New PC standards are for systems that are much less open than we've enjoyed in the past. Partly this is due to increasing demands for content protection. Partly this is due to a desire to reduce support costs. There are other reasons as well, but the bottom line is that the open-architecture PC as we knew it may be going out of style.
All the more reason to have Free drivers for a Free Operating System.
The high-volume platforms for 3D these days are proprietary entertainment systems (games consoles, perhaps eventually set-tops, and their descendants with better integrated A/V functionality). At this stage in the development of the market, vendors have tremendous incentives to protect their intellectual property and try to lock-in as many customers as possible.
Which is why there needs to be a company backing up the DRI developers. I'm sure a company will be willing to give the specs to a developer under a NDA if you throw enough cash at them.
One of the implications is that our old way of thinking about how graphics is delivered, supported, and used is becoming irrelevant (or at least relevant only to the smaller submarkets like engineering and sci vis). Is 3D graphics support for free systems meaningful when the market offers only proprietary systems?
Yes. I shouldn't have to not be able to use certain devices because I choose to use only a Free Operating System (what? dual boot? what the hell? My 22.5GB is 100% GNU/Linux). No one can really say what will win--Free or Proprietary--because neither has existed for very long (in real business sense, show me which one is winning in 100 years). There will always be some who will refuse to use specialized devices. Like me. I don't want to waste my money on getting a system for web browsing, another for IRC, another to watch TV on, yet another for buy things with, even more to listen to music...why do that when I can buy one system that can do whatever I want (including play games)? The fact is, the PC will _always_ exist. It will never stop existing. It will become smaller, and may end up fitting in your pocket and using your glasses or contacts for a display, but it will always exist. Sure, there will be people who will buy tons of these specialized devices, but there will always be the niche that wants a device that can do it all. The old way of thinking will still be valid, just not on such a large scale.
I guess you'll be a bit angry when I tell you this then:-)...Raven Studios is using the Doom 3 engine to make Quake 4! IMHO, there is no best quake game. Quake was ok (nothing like doom), and Quake 3 Arena is a completely different game, so I guess that quake and q3a both tie. The Quake series of games seems to be better at showing off id's engines (and convincing others to license their engines) than to keep gamers entertained. I own a lot of games, but I've never played one for more than 2 or 3 hours before getting bored (except for doom/doom 2, where I played those both all the way through).
It does matter. You do realize how difficult it is to write 3d device drivers? Without VA, the DRI developers will have problems even getting specifications to write the 3d drivers, much less actually writing them. Something like that takes time, and a LOT of time, something you lack when you have a job. Developing a 3d library like Mesa is no easy task either. Think about it, there is no way the project would have gotten OpenGL 1.3 compliance (3.5 is OpenGL 1.3 compliant IIRC if I read the stuff on linuxgames right) without the leader being paid to do it. Do you think there would be as many 3d cards supported if the DRI people did it all in their spare time? According the people in #loki, the two that VA fired friday did over 90% of the work on DRI. Same goes for the Mesa developer. Maybe Loki will have the funds to hire them (you know, the company that is screwed if there are no 3d drivers for GNU/Linux).
So, VA axed the two DRI developer (read all about it at linuxgames.com), and now the Mesa developer! We are all screwed. The two people at VA did almost all of the work on DRI, and now they have to go and get other jobs...meaning DRI devel will slow down to a halt. Same for Mesa (good thing most of the work on 4.0 / OpenGL 1.3 compliance is already done).
Maybe there needs to be a non-profit formed (or maybe funded by SPI, the backers of Debian?) to fund a few developers to work on DRI/Mesa? I would REALLY hate to see this stuff die. There is a lot of work left to do. Maybe Loki can help, but they seem to be in a bit of financial trouble too (a small side note: the local ebgames carries tons of Loki games. I asked the clerk why (he turned out to be the manager) and he said they sell about 15 Loki games a week...about as many mac games they sell!), but it looks like Loki can get back on its feet (or maybe the local ebgames is a gigantic fluke? ~700 games per year is still small, but still...). I guess with VA screwing the DRI/Mesa people, Loki will _have_ to hire them, because Loki has a vested interest in the DRI and Mesa projects going forward (how do you sell 3d games without drivers to run them with...)
2) KOffice needs to have provisions for English measurement parameters in KWord and its other products. Yes, the geeks out there can convert to mm, but if you wanna get users off MS-Office, simple features like this will be important.
Right-Click the ruler, and set it to use inches instead of mm. Also, it defaults to inches with the US Letter template (in KWord at least). I don't know if there is a way to set the rulers in all the programs to use inches and stay that way (it does save with the document though) when you make new docs.
D'oh, I really am a lamer. I never thought about that. Thanks. And it does seem to make sense to not allow an object to be constucted twice (bad things may happen). In fact, when I think about it, even though D says that calling a constuctor from a constructor is a good thing, it puts more responsibility on the programmer (you have to make sure the two constructors don't walk over each other).
From what the draft specs says, D doesn't look like a very good language. It ditches (arguably) useful features like multiple inheritance, templates, and operator overloading; and then it adds features like resizable, bounds checked arrays...in the language. In C++, there is a very nice resizable (optionally bounds checked using vector::at()) that is implemented in the Standard Library.
What D will implement in the core language is really meant for the standard library. Not everyone needs resizable and bounds checked arrays (the bounds checking is the one with the real overhead). If you are coding a kernel or something low level, the overhead isn't neccesary. If I don't need to resize my arrays, I just don't #include <vector>. Simple as that.
Also, there are no prototypes. Now, tell me, how does one get the source for a 3rd party proprietary library and read the source for the documentation? Often times, I document my code by putting a 3 or 4 line description of what the class [member|function|data type] does below its declaration in the header. If I forget what a function does, I just open the header in another frame in emacs and read its description (which has such useful information as what it uses its arguments for, what exceptions it may throw, what it returns, and whether or not it will modify an argument). It is also much easier to see what members are in a class when you can look at a simple declaration with the outline of class, instead of having to wade through 50 line members to see the next member. That just makes the class look messy, unless each function was only 1 line long.
The lack of operator overloading also makes it harder to implement something like, say, a complex number in a library. With C++, you have the standard complex type in the standard library. If there was no operator overloading, using complex would be more difficult (which is easier: complex foo, bar; foo.i = 1; bar.r = 2; foo.add(bar); OR complex foo, bar; foo.i = 1; bar.r = 2; foo += bar;).
I do see some good qualities. One is the ability to call a constuctor from a constructor. This results in less duplicated code, and makes it easier to keep two constructors of a class synced. Say you had a class with two constuctors: one that takes no arguments (default) and one that takes an int argument. The int argument one can't call the default constructor (this creates a temporary, contructs it, and then deletes the temporary). D allows you to do that. Maybe the next C++ specification will fix that.
D does seem to have a lot of flaws. It doesn't seem very useful. Maybe some people will find it useful. But it seems to me to be yet another language written for someone's personal usage. It makes sense to that person, but not to anyone else. C is a good language because its creators made it useful for other people as well as themselves, same for C++, lisp, Objective-C, and countless other languages.
I'm 15. I'm not an expert. But, I do know more than I would if the internet didn't exist. If the net didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to use GNU/Linux. The internet merely enables everyone to gain knowledge, and therefore increases the general populations knowledge as a whole. The information is free, not 40 bucks, so people who don't have the 40 bucks for a book can now get to the same information that would have cost 40 bucks 10 years ago.
The entire population should have an increase in knowledge, but that isn't happening. It seems that the older a person is, the harder it is for them to get used to the new technology. So, the younger you are, the easier it is to get used to the new technology. If you are around 15 (like I am), then you were born into an era of technology. I've been surrounded by computer my entire life. In my years of concious memory, I have slowly learned to live with and use technology. Coding comes to me as naturally as writing a report for school. Writing email is more natural to me than writing a letter. IRC is the same as the phone.
I wonder what people who were in their 30s and 40s did when the phone was invented. I bet they would have been slower to pick up how to use it than their children who were born when the phone was invented. If you live around something for your entire life, you are bound to know how to use it better than someone who hasn't been around it for their entire life. The younger you are when new technology comes about, the better chance you have of understanding it.
Beta 4 rocks. I encoded my mp3s at VBR level 4, 96Kbps min, 320 Max with LAME in J-Stereo and they still had somewhat noticeable artifacts (not very large, but still there if you listened). My friend gave me 2.5 cds full of oggs (from CDs that my aunt and uncle won't let me buy...I swear, I'll get them when I move out in a year!) and I was amazed that 128Kbps (approximate of course, because ogg is vbr) could sound so good. I changed lame to oggenc in my grip config and haven't turned back. The majority of the music that I have ripped is mp3 (2 GB or so), but as I get new music it is ogg. If my/music partition ever runs out of space, I guess I will have to re-rip all of my large (~2MB per minute) mp3s as nice small ~1MB per minute oggs.
Applixware office ships as RPMS but includes debs of all the required libraries it needs. If it detects Debian it will attempt to install the libraries (if you already have them installed, it uses those). It then uses rpm --nodeps to install itself (or it might not, IIRC there are also tgzs on the disc, it has been a while since I last looked on the disc). So, I would change that from "no" to "only a few" (Corel uses debs too, right?).
Also, can you rpm -Fvh dist-upgrade to upgrade your distro? How about building a source package and automatically getting its build dependencies? Anyway, apt-get is a lot better than rpm (apt-get is also superior to dpkg). Apt is usesless on its own...it needs a package manager like to dpkg to the work of installing packages. So, it would be better to say that rpm -Fvh is better than dpkg -i or something.
How about these books too (shamelessly copied and pasted from Bjarne Stroupstrup's website):
Bjarne Stroustrup: The Design and Evolution of C++. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA. 1994. ISBN 0-201-54330-3. 472 pages. Softcover.
Margaret A. Ellis and Bjarne Stroustrup: The Annotated C++ Reference Manual. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. 1990. ISBN 0-201-51459-1. 478 pages. Hardcover.
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Re:Again, Linux's issue is software
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DeMuDi Linux
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· Score: 2
What about Jazzware's Jazz++ midi sequencer / audio editor? (http://www.jazzware.com) I used it, and (once you get past the interface...RTFM and you get it) it worked great. It does midi sequencing and audio editing (like what CuBase does), and it is under the GPL (it used to be proprietary IIRC).
the 4 second track minimum may be true, but IIRC, the redbook standard also requires a 2 second delay between each track. When was the last time you got a cd with a 2 second delay between tracks?
Solaris and HP-UX also both have less market share on the ix86 than *BSD does (Free, Net, Open). And MacOS X is based on FreeBSD, so that could provide a quick porting route to OS X (if you count OS X as a BSD then *BSD has way more market share than GNU/Linux). And since you are competing with Windows NT/2k on the server side, you don't really need to target operating systems like Solaris (people won't be running.NET on there anyway). Using FreeBSD or GNU/Linux for a print and file server, a GNU/Linux system for the applications server, OpenBSD for the firewall (if ipf is as good as IPFilter), and Windows 4.x/5.x for the clients would probably end up being the common scenario (instead of everything Microsoft). Maybe even throw in a few GNU/Linux or FreeBSD clients. Youthful optimism? Maybe, but someone has to have some. For Ximians services, GNOME runs on FreeBSD (and others?) doesn't it?
.NET is more important because it doesn't exist, not less. If Free Software developers can get a version of.NET that is as good or better than the Microsoft version at the same time (or before) the Microsoft version is released, Microsoft may end up very screwed. Why get locked into one vendor / one OS when you could use one available from multiple vendors on many Operating Systems. If Ximian can get its.NET stuff out before Microsoft does, it will have a large advantage over Microsoft. Especially if it is better. Of course, this is assuming that Ximian will have clients for not only GNU/Linux but other UNICES (especially the BSDs) and (yes) Windows.
So, Linux has an extensions eh? Then where is it? I don't see it in COPYING (in fact, if you diff the GNU COPYING and the linux COPYING, nothing is different). You seem to be a bit misguided. A proprietary application can run on GNU/Linux no problem. The entire Glibc is LGPL, so there is no problem with the C library (same for C++ and GNU Java libraries). As long as the application doesn't use kernel headers (since those are GPL IIRC) it is fine.
Actually, (if I am reading the C99 conformance page right), variable sized arrays are broken. I guess that is why the release notes said 3.0 supports _almost_ all of the features of 2.95.x (because 2.95.x did support variable sized arrays). Now that I know gcc has a typeof keyword...evil gcc! How dare it tempt me to write non-standards conforming code! (of course, the only use I see for typeof is for safe vararg functions...typeof(va_peek(arglist)) foo = va_next(arglist)...). Well, back on topic I guess (wait, this entire message is about gcc so hah!)
Why learn assembly first? That is the WRONG way (IMHO of course). The way I see it, CS should be taught from the top down. First, you learn an OO language like C++. Why? Object Oriented design methodelegy is extremely high level and abstracted.
Next, on our trip to the bottom, a funtional language like C should be taught. If you have ever read "The C++ Programming Language" (Bjarne Stroupstrup), then you will remember that Bjarne said that learning C++ first is better than learning C first and moving to C++ later. The problem with going from functional->object oriented is you will try to do functional programming in the object oriented language. That doesn't come put too pretty. But, anyway, the reason I would teach C after C++ is because starting at the top and going down towards the heart of the computer is better.
After C comes assembly. Pick your choice--x86, PPC, m86k, or MIPS. Or even any other assembly. Assembly belongs last. Why? This is the part that can become useless. x86 is big now, but will it be in 10 years? Will processor architectures be the same in 10 years? If you start here, Then you will end up trying to make all your programs run best on the architecture you learned. So, when you got to an OO language, it would still be fairly low level, and the idea of OO design would be lost upon you. If you go from OO to assembly, you won't have this problem. You will have an appreciation for what the compiler does for you. Knowing assembly will help you to optimize your current programs, but the idea of portability will have already been ingrained into your skull, never to be forgotten.
Now, onto Java. Don't teach it! If a school wants to teach pure OO, then use ruby. Ruby is 100% pure OO, and would be a great teaching language. If Ruby can't be taught, then at least teach Python. Why must people choose Java for pure-OO when there are other languages that do it so much better, and in a free way (Ruby is free software).
So, maybe I am little biased towards OO design (I find that OO programs are easier to read, debug, and maintain). But, OO design does promote good code. I know I'll get flamed for this but...iostreams are many times better than C stdio. What you say! Well, it is a hell of a lot easier to learn cin >> foo that scanf("%d",foo). And, you can add the ability to input/output user defined data types with ease. You also get rid of printf() format string attacks. I see that as a huge bonus. printf("%s, moo! %d",5,"arf")...that will do a bad thing. It is impossible to screw up like that with an iostream: cout 5 "moo!" "arf" (yes, it will still output wrong but it won't segfault). Now, if C had a typeof operator that would fix the problems with printf and scanf etc (in va_args, you could do something like this: if (typeof(va_peek) != char*) return error)). Now, time to retreat into the flames of the anti-OO trolls (OO and functional coding have their places. I do not wish to force my opinion on anyone. If you want to flame me, then please present me with a sane argument).
I keep seeing all of these people ask the same thing about the GPL, and haven't noticed anything at all about DeCSS yet. So, what is your opinion on the legality of DeCSS, and what about the DMCA being constitutional (mainly it being used as the reason you can't link to the code -- how can this work with the idea of free speech)? I really want to know how exactly the DMCA can be used to supress information (Like the SDMI being cracked research paper), and still comply with such important things as free speech?
Yes, it is true. But, sony cannot limit those who recieve the source from distributing it. Now, they _can_ limit distributing the sony binaries / cds (look at libranet -- they violate not the GPL). Now, I can just compile their compiler, and give away the binaries, and it is perfectly legal for me to put the psx/2 gcc sources on a ftp server somewhere.
Yes, tuxbox is not, and will not be a company. They are a project (much like open hardware) that will be designing an open console. They will design the hardware and such, and then try to find a company to build and sell them (even if it ends up not being a game console). So, funding is not an issue for them. I really think designing the hardware and getting someone to buy it before this or next fall is really unrealistic (one could say this about the whole idea). But, in the end, if we get a nice hardware design (and no hardware), at least you get the design. Come by #tuxbox on irc.openprojects.net to talk to the tuxbox people (they used to be in my channel, #indrema...but then you know what happened).
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Developer Chat tommorow -- John will be there
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Indrema No More
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· Score: 2
Well, John Gildred (founder and CEO of indrema) will be on #indrema @ irc.openprojects.net tommorow at 7:30pm EDT (2330 GMT IIRC). That would be wednesday April 11, 2001. He will be explaining exactly what happened, the possibility of an indrema.org (ran by the community, for general linux gaming stuff), and what will happen with the source code. I think it would be nice if everyone came to it, and then started doing all the ranting and flaming. At least the flames will be informed (When I learned of indrema being dead from John earlier today, I cried).
Slashdot Mirror
New PC standards are for systems that are much less open than we've enjoyed in the past. Partly this is due to increasing demands for content protection. Partly this is due to a desire to reduce support costs. There are other reasons as well, but the bottom line is that the open-architecture PC as we knew it may be going out of style.
All the more reason to have Free drivers for a Free Operating System.
The high-volume platforms for 3D these days are proprietary entertainment systems (games consoles, perhaps eventually set-tops, and their descendants with better integrated A/V functionality). At this stage in the development of the market, vendors have tremendous incentives to protect their intellectual property and try to lock-in as many customers as possible.
Which is why there needs to be a company backing up the DRI developers. I'm sure a company will be willing to give the specs to a developer under a NDA if you throw enough cash at them.
One of the implications is that our old way of thinking about how graphics is delivered, supported, and used is becoming irrelevant (or at least relevant only to the smaller submarkets like engineering and sci vis). Is 3D graphics support for free systems meaningful when the market offers only proprietary systems?
Yes. I shouldn't have to not be able to use certain devices because I choose to use only a Free Operating System (what? dual boot? what the hell? My 22.5GB is 100% GNU/Linux). No one can really say what will win--Free or Proprietary--because neither has existed for very long (in real business sense, show me which one is winning in 100 years). There will always be some who will refuse to use specialized devices. Like me. I don't want to waste my money on getting a system for web browsing, another for IRC, another to watch TV on, yet another for buy things with, even more to listen to music...why do that when I can buy one system that can do whatever I want (including play games)? The fact is, the PC will _always_ exist. It will never stop existing. It will become smaller, and may end up fitting in your pocket and using your glasses or contacts for a display, but it will always exist. Sure, there will be people who will buy tons of these specialized devices, but there will always be the niche that wants a device that can do it all. The old way of thinking will still be valid, just not on such a large scale.
I guess you'll be a bit angry when I tell you this then :-)...Raven Studios is using the Doom 3 engine to make Quake 4! IMHO, there is no best quake game. Quake was ok (nothing like doom), and Quake 3 Arena is a completely different game, so I guess that quake and q3a both tie. The Quake series of games seems to be better at showing off id's engines (and convincing others to license their engines) than to keep gamers entertained. I own a lot of games, but I've never played one for more than 2 or 3 hours before getting bored (except for doom/doom 2, where I played those both all the way through).
It does matter. You do realize how difficult it is to write 3d device drivers? Without VA, the DRI developers will have problems even getting specifications to write the 3d drivers, much less actually writing them. Something like that takes time, and a LOT of time, something you lack when you have a job. Developing a 3d library like Mesa is no easy task either. Think about it, there is no way the project would have gotten OpenGL 1.3 compliance (3.5 is OpenGL 1.3 compliant IIRC if I read the stuff on linuxgames right) without the leader being paid to do it. Do you think there would be as many 3d cards supported if the DRI people did it all in their spare time? According the people in #loki, the two that VA fired friday did over 90% of the work on DRI. Same goes for the Mesa developer. Maybe Loki will have the funds to hire them (you know, the company that is screwed if there are no 3d drivers for GNU/Linux).
So, VA axed the two DRI developer (read all about it at linuxgames.com), and now the Mesa developer! We are all screwed. The two people at VA did almost all of the work on DRI, and now they have to go and get other jobs...meaning DRI devel will slow down to a halt. Same for Mesa (good thing most of the work on 4.0 / OpenGL 1.3 compliance is already done).
Maybe there needs to be a non-profit formed (or maybe funded by SPI, the backers of Debian?) to fund a few developers to work on DRI/Mesa? I would REALLY hate to see this stuff die. There is a lot of work left to do. Maybe Loki can help, but they seem to be in a bit of financial trouble too (a small side note: the local ebgames carries tons of Loki games. I asked the clerk why (he turned out to be the manager) and he said they sell about 15 Loki games a week...about as many mac games they sell!), but it looks like Loki can get back on its feet (or maybe the local ebgames is a gigantic fluke? ~700 games per year is still small, but still...). I guess with VA screwing the DRI/Mesa people, Loki will _have_ to hire them, because Loki has a vested interest in the DRI and Mesa projects going forward (how do you sell 3d games without drivers to run them with...)
Kivio is python scriptable, contains built in stencils and more can designed or purchased. (From whom?)
s .php3. Prices average about nine or ten bucks. Not to bad.
theKompany sells the additional stencil sets. You can buy them at https://www.thekompany.com/products/order/stencil
2) KOffice needs to have provisions for English measurement parameters in KWord and its other products. Yes, the geeks out there can convert to mm, but if you wanna get users off MS-Office, simple features like this will be important.
Right-Click the ruler, and set it to use inches instead of mm. Also, it defaults to inches with the US Letter template (in KWord at least). I don't know if there is a way to set the rulers in all the programs to use inches and stay that way (it does save with the document though) when you make new docs.
D'oh, I really am a lamer. I never thought about that. Thanks. And it does seem to make sense to not allow an object to be constucted twice (bad things may happen). In fact, when I think about it, even though D says that calling a constuctor from a constructor is a good thing, it puts more responsibility on the programmer (you have to make sure the two constructors don't walk over each other).
From what the draft specs says, D doesn't look like a very good language. It ditches (arguably) useful features like multiple inheritance, templates, and operator overloading; and then it adds features like resizable, bounds checked arrays...in the language. In C++, there is a very nice resizable (optionally bounds checked using vector::at()) that is implemented in the Standard Library.
What D will implement in the core language is really meant for the standard library. Not everyone needs resizable and bounds checked arrays (the bounds checking is the one with the real overhead). If you are coding a kernel or something low level, the overhead isn't neccesary. If I don't need to resize my arrays, I just don't #include <vector>. Simple as that.
Also, there are no prototypes. Now, tell me, how does one get the source for a 3rd party proprietary library and read the source for the documentation? Often times, I document my code by putting a 3 or 4 line description of what the class [member|function|data type] does below its declaration in the header. If I forget what a function does, I just open the header in another frame in emacs and read its description (which has such useful information as what it uses its arguments for, what exceptions it may throw, what it returns, and whether or not it will modify an argument). It is also much easier to see what members are in a class when you can look at a simple declaration with the outline of class, instead of having to wade through 50 line members to see the next member. That just makes the class look messy, unless each function was only 1 line long.
The lack of operator overloading also makes it harder to implement something like, say, a complex number in a library. With C++, you have the standard complex type in the standard library. If there was no operator overloading, using complex would be more difficult (which is easier: complex foo, bar; foo.i = 1; bar.r = 2; foo.add(bar); OR complex foo, bar; foo.i = 1; bar.r = 2; foo += bar;).
I do see some good qualities. One is the ability to call a constuctor from a constructor. This results in less duplicated code, and makes it easier to keep two constructors of a class synced. Say you had a class with two constuctors: one that takes no arguments (default) and one that takes an int argument. The int argument one can't call the default constructor (this creates a temporary, contructs it, and then deletes the temporary). D allows you to do that. Maybe the next C++ specification will fix that.
D does seem to have a lot of flaws. It doesn't seem very useful. Maybe some people will find it useful. But it seems to me to be yet another language written for someone's personal usage. It makes sense to that person, but not to anyone else. C is a good language because its creators made it useful for other people as well as themselves, same for C++, lisp, Objective-C, and countless other languages.
I'm 15. I'm not an expert. But, I do know more than I would if the internet didn't exist. If the net didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to use GNU/Linux. The internet merely enables everyone to gain knowledge, and therefore increases the general populations knowledge as a whole. The information is free, not 40 bucks, so people who don't have the 40 bucks for a book can now get to the same information that would have cost 40 bucks 10 years ago.
The entire population should have an increase in knowledge, but that isn't happening. It seems that the older a person is, the harder it is for them to get used to the new technology. So, the younger you are, the easier it is to get used to the new technology. If you are around 15 (like I am), then you were born into an era of technology. I've been surrounded by computer my entire life. In my years of concious memory, I have slowly learned to live with and use technology. Coding comes to me as naturally as writing a report for school. Writing email is more natural to me than writing a letter. IRC is the same as the phone.
I wonder what people who were in their 30s and 40s did when the phone was invented. I bet they would have been slower to pick up how to use it than their children who were born when the phone was invented. If you live around something for your entire life, you are bound to know how to use it better than someone who hasn't been around it for their entire life. The younger you are when new technology comes about, the better chance you have of understanding it.
Beta 4 rocks. I encoded my mp3s at VBR level 4, 96Kbps min, 320 Max with LAME in J-Stereo and they still had somewhat noticeable artifacts (not very large, but still there if you listened). My friend gave me 2.5 cds full of oggs (from CDs that my aunt and uncle won't let me buy...I swear, I'll get them when I move out in a year!) and I was amazed that 128Kbps (approximate of course, because ogg is vbr) could sound so good. I changed lame to oggenc in my grip config and haven't turned back. The majority of the music that I have ripped is mp3 (2 GB or so), but as I get new music it is ogg. If my /music partition ever runs out of space, I guess I will have to re-rip all of my large (~2MB per minute) mp3s as nice small ~1MB per minute oggs.
Applixware office ships as RPMS but includes debs of all the required libraries it needs. If it detects Debian it will attempt to install the libraries (if you already have them installed, it uses those). It then uses rpm --nodeps to install itself (or it might not, IIRC there are also tgzs on the disc, it has been a while since I last looked on the disc). So, I would change that from "no" to "only a few" (Corel uses debs too, right?).
Also, can you rpm -Fvh dist-upgrade to upgrade your distro? How about building a source package and automatically getting its build dependencies? Anyway, apt-get is a lot better than rpm (apt-get is also superior to dpkg). Apt is usesless on its own...it needs a package manager like to dpkg to the work of installing packages. So, it would be better to say that rpm -Fvh is better than dpkg -i or something.
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What about Jazzware's Jazz++ midi sequencer / audio editor? (http://www.jazzware.com) I used it, and (once you get past the interface...RTFM and you get it) it worked great. It does midi sequencing and audio editing (like what CuBase does), and it is under the GPL (it used to be proprietary IIRC).
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the 4 second track minimum may be true, but IIRC, the redbook standard also requires a 2 second delay between each track. When was the last time you got a cd with a 2 second delay between tracks?
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Solaris and HP-UX also both have less market share on the ix86 than *BSD does (Free, Net, Open). And MacOS X is based on FreeBSD, so that could provide a quick porting route to OS X (if you count OS X as a BSD then *BSD has way more market share than GNU/Linux). And since you are competing with Windows NT/2k on the server side, you don't really need to target operating systems like Solaris (people won't be running .NET on there anyway). Using FreeBSD or GNU/Linux for a print and file server, a GNU/Linux system for the applications server, OpenBSD for the firewall (if ipf is as good as IPFilter), and Windows 4.x/5.x for the clients would probably end up being the common scenario (instead of everything Microsoft). Maybe even throw in a few GNU/Linux or FreeBSD clients. Youthful optimism? Maybe, but someone has to have some. For Ximians services, GNOME runs on FreeBSD (and others?) doesn't it?
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.NET is more important because it doesn't exist, not less. If Free Software developers can get a version of .NET that is as good or better than the Microsoft version at the same time (or before) the Microsoft version is released, Microsoft may end up very screwed. Why get locked into one vendor / one OS when you could use one available from multiple vendors on many Operating Systems. If Ximian can get its .NET stuff out before Microsoft does, it will have a large advantage over Microsoft. Especially if it is better. Of course, this is assuming that Ximian will have clients for not only GNU/Linux but other UNICES (especially the BSDs) and (yes) Windows.
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So, Linux has an extensions eh? Then where is it? I don't see it in COPYING (in fact, if you diff the GNU COPYING and the linux COPYING, nothing is different). You seem to be a bit misguided. A proprietary application can run on GNU/Linux no problem. The entire Glibc is LGPL, so there is no problem with the C library (same for C++ and GNU Java libraries). As long as the application doesn't use kernel headers (since those are GPL IIRC) it is fine.
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Soon, Slashdot will succomb to the Lameness Filter of Reality. Please wait at least two minutes before creating accounts on another weblog.
So, now. Slashdot is lame eh? Well, since you spent the time to read slashdot, then read this story, then post...what does that make you?
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Actually, (if I am reading the C99 conformance page right), variable sized arrays are broken. I guess that is why the release notes said 3.0 supports _almost_ all of the features of 2.95.x (because 2.95.x did support variable sized arrays). Now that I know gcc has a typeof keyword...evil gcc! How dare it tempt me to write non-standards conforming code! (of course, the only use I see for typeof is for safe vararg functions...typeof(va_peek(arglist)) foo = va_next(arglist)...). Well, back on topic I guess (wait, this entire message is about gcc so hah!)
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Why learn assembly first? That is the WRONG way (IMHO of course). The way I see it, CS should be taught from the top down. First, you learn an OO language like C++. Why? Object Oriented design methodelegy is extremely high level and abstracted.
Next, on our trip to the bottom, a funtional language like C should be taught. If you have ever read "The C++ Programming Language" (Bjarne Stroupstrup), then you will remember that Bjarne said that learning C++ first is better than learning C first and moving to C++ later. The problem with going from functional->object oriented is you will try to do functional programming in the object oriented language. That doesn't come put too pretty. But, anyway, the reason I would teach C after C++ is because starting at the top and going down towards the heart of the computer is better.
After C comes assembly. Pick your choice--x86, PPC, m86k, or MIPS. Or even any other assembly. Assembly belongs last. Why? This is the part that can become useless. x86 is big now, but will it be in 10 years? Will processor architectures be the same in 10 years? If you start here, Then you will end up trying to make all your programs run best on the architecture you learned. So, when you got to an OO language, it would still be fairly low level, and the idea of OO design would be lost upon you. If you go from OO to assembly, you won't have this problem. You will have an appreciation for what the compiler does for you. Knowing assembly will help you to optimize your current programs, but the idea of portability will have already been ingrained into your skull, never to be forgotten.
Now, onto Java. Don't teach it! If a school wants to teach pure OO, then use ruby. Ruby is 100% pure OO, and would be a great teaching language. If Ruby can't be taught, then at least teach Python. Why must people choose Java for pure-OO when there are other languages that do it so much better, and in a free way (Ruby is free software).
So, maybe I am little biased towards OO design (I find that OO programs are easier to read, debug, and maintain). But, OO design does promote good code. I know I'll get flamed for this but...iostreams are many times better than C stdio. What you say! Well, it is a hell of a lot easier to learn cin >> foo that scanf("%d",foo). And, you can add the ability to input/output user defined data types with ease. You also get rid of printf() format string attacks. I see that as a huge bonus. printf("%s, moo! %d",5,"arf")...that will do a bad thing. It is impossible to screw up like that with an iostream: cout 5 "moo!" "arf" (yes, it will still output wrong but it won't segfault). Now, if C had a typeof operator that would fix the problems with printf and scanf etc (in va_args, you could do something like this: if (typeof(va_peek) != char*) return error)). Now, time to retreat into the flames of the anti-OO trolls (OO and functional coding have their places. I do not wish to force my opinion on anyone. If you want to flame me, then please present me with a sane argument).
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But apache itself was never exploited. It was all done using ssh. The Secure Shell is to blame here. I wonder if it was the commercial SSH or OpenSSH?
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I keep seeing all of these people ask the same thing about the GPL, and haven't noticed anything at all about DeCSS yet. So, what is your opinion on the legality of DeCSS, and what about the DMCA being constitutional (mainly it being used as the reason you can't link to the code -- how can this work with the idea of free speech)? I really want to know how exactly the DMCA can be used to supress information (Like the SDMI being cracked research paper), and still comply with such important things as free speech?
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Yes, it is true. But, sony cannot limit those who recieve the source from distributing it. Now, they _can_ limit distributing the sony binaries / cds (look at libranet -- they violate not the GPL). Now, I can just compile their compiler, and give away the binaries, and it is perfectly legal for me to put the psx/2 gcc sources on a ftp server somewhere.
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Yes, tuxbox is not, and will not be a company. They are a project (much like open hardware) that will be designing an open console. They will design the hardware and such, and then try to find a company to build and sell them (even if it ends up not being a game console). So, funding is not an issue for them. I really think designing the hardware and getting someone to buy it before this or next fall is really unrealistic (one could say this about the whole idea). But, in the end, if we get a nice hardware design (and no hardware), at least you get the design. Come by #tuxbox on irc.openprojects.net to talk to the tuxbox people (they used to be in my channel, #indrema...but then you know what happened).
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Well, John Gildred (founder and CEO of indrema) will be on #indrema @ irc.openprojects.net tommorow at 7:30pm EDT (2330 GMT IIRC). That would be wednesday April 11, 2001. He will be explaining exactly what happened, the possibility of an indrema.org (ran by the community, for general linux gaming stuff), and what will happen with the source code. I think it would be nice if everyone came to it, and then started doing all the ranting and flaming. At least the flames will be informed (When I learned of indrema being dead from John earlier today, I cried).
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