It's a general design decision. Should a file be known to the OS by it's location on a physical disc? Or should it just have some unique identifier which isn't disc-specific?
It seems clear that if you planned it out ahead of time, you wouldn't choose to make the physical location of the file its unique identifier. That approach doesn't offer any advantages I can think of, other than it was easy to build at the time.
What happens to shortcuts when you delete the original file? The shortcut doesn't know about the event and continues to point somewhere useless. Same if you move the file. That doesn't make much sense from a user perspective. From a conceptual perspective, you pointed the shortcut to a FILE, not to a disc address. I don't know what happens to symbolic links, do they handle this case any better?
Your third point addresses the issue. No, lindows does not have to give you the binaries for free, but I believe that anyone who has the binaries CAN redistribute them for free, provided they also make source code and GPL license terms available.
Yes, shortcuts, and symbolic links, are ways of SIMULATING what i'm talking about within the constraints of a traditional file system. I really bumped into the file system problem because I do a lot of music production and have a huge (4 - 5 gig) loop library of license-free, legitimate samples I wanted to be able to share. The sequencing program I use is file system sensitive, it expects to find the file (and not a shortcut) in the same place it was last time. It can find it if it's not, but it's a pain. So I didn't want to move my library. At the same time, I didn't want to allow general access to that particular folder to the outside world, it has a lot of stuff I didn't want to share. I usually just copy any file I want to share and stick it in a special 'Shared' folder that actually is a share and that I point all file sharing programs towards, but that seemed ridiculous for 4 to 5 gigs and would have taken most of my empty space on the drive. And again the actual files would need to be there.
Anyway, then all the file sharing programs I actually liked (sorry open source zealots, but Gnutella just does NOT scale) started folding so I just gave up on the proposition. But it would have been really convenient in this case to allow the same file to really seem to be accessible in two locations.
You know the technology well now, so you think it is the 'natural' way for things to work. It's not. If I want my MP3's in my 'Shared' folder, but also want them in my 'Music' folder - what do I do? Do I make duplicate copies of several gigs of files? That's stupid. What I want is for single copies of the files to be available from both locations. There's nothing wrong with 'folders' as an organizational metaphor, but as a rigid file system it blows goats.
With your "Documents -> Marketing -> Presentations -> BigAssClient -> VeryImportantProject" example, maybe I want the file to be accessible under my 'Resume Projects' folder, my 'Power Point Presentations' folder, my 'Recent' folder, etc. but have only one actual version of the file, so that I open it from one location, save changes, and the next time I open it from another location it has those changes since it's not a physically separate file. See some uses for that?
When Wal-Mart also sells OS-less PCs right next to the Lindows PCs? If you want to install an illegal copy of Windows you can just buy a box with nothing on it.
that's why lindows is using it's lamer click-n-run application library, so your average user won't have to deal with any complexities of software installation.
by the way, in a few years from now all OS's will be almost unrecognizable compared to today. don't expect MS to stand still while linux makes progress, they will have revolutionary changes too, and windows XX will probably be the first os to get the annoying file system out of the user's way - I figure *nix won't ever go that route and that will turn out to be a mistake.
OK newerbob, first off I'm 27 I'm not a kid. But if you want to get personal and insult my music.... I think I'll let your brilliance speak for itself:
"I feel sorry for you. Your scoutmaster must have anally raped you as a child and you became gay."
"I'll be right over to suck it! HUGUGLGUHGLGUGH!
I love the taste of young 7ee7 h4kr d1ck in my mouth! MMMMMMmmmm Good!"
You should really take some care with what you post to the web, man. How many hours a day do you practice sucking 7ee7 h4kr d1ck?
I can really really really see the experience and professionalism you're talking about. You're posting this at your $200k a year job? On the company computer?
You're fucking nuts man. There's only so much a programmer is really worth. If you're using your skills in X, Y, and Z, then you're not using your skills in A, B, and C. So from the point of view of the company, you're no 'better' than someone who just knows X, Y, and Z. Your skill at XML for example doesn't benefit from your knowledge of Fortran. And while you may know Fortran and I don't, we may both know the same amount about XML. And if you're asking 200 k and I'm not, why would the company pay you that much? I'm not talking project managers, technical architects, etc. which do command higher salaries and require a broad technical background, just programming jobs. 3 65k a year programmers will produce more than 1 200k a year programmer, you'd have to be walking on water while coding to justify that price tag.
I'm probably letting my co-worker Ralph affect my view of you, he's very much the crotchety type I was talking about while I've never met you. But my being from a different generation is no reason to dis my skills, programming is programming regardless of the language. You're either good or you're not, and if you've been in it 20 years, I'm sure you are too.
P.S. DOM does not date back to the 70's. That is patently a ridiculous statement. No web standard predates the web. Neither does XML, though admittedly the SGML it has its roots in is as antique as you say.
I'm not ancient, that's all. I wasn't a programmer when those languages were being used. Are you fully up to date on the W3C's DOM standard and how to write cross-browser compatible script? No? Software is too big to be the uber-geek, you specialize in one area. And I for damn sure ain't gonna specialize in dead languages that don't mean squat to a potential employer.
I get the sense that you're one of those crotchety "Back in the day of punch cards, sonny boy..." types, or are in danger of becoming one. I'm a business application developer, not a software engineer. Don't tell me i'm too sloppy, and i won't tell you you're too slow.
"PS. I don't include VB as a professional language"
I guess you're not "one of the unfourtant(sic) saps in the business world of programming"? When you need an internal app to do one specific thing on one specific (windows)platform, why would you write it in anything but VB? Getting the job done makes the boss happy. Doing it elegantly or in a way that's easy to port to ten other platforms doesn't mean diddly to your boss. Business needs are RAPID, all this 'engineering' hooey doesn't apply to one of the largest areas of programming employment, which is small to medium businesses running internal apps. These apps are not battleships, they're canoes. Don't fault them because they're not battleships. That doesn't mean they can't be WELL-CONSTRUCTED canoes, and mine certainly are, but they'll never be battleships. At my company half of the business needs from 2 years ago no longer apply, the company didn't even exist 10 years ago, but if it had all of it's needs would have changed over this time period. Investing too heavily in an internal app makes you unwilling to change your business model from that dictated by the app, which is not a good decision.
The solution isn't tools to automate a large part of the writing of code. This will stop many errors, but won't give the kind of reliability you're talking about. The solution is to develop tools to make it easy to use genetic algorithms to evolve your software. As soon as this process is cheaper/easier than coding by hand, it will instantly become the dominant way of developing software systems, because the end result will have the kind of rock-solid reliability you're looking for. Granted, you won't have any idea how it works, but the trade-off will be worth it.
the nerve, the nerve
on
Kernel 2.5.22
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
a high school kid who's posted 4 comments... just being so rude to someone trying out a new OS. kid I checked out your web site, you need to fix your script errors, you ignorant linux freak, before you go insulting others.
"To do:
-Put something in here.
-Make ridiculous joke about it.
-Settle down.
-Raise a family.
-Join the PTA.
-Buy some sensible shoes, then a Chevroolet, then party until broke and they drive me away."
This is the problem of the commons
on
Cradle to Cradle
·
· Score: 2
If one person can abuse some commonly shared resource to better his own situation, our economic system rewards him. The classic example of the commons is the commons in the middle of medieval European villages. When everyone had a cow or two there the system works fine. When one person starts keeping a lot of cows there, he's degrading conditions for others but still coming out fairly well himself since he does have many cows even if they're not in peak condition. The classic libertarian solution is to divide the commons and fence off little pieces and give every villager a small plat. A sensible solution. But hard to apply to "the Earth's atmosphere". That is a commons that cannot be divided up and fenced off. Everyone on earth has some interest in this commons. That is the link to having an interest in the property rights of the tree. I think the above poster was saying that those whose share of the commons has been degraded need to be compensated for their loss by the polluter. The very act of asking for money for this makes the polluter much less likely to pollute. Making the situation even more hard to calculate, those who have the most interest in the earth's atmosphere's health are the unborn. Whatever the current generation can do, the Earth won't become uninhabitable in our lifetimes. But in our great great grandchildren's?
Thomas Jefferson said:
"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another seems never to have been started on this [i.e., the European side -- Jefferson was writing from France] or our [American] side of the water... that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. -- I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it... A generation coming in and going out entire... would have a right on the first year of their self-dominion to contract a debt for 33 years, in the 10th for 24, in the 20th for 14, in the 30th for 4, whereas generations, changing daily by daily deaths and births, have one constant term, beginning at the date of their contract, and ending when a majority of those of full age at that date shall be dead. The length of that term may be estimated from the tables of mortality. Take, for instance, the tables of M. de Buffon... [according to which] half of those of 21 years [of age] and upwards living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18 years 8 months, or say 19 years as the nearest integral number. Then 19 years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt... This principle that the earth belongs to the living, and not to the dead, is of very extensive application..."
It seems though that our actions can have unintended consequences that will indeed place a burden on future generations. A burden that morally should not be foisted on them.
Unfortunately a system to deal with the issue of dealing with individual property rights versus costs to the worldwide 'commons' will only become available when ecology is a mature hard science, not the jumble of guesses it is today. No insurance companies will cover GM crop producers, because nobody has the science to predict the possible ecological consequences of GM crops, hence they don't know how much risk is involved. This is something we need, a useful, accurate, non-agenda driven tool. There needs to be a system to weight the interest of future generations in an unspoiled commons against the needs of current residents, and assign monetary values to the costs of adversely affecting the environment. Without that, we can't properly internalize these costs. And we're a long way from having the understanding of ecological science to create this.
Developing a game for the xbox is nearly identical to developing a game for the pc. That means the development cost isn't anything like developing a game for the PS2, you just make a computer game and then make a few changes, but 80% of the work is relevant to both platforms.
Yeah, Sony has absolutely no revenue stream other than the playstation. Comparing MS, Sony, and Nintendo is like comparing apples and oranges and mangoes.
That's why nobody else will ever touch this 'open source' code. The competitor will be more likely to write their own proprietary software. If you run Oracle and your competitor runs SQL Server, the amount of effort that would be required to re-tool the application would exceed the amount of effort to write an app with the same functionality, but based around SQL Server, from scratch.
Open source makes sense for generic pieces that provide a big chunk of functionality, not for an inventory management application running on one specific database.
"2) I have to let them give copies (or modifications) away if they want to - but they're hardly going to give copies to their competitors, are they?"
Uh.... yeah they are if they're pissed off at their boss or something stupid like that. And if the pissed off geek gives away a GPL'd piece of software, the original company can do nothing to stop it spreading. While if the pissed off geek gives away a traditionally copyrighted piece of software, the company CAN stop it spreading. See how that might be in the company's interest? The only way I can see a company being interested in allowing a piece of custom software to be GPL'd is if it can be built from GPL pieces in 1/8 the time at 1/8 the cost of having it written from scratch, and then only if it's the kind of thing that the rest of the world wouldnt' be able to use anyone, internal accounting or fulfillment or something.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a general design decision. Should a file be known to the OS by it's location on a physical disc? Or should it just have some unique identifier which isn't disc-specific?
It seems clear that if you planned it out ahead of time, you wouldn't choose to make the physical location of the file its unique identifier. That approach doesn't offer any advantages I can think of, other than it was easy to build at the time.
What happens to shortcuts when you delete the original file? The shortcut doesn't know about the event and continues to point somewhere useless. Same if you move the file. That doesn't make much sense from a user perspective. From a conceptual perspective, you pointed the shortcut to a FILE, not to a disc address. I don't know what happens to symbolic links, do they handle this case any better?
I'm $o fucking $ick of people writing Micro$oft and Window$. If you ba$tard$ $tart writing lindow$ too I think I'll be $ick.
Your third point addresses the issue. No, lindows does not have to give you the binaries for free, but I believe that anyone who has the binaries CAN redistribute them for free, provided they also make source code and GPL license terms available.
"Where is the free version of the LindowsOS Distro? (Score:3, Troll)"
I think this is the first time I have ever seen Score:3, Troll in my life. If this had been a serious attempt at trolling my hat would be off to you.
Yes, shortcuts, and symbolic links, are ways of SIMULATING what i'm talking about within the constraints of a traditional file system. I really bumped into the file system problem because I do a lot of music production and have a huge (4 - 5 gig) loop library of license-free, legitimate samples I wanted to be able to share. The sequencing program I use is file system sensitive, it expects to find the file (and not a shortcut) in the same place it was last time. It can find it if it's not, but it's a pain. So I didn't want to move my library. At the same time, I didn't want to allow general access to that particular folder to the outside world, it has a lot of stuff I didn't want to share. I usually just copy any file I want to share and stick it in a special 'Shared' folder that actually is a share and that I point all file sharing programs towards, but that seemed ridiculous for 4 to 5 gigs and would have taken most of my empty space on the drive. And again the actual files would need to be there.
Anyway, then all the file sharing programs I actually liked (sorry open source zealots, but Gnutella just does NOT scale) started folding so I just gave up on the proposition. But it would have been really convenient in this case to allow the same file to really seem to be accessible in two locations.
You know the technology well now, so you think it is the 'natural' way for things to work. It's not. If I want my MP3's in my 'Shared' folder, but also want them in my 'Music' folder - what do I do? Do I make duplicate copies of several gigs of files? That's stupid. What I want is for single copies of the files to be available from both locations. There's nothing wrong with 'folders' as an organizational metaphor, but as a rigid file system it blows goats.
With your "Documents -> Marketing -> Presentations -> BigAssClient -> VeryImportantProject" example, maybe I want the file to be accessible under my 'Resume Projects' folder, my 'Power Point Presentations' folder, my 'Recent' folder, etc. but have only one actual version of the file, so that I open it from one location, save changes, and the next time I open it from another location it has those changes since it's not a physically separate file. See some uses for that?
If you can already legally do it, it seems no further compensation is required, very odd
When Wal-Mart also sells OS-less PCs right next to the Lindows PCs? If you want to install an illegal copy of Windows you can just buy a box with nothing on it.
that's why lindows is using it's lamer click-n-run application library, so your average user won't have to deal with any complexities of software installation.
by the way, in a few years from now all OS's will be almost unrecognizable compared to today. don't expect MS to stand still while linux makes progress, they will have revolutionary changes too, and windows XX will probably be the first os to get the annoying file system out of the user's way - I figure *nix won't ever go that route and that will turn out to be a mistake.
probably had the page cached as a 'performance enhancer' for you.
It can plug into the pc card slot on your laptop. Pretty nifty, eh?
OK newerbob, first off I'm 27 I'm not a kid. But if you want to get personal and insult my music.... I think I'll let your brilliance speak for itself:
"I feel sorry for you. Your scoutmaster must have anally raped you as a child and you became gay."
"I'll be right over to suck it! HUGUGLGUHGLGUGH!
I love the taste of young 7ee7 h4kr d1ck in my mouth! MMMMMMmmmm Good!"
You should really take some care with what you post to the web, man. How many hours a day do you practice sucking 7ee7 h4kr d1ck?
I can really really really see the experience and professionalism you're talking about. You're posting this at your $200k a year job? On the company computer?
Yikes.
You're fucking nuts man. There's only so much a programmer is really worth. If you're using your skills in X, Y, and Z, then you're not using your skills in A, B, and C. So from the point of view of the company, you're no 'better' than someone who just knows X, Y, and Z. Your skill at XML for example doesn't benefit from your knowledge of Fortran. And while you may know Fortran and I don't, we may both know the same amount about XML. And if you're asking 200 k and I'm not, why would the company pay you that much? I'm not talking project managers, technical architects, etc. which do command higher salaries and require a broad technical background, just programming jobs. 3 65k a year programmers will produce more than 1 200k a year programmer, you'd have to be walking on water while coding to justify that price tag.
I'm probably letting my co-worker Ralph affect my view of you, he's very much the crotchety type I was talking about while I've never met you. But my being from a different generation is no reason to dis my skills, programming is programming regardless of the language. You're either good or you're not, and if you've been in it 20 years, I'm sure you are too.
P.S. DOM does not date back to the 70's. That is patently a ridiculous statement. No web standard predates the web. Neither does XML, though admittedly the SGML it has its roots in is as antique as you say.
I'm not ancient, that's all. I wasn't a programmer when those languages were being used. Are you fully up to date on the W3C's DOM standard and how to write cross-browser compatible script? No? Software is too big to be the uber-geek, you specialize in one area. And I for damn sure ain't gonna specialize in dead languages that don't mean squat to a potential employer.
I get the sense that you're one of those crotchety "Back in the day of punch cards, sonny boy..." types, or are in danger of becoming one. I'm a business application developer, not a software engineer. Don't tell me i'm too sloppy, and i won't tell you you're too slow.
"PS. I don't include VB as a professional language"
I guess you're not "one of the unfourtant(sic) saps in the business world of programming"? When you need an internal app to do one specific thing on one specific (windows)platform, why would you write it in anything but VB? Getting the job done makes the boss happy. Doing it elegantly or in a way that's easy to port to ten other platforms doesn't mean diddly to your boss. Business needs are RAPID, all this 'engineering' hooey doesn't apply to one of the largest areas of programming employment, which is small to medium businesses running internal apps. These apps are not battleships, they're canoes. Don't fault them because they're not battleships. That doesn't mean they can't be WELL-CONSTRUCTED canoes, and mine certainly are, but they'll never be battleships. At my company half of the business needs from 2 years ago no longer apply, the company didn't even exist 10 years ago, but if it had all of it's needs would have changed over this time period. Investing too heavily in an internal app makes you unwilling to change your business model from that dictated by the app, which is not a good decision.
The solution isn't tools to automate a large part of the writing of code. This will stop many errors, but won't give the kind of reliability you're talking about. The solution is to develop tools to make it easy to use genetic algorithms to evolve your software. As soon as this process is cheaper/easier than coding by hand, it will instantly become the dominant way of developing software systems, because the end result will have the kind of rock-solid reliability you're looking for. Granted, you won't have any idea how it works, but the trade-off will be worth it.
no, i don't
a high school kid who's posted 4 comments... just being so rude to someone trying out a new OS. kid I checked out your web site, you need to fix your script errors, you ignorant linux freak, before you go insulting others.
"To do:
-Put something in here.
-Make ridiculous joke about it.
-Settle down.
-Raise a family.
-Join the PTA.
-Buy some sensible shoes, then a Chevroolet, then party until broke and they drive me away."
Thomas Jefferson said:
It seems though that our actions can have unintended consequences that will indeed place a burden on future generations. A burden that morally should not be foisted on them.
Unfortunately a system to deal with the issue of dealing with individual property rights versus costs to the worldwide 'commons' will only become available when ecology is a mature hard science, not the jumble of guesses it is today. No insurance companies will cover GM crop producers, because nobody has the science to predict the possible ecological consequences of GM crops, hence they don't know how much risk is involved. This is something we need, a useful, accurate, non-agenda driven tool. There needs to be a system to weight the interest of future generations in an unspoiled commons against the needs of current residents, and assign monetary values to the costs of adversely affecting the environment. Without that, we can't properly internalize these costs. And we're a long way from having the understanding of ecological science to create this.
"Sandscript" is a dead language. Uh... Is that maybe what ancient India used to program or something? And a script error on every page, beautiful.
Developing a game for the xbox is nearly identical to developing a game for the pc. That means the development cost isn't anything like developing a game for the PS2, you just make a computer game and then make a few changes, but 80% of the work is relevant to both platforms.
Yeah, Sony has absolutely no revenue stream other than the playstation. Comparing MS, Sony, and Nintendo is like comparing apples and oranges and mangoes.
That's why nobody else will ever touch this 'open source' code. The competitor will be more likely to write their own proprietary software. If you run Oracle and your competitor runs SQL Server, the amount of effort that would be required to re-tool the application would exceed the amount of effort to write an app with the same functionality, but based around SQL Server, from scratch.
Open source makes sense for generic pieces that provide a big chunk of functionality, not for an inventory management application running on one specific database.
"2) I have to let them give copies (or modifications) away if they want to - but they're hardly going to give copies to their competitors, are they?"
Uh.... yeah they are if they're pissed off at their boss or something stupid like that. And if the pissed off geek gives away a GPL'd piece of software, the original company can do nothing to stop it spreading. While if the pissed off geek gives away a traditionally copyrighted piece of software, the company CAN stop it spreading. See how that might be in the company's interest? The only way I can see a company being interested in allowing a piece of custom software to be GPL'd is if it can be built from GPL pieces in 1/8 the time at 1/8 the cost of having it written from scratch, and then only if it's the kind of thing that the rest of the world wouldnt' be able to use anyone, internal accounting or fulfillment or something.