The way I see it is that someone somewhere innovates. PARC, Linus or whoever, it doesn't matter. It seems to be less and less likely with any big company.
Apple gets hold of the idea and makes something very neat and appealing with it. The only problem I ever have is that it is too expensive. I own an iPod but have never felt able to justify the cost of a 'Mac.
Microsoft takes the idea and makes something much cheaper. It looks cheap as well. It runs on my PC but is no more open than the Apple stuff.
It is unlikely that any government would find it easy to work with RMS.
He is not only famous for his opinions. He is also famed for sticking to his principles and a huge lack ot tact.
Isn't Stallman a gun nut anyway? Surely that makes him a republican...
Machines are used to investigate. Self aware beings explore.
The human race stopped exploring the moon in 1972. Mars has been investigated, which is good, but never explored, which is not.
The reason that people with european ancestors can be found on every continent is because those ancestors explored. Minute fragments of culture from Europe are still to be found all over the "New World". Whether those 2 facts are a good thing or not is a separate debate.
If human culture and DNA is to survive, we need to explore. Finding out what is elsewhere is only a small part of it.
? in demand?
Because it works, is easy to read, and there is a ***LOT*** of it out there.
What's so good?
It is not Object Oriented. I know it can be nowadays - just like MS kludged VB - but it isn't really.
Real COBOL is text based and can be moved from one platform to another. You write your code in linux your team leader uses Windows and it ends up on a mainframe.
port it?
I read somewhere that it is big in banks and corporations.. It said there was more money invested in that code than anything else.
Maybe banks are going down the pan at present but those systems are still there. COBOL just keeps working.
replace the systems
And the alternative is? Where will VB be in 10 years, or any other 'modern' language? They sure won't be anything like what we have now!
They need something fast, secure and easy to modify in 20+ years when the original programmer is dead or moved out of the industry. Old COBOL is a lot easier to follow than old C or C++.
10 years ago, I heard that same question. The Y2K problem was caused coding practices - not the language. They rewrote a lot, some was quietly dumped and they tried replacing the rest with modern languages. Guess which option has caused the most problems?
The average Muslim is just about as religious as the average Christian.
Your typical Moslem seems to be a lot better at his religion than your average Christian.
Moslems fast during Ramadan. Few christians fast during Lent. A few give something up.
How many Chritians do you know that memorise the Bible? Most need the contents page to find anything.
Moslem males have beards. Their women dress "modestly". In the west, few people even wear suits to church. Few, non-weird, churches make their females cover their heads any more.
They may be no more religious than us but they just try harder!
I am probably one of the majority.
If I want to look at the internet, I like a big screen.
If I want to take pictures, I want 10 megapixels.
If I want to send someone some words, I want a keyboard.
My phone is really good for me speaking to someone. That is what I use it for. I could use skype on my laptop but the phone has a better form factor.
At work I find multifunction devices a bad thing. Scanners scan good, faxes fax, printers print and so on. Those clever boxes that do all three, never seem to do any of them as well.
If my phone plays music as well as an mp3 player, that's good but there are few other things I have seen mobile phones do as well as the original devices.
All credit cards come from large corporations. I imagine that the number of them without bullying layers (is that a redundant adjective there?) is vanishingly small.
I would rather say that a huge effort to be unfamiliar with technology is a sign of stupidity.
This is not to be confused with those to whom IT is not relevant or important. I just dislike those who feel that their lack of ability makes them better than others and then object to me trying to explain how to switch them on!
It sounds to me like uou are unable to believe that there is nobody that dense.
Bob Heinlein wrote "Never understimate the power of human stupidity.
If people are so pusposely ignorant as to ignore the evidence about one thing, they will find it easy to ignore other truths as well.
I find it very believable that a small but vocal bunch of amazingly stupid people think the earth is flat. If they do, they will certainly have other foolish opinions as well.
It is an ion. Was it perhaps Calcium perchlorate, hydrogen perchlorate or something else. Maybe it was Uranium perchlorate?
Saying it was perchlorate is as meaningless as saying that the sea is full of hydroxide, In fact H20 is hydrogen hydroxide - or water. We need a more meaningful statement...
I think that is the cultural difference between us (USA/UK).
We tend to see the police as the good guys and big business as the danger. There are exceptions to it. There may be corrupt police and there may be a corporation somewhere that wouldn't take money off me for shoddy goods if it could get away with it. Those cases are the exceptions.
The authorities have my co-operation if they are polite and act within the law. I will judge whatever new laws come out as they happen. You may feel that your country is your enemy or something. At present, mine is my friend.
I have always said that I will help properly identified authorities, if they politely ask me. If they try and sneakily do stuff, I will block then every way I can.
I don't think I would do the same with other peoples information though. In fact, according to the law here in the UK, I am not allowed to do that. We have the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act. Surely you must have something like that?
Most "new" money only exists as an entry in a database somewhere. I believe that in the USA, the Federal Reserve (a private comany?) creates money and sells it to the government. In the UK, we have the Bank of England doing the same thing. Nothing is printed and no energy is used other than the negligable ammount used by swopping some ones and zeroes somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Football - as known by most of the world. This is a game where the ball is controlled by the feet. That is why we call it football.
I don't know what to call that stop-start activity you have in the USA. Football is not a word I would choose for it...
Perhaps they haven't hear of http://portableapps.com/
Or, more likely, they have but are just pretending...
The way I see it is that someone somewhere innovates. PARC, Linus or whoever, it doesn't matter. It seems to be less and less likely with any big company.
Apple gets hold of the idea and makes something very neat and appealing with it. The only problem I ever have is that it is too expensive. I own an iPod but have never felt able to justify the cost of a 'Mac.
Microsoft takes the idea and makes something much cheaper. It looks cheap as well. It runs on my PC but is no more open than the Apple stuff.
I am pretty sure that neither of them invented the mouse or the GUI.
It is unlikely that any government would find it easy to work with RMS.
He is not only famous for his opinions. He is also famed for sticking to his principles and a huge lack ot tact.
Isn't Stallman a gun nut anyway? Surely that makes him a republican...
Exploring is when someone goes somewhere and , ideally, comes back.
Colonising is when you go somewhere else and make your home there.
it can't be called exploration.
Machines are used to investigate. Self aware beings explore.
The human race stopped exploring the moon in 1972. Mars has been investigated, which is good, but never explored, which is not.
The reason that people with european ancestors can be found on every continent is because those ancestors explored. Minute fragments of culture from Europe are still to be found all over the "New World". Whether those 2 facts are a good thing or not is a separate debate.
If human culture and DNA is to survive, we need to explore. Finding out what is elsewhere is only a small part of it.
GUIs are doubtless easier to learn than text based entry but, if speed is a consideration, a text-based entry system is much faster.
? in demand?
Because it works, is easy to read, and there is a ***LOT*** of it out there.
What's so good?
It is not Object Oriented. I know it can be nowadays - just like MS kludged VB - but it isn't really.
Real COBOL is text based and can be moved from one platform to another. You write your code in linux your team leader uses Windows and it ends up on a mainframe.
port it?
I read somewhere that it is big in banks and corporations.. It said there was more money invested in that code than anything else.
Maybe banks are going down the pan at present but those systems are still there. COBOL just keeps working.
replace the systems
And the alternative is? Where will VB be in 10 years, or any other 'modern' language? They sure won't be anything like what we have now!
They need something fast, secure and easy to modify in 20+ years when the original programmer is dead or moved out of the industry. Old COBOL is a lot easier to follow than old C or C++.
10 years ago, I heard that same question. The Y2K problem was caused coding practices - not the language. They rewrote a lot, some was quietly dumped and they tried replacing the rest with modern languages. Guess which option has caused the most problems?
The average Muslim is just about as religious as the average Christian.
Your typical Moslem seems to be a lot better at his religion than your average Christian.
Moslems fast during Ramadan. Few christians fast during Lent. A few give something up.
How many Chritians do you know that memorise the Bible? Most need the contents page to find anything.
Moslem males have beards. Their women dress "modestly". In the west, few people even wear suits to church. Few, non-weird, churches make their females cover their heads any more.
They may be no more religious than us but they just try harder!
That's how it works here in the UK. I suspect much of the rest of Europe and the civilised world is similar.
You have a much more expensive system than we have here. Console yourselves that it is the real "free market".
Does that apply to all those people in Gitmo? I understand that no evidence of wrongdoing has been offered against them too...
I am probably one of the majority.
If I want to look at the internet, I like a big screen.
If I want to take pictures, I want 10 megapixels.
If I want to send someone some words, I want a keyboard.
My phone is really good for me speaking to someone. That is what I use it for. I could use skype on my laptop but the phone has a better form factor.
At work I find multifunction devices a bad thing. Scanners scan good, faxes fax, printers print and so on. Those clever boxes that do all three, never seem to do any of them as well.
If my phone plays music as well as an mp3 player, that's good but there are few other things I have seen mobile phones do as well as the original devices.
All credit cards come from large corporations. I imagine that the number of them without bullying layers (is that a redundant adjective there?) is vanishingly small.
That was the first think that entered my mind when I started to watch that film!
My understanding is that it needs to be signed by your Prez first and he won't.
I would rather say that a huge effort to be unfamiliar with technology is a sign of stupidity.
This is not to be confused with those to whom IT is not relevant or important. I just dislike those who feel that their lack of ability makes them better than others and then object to me trying to explain how to switch them on!
I think the basis of my statment is that I work in IT support...
It sounds to me like uou are unable to believe that there is nobody that dense.
Bob Heinlein wrote "Never understimate the power of human stupidity.
If people are so pusposely ignorant as to ignore the evidence about one thing, they will find it easy to ignore other truths as well.
I find it very believable that a small but vocal bunch of amazingly stupid people think the earth is flat. If they do, they will certainly have other foolish opinions as well.
It is an ion. Was it perhaps Calcium perchlorate, hydrogen perchlorate or something else. Maybe it was Uranium perchlorate?
Saying it was perchlorate is as meaningless as saying that the sea is full of hydroxide, In fact H20 is hydrogen hydroxide - or water. We need a more meaningful statement...
I think that is the cultural difference between us (USA/UK).
We tend to see the police as the good guys and big business as the danger. There are exceptions to it. There may be corrupt police and there may be a corporation somewhere that wouldn't take money off me for shoddy goods if it could get away with it. Those cases are the exceptions.
The authorities have my co-operation if they are polite and act within the law. I will judge whatever new laws come out as they happen. You may feel that your country is your enemy or something. At present, mine is my friend.
I have always said that I will help properly identified authorities, if they politely ask me. If they try and sneakily do stuff, I will block then every way I can.
I don't think I would do the same with other peoples information though. In fact, according to the law here in the UK, I am not allowed to do that. We have the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act. Surely you must have something like that?
Do you still have any of your own teeth?
If someone really can't 'handle' water, they should get phycotherapy...
Most "new" money only exists as an entry in a database somewhere. I believe that in the USA, the Federal Reserve (a private comany?) creates money and sells it to the government. In the UK, we have the Bank of England doing the same thing. Nothing is printed and no energy is used other than the negligable ammount used by swopping some ones and zeroes somewhere.
Then we have to become pidgeon fanciers then and follow RFC 1149.