"The fact is that both science and religion are lacking."
Presuming for one second that this sentence is correct.
Are they both EQUALLY lacking? Is it sompletely 50/50 so that you can flip a coin and based on the results of that flip go with one explanation or another?
Any rational being will tell you that it's not equal. While there are some questions for which science has no answers and some questions that science may never have the answer for religion is batting pretty much ZERO in this regard.
Saying "because GOD made it like that" is not an explanation.
Your boss is an idiot. Tell me the name of company so that I never invest in your company. Any company whose CIO/CEO makes purchasing decisions based on reading slashdot is going to go bankrupt any day now.
"Its their decision and people shouldn't begin to whine when they don't get their way."
And how else do you propose to effect change? Shut and sit down isn't going to work is it?
Whining, boycotting, shaming, humiliating, mocking, deriding, bitching and moaning is a perfectly appropriate response to an idiot company acting in stupid ways.
More people need to get uppity. Sitting quietly at your desk doing exactly what you are told isn't going to get you anywhere.
"Linux does not win over Windows because of a different factor--it is harder to use, has less applications, etc. Macs were the better computers with more apps to start with but lost out to PCs because PCs were cheaper and therefore more widely available, furthering software development for that platform."
The PCs were harder to use then the Macs too. Linux will win for the exact same reasons you listed. It's cheaper and there is an explosion of linux compatibles. Both freebsd and solaris now can run linux programs. So can windows (using cygwin). Linux is cheaper, and has a more active developers.
By the way you are way off about the expansion capabilities of the mac and the PC.
"I think this has the tendency to make OSS be sort of the breeding ground for the real innovations in tech, but largely unable to provide the sort of polish that proprietary companies can."
This seems to be a popular theory here on slashdot. The idea that the reason linux hasn't broken through is because it lacks polish.
History shows us that a more polished desktop does not always win. The Mac is a perfect example of this. During the 80s the mac was a slick polished interface while the PC had an ugly DOS command line. The PC won handily. Why is that?
I suspect because it was more "open". You could stick cards in it, you could expand it, you could hack it and most importantly it had lotus 123 running on it so the business community embraced it.
FOr the exact same reasons I predict linux continues to advance into the desktop. The final breaking point will come when businesses see competitive advantage in it. Once that happens I expect explosive growth in linux adoption and yes world domination.
It's a community effort so why not a vote? Have people submit a list of their favorite packages up to a thousand and pick the winners. I very much doubt you will get a thousand packages BTW so you can add the best maintained and historically the most stable and bug free packages to round it out.
The answer is so simple I am surprised nobody has mentioned it.
Trim down the number of "official" packages. Right now there is something like 3000 packages in the debian system. Why not cur that down to a thousand. Take the top 1000 most popular and best maintained backages and call it debian.
The rest of the packages can go into "ports" or "contrib" or something. They would still be there if anybody wanted to install them but they would not hold up release cycles, debian would not guarantee they would work with the rest of the system.
The great thing about debian is that by using stable you are promised that nothing you install will break your system. They can still promise that but just with less packages.
Maybe what you say is theoretically true but practically it doesn't seem that way. If you look at various benchmarks you'll see that sometimes java is faster and sometimes python is faster.
Maybe this is due to the fact that some python libraries are written in C but the end result is the one that counts.
either way I have always agreed with the principle that you should be more concerned about programmer productivity then speed of the language. You can always a bigger box.
Another judge (or a panel or a jury) decides whether the suit was frivolous if the winning side requests it.
If the suit is judged to be frivolous the original presiding judge would be punished somehow for letting a frivolous suit go forward (he should not have ever let it get to trial). The defendents lawyers have to pay for the entire cost of the trial and the cost of the panel.
If the suit is not ruled frivolous the winning side pays for the panel.
There have been numerous articles showing that python is a more productive language then java. The exact numbers vary but you can look it up yourself if you desire.
A big part of that is not having to worry about your types. Just like java programmers became more productive when stopped having to worry about garbage collection.
Given the state of the legal system in the US loser pays would be a horrible idea. Big corporations would be completely off the hook because if you sue them and lose you will be on the hook for millions in legal fees.
It should be up to ANOTHER judge (or a jury) after the trial is over to make a determination as to whether the suit was meritless and frivolous. Obviously the presiding judge rules the case had merit and let it get to trial.
"You know, that is an annoyance just because you do not use object orientation much."
It has nothing to do with object orientation. Python and Ruby are if anything more object oriented then java.
"Java is strongly typed, and it has a lot of advantages. A quite usual way of creating a new variable is:"
Pyton is strongly typed too it's just that I don't have to worry about the types. The difference is that python is dynamically typed while java is statically typed. There have been volumes written about this subject I suggest you read it. The only possible advantage you get with static typing is the compiler catching errors for you. Apparently some people believe that that's enough of an advantage to lose 30 to 50% productivity. I for one would rather rely on unit testing (which you have to do in either case).
"If you don't understand the advantages of this kind of casting, you don't understand object orientation, and therefore, you don't need Java."
If you don't understand the difference between object orientation and static typing you need to go back to school.
I think you made my point. The idea that you have to implement a class just to do do a glob is sick to me.
And yes it's more verbose, and more ugly to read. I also happen to think inline class declarations are lame too but I guess it's not that much worse then passing codeblocks around in ruby.
Sun can open source java but keep the trademark. They can make sure that people who do not pass the compatibility tests can't call their product Java, which is exactly what they did with the MS suit.
" Think about the "fairly popular" bit. None of these languages have become as prevalent as Java. "
Define "prevalent". Certainly PHP is just as popular if not more popular then java when it comes to web development. Perl is ubiquitius and python is almost as popular as perl.
So what is your definition of prevalent such that java is prevalent and php is not?
Slashdot Mirror
"The fact is that both science and religion are lacking."
Presuming for one second that this sentence is correct.
Are they both EQUALLY lacking? Is it sompletely 50/50 so that you can flip a coin and based on the results of that flip go with one explanation or another?
Any rational being will tell you that it's not equal. While there are some questions for which science has no answers and some questions that science may never have the answer for religion is batting pretty much ZERO in this regard.
Saying "because GOD made it like that" is not an explanation.
"It's a scary time when the few people with extreme religious views can change the life of everyone to suit their needs."
Well they control the presidency, both houses of congress, most of the press and pretty soon the supreme court.
We kicked the taliban out of afghanistan but implemented one of our own.
Your boss is an idiot. Tell me the name of company so that I never invest in your company. Any company whose CIO/CEO makes purchasing decisions based on reading slashdot is going to go bankrupt any day now.
"Its their decision and people shouldn't begin to whine when they don't get their way."
And how else do you propose to effect change? Shut and sit down isn't going to work is it?
Whining, boycotting, shaming, humiliating, mocking, deriding, bitching and moaning is a perfectly appropriate response to an idiot company acting in stupid ways.
More people need to get uppity. Sitting quietly at your desk doing exactly what you are told isn't going to get you anywhere.
"Linux does not win over Windows because of a different factor--it is harder to use, has less applications, etc. Macs were the better computers with more apps to start with but lost out to PCs because PCs were cheaper and therefore more widely available, furthering software development for that platform."
The PCs were harder to use then the Macs too. Linux will win for the exact same reasons you listed. It's cheaper and there is an explosion of linux compatibles. Both freebsd and solaris now can run linux programs. So can windows (using cygwin). Linux is cheaper, and has a more active developers.
By the way you are way off about the expansion capabilities of the mac and the PC.
Windows costs more then linux but is more polished. Mac cost more then the PC but was more polished.
The PC won.
In fact the difference in polish between windows and linux is smaller then the polish that existed between the PC and the MAC.
Even if you are correct that price was the major factor Linux should win.
"I think this has the tendency to make OSS be sort of the breeding ground for the real innovations in tech, but largely unable to provide the sort of polish that proprietary companies can."
This seems to be a popular theory here on slashdot. The idea that the reason linux hasn't broken through is because it lacks polish.
History shows us that a more polished desktop does not always win. The Mac is a perfect example of this. During the 80s the mac was a slick polished interface while the PC had an ugly DOS command line. The PC won handily. Why is that?
I suspect because it was more "open". You could stick cards in it, you could expand it, you could hack it and most importantly it had lotus 123 running on it so the business community embraced it.
FOr the exact same reasons I predict linux continues to advance into the desktop. The final breaking point will come when businesses see competitive advantage in it. Once that happens I expect explosive growth in linux adoption and yes world domination.
It's a community effort so why not a vote? Have people submit a list of their favorite packages up to a thousand and pick the winners. I very much doubt you will get a thousand packages BTW so you can add the best maintained and historically the most stable and bug free packages to round it out.
The answer is so simple I am surprised nobody has mentioned it.
Trim down the number of "official" packages. Right now there is something like 3000 packages in the debian system. Why not cur that down to a thousand. Take the top 1000 most popular and best maintained backages and call it debian.
The rest of the packages can go into "ports" or "contrib" or something. They would still be there if anybody wanted to install them but they would not hold up release cycles, debian would not guarantee they would work with the rest of the system.
The great thing about debian is that by using stable you are promised that nothing you install will break your system. They can still promise that but just with less packages.
Maybe what you say is theoretically true but practically it doesn't seem that way. If you look at various benchmarks you'll see that sometimes java is faster and sometimes python is faster.
Maybe this is due to the fact that some python libraries are written in C but the end result is the one that counts.
either way I have always agreed with the principle that you should be more concerned about programmer productivity then speed of the language. You can always a bigger box.
That's certainly amongst the most important differences between java and python.
s ide.html
Others include more concise syntax, more dynamic objects (can be modified at runtime), meta programing, and functional language like constructs.
Try these (watch for URL mangling)
http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_java_side-by-
http://www.mindview.net/WebLog/log-0025
http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0063
http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0052
I put a bunch of links to Bruce Eckel's site because he is a well known java expert as well as an avid python programmer.
Natalie can't fill out the suit.
Here is how I would structure it.
Another judge (or a panel or a jury) decides whether the suit was frivolous if the winning side requests it.
If the suit is judged to be frivolous the original presiding judge would be punished somehow for letting a frivolous suit go forward (he should not have ever let it get to trial). The defendents lawyers have to pay for the entire cost of the trial and the cost of the panel.
If the suit is not ruled frivolous the winning side pays for the panel.
There have been numerous articles showing that python is a more productive language then java. The exact numbers vary but you can look it up yourself if you desire.
A big part of that is not having to worry about your types. Just like java programmers became more productive when stopped having to worry about garbage collection.
"now, we just did something that does not have immediate support in the language, demonstrating the flexibility of Java."
You don't want to get into this pissing match. All objects in python and ruby are malleable at runtime. You can't beat them for flexibility.
Given the state of the legal system in the US loser pays would be a horrible idea. Big corporations would be completely off the hook because if you sue them and lose you will be on the hook for millions in legal fees.
It should be up to ANOTHER judge (or a jury) after the trial is over to make a determination as to whether the suit was meritless and frivolous. Obviously the presiding judge rules the case had merit and let it get to trial.
"You know, that is an annoyance just because you do not use object orientation much."
It has nothing to do with object orientation. Python and Ruby are if anything more object oriented then java.
"Java is strongly typed, and it has a lot of advantages. A quite usual way of creating a new variable is:"
Pyton is strongly typed too it's just that I don't have to worry about the types. The difference is that python is dynamically typed while java is statically typed. There have been volumes written about this subject I suggest you read it. The only possible advantage you get with static typing is the compiler catching errors for you. Apparently some people believe that that's enough of an advantage to lose 30 to 50% productivity. I for one would rather rely on unit testing (which you have to do in either case).
"If you don't understand the advantages of this kind of casting, you don't understand object orientation, and therefore, you don't need Java."
If you don't understand the difference between object orientation and static typing you need to go back to school.
I think you made my point. The idea that you have to implement a class just to do do a glob is sick to me.
And yes it's more verbose, and more ugly to read. I also happen to think inline class declarations are lame too but I guess it's not that much worse then passing codeblocks around in ruby.
What I hate about java is that you have to type everything three times.
SomeClass mySomeClass = new SomeClass()
Well that's just one annoyance, there are a billion others.
Truly coding in python and ruby is a more joyful experience then coding in java.
Try this one.
fileList = Glob.glob(*.gz)
foreach file in fileList:
dosomething
Sun can open source java but keep the trademark. They can make sure that people who do not pass the compatibility tests can't call their product Java, which is exactly what they did with the MS suit.
" Think about the "fairly popular" bit. None of these languages have become as prevalent as Java. "
Define "prevalent". Certainly PHP is just as popular if not more popular then java when it comes to web development. Perl is ubiquitius and python is almost as popular as perl.
So what is your definition of prevalent such that java is prevalent and php is not?
MS did fork java, they called it C# and .NET.
Ms no longer cares about java now that they have their own version of it.
If you offered me a bet that the scalie would not rule along side the republican party platform I would gladly take that bet.
I don't see how you can possibly not argue that he is not a republican.
All of your points are valid if you are switching constantly between distributions and desktops.
None of your points are valid if you are using the same distribution every day and using the same window manager every day.