As my good deed for the day, I'm going to even try to spread enlightenment one AC at a time:
Someone who's programming as a hobby probably wants to run their creations on their ordinary home PC - which is generally a windows machine.
Linux can compile for Windows as easily as it compiles for Linux - have you not heard of Wine, the Windows Emulator? The assumption that Windows is the default machine isn't the point. The point is, they need to change that.
And having 20 languages, compilers and interpretters probably woudn't make things easier for them either, just confuse them.
No, it won't confuse anybody at all. Sorry to hear you have such an insultingly small opinion of your own mind, but in fact people, when given choices, like the freedom to be able to shop around and pick what they want. Are you too confused by the proliferation of grocery stores to go shopping for food? Are you too confused by the menu at the restaurant to know how to order? How do you eat?
Not to mention they probably want to be able to create simple GUIs, which is much easier in VB.
You obviously haven't tried Glade, GTK, or Tcl/tk.
Why do so many people here always have to push Linux everywhere and for everything? Why push Linux if it's not the right tool for the right job? If someone asked me what would be a good way to learn basic programming as a hobby, and they had a windows PC already (like most people do), I would rather suggest downloading something like these vb express editions than telling them install Linux (and recompile their kernel just to get sound card going, hack Xconfig file to get their video card going, and/or work through horible dependancies to install anything), and have them trying to write some C command line program.
Hope your check from Microsoft was worth your time! In fact, just about every word of this paragraph is a false assumption.
The parent post has been moderated as -1, Didn't Read Summary.
*Hangs head in imaginary shame.* Although to me, creating a new entry and changing an existing one both fall under the category of "editing". In general, part of the freedom is restricted.
was instant freedom to edit at will? In any case, I hope to fan the flame of stories like these in the hopes that certain Slashdotters will quit citing some nonsense they read in Wiki as Gospel Truth which disproves my facts from the Webster's dictionary, Encyclopedia Brittanica, US & World Report, two published books specific to the topic, and a live interview with somebody who was there.
But I am going to have to go through an entire 3 months of this.
There's no such thing as bad learning. And *three* *months*? If you are any good at programming at all, you will Never. Stop. Learning. Three months is a break. I sometimes find a stopping point in my other projects and curl up with a new language for a week, even one I have no intention of using. Just to stay on top of things! I at least set the goal of knowing how to get around in the basics of the language (input/output, conditionals and loops, data types, file read/write, comments, and investigate graphics capabilities) before I come back from it. When I do so, I never fail to gain insight, if only about why everyone says language foo sucks.
Re:Bash build a program now in 10 easy seconds
on
Build a Program Now
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· Score: 1
expecting a nube to use vi without telling them to use ESC to exit insert mode is just cruel.:)
but that's how *I* learned...took about 30 minutes the first time....I think towards the end I was typing stuff like "Please, let me out?"; ah, the memories...
Re:Good job kids. Way to be elitist.
on
Build a Program Now
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· Score: 2, Interesting
What's wrong with coding as a hobby and using these tools ?
The fact that your "hobby" attatches more strings to your life than other people's "jobs"? Until you've made the *jump* from MS to an Open Source platform, you have no idea. You're like somebody who's lived in a little box all their lives and doesn't believe in the sky. Once you can look far back on your MS days, you'll wonder if there's that much difference between "programming" in Visual Basic and huffing glue. Sure, it's a hobby, and you're hurting no one but yourself...
You get a major Linux distro, and you have not one or five or ten but something on the order of twenty programming languages and the compilers and interpretters and tools appertaining thereto, available to you immediately - FULL STRENGTH! - ready to WRITE Microsoft Windows out of the box - not crippled until you buy the super-duper-pooper-deluxe enterprise "professional" edition - all for free, nothing to buy at all, and very little to download (the odd library or development package, also free). Now *that's* a good start to a hobby.
Huh? It is almost exactly the same as C#, but with different syntax. I don't get what's so hard about printing, either. Create a PrintDocument class, add graphics elements to its Graphics(GDI+) class. What's a PITA about that?
What can *anybody* say to that? "I feel sorry for you."
Back in the 80's, my first language was basic on an Apple II+. What happened to a computer language that is intuitive and very easy, that anybody can learn?
*Try* *out* a different operating system, nearly any one at all. Microsoft is not even at the bottom of the barrel in programming, it *can't* *find* the barrel. As for "easy as Apple 2 Basic:" Python (from somebody who has worked in both). Easier, even, for the effort you expend you discover you can make some very real applications. Mind you, I do not regard Python as a superior language in all regards, but it's easy all the way.
As I've argued before, there are *OTHER* merits to a programming language besides how easy it is to learn. If that was all that mattered, we'd still be using Apple 2 Basic. But you never got a window manager or a first-person shooter off in BASIC, did you?
"Hello World" in 2600 lines and only coming in under 8 MBs with only five security holes to patch. At least they're using Visual Basic for something besides virii, now.
Seriously, I've tried programming in a Microsoft environment. Make any other claim about Microsoft vs Linux that you will. Programming on an MS platform is a joke compared to Linux, and always will be. But if Visual Basic is all you enjoy, more power to you. Keep what you've got and be happy with it!
Human stupidity. DON'T TELL THEM that you're building this scientific thing with lots of scary big words in it. Tell them it's a shed for your gardening tools. Hell, it's Canada, tell them you're growing pot.
Even when a young lad, I heeded it well: "An ounce of keeping your mouth shut beats a ton of explanation." That's saved my ass - in every imaginable context.
Free newspapers have been around since the birth of the republic.
As a longtime reader of local alternative rags, I can assure you that they are supported by advertizers - and do have ads on every page. Much in the same way local network television is supported by commercials.
You're right that, in general, many forms of free expression are currently still allowed. But I'm saying that outcomes *exist* where in the future this could not be the case. An example: say I give a tutorial on installing Linux in my blog. Some luser hoses his install, blows away all his data, and sues me for bad advice. But I'm not licensed or accredited or *anything* - never said to blindly follow my instructions without considering the "if"s. So the court rules that I'm not financially responsible. But now there's a ground swell to require liability insurance for all bloggers, and it passes into law. Now I can't afford the associated fees when all I wanted to do was teach newbies.
Another scenario is the recent case of the Canadian woman who reported various environmental hazards and nuisances against the construction company taking over her neighborhood, reported not long ago on Slashdot. The company's suing her for 2 million. Well, what if Microsoft sues every blogger who said "MS sucks, I'm going to use Linux/BSD/Macintosh..." Blogs go south, when you can only look forward to that kind of reward. What I'm pointing to is: suing keeps little people quiet.
Bill's company had written a port of the BASIC programming language (previously seen on other machines, and which Bill neither designed nor paid royalties for the use of) and this software, retailing at over $600 in 1975, was freely traded among the different computer owners, since, well, six hundred dollars is a lot of fucking money. This drove the young Gates ballistic, and in that year he fired off what became known as "The Letter", or "An Open Letter to Hobbyists", in which he decried this outward theft of his (ported, design-lifted) product.
The letter drips with ironies, as Gates asks a group of people to stop taking his software and using it for free, when in fact his entire distribution model had depended on these very groups, and his product wasn't his exclusively in the first place. Needless to say, these sort of demands became much easier once Gates' company essentially corralled the entire market under its wing.
Case one of other people's work being stolen and then copyrighted against them! Yeah, it could happen. But what about plain 'ol piracy? Yes, big companys do it *ALL* the time, if you follow Harlan Ellison's legal battles: http://harlanellison.com/home.htm you get a sense after all that nearly nothing we see in the media is bought and paid for. There's nothing all that particular about Harlan's work, it's just that he's one of those crusaders who refuse to give an inch; kind of the Richard Stallman of science fiction, only with the panache of H.S. Thompson. No, not every legal battle he engages in involves direct theft of his work. And no, not every case is Earth-shattering proof that big media companies steal (Ellison has been accused of being, ah, extreme). But a hell of a lot of them are!
This ain't all here for point-for-point refutal. I juct bring it up because it gives me reason to say, "Never say never!"
Historically the American voting public do change their minds in the face of evidence
Just *bursting* with faith in the collective wisdom of the human spirit, aren't you?
Well, what, doesn't it sound likely to you that a person with kids to raise might pick a free operating system over payware? More so than a swinging bachelor with extra income to spend?
My kids know Linux. They just picked it up from mom and dad. They still go to school and use the Windows PCs there, too, which blows away the myth that using Linux somehow cripples the "skills" for a Windows system. They *have* expressed disdain for Windows on their own. Pointing at the crash screen and informing everyone "They're not supposed to do that!", and such. At home, they not only know how to click 'n' drool in KDE like some users who call themselves leet Linux users do; they know how to wrangle a command line, they pick up programming languages to play with (python and Tcl are just that easy - as was Apple 2 BASIC for me when I was that age), they use alternative window managers and even know their way around in the console, and they *definitely* know how to shut down and reboot to their favorite live CD (like one with lots and lots of games on it!).
In other words, they have an advantage over adults. This is NOT the advantage of having young, agile minds that I'm talking about. The advantage they have is that they haven't had 20 years of corporate brainwashing telling them how stupid they are. As for the rest of you, when ARE you going to stop chugging that KoolAid?
Give people Linux in their youth so that they won't be completely computer-brain-dead and M$ vulnerable when they get older! An excellent idea!
We appreciate the sentiment, but we were doing this eight years before you thought it was an excellent idea. And we've been using Slackware, Mandriva, Knoppix, Hirarunix, and MediainLinux instead of the *buntu series because, rather than have them be half-computer-brain-dead, we don't want them being the slightest bit computer-brain-dead at all.
I use a brain. See, Blogging is writing and giving it away. Open Source is programming and giving it away. MP3s through Knapster is giving music away. Any time any type of content is given away, the corporation that's been selling the same kind of content sees their profit margin threatened. They strike back by trying to have the free source shut off. Have we learned *nothing* from the past twelve months of Slashdot alone?
They know that if they were to actually countersue a blogger, when they were the plagiarists, the truth would out.
You'll have to show me the math on this one, before I'll go for it. Who knows what? Did SCO and Linux know how the cases would turn out? Did the Sony rootkit-code author know the open source code lifted from a free program would come out? It's well and good to assert that no copyright infringement could be hidden, because all the cases have been found out by the public, but since we *are* the public, how would we know about the cases that *haven't* been discovered in order to add them to the data? Let alone that we cannot conclude what anybody knows at any time.
What a shame that you wasted all those paragraphs. Your arguments are as empty as balloon. I won't touch the assertion that everybody who voted for Bush has seen the light and repented their warmongering and bought "Farenheit 911" DVDs and started pooling their resources to save whales. That would be wa-a-a-ay off-topic, and I'd strain my funny bone this early in the morning thinking about all those uber-Righties shucking their suits and ties to don white robes and crown their heads with wreathes of flowers and dance around singing "There will come a time when everybody who is lonely will be FREE to SING and DANCE and LOVE..." And I've have to remark that I've been hearing A LOT of this from different people lately - funny, the war's not over, the pollution's not out of the air, the money's not back in my pocket and the dead aren't back to life, but "gosh AWMITEY we'se jess be az sorry as kin be!" and wonder: where the hell is this coming from?
*Hosiah scoops up handfull of peanuts and throws them to the sociologists...*
Good monkeys! *applauds* You've managed to study yet another generation for twenty years in embarrassed silence before grunting yet another meaningless, irrelevant, generalized, stereotypical label. And what a relief! Our collection of generation X, Y, #, *, w, +, and 9? was getting low.
That was my observations when I tested the livecd version.
It's worse than that. While testing the live CD, I entered an Ubuntu chat and asked how the install CD differed. They asserted that the *only* difference was the addition of the installer program, nothing else on the live CD was touched. *shrug* Since the live CD only used 600 MBs of an 800 MB disk, I can't see this one. Oh well.
Join me for a round of, "We tell the truth about your lousy distro anyway, waste all the mod points you want!"
Seeing Andrew Sullivan in top place in the list raised *my* antenna (no pun intended). As a long time Bill Maher fan, this irritating blowhard has been out there sucking up media attention, trying to put it over that he freaking *invented* blogging or some damn thing. He's been getting book deals left and right (ALL puns intended) with his public stint as either the world's gayest Republican or the world's most extreme white-wing, rednack whacko gay man: "I hate mythelf! God hatheth me too! I thouldn't be awowwed to mawwy!" Hard to tell if he's just doing it for laughs. Rips stories off blogs? Hell, be glad he doesn't bite you and give you rabies while he's at it!
Before you draw your modgun: If you follow Sullivan, you'll see some of what I'm talking about...I just wanted to clarify that this reflects neither my attitude towards gays *nor* Republicans in general.
Aw, come on, people, do you really believe the world works this way? Here's how it really goes: Either blogging will be outlawed flat out, or Megabucks Media incorporated will lift stories with impunity and, just to keep lead in their pencils every now and then, sue the living daylights out of whatever damn fool Blogger originally put up the work, claiming it was stolen from *them*! What, are you telling me Joe Blogspot is going to have the where with all to contest Time-Warner? Nope, Big Media Corporation will rip blogger's work off as their own, sue for damages on plagirizing "their" story, and force him to shut down, negating any potential embarassment down the line and next time they'll just have to steal from one of the *other* 500,000 blogs out there. That's *when* the story gets noticed at all, of course.
Can anybody look at how civil liberties have been going this year and say my prediction *couldn't* come true?
Slashdot Mirror
echo Hello World! >> /dev/lp1
Oooooh, you wanted a C program?
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() /dev/lp1");
{
system("echo Hello World! >>
return(0);
}
Somebody debug that, I'm tired!
Someone who's programming as a hobby probably wants to run their creations on their ordinary home PC - which is generally a windows machine.
Linux can compile for Windows as easily as it compiles for Linux - have you not heard of Wine, the Windows Emulator? The assumption that Windows is the default machine isn't the point. The point is, they need to change that.
And having 20 languages, compilers and interpretters probably woudn't make things easier for them either, just confuse them.
No, it won't confuse anybody at all. Sorry to hear you have such an insultingly small opinion of your own mind, but in fact people, when given choices, like the freedom to be able to shop around and pick what they want. Are you too confused by the proliferation of grocery stores to go shopping for food? Are you too confused by the menu at the restaurant to know how to order? How do you eat?
Not to mention they probably want to be able to create simple GUIs, which is much easier in VB.
You obviously haven't tried Glade, GTK, or Tcl/tk.
Why do so many people here always have to push Linux everywhere and for everything? Why push Linux if it's not the right tool for the right job? If someone asked me what would be a good way to learn basic programming as a hobby, and they had a windows PC already (like most people do), I would rather suggest downloading something like these vb express editions than telling them install Linux (and recompile their kernel just to get sound card going, hack Xconfig file to get their video card going, and/or work through horible dependancies to install anything), and have them trying to write some C command line program.
Hope your check from Microsoft was worth your time! In fact, just about every word of this paragraph is a false assumption.
*Hangs head in imaginary shame.* Although to me, creating a new entry and changing an existing one both fall under the category of "editing". In general, part of the freedom is restricted.
was instant freedom to edit at will? In any case, I hope to fan the flame of stories like these in the hopes that certain Slashdotters will quit citing some nonsense they read in Wiki as Gospel Truth which disproves my facts from the Webster's dictionary, Encyclopedia Brittanica, US & World Report, two published books specific to the topic, and a live interview with somebody who was there.
There's no such thing as bad learning. And *three* *months*? If you are any good at programming at all, you will Never. Stop. Learning. Three months is a break. I sometimes find a stopping point in my other projects and curl up with a new language for a week, even one I have no intention of using. Just to stay on top of things! I at least set the goal of knowing how to get around in the basics of the language (input/output, conditionals and loops, data types, file read/write, comments, and investigate graphics capabilities) before I come back from it. When I do so, I never fail to gain insight, if only about why everyone says language foo sucks.
but that's how *I* learned...took about 30 minutes the first time....I think towards the end I was typing stuff like "Please, let me out?"; ah, the memories...
The fact that your "hobby" attatches more strings to your life than other people's "jobs"? Until you've made the *jump* from MS to an Open Source platform, you have no idea. You're like somebody who's lived in a little box all their lives and doesn't believe in the sky. Once you can look far back on your MS days, you'll wonder if there's that much difference between "programming" in Visual Basic and huffing glue. Sure, it's a hobby, and you're hurting no one but yourself...
You get a major Linux distro, and you have not one or five or ten but something on the order of twenty programming languages and the compilers and interpretters and tools appertaining thereto, available to you immediately - FULL STRENGTH! - ready to WRITE Microsoft Windows out of the box - not crippled until you buy the super-duper-pooper-deluxe enterprise "professional" edition - all for free, nothing to buy at all, and very little to download (the odd library or development package, also free). Now *that's* a good start to a hobby.
What can *anybody* say to that? "I feel sorry for you."
Try. another. operating. system.
*Try* *out* a different operating system, nearly any one at all. Microsoft is not even at the bottom of the barrel in programming, it *can't* *find* the barrel. As for "easy as Apple 2 Basic:" Python (from somebody who has worked in both). Easier, even, for the effort you expend you discover you can make some very real applications. Mind you, I do not regard Python as a superior language in all regards, but it's easy all the way.
As I've argued before, there are *OTHER* merits to a programming language besides how easy it is to learn. If that was all that mattered, we'd still be using Apple 2 Basic. But you never got a window manager or a first-person shooter off in BASIC, did you?
Seriously, I've tried programming in a Microsoft environment. Make any other claim about Microsoft vs Linux that you will. Programming on an MS platform is a joke compared to Linux, and always will be. But if Visual Basic is all you enjoy, more power to you. Keep what you've got and be happy with it!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Alaska, Canada, whatever....
Even when a young lad, I heeded it well: "An ounce of keeping your mouth shut beats a ton of explanation." That's saved my ass - in every imaginable context.
KingSkippus: If you ever write a book, I want a copy.
"None's Event" An event for no-one and nothing; a party for the hell of it. "Get a keg while you're out, we're planning a none's event!"
As a longtime reader of local alternative rags, I can assure you that they are supported by advertizers - and do have ads on every page. Much in the same way local network television is supported by commercials.
You're right that, in general, many forms of free expression are currently still allowed. But I'm saying that outcomes *exist* where in the future this could not be the case. An example: say I give a tutorial on installing Linux in my blog. Some luser hoses his install, blows away all his data, and sues me for bad advice. But I'm not licensed or accredited or *anything* - never said to blindly follow my instructions without considering the "if"s. So the court rules that I'm not financially responsible. But now there's a ground swell to require liability insurance for all bloggers, and it passes into law. Now I can't afford the associated fees when all I wanted to do was teach newbies.
Another scenario is the recent case of the Canadian woman who reported various environmental hazards and nuisances against the construction company taking over her neighborhood, reported not long ago on Slashdot. The company's suing her for 2 million. Well, what if Microsoft sues every blogger who said "MS sucks, I'm going to use Linux/BSD/Macintosh..." Blogs go south, when you can only look forward to that kind of reward. What I'm pointing to is: suing keeps little people quiet.
But back to the case of the stolen story. A quote from Bill Gates' bio, courtesy of the Rotten.com http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/business/bill-ga tes/ library:
Case one of other people's work being stolen and then copyrighted against them! Yeah, it could happen. But what about plain 'ol piracy? Yes, big companys do it *ALL* the time, if you follow Harlan Ellison's legal battles: http://harlanellison.com/home.htm you get a sense after all that nearly nothing we see in the media is bought and paid for. There's nothing all that particular about Harlan's work, it's just that he's one of those crusaders who refuse to give an inch; kind of the Richard Stallman of science fiction, only with the panache of H.S. Thompson. No, not every legal battle he engages in involves direct theft of his work. And no, not every case is Earth-shattering proof that big media companies steal (Ellison has been accused of being, ah, extreme). But a hell of a lot of them are!
This ain't all here for point-for-point refutal. I juct bring it up because it gives me reason to say, "Never say never!"
Historically the American voting public do change their minds in the face of evidence
Just *bursting* with faith in the collective wisdom of the human spirit, aren't you?
My kids know Linux. They just picked it up from mom and dad. They still go to school and use the Windows PCs there, too, which blows away the myth that using Linux somehow cripples the "skills" for a Windows system. They *have* expressed disdain for Windows on their own. Pointing at the crash screen and informing everyone "They're not supposed to do that!", and such. At home, they not only know how to click 'n' drool in KDE like some users who call themselves leet Linux users do; they know how to wrangle a command line, they pick up programming languages to play with (python and Tcl are just that easy - as was Apple 2 BASIC for me when I was that age), they use alternative window managers and even know their way around in the console, and they *definitely* know how to shut down and reboot to their favorite live CD (like one with lots and lots of games on it!).
In other words, they have an advantage over adults. This is NOT the advantage of having young, agile minds that I'm talking about. The advantage they have is that they haven't had 20 years of corporate brainwashing telling them how stupid they are. As for the rest of you, when ARE you going to stop chugging that KoolAid?
I got so sick of LARTing this one that I wrote a whole general-purpose Linux mythbuster http://techn0manc3r.blogspot.com/2005/12/eight-lin ux-myths-that-are-ready-to-be.htmlhere
We appreciate the sentiment, but we were doing this eight years before you thought it was an excellent idea. And we've been using Slackware, Mandriva, Knoppix, Hirarunix, and MediainLinux instead of the *buntu series because, rather than have them be half-computer-brain-dead, we don't want them being the slightest bit computer-brain-dead at all.
Thank you! That just became my current favorite quote on Slashdot!
I use a brain. See, Blogging is writing and giving it away. Open Source is programming and giving it away. MP3s through Knapster is giving music away. Any time any type of content is given away, the corporation that's been selling the same kind of content sees their profit margin threatened. They strike back by trying to have the free source shut off. Have we learned *nothing* from the past twelve months of Slashdot alone?
They know that if they were to actually countersue a blogger, when they were the plagiarists, the truth would out.
You'll have to show me the math on this one, before I'll go for it. Who knows what? Did SCO and Linux know how the cases would turn out? Did the Sony rootkit-code author know the open source code lifted from a free program would come out? It's well and good to assert that no copyright infringement could be hidden, because all the cases have been found out by the public, but since we *are* the public, how would we know about the cases that *haven't* been discovered in order to add them to the data? Let alone that we cannot conclude what anybody knows at any time.
What a shame that you wasted all those paragraphs. Your arguments are as empty as balloon. I won't touch the assertion that everybody who voted for Bush has seen the light and repented their warmongering and bought "Farenheit 911" DVDs and started pooling their resources to save whales. That would be wa-a-a-ay off-topic, and I'd strain my funny bone this early in the morning thinking about all those uber-Righties shucking their suits and ties to don white robes and crown their heads with wreathes of flowers and dance around singing "There will come a time when everybody who is lonely will be FREE to SING and DANCE and LOVE..." And I've have to remark that I've been hearing A LOT of this from different people lately - funny, the war's not over, the pollution's not out of the air, the money's not back in my pocket and the dead aren't back to life, but "gosh AWMITEY we'se jess be az sorry as kin be!" and wonder: where the hell is this coming from?
Good monkeys! *applauds* You've managed to study yet another generation for twenty years in embarrassed silence before grunting yet another meaningless, irrelevant, generalized, stereotypical label. And what a relief! Our collection of generation X, Y, #, *, w, +, and 9? was getting low.
It's worse than that. While testing the live CD, I entered an Ubuntu chat and asked how the install CD differed. They asserted that the *only* difference was the addition of the installer program, nothing else on the live CD was touched. *shrug* Since the live CD only used 600 MBs of an 800 MB disk, I can't see this one. Oh well.
Join me for a round of, "We tell the truth about your lousy distro anyway, waste all the mod points you want!"
Wait a minute...the original Ubuntu *wasn't* just for kids 5-12? I'm confused.
Before you draw your modgun: If you follow Sullivan, you'll see some of what I'm talking about...I just wanted to clarify that this reflects neither my attitude towards gays *nor* Republicans in general.
Can anybody look at how civil liberties have been going this year and say my prediction *couldn't* come true?