The trouble begins when software requires outside assistance. Whats with all this outside assistance anyways? Since when do we all of a sudden need a license to listen to stuff. I never needed a license to make a copy of music on the radio or record a TV show on my VCR.
Don't you think companies are taking this encryption and licensing crap too far? Perhaps Notepad or Calc should be licensed too. Helk, I may have the need to add some numbers and type some text and God only knows who has the patents on the letter 'H' and the number 7!!
Well I must agree with you there. In this terrible economy it's nice to know there are all sorts of ways to make money removing malware from PCs, although it's a sad way to make money.
Most people who use Windows are unaware of the fact that are running under an Administrator (root user) account where anything can be installed, copied or deleted. Including spware and viruses. To this day, I never understood why Windows computers don't come pre-configured to run as a non-root user with limited file, execution and registry privileges? If I remember correctly XP supports a feature called "run as" if a program needs to be run as root (ie. setup programs).
I say, "too bad if the user has to type passwords!" The world of single user, DOS type computing is over. Time to start educating the public about the need to type in some passwords every now and then. Today's Anti-Virus and other Anti-Malware applications just don't cut it anymore. Blocking malware at the IP/Port level is not enough as you can tell by the failures of SP2. Password protecting processes at the OS level and file access at the file system level is much more effective. This whole virus/adware problem could be substantially minimized if people would just be more damn educated and willing to sacrifice a little ease of use. If we can be inconvenienced to show ID at the bank and enter a pin number at the ATM I don't think it's so bad to enter a password on our home PCs either.
Yes, I think technology is starting to make a come back in small ways through hand held gadgets. What was a Dell home PC in 1999 is now an iPod or hand held in 2004/2005. However, I think the real problem (at least that I'm seeing) is that an evil trend has been forming over the past decade. Companies don't "better" the technology that exists now! These companies just keep creating more crap! Think about it.
- PCs still crash quite often. - Relentless Adware - Relentless Spam - Web browsers that still can't render web pages correctly. - Printer drivers with worthless sound and graphics effects (Thanx HP) - Cell phones with satellite GPS tracking technology but still can't keep a call connected for more than 20 seconds. - VOIP still doesn't work. - Satellite radio that doesn't work when you go around a simple tree or hill.
I'm sure you can think of more. Yet, we keep paying for this half working crap! I think it all started with Microsoft. Now, I admit they have been very innovative. But I also truly believe Microsoft was the first company to make it's entire fortune off of products that "semi-work". The concept of "dazzle the user with bullsh*t" has become a sad but real trend in the IT world. Even the developers themselves (such as myself) have to wade through the garbage thats out there taking the form of thousands of annoying little acronyms for technologies that sound great but really have no purpose but to give some corporate CEO the feeling that he's beating out his competitors, when in reality he's simply poisoning the industry with more useless buzzwords and semi-useful technology!
Has Java really solved anything? What about beans, enterprise beans, J2EE,.NET, SOAP, XML, LDAP, RMI, HTML, DHTML, VRML, COM, DCOM, COM+, Active X, etc. All mysterious technology which promises to deliver even more viagra ads to your 8 year old's screen.
So is technology coming back? Yes, it's coming back for the corporate CEO to make more $$$ by tricking the misguided user into thinking a blue screen, "system failure" or reboot is just a fact of life we all need to pay for in a monthly subscription. But hey, as long as my cell phone's ringer plays merengue thats all that counts.
I couldn't agree more. Companies are so worried about copy protection only to have some kid in Eurpope or Asia eventually crack it. But what are we desperatly trying to protect? In my opinion, junk! Look, when the art of copy protection is more sophisticated than the content it's protecting something is wrong in our society.
BTW, Meet the Fockers just passed the $125 million mark in just 12 days! Seems to me Hollywood made out just fine without the copy protection. What are they belly achin about??
When I was little, I was introduced to programming by accident with my Apple IIe. I was loading a program when it suddenly stopped. I guess there was an error or something (rarely happened). So I typed a command (I think it was 'list') and there it was. Tons of code before my eyes...
20 Print X 25 Goto 10...
Back then, the basic interpreter was built right into the system so all you had to do was start up the computer, press a couple of keys and you were instantly sitting at a prompt, ready to code away. Apple made it so easy. I remember writing lots of loops. I made a rocket ship out of ASCII characters and made it cycle vertically thoughout the screen. From then on my interest in computers flourished and the rest is history.
Ahem...
Anyways, the point I'm getting at is SIMPLICITY. That is the key. The system was so simple I learned by accident. Well almost. I think the best way for youngsters (preteen) to learn programming is to stick 'em with a DOS prompt and some type of interpreter (ie. Basic). Keep it simple. Not OOP. Something where they can see the results immediately. Keep the difficulty low and the feedback from the machine high. The likes of C++, Java and.NET can always be taught later on once the interest is there and the foundation has been built.
Helk, I've never been busier! All those wonderful viruses and spywares keep us tech boys afloat, especially when Bill Gates' contemporaries (ie. Carly Fiorina) deem it necessary to hire people a few thousand miles away. Thanks Bill! Sad to say, no one has made a nickel off of Linux. Keep those crashes and blue screens a comin Gates!!
P.S. Geeez... I almost forgot my other important sponsors. Kazza and WinMX. Thanks guys for supporting us techs with your wonderful popup ads!
First off, Mac OS X's kernel (the OS's core) has been ported to run on the Intel X86 architecture. The question remains is Apple willing to move it's proprietary GUI environment to it. If they did this tomorrow it still wouldn't matter in the least to most Windows users and I'll tell you why. It's because more users have invested money and time in purchasing and learning the software they use now on Windows. As much as you and I know that Windows is never going to be as stable or as customizable as a Mac, most people don't seem to care.
What the first thing people at Apple, GNU Linux, or any other group who develops an alternative to Windows needs to do is EXACTLY what Microsoft did in 1995. If you can remember back when Gates wanted everyone to start using 32-BIT software as apposed to 16-BIT software he did the smart thing. He had NT, but instead of pushing it on home users, he developed the Win9x family which in a sense allowed users to still run their Win 3.1 programs. We need better Windows software emulation.
The second thing is that OSes like Linux need a better development environment for developers. One that makes writing software easy. Look at what Microsoft has to offer. Visual Studio.NET, C#, Visual Basic.. etc. Versus vi, gdb and make. The alternative OSes need better development tools that ease the pain of development, not make it worse.
Sadly, to some people the answer is an obvious and selfish yes! Unless of course someone in their family develops some debilitating disease like Parkinsons or Alzheimer's, then they suddenly change their ways.
It's just sad how in some people's minds a cell, less than the size of a pin head, can be compared to a living father or mother with a real family. I actually find this thinking kinda selfish.
If you really look into this whole issue of cloning or stem cell research, you obviously see two arguments at work here. The technical and (I believe) moral (non-religious) one that shows the benefits of such research on saving peoples' lives and/or giving them better quality of life as apposed to the non-technical (religious) one in which some book created thousands of years ago can somehow know the future and is able to dictate the decisions in our lives for the present day.
Of course we know that this book makes no mention of stem cells or cloning embryos because it can't. However, sadly enough, certain people use this piece of material as a means to scare and manipulate others into thinking this sort of science somehow equates to the work of the "devil" or some other "fictional" evil character that punishes those who disobey (what essentially is) another man's law.
Now, this line of thinking may have seemed legitimate thousands or even hundreds of years ago where people really believed Chris Columbus and his ships would fall of the edge of the Earth, but today, in a world where we have the capability to send robots 50 million miles away and land on other planets I think it's time that we put all this imaginary, spooky stuff to bed. We're just to intelligent for this.
This is progress folks and we need to move on. At times it seems scary, but that has never stopped us before. Put it this way, when was the last time one scientist beheaded another scientist for disproving his theories? When was the last time a group of engineers at one university jailed and then publicly hanged one of their fellow engineers for spreading an "evil" belief that Linux is a sucky operating system? Think about it and then you may laugh.
Nevermind, Homeland Security! A new branch of government needs to be created. The CPI (Considerate Persons Initiative). All it does is go around reminding people to be more considerate of others. The government could setup special offices where training would take place to teach people how to act like human beings. Perhaps a course on cell phone usage in theatures or waiting to get where you're going before applying lipstick in traffic.
Here are some laws that should go in effect...
- banning the use of personal checks in the supermarket. - 3 strikes and your out rule for talking in the movies. - requiring all bank tellers to have an IQ in the positive range - requiring all company's phone systems to enable the zero key for customer service - banning all restaurants from automatically adding tips to a check. That's why they are called tips!
I agree with you however, look at how much new educational stuff is on cable now.
Discovery Channel Discovery Civilization Discovery Health Discovery Home & Leisure Discovery Kids Discovery Science Discovery Wings Tech TV Ecology Channel Food Network Biography Channel Black Entertainment Television (BET)...
Lets face it, there will always be a flaw in software. There are even flaws in hardware. The first Pentiums even had flaws. The Windows OS is a HUGE system used in countless environments. You can't expect there to be no flaws, especially when the entire hacking world is trying to bring down or compromise the system.
Could it be Windows? What people don't get is that Windows is an all-in-one system. You can't compare it to say, an IBM mainframe. These systems are designed mainly to do one or two jobs and are monitored by highly skilled system administrators who's job it is to protect these systems in the first place. In contrast, most Windows systems are administred by mom, dad and grandpa Felix.
Could it be DSL/Cable? Broadband doesn't help any either. The amount of viruses produced and their intrusion success rate has increased since a lot of home computers are always connected to the outside world. Back in '82 viruses existed, but I never remember having to install virus software for my Apple IIe. Has the world changed?
Could it be Linux? Then there is Linux. Linux is a great system, but again it is a MUCH simpler system compared to current Windows, has a much smaller install base and is obviously MUCH less hacked than Windows. Eventually, as this platform becomes more and more popular, you will begin to see more viruses written for it. I guarantee it.
No, the real problem here is UCC (Uneducated Consumer Computing). Dell, Gateway, Compaq, IBM. They all make it look so easy and pain free to own a computer. Most people I meet on service calls, don't even know what a virus is or even what spyware is, or that they can download free patches and programs like Spybot or Ad-Aware. Let me tell you, I've made more money installing and running Ad-Aware than anything else!! I'm sure you have too. Don't lie now!
And this trend won't go away either, regardless of OS or hardware. So get used to it. As long as UCC remains, we're all in for an earful of over zealous virus reporting by our wonderful, informative and helpful friends in the media. Besides $60 for an installation of Ad-Aware doesn't hurt the wallet either, especially in this IT economy!:-)
Oh and by the way, for all you non-believers...
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/09/09/HNmoreli nuxholes_1.html
Sure all the tools and apps that come along with a given distro give that distro it's own flavor, BUT if you know how to use the command line effectively and you know how to compile applications in case there isn't a binary version then in the end it really doesn't matter which distro you choose. In your case, I would go with a distrobution of Linux where you have the option of paying for support from some third party, especially if your running critical programs on that server.
It seems that in Linux land, people try to push a distro maybe cause it's powerful and you can compile your own kernel or maybe just because they have a bumper sticker that says Slackware. Whatever, the reason, this is line of thinking is fine if your going to use this server in your own company or if you're going to be the only one accessing the server. But in the corporate world where most managers have no clue what they're doing, some geek heads mistakingly overlook practicality and get into trouble with their boss when the server goes down. As far as I see it practicality is the key and no one I know of ever got fired for being practical.
I know you didn't, but trust me when I say, people like you ALWAYS complain about Microsoft. It's in your rhetoric. And no, I don't love Microsoft, but the current open source minds of the day seems to dictate that everything Microsoft is bad and I just don't understand the logic. Their GUI and development tools are the most functional in computing today. Thats not catering to anyone's preferences, thats an undeniable fact my friend.
No need to get nasty. Anyone who takes all this as seriously to invoke name calling (such as yourself) needs some pysch help and fast.
> There is no "official" linux/unix/bsd/gnu GUI > because the biggest reason to use one of these systems is a thing called freedom.
How about freedom from complexity? Most people could care less about your stupid source code nor could they care about the freedom of choosing from 25 GUIs. People want consistency and ease of use. Something even present day unix GUIs still, to this date, do not provide.
> They don't work for you and they don't owe you anything
Fine, so then don't complain about Microsoft. Seems to me as much of a ruthless company they are, they always seem to have the right ingredients to make their system successful. Now I'm not saying their system is so great, BUT you have to admire what they've done. The open source world needs to learn from that by coding less and integrating their systems more so instead of having a usless free-for-all competetion, the overall system can push ahead in some useful direction that can offer a "REAL" alternative to Windows.
> Get off your ass and do your own work.
I do everyday. Im a developer who develops apps in Linux and Windows. I certainly am qualified to say that developing GUI apps for Windows is miles ahead of anything in unix. As much as developers complain about Visual Studio and MSDN, they are still much more complete then anything you'll find in unix, especially vi, gdb and man pages.
This whole GNOME thing is a total waste of human resources. All this system is trying to do is to catch up with QT/KDE and it won't. But why?? Why duplicate when you can build on top of whats already been done.
Seems to me the "real" enemy to the open source movement is Microsoft and this movement will never beat Microsoft if the wheel just keeps getting reinvented every time a group of open source developers decides unix needs another GUI library on top of the dozens already available. Thats the major problem with open source. Total lack of direction and inability to harness resources.
Besides, the most powerful and complete GUI for unix has already been invented. Its called Aqua and Apple owns it. Just goes to show what a little financial incentive can do for an open source operating system. Yes, Apple's Darwin kernel is open source. It's GUI however isn't.
Someone needs to just decide already on an "offical" GUI for unix. Just like Linus decides on the "official" Linux kernel. If that can happen, then the kernel and GUI can be more intergrated, developers can focus on better docs because they only have to work with one library and applications will play nicer and "see" each other. All of which will make the unix system much more useful to the end user. End of story!
It seems the US business are not investing in their mother country. Who cares if people in outer suburbs and rural areas have high speed access. They care more about hiring people in other countries because they are a few cents cheaper. This is why we are behind. Americans are cheapos when it comes to investing and giving back to the community.
Yes, for servers. But ask your IT manager to buy all new DELL Pentium 4GHZ workstations for the entire company because you need to code in Java and see what he says.
> can occasionally outperform C++, especially on web appliations.
There are no C++ web applications. The only ones may be HTML embedded ActiveX controls and I highly doubt they are slower than java applets, unless the programmer is really sloppy.
> Java is far easier to learn than C++.
Yes, and Visual Basic is easier than Java. Ease of use is in the eye of the beholder. Outside of memory management, Java is on the same level of difficulty as C++. Besides, Java forces the OOP paradigm, C++ doesn't. You can learn OOP through C++ at your own pace. Also, the syntax among these two languages is practically identical.
> Memory management bugs are among the most common and difficult bugs to fix.
Yes, but what if the bug is inside the virtual machine? Want to talk about difficult to find and fix! It's happened plenty of times before.
Bottom line. Nothing is for free.
It's not that the Linux desktop is hard to use...
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It's just difficult to setup.
The Linux desktop (ala KDE, GNOME) is very easy to use. I've read stories where people are saying that their mom and dad use it and their whole family uses it, and I beleive it. Yes it is true the new Linux desktops are easy to use.
But that is not the point. The point is that although it is easy to use, it is extremely difficult for the average user to setup correctly because the fact is that the Linux desktops have failed to shield the average user from the underlying mechanics of Unix. The only desktop to have done that successfully so far is Mac's Aqua interface.
To prove my point. just ask that same mom or dad or aunt and uncle to install a printer. Then we see a different story. Just ask them to install a digital camera or a scanner or compile an email client. Thats were the ease of use of Linux ends and the Windows logo begins.
So the problem here isn't one of ease of use. Helk, KDE is cake to use once everything is installed and working. But unless your're a Unix guru just try to get everything installed and working!
Ever see the people that screen you at the airports? Looks like most of them were flipping Big Macs before they got their BIG security job. I've been to Israel and let me tell you these people know how to search you! They do it so quick, you don't even know your being checked. Now our government is afraid of shoulder fired missles, yet they don't want to spend $$ on counter measures for the airplanes. Unbelievable.
BTW... Don't get caught with a nail clipper on board, you just may force our national color alert system to level red and ground all our planes!
Emacs or Visual Studio?
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It all comes down to the developers. Without better development tools software developers are going to steer clear of writing sophisticated GUI applications for Linux and are only going to continue writing console applications which have little or no appeal to the general public.
Why do you think there are so many user friendly Windows applications out there? Because Microsoft has invested a lot of time and money creating development environents that are easy to learn and powerful to use. There is a common misconception that when a developer writes a program, he or she shouldn't mind working with arcane and complex build systems. I don't know about you but I'll take Visual Studio any day over vi or emacs.
In my opinion (as a developer myself) programming is difficult enough and a good development environment is needed to keep the focus on developing the product at hand and not on worrying about which version of automake and autoconf is installed. This why there are so many third rate, unpolished apps in Linux.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only way I can see Linux actually beating Microsoft in the desktop market is if some major corp takes control of the reigns and develops "useful" utilities and development tools for the system. Tools like vi, gcc, automake and ddd just don't cut the mustard anymore when it comes to developing serious, graphically complex user interfaces. The current Linux development environment as it stands only discourages new developers from migrating to system. Linux needs a SERIOUS development IDE!
The other problem is that of a GUI library. QT, GTK+, wxWindows, Lesstif, etc. Pick one already! These incompatible and often incomplete (minus QT) toolkits create a barrage of incompatible, third rate applications. Concepts everyday Windows users take for granted like cut & paste, object embedding, drag & drop, automation and binary compatible controls become impossible to implement when applications can't communicate because they were all written by a different library.
This is why I don't think open source is the answer. "Too many cooks in the kitchen". Eventually 3 or 4 big companies will take control of Linux and the cottage industry you see now will diminish. Thats the only way Linux will be taken seriously enough to hurt Microsoft. But then what are you left with? An Ologopoly consisting of a few companies insisting their Linux is the best and purposely making their system incompatible with the others, until finally one wins and what are you left with? Another Microsoft.
I'm a software developer who has taught a few colleges in NYC and I can see why these companies are wanting to hire foreigners. There were and still are a lot schools out there that promise all kinds of money if you get their degree. They rush you into the field without having you fully understanding the "science" behind computers just to make a quick buck off you. Now we're left with a bunch of American computer engineers who know a lot of acronyms and buzz words but very little about how to apply it correctly. Sure there are great American computer engineers still left, but I think a lot of companies are tired of weeding through the crap.
People in other countries (ie. India, China, Israel, etc) are not lazy. They don't take their education for granted like we do here. Sure they are willing to work for cheaper, but I don't believe thats where it ends because they are also willing to understand the "science" where most Americans are just interested in the big pay off their guidance counselor told them they would get.
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The trouble begins when software requires outside assistance. Whats with all this outside assistance anyways? Since when do we all of a sudden need a license to listen to stuff. I never needed a license to make a copy of music on the radio or record a TV show on my VCR.
Don't you think companies are taking this encryption and licensing crap too far? Perhaps Notepad or Calc should be licensed too. Helk, I may have the need to add some numbers and type some text and God only knows who has the patents on the letter 'H' and the number 7!!
Well I must agree with you there. In this terrible economy it's nice to know there are all sorts of ways to make money removing malware from PCs, although it's a sad way to make money.
Most people who use Windows are unaware of the fact that are running under an Administrator (root user) account where anything can be installed, copied or deleted. Including spware and viruses. To this day, I never understood why Windows computers don't come pre-configured to run as a non-root user with limited file, execution and registry privileges? If I remember correctly XP supports a feature called "run as" if a program needs to be run as root (ie. setup programs).
I say, "too bad if the user has to type passwords!" The world of single user, DOS type computing is over. Time to start educating the public about the need to type in some passwords every now and then. Today's Anti-Virus and other Anti-Malware applications just don't cut it anymore. Blocking malware at the IP/Port level is not enough as you can tell by the failures of SP2. Password protecting processes at the OS level and file access at the file system level is much more effective. This whole virus/adware problem could be substantially minimized if people would just be more damn educated and willing to sacrifice a little ease of use. If we can be inconvenienced to show ID at the bank and enter a pin number at the ATM I don't think it's so bad to enter a password on our home PCs either.
Yes, I think technology is starting to make a come back in small ways through hand held gadgets. What was a Dell home PC in 1999 is now an iPod or hand held in 2004/2005. However, I think the real problem (at least that I'm seeing) is that an evil trend has been forming over the past decade. Companies don't "better" the technology that exists now! These companies just keep creating more crap! Think about it.
.NET, SOAP, XML, LDAP, RMI, HTML, DHTML, VRML, COM, DCOM, COM+, Active X, etc. All mysterious technology which promises to deliver even more viagra ads to your 8 year old's screen.
- PCs still crash quite often.
- Relentless Adware
- Relentless Spam
- Web browsers that still can't render web pages correctly.
- Printer drivers with worthless sound and graphics effects (Thanx HP)
- Cell phones with satellite GPS tracking technology but still can't keep a call connected for more than 20 seconds.
- VOIP still doesn't work.
- Satellite radio that doesn't work when you go around a simple tree or hill.
I'm sure you can think of more. Yet, we keep paying for this half working crap! I think it all started with Microsoft. Now, I admit they have been very innovative. But I also truly believe Microsoft was the first company to make it's entire fortune off of products that "semi-work". The concept of "dazzle the user with bullsh*t" has become a sad but real trend in the IT world. Even the developers themselves (such as myself) have to wade through the garbage thats out there taking the form of thousands of annoying little acronyms for technologies that sound great but really have no purpose but to give some corporate CEO the feeling that he's beating out his competitors, when in reality he's simply poisoning the industry with more useless buzzwords and semi-useful technology!
Has Java really solved anything? What about beans, enterprise beans, J2EE,
So is technology coming back? Yes, it's coming back for the corporate CEO to make more $$$ by tricking the misguided user into thinking a blue screen, "system failure" or reboot is just a fact of life we all need to pay for in a monthly subscription. But hey, as long as my cell phone's ringer plays merengue thats all that counts.
I couldn't agree more. Companies are so worried about copy protection only to have some kid in Eurpope or Asia eventually crack it. But what are we desperatly trying to protect? In my opinion, junk! Look, when the art of copy protection is more sophisticated than the content it's protecting something is wrong in our society.
BTW, Meet the Fockers just passed the $125 million mark in just 12 days! Seems to me Hollywood made out just fine without the copy protection. What are they belly achin about??
When I was little, I was introduced to programming by accident with my Apple IIe. I was loading a program when it suddenly stopped. I guess there was an error or something (rarely happened). So I typed a command (I think it was 'list') and there it was. Tons of code before my eyes ...
...
.NET can always be taught later on once the interest is there and the foundation has been built.
20 Print X
25 Goto 10
Back then, the basic interpreter was built right into the system so all you had to do was start up the computer, press a couple of keys and you were instantly sitting at a prompt, ready to code away. Apple made it so easy. I remember writing lots of loops. I made a rocket ship out of ASCII characters and made it cycle vertically thoughout the screen. From then on my interest in computers flourished and the rest is history.
Ahem...
Anyways, the point I'm getting at is SIMPLICITY. That is the key. The system was so simple I learned by accident. Well almost. I think the best way for youngsters (preteen) to learn programming is to stick 'em with a DOS prompt and some type of interpreter (ie. Basic). Keep it simple. Not OOP. Something where they can see the results immediately. Keep the difficulty low and the feedback from the machine high. The likes of C++, Java and
Helk, I've never been busier! All those wonderful viruses and spywares keep us tech boys afloat, especially when Bill Gates' contemporaries (ie. Carly Fiorina) deem it necessary to hire people a few thousand miles away. Thanks Bill! Sad to say, no one has made a nickel off of Linux. Keep those crashes and blue screens a comin Gates!!
P.S. Geeez... I almost forgot my other important sponsors. Kazza and WinMX. Thanks guys for supporting us techs with your wonderful popup ads!
First off, Mac OS X's kernel (the OS's core) has been ported to run on the Intel X86 architecture. The question remains is Apple willing to move it's proprietary GUI environment to it. If they did this tomorrow it still wouldn't matter in the least to most Windows users and I'll tell you why. It's because more users have invested money and time in purchasing and learning the software they use now on Windows. As much as you and I know that Windows is never going to be as stable or as customizable as a Mac, most people don't seem to care.
.NET, C#, Visual Basic.. etc. Versus vi, gdb and make. The alternative OSes need better development tools that ease the pain of development, not make it worse.
What the first thing people at Apple, GNU Linux, or any other group who develops an alternative to Windows needs to do is EXACTLY what Microsoft did in 1995. If you can remember back when Gates wanted everyone to start using 32-BIT software as apposed to 16-BIT software he did the smart thing. He had NT, but instead of pushing it on home users, he developed the Win9x family which in a sense allowed users to still run their Win 3.1 programs. We need better Windows software emulation.
The second thing is that OSes like Linux need a better development environment for developers. One that makes writing software easy. Look at what Microsoft has to offer. Visual Studio
Sadly, to some people the answer is an obvious and selfish yes! Unless of course someone in their family develops some debilitating disease like Parkinsons or Alzheimer's, then they suddenly change their ways.
It's just sad how in some people's minds a cell, less than the size of a pin head, can be compared to a living father or mother with a real family. I actually find this thinking kinda selfish.
If you really look into this whole issue of cloning or stem cell research, you obviously see two arguments at work here. The technical and (I believe) moral (non-religious) one that shows the benefits of such research on saving peoples' lives and/or giving them better quality of life as apposed to the non-technical (religious) one in which some book created thousands of years ago can somehow know the future and is able to dictate the decisions in our lives for the present day.
Of course we know that this book makes no mention of stem cells or cloning embryos because it can't. However, sadly enough, certain people use this piece of material as a means to scare and manipulate others into thinking this sort of science somehow equates to the work of the "devil" or some other "fictional" evil character that punishes those who disobey (what essentially is) another man's law.
Now, this line of thinking may have seemed legitimate thousands or even hundreds of years ago where people really believed Chris Columbus and his ships would fall of the edge of the Earth, but today, in a world where we have the capability to send robots 50 million miles away and land on other planets I think it's time that we put all this imaginary, spooky stuff to bed. We're just to intelligent for this.
This is progress folks and we need to move on. At times it seems scary, but that has never stopped us before. Put it this way, when was the last time one scientist beheaded another scientist for disproving his theories? When was the last time a group of engineers at one university jailed and then publicly hanged one of their fellow engineers for spreading an "evil" belief that Linux is a sucky operating system? Think about it and then you may laugh.
Nevermind, Homeland Security! A new branch of government needs to be created. The CPI (Considerate Persons Initiative). All it does is go around reminding people to be more considerate of others. The government could setup special offices where training would take place to teach people how to act like human beings. Perhaps a course on cell phone usage in theatures or waiting to get where you're going before applying lipstick in traffic.
Here are some laws that should go in effect...
- banning the use of personal checks in the supermarket.
- 3 strikes and your out rule for talking in the movies.
- requiring all bank tellers to have an IQ in the positive range
- requiring all company's phone systems to enable the zero key for customer service
- banning all restaurants from automatically adding tips to a check. That's why they are called tips!
- Im sure you can think of more.
I agree with you however, look at how much new educational stuff is on cable now.
...
Discovery Channel
Discovery Civilization
Discovery Health
Discovery Home & Leisure
Discovery Kids
Discovery Science
Discovery Wings
Tech TV
Ecology Channel
Food Network
Biography Channel
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Don't like it? Just flip the channel.
What is the problem here?
:-)
i nuxholes_1.html
Lets face it, there will always be a flaw in software. There are even flaws in hardware. The first Pentiums even had flaws. The Windows OS is a HUGE system used in countless environments. You can't expect there to be no flaws, especially when the entire hacking world is trying to bring down or compromise the system.
Could it be Windows?
What people don't get is that Windows is an all-in-one system. You can't compare it to say, an IBM mainframe. These systems are designed mainly to do one or two jobs and are monitored by highly skilled system administrators who's job it is to protect these systems in the first place. In contrast, most Windows systems are administred by mom, dad and grandpa Felix.
Could it be DSL/Cable?
Broadband doesn't help any either. The amount of viruses produced and their intrusion success rate has increased since a lot of home computers are always connected to the outside world. Back in '82 viruses existed, but I never remember having to install virus software for my Apple IIe. Has the world changed?
Could it be Linux?
Then there is Linux. Linux is a great system, but again it is a MUCH simpler system compared to current Windows, has a much smaller install base and is obviously MUCH less hacked than Windows. Eventually, as this platform becomes more and more popular, you will begin to see more viruses written for it. I guarantee it.
No, the real problem here is UCC (Uneducated Consumer Computing). Dell, Gateway, Compaq, IBM. They all make it look so easy and pain free to own a computer. Most people I meet on service calls, don't even know what a virus is or even what spyware is, or that they can download free patches and programs like Spybot or Ad-Aware. Let me tell you, I've made more money installing and running Ad-Aware than anything else!! I'm sure you have too. Don't lie now!
And this trend won't go away either, regardless of OS or hardware. So get used to it. As long as UCC remains, we're all in for an earful of over zealous virus reporting by our wonderful, informative and helpful friends in the media. Besides $60 for an installation of Ad-Aware doesn't hurt the wallet either, especially in this IT economy!
Oh and by the way, for all you non-believers...
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/09/09/HNmorel
Sure all the tools and apps that come along with a given distro give that distro it's own flavor, BUT if you know how to use the command line effectively and you know how to compile applications in case there isn't a binary version then in the end it really doesn't matter which distro you choose. In your case, I would go with a distrobution of Linux where you have the option of paying for support from some third party, especially if your running critical programs on that server.
It seems that in Linux land, people try to push a distro maybe cause it's powerful and you can compile your own kernel or maybe just because they have a bumper sticker that says Slackware. Whatever, the reason, this is line of thinking is fine if your going to use this server in your own company or if you're going to be the only one accessing the server. But in the corporate world where most managers have no clue what they're doing, some geek heads mistakingly overlook practicality and get into trouble with their boss when the server goes down. As far as I see it practicality is the key and no one I know of ever got fired for being practical.
> I didn't write one word about Microsoft.
I know you didn't, but trust me when I say, people like you ALWAYS complain about Microsoft. It's in your rhetoric. And no, I don't love Microsoft, but the current open source minds of the day seems to dictate that everything Microsoft is bad and I just don't understand the logic. Their GUI and development tools are the most functional in computing today. Thats not catering to anyone's preferences, thats an undeniable fact my friend.
> You're clearly a troll, but what the heck
No need to get nasty. Anyone who takes all this as seriously to invoke name calling (such as yourself) needs some pysch help and fast.
> There is no "official" linux/unix/bsd/gnu GUI
> because the biggest reason to use one of these systems is a thing called freedom.
How about freedom from complexity? Most people could care less about your stupid source code nor could they care about the freedom of choosing from 25 GUIs. People want consistency and ease of use. Something even present day unix GUIs still, to this date, do not provide.
> They don't work for you and they don't owe you anything
Fine, so then don't complain about Microsoft. Seems to me as much of a ruthless company they are, they always seem to have the right ingredients to make their system successful. Now I'm not saying their system is so great, BUT you have to admire what they've done. The open source world needs to learn from that by coding less and integrating their systems more so instead of having a usless free-for-all competetion, the overall system can push ahead in some useful direction that can offer a "REAL" alternative to Windows.
> Get off your ass and do your own work.
I do everyday. Im a developer who develops apps in Linux and Windows. I certainly am qualified to say that developing GUI apps for Windows is miles ahead of anything in unix. As much as developers complain about Visual Studio and MSDN, they are still much more complete then anything you'll find in unix, especially vi, gdb and man pages.
This whole GNOME thing is a total waste of human resources. All this system is trying to do is to catch up with QT/KDE and it won't. But why?? Why duplicate when you can build on top of whats already been done.
Seems to me the "real" enemy to the open source movement is Microsoft and this movement will never beat Microsoft if the wheel just keeps getting reinvented every time a group of open source developers decides unix needs another GUI library on top of the dozens already available. Thats the major problem with open source. Total lack of direction and inability to harness resources.
Besides, the most powerful and complete GUI for unix has already been invented. Its called Aqua and Apple owns it. Just goes to show what a little financial incentive can do for an open source operating system. Yes, Apple's Darwin kernel is open source. It's GUI however isn't.
Someone needs to just decide already on an "offical" GUI for unix. Just like Linus decides on the "official" Linux kernel. If that can happen, then the kernel and GUI can be more intergrated, developers can focus on better docs because they only have to work with one library and applications will play nicer and "see" each other. All of which will make the unix system much more useful to the end user. End of story!
It seems the US business are not investing in their mother country. Who cares if people in outer suburbs and rural areas have high speed access. They care more about hiring people in other countries because they are a few cents cheaper. This is why we are behind. Americans are cheapos when it comes to investing and giving back to the community.
> Hardware gets faster and cheaper every year.
Yes, for servers. But ask your IT manager to buy all new DELL Pentium 4GHZ workstations for the entire company because you need to code in Java and see what he says.
> can occasionally outperform C++, especially on web appliations.
There are no C++ web applications. The only ones may be HTML embedded ActiveX controls and I highly doubt they are slower than java applets, unless the programmer is really sloppy.
> Java is far easier to learn than C++.
Yes, and Visual Basic is easier than Java. Ease of use is in the eye of the beholder. Outside of memory management, Java is on the same level of difficulty as C++. Besides, Java forces the OOP paradigm, C++ doesn't. You can learn OOP through C++ at your own pace. Also, the syntax among these two languages is practically identical.
> Memory management bugs are among the most common and difficult bugs to fix.
Yes, but what if the bug is inside the virtual machine? Want to talk about difficult to find and fix! It's happened plenty of times before.
Bottom line. Nothing is for free.
It's just difficult to setup.
The Linux desktop (ala KDE, GNOME) is very easy to use. I've read stories where people are saying that their mom and dad use it and their whole family uses it, and I beleive it. Yes it is true the new Linux desktops are easy to use.
But that is not the point. The point is that although it is easy to use, it is extremely difficult for the average user to setup correctly because the fact is that the Linux desktops have failed to shield the average user from the underlying mechanics of Unix. The only desktop to have done that successfully so far is Mac's Aqua interface.
To prove my point. just ask that same mom or dad or aunt and uncle to install a printer. Then we see a different story. Just ask them to install a digital camera or a scanner or compile an email client. Thats were the ease of use of Linux ends and the Windows logo begins.
So the problem here isn't one of ease of use. Helk, KDE is cake to use once everything is installed and working. But unless your're a Unix guru just try to get everything installed and working!
Ever see the people that screen you at the airports? Looks like most of them were flipping Big Macs before they got their BIG security job. I've been to Israel and let me tell you these people know how to search you! They do it so quick, you don't even know your being checked. Now our government is afraid of shoulder fired missles, yet they don't want to spend $$ on counter measures for the airplanes. Unbelievable.
BTW... Don't get caught with a nail clipper on board, you just may force our national color alert system to level red and ground all our planes!
It all comes down to the developers. Without better development tools software developers are going to steer clear of writing sophisticated GUI applications for Linux and are only going to continue writing console applications which have little or no appeal to the general public.
Why do you think there are so many user friendly Windows applications out there? Because Microsoft has invested a lot of time and money creating development environents that are easy to learn and powerful to use. There is a common misconception that when a developer writes a program, he or she shouldn't mind working with arcane and complex build systems. I don't know about you but I'll take Visual Studio any day over vi or emacs.
In my opinion (as a developer myself) programming is difficult enough and a good development environment is needed to keep the focus on developing the product at hand and not on worrying about which version of automake and autoconf is installed. This why there are so many third rate, unpolished apps in Linux.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only way I can see Linux actually beating Microsoft in the desktop market is if some major corp takes control of the reigns and develops "useful" utilities and development tools for the system. Tools like vi, gcc, automake and ddd just don't cut the mustard anymore when it comes to developing serious, graphically complex user interfaces. The current Linux development environment as it stands only discourages new developers from migrating to system. Linux needs a SERIOUS development IDE!
The other problem is that of a GUI library. QT, GTK+, wxWindows, Lesstif, etc. Pick one already! These incompatible and often incomplete (minus QT) toolkits create a barrage of incompatible, third rate applications. Concepts everyday Windows users take for granted like cut & paste, object embedding, drag & drop, automation and binary compatible controls become impossible to implement when applications can't communicate because they were all written by a different library.
This is why I don't think open source is the answer. "Too many cooks in the kitchen". Eventually 3 or 4 big companies will take control of Linux and the cottage industry you see now will diminish. Thats the only way Linux will be taken seriously enough to hurt Microsoft. But then what are you left with? An Ologopoly consisting of a few companies insisting their Linux is the best and purposely making their system incompatible with the others, until finally one wins and what are you left with? Another Microsoft.
I'm a software developer who has taught a few colleges in NYC and I can see why these companies are wanting to hire foreigners. There were and still are a lot schools out there that promise all kinds of money if you get their degree. They rush you into the field without having you fully understanding the "science" behind computers just to make a quick buck off you. Now we're left with a bunch of American computer engineers who know a lot of acronyms and buzz words but very little about how to apply it correctly. Sure there are great American computer engineers still left, but I think a lot of companies are tired of weeding through the crap.
People in other countries (ie. India, China, Israel, etc) are not lazy. They don't take their education for granted like we do here. Sure they are willing to work for cheaper, but I don't believe thats where it ends because they are also willing to understand the "science" where most Americans are just interested in the big pay off their guidance counselor told them they would get.