Linux needs to play to it's strength's, namely the fact that it uses mature development platforms for software, which leads to faster more secure applications.
Empirical evidence has shown, time and time again, that low level languages like C and Forth produce more efficient, faster, and easier to maintain code than today's so called high level languages. Why is this important? Because they (the IT world, who simply wants to sell you a new compiler every year for $2,000) try to push stuff like encapsulation and polymorphism down your throat as the saving grace and you simply accept it as fact because you don't know any better. If you're not bit shifting hot registers at runtime then you're not programming. Plain and simple. You're just plugging different blocks together and hoping like hell it will work. How would you feel if they designed bridges like that? I wouldn't feel too secure driving across a bridge that was designed like today's non open source software programs are.
Unless you see a speed increase of Olog(n) then you are simply wasting resources by using a high level language. The reason for this is simple, the amount of time spent in coding is finite, yet, oddly enough, CPU time isn't. Thusly unless you can improve an algorithm along that order then your time was wasted. This is simple first year college stuff here, hardly rocket science.
As Frankie L Brooks mentions in the seminal book The Mythical Man Month, cultural differences should be shunned, as they do not improve productivity, they only give one the impression that they do.
College prof's pimp the new stuff because that's how they keep their jobs. I've been a member of the IACP panel for the past 8 years and you should see how professor's eyes will glaze over when you start to question them in a scientific manner. They don't get that kind of stuff from their snot nosed freshman students, you can be sure. Demand some evidence from your profs when they throw this stuff at you, tell them you want to see some 3d pie charts and graphs to backup their claims.
Indeed, Linux/Open Source scores a vicoty by an order of magnitude over other platforms in this regard.
What the hell is happening to the PC industry? It used to be all about making better faster machines with more features and now the trend is to make smaller machines with less features????? Hardly makes any sense to me.
A computer is a tool, not a toy, when did we see a shift from functionality to marketing spin?
Actually though, this may be a good thing for my business as I'll continue to purchase full featured tools from Dell, and I'll continue to thirve, while others buy cool little toys that cost more and do less.
As with any Linux book, is that by the time the book hits the streets it's already outdated. Quite frankly I've got a bookshelf filled with books on old technology, stuff like Linux 9.0, Apache 1.0, Perl, etc etc. I'll bet I've got a grand tied up into all that, which is worthless now.
That said, I'm in the process of putting together a team of consultants that will download the actual source code and perform corporate trainings based upon that. You can check it out of the latest CVS and download it to a DVD and be doing powerpoint demos to prospective clients in a conference room a half hour later. I think it's the wave of the future and really the only way to leverage open source technolgies.
Linux needs to play to it's strength's, namely the fact that it uses mature development platforms for software, which leads to faster more secure applications.
Empirical evidence has shown, time and time again, that low level languages like C and Forth produce more efficient, faster, and easier to maintain code than today's so called high level languages. Why is this important? Because they (the IT world, who simply wants to sell you a new compiler every year for $2,000) try to push stuff like encapsulation and polymorphism down your throat as the saving grace and you simply accept it as fact because you don't know any better. If you're not bit shifting hot registers at runtime then you're not programming. Plain and simple. You're just plugging different blocks together and hoping like hell it will work. How would you feel if they designed bridges like that? I wouldn't feel too secure driving across a bridge that was designed like today's non open source software programs are.
Unless you see a speed increase of Olog(n) then you are simply wasting resources by using a high level language. The reason for this is simple, the amount of time spent in coding is finite, yet, oddly enough, CPU time isn't. Thusly unless you can improve an algorithm along that order then your time was wasted. This is simple first year college stuff here, hardly rocket science.
As Frankie L Brooks mentions in the seminal book The Mythical Man Month, cultural differences should be shunned, as they do not improve productivity, they only give one the impression that they do.
College prof's pimp the new stuff because that's how they keep their jobs. I've been a member of the IACP panel for the past 8 years and you should see how professor's eyes will glaze over when you start to question them in a scientific manner. They don't get that kind of stuff from their snot nosed freshman students, you can be sure. Demand some evidence from your profs when they throw this stuff at you, tell them you want to see some 3d pie charts and graphs to backup their claims.
Indeed, Linux/Open Source scores a vicoty by an order of magnitude over other platforms in this regard.
What the hell is happening to the PC industry? It used to be all about making better faster machines with more features and now the trend is to make smaller machines with less features????? Hardly makes any sense to me.
A computer is a tool, not a toy, when did we see a shift from functionality to marketing spin?
Actually though, this may be a good thing for my business as I'll continue to purchase full featured tools from Dell, and I'll continue to thirve, while others buy cool little toys that cost more and do less.
Man, the world is a whacky place these days.
As with any Linux book, is that by the time the book hits the streets it's already outdated. Quite frankly I've got a bookshelf filled with books on old technology, stuff like Linux 9.0, Apache 1.0, Perl, etc etc. I'll bet I've got a grand tied up into all that, which is worthless now.
That said, I'm in the process of putting together a team of consultants that will download the actual source code and perform corporate trainings based upon that. You can check it out of the latest CVS and download it to a DVD and be doing powerpoint demos to prospective clients in a conference room a half hour later. I think it's the wave of the future and really the only way to leverage open source technolgies.