Of course, Boyle's treatise is fairly useless to anyone who takes a position other than the extreme of "the State is too stupid to regulate technology effectively." Actually, it affirms Katz' original thesis. That is, the State *can* exert some power, and it can do so in non-obvious ways. However, Boyle does definitely concede that such control is not likely to be effective. I mean, has any of the controlling technologies mentioned in that essay have a meaningful impact on the Net as we know it today? Do you hear the Solid Oaks and Mayberry USA's of the world announcing multi-billion dollar IPOs? No? What about the V-chip manufacturers? Big business, right? The Huxley-esque "world controllers" can try, but ultimately, they won't get very far. Why? It literally becomes too expensive, both in terms of dollars and manpower.
I agree with your sentiment. However, don't you think that with internet access running for $20/month or substantially less that universities are pretty stupid for even trying to censor? I mean, when you're paying $20,000/year for tuition, bucking up $240 extra is freaking annoying, but hardly a barrier. Frequent e-mail taunting the administration about this fact ought to put the kibosh on certain outdated ideas on the effectiveness of censorship. You can wail all you want about traditional means of redressing grivances to the government. I don't know if you've noticed, but it doesn't have much effect anymore. What does have effect, however, is the righteous fury of several million geeks gleefully circumventing and thumbing their noses at the powers that be--for no reason other than that it's possible to do so!
Java's biggest mistake was using C as a basis for syntax. Sure, C is "familiar," but it basically ignores all useful innovations in readability and consistency made in the last 30 years. Still, we old hands get by.:-)
C++ is a horrible choice. Not only is it difficult to learn, it takes advanced knowledge to achieve even basic understanding of what the compiler is actually doing. There are few languages less suitable for introductory programming. Perl, maybe. APL, perhaps.
Python doesn't appear to have made that mistake. All you need in a beginning programming language is consistency, readability, and ablity to do simple tasks without writing 45 lines of code. Python meets these criteria on all counts. Sure it's not "perfect," but it's a good compromise between "designed for beginners" and "well-known."
Not all of us can be Richard Stallman and make money off of preaching to the choir and begging for donations from other hippies.
If we don't work for the suits, where do we get the money to buy our toys? Panhandling like Stallman? There's only so much of that to go around.
No, sorry, we gotta make a living. The most lucrative way to do that is to work for the suits. The more power we have, the more dependent they are on us, and the more they have to listen to us. Also, Open Source stuff makes that whole ordeal a lot less unpleasant than having to swim in Microsoft's shit.
This is why your attitude is naive. I'd rather have a little cultural pollution from the suits if that means I'm allowed to use Linux to solve problems.
Or you can be a BSD and hardcore GNU hippie and beg for handouts. It's your choice.
If OpenBSD solves business problems as well as Linux, then the suits will come, and you will be unable to stop them.
People in the Open Source community are victims of their own success. Life's a bitch.
I hate to break it to you guys, but 99% of all software written is to help run a business. Most hacker sorts don't seem to realize this because just about every business has their own code for this purpose, so the community at large doesn't see it. But it's there, and it will have its impact whether you care or not.
The suits got ahold of Linux because it's starting to be better at doing suit-stuff than Windows is. If that ever happens to OpenBSD, or any *BSD, the same thing will happen.
This is probably apocryphal, but someone told me about a Solaris patch that accidentally caused "rm -rf/" to be run as root. If this is true, though, it looks like Microsoft was just emulating the Unix community.:-)
....when the next recession hits, those who hung in there for the college degree will be glad they got theirs.
When there are more applicants than jobs, possession of a college degree is one of the first criteria used to cull the stack of resumes. There are a few exceptions to this, but the general rule is that mere possession of a college degree gives you an advantage in tough times.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, Boyle's treatise is fairly useless to anyone who takes a position other than the extreme of "the State is too stupid to regulate technology effectively." Actually, it affirms Katz' original thesis. That is, the State *can* exert some power, and it can do so in non-obvious ways. However, Boyle does definitely concede that such control is not likely to be effective. I mean, has any of the controlling technologies mentioned in that essay have a meaningful impact on the Net as we know it today? Do you hear the Solid Oaks and Mayberry USA's of the world announcing multi-billion dollar IPOs? No? What about the V-chip manufacturers? Big business, right? The Huxley-esque "world controllers" can try, but ultimately, they won't get very far. Why? It literally becomes too expensive, both in terms of dollars and manpower.
I agree with your sentiment. However, don't you think that with internet access running for $20/month or substantially less that universities are pretty stupid for even trying to censor? I mean, when you're paying $20,000/year for tuition, bucking up $240 extra is freaking annoying, but hardly a barrier. Frequent e-mail taunting the administration about this fact ought to put the kibosh on certain outdated ideas on the effectiveness of censorship. You can wail all you want about traditional means of redressing grivances to the government. I don't know if you've noticed, but it doesn't have much effect anymore. What does have effect, however, is the righteous fury of several million geeks gleefully circumventing and thumbing their noses at the powers that be--for no reason other than that it's possible to do so!
C++ is a horrible choice. Not only is it difficult to learn, it takes advanced knowledge to achieve even basic understanding of what the compiler is actually doing. There are few languages less suitable for introductory programming. Perl, maybe. APL, perhaps.
Python doesn't appear to have made that mistake. All you need in a beginning programming language is consistency, readability, and ablity to do simple tasks without writing 45 lines of code. Python meets these criteria on all counts. Sure it's not "perfect," but it's a good compromise between "designed for beginners" and "well-known."
Not all of us can be Richard Stallman and make money off of preaching to the choir and begging for donations from other hippies.
If we don't work for the suits, where do we get the money to buy our toys? Panhandling like Stallman? There's only so much of that to go around.
No, sorry, we gotta make a living. The most lucrative way to do that is to work for the suits. The more power we have, the more dependent they are on us, and the more they have to listen to us. Also, Open Source stuff makes that whole ordeal a lot less unpleasant than having to swim in Microsoft's shit.
This is why your attitude is naive. I'd rather have a little cultural pollution from the suits if that means I'm allowed to use Linux to solve problems.
Or you can be a BSD and hardcore GNU hippie and beg for handouts. It's your choice.
If OpenBSD solves business problems as well as Linux, then the suits will come, and you will be unable to stop them.
People in the Open Source community are victims of their own success. Life's a bitch.
I hate to break it to you guys, but 99% of all software written is to help run a business. Most hacker sorts don't seem to realize this because just about every business has their own code for this purpose, so the community at large doesn't see it. But it's there, and it will have its impact whether you care or not.
The suits got ahold of Linux because it's starting to be better at doing suit-stuff than Windows is. If that ever happens to OpenBSD, or any *BSD, the same thing will happen.
This gives new meaning to the phrase "hoist on one's petard," doesn't it? And Microsoft spread out a whole minefield of them. Poor Bill.
This is probably apocryphal, but someone told me about a Solaris patch that accidentally caused "rm -rf /" to be run as root. If this is true, though, it looks like Microsoft was just emulating the Unix community. :-)
....when the next recession hits, those who hung in there for the college degree will be glad they got theirs.
When there are more applicants than jobs, possession of a college degree is one of the first criteria used to cull the stack of resumes. There are a few exceptions to this, but the general rule is that mere possession of a college degree gives you an advantage in tough times.