I have just the opposite take. I work for a Fortune 500 company, and we are in the process of migrating some of our Java server apps from Windows to Linux. We were planning on going with Red Hat and weren't even considering SuSE. Then, after the Novell announcement, an email circulated asking whether we should consider SuSE. It was now considered more of a "real player" here in the US, and a safer choice.
If Microsoft is truly producing an inferior product then in time it will get replaced by something better. . . So in short the US government as well as the EU should stop wasting their money and let the natural forces of competition weather away Microsoft's market position.
You're absolutely right. The problem is that it might take 50 years, or 100 years, or 300 years. I'd rather not wait that long. I'd like to see something happen in my lifetime. For one thing, as long as Microsoft has all this monopoly power, there's really not much incentive for anyone to attempt to build something better. Can you imagine anyone investing millions of dollars to attempt to create a superior word processor? They'd have to be insane. So the only "innovation" we see is what Microsoft thinks will make people upgrade from the previous MS version. And the problem isn't just that they have a monopoly, it's that they keep extending their monopoly into new products and markets. The more monopolies they get, the harder it will be to dislodge them.
However, nobody in this forum can really claim that linux is ready to be used by the average home consumer.
Sure they can. The latest versions of Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSe, etc. are pretty easy to install and use. And if they were pre-installed and customized by hardware vendors, I don't think the "average home consumer" would have any problems at all, or at least no more than they currently have with Windows.
PS. If dealing with Microsoft as a monopoly is absolutly necessary there are better ways than breaking it up.
The capitalization rules are also well defined. So if you consider to have a class "ThreadNDCConverter" a companay sticking to the original coding style rules will name that class or interface: ThreadNdcConverter. While my company OTOH will name it ThreadNDCConverter, as our rule is to capitalize all abreviations, like FTP, RMI and such.
I believe the capitalization of acronyms within class and method names has been part of the Sun coding standard all along, it's just that they didn't do a very good job of conforming to that standard initially. For example, many method names that originally contained "Url" were deprecated, with new versions containing "URL" replacing them. They've been more reluctant to do the same with entire classes, such as HttpServletRequest -> HTTPServletRequest.
Pull up the article, and check out the picture of the author, "Eliot Van Buskirk". Yeah, look real close. Look familiar? Tried the old Superman/Clark Kent trick of taking off his glasses. Threw on some headphones just to be extra careful.
Well nice try Bill, but we're on to you. Your FUD isn't going to work this time!
Re:Three word's on Atkins that says it all:
on
Hackers On Atkins
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Atkins died because he fell on some ice, hit his head, and had a brain aneurysm.
Maybe he fell because his blood sugar was too low, and he blacked out. Maybe if he'd only had a Snickers bar beforehand, he'd still be alive today, still collecting mega-royalties from all those diet books.
Most importantly though, it can play.mp3 format, which can be uploaded from your own music collection on your computer and doesn't require some proprietary format that I have to convert all my files too.
Um, the iPod supports.mp3 files, it even supports.wav files, so I guess your most important issue is a non-issue.
Now that I've had my say, you can mod me down for flamebait since I didn't bow at the Altar which is Apple...
Maybe if you did a little research before making completely false claims, you wouldn't get modded down so much?
Relative revenues are irrelevant here. (Wow, very alliterative!) Ignoring the entire issue of whether such a merger would make business sense, Microsoft's market capitalization (stock price times shares outstanding) is so huge ($287.52B) that there's no way on earth Wal Mart could acquire them. Wal Mart's capitalization is only $253.89B. It would be more feasible for Microsoft to aquire Wal Mart than vice-versa.
A win against MS using govt. thugs rather than free market is a hollow win that will come back to haunt you some day.
Yeah, just like we've been so haunted ever since the AT&T breakup. Damn, I sure preferred the old days where you rented an old clunker rotary dial phone for like $10 a month without ever getting the opportunity to go down to BestBuy and buy a 2.4GHz wireless with digital answering machine and caller ID for $20.
When there's an abusive monopoly involved, there's no such thing as a free market.
No, refactoring is about improving the code. If it looks like a hack, then refactor it to fix it. The end result of refactoring should be clean code, and a clean design. That's pretty much the antithesis of hacking.
I've seen 2 different descriptions of what refactoring is all about. 1) Remove duplication. 2) Apply design patterns. An argument could probably be made that the 2 are actually ultimately attempting to achieve the same goal.
"On-Site Customer" is one of the tenets of XP.. Of course, this isn't always practical, but having instant access to the customer is one of the things that makes XP work...
Can't remember which XP book it was in but one of them stated that if necessary you can use a proxy for the customer. I think they gave an example of an internal project manager or business analyst. Obviously, the more the proxy knows about the customer's business, the better.
I'm one of those people who have seen XP tried and failed, and to be honest I never found it a suprise. I was educated to be a software engineer, and that the best way to deliver software effectively is to understand the problem domain.
That's great if you're going to spend your whole career programming for a single problem domain, or in the worst case one or two problem domains for a fairly long period - say 3-5 years. If, like many, you need to program for many problem domains, then XP works quite well (when implemented correctly), because it acknowleges that the true expert in the problem domain is going to be an end user of the system. So XP expects an on-site "customer" to be involved in the development process.
Iterative models like RUP or DSDM are great ways of delivering functionality quickly... XP is not...
I think the many people who have successfully delivered useful software quickly using XP would disagree with that.
. . . however there are some ideas in XP that are completely un-original that can work
If you've read Beck's book, you know that he points out several times that the individual components of XP are nothing new - but that the synergies from doing them all together are what's important. For example, refactoring doesn't add anything, and may even be harmful, if you don't have automated unit tests.
You don't need requirements before you start coding. For godsake that is a friggin DILBERT cartoon.
Of course you need requirements. It's just that XP recognizes that requirements are going to change constantly, so the methodology is designed around that inevitability. I don't know where you got that idea, but it seems to me that you (like most of XP's critics) haven't read Beck's book.
Quality doesn't matter, it isn't engineering...
Half the process is about quality! Team programming means you have two heads working together to come up with a superior design, while doing real-time code reviews. Test First means you build automated unit tests and you run them all any time you change something to be sure you haven't broken anything. Refactoring is all about improving quality - otherwise why do it? Short iterations with lots of feedback before the entire project is done improves the likelihood that the customer is going to get something that meets their needs, not something that just fulfills the requirements document that they signed off on.
It's software product from NetManage that is close enough in functionality to this product that they would probably have a valid trademark infringement claim.
After re-reading this I realized it wasn't quite accurate. Most auto critics give Honda cars very good reviews overall. It's just the styling they often call bland, not the cars as a whole.
All modern Honda Accords and Civics use the same frame and base. The only difference is the shell and the luxuries. Also, try getting into one. They're quite large.
I know. I've been a Honda owner for most of my adult life (except a 3-year mistake on a Jeep lease.) But terms like "full-size" and "mid-size" have a specific meaning in the auto industry. I believe the Civic is a "compact", or maybe a "subcompact".
It's hard to get much information from that Flash crap though.
Agreed. I can't remember who it was that called it "flashturbation" but I think it's a fitting term.
Is there anywhere I can go to just get information, not a marketer's wet-dream manifested by a cheasy Flash animation?
Unfortunately, not that I could find.
Regarding your points about the futuristic nature of the Prius vs. the conservative Civic, I don't disagree, however I would say that in my opinion Honda's biggest problem is their ultra-conservative styling - they're just too conservative for many people's taste. Auto critics often call their cars bland - I think that sums it up. About the only real exception is the new Element (which is one of the reasons I bought one). Yeah, many people think they're ugly, but at least they aren't bland.
Oh, and we also looked at the Toyota Prius. Those things suck ass. They are very rough to drive. The computer screen is always full of motion and it's very distracting without lending much usefulness. Furthermore, it's cramped inside and the vehcile controls are just... bizarre. The engine compartment is also very cramped. Doing work on that vehicle would require taking a lot of shit apart, ergo it may be very expensive to service. Handling sucked. Overall, the Toyota Prius is just as shitty as its Echo counterpart.
But you didn't look at the new Prius. When it comes out, it will raise the bar when it comes to hybrids. It's much bigger (it is a true mid-size car) and has more horsepower, yet still gets 50 mpg.
I could really use one of these while I'm driving.
I find I'm often distracted by what other cars are doing, and trying to hold a conversation while monitoring my speed and dealing with traffic lights, stop signs, and cray drivers is a real pain.
Slashdot Mirror
I have just the opposite take. I work for a Fortune 500 company, and we are in the process of migrating some of our Java server apps from Windows to Linux. We were planning on going with Red Hat and weren't even considering SuSE. Then, after the Novell announcement, an email circulated asking whether we should consider SuSE. It was now considered more of a "real player" here in the US, and a safer choice.
If Microsoft is truly producing an inferior product then in time it will get replaced by something better. . . So in short the US government as well as the EU should stop wasting their money and let the natural forces of competition weather away Microsoft's market position.
You're absolutely right. The problem is that it might take 50 years, or 100 years, or 300 years. I'd rather not wait that long. I'd like to see something happen in my lifetime. For one thing, as long as Microsoft has all this monopoly power, there's really not much incentive for anyone to attempt to build something better. Can you imagine anyone investing millions of dollars to attempt to create a superior word processor? They'd have to be insane. So the only "innovation" we see is what Microsoft thinks will make people upgrade from the previous MS version. And the problem isn't just that they have a monopoly, it's that they keep extending their monopoly into new products and markets. The more monopolies they get, the harder it will be to dislodge them.
However, nobody in this forum can really claim that linux is ready to be used by the average home consumer.
Sure they can. The latest versions of Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSe, etc. are pretty easy to install and use. And if they were pre-installed and customized by hardware vendors, I don't think the "average home consumer" would have any problems at all, or at least no more than they currently have with Windows.
PS. If dealing with Microsoft as a monopoly is absolutly necessary there are better ways than breaking it up.
And those are . . . ?
The capitalization rules are also well defined. So if you consider to have a class "ThreadNDCConverter" a companay sticking to the original coding style rules will name that class or interface: ThreadNdcConverter. While my company OTOH will name it ThreadNDCConverter, as our rule is to capitalize all abreviations, like FTP, RMI and such.
I believe the capitalization of acronyms within class and method names has been part of the Sun coding standard all along, it's just that they didn't do a very good job of conforming to that standard initially. For example, many method names that originally contained "Url" were deprecated, with new versions containing "URL" replacing them. They've been more reluctant to do the same with entire classes, such as HttpServletRequest -> HTTPServletRequest.
There were personal computers made that used Alphas, which were 64-bit.
Oh, yeah, that's right! Now I remember seeing them at BestBuy a few years ago. Right next to the SGI Onyx boxes.
Pull up the article, and check out the picture of the author, "Eliot Van Buskirk". Yeah, look real close. Look familiar? Tried the old Superman/Clark Kent trick of taking off his glasses. Threw on some headphones just to be extra careful.
Well nice try Bill, but we're on to you. Your FUD isn't going to work this time!
Atkins died because he fell on some ice, hit his head, and had a brain aneurysm.
Maybe he fell because his blood sugar was too low, and he blacked out. Maybe if he'd only had a Snickers bar beforehand, he'd still be alive today, still collecting mega-royalties from all those diet books.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
(so, uh, can I have your account? A 4-digit user account number would be very prestigious, and your username is kinda cool, too!)
Most importantly though, it can play .mp3 format, which can be uploaded from your own music collection on your computer and doesn't require some proprietary format that I have to convert all my files too.
Um, the iPod supports .mp3 files, it even supports .wav files, so I guess your most important issue is a non-issue.
Now that I've had my say, you can mod me down for flamebait since I didn't bow at the Altar which is Apple...
Maybe if you did a little research before making completely false claims, you wouldn't get modded down so much?
Relative revenues are irrelevant here. (Wow, very alliterative!) Ignoring the entire issue of whether such a merger would make business sense, Microsoft's market capitalization (stock price times shares outstanding) is so huge ($287.52B) that there's no way on earth Wal Mart could acquire them. Wal Mart's capitalization is only $253.89B. It would be more feasible for Microsoft to aquire Wal Mart than vice-versa.
A win against MS using govt. thugs rather than free market is a hollow win that will come back to haunt you some day.
Yeah, just like we've been so haunted ever since the AT&T breakup. Damn, I sure preferred the old days where you rented an old clunker rotary dial phone for like $10 a month without ever getting the opportunity to go down to BestBuy and buy a 2.4GHz wireless with digital answering machine and caller ID for $20.
When there's an abusive monopoly involved, there's no such thing as a free market.
Refactoring is hacking, often in it's purest form
No, refactoring is about improving the code. If it looks like a hack, then refactor it to fix it. The end result of refactoring should be clean code, and a clean design. That's pretty much the antithesis of hacking.
I've seen 2 different descriptions of what refactoring is all about. 1) Remove duplication. 2) Apply design patterns. An argument could probably be made that the 2 are actually ultimately attempting to achieve the same goal.
"On-Site Customer" is one of the tenets of XP.. Of course, this isn't always practical, but having instant access to the customer is one of the things that makes XP work...
Can't remember which XP book it was in but one of them stated that if necessary you can use a proxy for the customer. I think they gave an example of an internal project manager or business analyst. Obviously, the more the proxy knows about the customer's business, the better.
I'm one of those people who have seen XP tried and failed, and to be honest I never found it a suprise. I was educated to be a software engineer, and that the best way to deliver software effectively is to understand the problem domain.
That's great if you're going to spend your whole career programming for a single problem domain, or in the worst case one or two problem domains for a fairly long period - say 3-5 years. If, like many, you need to program for many problem domains, then XP works quite well (when implemented correctly), because it acknowleges that the true expert in the problem domain is going to be an end user of the system. So XP expects an on-site "customer" to be involved in the development process.
Iterative models like RUP or DSDM are great ways of delivering functionality quickly... XP is not...
I think the many people who have successfully delivered useful software quickly using XP would disagree with that.
. . . however there are some ideas in XP that are completely un-original that can work
If you've read Beck's book, you know that he points out several times that the individual components of XP are nothing new - but that the synergies from doing them all together are what's important. For example, refactoring doesn't add anything, and may even be harmful, if you don't have automated unit tests.
You don't need requirements before you start coding. For godsake that is a friggin DILBERT cartoon.
Of course you need requirements. It's just that XP recognizes that requirements are going to change constantly, so the methodology is designed around that inevitability. I don't know where you got that idea, but it seems to me that you (like most of XP's critics) haven't read Beck's book.
Quality doesn't matter, it isn't engineering...
Half the process is about quality! Team programming means you have two heads working together to come up with a superior design, while doing real-time code reviews. Test First means you build automated unit tests and you run them all any time you change something to be sure you haven't broken anything. Refactoring is all about improving quality - otherwise why do it? Short iterations with lots of feedback before the entire project is done improves the likelihood that the customer is going to get something that meets their needs, not something that just fulfills the requirements document that they signed off on.
Rumba is a registered trademark.
It's software product from NetManage that is close enough in functionality to this product that they would probably have a valid trademark infringement claim.
Could the BeosMax website be any harder on the eyes?
Remember when BeOS was for Macs, whose users tend to be artistic? Guess that's not the case now that it's an Intel OS, eh?
Uh, only problem is that it's the FTC, not the FCC, that instituted this program.
Of course you realize that if the national list gets thrown out due to being found unconstitutional, your Missouri list will go away too.
Have a nice day!
Please excuse this off-topic (no topic?) post. I'm just trying to undo the accidental modding down (instead of up) of parent post.
Auto critics often call their cars bland
After re-reading this I realized it wasn't quite accurate. Most auto critics give Honda cars very good reviews overall. It's just the styling they often call bland, not the cars as a whole.
All modern Honda Accords and Civics use the same frame and base. The only difference is the shell and the luxuries. Also, try getting into one. They're quite large.
I know. I've been a Honda owner for most of my adult life (except a 3-year mistake on a Jeep lease.) But terms like "full-size" and "mid-size" have a specific meaning in the auto industry. I believe the Civic is a "compact", or maybe a "subcompact".
It's hard to get much information from that Flash crap though.
Agreed. I can't remember who it was that called it "flashturbation" but I think it's a fitting term.
Is there anywhere I can go to just get information, not a marketer's wet-dream manifested by a cheasy Flash animation?
Unfortunately, not that I could find.
Regarding your points about the futuristic nature of the Prius vs. the conservative Civic, I don't disagree, however I would say that in my opinion Honda's biggest problem is their ultra-conservative styling - they're just too conservative for many people's taste. Auto critics often call their cars bland - I think that sums it up. About the only real exception is the new Element (which is one of the reasons I bought one). Yeah, many people think they're ugly, but at least they aren't bland.
It's a very spatious, full-sized sedan.
A Civic is a full-sized sedan. Uh-huh.
Oh, and we also looked at the Toyota Prius. Those things suck ass. They are very rough to drive. The computer screen is always full of motion and it's very distracting without lending much usefulness. Furthermore, it's cramped inside and the vehcile controls are just... bizarre. The engine compartment is also very cramped. Doing work on that vehicle would require taking a lot of shit apart, ergo it may be very expensive to service. Handling sucked. Overall, the Toyota Prius is just as shitty as its Echo counterpart.
But you didn't look at the new Prius. When it comes out, it will raise the bar when it comes to hybrids. It's much bigger (it is a true mid-size car) and has more horsepower, yet still gets 50 mpg.
I could really use one of these while I'm driving.
I find I'm often distracted by what other cars are doing, and trying to hold a conversation while monitoring my speed and dealing with traffic lights, stop signs, and cray drivers is a real pain.
http://tinyurl.com/muws
Oh, a usenet post. Then it must be true!If you read the Details about the Archos unit, you'll notice that the weight is listed as "10.23 lb."
I think I'll pay the extra $80 for the iPod - probably pay for itself in fewer trips to the chiropractor.
That's OK, you can just offer it on eBay along with a maxed-out 17" PowerBook and 23" Cinema Display for like $2200.