Only upon looking back does it appear that innovation just "happened". The reality is that things grew incrementally. Think of the web browser:
ftp
archie
gopher
lynx
Mosaic
Netscape
IE
None of these in and of themselves are revolutionary or particularly "innovative". They build on previous work. That is how the human race advances; by building on previous work. Innovation just doesn't happen overnight, and innovative ideas don't always immediatly catch on.
There's been enough significant enhancements in most of our lifetimes to realize this.
I didn't go to some crazy grad school like MIT, and we learned that the Spiral model (of which XP is a variant) is generally accepted to be the most effective.
That said, pair programming would drive me insane. I can't stand watching other people type and not use their editor properly and just general code slowly. It also seems a collosal waste of resources. Clients are paying a premium for custom software and having two people implement the same thing instead of having individuals work and then do code reviews seems to be overkill.
I balked when one of the sysadmins at my work suggested trying out our experimental exchange 2000 server. But, it supports IMAP and Webmail, so I checked it out. Man, is that great! The webmail is really what puts it over than just plain IMAP, although I guess an IMAP server could have a webmail client as well.
The cool thing is that I can use Netscape (Navigator or Messenger) to read mail on my main Linux box, and then if I get a word document, I just flip over to a windows box, check mail, and view attachment. No more copying to a network drive (or worse yet waiting for Star Office to start up).
Docbook might be a better choice, simply because it handles external links better. Of course, this could be added to LaTeX pretty easily. I guess the best thing about LaTeX is the macro feature. YOu can define macros like \makedef{design} and then your LaTeX code is descriptive, because you separate the formatting of "design" from the content.
Doing this in Docbook is incredibly difficult, because you have to modify the DTD and then all the stylesheets to add new XML tags. You could write your own stylesheet, but Docbook is huge
Of course, it would be nice if there was a wysiwig editor for either of these two. I hate them, but it's the only way to get acceptance. And yes, I know of LyX, but it's interface needs work, and I think it's confusing for the general user.
Not much to add, but this is pretty lame. Why would anyone want this? Maybe it will help get the DOJ looking at their real monopoly: The Office Document
Seriously, one wierd thing about vmware is that it is inflexible with the number of colors. Games that open up screens using DirectX won't work because of how vmware's "video driver" works. Anyone have any idea of this is just a fact of machine emulation, or a vmware-only thing for optimization?
I think it's pretty common knowledge that a command line is what a "power user" uses, as this affords the most flexibility and has no upper limit on how productive you can be with it. Compare two extremes:
make/vi (or emacs)/cli - steep learning curve, but incredibly flexible. You can basically develop in any way you want and once you know how to use the tools, you can fly.
Visual C++ (or other IDE) - Easy to learn, takes care of a lot of stuff for you, but once you learn the tool well, you hit a wall; You still have load up a huge UI to do your work, you can't easily switch to another environment and you are basically forced to work they way the tool designer wants you to. Plus, you still have to mouse around clicking on buttons. THis is great for a begginner or someone who doesn't want to learn about their development environment, but it's hugely cumbersome for someone who develops a different way or wants more flexibility.
All I was saying in my original post is that a 3d world for desktop work and development is not demonstrably better than what we have now. It is easy to see that it isn't going to increase productivity, but just find another way to place a limit on the ease and flexibility a person has to do work.
I don't get why tool vendors think that it's OK to force a certain development style on developers. Why not provide flexibility?
For the past 30+ years, many new user interfaces have been introduced. With the web explosion of the past several years, we've seen lots of new fangled UIs. None of the can compete with the original command line. Granted, the command line is hard to learn, but it has no upper bound on productivity. A GUI app or a website might be easier to learn, but it puts a severe limit on productivity.
This 3D "world" here (much like the one in Snow Crash), is nothing more than eye candy (although the world in Snow Crash was just a plot-device). It will not serve to increase anyone's productivity. Rather, it is a neat and interesting way to look at data, but it's no revolutionary substitute for the power user.
Plus, a 3d "desktop" is not intutive. If you think about it, a real desktop (including papers, books, etc.) is nothing but a bunch of 2d "windows" that you stack around and move about the desktop. There's nothing 3d about any of it.
This sort of thing just isn't going to be useful. Look at the failure of VRML. People don't want this because it doesn't add value nor increase productivity.
Re:You realize its first commercial use is...
on
The Ultimate Monitor
·
· Score: 1
Damn! Sorry about that. I totally messed up. I've been doing some stuff with iPlanet, which has executables abbreviated "ias". Guess it was on my mind when I posted....
Slashdot Mirror
Don't Trust Content From "Microsoft Corporation"
(note the quotes), that would be one thing, but this is just misleading and bad journalism. Come on guys!- ftp
- archie
- gopher
- lynx
- Mosaic
- Netscape
- IE
None of these in and of themselves are revolutionary or particularly "innovative". They build on previous work. That is how the human race advances; by building on previous work. Innovation just doesn't happen overnight, and innovative ideas don't always immediatly catch on.There's been enough significant enhancements in most of our lifetimes to realize this.
I didn't go to some crazy grad school like MIT, and we learned that the Spiral model (of which XP is a variant) is generally accepted to be the most effective. That said, pair programming would drive me insane. I can't stand watching other people type and not use their editor properly and just general code slowly. It also seems a collosal waste of resources. Clients are paying a premium for custom software and having two people implement the same thing instead of having individuals work and then do code reviews seems to be overkill.
Exchange 2K supports a very nice web interface, as well as IMAP and POP, so it's actually a lot more cross platform than UNIX mail....
I balked when one of the sysadmins at my work suggested trying out our experimental exchange 2000 server. But, it supports IMAP and Webmail, so I checked it out. Man, is that great! The webmail is really what puts it over than just plain IMAP, although I guess an IMAP server could have a webmail client as well.
The cool thing is that I can use Netscape (Navigator or Messenger) to read mail on my main Linux box, and then if I get a word document, I just flip over to a windows box, check mail, and view attachment. No more copying to a network drive (or worse yet waiting for Star Office to start up).
Plus, no annoying POP downloading/local storage.
Doing this in Docbook is incredibly difficult, because you have to modify the DTD and then all the stylesheets to add new XML tags. You could write your own stylesheet, but Docbook is huge
Of course, it would be nice if there was a wysiwig editor for either of these two. I hate them, but it's the only way to get acceptance. And yes, I know of LyX, but it's interface needs work, and I think it's confusing for the general user.
Not much to add, but this is pretty lame. Why would anyone want this? Maybe it will help get the DOJ looking at their real monopoly: The Office Document
Seriously, one wierd thing about vmware is that it is inflexible with the number of colors. Games that open up screens using DirectX won't work because of how vmware's "video driver" works. Anyone have any idea of this is just a fact of machine emulation, or a vmware-only thing for optimization?
- make/vi (or emacs)/cli - steep learning curve, but incredibly flexible. You can basically develop in any way you want and once you know how to use the tools, you can fly.
- Visual C++ (or other IDE) - Easy to learn, takes care of a lot of stuff for you, but once you learn the tool well, you hit a wall; You still have load up a huge UI to do your work, you can't easily switch to another environment and you are basically forced to work they way the tool designer wants you to. Plus, you still have to mouse around clicking on buttons. THis is great for a begginner or someone who doesn't want to learn about their development environment, but it's hugely cumbersome for someone who develops a different way or wants more flexibility.
All I was saying in my original post is that a 3d world for desktop work and development is not demonstrably better than what we have now. It is easy to see that it isn't going to increase productivity, but just find another way to place a limit on the ease and flexibility a person has to do work.I don't get why tool vendors think that it's OK to force a certain development style on developers. Why not provide flexibility?
This 3D "world" here (much like the one in Snow Crash), is nothing more than eye candy (although the world in Snow Crash was just a plot-device). It will not serve to increase anyone's productivity. Rather, it is a neat and interesting way to look at data, but it's no revolutionary substitute for the power user.
Plus, a 3d "desktop" is not intutive. If you think about it, a real desktop (including papers, books, etc.) is nothing but a bunch of 2d "windows" that you stack around and move about the desktop. There's nothing 3d about any of it.
This sort of thing just isn't going to be useful. Look at the failure of VRML. People don't want this because it doesn't add value nor increase productivity.
You mean "prawn", right?
Damn! Sorry about that. I totally messed up. I've been doing some stuff with iPlanet, which has executables abbreviated "ias". Guess it was on my mind when I posted....