That's funny. This
is what Google found me, as I also rushed to check the marvel laptop:) Note however that this configuration is 1.4 GHz instead of 1.7 and a 40 GB HDD instead of a 60 GB one.
I think the way in which the article was submitted to Slashdot is good (i.e. the "department" Timothy put it in and the submitter characterizing the issue as "a bump".
Unfortunately, the article's body is a bit less objective and states the project "was placed in jeopardy". Not that I understand much about German law, but it seems to me as if the Green Party is simply making sure that eveything is being contemplated. Notice that both alderman Muehlhaus and Mueller, the Party's spokesman, are pro-open source.
I think this is in fact good for the project. This goes to show that the patents issue (worldwide, not only in Europe) is becoming a growing concern for more and more sectors. Seeing that they are being careful about this actually makes me think they remain very serious about seeing this project get finished well.
So, to address more directly your question: it is not about a particular patent causing problems, it is about being warned that the situation may eventually arise.
I read the book. I had to write an Eclipse plugin recently and decided to give TDD a test drive (I had developed a previous, non-plugin project using TDD before).
The thing is, when you are working with something like Eclipse, i.e. huge and vastly undocumented (the book is good, but doesn't cover many important issues), TDD is good because it helps you choose a path. It allows you to divide your work, is an invaluable help in designing and certainly boosts your confidence for refactoring and stuff like that.
However, if you have a clear idea of what to do, TDD becomes rather boring and tedious. What's worse, it's very low-level testing for the most of it and does little to help you in usability and acceptance testing. And like many other posters point out, the best way to get testing done is to have independent people do it.
That said, TDD certainly has a place in the development process, and one thing I do appreciate about it is that proponents seem to push it more sensibly than XP.
The main reason Java got popular was hype [...] a giant class library that had pre-canned solutions for most things.
And this is bad because... ?
It was this in fact what brought me to Java from C++ six years ago. It is true that there are some issues with Java, but I think it's managed to bring some concepts into the 'mainstream' quite well (not every hot new technology is ready to be adopted by the "real world"), and it definitely has the upper hand when it comes to libraries and such. Other posters seem to confirm this when comparing Java with Python et al.
Re:interesting idea but I doubt it will succede
on
By Road and Rail?
·
· Score: 1
I'm not sure how well devoloped the British rail system is
Very developed, I would say. I've been in the country for ~10 months now and it's impressive to see the amount of people using the service. I've grown fond of it myself:) Some people keep complaining about delays and so, but I haven't found it particularly irritating (however, bear in mind that I usually travel once a month or so)
More on topic, I agree with you in that this idea is not very promising. Heck, even here, were trains are massively used, I don't think this kind of transportation means would be a big hit. Then again, I could be totally wrong.
Where SCO is going to go with ELF is still up in the air, according to Sontag. It's still early days in fleshing out all its claims, he said.
While I agree in that, as SCO is compelled to produce actual evidence, their argument is becoming more and more dilluted... We've been at this for quite a while now, and I for one don't see an end to it in the next few months.
There was an Ask Slashdot some months ago discussing ways to get off the grid using something like this. Whilst what the NYT article describes is certainly not for your average DIYer, some very interesting points were made in that Ask Slashdot about this form of enery generation.
I am not certain whether there is prior art regarding this issue (I couldn't care less for this feature, but that's not the point). What worries me is that it took well over 3 years to grant this patent, and if said prior art exists it wasn't found. And this is a relatively trivial invention.
Maybe the USPTO simply does not 'scale' anymore? What is the average time to get a patent approved, and does this play a significant role in the current state of affairs?
You can patent putting similar tools together? Like cut, copy and paste in any application? Or backwards and forwards in a web browser? How about +, -, * and / in a calculator?
Sorry, your assumption regarding what is TFA about turns out to be wrong:) It's about the annoying taskbar feature that shows e.g. one icon for all your FireFox windows.
Yes, certainly. But (a) not every URL I visit I've been to before and (b) it's only a workaround to an existing feature that doesn't fit my perception of how things should work.:)
I am a happy Windows XP user (heresy!!!) I used to use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, and even though I occassionally boot my Fedora Core 2 install, there are many things that I don't know or don't care to fix (in addition to many others I've fixed already) to be a Linux user.
However... My IE takes around 6 seconds (proxy resolution) to render the home page. If I open the browser and want to type an URL to go somewhere else than the home page, I'd better do it before the 6 seconds elapse, or... Pfft!!! It erases all I've written and displays the home page URL!
This simple thing motivated me to install FireFox on my computer. I've been long using OpenOffice.org, The GIMP and many other tools under Windows but didn't want to relinquish IE. This was two months ago, tell you what? I forgot when I last fired Internet Explorer.
I downloaded Thunderbird 0.7 last week...
Bottom line, don't use something because everyone else uses it, and conversely, don't use FOSS just because. Just give the software a try and see for yourself, I guarantee you'll be pleased and nothing wrong will happen:)
After many months using Firefox instead of IE, I know want to try out Thunderbird, but am running into the same issue as the parent poster.
Some more problems to see if any fellow/.'er can help me out:
- How do I specify time between checks for new mail? - How could I do some sort of "Send/receive all" Ctrl+Shift+T (which apparently has no menu/button equivalent?) only seems to work for IMAP accounts - Can I specify a different column order for mail than for news?
I've been playing with 0.6 for two days, just installed 0.7 and can't tell any differences as far as these issues are concerned. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
PS I'm not interested in migrating my messages yet, and I think that'd be straightforward.
This is an excellent point. I think it could also be applied to software useful to students, like development tools. My alma mater used to teach programming with Turbo Pascal 7. Students usually asked for a copy to install it at home, and of course we couldn't oblige, even though Borland had stopped selling TP7 for quite a while (late 90's).
However...
you usually have to keep old hardware laying around to play them.
IMO this is a different argument and seems to imply that companies should give out source code in addition to mere rights. It would be noble and good, but I think we should take smaller steps:)
Re:I don't actually care hugely about performance
on
Java Faster Than C++?
·
· Score: 1
I care that Java is an inconvenient pain to develop in and use. I care that I have to start a mini-OS just to run a Java program. I care that the language is under the control of one vendor. I care that the 'intialization == resource allocation' model doesn't work in Java. I care that the type system is too anemic to support some of the more powerful generic programming constructs. I care that I don't get a choice about garbage collection. I care that I don't get to fiddle bits in particular memory locations, even if I want to.
Try Googling for "Real Time Specification for Java". It sort of addresses everything in this quote except for the generic constructs (those are addressed by plain ol' J2SE in the upcoming 1.5 release).
I think I should play devil's advocate here, for all comments I've seen so far are very positive:)
I agree in that this seems to be a great idea. However, it would be interesting to see the "comprehensive" checklist they've included with that bundle. Notice how the screenshots on the Web site only show pictures for Linspire.
I think it's clear that Michael Robertson believes in Linux. I don't think he intends to compete with other distros in a dishonest fashion. Lindows are clearly entitled to use this bundle to promote Linsipre not only over Windows but over said other distros... I just wonder how are they doing it? (If they are doing that to being with)
In any event, it's a great marketing trick. Hope they manage to attract enough customers with it!
I was lucky enough to be taught assembly on my undergraduate degree, but after five years of "industrial practice" I am not sure knowing assembly will help you write more efficient code, at least not in a modern business environment. IMHO, in these environments you depend too much on pre-existing tools (DBMSs, application servers, etc.) and *those* programmers may benefit from knowing assembly to enhance their work, not you.
Second, and perhaps more important, I think most of the performance issues in such environments stem from architectural, not algorithmical issues. Think J2EE, where if you are not careful enough you end up doing a round trip to the server every time you set a property in an object.
In a sense, he covers this in the article when he writes:
"This doesn't mean, of course, that a practicing engineer should sacrifice project schedules, readable and maintainable code, or other important software attributes for the sake of efficiency.
What it does mean is that the software engineer should keep efficiency in mind while designing and implementing the software."
But of course, most of his emphasis is on knowing how does the machine work. I ascribe more to modern thoughts considering efficiency (and other non-functional requirements, such as the maintenability also mentioned in the above quote) as architectural concerns, things that shape the architecture and that no amount of algorithm substitution and the like can fix if gotten wrong in the first place.
Gosh, and to think I have no mod points now to mod you down. Not for the context of your comment, but simply for being so stupid as to post on a thread without knowing what you are talking about.
Oh, sorry. I just noticed you're the famous Roland Piquepaille. That explains everything.
Re:Antivirus!
on
A Worm's Worm
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
sounds like its doing some antivirus while its at it. Good!
Nah, let's not fool ourselves. This is probably just so that you can run a Sasser removal tool, find nothing and feel yourself at ease thinking your machine is clean:(
Spyware and others
on
A Worm's Worm
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Just thought about this... With the huge number of machines out there "infected" by spyware, adware and similar programs (and many of them without their users even knowing), how long will it be until a worm is written that exploits a vulnerability in one of these programs?
I admit it's been ages I listened to an audio CD on any equipment other than my laptop, so I may be biased. But I think if no-one has played a CD in a while it could take some time to spin up and the elderly are not going to like it...
I like the ideas revolving around industrial/arcade buttons with old-school telephone handsets. I myself have seen this at a couple of British museums. Dunno what provides the sound though... I guess old PCs or MP3 players are the way to go.
This is good. It would be interesting if you reported back to us how well did you fare whichever the final solution is!
The last two paragraphs of your post are very good. But...
Open source developers are not your employee/slave, they will do whatever the hell they want and, as a user, you should just feel fortunate that your needs were similar to the coder's. Every newbie who wants to have a longterm relationship with open source must come to terms with this.
The idea is in principle correct, but the way you write it, I find it arrogant to say the least. And a bit out of context.
Certainly, open source developers work out of their whim to produce something they are interested in (and at times more interested in developing than actually using). But it is not a healthy attitude to say users "hey, it's free. Stop bitching".
Until that bit gets fixed, I am not sure we will see massive adoption of more open source tools.
Slashdot Mirror
That's funny. This is what Google found me, as I also rushed to check the marvel laptop :) Note however that this configuration is 1.4 GHz instead of 1.7 and a 40 GB HDD instead of a 60 GB one.
Unfortunately, the article's body is a bit less objective and states the project "was placed in jeopardy". Not that I understand much about German law, but it seems to me as if the Green Party is simply making sure that eveything is being contemplated. Notice that both alderman Muehlhaus and Mueller, the Party's spokesman, are pro-open source.
I think this is in fact good for the project. This goes to show that the patents issue (worldwide, not only in Europe) is becoming a growing concern for more and more sectors. Seeing that they are being careful about this actually makes me think they remain very serious about seeing this project get finished well.
So, to address more directly your question: it is not about a particular patent causing problems, it is about being warned that the situation may eventually arise.
Would you care to share with us some ideas about this statement? (from the site):
The catalog will be analyzed by multiple individuals before any final numbers are made available, so it's only a waste of time to post bogus entries.
That is, of course, unless doing so ruins the trick :)
I read the book. I had to write an Eclipse plugin recently and decided to give TDD a test drive (I had developed a previous, non-plugin project using TDD before).
The thing is, when you are working with something like Eclipse, i.e. huge and vastly undocumented (the book is good, but doesn't cover many important issues), TDD is good because it helps you choose a path. It allows you to divide your work, is an invaluable help in designing and certainly boosts your confidence for refactoring and stuff like that.
However, if you have a clear idea of what to do, TDD becomes rather boring and tedious. What's worse, it's very low-level testing for the most of it and does little to help you in usability and acceptance testing. And like many other posters point out, the best way to get testing done is to have independent people do it.
That said, TDD certainly has a place in the development process, and one thing I do appreciate about it is that proponents seem to push it more sensibly than XP.
And this is bad because... ?
It was this in fact what brought me to Java from C++ six years ago. It is true that there are some issues with Java, but I think it's managed to bring some concepts into the 'mainstream' quite well (not every hot new technology is ready to be adopted by the "real world"), and it definitely has the upper hand when it comes to libraries and such. Other posters seem to confirm this when comparing Java with Python et al.
Very developed, I would say. I've been in the country for ~10 months now and it's impressive to see the amount of people using the service. I've grown fond of it myself :) Some people keep complaining about delays and so, but I haven't found it particularly irritating (however, bear in mind that I usually travel once a month or so)
More on topic, I agree with you in that this idea is not very promising. Heck, even here, were trains are massively used, I don't think this kind of transportation means would be a big hit. Then again, I could be totally wrong.
Where SCO is going to go with ELF is still up in the air, according to Sontag. It's still early days in fleshing out all its claims, he said.
While I agree in that, as SCO is compelled to produce actual evidence, their argument is becoming more and more dilluted... We've been at this for quite a while now, and I for one don't see an end to it in the next few months.
There was an Ask Slashdot some months ago discussing ways to get off the grid using something like this. Whilst what the NYT article describes is certainly not for your average DIYer, some very interesting points were made in that Ask Slashdot about this form of enery generation.
The site itself already got "flatenned" :(
Maybe the USPTO simply does not 'scale' anymore? What is the average time to get a patent approved, and does this play a significant role in the current state of affairs?
Sorry, your assumption regarding what is TFA about turns out to be wrong :) It's about the annoying taskbar feature that shows e.g. one icon for all your FireFox windows.
Yes, certainly. But (a) not every URL I visit I've been to before and (b) it's only a workaround to an existing feature that doesn't fit my perception of how things should work. :)
Afriguru:
:)
I am a happy Windows XP user (heresy!!!) I used to use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, and even though I occassionally boot my Fedora Core 2 install, there are many things that I don't know or don't care to fix (in addition to many others I've fixed already) to be a Linux user.
However... My IE takes around 6 seconds (proxy resolution) to render the home page. If I open the browser and want to type an URL to go somewhere else than the home page, I'd better do it before the 6 seconds elapse, or... Pfft!!! It erases all I've written and displays the home page URL!
This simple thing motivated me to install FireFox on my computer. I've been long using OpenOffice.org, The GIMP and many other tools under Windows but didn't want to relinquish IE. This was two months ago, tell you what? I forgot when I last fired Internet Explorer.
I downloaded Thunderbird 0.7 last week...
Bottom line, don't use something because everyone else uses it, and conversely, don't use FOSS just because. Just give the software a try and see for yourself, I guarantee you'll be pleased and nothing wrong will happen
After many months using Firefox instead of IE, I know want to try out Thunderbird, but am running into the same issue as the parent poster.
/.'er can help me out:
Some more problems to see if any fellow
- How do I specify time between checks for new mail?
- How could I do some sort of "Send/receive all" Ctrl+Shift+T (which apparently has no menu/button equivalent?) only seems to work for IMAP accounts
- Can I specify a different column order for mail than for news?
I've been playing with 0.6 for two days, just installed 0.7 and can't tell any differences as far as these issues are concerned. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
PS I'm not interested in migrating my messages yet, and I think that'd be straightforward.
However...
you usually have to keep old hardware laying around to play them.
IMO this is a different argument and seems to imply that companies should give out source code in addition to mere rights. It would be noble and good, but I think we should take smaller steps :)
Try Googling for "Real Time Specification for Java". It sort of addresses everything in this quote except for the generic constructs (those are addressed by plain ol' J2SE in the upcoming 1.5 release).
Here it is.
And it is very interesting...
I agree in that this seems to be a great idea. However, it would be interesting to see the "comprehensive" checklist they've included with that bundle. Notice how the screenshots on the Web site only show pictures for Linspire.
I think it's clear that Michael Robertson believes in Linux. I don't think he intends to compete with other distros in a dishonest fashion. Lindows are clearly entitled to use this bundle to promote Linsipre not only over Windows but over said other distros... I just wonder how are they doing it? (If they are doing that to being with)
In any event, it's a great marketing trick. Hope they manage to attract enough customers with it!
Second, and perhaps more important, I think most of the performance issues in such environments stem from architectural, not algorithmical issues. Think J2EE, where if you are not careful enough you end up doing a round trip to the server every time you set a property in an object.
In a sense, he covers this in the article when he writes:
"This doesn't mean, of course, that a practicing engineer should sacrifice project schedules, readable and maintainable code, or other important software attributes for the sake of efficiency.
What it does mean is that the software engineer should keep efficiency in mind while designing and implementing the software."
But of course, most of his emphasis is on knowing how does the machine work. I ascribe more to modern thoughts considering efficiency (and other non-functional requirements, such as the maintenability also mentioned in the above quote) as architectural concerns, things that shape the architecture and that no amount of algorithm substitution and the like can fix if gotten wrong in the first place.
Oh, sorry. I just noticed you're the famous Roland Piquepaille. That explains everything.
Wouldn't it be more like "Ho, ho, ho!!" ?
Nah, let's not fool ourselves. This is probably just so that you can run a Sasser removal tool, find nothing and feel yourself at ease thinking your machine is clean :(
Just thought about this... With the huge number of machines out there "infected" by spyware, adware and similar programs (and many of them without their users even knowing), how long will it be until a worm is written that exploits a vulnerability in one of these programs?
I admit it's been ages I listened to an audio CD on any equipment other than my laptop, so I may be biased. But I think if no-one has played a CD in a while it could take some time to spin up and the elderly are not going to like it...
I like the ideas revolving around industrial/arcade buttons with old-school telephone handsets. I myself have seen this at a couple of British museums. Dunno what provides the sound though... I guess old PCs or MP3 players are the way to go.
This is good. It would be interesting if you reported back to us how well did you fare whichever the final solution is!
Open source developers are not your employee/slave, they will do whatever the hell they want and, as a user, you should just feel fortunate that your needs were similar to the coder's. Every newbie who wants to have a longterm relationship with open source must come to terms with this.
The idea is in principle correct, but the way you write it, I find it arrogant to say the least. And a bit out of context.
Certainly, open source developers work out of their whim to produce something they are interested in (and at times more interested in developing than actually using). But it is not a healthy attitude to say users "hey, it's free. Stop bitching".
Until that bit gets fixed, I am not sure we will see massive adoption of more open source tools.
Just my opinion, of course.