You should care because one of the nicest features of GIMP, and indeed all cross platform OSS is that it DOES work on Windows. It's a major help to development to have that user base. If GIMP gets dropped for Paint.NET on windows ( which I'm not saying/seeing it will, but it DOES apparently have MS's interest ) then GIMP will lose "hands at the wheel" for development/testing and that will contribute to it losing a bit of steam, even if YOUR only concernt is linux. Ask not for who the bell tolls, sir, it tolls for thee.
"That's not the point though, the point is, you can't use Konqueror or any of the KDE programs without having KDE installed, and without KDE's bloated libraries having to load everytime you use even the smallest utility."
You're exaggerating or you don't understand what you're talking about. EVERY PROGRAM needs the libraries necessary to do their job. Either you have replication of those libraries all over, or you use common ones. If you're going to use Konqueror, SURE you need some base libraries, but you'd be surprised how many KDE programs will run in one form or another with just kdelibs and kdebase.
I'd much rather see a truly modular system, so the the user is free to pick and choose a window manager, a file manager, a browser, a messenger etc. and have them all play nice together, regardless of whether they are part of KDE or GNOME or standalone projects.
You can use a different window manager in KDE than kwin, as long as it's standards compliant.
You don't HAVE to use Konqueror in KDE.
You don't HAVE to use Kopete. You don't even have to install it.
MS bundles tend to be UNREMOVABLE from the system. That's the difference. KDE is just a collection of libraries. Some applications don't work all that well without certain other applications, but you're not FORCED to use/install most of them. And there must be SOME interoperability between the applications to get a smooth, polished DE. But really it's not as bad as you make out.
1) KDE != WM. Repeat after me: "KDE IS NOT A WINDOW MANAGER." It's a desktop environment and it does way, WAY more than a simple WM. God it's 2004 people, HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED THIS YET?
2) The IMMENSE proliferation of small, lightweight WMs has ALWAYS been active in the Linux community. EvilWM, IceWM, TWM, BlackBox, FluxBox, Waimea, Kahaki, etc. etc. etc. There is really NO NEED for any more WMs to "get back to basics" THEY'RE ALREADY OUT THERE. Most of them are damned good as they are. Real users want MORE features at this point, these kind of posts are just counter productive. It's 2004. People want to USE the 2.4Ghz 64 bit Athlon they just bought (for cheap). Mom doesn't want fluxbox, she wants her computer to put up a little CDROM icon when she inserts one into her computer.
Congrats KDE team on making an efficient, fun, functional DE.
When I was looking for a job in IT stuff a little while back I was VERY nervous because everyone said "IT in America is dying! Everyone is being laid off! RUN FOR THE HILLS!"
Guess what? They called me. Before I was even hired. And I was hired almost immediately. Now I'm at the same company and we're interviewing. Everyone is CLUELESS. Granted, we're in the midwest, but come on! We have been looking for 10 months and I'm the only person we've found that's not a complete boob. I've personally interviewed people with masters degrees in CS that CANNOT explain the difference between stack and heap. I've interviewed people who have been in the "IT business" for years and have "experience" who don't know what the fuck the difference between and INNER and OUTER join is. FFS!
If you work hard... if you're smart... you WILL find a good position. In my, admittedly limited, experience there is an over abundance of worthless programmers/IT people out there and THAT's where most of this "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES/JOBS!!!" panic mentality is coming from.
A wee bit disappointing...
on
Joel On Software
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
After reading this book, I actually decided Joel was much LESS clever than I initially thought. Most of his knowledge is directly from Microsoft, you might as well read a Microsoft training manual. Yet it's plainly obvious he fails, for a LONG time, to grasp.NET
Pages upon pages bitching about how stupid.NET is and of course, he ends up moving Fog Creek software towards it. He seems short sighted in many regards. Remember the page where he wanted a linker for.NET? hehe.
My impression after reading the book is that he was a rich guy who went to good schools, was given opportunities and learning early (thousands of dolloars on computers when he was a kid and computers were quite rare), and basically recycles things he was spoon fed at Microsoft.
There's nuggets of goodness, but my opinion of Joel's knowledge and expertise actually went down after reading the whole book.
They're "updating" the linux standard base specifications.
The problem is that any standards bodies, and I mean most ANY standards bodies, is that they move too quickly to have much impact. We all like to THINK that w3 and other open standards bodies are the "movers and the shakers" but really, it's usually Microsoft or some other corporation like Adobe or Macromedia that come up with the REAL standards. Word, ActiveX, Acrobat, Flash,.NET, etc. These are the "standards" that companies ( and thus the world ) pays attention to.
I think it will take another company like Red Hat to be the driving force behind boosting linux's viability in the coporate (and then home) desktop arena. I'm hoping SuSE/Novell can step up to that challenge.
If LSB people wanted to REALLY make much difference, they would adapt new exciting projects like elektra (http://elektra.sf.net) and not just rehash over all the same material covered in LSB1.
I'm not sure I see that in real life. As a programmer and "technophile," I've helped and seen dozens of IE users change to Firefox. They love it. I've never run into ANYONE, outside one guy at my local LUG, that uses Opera.
Yes, and we're part of the cycle. We stopped making CFCs 10-20 years ago when we proved they destroy ozone, and now the hole is getting smaller. How much more correlation do you need, after laboratory and in the wild, to stop denying the science that is saving your life right now?
Denying? You have to PROVE something for people to deny it... have you whipped up scientific evidence recently to directly link this shrinking ozone layer?
(didn't think so)
There are many promising things about stored procedures, but they are negated by the very thing that should make SQL work strong in many situations.
Supposedly, storing all business logic in the database gives you speed and the ability to change the language used for rendering and UI fairly quickly if need be. In that sense they become similar to the CLR... I can write a PyGTK+ app quickly for a little desktop gui functionality, and use the same validation/business subroutines that the main PHP interface uses. This is certainly sounding like a plus, yes?
However, once you start coding in stored procedures, you're just as married to the database as you would be to any other language. The problem is that while there is generally excellent acceptance of SQL 92 standards, and some decent acceptance of SQL 99 standards, afaik stored procedural languages are not nearly as standarized. Hell, PostgreSQL has like 5! So instead of being married to, say, asp, you're now married to a database, which in most cases is commercial.
Also, I think the point about new coders being unfamiliar with the programming language is slightly invalid... PostgreSQL and Oracle at least have Java (or Java-esque) PL's built in. Pretty familiar for most coders worth their salt.
I'll probably get modded down for suggesting it, but the model for a usable desktop should be Mac OS X. Ignore Windows, KDE, and the current Gnome/Nautilus. OS X makes them all look shabby and thoughtlessly designed.
What do you think GNOME has been modeling their "useability innovations" off of? Where do you think the button order came from? Spatial Nautilus?
They DO mimic OS X. GNOME == OSX clone, KDE == windows clone. Big deal.
Besides OS X has PLENTY of useability problems... the dock, the "swooshy" motion when you minimize, etc. etc. etc. It's a ton of GUI candy that isn't really useful in many situations. I suggest you actually USE these other desktops before you make posts about them.
11 years on fvwm does not a desktop environment expert make.
Yes I do use preg_match() quite often, but apparently I've never needed to match a backslash. I humbly apologize, and realize you are correct.
HOWEVER, other than that I can't think of anything too hard about the quoting style of PHP. You've got interpolated, non interpolated, and HEREDOC. *shrug*
Just to clarify this, consider the following:- ASP.net's been precompiled since the 2000 beta, and it's been production ready for years. The C# language is also fully documented and is a public standard ratified by the EMCA.
ASP.NET is a completely different class of thing. Of course it's been pre-compiled, because just like the other.NET languages, it gets turned in to MS's CLR, which is of course a byte-soup. PHP is not compiled at all, which makes it more flexible to develop... no compile time, just write-test-write-test-write-test ad nauseum.
There's no real advantage in compiling most PHP code because the life cycle of a script is so short, compiling really wouldn't make much difference. If you're going to be doing so much processing with a script that it requires compiling most people have either:
1) written the script in another language
2) compiled some C code and then exposed it to the PHP interpreter (using swig or somesuch).
But the issue doesn't come up that often because if you're writing things well, php is usually fast enough.
The whole thing seems pretty stagnant, and I'm guessing there's a small chance that the PHP guys are stuggling to find their own space between the land of true pre-compiled OO languages and the interperated world that lay behind it.
Stagnant? Have you seen the RAW amount of libraries available for PHP? Have you seen the language changes that have been going on for 5? Obviously not. You're spewing marketing BS with no knowledge.
1) Modules are constantly written for PHP because it's such a simple language to extend.
2) The changes in 5 are very significant for those who actually have to USE PHP, and that should be apparent to ANYONE who takes time to read the changelog.
I don't know where you come up with "stagnant" other than what it "feels like" to you.
PHP5, however nice, is treading old water, and in terms of functionality is still lagging behind even Java/JSP.
Examples Mr. ASP? Sounds like more marketing style bs. Post some examples. ( and watch them be refuted in no time flat )
I've worked with PHP4 and ASP.net since both of them were betas, and if PHP wants to be a serious consideration for large scale development, it'd better decide which side of the OO fence its on, and stay there.
1) Why the fuck work with ASP.NET when C# is out there?
2) As much smarter people out there have commented, there is not necessarily a correlation between OO and "scaleability".
...but Microsoft really did get there lightyears ahead of this, with a far more complete class library
Just because PHP doesn't have a large "class library" doesn't mean that it's immense functional library is irrelevant. Far from it.
The whole reason I'm assuming people stuck with PHP4, rather than move to something more robust that provides this kind of capability, is that:
Care to mention WHAT kind of capabilities you're talking about?
Personally I think PHP is good for a great many things, though I like other languages like Python, C#, C++, and Java better for my own stuff. Why don't you post some specific examples though instead of just getting a woody for ASP.NET?
(cliff notes for parent)
"I tried to do OO in PHP, but umm... it was confusing... and so I tried Python and I'm happy but now I'm happy the parts I didn't understand, err.... BUGS in PHP are worked out. Or not. Someone tell me if they are?"
In what way? it's pretty freaking straightforward.
The original poster who said something about \\\\ was clueless. WHEN do you ever need four backslashes in PHP for a backslash literal? in my experience, never.
It's very simple. Double quotes are interpolated. Singles are not. Use \' and \\ in singles, and that's all you need OR use them plus the other myriad of combos with double quoted strings. VERY SIMPLE.
jesus christ, if you can't handle escaping some characters you're NOT meant to be a programmer.
I'll paraphrase the same question right back at you: do you think medicine would be where it is today, if anyone was free to brew in a bathtub the formula you've spent half a billion to perfect? Why the heck would anyone invest in pharmaceutical research at all, if that was the case?
Well, this is not entirely true. The government funds LOTS of medical research and then pretty much gives it away. Pharmaceutical companies all benefit from this "free" research. 2 of my relatives are currently employed by the government in cancer research and other general medicine research. All that information that their teams discover/produce is available to the public.
Also, if you look at the scientific community, and really the medical community, there has ALWAYS been an enormous history of scientists and doctors sharing work for the common good.
As far as patents go, the algorithms you mentioned, are, as was pointed out, mathematical formulas and not really exclusive software things. In this case, it's more like a Ford patenting "metal things that drive around on rubber", AFTER all the other companies have started up for a few years. It's NOT good news nor is it justifiable imho.
I agree formulas and proprietary binary file formats, etc. should be able to be protected. However I thought you could copyright such things. I'm pretty sure you can. In that case patents in software should probably be discouraged entirely. If it's worth protecting, it should be copyrightable, imho.
If you're comfortable with PostgreSQL, Oracle is a walk in the park. There's only a few crucial features that PostgreSQL doesn't have (partial rollbacks, embedded Java) that Oracle does. It's like C++ and Java and C#. If you've worked with one, the other is cake.
And by the way I AM employed for a company using MySQL, but we're migrating to PostgreSQL
Structs? Have you heard of classes?.NET included structs which was nice but its only there for compatibility with older languages like C. You shouldnt use them for straight.NET development. Its up there with continueing to use pointers. If you have to have those sort of things why even use.NET?
Structs in C# don't have anything to do with backwards compability really, iirc. The fundamental difference in C# is that classes are REFERENCE types and structs are VALUE types, as Miguel suggests. Since you don't seem to understand that, I'll explain:
When you pass a class to a function in C#, it's passed by reference. When you pass a struct to a function in C#, it's passed by value.
This is what he's referring to, and if you don't understand the uses involved there, I can't help you.
What I don't understand is why the companies didn't simply formalize and commit to enhancing the current packages that are out there. Xine, Totem, and others already play MPG, AVI, and even WMV formats--
They play the formats, sure, but legally? There's a reason Novell doesn't ship SuSE with.avi support for Kaffeine and it's not that they forgot it.
Whats going on here is that Novell is using Linux to make money, and Real thinks that might be a good idea. They are losing ( have lost? ) the media-players-for-windows war, and have realized that having a player they can advertise works perfectly and legally on windows, mac AND linux would be something that Quicktime and windows formats can't advertise.
I think it's a smart move for everyone involved, and even if it's mercenary, hey! At least Real is paying attention to us!
you still need to download and install Java and Flash
Which are both completely brainless and automated on windows.
On linux... can geeks get them installed? certainly. Can non-tech users FIND the plugin and install both using command line?... probably not. Therein lies the problem. Even though it's not fair, we have to provide these things as easily as mac / windows do to gain desktop share. That's the concern.
Slashdot Mirror
You should care because one of the nicest features of GIMP, and indeed all cross platform OSS is that it DOES work on Windows. It's a major help to development to have that user base. If GIMP gets dropped for Paint.NET on windows ( which I'm not saying/seeing it will, but it DOES apparently have MS's interest ) then GIMP will lose "hands at the wheel" for development/testing and that will contribute to it losing a bit of steam, even if YOUR only concernt is linux. Ask not for who the bell tolls, sir, it tolls for thee.
"That's not the point though, the point is, you can't use Konqueror or any of the KDE programs without having KDE installed, and without KDE's bloated libraries having to load everytime you use even the smallest utility." You're exaggerating or you don't understand what you're talking about. EVERY PROGRAM needs the libraries necessary to do their job. Either you have replication of those libraries all over, or you use common ones. If you're going to use Konqueror, SURE you need some base libraries, but you'd be surprised how many KDE programs will run in one form or another with just kdelibs and kdebase.
No ETA afaik. There are extensive bug reports on it though, it's "on the radar."
I'd much rather see a truly modular system, so the the user is free to pick and choose a window manager, a file manager, a browser, a messenger etc. and have them all play nice together, regardless of whether they are part of KDE or GNOME or standalone projects.
You can use a different window manager in KDE than kwin, as long as it's standards compliant.
You don't HAVE to use Konqueror in KDE.
You don't HAVE to use Kopete. You don't even have to install it.
MS bundles tend to be UNREMOVABLE from the system. That's the difference. KDE is just a collection of libraries. Some applications don't work all that well without certain other applications, but you're not FORCED to use/install most of them. And there must be SOME interoperability between the applications to get a smooth, polished DE. But really it's not as bad as you make out.
Bleh.
1) KDE != WM. Repeat after me: "KDE IS NOT A WINDOW MANAGER." It's a desktop environment and it does way, WAY more than a simple WM. God it's 2004 people, HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED THIS YET?
2) The IMMENSE proliferation of small, lightweight WMs has ALWAYS been active in the Linux community. EvilWM, IceWM, TWM, BlackBox, FluxBox, Waimea, Kahaki, etc. etc. etc. There is really NO NEED for any more WMs to "get back to basics" THEY'RE ALREADY OUT THERE. Most of them are damned good as they are. Real users want MORE features at this point, these kind of posts are just counter productive. It's 2004. People want to USE the 2.4Ghz 64 bit Athlon they just bought (for cheap). Mom doesn't want fluxbox, she wants her computer to put up a little CDROM icon when she inserts one into her computer. Congrats KDE team on making an efficient, fun, functional DE.
When I was looking for a job in IT stuff a little while back I was VERY nervous because everyone said "IT in America is dying! Everyone is being laid off! RUN FOR THE HILLS!"
Guess what? They called me. Before I was even hired. And I was hired almost immediately. Now I'm at the same company and we're interviewing. Everyone is CLUELESS. Granted, we're in the midwest, but come on! We have been looking for 10 months and I'm the only person we've found that's not a complete boob. I've personally interviewed people with masters degrees in CS that CANNOT explain the difference between stack and heap. I've interviewed people who have been in the "IT business" for years and have "experience" who don't know what the fuck the difference between and INNER and OUTER join is. FFS!
If you work hard... if you're smart... you WILL find a good position. In my, admittedly limited, experience there is an over abundance of worthless programmers/IT people out there and THAT's where most of this "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES/JOBS!!!" panic mentality is coming from.
After reading this book, I actually decided Joel was much LESS clever than I initially thought. Most of his knowledge is directly from Microsoft, you might as well read a Microsoft training manual. Yet it's plainly obvious he fails, for a LONG time, to grasp .NET
.NET is and of course, he ends up moving Fog Creek software towards it. He seems short sighted in many regards. Remember the page where he wanted a linker for .NET? hehe.
Pages upon pages bitching about how stupid
My impression after reading the book is that he was a rich guy who went to good schools, was given opportunities and learning early (thousands of dolloars on computers when he was a kid and computers were quite rare), and basically recycles things he was spoon fed at Microsoft.
There's nuggets of goodness, but my opinion of Joel's knowledge and expertise actually went down after reading the whole book.
"..t they move too quickly to have much impact."
Gah! Slowly! I meant SLOWLY!
They're "updating" the linux standard base specifications.
.NET, etc. These are the "standards" that companies ( and thus the world ) pays attention to.
The problem is that any standards bodies, and I mean most ANY standards bodies, is that they move too quickly to have much impact. We all like to THINK that w3 and other open standards bodies are the "movers and the shakers" but really, it's usually Microsoft or some other corporation like Adobe or Macromedia that come up with the REAL standards. Word, ActiveX, Acrobat, Flash,
I think it will take another company like Red Hat to be the driving force behind boosting linux's viability in the coporate (and then home) desktop arena. I'm hoping SuSE/Novell can step up to that challenge.
If LSB people wanted to REALLY make much difference, they would adapt new exciting projects like elektra (http://elektra.sf.net) and not just rehash over all the same material covered in LSB1.
The news brief says "Supported by ... Novell"... so why is SuSE Linux not included in this list?
I'm not sure I see that in real life. As a programmer and "technophile," I've helped and seen dozens of IE users change to Firefox. They love it. I've never run into ANYONE, outside one guy at my local LUG, that uses Opera.
Yes, and we're part of the cycle. We stopped making CFCs 10-20 years ago when we proved they destroy ozone, and now the hole is getting smaller. How much more correlation do you need, after laboratory and in the wild, to stop denying the science that is saving your life right now? Denying? You have to PROVE something for people to deny it... have you whipped up scientific evidence recently to directly link this shrinking ozone layer? (didn't think so)
There are many promising things about stored procedures, but they are negated by the very thing that should make SQL work strong in many situations.
Supposedly, storing all business logic in the database gives you speed and the ability to change the language used for rendering and UI fairly quickly if need be. In that sense they become similar to the CLR... I can write a PyGTK+ app quickly for a little desktop gui functionality, and use the same validation/business subroutines that the main PHP interface uses. This is certainly sounding like a plus, yes?
However, once you start coding in stored procedures, you're just as married to the database as you would be to any other language. The problem is that while there is generally excellent acceptance of SQL 92 standards, and some decent acceptance of SQL 99 standards, afaik stored procedural languages are not nearly as standarized. Hell, PostgreSQL has like 5! So instead of being married to, say, asp, you're now married to a database, which in most cases is commercial.
Also, I think the point about new coders being unfamiliar with the programming language is slightly invalid... PostgreSQL and Oracle at least have Java (or Java-esque) PL's built in. Pretty familiar for most coders worth their salt.
I'll probably get modded down for suggesting it, but the model for a usable desktop should be Mac OS X. Ignore Windows, KDE, and the current Gnome/Nautilus. OS X makes them all look shabby and thoughtlessly designed.
What do you think GNOME has been modeling their "useability innovations" off of? Where do you think the button order came from? Spatial Nautilus?
They DO mimic OS X. GNOME == OSX clone, KDE == windows clone. Big deal.
Besides OS X has PLENTY of useability problems... the dock, the "swooshy" motion when you minimize, etc. etc. etc. It's a ton of GUI candy that isn't really useful in many situations. I suggest you actually USE these other desktops before you make posts about them.
11 years on fvwm does not a desktop environment expert make.
I eat hat now.
Yes I do use preg_match() quite often, but apparently I've never needed to match a backslash. I humbly apologize, and realize you are correct.
HOWEVER, other than that I can't think of anything too hard about the quoting style of PHP. You've got interpolated, non interpolated, and HEREDOC. *shrug*
Oh? PHP doesn't have a heredoc style quoting system? Did you even think about putting "heredoc site:www.php.net" into google before you typed? ;)
Just to clarify this, consider the following:- ASP.net's been precompiled since the 2000 beta, and it's been production ready for years. The C# language is also fully documented and is a public standard ratified by the EMCA.
.NET languages, it gets turned in to MS's CLR, which is of course a byte-soup. PHP is not compiled at all, which makes it more flexible to develop... no compile time, just write-test-write-test-write-test ad nauseum.
...but Microsoft really did get there lightyears ahead of this, with a far more complete class library
ASP.NET is a completely different class of thing. Of course it's been pre-compiled, because just like the other
There's no real advantage in compiling most PHP code because the life cycle of a script is so short, compiling really wouldn't make much difference. If you're going to be doing so much processing with a script that it requires compiling most people have either:
1) written the script in another language
2) compiled some C code and then exposed it to the PHP interpreter (using swig or somesuch).
But the issue doesn't come up that often because if you're writing things well, php is usually fast enough.
The whole thing seems pretty stagnant, and I'm guessing there's a small chance that the PHP guys are stuggling to find their own space between the land of true pre-compiled OO languages and the interperated world that lay behind it.
Stagnant? Have you seen the RAW amount of libraries available for PHP? Have you seen the language changes that have been going on for 5? Obviously not. You're spewing marketing BS with no knowledge.
1) Modules are constantly written for PHP because it's such a simple language to extend.
2) The changes in 5 are very significant for those who actually have to USE PHP, and that should be apparent to ANYONE who takes time to read the changelog.
I don't know where you come up with "stagnant" other than what it "feels like" to you.
PHP5, however nice, is treading old water, and in terms of functionality is still lagging behind even Java/JSP.
Examples Mr. ASP? Sounds like more marketing style bs. Post some examples. ( and watch them be refuted in no time flat )
I've worked with PHP4 and ASP.net since both of them were betas, and if PHP wants to be a serious consideration for large scale development, it'd better decide which side of the OO fence its on, and stay there.
1) Why the fuck work with ASP.NET when C# is out there?
2) As much smarter people out there have commented, there is not necessarily a correlation between OO and "scaleability".
Just because PHP doesn't have a large "class library" doesn't mean that it's immense functional library is irrelevant. Far from it.
The whole reason I'm assuming people stuck with PHP4, rather than move to something more robust that provides this kind of capability, is that:
Care to mention WHAT kind of capabilities you're talking about?
Personally I think PHP is good for a great many things, though I like other languages like Python, C#, C++, and Java better for my own stuff. Why don't you post some specific examples though instead of just getting a woody for ASP.NET?
(cliff notes for parent) "I tried to do OO in PHP, but umm... it was confusing... and so I tried Python and I'm happy but now I'm happy the parts I didn't understand, err.... BUGS in PHP are worked out. Or not. Someone tell me if they are?"
In what way? it's pretty freaking straightforward. The original poster who said something about \\\\ was clueless. WHEN do you ever need four backslashes in PHP for a backslash literal? in my experience, never. It's very simple. Double quotes are interpolated. Singles are not. Use \' and \\ in singles, and that's all you need OR use them plus the other myriad of combos with double quoted strings. VERY SIMPLE. jesus christ, if you can't handle escaping some characters you're NOT meant to be a programmer.
Modded insightful? pfft.
I think I'd prefer non-commercial software, please...
Nothing stopping you... write it.
Oooh wait there is something stopping you, patent/copyright laws.
STFU and be appreciative that we can finally get a legal player.
I'll paraphrase the same question right back at you: do you think medicine would be where it is today, if anyone was free to brew in a bathtub the formula you've spent half a billion to perfect? Why the heck would anyone invest in pharmaceutical research at all, if that was the case?
Well, this is not entirely true. The government funds LOTS of medical research and then pretty much gives it away. Pharmaceutical companies all benefit from this "free" research. 2 of my relatives are currently employed by the government in cancer research and other general medicine research. All that information that their teams discover/produce is available to the public.
Also, if you look at the scientific community, and really the medical community, there has ALWAYS been an enormous history of scientists and doctors sharing work for the common good.
As far as patents go, the algorithms you mentioned, are, as was pointed out, mathematical formulas and not really exclusive software things. In this case, it's more like a Ford patenting "metal things that drive around on rubber", AFTER all the other companies have started up for a few years. It's NOT good news nor is it justifiable imho.
I agree formulas and proprietary binary file formats, etc. should be able to be protected. However I thought you could copyright such things. I'm pretty sure you can. In that case patents in software should probably be discouraged entirely. If it's worth protecting, it should be copyrightable, imho.
If you're comfortable with PostgreSQL, Oracle is a walk in the park. There's only a few crucial features that PostgreSQL doesn't have (partial rollbacks, embedded Java) that Oracle does. It's like C++ and Java and C#. If you've worked with one, the other is cake. And by the way I AM employed for a company using MySQL, but we're migrating to PostgreSQL
Structs? Have you heard of classes? .NET included structs which was nice but its only there for compatibility with older languages like C. You shouldnt use them for straight .NET development. Its up there with continueing to use pointers. If you have to have those sort of things why even use .NET?
Structs in C# don't have anything to do with backwards compability really, iirc. The fundamental difference in C# is that classes are REFERENCE types and structs are VALUE types, as Miguel suggests. Since you don't seem to understand that, I'll explain:
When you pass a class to a function in C#, it's passed by reference.
When you pass a struct to a function in C#, it's passed by value.
This is what he's referring to, and if you don't understand the uses involved there, I can't help you.
What I don't understand is why the companies didn't simply formalize and commit to enhancing the current packages that are out there. Xine, Totem, and others already play MPG, AVI, and even WMV formats--
.avi support for Kaffeine and it's not that they forgot it.
They play the formats, sure, but legally? There's a reason Novell doesn't ship SuSE with
Whats going on here is that Novell is using Linux to make money, and Real thinks that might be a good idea. They are losing ( have lost? ) the media-players-for-windows war, and have realized that having a player they can advertise works perfectly and legally on windows, mac AND linux would be something that Quicktime and windows formats can't advertise.
I think it's a smart move for everyone involved, and even if it's mercenary, hey! At least Real is paying attention to us!
you still need to download and install Java and Flash ... probably not. Therein lies the problem. Even though it's not fair, we have to provide these things as easily as mac / windows do to gain desktop share. That's the concern.
Which are both completely brainless and automated on windows.
On linux... can geeks get them installed? certainly. Can non-tech users FIND the plugin and install both using command line?