I'm an internet application developer who runs netscape (both browser and email client) ALL day. I really push the browser a lot, with javascript and developing html, and I don't seem to be having the crashing problems others are reporting.
I think it's a fine, stable browser. Yes, it is not standards compliant to the newest specs, but for daily browsing it's fine.
Maybe it's the rest of your PC that is unstable?
I run 4.72 on Windows NT 4.0 SP5. The rest of the OS goes south of the border way before I have trouble with the browser.
I usually only reboot every other day or so;)
I also use IE5 and the browser componant seems stable, but the OS extensions fro IE4 definitely impair the entire system's stability. Luckily, if you have NT4 and install IE5+ it no longer adds the 'active desktop' stuff, so that seems to help.
I can't comment on the stability of netscape on other OS's. Maybe it really sucks on Linux.
This is no doubt netscape 4.x is in 'bug fix' mode. They have to do this, because they have all sorts of deals with big companies (including the one I work at) to use their client software, which includes promises from netscape to maintain their product.
I think they have the right strategy; do what you need to do to keep the current 4.x business partners happy, while working on the next big thing. The make really great migration tools to help the companies move to the new platform.
Big companies don't care so much about new features, they just want a secure, stable system that is easy to deploy and administer. Netscape with the mission control center does this. It's way more secure than IE+Outlook.
You have to remember, once a big company puts a lot of money and training into a system, they don't like to change it. We may not like it, but deals like the one netscape has with my company are way more important than the home market.
Anyway, the home market will take care of itself, once AOL moves to mozilla from IE. They'll need to do this if they want to make their client software for Linux. I know most of you are probably gagging at the idea of AOL on Linux, but we have to realize they are a huge ISP, and not having their client software on Linux hurts the comunity.
BTW, I know the source code for the 4.x series is out there somewhere, so there's nothing stopping people from trying to fix existing problems. I just think it's better to put such energies into the new browser, but to each his/her own.
OT, I spent my first year as a perl program with only online docs and code examples. It's definately possible, and very satisfying. I only bought books when I started a new job that gave me an expense account
As a former teacher, I think it would be better to teach kids logically thinking skills, rather than a programming language in particular. If someone has strong problem solving abilities and a good logical sense, they will be able to pick up whatever language of the day and get the job done.
Remember, by the time today's children grow up, the hot language of our time will likely be unused. I really love perl, but even I don't think people will use it much in 20 years.
Often, these classes only teach the mechanics of the language, not the ability to think independently and logically. Like they say, when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You end up with students that can solve the problems they studied, but can't generalize enough to solve problems they didn't cover in class.
At some point in a child's education, a high level language, like BASIC, should be introduced to show the fundamentals of programming. General concepts like conditionals and loops should be the emphasis, and the language taught is only a means to that end.
In fact, I think you really need to evaluate the student to decide which language best suits her disposition. Some child naturally have strong abstract thinking skills, and could probably start with BASIC, while others would benefit from something they can see and feel, like Lego Mindstorm robots.
I think it is important to keep the diversity of our children in mind; no one way is best. I realize this goes against our standardized teaching methods, but I think most would agree that the failure to recognize the individual needs and abilities of students in a major failing in our current educational system.
Of course, I'm biased against computer programming classes; I only ever took one (FORTRAN) class, which I failed. Now I can program all day in Java, Javascript, Perl, whatever. I also majored in Philosophy and Math, so obviously I think that's best.
Servlets seem pretty cool, but has the disadvantage of being java only, just as mod_perl is perl only. Fast Cgi is attractive to me for two reasons: 1) Less of a learning curve from doing cgi to fastcgi and all our old scripts will work, while with servlets you need to learn a whole new system. 2) Allows for more uniform system development, that is not tied to a single vendor. Mod_Perl is only for Apache, and Servlets have not been around very long for me to consider it a mature technology.
This is probably off topic, but does anyone know of any good resources comparing fast-cgi to mod-perl? We have a ton of perl cgi stuff that needs to be upgraded in terms of performance. Mod_perl has a lot of support, but only works for perl (I have some people here chomping at the bit to use Java). Fast-Cgi supports several languages, including perl, java and C/C++. I'm leaning towards fast-cgi because of the cross language issue, but am not ruling out mod_perl. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I agree. I think the process for deciding what get's posted and what doesn't is really biased. Maybe we need to involve the meta moderators in this, or have some sort of voting system so that people can decide what catagories of news they are interested in.
As it stands right now, I'm finding that Slashdot is slowly becoming less useful and interesting to me, because of the seemingly arbitrary system used in deciding what is newsworthy. Anyone else agree?
I also get annoyed (selfishly of course) when I report an article that gets rejected, and then see it appear a week later.
Maybe we need a new website to report the news Slashdot owners don't seem to care about... Anyone interested in working on that project? We could just use the list Slashdot gets from submitters, so we wouldn't need to create a new submission system. Then we could impliment voting to see what people really care about.
In the Slashdot FAQ it says that there are no plans to put the inbox on the web, but maybe they'll be a page showing rejects. I think this should happen so that people can decide for themselves if Slashdot is really showing news we care about. We could also use this list to create an alternative to Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
...without mass arrests. Those frat boys probably like taking their girlfriends down to the prison to look at all the liberals behind bars.
I'm an internet application developer who runs netscape (both browser and email client) ALL day. I really push the browser a lot, with javascript and developing html, and I don't seem to be having the crashing problems others are reporting.
;)
I think it's a fine, stable browser. Yes, it is not standards compliant to the newest specs, but for daily browsing it's fine.
Maybe it's the rest of your PC that is unstable?
I run 4.72 on Windows NT 4.0 SP5. The rest of the OS goes south of the border way before I have trouble with the browser.
I usually only reboot every other day or so
I also use IE5 and the browser componant seems stable, but the OS extensions fro IE4 definitely impair the entire system's stability. Luckily, if you have NT4 and install IE5+ it no longer adds the 'active desktop' stuff, so that seems to help.
I can't comment on the stability of netscape on other OS's. Maybe it really sucks on Linux.
This is no doubt netscape 4.x is in 'bug fix' mode. They have to do this, because they have all sorts of deals with big companies (including the one I work at) to use their client software, which includes promises from netscape to maintain their product.
I think they have the right strategy; do what you need to do to keep the current 4.x business partners happy, while working on the next big thing. The make really great migration tools to help the companies move to the new platform.
Big companies don't care so much about new features, they just want a secure, stable system that is easy to deploy and administer. Netscape with the mission control center does this. It's way more secure than IE+Outlook.
You have to remember, once a big company puts a lot of money and training into a system, they don't like to change it. We may not like it, but deals like the one netscape has with my company are way more important than the home market.
Anyway, the home market will take care of itself, once AOL moves to mozilla from IE. They'll need to do this if they want to make their client software for Linux. I know most of you are probably gagging at the idea of AOL on Linux, but we have to realize they are a huge ISP, and not having their client software on Linux hurts the comunity.
BTW, I know the source code for the 4.x series is out there somewhere, so there's nothing stopping people from trying to fix existing problems. I just think it's better to put such energies into the new browser, but to each his/her own.
OT, I spent my first year as a perl program with only online docs and code examples. It's definately possible, and very satisfying. I only bought books when I started a new job that gave me an expense account
As a former teacher, I think it would be better to teach kids logically thinking skills, rather than a programming language in particular. If someone has strong problem solving abilities and a good logical sense, they will be able to pick up whatever language of the day and get the job done.
Remember, by the time today's children grow up, the hot language of our time will likely be unused. I really love perl, but even I don't think people will use it much in 20 years.
Often, these classes only teach the mechanics of the language, not the ability to think independently and logically. Like they say, when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You end up with students that can solve the problems they studied, but can't generalize enough to solve problems they didn't cover in class.
At some point in a child's education, a high level language, like BASIC, should be introduced to show the fundamentals of programming. General concepts like conditionals and loops should be the emphasis, and the language taught is only a means to that end.
In fact, I think you really need to evaluate the student to decide which language best suits her disposition. Some child naturally have strong abstract thinking skills, and could probably start with BASIC, while others would benefit from something they can see and feel, like Lego Mindstorm robots.
I think it is important to keep the diversity of our children in mind; no one way is best. I realize this goes against our standardized teaching methods, but I think most would agree that the failure to recognize the individual needs and abilities of students in a major failing in our current educational system.
Of course, I'm biased against computer programming classes; I only ever took one (FORTRAN) class, which I failed. Now I can program all day in Java, Javascript, Perl, whatever. I also majored in Philosophy and Math, so obviously I think that's best.
Servlets seem pretty cool, but has the disadvantage of being java only, just as mod_perl is perl only. Fast Cgi is attractive to me for two reasons: 1) Less of a learning curve from doing cgi to fastcgi and all our old scripts will work, while with servlets you need to learn a whole new system. 2) Allows for more uniform system development, that is not tied to a single vendor. Mod_Perl is only for Apache, and Servlets have not been around very long for me to consider it a mature technology.
This is probably off topic, but does anyone know of any good resources comparing fast-cgi to mod-perl? We have a ton of perl cgi stuff that needs to be upgraded in terms of performance. Mod_perl has a lot of support, but only works for perl (I have some people here chomping at the bit to use Java). Fast-Cgi supports several languages, including perl, java and C/C++. I'm leaning towards fast-cgi because of the cross language issue, but am not ruling out mod_perl. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Definately the best condom out there; once I switched I never went back.
I agree. I think the process for deciding what get's posted and what doesn't is really biased. Maybe we need to involve the meta moderators in this, or have some sort of voting system so that people can decide what catagories of news they are interested in.
As it stands right now, I'm finding that Slashdot is slowly becoming less useful and interesting to me, because of the seemingly arbitrary system used in deciding what is newsworthy. Anyone else agree?
I also get annoyed (selfishly of course) when I report an article that gets rejected, and then see it appear a week later.
Maybe we need a new website to report the news Slashdot owners don't seem to care about... Anyone interested in working on that project? We could just use the list Slashdot gets from submitters, so we wouldn't need to create a new submission system. Then we could impliment voting to see what people really care about.
In the Slashdot FAQ it says that there are no plans to put the inbox on the web, but maybe they'll be a page showing rejects. I think this should happen so that people can decide for themselves if Slashdot is really showing news we care about. We could also use this list to create an alternative to Slashdot.
I have children in this library, and everytime some immature troll does something like this, I start hearing about the need for software filters.