Re:I'm not too familiar with compression but..
on
David Huffman is Dead
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I was thinking that you'd reuse the codes you've already made for the bytes for the runlengths - it would prove easier and i don't think it be much less efficient. Is that what you were thinking - or does the second tree do something else? Like you say, this run length thing would put an additional entry on the tree...most probably somewhere near the top(?)...but i guess the savings from RLE would negate the loss:)
Dynamic Huffman would actually be good for large files since you wouldn't have to parse the whole file first:) I guess it's implemented like a priority heap. Dynamic Runlength Huffman does actually sound pretty cool:) - I might actually try to write something in Java to play around with the idea - I've never written a compression routine before - will be fun;).
I know a bit about Huffman encoding. Is it appropriate (or has this been done) to combine Huffman and run length encoding? Like reserve a huffman symbol for specifying that "the next symbol" will repeat for a specified amount of time. You'd prolly reuse all the symbols that you've already generated for all 256 bytes to specify the length of the "run". So if you encounter the RLE symbol (say "11") you'd know the next symbol after that specifies run length, and the one after that is the symbol that is running that length. It would be pretty efficient especially if the document didn't have too many characters that repeated over 256 times. Maybe a header to specify how many symbols represent a length for files that repeat too much (might be overkill).. Am I stating the obvious? Cause I really think it would be pretty cool:)
Huffman encoding is darn elegant.
Re:IE hasn't won. Try Mozilla before you judge.
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Whither Netscape 5.0?
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3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I have tried the browser, and althought IE5 is my favorite browser of all time - i use it occasionaly (as well as hotjava). I can tell you now - it's not technically superior...but then you did say "will be"..yes many things "will be XXX" - but unless Netscape/AOL get some microsoft level programmers - it won't be. Mozilla still takes longer than IE to both render and start up. "Preloading" of DLLs etc excuses are crap since IE starts in a new process and still is fast - and it's not like Mozilla couldn't use these programming tricks to speed up overall speed. At the moment IE5 is more standards compliant than Netscape - I can't mention this WRT to mozilla cause i don't know it's internals - but for the moment, i'll stick with something that's fast and RESPONSIVE.
Exactly, if ou have some anti-microsoft tendencies and would prefer not to use a VERY GOOD browser made by microsoft - why support netscape and their shoddy software? There are other alternatives out there - yes even for windows. Most alternative linux browsers will (or are) port nicely over to windows as well.
You don't pay attention either. He's saying Mozilla isn't a quantum leap - cause those "quantum leap" warranting features should have been part of netscape from the start. Speed, Bloatyness etc.
You don't have to have flashy graphics. Having iconic representations and graphics for drawing and tiling windows and seperating information is useful. As far as I see it, GUIs have those added advantages in addition to text type advantages like keyboard shortcuts instead of icons etc.
Some people are so ignorant. If you have IE as your windows shell, it crashing will crash explorer (task bar etc) - That is not the whole computer. That is the windows shell and it'll restart. Why don't you just setup IE to open up browser windows in a new Process? It's called "Browse in new process" under IE's options dialog.
YEESH. I hope you enjoy netscape's crashes and unusability when you're not at work.
Re:Download the thing, use it, and then b***h...
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Whither Netscape 5.0?
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Does it have XML support like IE in the sense that you can programtically go thru the data. Or does it just not blow up like communicator when it sees XML (or HTML, CSS for that matter).
IE4 gave you the chose whether or not to install the shell upgrades. IE5 doesn't even let you do that (IE - it WON'T take over your desktop). I don't see the problem anyway - it's just like your windows explorer - gee big deal. IE for solaris is mostly the same source as IE for windows, it was ported using one of those windows -> unix tools. And no, it won't take over your desktop - if it's not like you can't run another window manager.
Re:By the same account Microsoft has lost the OS w
on
Whither Netscape 5.0?
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Because microsoft hasn't lost the browser war. There isn't competition that's already got windows 2000 technology out to the masses like IE has over netscape.
Explain to me how graphical prettyness hides content? I could open up 4 xterms and display more informaiton that you can with just a dumb text terminal. Perhaps you would prefer to read off flashing LEDs? FLT. Flashing Led Terminal.
You need a 2 people & a program. Person A does the question asking to the computer program and Person B. It's person A's responsibility to guess which ones if the machine and which is the human. The computer program wins only if person A recognises it as being human over the real human.
Unix/Linux machines often give you core dumps -- memory images of the program when it crashes -- which you can then use a debugger on to find the point in the code where it crashed. While this doesn't matter to the developer who is generally running the program under live debugging (MSVC isn't perfect, but it's not bad either), it does mean that it's harder to track down problems discovered by alpha testers (people in the same building.)
Visual Studio if installed will prompt you when there's a crash giving you the option of debugging. Otherwiese you could try doctor watson - not that it helps that much.
First off, there are a whole bunch that don't run at all. Second off, we've had to write workarounds for things that work in NT, not 98. Mercifully, I personally haven't had to deal with them much (other than the above crash), but I hear plenty of kvetching from my coworkers...
Well there are features only available in NT, and not 95, 98 however supports a bit more (like transparencies). More APIs get added as new OS releases come out.
Sorry, I just don't have the time to respond more, but DDE and OLE are totally different (DDE is text-based, OLE is like published C++ classes), and you still need DDE to do thing like change the start bar; installing an app shouldn't change the OS (and break other programs) at all, no matter what the app; and the Linux guys have issued 2.0.x revisions even after 2.2/2.3 started.
Yes, DDE is text based. OLE & COM just define interfaces - and are language and platform independant. It shouldn't be much of a hassle to write a COM wrapper for the start bar. Adding new bands (like quicklaunch) to the start bar only requires writing a COM object. As you see, nmew features come along, and they use the latest technology microsoft has developed. Old things that still use DDE can either be wrapped with COM or stay as DDE cause MS don't deem it important. DDE is pretty simple tho.
Come on now. The windows update was only designed for Win98 and above computers. Win95 machines shouldn't be updating from windows update but rather from microsoft support channels. You don't want IE5 or activeX controls on your computer due to security holes? Obviously you've enver used Netscape. And windows wouldn't work without any activex controls. And yes, if need be, MS should "Write _another_ HTML/XML engine"
I'm sorry, but that's themost idiotic thing I've heard this week. If they wrote another HTMl engine it would have to be as large as IE5 (which isn't really that large considering it comes with key OS features like ADO etc). IE5 isn't as big as netscape when you take into account the cd and distributions normally come with updated windows libraries. Before you complain about this - it's cause IE5 like most microsoft software - makes heavy use of COM, DLLs etc. That's the reason why they seem large - but realistically, don't take _that_ much space since they share a lot of files and services. Again, suggesting microsoft write another HTML engine for the sake of it is stupid. Windows update is a feature specifically for Win98 and Windows 2000. These operating systems come with IE4/5. I see no advantage of having it IE only for microsoft. it's not like microsoft (unlike netscape/aol) are trying to tie you to CONTENT. Unless you think all the advertising on Windows Update is bad - wait - there is no advertising. Microsoft could have just written some proprietry update software to update windows and you would probably have been fine with that. It's only that they decided to make it web based with features they have researched and developed for IE that you don't like it. I'm so sick and tired of hearing "oh, microsoft is trying to push netscape....blah blah blah".
Here's some facts.
1) IE supports more standards than Netscape. 2) IE has some MS developed features - specifically for LANs and Windows features (like Windows Update). Stuff like res:// urls etc (which Mozilla has now copied). 3) The advantage of having a web browser monopoly is to manipulate content. IE has not done this - infact with IEAK and the likes, companies can customize IE (interface included) however they like. 4) IE being componentized just makes sense. And being componentized - what's wrong with embedding IE into applications so that you have universal HTML support (look at the direction KDE is taking...look familiar?). 5) Conceivably, Netscape could make a shell replacement for windows based on navigator or mozilla. Hell, you could make netscape 4.7 your shell.
Take a look at some examples of the advantages of componentization, winamp has it's own webbrowser - what does it use? IE ofcourse. How? ActiveX, that's how. Component reuse by many vendors. Brilliant stuff - why shouldn't microsoft do the same? You DON'T HAVE TO USE IE. But it's required for windows help. Just transparently use IE for windows help (it's small and fast) and if you must use Netscape for your webbrowsing. I mean, if you don't like Windows Common Controls, you can't delete them cause they're vital to making windows work - but you can still use GTK+ for windows.
You could always buy two small ones and RAID them with software. W2K does software RAIDing and I'm sure there's some project out there for Linux etc. I like thee breakthroughs cause they normally mean prices will come down - and more space is _always_ good.
And why is the update tied in to IE5? So MS can further leverage their OS advantage and push Netscape further out of the picture. Update with IE5 and activeX - uh - no thanks.
The same reason why HTML help is tied to IE5, because these features require features which only IE5 supports. DHTML & XML are key features which Netscape does not support properly (or not at all). ActiveX is required because Java isn't enough to do the kind of thing the update sites require (security is another issue). Why should microsoft go and write netscape plugins? They already have a product that will do it. Same reason why Office 2000 requires IE5. Microsoft wants office to be able to handle HTML, XML etc. What should they do? Write _another_ HTML/XML engine - *OR* use their existing componentised engine called IE5? It's intelligence - but I can see why you think it's "leveraging" and "pushing" - I just don't agree with that stand point.
That comment is revealing in itself. Most people use 95/98, not NT. So why did you limit it so particularly? (And I see you've done it again in *another* posting on this thread.) I personally have to reboot 98 at least once every evening I use it, for some mysterious leak (that has survived the 95->98 upgrade, changes in devices, etc.)
Almost all serious windows developers use Windows NT. This is a developmental issue is it not? Windows 9x is unstable mostly due to it not protecting some vital areas of memory - i won't make excuses for it, I don't like it so I run NT.
1) NT vs. 95/98, where the two have similar but not bug-for-bug identical APIs
Well, if they're moving ahead to a new platform - why not? I mean, what Win9x application have you run on NT that goes all funny? Baring kernel level applications.
2) DDE vs. OLE vs. DLLs vs. MCI vs. COM vs... 10,000 different ways to share data and code rather than getting it right the first time.
10000? You've only mentioned 3, MCI is the multimedia command interface, and I won't even mention DLL, it's really irrelevant especially since Unix has.so. And since when was choice such a bad thing? I can add a few more to that list (tho very basic ways that unix programmers would use) like pipes, mailslots, sockets, shared memory & memory mapped files. And what you do mention are simply evolved forms of the previous technology. DDE->OLE->OLE2->COM->COM+. Just evolution. Even now you can still use DDE if it's simple. But I have yet to see someone lose sleep over choosing which technology. New software almost always uses COM. 3) Changing the OS with their own apps, like the IE 4.0 thing mentioned above.
What should microsoft do? Change the OS with Netscape's apps? Maybe microsoft should remove notepad, wordpad, pinball, all the utils like runas.exe, ipconfig.exe etc? But then if they did you guys would just complain windows had no utils that NOSs need.
4) Once they move onto the new feature set (such as 98 vs. 95) they'll never touch the 95 code to fix bugs again
Even if they did that.. so? They want to concentrate on new software. How many people work on the 1.x kernel? And that's the open source community. Think of companies. How often does Sun release new updates to Java 1.x? We all are forced to use 1.2. There's nothing wrong with that IMHO. Microsoft have been releasing updates to Win95 as major bugs are found...servies in win95 like DirectX, ADO, etc are updated regularly. Win95 is made up of several components which are updated regularly.
Regarding your Trollish nature, check back on your posts. "Show me the bugs" "I can't find any bugs" "WinNT is super-stable" "Microsoft rules" -- nahhhhhhhhhh, you're no troll.
I never said "WinNT is super-stable" or "Microsoft rules". But i bet you've said "Linux is super-stable" "Open Source rules".
Where's the difference except in opnions? Or don't personal opinions count anymore? Mr engineer.
Windows 2000/NT is heavily COM based now. Standard services are starting to have COM wrappers. DirectX was written using COM from the ground up. COM strictly speaking is for defining interfaces - which is a wonderful way to write programs (especially large sophisticated ones). isolated each component of your project and write and debug them seperately.
They're just examples. If you just try to wrap your little mind around it. I was thinking more of homer's toaster fixing episode where he made a time machine out of the toaster.
certainly some engineers might want to add stuff to their toaster. either way - the point is made unless you're really really stupid. If you really must, replace toaster with Linux, Solaris or NT. If you are a programmer and your application crashes, 99.9% of the time it's your fault.
You are a troll, and not a very good one at that.
ROFL, whatever *bows down and worships the unix king.*
I have seen with my own eyes the following two scenarios:
1. Turn on PC. MS Windows 95 boots. Run MS Word. Type for a while. Crash for no apparent reason.
2. Turn on PC. MS Windows 95 boots. Wait. "Curves and Colors" screensaver kicks in. Crash.
There are more variables to that than just windows. hardware for example. I've NEVER had word crash on me at all...ever. then again, i don't use it that often, only for writing stuff. people at work use word, and they haven't reported any problems to me.
MSDN is free for online use. If you want the CDs shipped you have to pay. You can access the entire MSDN database from msdn.microsfot.com
MSJ is a magazine - hence not free. some articles are online however, as are all the source code and examples.
Slashdot Mirror
I was thinking that you'd reuse the codes you've already made for the bytes for the runlengths - it would prove easier and i don't think it be much less efficient. ...most probably somewhere near the top(?)...but i guess the savings from RLE would negate the loss :)
:) I guess it's implemented like a priority heap. Dynamic Runlength Huffman does actually sound pretty cool :) - I might actually try to write something in Java to play around with the idea - I've never written a compression routine before - will be fun ;).
Is that what you were thinking - or does the second tree do something else?
Like you say, this run length thing would put an additional entry on the tree
Dynamic Huffman would actually be good for large files since you wouldn't have to parse the whole file first
I know a bit about Huffman encoding. :)
Is it appropriate (or has this been done) to combine Huffman and run length encoding?
Like reserve a huffman symbol for specifying that "the next symbol" will repeat for a specified amount of time. You'd prolly reuse all the symbols that you've already generated for all 256 bytes to specify the length of the "run".
So if you encounter the RLE symbol (say "11") you'd know the next symbol after that specifies run length, and the one after that is the symbol that is running that length. It would be pretty efficient especially if the document didn't have too many characters that repeated over 256 times. Maybe a header to specify how many symbols represent a length for files that repeat too much (might be overkill)..
Am I stating the obvious? Cause I really think it would be pretty cool
Huffman encoding is darn elegant.
3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I have tried the browser, and althought IE5 is my favorite browser of all time - i use it occasionaly (as well as hotjava).
I can tell you now - it's not technically superior
Mozilla still takes longer than IE to both render and start up. "Preloading" of DLLs etc excuses are crap since IE starts in a new process and still is fast - and it's not like Mozilla couldn't use these programming tricks to speed up overall speed.
At the moment IE5 is more standards compliant than Netscape - I can't mention this WRT to mozilla cause i don't know it's internals - but for the moment, i'll stick with something that's fast and RESPONSIVE.
Exactly, if ou have some anti-microsoft tendencies and would prefer not to use a VERY GOOD browser made by microsoft - why support netscape and their shoddy software? There are other alternatives out there - yes even for windows.
Most alternative linux browsers will (or are) port nicely over to windows as well.
You don't pay attention either. He's saying Mozilla isn't a quantum leap - cause those "quantum leap" warranting features should have been part of netscape from the start.
Speed, Bloatyness etc.
You don't have to have flashy graphics.
Having iconic representations and graphics for drawing and tiling windows and seperating information is useful. As far as I see it, GUIs have those added advantages in addition to text type advantages like keyboard shortcuts instead of icons etc.
Some people are so ignorant. If you have IE as your windows shell, it crashing will crash explorer (task bar etc) - That is not the whole computer. That is the windows shell and it'll restart. Why don't you just setup IE to open up browser windows in a new Process? It's called "Browse in new process" under IE's options dialog.
YEESH. I hope you enjoy netscape's crashes and unusability when you're not at work.
Does it have XML support like IE in the sense that you can programtically go thru the data. Or does it just not blow up like communicator when it sees XML (or HTML, CSS for that matter).
IE4 gave you the chose whether or not to install the shell upgrades. IE5 doesn't even let you do that (IE - it WON'T take over your desktop). I don't see the problem anyway - it's just like your windows explorer - gee big deal.
IE for solaris is mostly the same source as IE for windows, it was ported using one of those windows -> unix tools.
And no, it won't take over your desktop - if it's not like you can't run another window manager.
Because microsoft hasn't lost the browser war. There isn't competition that's already got windows 2000 technology out to the masses like IE has over netscape.
Explain to me how graphical prettyness hides content?
I could open up 4 xterms and display more informaiton that you can with just a dumb text terminal.
Perhaps you would prefer to read off flashing LEDs?
FLT. Flashing Led Terminal.
his name "Linux" he'd be richer than Bill Gates.
You need a 2 people & a program.
Person A does the question asking to the computer program and Person B. It's person A's responsibility to guess which ones if the machine and which is the human. The computer program wins only if person A recognises it as being human over the real human.
Unix/Linux machines often give you core dumps -- memory images of the program when it crashes -- which you can then use a debugger on to find the point in the code where it crashed. While this doesn't matter to the developer who is generally running the program under live debugging (MSVC isn't perfect, but it's not bad either), it does mean that it's harder to track down problems discovered by alpha testers (people in the same building.)
Visual Studio if installed will prompt you when there's a crash giving you the option of debugging. Otherwiese you could try doctor watson - not that it helps that much.
First off, there are a whole bunch that don't run at all. Second off, we've had to write workarounds for things that work in NT, not 98. Mercifully, I personally haven't had to deal with them much (other than the above crash), but I hear plenty of kvetching from my coworkers...
Well there are features only available in NT, and not 95, 98 however supports a bit more (like transparencies). More APIs get added as new OS releases come out.
Sorry, I just don't have the time to respond more, but DDE and OLE are totally different (DDE is text-based, OLE is like published C++ classes), and you still need DDE to do thing like change the start bar; installing an app shouldn't change the OS (and break other programs) at all, no matter what the app; and the Linux guys have issued 2.0.x revisions even after 2.2/2.3 started.
Yes, DDE is text based. OLE & COM just define interfaces - and are language and platform independant. It shouldn't be much of a hassle to write a COM wrapper for the start bar.
Adding new bands (like quicklaunch) to the start bar only requires writing a COM object. As you see, nmew features come along, and they use the latest technology microsoft has developed. Old things that still use DDE can either be wrapped with COM or stay as DDE cause MS don't deem it important. DDE is pretty simple tho.
NT does have DirectX, and it runs Quake just fine.
Uh, no it's cause they want legacy support.
Windows 2000 runs find with DirectX 7 thank you very much. All my games work.
Come on now. The windows update was only designed for Win98 and above computers. Win95 machines shouldn't be updating from windows update but rather from microsoft support channels.
You don't want IE5 or activeX controls on your computer due to security holes? Obviously you've enver used Netscape. And windows wouldn't work without any activex controls.
And yes, if need be, MS should "Write _another_ HTML/XML engine"
I'm sorry, but that's themost idiotic thing I've heard this week. If they wrote another HTMl engine it would have to be as large as IE5 (which isn't really that large considering it comes with key OS features like ADO etc).
IE5 isn't as big as netscape when you take into account the cd and distributions normally come with updated windows libraries. Before you complain about this - it's cause IE5 like most microsoft software - makes heavy use of COM, DLLs etc. That's the reason why they seem large - but realistically, don't take _that_ much space since they share a lot of files and services.
Again, suggesting microsoft write another HTML engine for the sake of it is stupid.
Windows update is a feature specifically for Win98 and Windows 2000. These operating systems come with IE4/5. I see no advantage of having it IE only for microsoft. it's not like microsoft (unlike netscape/aol) are trying to tie you to CONTENT. Unless you think all the advertising on Windows Update is bad - wait - there is no advertising.
Microsoft could have just written some proprietry update software to update windows and you would probably have been fine with that. It's only that they decided to make it web based with features they have researched and developed for IE that you don't like it.
I'm so sick and tired of hearing "oh, microsoft is trying to push netscape....blah blah blah".
Here's some facts.
1) IE supports more standards than Netscape.
2) IE has some MS developed features - specifically for LANs and Windows features (like Windows Update). Stuff like res:// urls etc (which Mozilla has now copied).
3) The advantage of having a web browser monopoly is to manipulate content. IE has not done this - infact with IEAK and the likes, companies can customize IE (interface included) however they like.
4) IE being componentized just makes sense. And being componentized - what's wrong with embedding IE into applications so that you have universal HTML support (look at the direction KDE is taking...look familiar?).
5) Conceivably, Netscape could make a shell replacement for windows based on navigator or mozilla. Hell, you could make netscape 4.7 your shell.
Take a look at some examples of the advantages of componentization, winamp has it's own webbrowser - what does it use? IE ofcourse. How? ActiveX, that's how. Component reuse by many vendors. Brilliant stuff - why shouldn't microsoft do the same? You DON'T HAVE TO USE IE. But it's required for windows help. Just transparently use IE for windows help (it's small and fast) and if you must use Netscape for your webbrowsing. I mean, if you don't like Windows Common Controls, you can't delete them cause they're vital to making windows work - but you can still use GTK+ for windows.
You could always buy two small ones and RAID them with software. W2K does software RAIDing and I'm sure there's some project out there for Linux etc.
I like thee breakthroughs cause they normally mean prices will come down - and more space is _always_ good.
And why is the update tied in to IE5? So MS can further leverage their OS advantage and push Netscape further out of the picture. Update with IE5 and activeX - uh - no thanks.
The same reason why HTML help is tied to IE5, because these features require features which only IE5 supports. DHTML & XML are key features which Netscape does not support properly (or not at all). ActiveX is required because Java isn't enough to do the kind of thing the update sites require (security is another issue). Why should microsoft go and write netscape plugins? They already have a product that will do it.
Same reason why Office 2000 requires IE5. Microsoft wants office to be able to handle HTML, XML etc. What should they do? Write _another_ HTML/XML engine - *OR* use their existing componentised engine called IE5?
It's intelligence - but I can see why you think it's "leveraging" and "pushing" - I just don't agree with that stand point.
That 133Mbps has to be shared amongst all your PCI cards tho :/
That comment is revealing in itself. Most people use 95/98, not NT. So why did you limit it so particularly? (And I see you've done it again in *another* posting on this thread.) I personally have to reboot 98 at least once every evening I use it, for some mysterious leak (that has survived the 95->98 upgrade, changes in devices, etc.)
Almost all serious windows developers use Windows NT. This is a developmental issue is it not? Windows 9x is unstable mostly due to it not protecting some vital areas of memory - i won't make excuses for it, I don't like it so I run NT.
1) NT vs. 95/98, where the two have similar but not bug-for-bug identical APIs
Well, if they're moving ahead to a new platform - why not? I mean, what Win9x application have you run on NT that goes all funny? Baring kernel level applications.
2) DDE vs. OLE vs. DLLs vs. MCI vs. COM vs... 10,000 different ways to share data and code rather than getting it right the first time.
10000? You've only mentioned 3, MCI is the multimedia command interface, and I won't even mention DLL, it's really irrelevant especially since Unix has
And what you do mention are simply evolved forms of the previous technology.
DDE->OLE->OLE2->COM->COM+.
Just evolution. Even now you can still use DDE if it's simple. But I have yet to see someone lose sleep over choosing which technology. New software almost always uses COM.
3) Changing the OS with their own apps, like the IE 4.0 thing mentioned above.
What should microsoft do? Change the OS with Netscape's apps? Maybe microsoft should remove notepad, wordpad, pinball, all the utils like runas.exe, ipconfig.exe etc? But then if they did you guys would just complain windows had no utils that NOSs need.
4) Once they move onto the new feature set (such as 98 vs. 95) they'll never touch the 95 code to fix bugs again
Even if they did that.. so? They want to concentrate on new software. How many people work on the 1.x kernel? And that's the open source community. Think of companies. How often does Sun release new updates to Java 1.x? We all are forced to use 1.2. There's nothing wrong with that IMHO. Microsoft have been releasing updates to Win95 as major bugs are found...servies in win95 like DirectX, ADO, etc are updated regularly. Win95 is made up of several components which are updated regularly.
Regarding your Trollish nature, check back on your posts. "Show me the bugs" "I can't find any bugs" "WinNT is super-stable" "Microsoft rules" -- nahhhhhhhhhh, you're no troll.
I never said "WinNT is super-stable" or "Microsoft rules".
But i bet you've said "Linux is super-stable" "Open Source rules".
Where's the difference except in opnions? Or don't personal opinions count anymore? Mr engineer.
Windows 2000/NT is heavily COM based now. Standard services are starting to have COM wrappers. DirectX was written using COM from the ground up.
COM strictly speaking is for defining interfaces - which is a wonderful way to write programs (especially large sophisticated ones).
isolated each component of your project and write and debug them seperately.
They're just examples. If you just try to wrap your little mind around it.
I was thinking more of homer's toaster fixing episode where he made a time machine out of the toaster.
certainly some engineers might want to add stuff to their toaster.
either way - the point is made unless you're really really stupid. If you really must, replace toaster with Linux, Solaris or NT.
If you are a programmer and your application crashes, 99.9% of the time it's your fault.
You are a troll, and not a very good one at that.
ROFL, whatever *bows down and worships the unix king.*
I have seen with my own eyes the following two scenarios:
1. Turn on PC. MS Windows 95 boots. Run MS Word. Type for a while. Crash for no apparent reason.
2. Turn on PC. MS Windows 95 boots. Wait. "Curves and Colors" screensaver kicks in. Crash.
There are more variables to that than just windows. hardware for example. I've NEVER had word crash on me at all...ever. then again, i don't use it that often, only for writing stuff. people at work use word, and they haven't reported any problems to me.
MSDN is free for online use. If you want the CDs shipped you have to pay. You can access the entire MSDN database from msdn.microsfot.com
MSJ is a magazine - hence not free. some articles are online however, as are all the source code and examples.