IIRC, Apple got tired of waiting for Pink, and decided to start development of Coupland. In the mean time, Java came out, and since Apple wasn't giving their best effort, Taligent was reabsorbed into IBM. A lot of what was to be Pink eventually found it's way into the joint Sun/IBM JavaOS effort, but that was eventually shelved. By this time, Apple's Coupland effort had stalled, Jobs was back into the fray, and OpenSTEP (now MacOS X) is the successor to the traditional MacOS product line. I don't think that there's really anything left of Taligent... The JavaOS would have been the closest thing, though. Java is the spiritual successor to the platform agnostic execution environment that Taligent offered, though.
If this were a personal matter, I would agree. But, personal attacks in a public forum make us look bad to the average joe. Righteous indignation just makes us the "linux crowd" look like a bunch o' wingnuts...
In answer to your question, my experience has been that the businesses I've contracted with run towards vendors that offer the best bang for the buck. Wintel hardware is cheap, so is MSC contract lacky help. (Of which I'm not, BTW...)
I'm not saying it's right, just that this is the way it is... Platform implementation decisions are usually made by the boys who approve the budget in corporations.
How closely does the primary Python development team interact with the other language binding efforts (mainly Jython)? Anyone who's hung out in Slashdot seems to have a rabid attachment towards their native tounge, so to speak, and I've found it refreshing that the Python community "plays nice". Is there a lot of cross-pollenation(sic) between the groups?
Actually, Vampire: The Masquerade used Java as it's backend scripting system. (They even offer the Java based SDK here for the mod community.) In fact, most games these days use some sort of scripting system, quite often compiled down to a bytecode-esque format. (Jedi Knight, Unreal, Deus Ex, the list goes on...) Additionally, Capcom is taking *this exact tactic* of developing bytecode translated games to save porting time.
To put it in perspective, ten years ago, console games were being written in assembly. Five years ago, they were being written mostly in C. Now, hardware can sustain C++ development *with* scripting support.
You're thinking of the older Pioneer 10 and 11 craft that are leaving the solar system. Pioneer 6 is actually not that far away. (0.8 AUs from the sun, whereas we are 1.0 AUs away...)
If there's one axiom in the game console industry, it's that no hardware company has held the lead per successive generation. Usually because of absent or lackluster lauch software. A cursory examination of the launch software for PS2 isn't exactly encouraging...
My take is, the worst thing that they're doing wrong is that they aren't giving the blackdown team the proper recognition. They admitted that this was a snafu, and that they were going to resolve it.
But, all they did was take the codebase that the blackdown team worked on, and started working from there. Can't I do that with the Linux kernel under GPL? It's not like they're selling it, and I'm sure the source will be available under their (albiet restrictive) licensing agreement.
Besides, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't blackdown do the same thing to begin with? Blackdown identifies itself as the Java-Linux Porting Project, I'm guessing they took the Solaris Reference release source base to begin with.
Now watch moderators kick into overdrive...
on
Guide to Slashdot
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· Score: 1
Gee, who would have thought that posting a story like this here would have caused so many people to kick off five bagillion "first posts" and "Score 3, Insightful" posts...:) I guess everyone's gotta be a comedian.
Just to be exceedingly anal, Booch just wrote the foreward. The book you're talking about is commonly called the "gang of four" book after the other four people you mention.
It's an excellent catalog of design patterns, btw. It's to design patterns as Knuth's books are to algorithms.
and its strict adherence to object-orientation demonstrates an obvious misunderstanding of trends in language design
Excuse me, but isn't most modern design theory highly object oriented?? I've never seen a design patterns book use procedural languages, not would it make sense to. The gang of four book uses C++ and Smalltalk, but not Perl or C. Any architecture books that I've seen in the past decade and a half focuses on OOP, be it Smalltalk, C++, or what not.
Scripting and procedural programming have their place, too. It's a matter of choosing the right tool for the right job.
Where did the Mac folk request their port? It seems to me that BeOS, since it's more of a desktop OS than the Unicies, would be very appropriate for a port. (Though I'm happy to see it on the Unicies as well.;) Plus, I'm sure that Sun can spare the engineers, now that it's cozy with Be on the Java front.
Just a friendly reminder that pressing the Preview button before submiting can save even you from unsightly and embarrasing typos in the friggin' subject...
Intel is investing in every alternitive to Microsoft out there... Be, the Linux distros... Obviously they're attempting to spread their installed user base around multiple OSes. After all, their livelyhood kind of depends on Microsoft, which puts them in an awkardly dependant position. The name "Wintel" probably causes them cringe, I'd bet.
But, my question is, are they doing more harm than good? They want the intel seed sewn pretty much everywhere there's installed desktop, regardless of OS. But, if the average consumer is faced with a dozen Linux variants and a handful of other alternative operating system... They're going to run to what they know. And that puts us back into obscurity.
Intel's been investing in alternative OSes for a while. Be is another good example. You'll also note that Be started supporting the ia-32 architecture more than the PPC around that time.
But more importantly, it's pretty obvious that Intel is looking out for themselves... Why have all of your eggs in Microsoft's basket?;)
After Quake, the next project was supposed to be Trinity, which I thought was to be a departure from the run and gun games id's been working on lately. Two more Quakes later, no Trinity. I'm kind of wondering if the research Carmack's putting in now is proof-of-concept research...
Plus, bean counting log files, assuming that everyone running a server is kind enough to send them to the publisher, would be time consuming and costly.
I love kde, and the gnome and enlightenment combo. And the tools like netcfg and such that linux provides are useful... but people seem to be missing that you still need to know what's going on below the surface. I *seriously* f#cked up my system when python bombed netcfg a while back. And I didn't know what files were being touched. I eventually had to torch the box and reinstall. Kinda like NT. And I sorta knew what I was doing... I can't imagine my parents being able to cope.
Really, for the desktop, an OS needs to be built from the ground up around the user expierence. I *love* the Unicies, but user interface has *always* been a secondary consideration. And it shows.
I think that the best hope for desktop computing is Be. Now that Microsoft is under the legal gun, it's excellent that Be start getting more support. I wonder if this announcement was timed on the MS findings...
I would like to see the Sun port to Linux surface... I love the Blackdown stuff, but that's still in prerelease...
Be on the desktop, Linux on the server side... Rah.
I think the hardware analogy doesn't quite translate right to open source... The specification for manufacturing the boards are open, so interoperability for plug-in components know how to communicate with the system. BUT, the implementation details of, say, the chipset are very proprietary and not for the hardware manufacturer to look at.
But, if you want, you're free to implement your own chipset, because you can see the specification.
So, in the end, this is probably closer to the Java license than open source, or maybe implementations of different CORBA services...
I know I'll probably get blasted for this, but does anybody else see this trend of Linux being all things to all people as unfortunate? Sure, we all want our favorite platform to be widely accepted. But, even Microsoft decided not to merge their desktop and server platform, for fear of bloat down the line.
The thing I like best about Linux is that it's a top notch, reasonably stable server and development platform. That's what I use it for primarily. Sure, it'd be nice not to have to reboot or have a second computer to play games, but am I the only person here who believes in "the right tool for the right job"? I want my server and desktop OSes seperate, for fear of bloat.
I guess if it comes down to having to compile stuff out of kernels, I'm probably going to evaluate other OSes, (maybe BSD?) for my server OS and use Linux as my desktop OS. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. But, do we really want to trade the server space to fight the desktop war?
I'd heard that this was good. I'd read a while back (In "Dealers of Lightening") that Alan Kay, who helped father small things like the GUI and Smalltalk at PARC, provided feedback for the screenplay (which was dumbed down Disney) and the novel. I'd be curious to pick it up for that reason alone, if it were still in print.
William Gibson books...
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Snow Crash
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I'm glad to see that Neil has been getting attention from the/. crowd since the Cryptonomicon release... I was wondering, since the new William Gibson book "All Tomorrow's Parties" is coming out this month, are we going to see some more in depth reviews of his work, too? He's got to be my all time favorite author, although I think his latest books aren't as sharp as the original Sprawl trilogy. Or, admittedly, some of Neil's.:)
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, Apple got tired of waiting for Pink, and decided to start development of Coupland. In the mean time, Java came out, and since Apple wasn't giving their best effort, Taligent was reabsorbed into IBM. A lot of what was to be Pink eventually found it's way into the joint Sun/IBM JavaOS effort, but that was eventually shelved. By this time, Apple's Coupland effort had stalled, Jobs was back into the fray, and OpenSTEP (now MacOS X) is the successor to the traditional MacOS product line. I don't think that there's really anything left of Taligent... The JavaOS would have been the closest thing, though. Java is the spiritual successor to the platform agnostic execution environment that Taligent offered, though.
If this were a personal matter, I would agree. But, personal attacks in a public forum make us look bad to the average joe. Righteous indignation just makes us the "linux crowd" look like a bunch o' wingnuts...
In answer to your question, my experience has been that the businesses I've contracted with run towards vendors that offer the best bang for the buck. Wintel hardware is cheap, so is MSC contract lacky help. (Of which I'm not, BTW...)
I'm not saying it's right, just that this is the way it is... Platform implementation decisions are usually made by the boys who approve the budget in corporations.
How closely does the primary Python development team interact with the other language binding efforts (mainly Jython)? Anyone who's hung out in Slashdot seems to have a rabid attachment towards their native tounge, so to speak, and I've found it refreshing that the Python community "plays nice". Is there a lot of cross-pollenation(sic) between the groups?
Thanks.
Wow... it looks like the best hack in this case was pulled off by the DirecTV engineers. Kudos.
Actually, Vampire: The Masquerade used Java as it's backend scripting system. (They even offer the Java based SDK here for the mod community.) In fact, most games these days use some sort of scripting system, quite often compiled down to a bytecode-esque format. (Jedi Knight, Unreal, Deus Ex, the list goes on...) Additionally, Capcom is taking *this exact tactic* of developing bytecode translated games to save porting time.
To put it in perspective, ten years ago, console games were being written in assembly. Five years ago, they were being written mostly in C. Now, hardware can sustain C++ development *with* scripting support.
Darwin would be confused...
You're thinking of the older Pioneer 10 and 11 craft that are leaving the solar system. Pioneer 6 is actually not that far away. (0.8 AUs from the sun, whereas we are 1.0 AUs away...)
Don't discount the enemy out of arrogance...
I wouldn't have mentioned that moderation wasn't working... Although I was wondering why the BUNG postings weren't going away...
My take is, the worst thing that they're doing wrong is that they aren't giving the blackdown team the proper recognition. They admitted that this was a snafu, and that they were going to resolve it.
But, all they did was take the codebase that the blackdown team worked on, and started working from there. Can't I do that with the Linux kernel under GPL? It's not like they're selling it, and I'm sure the source will be available under their (albiet restrictive) licensing agreement.
Besides, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't blackdown do the same thing to begin with? Blackdown identifies itself as the Java-Linux Porting Project, I'm guessing they took the Solaris Reference release source base to begin with.
Gee, who would have thought that posting a story like this here would have caused so many people to kick off five bagillion "first posts" and "Score 3, Insightful" posts... :)
I guess everyone's gotta be a comedian.
Just to be exceedingly anal, Booch just wrote the foreward. The book you're talking about is commonly called the "gang of four" book after the other four people you mention.
It's an excellent catalog of design patterns, btw. It's to design patterns as Knuth's books are to algorithms.
and its strict adherence to object-orientation demonstrates an obvious misunderstanding of trends in language design
Excuse me, but isn't most modern design theory highly object oriented?? I've never seen a design patterns book use procedural languages, not would it make sense to. The gang of four book uses C++ and Smalltalk, but not Perl or C. Any architecture books that I've seen in the past decade and a half focuses on OOP, be it Smalltalk, C++, or what not.
Scripting and procedural programming have their place, too. It's a matter of choosing the right tool for the right job.
Sheesh...
Where did the Mac folk request their port? It seems to me that BeOS, since it's more of a desktop OS than the Unicies, would be very appropriate for a port. (Though I'm happy to see it on the Unicies as well. ;) Plus, I'm sure that Sun can spare the engineers, now that it's cozy with Be on the Java front.
Just a friendly reminder that pressing the Preview button before submiting can save even you from unsightly and embarrasing typos in the friggin' subject...
:)
My bad.
Intel is investing in every alternitive to Microsoft out there... Be, the Linux distros... Obviously they're attempting to spread their installed user base around multiple OSes. After all, their livelyhood kind of depends on Microsoft, which puts them in an awkardly dependant position. The name "Wintel" probably causes them cringe, I'd bet.
But, my question is, are they doing more harm than good? They want the intel seed sewn pretty much everywhere there's installed desktop, regardless of OS. But, if the average consumer is faced with a dozen Linux variants and a handful of other alternative operating system... They're going to run to what they know. And that puts us back into obscurity.
Betting on everyone never really wins big.
Intel's been investing in alternative OSes for a while. Be is another good example. You'll also note that Be started supporting the ia-32 architecture more than the PPC around that time.
;)
But more importantly, it's pretty obvious that Intel is looking out for themselves... Why have all of your eggs in Microsoft's basket?
After Quake, the next project was supposed to be Trinity, which I thought was to be a departure from the run and gun games id's been working on lately. Two more Quakes later, no Trinity. I'm kind of wondering if the research Carmack's putting in now is proof-of-concept research...
Anybody heard anything about this?
Plus, bean counting log files, assuming that everyone running a server is kind enough to send them to the publisher, would be time consuming and costly.
I'll get flamed for this, but...
:)
I love kde, and the gnome and enlightenment combo. And the tools like netcfg and such that linux provides are useful... but people seem to be missing that you still need to know what's going on below the surface. I *seriously* f#cked up my system when python bombed netcfg a while back. And I didn't know what files were being touched. I eventually had to torch the box and reinstall. Kinda like NT. And I sorta knew what I was doing... I can't imagine my parents being able to cope.
Really, for the desktop, an OS needs to be built from the ground up around the user expierence. I *love* the Unicies, but user interface has *always* been a secondary consideration. And it shows.
Just my humble opinion, however.
I think that the best hope for desktop computing is Be. Now that Microsoft is under the legal gun, it's excellent that Be start getting more support. I wonder if this announcement was timed on the MS findings...
I would like to see the Sun port to Linux surface... I love the Blackdown stuff, but that's still in prerelease...
Be on the desktop, Linux on the server side... Rah.
I think the hardware analogy doesn't quite translate right to open source... The specification for manufacturing the boards are open, so interoperability for plug-in components know how to communicate with the system. BUT, the implementation details of, say, the chipset are very proprietary and not for the hardware manufacturer to look at.
:)
But, if you want, you're free to implement your own chipset, because you can see the specification.
So, in the end, this is probably closer to the Java license than open source, or maybe implementations of different CORBA services...
Sorry to nitpick...
The thing I like best about Linux is that it's a top notch, reasonably stable server and development platform. That's what I use it for primarily. Sure, it'd be nice not to have to reboot or have a second computer to play games, but am I the only person here who believes in "the right tool for the right job"? I want my server and desktop OSes seperate, for fear of bloat.
I guess if it comes down to having to compile stuff out of kernels, I'm probably going to evaluate other OSes, (maybe BSD?) for my server OS and use Linux as my desktop OS. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. But, do we really want to trade the server space to fight the desktop war?
Just a thought...
I'd heard that this was good. I'd read a while back (In "Dealers of Lightening") that Alan Kay, who helped father small things like the GUI and Smalltalk at PARC, provided feedback for the screenplay (which was dumbed down Disney) and the novel. I'd be curious to pick it up for that reason alone, if it were still in print.
I'm glad to see that Neil has been getting attention from the /. crowd since the Cryptonomicon release... I was wondering, since the new William Gibson book "All Tomorrow's Parties" is coming out this month, are we going to see some more in depth reviews of his work, too? He's got to be my all time favorite author, although I think his latest books aren't as sharp as the original Sprawl trilogy. Or, admittedly, some of Neil's. :)