...'screwing up' the corporation. I'm advocating a change in the environment we've created for corporations to run in.
Cases like this one show that big business will excercise every right they are given by law in order to squeeze out every last drop of profit. That's what companies do.
Therefore, the only way to curb overly aggressive, unhelpful behaviour by said companies is to strip them of some of the rights WE have granted them.
I'll make all the noise I want, thanks. Try participating in the discussion next time, mmmkay? You sound like the angry one!
The American patent system is so out of control, it's unbelievable. The companies that abuse the overworked, underqualified patent office to stack up dubious patents for future ammunition against competitors ought to be sanctioned!
I don't have words to express how angry this IP grab makes me - and I'm not even an American! Did the Patent Office do any looking into prior art in this case at ALL?
Whose brilliant idea was it to give corporations the same legal rights as an individual? I wonder if this kind of crap would happen if only individual inventors could apply for patents, whether or not they were funded by a company that paid for their research. Hell, make it illegal for companies to defend patents or fund the defense of their employees' patents - make it up to the inventor to go to court and defend themselves! Jail time if prior art is found!
Research would still get funded, but only for the purpose of improving products, not for expansion of intellectual property portfolios.
IANAL (obviously), I know these are probably stupid suggestions, but damn it, we need some extreme methods to match the extreme opportunism shown by these companies. Anyone else have other pie-in-the-sky, impractical ideas for changing the US patent system?;)
Believe it or not, The BeOS terminal (which was bash or tcsh or whatever you wanted) drew me into the Unix-ish way of doing things. Though GNOME still doesn't show the simplicity, polish, or usability of the BeOS desktop, it's getting there ever so slowly.
The politics in the Linux are sometimes unbecoming to the community, but it's easy to overlook them and just use the bloody OS day in, day out.
... and any of the salespeople will tell you, targeting is key. Find a company that doesn't simply sell you blocks of "anonymous" impressions. Ask about their audience. Ask about ad 'inventory' that is targeted at people that are interested in your product's general area. It's usually better to buy clicks rather than impressions - you're more likely to get interest from people who have already clicked on your ad! Also, stay on top of your campaigns. If you aren't converting, call the advertising company and ask for it to be re-trafficked or re-targeted. Otherwise you'll get absolutely raped.
...we use open-source software for nearly everything at the datacenter, and on a few desktops in the office (GAIM has made inroads among the marketing staff, and I run a GNOME desktop). Our attempts to use commercial software have usually meant restrictions that we couldn't live with (we tried using Zeus for our hosting customers and ended up trashing it and using Apache 2.0 because we couldn't extend it as we wanted to. Expensive mistake!)
The only commercial software we are seriously looking at on the server side right now is Caucho Resin Enterprise - it definitely beats out Tomcat for our purposes.
It just seems to be the default here. If you run a company, open source is the first option. Everybody worth hiring has a background in Unixish operating systems and open tools. Resumes from people with Microsoft credentials tend to end up in the circular file unless they have some serious programming achievements under their belts and at least _some_ familiarity with common open software.
I'm not saying it's not possible to write a reasonably high quality aplication in PHP. I'm just saying that PHP has to do better than a few syntactical differences and extension upgrades before it can even be seriously considered in the enterprise, where Java is the standard (for good reason). It's got a long way to go.
If you don't agree, you've probably not had to work on a PHP site that gets thirty million hits a day, nor experienced the near-euphoria of moving to Java after dealing with that class A mess.
It's a lot harder to screw up the basics(content/logic separation, database abstraction, request parsing, validation) in, say, an EJB/servlets/JSP system, since those technologies encourage proper application structure and separations between subsystems are clear.
I find PHP's big-business aspirations amusing, given the state it's in.
I'll say it again: Why would you write a templating language in PHP? Smarty fills a need that does not exist. The separation that needs to be there is between PHP code that affects layout, and PHP code that does stuff like writing to databases, processing forms, etc.
You don't need a "templating engine" to gain that separation. You need a standard, well understood way of organizing your PHP application, and some libraries of code to support that method of organization - that is, you need an application framework. And PHP sorely needs a *standard* one. It may not be the language developers's job to create it, but it would certainly boost PHP's image if they did - imagine the flood of nice, interoperable applications that would emerge!
CPAN is not a framework, it's a massive library of code libraries, same as PEAR on the PHP side. Code libraries are good, but they don't define a way of structuring your application.
Perhaps one of those frameworks you mention will become a standard, but as long as they implement 'templating languages' I'm not going to hold my breath. PHP may be going in the right direction with the new stuff in Zend 2, but it's still way off the mark for serious webapp development.
PHP is a templating language. That was its original purpose, and it's quite good at it. The problem is, it's now capable of a hell of a lot more than templating, and people get confused about how to use it properly. The PHP people need to clarify that, and a standard PHP web-app framework is the answer.
A lot of well-meaning people have written templating layers for PHP to "separate layout from content". What they really need to do is separate layout-related PHP code (that's the stuff that generates HTML tables and otherwise affects markup) from application-related PHP code (the stuff that modifies databases and sends email, etc).
Smarty is a disaster. We evaluated it for our rewrite, but concluded that if we separated PHP/HTML 'templates' from PHP 'action' files, we would gain all the advantages of Smarty without the obscure formatting and slowdowns.
I agree with you that people need to write good code -- I just think PHP needs to do provide a framework that encourages good habits. When using a language, people should naturally grvitate towards doing things the right way. Having a base structure in place would do a lot to fix the current state of web application development in PHP.
Since its inception, PHP has gone from a simple website templating language and form processing tool, to a semi-OO scripting language hacked onto a bunch of C extensions, and now they expect to become a fully OO, enterprise-ready language?
Scary.
To write web applications properly and efficiently, you need a framework to support you. You do NOT want to be reinventing the wheel. Have you noticed the massive proliferation of database abstraction layers, incompatible form processing libraries, etc. etc. all written in PHP for PHP developers? Libraries of code written in a templating language! Eep. Every reasonably experienced PHP developer has probably tried to create an application framework at some point - if people keep seeing the need for one, it's a good bet PHP needs to supply one. No, PEAR is not an application development framework.
And what is it with all those PHP developers who seem to think a "class" is another term for "static function library"? The concept of using object types is foreign to thse people - they'd rather make huge monster arrays.
Just because the "I Can Use A Database So I Must Be A Web Developer" crowd thinks every web app could and should be written in PHP does NOT mean that that's actually the case.
PHP downright _encourages_ beginners to embed application-logic in HTML pages. I've been through a rewrite of an absolutely MASSIVE PHP site, and it was a year-long affair for five developers. The old site had become impossible to maintain. Talk about a waste of resources.
When PHP adopts a *standard* way of separating content logic from application logic, and enforces that split (kind of the way JSP pages work with servlets), then _maybe_ there will be some hope for it in the enterprise. Until then, Java will continue to dominate. I find it funny that Java interaction is such a high priority for PHP - if Java's installed on a company's hardware, a developer's natural reaction would be to use Java, not write something in some other language.
If no meeting on the steps of Orthanc appears in the film, it would be pretty hard to explain the sudden appearance of the Palantir. So, I am guessing that the Palantir of Orthanc plays no role in the last movie (Although I'm guessing that Denthenor has one and uses it, as in the book).
It's a pretty major plot element, since Pippin's inadvertent meeting with the Dark Lord (through the Stone) is the event that sends him off to Minas Tirith with Gandalf. Pippin's actions indirectly keep Gandalf from attempting to test the Stone to determine its origins. And Aragorn reveals himself to the Dark Lord using the Stone, and to gather intelligence.
I hope I'm wrong. Maybe it'll be an ooh, we found this stone in the wreckage of orthanc moment when the Dunedain show up. If they show up.
I'm not complaining really though. I like the movies and view them as an excellent and faithful *re-telling* of the original story.
Slashdot Mirror
...'screwing up' the corporation. I'm advocating a change in the environment we've created for corporations to run in.
Cases like this one show that big business will excercise every right they are given by law in order to squeeze out every last drop of profit. That's what companies do.
Therefore, the only way to curb overly aggressive, unhelpful behaviour by said companies is to strip them of some of the rights WE have granted them.
I'll make all the noise I want, thanks. Try participating in the discussion next time, mmmkay? You sound like the angry one!
The American patent system is so out of control, it's unbelievable. The companies that abuse the overworked, underqualified patent office to stack up dubious patents for future ammunition against competitors ought to be sanctioned!
;)
I don't have words to express how angry this IP grab makes me - and I'm not even an American! Did the Patent Office do any looking into prior art in this case at ALL?
Whose brilliant idea was it to give corporations the same legal rights as an individual? I wonder if this kind of crap would happen if only individual inventors could apply for patents, whether or not they were funded by a company that paid for their research. Hell, make it illegal for companies to defend patents or fund the defense of their employees' patents - make it up to the inventor to go to court and defend themselves! Jail time if prior art is found!
Research would still get funded, but only for the purpose of improving products, not for expansion of intellectual property portfolios.
IANAL (obviously), I know these are probably stupid suggestions, but damn it, we need some extreme methods to match the extreme opportunism shown by these companies. Anyone else have other pie-in-the-sky, impractical ideas for changing the US patent system?
See PRGoogleBar. It's not yet up to speed with the new FireFox extension format, but it does work.
Now let's see the US government follow in Germany's footsteps and directly sponsor the development of some critical piece of open-source software.
Believe it or not, The BeOS terminal (which was bash or tcsh or whatever you wanted) drew me into the Unix-ish way of doing things. Though GNOME still doesn't show the simplicity, polish, or usability of the BeOS desktop, it's getting there ever so slowly.
The politics in the Linux are sometimes unbecoming to the community, but it's easy to overlook them and just use the bloody OS day in, day out.
... and any of the salespeople will tell you, targeting is key. Find a company that doesn't simply sell you blocks of "anonymous" impressions. Ask about their audience. Ask about ad 'inventory' that is targeted at people that are interested in your product's general area. It's usually better to buy clicks rather than impressions - you're more likely to get interest from people who have already clicked on your ad! Also, stay on top of your campaigns. If you aren't converting, call the advertising company and ask for it to be re-trafficked or re-targeted. Otherwise you'll get absolutely raped.
...we use open-source software for nearly everything at the datacenter, and on a few desktops in the office (GAIM has made inroads among the marketing staff, and I run a GNOME desktop). Our attempts to use commercial software have usually meant restrictions that we couldn't live with (we tried using Zeus for our hosting customers and ended up trashing it and using Apache 2.0 because we couldn't extend it as we wanted to. Expensive mistake!)
The only commercial software we are seriously looking at on the server side right now is Caucho Resin Enterprise - it definitely beats out Tomcat for our purposes.
It just seems to be the default here. If you run a company, open source is the first option. Everybody worth hiring has a background in Unixish operating systems and open tools. Resumes from people with Microsoft credentials tend to end up in the circular file unless they have some serious programming achievements under their belts and at least _some_ familiarity with common open software.
I'm not saying it's not possible to write a reasonably high quality aplication in PHP. I'm just saying that PHP has to do better than a few syntactical differences and extension upgrades before it can even be seriously considered in the enterprise, where Java is the standard (for good reason). It's got a long way to go.
If you don't agree, you've probably not had to work on a PHP site that gets thirty million hits a day, nor experienced the near-euphoria of moving to Java after dealing with that class A mess.
It's a lot harder to screw up the basics(content/logic separation, database abstraction, request parsing, validation) in, say, an EJB/servlets/JSP system, since those technologies encourage proper application structure and separations between subsystems are clear.
I find PHP's big-business aspirations amusing, given the state it's in.
You don't need a "templating engine" to gain that separation. You need a standard, well understood way of organizing your PHP application, and some libraries of code to support that method of organization - that is, you need an application framework. And PHP sorely needs a *standard* one. It may not be the language developers's job to create it, but it would certainly boost PHP's image if they did - imagine the flood of nice, interoperable applications that would emerge!
CPAN is not a framework, it's a massive library of code libraries, same as PEAR on the PHP side. Code libraries are good, but they don't define a way of structuring your application.
Perhaps one of those frameworks you mention will become a standard, but as long as they implement 'templating languages' I'm not going to hold my breath. PHP may be going in the right direction with the new stuff in Zend 2, but it's still way off the mark for serious webapp development.
A lot of well-meaning people have written templating layers for PHP to "separate layout from content". What they really need to do is separate layout-related PHP code (that's the stuff that generates HTML tables and otherwise affects markup) from application-related PHP code (the stuff that modifies databases and sends email, etc).
Smarty is a disaster. We evaluated it for our rewrite, but concluded that if we separated PHP/HTML 'templates' from PHP 'action' files, we would gain all the advantages of Smarty without the obscure formatting and slowdowns.
I agree with you that people need to write good code -- I just think PHP needs to do provide a framework that encourages good habits. When using a language, people should naturally grvitate towards doing things the right way. Having a base structure in place would do a lot to fix the current state of web application development in PHP.
Since its inception, PHP has gone from a simple website templating language and form processing tool, to a semi-OO scripting language hacked onto a bunch of C extensions, and now they expect to become a fully OO, enterprise-ready language?
Scary.
To write web applications properly and efficiently, you need a framework to support you. You do NOT want to be reinventing the wheel. Have you noticed the massive proliferation of database abstraction layers, incompatible form processing libraries, etc. etc. all written in PHP for PHP developers? Libraries of code written in a templating language! Eep. Every reasonably experienced PHP developer has probably tried to create an application framework at some point - if people keep seeing the need for one, it's a good bet PHP needs to supply one. No, PEAR is not an application development framework.
And what is it with all those PHP developers who seem to think a "class" is another term for "static function library"? The concept of using object types is foreign to thse people - they'd rather make huge monster arrays.
Just because the "I Can Use A Database So I Must Be A Web Developer" crowd thinks every web app could and should be written in PHP does NOT mean that that's actually the case.
PHP downright _encourages_ beginners to embed application-logic in HTML pages. I've been through a rewrite of an absolutely MASSIVE PHP site, and it was a year-long affair for five developers. The old site had become impossible to maintain. Talk about a waste of resources.
When PHP adopts a *standard* way of separating content logic from application logic, and enforces that split (kind of the way JSP pages work with servlets), then _maybe_ there will be some hope for it in the enterprise. Until then, Java will continue to dominate. I find it funny that Java interaction is such a high priority for PHP - if Java's installed on a company's hardware, a developer's natural reaction would be to use Java, not write something in some other language.
If no meeting on the steps of Orthanc appears in the film, it would be pretty hard to explain the sudden appearance of the Palantir. So, I am guessing that the Palantir of Orthanc plays no role in the last movie (Although I'm guessing that Denthenor has one and uses it, as in the book).
It's a pretty major plot element, since Pippin's inadvertent meeting with the Dark Lord (through the Stone) is the event that sends him off to Minas Tirith with Gandalf. Pippin's actions indirectly keep Gandalf from attempting to test the Stone to determine its origins. And Aragorn reveals himself to the Dark Lord using the Stone, and to gather intelligence.
I hope I'm wrong. Maybe it'll be an ooh, we found this stone in the wreckage of orthanc moment when the Dunedain show up. If they show up.
I'm not complaining really though. I like the movies and view them as an excellent and faithful *re-telling* of the original story.