, timothy didn't care to mention the name of this technology is 'Swarm Intelligence', based on the idea of forming a large intelligent colony, of small dumb individuals. This sort of mechanism is not only in bee and ant colonies, but also found in the brain, where a 'neuron colony' forms an intelligent entity. Such networks were ALREADY developed, and employed in factories, scheduling algorithms, and network routing.
Do you really think Stallman wants copyrights on Windows code? Would kinda hurt his reputation wouldn't it? :)