The fact that a benchmark is flawed never stopped people from using it, as long as it fits their agenda and they know that most people are completely ignorant about the critical facts. It's like those air fresheners that claim to sanitize the air...awesome marketing and quite appealing to those who don't understand that simply exhaling or even stirring up some dust fills the air with bacteria. So it is with counting bugs. It doesn't matter to Microsoft that their obfuscation is covering up literally hundreds of thousands of bugs in their software (assuming one bug per 1000 lines of code)--they'll still count things showing OSS is worse.
My dictionary says that "mainstream" is simply "a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence." Windows Update, for better and worse, is mainstream. Worshiping UFO-bearing comets hoping to be taken to another galaxy is not mainstream. I'm not convinced that Google changes this. It is possible to create a scope for what is mainstream, as in "UFS is a mainstream filesystem among UNIX systems," but increasingly the general public really wouldn't care, meaning that it is possible to make the scope sufficiently small to render something not mainstream (back to worshipping UFO-bearing comets).
It's not exactly as if we have a large group of movies to choose from every week...
My favorite choice each week: none of the above.
The last time I went to a movie with my wife, we spent something like $25 on tickets and concessions, the movie was awful, there were people talking behind us, and someone with huge hair in front of us. Even with our crappy old TV at home, I'd rather rent for under $4 and have mediocre microwave popcorn than go to a movie theatre. Also, I can drink beer during a movie at home, if I want to--I'd like to see a big-name theatre try allowing that!
They do, but some performance-oriented flags can either cause instability or mistaken results. I've seen single flags cause a program to core dump or not, and even any optimization at all can cause some programs to crash (probably a very obscure bug regarding program and compiler assumptions...I never found it).
Instead, Object.class gets translated into machine code every time i start the JVM, over and over again...
I'm fairly convinced the JIT doesn't incur much overhead, because it appears that start-up times with and without the -Xint option are about the same (run time performance is dramatically different, though). The long start up times must be more related to loading lots and lots of dynamic libraries and classes. In fact, the start up times of Mozilla and OpenOffice.org--C++ apps--aren't very swift at all, either.
But it says, "You need to download Flash and/or Shockwave to play with this activity. You'll need a grown-up to help you," and my parents are in another state. Wah.
I admit that there are a myriad of redundant and (mostly) confusing and unnecessary standards. But you shouldn't complain that so many XML parsing toolkits exist, that gives you the freedom to choose the one thats right for a given application.
However, it drives a person to spend so much time researching the given options that all mental energy is spent before programming can begin. The "Enterprise" world really needs a lot of consolodation and simplification, because XML, for example, is just completely out of control. So, people decided that DTDs are too weak...okay, so is it better now that there are more than one new incompatible approaches to schemas? How about the XML-is-the-new-EDI camp? Oh, they can't decide on a common set of schemas, either. What parser should a person use? To XSLT or to not XSLT.
Why not just POST it between servers, because by the time an sound XML approach is devised the deadline has already passed.
I've been learning Perl, recently, and it's not so bad, well, yes it is, but Regexps are really powerful, but this syntax is terrible, yet that operator is pretty cool, godddam parenthesis, oh boy I finally found the 'require' keyword, WTF is mod_perl not flushing the cache, ohh it's got hashes...*boom*
I thought the much-hyped application server revolution never happened, because people just don't want to share personal or proprietary information or need the guaranteed availablility of a locally-installed app. The only real popular web apps I can think of are the search engines of various types (web, real estate, personal ads, etc.) and, perhaps, those on-line tax services (you give them your information at a store front, too). Otherwise, the WWW is still mostly just a place to share information, mail-order stuff, and post flamebait to forums like this one.
If you really look at the organization of the open source community, you'll see that it follows a more communal approach than a capitalistic one.
Well, not quite. In communism, people basically have to work for nothing their whole lives as they see the irreplacable fruit of their labor consumed endlessly by everyone around them, but, in Open Source, the programmer can work for a while and simply post the results on the Internet. Perfect digital copies to software communism is like a Star Trek food replicator to traditional communism.
Re:MS Tried This Before Through Best Buy
on
You've Got PC
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· Score: 1
That MSN PC must have been a hard sale. I overheard a salesman at Radio Shack trying to convince his latest mark even with the added fake "shopping spree" money, and it wasn't working at all. "But you pay less up front!" "But it's like $400 over the next three years! I think I'll pass."
Re:basic... very basic.
on
You've Got PC
·
· Score: 1
One thing everyone should note is that it appears all the "cheapo" ISPs share the same pools of modems all across the country. This means the modem service will probably be identical no matter the company (unless someone can enlighten us otherwise). The differences between ISPs, anymore, is solely with their customer service, privacy policies, webmail, etc. I used Highstream.net for a while, because they had a good privacy policy (I never used their webmail, but getting only one spam at that address in a year is decent proof they didn't sell out).
This is the PCjr. of operating systems, destined to be a laughed-at memory.
Hmmm...this reminds me of that Ghandi quote that is so often repeated on Slashdot. I wonder if we're nearing the "we win" stage, because not only is the OSS community ramping up a formidable software stack on their own, they are doing it with the help of all of Microsoft's competitors (e.g., Sun, IBM, SGI, Novell, etc.). It's interesting just how few real friends Microsoft has.
Is there any software industry, where the lower-cost options did not eventually become most popular leaving more expensive options in niches? For example, UNIX vs. Mainframe, Windows vs. UNIX, Linux vs. Windows, Linux vs. UNIX, UNIX vs. UNIX, etc.
Also, with Windows at near saturation, where can they go but down?
Why would Sun choose Opteron, with all of its x86 cruft, when they could get the more pure and open POWER architecture?
Well, I was just thinking that Sun hates AMD less than IBM and Intel, and that Sun's newest servers are based on Opteron. Opteron is less crufty than Xeon, at least, and, actually, Opteron's interconnect architecture isn't very different from the UltraSPARC IIIi. I wonder if a motherboard could be designed to work with either processor (given same pin-out or some adaptor).
Sun is considering the idea of dumping SPARC in favor of POWER.
This is pretty unlikely, as I would see Sun adopting Opteron before anything from IBM. More likely is they are either trying to become as platform-neutral as Linux or they are trying to be a thorn in IBM's side, somehow.
Linux is the common denominator. Why the heck would we care about Solaris on PPC?
Maybe Sun could get OpenGL working well without requiring the user to recompile the kernel and install new modules for their particular version of XFree86, for example.
Since Sun are now sleeping with the boys from Redmond, there must be an alterior motive here... must there not ?
As far as I know, Sun is still not an OEM for Microsoft by any measure, nor does Sun sell any Microsoft software at all. If they made any deals, I would think that they were of the licensing/patents/IP/etc. nature. I would hope Sun is smart enough not go the way of companies like Intergraph or, almost, SGI. Sun is certainly no friend to MS, and anything more than lawyer-games between the two companies would be like Kerry signing up Bush for VP (or vice-versa, to be fair).
Slashdot Mirror
Competing. [fragment] I saw that right after I hit submit, [misplaced comma] and cringed in fear of spelling nazis.
What about the grammar nazis? Grammar nazis need to feel loved, too!
The fact that a benchmark is flawed never stopped people from using it, as long as it fits their agenda and they know that most people are completely ignorant about the critical facts. It's like those air fresheners that claim to sanitize the air...awesome marketing and quite appealing to those who don't understand that simply exhaling or even stirring up some dust fills the air with bacteria. So it is with counting bugs. It doesn't matter to Microsoft that their obfuscation is covering up literally hundreds of thousands of bugs in their software (assuming one bug per 1000 lines of code)--they'll still count things showing OSS is worse.
My dictionary says that "mainstream" is simply "a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence." Windows Update, for better and worse, is mainstream. Worshiping UFO-bearing comets hoping to be taken to another galaxy is not mainstream. I'm not convinced that Google changes this. It is possible to create a scope for what is mainstream, as in "UFS is a mainstream filesystem among UNIX systems," but increasingly the general public really wouldn't care, meaning that it is possible to make the scope sufficiently small to render something not mainstream (back to worshipping UFO-bearing comets).
It's not exactly as if we have a large group of movies to choose from every week...
My favorite choice each week: none of the above.
The last time I went to a movie with my wife, we spent something like $25 on tickets and concessions, the movie was awful, there were people talking behind us, and someone with huge hair in front of us. Even with our crappy old TV at home, I'd rather rent for under $4 and have mediocre microwave popcorn than go to a movie theatre. Also, I can drink beer during a movie at home, if I want to--I'd like to see a big-name theatre try allowing that!
It says to me that compiler flags matter a lot!
They do, but some performance-oriented flags can either cause instability or mistaken results. I've seen single flags cause a program to core dump or not, and even any optimization at all can cause some programs to crash (probably a very obscure bug regarding program and compiler assumptions...I never found it).
What about Solaris, IRIX, AIX, etc.?
UltraSPARCs have been running with memory local to CPUs for quite a while now, for example.
Modded "informative". I guess Slashdotters need the help?
Instead, Object.class gets translated into machine code every time i start the JVM, over and over again...
I'm fairly convinced the JIT doesn't incur much overhead, because it appears that start-up times with and without the -Xint option are about the same (run time performance is dramatically different, though). The long start up times must be more related to loading lots and lots of dynamic libraries and classes. In fact, the start up times of Mozilla and OpenOffice.org--C++ apps--aren't very swift at all, either.
But it says, "You need to download Flash and/or Shockwave to play with this activity. You'll need a grown-up to help you," and my parents are in another state. Wah.
I admit that there are a myriad of redundant and (mostly) confusing and unnecessary standards. But you shouldn't complain that so many XML parsing toolkits exist, that gives you the freedom to choose the one thats right for a given application.
However, it drives a person to spend so much time researching the given options that all mental energy is spent before programming can begin. The "Enterprise" world really needs a lot of consolodation and simplification, because XML, for example, is just completely out of control. So, people decided that DTDs are too weak...okay, so is it better now that there are more than one new incompatible approaches to schemas? How about the XML-is-the-new-EDI camp? Oh, they can't decide on a common set of schemas, either. What parser should a person use? To XSLT or to not XSLT.
Why not just POST it between servers, because by the time an sound XML approach is devised the deadline has already passed.
Perl is the vice grips of the programming world.
I've been learning Perl, recently, and it's not so bad, well, yes it is, but Regexps are really powerful, but this syntax is terrible, yet that operator is pretty cool, godddam parenthesis, oh boy I finally found the 'require' keyword, WTF is mod_perl not flushing the cache, ohh it's got hashes...*boom*
I thought the much-hyped application server revolution never happened, because people just don't want to share personal or proprietary information or need the guaranteed availablility of a locally-installed app. The only real popular web apps I can think of are the search engines of various types (web, real estate, personal ads, etc.) and, perhaps, those on-line tax services (you give them your information at a store front, too). Otherwise, the WWW is still mostly just a place to share information, mail-order stuff, and post flamebait to forums like this one.
If you really look at the organization of the open source community, you'll see that it follows a more communal approach than a capitalistic one.
Well, not quite. In communism, people basically have to work for nothing their whole lives as they see the irreplacable fruit of their labor consumed endlessly by everyone around them, but, in Open Source, the programmer can work for a while and simply post the results on the Internet. Perfect digital copies to software communism is like a Star Trek food replicator to traditional communism.
That MSN PC must have been a hard sale. I overheard a salesman at Radio Shack trying to convince his latest mark even with the added fake "shopping spree" money, and it wasn't working at all. "But you pay less up front!" "But it's like $400 over the next three years! I think I'll pass."
One thing everyone should note is that it appears all the "cheapo" ISPs share the same pools of modems all across the country. This means the modem service will probably be identical no matter the company (unless someone can enlighten us otherwise). The differences between ISPs, anymore, is solely with their customer service, privacy policies, webmail, etc. I used Highstream.net for a while, because they had a good privacy policy (I never used their webmail, but getting only one spam at that address in a year is decent proof they didn't sell out).
Quick typing makes not a good spellar.
How many women are put off by the dredging work and assinine politics that most software projects consist of?
This is the PCjr. of operating systems, destined to be a laughed-at memory.
Hmmm...this reminds me of that Ghandi quote that is so often repeated on Slashdot. I wonder if we're nearing the "we win" stage, because not only is the OSS community ramping up a formidable software stack on their own, they are doing it with the help of all of Microsoft's competitors (e.g., Sun, IBM, SGI, Novell, etc.). It's interesting just how few real friends Microsoft has.
Is there any software industry, where the lower-cost options did not eventually become most popular leaving more expensive options in niches? For example, UNIX vs. Mainframe, Windows vs. UNIX, Linux vs. Windows, Linux vs. UNIX, UNIX vs. UNIX, etc.
Also, with Windows at near saturation, where can they go but down?
Why would Sun choose Opteron, with all of its x86 cruft, when they could get the more pure and open POWER architecture?
Well, I was just thinking that Sun hates AMD less than IBM and Intel, and that Sun's newest servers are based on Opteron. Opteron is less crufty than Xeon, at least, and, actually, Opteron's interconnect architecture isn't very different from the UltraSPARC IIIi. I wonder if a motherboard could be designed to work with either processor (given same pin-out or some adaptor).
Sun is considering the idea of dumping SPARC in favor of POWER.
This is pretty unlikely, as I would see Sun adopting Opteron before anything from IBM. More likely is they are either trying to become as platform-neutral as Linux or they are trying to be a thorn in IBM's side, somehow.
Linux is the common denominator. Why the heck would we care about Solaris on PPC?
Maybe Sun could get OpenGL working well without requiring the user to recompile the kernel and install new modules for their particular version of XFree86, for example.
Since Sun are now sleeping with the boys from Redmond, there must be an alterior motive here... must there not ?
As far as I know, Sun is still not an OEM for Microsoft by any measure, nor does Sun sell any Microsoft software at all. If they made any deals, I would think that they were of the licensing/patents/IP/etc. nature. I would hope Sun is smart enough not go the way of companies like Intergraph or, almost, SGI. Sun is certainly no friend to MS, and anything more than lawyer-games between the two companies would be like Kerry signing up Bush for VP (or vice-versa, to be fair).
Could this be a prelude to Sun trying to sell themselves to IBM while they're still worth something?
Wouldn't Sun+IBM be like wearing purple pants with a blue sport coat?
Why is it the big-name evangelists have names like robber-tson, swagger-t, and fall-well? Is this evidence that God has a sense of humor?