I use CORBA all the time, and I can tell you that it is wonderful. You couldn't ask for a better balance between standard and custom code when it comes to distributed objects. The learning curve is much less than most neophytes fear. There is a book "CORBA for Dummies" that actually contains enough information to let you replace your other RPC mechanisms or proprietary sockets code with CORBA.
The OMG has created a tool that works amazingly well for just about every industry from embedded to mainframe (and before you deny embedded, I used to work on the RealTime version of Borland's VisiBroker for VxWorks, Lynx, and pSOS).
The add-on COS service specifications suffer a little bit from design-by-committee, but those committees ensured that the CORBA specification could serve all of the members' industries (quite a feat to cross all of those problem domains).
In a shootout of price and/or performance and/or ease-of-use (for developers with say 3 months specific experience), I would say that CORBA is at least the equal of RMI,.Net ObjectRemoting, Web Services, etc. And for cross-platform use, would you choose RMI (Java-only),.Net (even if Mono is good enough, you can't use Python, Perl, etc.), Web Services (works, but unless you have a full WSDL->stubs generator for your language and platform, you are looking at a lot more work).
Unless you intend to write your own word processor this weekend, why are you complaining about having to learn a 600-page spec?
I knew that R'ing the FA was passe on/., but to comment on a book and/or movie without reading and/or watching it?!? There was no draft; the only catch was that you could not become a citizen (with franchise) unless you had Served (which might end-up not being 'military' service, at the government's discretion).
I have also had good experiences with TigerDirect (4 orders for computers, including a *clearly marked* refurbished Compaq that arrived three days ago). Before you call me a shill, check my/. profile, and ask yourself how much time and effort TigerDirect would go through just to answer trolls on/.
That company is souch a rip off there worce then frys.
I have bought four computers from TigerDirect, two in the last month. I have never had any complaint in my dealings with them. And only an idiot who can't spell: 'such', 'worse', and 'really' could complain about their prices.
The only solutions are to reduce the power of the government, and/or to move these powers to more regional authorities (thus increasing the cost require to influence the entire nation).
Yeah, the city government in Chicago weren't corrupt. And the corruption at our federal level is nothing compared to many county and city governments in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,... The corruption in Florida was so bad that we passed a 'Sunshine Law' to prevent out-of-the-public-eye meetings of government decision makers. There is some question as to whether three city councilmen are allowed to have breakfast together.
Our national politicians are pandering to corporate interests, but most of this is above board, "We worship your ability to earn money, let us kiss your ass." rather than actual corruption (aka pay-for-performance). As long as campaign contribution caps are not being violated, is it right to call this 'corruption'?
Most providers including Version, Cigular, AT&T will sell you a phone at full prices and let you pick your providers
You missed the roadblock. I bought a phone, and used it for the duration of my contract (no complaints). Then, after my contract was up, and I owned the phone free and clear, I saw that Sprint had a good deal. I called Sprint to sign-up, and they told me that they would not activate the phone that I owned free and clear!
I had to go buy a phone from Sprint (or the Radio Shack 'Sprint Store'), or I couldn't use their service. I have no problem with a minimum commitment when they are offsetting the cost of a phone, it is the fact that I cannot buy a phone from a third-party and use it with any service provider.
I am one of those weird liberals who like Walmart. If you are poor in America, Walmart is your best friend (ok, maybe unless you work for them?) If you think that Walmart should sell fewer Chinese products, then convince your Congress critters to set trade quotas. If you think that Walmart should pay its workers more, increase the minimum wage. If you think that Walmart should provide free health insurance to its workers, either mandate that all employers offer free health insurance, or create a Universal health insurance program. Why should Walmart not follow supply and demand in its business dealings? Why should Walmart be forced to sell more expensive (domestic) goods Target, or pay its employees more than Target? Walmart is a corporation that should strive to maximize shareholder value. The Government should create regulations to protect workers and citizens. I don't blame Walmart.
You're right, except that as another poster pointed out, it is not really a standards issue. The phones really are interoperable from a standards point of view. It is just that when you sign up with a service provider, they will refuse to activate any phone that you didn't buy through them (or one of their affiliated channels).
It is not our technology that is defective, it is our idea of the balance of rights between corporations and people (or as the carnival-folk used to call them: marks (suckers who only purpose in life was to cough-up money)).
This situation doesn't necessarily call for a government solution; the people could band together and form their own advocacy organization. This organziation could counter-balance the organized nature of the corporations. Such an organization should be formed of the people, by the people, and for the, hey wait a minute...
How would this form you ask? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but somehow there managed to be organizations formed to oversee internet issues.
The Internet was created by the Government, and the Government created and appointed the groups of which you speak (the Internet Control and Configuration Board (ICCB) became the Internet Activities Board (IAB) which spawned the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)which formed the IETF (see http://www.garykessler.net/library/ietf_hx.html)).
As for your other examples of buying different cell phones, I welcome the competition. This allows companies to come up with new and better products all the time.
You might welcome the competition; I want to use the cellphone that I paid $50 for, with whatever company I choose. Instead, these companies have deliberately created vendor lock-in to the detriment of the consumer. And the 'new and better products' angle is a red herring; they are free to create better cellphones, of which I will choose the want that fits my needs the best. The vendor lock-in does not help them make 'new and better products'. In fact, the lock-in hurts device innovation because when I choose a cell plan based on service and cost, I can only use a phone that is supported by that service provider. I can't choose to use that really great new Nokia with great 'new and better' features. Maximum fluidity (decoupling the device market from the service market) would allow both to reach their natural optimum state.
And the most disturbingly immoral part of it is, that ordinary citizens who might not care much for using cable cards are being forced to pay for the FCC's operations as well, through their taxes at gunpoint.
And the citizens who have neither children to kidnap nor money in banks still pay (at gunpoint) for the FBI. And the citizens who were Communists and would have loved for the Soviets to dominate the world had to pay for the Cold War (at gunpoint). And the citizens who think that the Bible should be the law of the land have to pay for our secular court system (at gunpoint). And if we didn't have an Army and a Judiciary, you would forfeit 100% of your goods to any neighboor who was quicker on the draw (oh, and uh yeah, at gunpoint).
People like you are the reason why open source is still second class.
OpenSource isn't second class, we have luxuries that the Windows users in steerage don't even know exist. We have a few 'requirements' that keep the riff-raff out (though in these more egalitarian times, OSS is becoming democratized and even grandmothers (apologies to Grace Hopper) know enough to use it).
The poor who watch TV can't afford HDTV. What they need, is low-cost entertainment, not high-end displays.
This is not about HDTV, this is about Digital vs Analog. The two technology changes are happening at about the same time, but they really are separate. Someone who cannot afford to replace their TV with a 'high-end display', can use a set-top box to decode digital signal. They don't need an HDTV. The driving force behind the digital change-over is bandwidth allocation, not picture quality.
If the government didn't mandate format and frequency standards, your TV stations would step all over each others' signal, and you would need to buy a new TV if you switched cable companies (just like you have to buy a new cell phone when you switch cell companies; just like you have to have a different cable-box for different cable companies, and your TiVo can't decode premium channels without a stupid IR-blaster (until we get the new FCC mandated CableCard equipment)).
The free market is not the answer to every question.
You're kidding right? What do you call all of that whitespace that we sprinkle around our code? Those are comments.
If a block of code is especially self-contained or tricky, then it is surrounded by two carriage-returns before the block and two carriage-returns after the block.
If some statements are part of a loop, then we gratuitously indent them. That's not for the compiler's benefit; those are comments.
Don't even get me started on our extreme generosity in supplying names (not just types!) in our function and method prototypes. What, you want us to draw you a map?
BTW, I would submit more Insightful comments in my code if only my peers with good karma had Mod Points at code review time.
I eat pork chops. I eat steak. I treat my wife with respect. I do all of these things in public. Why the hell should anyone cower before the commandments of a religion that is not their own? Don't assume that Christians are the majority on/.
It is very important for the world economy that these countries prosper.
It is also important for the world that there never be a significant number of American citizens who could be classified as 'desperately poor'. Our current crop of politicians may be owned by big business, but if we get a 40% unemployment rate, we will vote for any crackpot who promises us a return to the good old days of power and prosperity (like Hitler promised to the Germans (+5 Godwins Law reference)).
With our history of ill-considered military action, our poorly educated public, and our military might (nuclear and non-nuclear), our desperation would be a bad thing for the world.
Slashdot Mirror
If /. carried a story saying that Duke Nuk'em Forever had been released, somebody would bitch that it was a dupe.
I use CORBA all the time, and I can tell you that it is wonderful. You couldn't ask for a better balance between standard and custom code when it comes to distributed objects. The learning curve is much less than most neophytes fear. There is a book "CORBA for Dummies" that actually contains enough information to let you replace your other RPC mechanisms or proprietary sockets code with CORBA.
The OMG has created a tool that works amazingly well for just about every industry from embedded to mainframe (and before you deny embedded, I used to work on the RealTime version of Borland's VisiBroker for VxWorks, Lynx, and pSOS).
The add-on COS service specifications suffer a little bit from design-by-committee, but those committees ensured that the CORBA specification could serve all of the members' industries (quite a feat to cross all of those problem domains).
In a shootout of price and/or performance and/or ease-of-use (for developers with say 3 months specific experience), I would say that CORBA is at least the equal of RMI, .Net ObjectRemoting, Web Services, etc. And for cross-platform use, would you choose RMI (Java-only), .Net (even if Mono is good enough, you can't use Python, Perl, etc.), Web Services (works, but unless you have a full WSDL->stubs generator for your language and platform, you are looking at a lot more work).
Unless you intend to write your own word processor this weekend, why are you complaining about having to learn a 600-page spec?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification _Act_Amendments
I knew that R'ing the FA was passe on /., but to comment on a book and/or movie without reading and/or watching it?!? There was no draft; the only catch was that you could not become a citizen (with franchise) unless you had Served (which might end-up not being 'military' service, at the government's discretion).
Are you saying that 180% of everything original or innovative is crap? Or is this some new meaning of the word 'double', of which I am not aware?
I have also had good experiences with TigerDirect (4 orders for computers, including a *clearly marked* refurbished Compaq that arrived three days ago). Before you call me a shill, check my /. profile, and ask yourself how much time and effort TigerDirect would go through just to answer trolls on /.
I have bought four computers from TigerDirect, two in the last month. I have never had any complaint in my dealings with them. And only an idiot who can't spell: 'such', 'worse', and 'really' could complain about their prices.
Yeah, the city government in Chicago weren't corrupt. And the corruption at our federal level is nothing compared to many county and city governments in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,... The corruption in Florida was so bad that we passed a 'Sunshine Law' to prevent out-of-the-public-eye meetings of government decision makers. There is some question as to whether three city councilmen are allowed to have breakfast together.
Our national politicians are pandering to corporate interests, but most of this is above board, "We worship your ability to earn money, let us kiss your ass." rather than actual corruption (aka pay-for-performance). As long as campaign contribution caps are not being violated, is it right to call this 'corruption'?
IANARS Damn.
You missed the roadblock. I bought a phone, and used it for the duration of my contract (no complaints). Then, after my contract was up, and I owned the phone free and clear, I saw that Sprint had a good deal. I called Sprint to sign-up, and they told me that they would not activate the phone that I owned free and clear!
I had to go buy a phone from Sprint (or the Radio Shack 'Sprint Store'), or I couldn't use their service. I have no problem with a minimum commitment when they are offsetting the cost of a phone, it is the fact that I cannot buy a phone from a third-party and use it with any service provider.
OK, replace the filibuster with dueling. This will also obviate the need for term limits.
I am one of those weird liberals who like Walmart. If you are poor in America, Walmart is your best friend (ok, maybe unless you work for them?) If you think that Walmart should sell fewer Chinese products, then convince your Congress critters to set trade quotas. If you think that Walmart should pay its workers more, increase the minimum wage. If you think that Walmart should provide free health insurance to its workers, either mandate that all employers offer free health insurance, or create a Universal health insurance program. Why should Walmart not follow supply and demand in its business dealings? Why should Walmart be forced to sell more expensive (domestic) goods Target, or pay its employees more than Target? Walmart is a corporation that should strive to maximize shareholder value. The Government should create regulations to protect workers and citizens. I don't blame Walmart.
It is not our technology that is defective, it is our idea of the balance of rights between corporations and people (or as the carnival-folk used to call them: marks (suckers who only purpose in life was to cough-up money)).
This situation doesn't necessarily call for a government solution; the people could band together and form their own advocacy organization. This organziation could counter-balance the organized nature of the corporations. Such an organization should be formed of the people, by the people, and for the, hey wait a minute ...
The Internet was created by the Government, and the Government created and appointed the groups of which you speak (the Internet Control and Configuration Board (ICCB) became the Internet Activities Board (IAB) which spawned the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)which formed the IETF (see http://www.garykessler.net/library/ietf_hx.html)).
As for your other examples of buying different cell phones, I welcome the competition. This allows companies to come up with new and better products all the time.
You might welcome the competition; I want to use the cellphone that I paid $50 for, with whatever company I choose. Instead, these companies have deliberately created vendor lock-in to the detriment of the consumer. And the 'new and better products' angle is a red herring; they are free to create better cellphones, of which I will choose the want that fits my needs the best. The vendor lock-in does not help them make 'new and better products'. In fact, the lock-in hurts device innovation because when I choose a cell plan based on service and cost, I can only use a phone that is supported by that service provider. I can't choose to use that really great new Nokia with great 'new and better' features. Maximum fluidity (decoupling the device market from the service market) would allow both to reach their natural optimum state.
And the most disturbingly immoral part of it is, that ordinary citizens who might not care much for using cable cards are being forced to pay for the FCC's operations as well, through their taxes at gunpoint.
And the citizens who have neither children to kidnap nor money in banks still pay (at gunpoint) for the FBI. And the citizens who were Communists and would have loved for the Soviets to dominate the world had to pay for the Cold War (at gunpoint). And the citizens who think that the Bible should be the law of the land have to pay for our secular court system (at gunpoint). And if we didn't have an Army and a Judiciary, you would forfeit 100% of your goods to any neighboor who was quicker on the draw (oh, and uh yeah, at gunpoint).
OpenSource isn't second class, we have luxuries that the Windows users in steerage don't even know exist. We have a few 'requirements' that keep the riff-raff out (though in these more egalitarian times, OSS is becoming democratized and even grandmothers (apologies to Grace Hopper) know enough to use it).
You confuse 'unpopular' with 'second class'.
This is not about HDTV, this is about Digital vs Analog. The two technology changes are happening at about the same time, but they really are separate. Someone who cannot afford to replace their TV with a 'high-end display', can use a set-top box to decode digital signal. They don't need an HDTV. The driving force behind the digital change-over is bandwidth allocation, not picture quality.
The free market is not the answer to every question.
Yeah, I logged onto /. today thinking, "I'm going to type in a comment that cures cancer". A +5 Funny will have to do :-(
All My Children (a forking-good name)
As the Hello World Turns
One File to Give
General Protection
The <B> and the Beautiful
You're kidding right? What do you call all of that whitespace that we sprinkle around our code? Those are comments.
If a block of code is especially self-contained or tricky, then it is surrounded by two carriage-returns before the block and two carriage-returns after the block.
If some statements are part of a loop, then we gratuitously indent them. That's not for the compiler's benefit; those are comments.
Don't even get me started on our extreme generosity in supplying names (not just types!) in our function and method prototypes. What, you want us to draw you a map?
BTW, I would submit more Insightful comments in my code if only my peers with good karma had Mod Points at code review time.
I eat pork chops. I eat steak. I treat my wife with respect. I do all of these things in public. Why the hell should anyone cower before the commandments of a religion that is not their own? Don't assume that Christians are the majority on /.
My vi session = 1.8MB! Only old South Koreans use Emacs.
It is also important for the world that there never be a significant number of American citizens who could be classified as 'desperately poor'. Our current crop of politicians may be owned by big business, but if we get a 40% unemployment rate, we will vote for any crackpot who promises us a return to the good old days of power and prosperity (like Hitler promised to the Germans (+5 Godwins Law reference)).
With our history of ill-considered military action, our poorly educated public, and our military might (nuclear and non-nuclear), our desperation would be a bad thing for the world.
Unless they are Imperial minutes (143.7 seconds) or metric minutes (200 seconds).
You are probably referring to the perennial "Why Windows?" campaign.