Interesting. I suspected Caldera would one day try something like this; Caldera has constantly demonstrated an old-school mentatility. I'm sorry they cannot make it any other way.
Although I wish Caldera the best, this is not a good sign. They are alienating the group on whom they most rely-- the developers and community of Linux.
That's what we're doing here at work-- Sunrays on the desktop, with Solaris boxes doing the heavy lifting. We've only rolled out a few (about a hundred or so), but we will hopefully have everyone on them soon.
The NC *has* been done right. The Sunray is just the most recent (and perhaps the best) example. And it *is* a grand idea.
It won't work, of course. Even here we feel the pressure to move to MS software. We've resisted so far; but find a corporation-wide financial system that can run exclusively on Unix. Pretty much every financial package has an MS-Windows front-end, even if the database runs on Oracle or DB2.
Petreley was right-- it doesn't exist until Microsoft invents it.
It can't be that bad-- we're trying to hire a PC tech where I work, and recieved almost no applications.
Meanwhile, I keep getting cold calls from headhunters (still). I could get work fairly quickly, if I were willing to leave Sitka.
I think the issue is this: these people suffer from a combination of problems. First, they weren't necessarily good to start with. Second, they were making way more than they were worth, and aren't willing to work for a paltry $45k/year. Third, they're living in fucking San Jose, fer crissakes. Rent there is outrageous, and there are another 10 thousand unemployed ex-dot-commers pounding the pavement looking for work, too. It's a buyers' market.
C'mon! Pick up stakes and move! There's no reason to stay in Silicon Valley. The tech industry is a distributed economy. Move to Anchorage; there's work there, for those who want it. Move to Cleveland, or move to Berne, or Dublin. Move to where the work is. And don't expect to make $100k for a job that's really only worth $45k.
Consider the alternative-- you could make $16k flipping burgers at McDeaths.
2.Smart tags can be easily turned off by a page author. There is a META tag that does this.
Well, *this* is ass-backwards. So suddenly every HTML page in the world has changed, and to fix it we have to add a new meta tag?
Yeah. I can see the Microsoft apologists coming out of the woodwork. "It's a benefit!," and, "It's easily disabled with a simple Meta tag, a patch to your webserver, and a prayer to Saint Gates!"
Of course the GPL is complex. IP law is complex; the GPL is designed for one purpose-- to short-circuit IP law. To do that, it has to address every possible point of IP law.
If you look at the GPL, add all its parts up, subtract the IP-circumvention bits, you end up with one simple philosophy:
I will share with you if you share with me.
It's simple, it's beautiful, it's fair.
Who stands to gain the most from BSD licenses? Anyone who takes a BSD-licensed product and makes it proprietary, that's who. For instance, Microsoft's ip stack (and many of the programs) were taken straight from BSD-licensed code. What did MS gain from this? Everything. What did the people who wrote the code in the first place gain?
Nothing.
The fragmentation of Unix came about because of the BSD-licensed code that Scott McNeally used to create SunOS. IBM, HP, et al soon followed suit. If they had used GPLed code instead, they could have contributed back to a common core and differentiated themselves on hardware instead (which is what really counted to start with).
The BSD is great only if you don't mind that your code is taken by someone else to make money. Personally, I don't want that to happen.
There was a backdoor, a secret password in IIS, that was put there by some programmers. It was discovered very recently (say, 3 or 4 weeks ago-- maybe a little longer), and acknowledged by MS as a backdoor.
I'm hardly a zealot (okay, maybe I am, but I'm a rational zealot, damnit).
I guess I should have been more specific for you who don't pay much attention.
Zealotry may not be helped by the truth, but poor logic can't be helped by facts, either.
Shared Source won't be accepted by anyone except greedy corporations - oh, wait, that's where most consumer, and a lot of business-accepted software, comes from.
Big deal-- so the most popular software is produced by a corporation. Budweiser is the most-consumed beer, and the Ford Escort is the best-selling car. What's that prove? That advertising beats quality every time.
Microsoft makes the most-popular software. So what? They also make the most-insecure software, with back doors built in... back doors the corporation didn't even know existed. Yeah, that's a great track record to be proud of.
They also make the most popular email client (meaning a lot of people don't know anything but Outlook exists, since that's what their computer comes bundled with). Oddly enough, it's also the only email client that allows emails to control your computer by design. That's just fucking stupid.
This doesn't address your primary point-- that "Shared Source" might be better than the GPL. Let's look at the goals of each license:
Shared Source
Shared source allows you to look at certain pieces of MS source. You can't do a damned thing with it, except perhaps send MS some code of your own, which they then own. This seems to me to have these goals:
1. You can see the code, but not share it. How's that "Shared Source?" Oh, I forget-- you can share your source with Microsoft.
2. You can't really modify the source, nor do anything with it. Any potential modifications must go back to Microsoft, and if it is worth anything, they benefit.
GPL
With the GPL, you get access to the entire body of GPLed code. You can modify it to your heart's content, but iff you decide to make binaries of the modified code available to other people (either by selling the binary to them, or giving it to them), you must make all the code available to them, as well. Then they recieve the same rights which you were given with the GPL.
Tell me, which gives you the most rights? Which gives you the most potential to make money (assuming "you" are not Microsoft)?
Microsoft apologists piss me off when they attack the GPL. Microsoft has the right to make money-- just not the right to steal innovation from people who don't want it usurped. They whinge on and on about "Intellectual property," but they aren't willing to respect the intellectual property of people who choose to use the GPL.
The 44 corps mentioned as not paying the full 35% taxes means that they didn't pay 35% of taxes on *profits.* Since that is all a corporation can be taxed on, the assumption they made a profit is part of the statement.
Further on, they state that these 44 were the only ones of the top 200 that were included in the report from which this information was gleaned. There's nothing to go on for the 38 other companies.
Neither Microsoft nor Cisco paid taxes last year-- and don't tell me they didn't make a profit. Think of all the taxes *you* paid last year. Then tell me it doesn't piss you off that corporations making approximately 33 million times as much as you don't pay taxes.
If these corporations paid their taxes, then we wouldn't be choosing between space exploration and the undereducation of our children. W's tax cut might start to make sense (except it would still favor the rich).
Fuck that. We're getting screwed, and you have your head in the sand. Your freedoms are being trampled, and you are apoligising to the people wiping their feet on your ass.
Sounds like the story "Remake," by Connie Willis. The future of television is nothing more than endless digitally-created remakes of old movies with digitally-created actors based on famous names, like River Pheonix starring in Casablanca.
Funny thing is, there were endless lawsuits about copyrights. In the story, no Fred Astaire movie could be broadcast because of copyright disputes over the image of Fred Astaire.
Isn't that what we're coming to? Endless copyright fights over the images of famous people? Wouldn't it be hysterical if all the movie houses started snapping up the copyrights to all famous people-- MGM gets the image of George Washington, Universal gets the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man, etc.
Oh, W2k doesn't die too much on its own. Yeah, MS-Office still crashes all the time, but that's just user apps-- I don't count app crashes. But I've had 3 separate cases of W2k giving me this error on reboot:
W2k could not start because te following file is missing or corrupt:
\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
I've had *far* less desktop trouble with Linux (other than app crashes-- it's about the same with both W2k and Linux for things like Netscape and StarOffice) than with *any* of the myriad versions of MS-Windows.
W2k is definitely the best version of MS-Windows since NT 3.51 . But that's damning with faint praise.
The same was said about Word Perfect back in the WP5.1 days. It took Microsoft less than 2 years to kill Word Perfect, with bundling deals and choking the distribution channels with pre-installs.
Microsoft Word was not superior to Word Perfect for many years after. Granted WP committed suicide by *not* fixing the codebase and releasing a good update-- WP5.1 was *it*. MS-Word didn't catch up to WP5.1 until Office97. (Don't believe me? Try editing tables-- specifically, merging two cells horizontally (or is it vertically?), in anything prior to Word97. This is only one example. There are others.)
MS-Office is *not* the ultimate killer application. It's a matter of distribution and acceptance; and if Microsoft keeps using old-time Mafia tactics to keep the profits rolling in, it won't be long before businesses start looking at non-licensed software. Once OpenOffice (or LyX, or Koffice) is accepted as an alternative, acceptance as a standard will shortly follow.
Interesting. *17* moderation points wasted on this parent post so far.
If Microsoft wanted to muddy the waters, wouldn't they have a bunch of people sign up for Slashdot, post lots of innocuous posts until the got moderation privs, then send in a agent provocateur, and the hell out of him?
This is similar to the astroturf campaign Microsoft did against OS/2 8 years ago. Very sneaky, don'tcha think?
Part of the issue isn't set-up time; it's the time needed to keep the damned computer running. Here were I work, we use mostly Solaris-based desktops (X terminals and SunRays), with a small mix of PCs. Guess which set of desktops takes the most IT time? Yeah, the small amount of PCs.
This includes Win2k, as well. The myth that Win2k is easier to install the Linux is just that-- a myth. I can install and set up a Linux box in about 3/4 the time it takes someone to install and set up MS-Windows 2000. And, my box *stays* up, with no random crashing (which even Win2k does, occassionally) and no re-installations (I've lost 3 Win2k installations, in which system DLLs disappear and so Win2k refuses to boot).
I was just interrupted by a call. A Windows machine just died-- "Fatal Exception Error," the user says. They are very frustrated. This is a new machine, with a fresh install of Windows.
No, the issue isn't only installation time. It's also user support time.
And as far as application bloat-- StarOffice is no more bloatful than MS-Office. And if you want a damned good document editor (as opposed to "Word Processor") that takes up very little resources, try LyX. It's far superior to *any* word processor out there; but it takes a different mindset.
Microsoft has pushed us down the wrong road. If you expect Micrsoft Windows on the desktop, then of course Linux will not be a good fit. If you expect power on your desktop, with easy-to-use applications, then change your mindset. Don't expect MS-Windows or MS-Office; learn new tools. Learn LyX, and Gnumeric (which is, honestly, an XML knock-off, but with a better architecture), and Konquerer.
Question the desktop, yes; but also question your expectations.
How long does driving take to learn?...to get behind the wheel of a potentially deadly vehicle, slap 'er in gear, and tear out across the interstate?
It *does* take a while-- a few months, perhaps, to become proficient. Cars are simple because they have 4 or 5 controls, not counting simple things like lights and air conditioning. But it takes a few months to learn how to drive.
Why is this? Could it be there is more to driving than just learning the function of 4 or 5 controls? Could it be that the interaction of other drivers fouls up the simple use of 4 or 5 controls?
If a simple something with a single purpose, such as a car, takes weeks or months to learn how to handle properly, why shouldn't we expect the *same* learning curve for a multipurpose device like the computer?
I don't expect my SO to know how to rebuild a carbuerator. But at the same time, I *do* expect her to use the turn signals at the appropriate time, and know how to obey speed limits. I also don't expect her to park her car in someone's bedroom.
Similarly, I expect her to know how to find a simple file she created last year, but managed to misplace. I expect her to know how to open photos, and email said photos to friends.
One day, when computers are sufficiently intelligent, we can simply talk to them as if they were Sigfrid von Shrink. Until that day, it is a mark of intellectual laziness to refuse to take the time to learn a general tool that is so important to our lives.
...the Linux community needs a more professional aura around it.
Forgive me my skepticism, but-- why? Yes, I believe the loudest "advocates" are nothing more than overzealous adolescent (no matter their age) loudmouths, no better than hooligans; but why should that bother the Linux community?
Why should the community even care what the business world thinks of Linux? So we can get more proprietary software? So more people can make money off closed software built for an open system? So more companies can make money from Free software while giving nothing back?
Yes, it would be nice if Linux were a bit more widespread; but really, I'd rather the community stay small and open than giant and closed.
There are many reasons to not use an OODBMS. Some reasons are: what is "the" object model? Ans: there is no single object model, there are many. But there is only *one* relational model.
Database Debunking has some great arguments against OODBMSs. Basically, it comes down to: data independence, no single rational object model, and the strong mathematical (set theory) foundation of the RDBMS.
Anyways, Kudo's to MicroSoft for a well written summary, and a "Yay" if they actually follow through on their commitment to share their source.
Did you see with whom they're sharing their source? Not to us end-users. Oh, no. That would be too much like *really* sharing. No, it's with ISVs, major companies, and universities. For WinCE, they are sharing with select developers.
No, they are not even talking about sharing their code, but they still talk as if they are sharing their code. Doublespeak, to further cloud the issue.
And, though I am a strong supporter of the GPL and of RMS' ideology, they confused the GPL with Open Source. We've seen this argument from Microsoft before. It was just as fallacious now as it was then.
And MUMPS ignores it, since it is syntactically irrelevent-- there's no real scoping in MUMPS, so there's not even a hit for context switching.
The bugs occur when editing code, when adding an outer loop and the code isn't properly re-formatted. Visually, it is harder to deal with a "running context" (that is, the leading white space means "include me in the previous block") instead of an SOB/EOB-marker context ("everything between the braces is a block").
In communication, a statement is assumed to be related to the previous statement. In fact, we have a special phrase for statements that *don't* relate to the previous statement-- a "non-sequitor." When communicating, we have special markers for "start of topic," and "end-of-topic." Each sentence does *not* start with a marker that says, "I'm part of the same topic as the previous sentence."
As long as your program chunks are short and to-the-point, whitespace blocking is okay. But not everything lends itself to short program blocks.
Good God, no! I just have to program in it. Occassionally.
One of MUMPS' problems is the blocking via indentation. It got so bad, they added the "." for explicit blocking-- as in:
I $L(NDC)=11 D Q .S X=$$FINDNDC(NDC) .I X D ..N F S F=$P(^APSAMDF(X,2),"^",3) ..W:OUTPUT $$FMTNDC(NDC,5,4,2)," Format=",F,! .E W NDC," Not found",!
W:OUTPUT "Test ",NDC,"..."
You are right-- it's a holy war issue. My experience with indentation-as-blocking has not been good; doesn't mean it doesn't work for other people. Python is a great language... for other people.
But, I do have one quibble, the same quibble I've had with Python from the outset. Using whitespace blocking to mandate code structure forces the programmer to the language, and not the other way around. I like my code to fit my style.
I program in MUMPS, a terse database/language written in the late sixties. It's a decent language, as far as that goes, but it also uses whitespace for blocking. I have seen more bugs due to stray spaces than misplaced braces (in C, Perl, etc). Plus, it makes it a pain in the ass when re-formatting huge blocks of code.
Plus, it really *doesn't* make the code more readable. It merely forces the program to a particular style. And Mr. van Rossum's style is not mine. (Arguably, he does have better style than me.)
Slashdot Mirror
A little of both. Why do you ask?
Interesting. I suspected Caldera would one day try something like this; Caldera has constantly demonstrated an old-school mentatility. I'm sorry they cannot make it any other way.
Although I wish Caldera the best, this is not a good sign. They are alienating the group on whom they most rely-- the developers and community of Linux.
News flash 2: Per-seat licenses are a way of making money.
News flash 3: So is extortion, blackmail, forgery, and contract killing.
Doesn't make them right.
That's what we're doing here at work-- Sunrays on the desktop, with Solaris boxes doing the heavy lifting. We've only rolled out a few (about a hundred or so), but we will hopefully have everyone on them soon.
The NC *has* been done right. The Sunray is just the most recent (and perhaps the best) example. And it *is* a grand idea.
It won't work, of course. Even here we feel the pressure to move to MS software. We've resisted so far; but find a corporation-wide financial system that can run exclusively on Unix. Pretty much every financial package has an MS-Windows front-end, even if the database runs on Oracle or DB2.
Petreley was right-- it doesn't exist until Microsoft invents it.
It can't be that bad-- we're trying to hire a PC tech where I work, and recieved almost no applications.
Meanwhile, I keep getting cold calls from headhunters (still). I could get work fairly quickly, if I were willing to leave Sitka.
I think the issue is this: these people suffer from a combination of problems. First, they weren't necessarily good to start with. Second, they were making way more than they were worth, and aren't willing to work for a paltry $45k/year. Third, they're living in fucking San Jose, fer crissakes. Rent there is outrageous, and there are another 10 thousand unemployed ex-dot-commers pounding the pavement looking for work, too. It's a buyers' market.
C'mon! Pick up stakes and move! There's no reason to stay in Silicon Valley. The tech industry is a distributed economy. Move to Anchorage; there's work there, for those who want it. Move to Cleveland, or move to Berne, or Dublin. Move to where the work is. And don't expect to make $100k for a job that's really only worth $45k.
Consider the alternative-- you could make $16k flipping burgers at McDeaths.
Hey. Fries are up.
2.Smart tags can be easily turned off by a page author. There is a META tag that does this.
Well, *this* is ass-backwards. So suddenly every HTML page in the world has changed, and to fix it we have to add a new meta tag?
Yeah. I can see the Microsoft apologists coming out of the woodwork. "It's a benefit!," and, "It's easily disabled with a simple Meta tag, a patch to your webserver, and a prayer to Saint Gates!"
Of course the GPL is complex. IP law is complex; the GPL is designed for one purpose-- to short-circuit IP law. To do that, it has to address every possible point of IP law.
If you look at the GPL, add all its parts up, subtract the IP-circumvention bits, you end up with one simple philosophy:
I will share with you if you share with me.
It's simple, it's beautiful, it's fair.
Who stands to gain the most from BSD licenses? Anyone who takes a BSD-licensed product and makes it proprietary, that's who. For instance, Microsoft's ip stack (and many of the programs) were taken straight from BSD-licensed code. What did MS gain from this? Everything. What did the people who wrote the code in the first place gain?
Nothing.
The fragmentation of Unix came about because of the BSD-licensed code that Scott McNeally used to create SunOS. IBM, HP, et al soon followed suit. If they had used GPLed code instead, they could have contributed back to a common core and differentiated themselves on hardware instead (which is what really counted to start with).
The BSD is great only if you don't mind that your code is taken by someone else to make money. Personally, I don't want that to happen.
Wrong.
There was a backdoor, a secret password in IIS, that was put there by some programmers. It was discovered very recently (say, 3 or 4 weeks ago-- maybe a little longer), and acknowledged by MS as a backdoor.
I'm hardly a zealot (okay, maybe I am, but I'm a rational zealot, damnit).
I guess I should have been more specific for you who don't pay much attention.
... or a Xerox laser printer?
That would be really funny, except RMS was after the print driver code, which was installed on the computer he was using.
Zealotry may not be helped by the truth, but poor logic can't be helped by facts, either.
Shared Source won't be accepted by anyone except greedy corporations - oh, wait, that's where most consumer, and a lot of business-accepted software, comes from.
Big deal-- so the most popular software is produced by a corporation. Budweiser is the most-consumed beer, and the Ford Escort is the best-selling car. What's that prove? That advertising beats quality every time.
Microsoft makes the most-popular software. So what? They also make the most-insecure software, with back doors built in... back doors the corporation didn't even know existed. Yeah, that's a great track record to be proud of.
They also make the most popular email client (meaning a lot of people don't know anything but Outlook exists, since that's what their computer comes bundled with). Oddly enough, it's also the only email client that allows emails to control your computer by design. That's just fucking stupid.
This doesn't address your primary point-- that "Shared Source" might be better than the GPL. Let's look at the goals of each license:
Shared Source
Shared source allows you to look at certain pieces of MS source. You can't do a damned thing with it, except perhaps send MS some code of your own, which they then own. This seems to me to have these goals:
1. You can see the code, but not share it. How's that "Shared Source?" Oh, I forget-- you can share your source with Microsoft.
2. You can't really modify the source, nor do anything with it. Any potential modifications must go back to Microsoft, and if it is worth anything, they benefit.
GPL
With the GPL, you get access to the entire body of GPLed code. You can modify it to your heart's content, but iff you decide to make binaries of the modified code available to other people (either by selling the binary to them, or giving it to them), you must make all the code available to them, as well. Then they recieve the same rights which you were given with the GPL.
Tell me, which gives you the most rights? Which gives you the most potential to make money (assuming "you" are not Microsoft)?
Microsoft apologists piss me off when they attack the GPL. Microsoft has the right to make money-- just not the right to steal innovation from people who don't want it usurped. They whinge on and on about "Intellectual property," but they aren't willing to respect the intellectual property of people who choose to use the GPL.
How fucking naive can you get?
Uhm.....
The 44 corps mentioned as not paying the full 35% taxes means that they didn't pay 35% of taxes on *profits.* Since that is all a corporation can be taxed on, the assumption they made a profit is part of the statement.
Further on, they state that these 44 were the only ones of the top 200 that were included in the report from which this information was gleaned. There's nothing to go on for the 38 other companies.
Neither Microsoft nor Cisco paid taxes last year-- and don't tell me they didn't make a profit. Think of all the taxes *you* paid last year. Then tell me it doesn't piss you off that corporations making approximately 33 million times as much as you don't pay taxes.
If these corporations paid their taxes, then we wouldn't be choosing between space exploration and the undereducation of our children. W's tax cut might start to make sense (except it would still favor the rich).
Fuck that. We're getting screwed, and you have your head in the sand. Your freedoms are being trampled, and you are apoligising to the people wiping their feet on your ass.
Sounds like the story "Remake," by Connie Willis. The future of television is nothing more than endless digitally-created remakes of old movies with digitally-created actors based on famous names, like River Pheonix starring in Casablanca.
Funny thing is, there were endless lawsuits about copyrights. In the story, no Fred Astaire movie could be broadcast because of copyright disputes over the image of Fred Astaire.
Isn't that what we're coming to? Endless copyright fights over the images of famous people? Wouldn't it be hysterical if all the movie houses started snapping up the copyrights to all famous people-- MGM gets the image of George Washington, Universal gets the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man, etc.
Yeah. I'd have to laugh.
Oh, W2k doesn't die too much on its own. Yeah, MS-Office still crashes all the time, but that's just user apps-- I don't count app crashes. But I've had 3 separate cases of W2k giving me this error on reboot:
W2k could not start because te following file is missing or corrupt:
\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
I've had *far* less desktop trouble with Linux (other than app crashes-- it's about the same with both W2k and Linux for things like Netscape and StarOffice) than with *any* of the myriad versions of MS-Windows.
W2k is definitely the best version of MS-Windows since NT 3.51 . But that's damning with faint praise.
The same was said about Word Perfect back in the WP5.1 days. It took Microsoft less than 2 years to kill Word Perfect, with bundling deals and choking the distribution channels with pre-installs.
Microsoft Word was not superior to Word Perfect for many years after. Granted WP committed suicide by *not* fixing the codebase and releasing a good update-- WP5.1 was *it*. MS-Word didn't catch up to WP5.1 until Office97. (Don't believe me? Try editing tables-- specifically, merging two cells horizontally (or is it vertically?), in anything prior to Word97. This is only one example. There are others.)
MS-Office is *not* the ultimate killer application. It's a matter of distribution and acceptance; and if Microsoft keeps using old-time Mafia tactics to keep the profits rolling in, it won't be long before businesses start looking at non-licensed software. Once OpenOffice (or LyX, or Koffice) is accepted as an alternative, acceptance as a standard will shortly follow.
Interesting. *17* moderation points wasted on this parent post so far.
If Microsoft wanted to muddy the waters, wouldn't they have a bunch of people sign up for Slashdot, post lots of innocuous posts until the got moderation privs, then send in a agent provocateur, and the hell out of him?
This is similar to the astroturf campaign Microsoft did against OS/2 8 years ago. Very sneaky, don'tcha think?
Sorry. I ment "Excel," or "XLS," or something. Certainly not XML.
Part of the issue isn't set-up time; it's the time needed to keep the damned computer running. Here were I work, we use mostly Solaris-based desktops (X terminals and SunRays), with a small mix of PCs. Guess which set of desktops takes the most IT time? Yeah, the small amount of PCs.
This includes Win2k, as well. The myth that Win2k is easier to install the Linux is just that-- a myth. I can install and set up a Linux box in about 3/4 the time it takes someone to install and set up MS-Windows 2000. And, my box *stays* up, with no random crashing (which even Win2k does, occassionally) and no re-installations (I've lost 3 Win2k installations, in which system DLLs disappear and so Win2k refuses to boot).
I was just interrupted by a call. A Windows machine just died-- "Fatal Exception Error," the user says. They are very frustrated. This is a new machine, with a fresh install of Windows.
No, the issue isn't only installation time. It's also user support time.
And as far as application bloat-- StarOffice is no more bloatful than MS-Office. And if you want a damned good document editor (as opposed to "Word Processor") that takes up very little resources, try LyX. It's far superior to *any* word processor out there; but it takes a different mindset.
Microsoft has pushed us down the wrong road. If you expect Micrsoft Windows on the desktop, then of course Linux will not be a good fit. If you expect power on your desktop, with easy-to-use applications, then change your mindset. Don't expect MS-Windows or MS-Office; learn new tools. Learn LyX, and Gnumeric (which is, honestly, an XML knock-off, but with a better architecture), and Konquerer.
Question the desktop, yes; but also question your expectations.
How long does driving take to learn? ...to get behind the wheel of a potentially deadly vehicle, slap 'er in gear, and tear out across the interstate?
It *does* take a while-- a few months, perhaps, to become proficient. Cars are simple because they have 4 or 5 controls, not counting simple things like lights and air conditioning. But it takes a few months to learn how to drive.
Why is this? Could it be there is more to driving than just learning the function of 4 or 5 controls? Could it be that the interaction of other drivers fouls up the simple use of 4 or 5 controls?
If a simple something with a single purpose, such as a car, takes weeks or months to learn how to handle properly, why shouldn't we expect the *same* learning curve for a multipurpose device like the computer?
I don't expect my SO to know how to rebuild a carbuerator. But at the same time, I *do* expect her to use the turn signals at the appropriate time, and know how to obey speed limits. I also don't expect her to park her car in someone's bedroom.
Similarly, I expect her to know how to find a simple file she created last year, but managed to misplace. I expect her to know how to open photos, and email said photos to friends.
One day, when computers are sufficiently intelligent, we can simply talk to them as if they were Sigfrid von Shrink. Until that day, it is a mark of intellectual laziness to refuse to take the time to learn a general tool that is so important to our lives.
Anyone else remember the elder Vulcan T'pau from "Amok Time?" I wonder if the Trek folks are clever enough to make it the same person....
Forgive me my skepticism, but-- why? Yes, I believe the loudest "advocates" are nothing more than overzealous adolescent (no matter their age) loudmouths, no better than hooligans; but why should that bother the Linux community?
Why should the community even care what the business world thinks of Linux? So we can get more proprietary software? So more people can make money off closed software built for an open system? So more companies can make money from Free software while giving nothing back?
Yes, it would be nice if Linux were a bit more widespread; but really, I'd rather the community stay small and open than giant and closed.
Database Debunking has some great arguments against OODBMSs. Basically, it comes down to: data independence, no single rational object model, and the strong mathematical (set theory) foundation of the RDBMS.
Object theory is still too... undefined.
Did you see with whom they're sharing their source? Not to us end-users. Oh, no. That would be too much like *really* sharing. No, it's with ISVs, major companies, and universities. For WinCE, they are sharing with select developers.
No, they are not even talking about sharing their code, but they still talk as if they are sharing their code. Doublespeak, to further cloud the issue.
And, though I am a strong supporter of the GPL and of RMS' ideology, they confused the GPL with Open Source. We've seen this argument from Microsoft before. It was just as fallacious now as it was then.
And MUMPS ignores it, since it is syntactically irrelevent-- there's no real scoping in MUMPS, so there's not even a hit for context switching.
The bugs occur when editing code, when adding an outer loop and the code isn't properly re-formatted. Visually, it is harder to deal with a "running context" (that is, the leading white space means "include me in the previous block") instead of an SOB/EOB-marker context ("everything between the braces is a block").
In communication, a statement is assumed to be related to the previous statement. In fact, we have a special phrase for statements that *don't* relate to the previous statement-- a "non-sequitor." When communicating, we have special markers for "start of topic," and "end-of-topic." Each sentence does *not* start with a marker that says, "I'm part of the same topic as the previous sentence."
As long as your program chunks are short and to-the-point, whitespace blocking is okay. But not everything lends itself to short program blocks.
Good God, no! I just have to program in it. Occassionally.
One of MUMPS' problems is the blocking via indentation. It got so bad, they added the "." for explicit blocking-- as in:
I $L(NDC)=11 D Q
.S X=$$FINDNDC(NDC)
.I X D
..N F S F=$P(^APSAMDF(X,2),"^",3)
..W:OUTPUT $$FMTNDC(NDC,5,4,2)," Format=",F,!
.E W NDC," Not found",!
W:OUTPUT "Test ",NDC,"..."
You are right-- it's a holy war issue. My experience with indentation-as-blocking has not been good; doesn't mean it doesn't work for other people. Python is a great language... for other people.
Excellent answers.
But, I do have one quibble, the same quibble I've had with Python from the outset. Using whitespace blocking to mandate code structure forces the programmer to the language, and not the other way around. I like my code to fit my style.
I program in MUMPS, a terse database/language written in the late sixties. It's a decent language, as far as that goes, but it also uses whitespace for blocking. I have seen more bugs due to stray spaces than misplaced braces (in C, Perl, etc). Plus, it makes it a pain in the ass when re-formatting huge blocks of code.
Plus, it really *doesn't* make the code more readable. It merely forces the program to a particular style. And Mr. van Rossum's style is not mine. (Arguably, he does have better style than me.)