Some people have claimed I'm the BOFH. Of course, I actually read support emails (and then flame the sender <g>).
And I will emphatically state that I have never locked anyone in a tape closet until they suffocated. Because we don't have a tape closet where I work.:)
Nothing, that's just a theory some people have that I've heard. Did I say those people are in the wrong? Sheesh, calm down.
But if you start imposing morality tests to ensure that new users think the same way you do, you have made a complete mockery of freedom.
People can do what they like. OTOH, I'm probably not likely to be using a crappy shareware app, no matter what OS it's running on.
Re:Have comsumers lost something?
on
The Leased Life?
·
· Score: 1
Maybe I don't own my computer's OS. But do I care? I probably don't even realize it. All I know is that I can use my PC for the things I think I need it for. It's convenient. Life is good.
That's why I'm glad for UCITA, it makes licenses enforceable. Have you ever read a commercial license the whole way through? The restrictions are insane. If MS ever tried to actually enforce them, people would start using [insert favorite alternative OS here] in droves. Eventually, it becomes more convienient to use something else then get milked by a system that's ripping you off (for many people on/. I suspect that happened long ago).
today the idea of using floats other than IEEE 754 is thought only by developers of very resource limited embedded devices, who typically convert their space-saving floats to the standard when they communicate.
I think Crays may still use their own floating point format. They did for a long time, anyway.
Why follow standards? Nobody enforces standards, except for customers. Customers generally like it when products interoperate, and if a group of competing products interoperate because they all follow a standard, a new product that doesn't generally won't sell.
I don't know if PostScript is standardized or not, but god help anyone who writes something that generates bad PostScript. And Unix-like OSes are at least mostly POSIX.1 compliant, though it's a rare program that only uses ISO C/C++ and POSIX.1 anyway.
Given, a lot of work has been done on gcc, but Borland's compiler is faster, produces smaller code, and produces faster code. (I have seen benchmarks in windows that prove this, but cannot remember where they are right now.)
With Borland's new compiler, gcc will have some more competition, and I *hope* that means more people working on it, or a new wave of development going into it.
I love Borland's IDEs, and if this one is like Borland 5 I'll probably buy it just for that (I'm currently using VMware/NT4/Borland 5 for my C++ editing, then compiling with gcc on Linux). I also used VCL on C++Builder3 and it was _much_ nicer to use than MFC (IMHO). But Borlands C++ compiler is a bit buggy. Good overall, but there are a few problems. Hopefully those will be fixed in the new version, however.
BTW, there are other compilers available. KAI C++ is a very nice compiler (no IDE or anything, just command line), runs on Linux, NT, HP-UX, Solaris, Tru64, AIX, Cray Unicos, and Hitachi machines. They also make Fortran compilers, IIRC. The Porland Group also makes F77, F90, C, and C++ compilers for Win32, Linux/x86 and Solaris/x86. I'm a bit suspicious of their ISO C++ compliance (they say they're compliant with cfront 2 and 3, which are ancient), but it's hard to say. Both of these have limited-time trials available (I've tried KCC and it's great, Portland's looks interesting anyway (automatic threading for up to 4 CPUs, automatic SIMD use on P-III, etc))
Call me elitist, but I believe if any fool can write a Linux application (quickly, no less), then we can probably expect the Linux world to be flooded with lots of applications seemingly written by fools.
Trust me, there's enough of it already. Start clicking on random things on freshmeat and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, there's lots of good stuff, but OTOH there's a lot of bad stuff too.:)
As freshmeat allows posting of programs that are commercial/shareware, I wonder if people will start writing bad shareware and flooding freshmeat (ah, shades of the Win 3.1 days!). I've heard theories that many new users are using Linux not for the ideals of {free|open source} software or even because they like Unix, but just are tired of Windows (I guess I'm in all three <g>) - I wonder if the culture is all that different between the Linux and Windows userbases nowadays. Guess we'll find out...
Seems like he stole items of value from the sites he relayed from (bandwidth and computer time), in addition to fraud and forgery (aren't there also laws about identity theft that may apply?). I can't say I'm a big fan of spam or spammers; hopefully they'll make an example of this guy.
There is a worldwide demand for 3, maybe 4 computers - IBM CEO
I think it was actually Ken Olsen, president of DEC. Maybe I'm just thinking of another quote of his: "There is is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
Well, I'm in the bay area. The vast majority of the people here aren't from the local area, myself included. More than 50% are from either India, China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. Most of the rest are from other parts of the US, Canada, Europe, or Australia.
And presumably most of them are there for the money and/or intersting jobs (BTW, my housemate and her family are from Canada originally - they came for the jobs in the late 80s <g>). Why is the money + jobs there? Because that's where lots of startups are. I mean, originally, way back in the early mists of time, some people started some tech companies there (which has snowballed into the current state of the valley). Either they picked the area randomly (kinda doubt it), or they liked the area for some reason (they went to school in the area, they liked the weather or the culture, whatever). I would guess that places like Xerox PARC was the original catalyst.
Part of the answer to both questions is probably that startups, at least, can't get funding if they try to set-up somewhere that isn't considered "cool" by VCs.
Well, one of my housemates is from the Bay Area; her theory is that the large numbers of CS-heavy schools (Berkeley, Caltech, Stanford, several of the other UC-* schools) and the nice climate are what does it. Incidentally, both of her parents own startups.:)
Actually, no, the 32-bit limit is here and now, mostly with multimedia people. A 2GB high-quality video is probably only, what, half an hour long or so? Yea, so, especially with DVDs now, there are a lot of people that really hate that damned 2GB limit.
I agree with you, we are already at the limit in many cases. Some (most?) Unix-like OSes have support for 64 bit file size - bzip2 uses them in most cases (maybe even Win32?).
4 gigs? Hell no. If it ran on one JVM, with a measly 64 megs of memory in the system, I don't see why it would run out of memory on another machine (with much more avialable), unless the JVM had serious serious problems. The exact same input was used each time, so that's not an issue.
Would you load twenty copies of your kernel? Statically link libc into every program you run? If you feel the need to run more than one JVM on a box, figure out java.security.* and cut it out.
I didn't write the code, it was provided to us, and I strongly supect that making changes would not have gone over well with the "people in charge".
Design Patterns is a good book for OO design. Given you situation, I recommend you also read Kernighan and Pike's The Practice of Programming (both very good books). Another is to simply code a lot of things, in several different languages. I've found that new languages could give me insight into design (even shell). Not just 'how to design in this language', but 'why was this languages invented? what can it do so much better that something else couldn't be used?' kind of thing. Dunno, maybe I'm just weird, and that won't help you at all.:) Definitely read TPOP though.
The results of these numeric tests surprised me, but I'd like to have seen Watcom/Borland C compilers used, as both have a reputation for superior numeric code generation to Microsoft's Visual C++ product and GCC.
From my experience (with Borland, VC++, gcc, and others), Borland doesn't generate really great code (passable, maybe a bit better than gcc, but not amazing). Also, their compiler is buggy (despite these failings I really like Borland's IDEs). VC++ actually generates fairly fast code, at the cost of cutting corners on ANSI compliance (especially for C++). KAI C++ is my favorite compiler: really really fast (3x gcc in some cases for numerical code), and as standards compliant as you can get.
Metadata for classes is frequently much larger in size than both bytecodes and allocated objects. This needs to improve if Java is to become a more mainstream language.
Last year I was taking Data Structures, taught in Java. I wrote a Markov chain program. It ran quite well on my dinky little machine (only 64M of memory at the time), with the latest JDK (1.1.8 IIRC). Then I got a score of 10/20 when memory allocation failed on a Sun server with 4 gigs of RAM, using JDK 1.1.6. Probably things have improved significantly since then, what with Java 2 and all, but even so JVMs take a hell of a lot of memory.
One time, I was running about 20 JVMs on a single machine [each JVM was a client on a diskless machine]. It had 256 megs of RAM and ran FreeBSD, so the machine handled it, but the load was pretty high, and memory was totally full (though it never hit swap AFAIK). But that's a lot bigger memory load than 20 (or even a hundred) processes written in C, C++, Perl, etc would use.
I've never heard of a halfway-competant script kiddie before, whats that?;)
Yeah, yeah, right. YKWIM. Wait, is that an IETF-approved Internet acronym?;) [Hmmm, that would make a great joke RFC: "Official Internet Acronyms and Their Meanings"]
And these packages aren't even updates, they're the packages shipped with Red Hat 6.2. So, no, the current Red Hat packages are safe in this sense, and I think you're wrong.
I was talking about RH 6.1. And, oh my, guess what? RH 6.1 updates is still on P3 (as is 5.2). "Current" RH, ie, the absolute latest release, is safe. But I know people who were running 4.2 until only last winter, and recently (Wednesday) I installed 6.1 on a machine that had been running RH 3.0.3. I admin a good dozen machines running 5.2. A lot of people (myself included) are running 6.0 or 6.1. People running RH < 6.2 will think "Oh, I'm safe, I've got all the updates". And then they'll get rooted and wonder what happened.
it's sad that even geeks have such a tremendous need to feed their ego's.
Well, if you've read the stuff ESR has written (CaB and HtN especially), you'll see that his theory is that most free software/OSS development is done precisely to satifsy that persons ego ("see, I'm a really good programmer, here's what I did"). Too bad, maybe we should send all those people a copy of K&R and they can start being productive. <g>
It's almost like the recent court case about the person who had AIDS, but had sex with various women anyway without telling them.
IIRC, in some states you can be charged with attempted murder for such behaviour. Though maybe I'm just thinking that because that guy was charged with something like that, and it was more of a one-time thing.
Slashdot Mirror
"There once was a geek from Nantucket..."
:)
Who's uptime was so long... his process table filled up?
Are you so sure that the BOFH is fictional? B-)
:)
Some people have claimed I'm the BOFH. Of course, I actually read support emails (and then flame the sender <g>).
And I will emphatically state that I have never locked anyone in a tape closet until they suffocated. Because we don't have a tape closet where I work.
And what's wrong with that?
Nothing, that's just a theory some people have that I've heard. Did I say those people are in the wrong? Sheesh, calm down.
But if you start imposing morality tests to ensure that new users think the same way you do, you have made a complete mockery of freedom.
People can do what they like. OTOH, I'm probably not likely to be using a crappy shareware app, no matter what OS it's running on.
Maybe I don't own my computer's OS. But do I care? I probably don't even realize it. All I know is that I can use my PC for the things I think I need it for. It's convenient. Life is good.
/. I suspect that happened long ago).
That's why I'm glad for UCITA, it makes licenses enforceable. Have you ever read a commercial license the whole way through? The restrictions are insane. If MS ever tried to actually enforce them, people would start using [insert favorite alternative OS here] in droves. Eventually, it becomes more convienient to use something else then get milked by a system that's ripping you off (for many people on
today the idea of using floats other than IEEE 754 is thought only by developers of very resource limited embedded devices, who typically convert their space-saving floats to the standard when they communicate.
I think Crays may still use their own floating point format. They did for a long time, anyway.
Why follow standards? Nobody enforces standards, except for customers. Customers generally like it when products interoperate, and if a group of competing products interoperate because they all follow a standard, a new product that doesn't generally won't sell.
I don't know if PostScript is standardized or not, but god help anyone who writes something that generates bad PostScript. And Unix-like OSes are at least mostly POSIX.1 compliant, though it's a rare program that only uses ISO C/C++ and POSIX.1 anyway.
Given, a lot of work has been done on gcc, but Borland's compiler is faster, produces smaller code, and produces faster code. (I have seen benchmarks in windows that prove this, but cannot remember where they are right now.)
With Borland's new compiler, gcc will have some more competition, and I *hope* that means more people working on it, or a new wave of development going into it.
I love Borland's IDEs, and if this one is like Borland 5 I'll probably buy it just for that (I'm currently using VMware/NT4/Borland 5 for my C++ editing, then compiling with gcc on Linux). I also used VCL on C++Builder3 and it was _much_ nicer to use than MFC (IMHO). But Borlands C++ compiler is a bit buggy. Good overall, but there are a few problems. Hopefully those will be fixed in the new version, however.
BTW, there are other compilers available. KAI C++ is a very nice compiler (no IDE or anything, just command line), runs on Linux, NT, HP-UX, Solaris, Tru64, AIX, Cray Unicos, and Hitachi machines. They also make Fortran compilers, IIRC. The Porland Group also makes F77, F90, C, and C++ compilers for Win32, Linux/x86 and Solaris/x86. I'm a bit suspicious of their ISO C++ compliance (they say they're compliant with cfront 2 and 3, which are ancient), but it's hard to say. Both of these have limited-time trials available (I've tried KCC and it's great, Portland's looks interesting anyway (automatic threading for up to 4 CPUs, automatic SIMD use on P-III, etc))
Call me elitist, but I believe if any fool can write a Linux application (quickly, no less), then we can probably expect the Linux world to be flooded with lots of applications seemingly written by fools.
:)
Trust me, there's enough of it already. Start clicking on random things on freshmeat and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, there's lots of good stuff, but OTOH there's a lot of bad stuff too.
As freshmeat allows posting of programs that are commercial/shareware, I wonder if people will start writing bad shareware and flooding freshmeat (ah, shades of the Win 3.1 days!). I've heard theories that many new users are using Linux not for the ideals of {free|open source} software or even because they like Unix, but just are tired of Windows (I guess I'm in all three <g>) - I wonder if the culture is all that different between the Linux and Windows userbases nowadays. Guess we'll find out...
Seems like he stole items of value from the sites he relayed from (bandwidth and computer time), in addition to fraud and forgery (aren't there also laws about identity theft that may apply?). I can't say I'm a big fan of spam or spammers; hopefully they'll make an example of this guy.
But isn't SPAM itself just fake ham? Seems like it's been fake from the start....
:)
Vegitarians
Love it for it's salty taste
It's not really a meat
With apologies to Hormel and that guy who's been responding with haikus lately.
There is a worldwide demand for 3, maybe 4 computers - IBM CEO
I think it was actually Ken Olsen, president of DEC. Maybe I'm just thinking of another quote of his: "There is is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
Well, I'm in the bay area. The vast majority of the people here aren't from the local area, myself included. More than 50% are from either India, China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. Most of the rest are from other parts of the US, Canada, Europe, or Australia.
And presumably most of them are there for the money and/or intersting jobs (BTW, my housemate and her family are from Canada originally - they came for the jobs in the late 80s <g>). Why is the money + jobs there? Because that's where lots of startups are. I mean, originally, way back in the early mists of time, some people started some tech companies there (which has snowballed into the current state of the valley). Either they picked the area randomly (kinda doubt it), or they liked the area for some reason (they went to school in the area, they liked the weather or the culture, whatever). I would guess that places like Xerox PARC was the original catalyst.
Part of the answer to both questions is probably that startups, at least, can't get funding if they try to set-up somewhere that isn't considered "cool" by VCs.
:)
Well, one of my housemates is from the Bay Area; her theory is that the large numbers of CS-heavy schools (Berkeley, Caltech, Stanford, several of the other UC-* schools) and the nice climate are what does it. Incidentally, both of her parents own startups.
Actually, no, the 32-bit limit is here and now, mostly with multimedia people. A 2GB high-quality video is probably only, what, half an hour long or so? Yea, so, especially with DVDs now, there are a lot of people that really hate that damned 2GB limit.
I agree with you, we are already at the limit in many cases. Some (most?) Unix-like OSes have support for 64 bit file size - bzip2 uses them in most cases (maybe even Win32?).
someone might kinda sorta get ready to start considering how to start thinking about looking at ext3 by 2.7 or so;
Well, some people seem to be doing ok with it, most notably rufus.w3.org, aka rpmfind.net.
Um, did you tell Java to *use* that much memory?
4 gigs? Hell no. If it ran on one JVM, with a measly 64 megs of memory in the system, I don't see why it would run out of memory on another machine (with much more avialable), unless the JVM had serious serious problems. The exact same input was used each time, so that's not an issue.
Would you load twenty copies of your kernel? Statically link libc into every program you run? If you feel the need to run more than one JVM on a box, figure out java.security.* and cut it out.
I didn't write the code, it was provided to us, and I strongly supect that making changes would not have gone over well with the "people in charge".
Design Patterns is a good book for OO design. Given you situation, I recommend you also read Kernighan and Pike's The Practice of Programming (both very good books). Another is to simply code a lot of things, in several different languages. I've found that new languages could give me insight into design (even shell). Not just 'how to design in this language', but 'why was this languages invented? what can it do so much better that something else couldn't be used?' kind of thing. Dunno, maybe I'm just weird, and that won't help you at all. :) Definitely read TPOP though.
The results of these numeric tests surprised me, but I'd like to have seen Watcom/Borland C compilers used, as both have a reputation for superior numeric code generation to Microsoft's Visual C++ product and GCC.
From my experience (with Borland, VC++, gcc, and others), Borland doesn't generate really great code (passable, maybe a bit better than gcc, but not amazing). Also, their compiler is buggy (despite these failings I really like Borland's IDEs). VC++ actually generates fairly fast code, at the cost of cutting corners on ANSI compliance (especially for C++). KAI C++ is my favorite compiler: really really fast (3x gcc in some cases for numerical code), and as standards compliant as you can get.
Metadata for classes is frequently much larger in size than both bytecodes and allocated objects. This needs to improve if Java is to become a more mainstream language.
Last year I was taking Data Structures, taught in Java. I wrote a Markov chain program. It ran quite well on my dinky little machine (only 64M of memory at the time), with the latest JDK (1.1.8 IIRC). Then I got a score of 10/20 when memory allocation failed on a Sun server with 4 gigs of RAM, using JDK 1.1.6. Probably things have improved significantly since then, what with Java 2 and all, but even so JVMs take a hell of a lot of memory.
One time, I was running about 20 JVMs on a single machine [each JVM was a client on a diskless machine]. It had 256 megs of RAM and ran FreeBSD, so the machine handled it, but the load was pretty high, and memory was totally full (though it never hit swap AFAIK). But that's a lot bigger memory load than 20 (or even a hundred) processes written in C, C++, Perl, etc would use.
Joke RFCs are great. Nice to see a standards body with a sense of humor. :)
I've never heard of a halfway-competant script kiddie before, whats that? ;)
;) [Hmmm, that would make a great joke RFC: "Official Internet Acronyms and Their Meanings"]
Yeah, yeah, right. YKWIM. Wait, is that an IETF-approved Internet acronym?
And these packages aren't even updates, they're the packages shipped with Red Hat 6.2. So, no, the current Red Hat packages are safe in this sense, and I think you're wrong.
I was talking about RH 6.1. And, oh my, guess what? RH 6.1 updates is still on P3 (as is 5.2). "Current" RH, ie, the absolute latest release, is safe. But I know people who were running 4.2 until only last winter, and recently (Wednesday) I installed 6.1 on a machine that had been running RH 3.0.3. I admin a good dozen machines running 5.2. A lot of people (myself included) are running 6.0 or 6.1. People running RH < 6.2 will think "Oh, I'm safe, I've got all the updates". And then they'll get rooted and wonder what happened.
it's sad that even geeks have such a tremendous need to feed their ego's.
Well, if you've read the stuff ESR has written (CaB and HtN especially), you'll see that his theory is that most free software/OSS development is done precisely to satifsy that persons ego ("see, I'm a really good programmer, here's what I did"). Too bad, maybe we should send all those people a copy of K&R and they can start being productive. <g>
Emailing the virus to McAfee so that they can analyze it isn't going to spread the virus.
:)
Never know, maybe they're using Outlook too.
It's almost like the recent court case about the person who had AIDS, but had sex with various women anyway without telling them.
IIRC, in some states you can be charged with attempted murder for such behaviour. Though maybe I'm just thinking that because that guy was charged with something like that, and it was more of a one-time thing.