I don't understand it, but I'm not going to let that stop me from responding. It seems to me that OSS and Java are natural allies. It's the only language that I know of that would allow me to be a debian user in the middle of a business that loves nothing more than the phrase "we're a windows shop". I can develop on linux, use the operating system that I love, and deliver on anything that we need to. While there are some OSS languages out there that provide the the WORA property, they're lacking in various things like the bytecode delivery model, the security model, the J2EE model for scaling up applications. Plus the weight of a diverse and active industry helps to sell it to management. Maybe those who bash it feel that they are safely out of the woods with respect to Microsoft's control of the industry, but I for one don't feel safe yet.
You know, I'm no fan of country (Frank Black and the Catholics would be the closest) but it strikes me that this analogy is actually quite fitting. After all, country is the music of the hardest-working segment of America...those with the best work ethic in the nation...those that get the job done. Moreover, its a segment of America that is largely invisible to the masses. Just as it's not often you see a farmer or cowboy, you don't see a lot of shinkwrapped java applications -- yet it's powering the engines of businesses everywhere. I guess where the analogy breaks down is that there are lots of jobs to be had writing Java code, but you don't see many openings for pedal-steel guitar players. Plus there are more hot babes in Country.
It's not really married to "web servers" at all. Rather, "application servers", a more generic container that can be useful in exactly the kinds of situations that you describe. Any language in the hands of mediocre programmers can perform badly. No language is a substitute for intelligent design.
I find it that there are two different posts attempting to counter-argue against your point, and they're at odds with each other. One is saying that the code review of the unfamiliar is superior, and the other is saying that access to the authors provides superior review. I'd like to see the authors of those two posts resolve this apparent conflict.
Not really. What he doesn't understand is that modularity allows for a separation of interface and implementation. Any module that they remove would need to be replaced by an alternate implementation of the same interface...allowing the whole system to operate as before. What they really don't want to do is write a formal document that specifies the interface and its semantics. Modularity makes this possible, not impossible.
I think you're right. Worse yet, it's an admission that they're not interested in producing quality software, since modularity is the first freakin' step in good software design.
My experience agrees with yours, but remeber that mozilla runs on a copious buttload of platforms, and might have appeared to mature suddenly at the end on specific systems with specific combinations of shared libraries.
I'm an old user of various free unix implementations. I never considered using a Mac before, because all versions of MacOS prior to OSX sucked major ass, in my opinion. OSX has made me a first-time Apple customer.
I think the real news here is that Microsoft finally admitted that it does not follow basic, time-tested principles of good software design, such as modularity,good separation between interface & implementation, and proper separation of kernel & application responsibilities. If they practiced good software design, they would be able to remove IE from windows.
The "better looking documents" claim is a completely different issue. Instead, the separation makes it harder to accumulate terabytes of legacy documents with invalid syntax. Quality of presentation is orthogonal to that.
Re:Actually, the problem is still the apps.
on
Cringely: OS X on Intel
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· Score: 2, Informative
Back when OSX was NeXT's OpenStep, any body could ship fat binaries for all four supported achitectures (PA-RISC, SPARC, M68k, and Intel) by clicking their checkboxes before the build in ProjectBuilder. The objective-c frameworks (now known as 'cocoa') handled all of the porting issues. No changes in the source were required...just 3 checkboxes to invoke the cross-compile for the architectures that your box isn't. Application vendors, of course, actually did this because it was such a no-brainer. Apple could do this again, and vendors will ship their binaries fat. (And end-users can strip out the un-needed architectures using lipo, if they really need to.
I think the problem is really that those who write web pages are forced to write documents that code for both logical structure and layout. This is the fundamental design flaw in HTML that XML is designed to address. Were these authors able to code logical structure separate from layout (using a transform, for example) they could fix invalid HTML by fixing a single transform.
Re:This is not news. Doesn't ANYONE study history
on
.NETly News
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· Score: 1
I believe it usually happens when people load an old document as a template and make changes to it. The file format seems to keep some revision information with it.
One time my wife received a job offer in an MS-Word format. She didn't have Word handy and used the strings command to look at the content, and she saw a job offer for much, much less than she was expecting. Upon further inspection, she noticed that it was for a different position being offered to someone else.
If the business was my own, I'd have a policy to never send Word documents outside the company. Who knows what kind of information you're leaking this way!?
At the time that I'm posting this, the comment is still -1, but if you look carefully you'll see that this is not because it was moderated so. Rather, if you follow the User # 545020 link, you'll see that this is a person who who has so consistently trolled that his karma is now at a -1 default post , I'd wager.
Re:Mainstream/Subculture
on
NY Times on Anime
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The greatest honor for any subculture is that it is propagated. It's true that when this happens that it loses something. Eventually it is replaced by a pale imitation of itself as more people ape it without understanding it. But that's memes for you. What the hell are you going to do? You could try to fake everybody out by being passionate about stuff you don't care about, thereby propagating everything but your beloved subculture. But would that really suck less?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand it, but I'm not going to let that stop me from responding. It seems to me that OSS and Java are natural allies. It's the only language that I know of that would allow me to be a debian user in the middle of a business that loves nothing more than the phrase "we're a windows shop". I can develop on linux, use the operating system that I love, and deliver on anything that we need to. While there are some OSS languages out there that provide the the WORA property, they're lacking in various things like the bytecode delivery model, the security model, the J2EE model for scaling up applications. Plus the weight of a diverse and active industry helps to sell it to management. Maybe those who bash it feel that they are safely out of the woods with respect to Microsoft's control of the industry, but I for one don't feel safe yet.
You know, I'm no fan of country (Frank Black and the Catholics would be the closest) but it strikes me that this analogy is actually quite fitting. After all, country is the music of the hardest-working segment of America...those with the best work ethic in the nation...those that get the job done. Moreover, its a segment of America that is largely invisible to the masses. Just as it's not often you see a farmer or cowboy, you don't see a lot of shinkwrapped java applications -- yet it's powering the engines of businesses everywhere. I guess where the analogy breaks down is that there are lots of jobs to be had writing Java code, but you don't see many openings for pedal-steel guitar players. Plus there are more hot babes in Country.
It's not really married to "web servers" at all. Rather, "application servers", a more generic container that can be useful in exactly the kinds of situations that you describe. Any language in the hands of mediocre programmers can perform badly. No language is a substitute for intelligent design.
I think that merely bolsters his point: to be an effective programmer you need to be able to thrive in both situations.
I knew it: All of Windows is one, big, convoluted spagetti procedure in a single huge source file!
Then certainly you should be qualified to rephrase it.
your post is brilliant. Too bad there probably not enough mod points at this stage to lift it to the level of visibility it deserves.
I find it that there are two different posts attempting to counter-argue against your point, and they're at odds with each other. One is saying that the code review of the unfamiliar is superior, and the other is saying that access to the authors provides superior review. I'd like to see the authors of those two posts resolve this apparent conflict.
Not really. What he doesn't understand is that modularity allows for a separation of interface and implementation. Any module that they remove would need to be replaced by an alternate implementation of the same interface...allowing the whole system to operate as before. What they really don't want to do is write a formal document that specifies the interface and its semantics. Modularity makes this possible, not impossible.
I think you're right. Worse yet, it's an admission that they're not interested in producing quality software, since modularity is the first freakin' step in good software design.
The vague response makes me think PAM is not applicable to this problem.
My experience agrees with yours, but remeber that mozilla runs on a copious buttload of platforms, and might have appeared to mature suddenly at the end on specific systems with specific combinations of shared libraries.
I'm an old user of various free unix implementations. I never considered using a Mac before, because all versions of MacOS prior to OSX sucked major ass, in my opinion. OSX has made me a first-time Apple customer.
How do you propose he use PAM to allow his browser to authenticate to the IIS server?
No, you're just imagining Skylab's longevity.
I think the real news here is that Microsoft finally admitted that it does not follow basic, time-tested principles of good software design, such as modularity,good separation between interface & implementation, and proper separation of kernel & application responsibilities. If they practiced good software design, they would be able to remove IE from windows.
The "better looking documents" claim is a completely different issue. Instead, the separation makes it harder to accumulate terabytes of legacy documents with invalid syntax. Quality of presentation is orthogonal to that.
Back when OSX was NeXT's OpenStep, any body could ship fat binaries for all four supported achitectures (PA-RISC, SPARC, M68k, and Intel) by clicking their checkboxes before the build in ProjectBuilder. The objective-c frameworks (now known as 'cocoa') handled all of the porting issues. No changes in the source were required...just 3 checkboxes to invoke the cross-compile for the architectures that your box isn't. Application vendors, of course, actually did this because it was such a no-brainer. Apple could do this again, and vendors will ship their binaries fat. (And end-users can strip out the un-needed architectures using lipo, if they really need to.
I think the problem is really that those who write web pages are forced to write documents that code for both logical structure and layout. This is the fundamental design flaw in HTML that XML is designed to address. Were these authors able to code logical structure separate from layout (using a transform, for example) they could fix invalid HTML by fixing a single transform.
Wish I had mod points, Maury. +1 insightful.
One time my wife received a job offer in an MS-Word format. She didn't have Word handy and used the strings command to look at the content, and she saw a job offer for much, much less than she was expecting. Upon further inspection, she noticed that it was for a different position being offered to someone else.
If the business was my own, I'd have a policy to never send Word documents outside the company. Who knows what kind of information you're leaking this way!?
The assumption here is that open source programmers don't write software because they need it. "because it's cool", my ass.
Then why are you trying so hard to propagate this "internal/external thinker" meme?
At the time that I'm posting this, the comment is still -1, but if you look carefully you'll see that this is not because it was moderated so. Rather, if you follow the User # 545020 link, you'll see that this is a person who who has so consistently trolled that his karma is now at a -1 default post , I'd wager.
The greatest honor for any subculture is that it is propagated. It's true that when this happens that it loses something. Eventually it is replaced by a pale imitation of itself as more people ape it without understanding it. But that's memes for you. What the hell are you going to do? You could try to fake everybody out by being passionate about stuff you don't care about, thereby propagating everything but your beloved subculture. But would that really suck less?