Fortran is always shown as having come from a vacuum, but surely it was inspired by the various "Autocode" languages, of which "Mercury Autocode" is the most famous. (Note: this was all before my time.)
Smalltalk is derived from Alan Kay's earlier language, Flex, which in turn stole heavily from Euler (Kay confirms this), which was the language Wirth designed before he did Pascal.
Euler was an early example of a dynamically typed, garbage collected language with an algol-like syntax. Now we have python, javascript, and so on.
Python is heavily based on ABC.
Euler must have been a primary influence on Setl, which in turn influenced other languages. Setl was a dynamically typed, garbage collected language with an algol-ish syntax, with arrays (called tuples) and sets as first class values. The List comprehensions of Haskell (and more recently Python) come from Setl. Setl is the first language I know to have the 'slice' notation for extracting subranges from a list:
list(i:j)
list(i:) Although, i was 1 based, not 0 based, and j was a length, not an index. This slice notation was picked up by Icon, which changed j from a length to an index, and introduced negative indexes. From Icon, slice notation migrated into Python, presumably via ABC (I have no ABC documentation to check), where indexing changed from 1 based to 0 based.
The type names in C all seem to come from Algol 68. They couldn't have come from B or BCPL, which do not have types. Examples of C/Algol 68 type names include "int", "char", "long int" and "void", as well as "struct". This is C:
struct {char c; int x;} s = {'x', 42}; This is Algol 68:
struct (char c, int x) s:= ("x", 42);
Algol 68 has a +:= operator, but I think that comes from C. This is speculation, based on the observation that C's += operator was originally spelled =+, then changed due to the ambiguity of parsing x=+y.
The second link shows Javascript decended from Java, which is surely wrong. Javascript was developed with no knowledge of Java. It was originally called LiveScript, then changed to Javascript for marketing reasons. I'm pretty sure that Javascript/Livescript got its object system from Self, the first prototype-based object oriented language. Self descends from Smalltalk.
Embedded font support has been integrated into internet explorer for years, and although they seem to have stripped it out of Mozilla, netscape used to be compatible with trueDoc
The TrueDoc technology involves DRM to "prevent users from stealing your fonts". I imagine the software is proprietary, and not open source compatible. This must be one of those bits of proprietary software that Netscape ripped out before releasing the Navigator source code.
The BSD license is not an Open Source license per the OSI's definition of the Open Source, because it does not require redistributors to pass along the rights, and it does not prohibit redistribution in the presence of other license requirements.
My understanding of this is different.
The BSD licence is Open Source because it contains no terms or restrictions that violate the Open Source Definition. And note that RMS accepts the 3 clause BSD licence as a Free Software Licence. So RMS and Bruce Perrins are in agreement about the acceptability of the BSD licence.
The BSD licence has no clause that requires distributors to pass along certain rights. If it did, then in RMS's terminology, it would be a form of CopyLeft Licence. The GPL is a CopyLeft Licence. But RMS makes it clear that a licence can be Free without imposing CopyLeft.
It may be that my original post was confusing. Perhaps I should have said that when the BSD licence is combined with the MS licence, then the resulting combination is not Free or Open Source.
I am not confusing Open Source and Free Software. You need to read the open source definition at OpenSource.org:
7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
"The most powerful and successful country in the world is further to the right than the rest of the world."
and:
the U.S.S.R. was left of the rest of the world and now is no more
Bush's ideology and the Soviet Union's ideology are not polar opposites. In fact, the whole idea that all political ideologies can be categorized as either "left" or "right" is very suspect; the world is more complicated than that.
The "right wing" is normally associated with conservatism, which includes fiscal conservatism,
while the "left wing" is normally associated with big government and out-of-control government spending. Bush has increased government spending and the size of government to historic highs. This is behaviour that we associate more with the soviet union than with the "right". Bush has already caused a lot of damage to the U.S. economy. If he were to continue along this path (and hopefully he isn't stupid enough to do so), then he will precipitate a Soviet Union style economic collapse.
The illegal invasion of Iraq was a soviet-style act of naked imperialism. I don't know how else to describe it, since we know that Bush's justifications for the invasion were all lies (WMDs, the Al-Quaeda link).
Bush is the most authoritarian president ever. Americans have lost a number of freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, including freedom from arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial. Just like the soviet union.
Please understand that I am not arguing that Bush is "left wing", whatever that means. I'm arguing that the categories themselves are useless and meaningless.
That's not true. The MS licence is NOT compatible with a BSD licence, or with any open source licence. The licence is incompatible with both the Open Source Definition and the Free Software Definition. And that's why Sender-ID was rejected as a standard the first time through.
Specifically, the problem is that if you want to run an open source MTA that contains microsoft's patent-pending algorithm, then you have to first execute a signed licence agreement with Microsoft. And that means the MTA is not open source. The most fundamental freedom provided by any free or open source program is the freedom to run the program, for any purpose, without getting first getting permission. The fact that you don't have to pay MS money to get permission does not make it "free" or "open".
IANAL, but the licence restrictions for incorporating the patented Domain Keys algorithm into source code appear to be incompatible with both the GPL, and with BSD style open source licencing. Isn't this the same problem that killed Sender-ID in favour of SPF?
The vulnerability doesn't exist in MacOS X, unless you are running the Classic subsystem. To protect yourself, start up Classic, run the Classic QuickTime control panel, and disable "AutoStart". Now your Mac will not automatically run malware on inserted CDs.
So that's why most MacOS X users will not have their machines infected--they aren't running Classic at the time they insert the CD.
Does that mean their government controls what is printed in the newspaper?
All of the Italian media is under direct government control, mostly because it is controlled by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns all the media. Criticism of the government, and criticism of Berlusconi in particular, by the media, is not tolerated.
Most people spell it filet mignon, not fillet mignon.
Most people spell it Wal-Mart, not Walmart.
Most people spell it Macy*s, not Maceys.
No they don't, because if you hadn't noticed, most people either can't spell, or just can't be bothered when posting to slashdot.
It's not a crime, you know.
A better operating system doesn't necessarily mean a windows clone. It means a better operating system. I agree. We probably don't agree on the definition of "better", however.
Software with crappy or lacking documentation isn't good software, no matter what interface it uses. This is also a good point.
BTW, one of the things I noticed when moving from
RedHat to FreeBSD is that the documentation is
(in my opinion) better.
one of the tenets of user interfaces is: if the user requires a manual, then the interface has failed in its task.
By this argument, vi is an abject failure. I found vi incredibly hard to learn, and I've been anticipating its imminent death for years, based on this tenet.
But vi has defied my expectations.
It continues to be quite popular,
so there must be something wrong with
the tenet. Based on empirical evidence, the vi interface
is not a failure.
This is not a troll, I'm serious.
What if the poster had said:
Despite the growing success of vi, most of the general public continues to feel that vi is inaccessible to them.
I do understand the point, which is that Linus
has plans for world domination, and he wants
Linux to take market share from Windows.
But this doesn't interest me.
I don't like Windows, and I can't imagine liking
a Linux based Windows clone that is
just as easy to use as Windows any better.
The more Windows-like Linux becomes,
the less I am interested in running it.
I've mostly switched to FreeBSD
(I used to be Redhat only).
I use the CLI, I edit with vi,
I write lots of scripts, and so on.
In my opinion, text based, scriptable interfaces
have a flexibility and power that Windows lacks,
and which I refuse to do without.
This is not to say that traditional Unix is
perfect.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how
to make the Unix user interface better and more
powerful.
I think there is a lot of interesting work
that could be done on making Unix suck less.
I just don't see building a Windows clone
as movement in the right direction.
I understand that the general public doesn't
want a better operating system.
The general public wants Windows.
So feel free to donate your time building
an open source windows clone,
but count me out.
The Sega Genesis had only 320 x 224 resolution, which would have been unuseably small on the Mac. It also had a custom graphics chip with sprites and scrolling playfields to take the load off the CPU, while the Mac did everything with the CPU.
I didn't know that the Lisa had "colour capability". I do know that it had a monochrome display, just like the Mac.
The first colour Mac was the Mac II, which had a 16Mhz 68020, significantly faster than the original 7Mhz 68000.
When Jobs hoisted the pirate flag and built the Mac, he specifically left out expandability and color on purpose. It wasn't because of technical considerations,
Yes, it certainly was. The Mac was not Apple's first computer with a mouse and a graphical interface. That was the Lisa, which nobody bought, because it was too expensive. A colour Mac would have required a huge frame buffer in order to provide adequate resolution. The memory costs of this would have pushed the price too high. Also, the 7MHz CPU was not fast enough to draw text and windows on a colour graphics display (again, unless the resolution was too small to be useful).
And keep in mind that the Lisa, despite its immense cost, was also black and white. So was the Xerox Star (another failed GUI computer that cost too much).
The Mac was not the first personal computer with a GUI. It was the first GUI computer that was cheap enough for ordinary people to buy. The hardware limitations you mention were necessary to keep the cost down.
If this case follows the same course as
Steve Jackson Games
(the Secret Service confiscated most of a business's assets as part of an investigation),
then the hosting company may not get their stuff back for years, if ever, and they'll need to fight a court battle.
Gator is pissing in the wind. A google search reveals thousands more web sites that equate Gator == SpyWare.
Gator is a menace to the internet, and I'm talking about measureable economic damage.
One of my employer's clients (I'm in the network security business) found that 18% of their internet bandwidth was being sucked up by Gator. We sold them a solution, of course.
Blocking Gator's spyware is big business.
Corporate customers are eager for solutions, and lots of companies are selling them. The term "spyware" is not going to go away as long as Gator's evil behaviour continues to create a big market for spyware removal and blocking software.
Gator can threaten to sue people of course, but since they are clearly the ones engaged in criminal behaviour, not the anti-spyware firms, I really don't believe Gator can come out on top in the long term.
Of course Forbes is entitled to ask any price they want for their magazine, just as other organizations are entitled to charge for their publications. I'd simply point out that the paradoxical effect of this "reading tax" may be to impede Forbe's circulation and reduce the number of readers exposed to their capitalist ideology.
Skapare says We don't need ISO for language codes... use SIL
But the SIL licence terms are too restrictive: you can't use their tables in an open source/free software program, because the SIL tables themselves are not freely redistributable: "You are not authorized to redistribute the downloadable code or mapping tables, whether in the exact form they were obtained from this site or in a modified form you have developed, without the written consent of SIL International.
Why does the submitter make such a big deal out of these discs being "incompatible"? That's the only way to cost-effectively add features and create new paradigms. Linux isn't "compatible" with Windows which in turn wasn't "compatible" with DOS. Cars weren't "compatible" with horse-drawn carriages.
If you want something new and different, you can't also ask for it to be compatible. Break out of your preconceptions and help today's technology re-invent itself as tomorrow's.
Some knowledge of history would help here.
Cars and horse-drawn carriages are indeed compatible: cars were designed to use the
pre-existing road system that was built
for horse drawn carriages.
Colour television was designed to be compatible
with black and white television sets.
This was critical to its success.
And the years of work that have been spent making
Linux compatible with Windows are finally paying
off, as large institutions are beginning to
deploy Linux on the desktop.
(I'm thinking of OpenOffice,
support in Evolution for MS Exchange servers,
and so on.)
Doug Moen
Microsoft and "Windex"
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 5, Informative
In the article, Cringely hallucinates the following:
I can only come to the conclusion that Redmond is thinking of actually using that license, selling its own version of Unix. I wrote about something very similar to this a few months ago, only then I speculated that Microsoft might build a new OS atop Linux. But why use Linux when they could claim Unix, instead? The key here, I think, is the Windows emulation technology Microsoft got when it bought Connectix. Originally aimed at server consolidation, that code could be used by Microsoft to create and sell a Unix/Windows hybrid that would be a big success if Linux is killed by SCO. And the new Microsoft OS would even be a viable competitor to Linux if SCO loses, since it would offer Windows application compatibility. Microsoft could certainly use a sturdy server operating system for a change.
I'd call it "Windex."
In fact, Microsoft already has a Unix/Windows hybrid: it's SFU (windows services for unix), and it includes a component called Interix, which extends the Windows NT/2000/XP kernel with a set of Unix system calls, and adds a few hundred Unix utilities.
If buying a SCO licence wasn't pure propaganda, then it's likely that Microsoft bought the SCO licence for the benefit of the SFU product.
It is highly unlikely that Microsoft would ever follow Apple's lead and create a new version of Windows that is layered on top of a Unix kernel. This is because of Microsoft's corporate culture. They are as rabidly pro-Windows and anti-Unix as the Slashdot community is the reverse of this.
In the 21st century, lots of new technology seems to have "rights management" (social control mechanisms) built in. For digital technology, this means Digital Rights Management. For GM crops, it means the crops are sterile, so you have to buy new seeds every season.
eventually the whole population will get the mods for free from their parents, meaning that (a) the companies doing them need to make all the money they want up front
That sounds like theft to me. I'm sure there is a technical fix to ensure that your descendents are forced to keep paying GeneCorp for the enhanced genes they inherited from you. Maybe it's a pill that you must take every month, to which GeneCorp holds the patent. Or it's something else (use your imagination).
Whatever this genetic social control mechanism is, I bet the more authoritarian states will jump at the chance to get into the game. In the future, the "genetic elite" may be those that aren't modified.
Slashdot Mirror
Fortran is always shown as having come from a vacuum, but surely it was inspired by the various "Autocode" languages, of which "Mercury Autocode" is the most famous. (Note: this was all before my time.)
:= ("x", 42);
Smalltalk is derived from Alan Kay's earlier language, Flex, which in turn stole heavily from Euler (Kay confirms this), which was the language Wirth designed before he did Pascal.
Euler was an early example of a dynamically typed, garbage collected language with an algol-like syntax. Now we have python, javascript, and so on.
Python is heavily based on ABC.
Euler must have been a primary influence on Setl, which in turn influenced other languages. Setl was a dynamically typed, garbage collected language with an algol-ish syntax, with arrays (called tuples) and sets as first class values. The List comprehensions of Haskell (and more recently Python) come from Setl. Setl is the first language I know to have the 'slice' notation for extracting subranges from a list:
list(i:j)
list(i:)
Although, i was 1 based, not 0 based, and j was a length, not an index. This slice notation was picked up by Icon, which changed j from a length to an index, and introduced negative indexes. From Icon, slice notation migrated into Python, presumably via ABC (I have no ABC documentation to check), where indexing changed from 1 based to 0 based.
The type names in C all seem to come from Algol 68. They couldn't have come from B or BCPL, which do not have types. Examples of C/Algol 68 type names include "int", "char", "long int" and "void", as well as "struct". This is C:
struct {char c; int x;} s = {'x', 42};
This is Algol 68:
struct (char c, int x) s
Algol 68 has a +:= operator, but I think that comes from C. This is speculation, based on the observation that C's += operator was originally spelled =+, then changed due to the ambiguity of parsing x=+y.
The second link shows Javascript decended from Java, which is surely wrong. Javascript was developed with no knowledge of Java. It was originally called LiveScript, then changed to Javascript for marketing reasons. I'm pretty sure that Javascript/Livescript got its object system from Self, the first prototype-based object oriented language. Self descends from Smalltalk.
The TrueDoc technology involves DRM to "prevent users from stealing your fonts". I imagine the software is proprietary, and not open source compatible. This must be one of those bits of proprietary software that Netscape ripped out before releasing the Navigator source code.
Doug Moen
My understanding of this is different.
The BSD licence is Open Source because it contains no terms or restrictions that violate the Open Source Definition. And note that RMS accepts the 3 clause BSD licence as a Free Software Licence. So RMS and Bruce Perrins are in agreement about the acceptability of the BSD licence.
The BSD licence has no clause that requires distributors to pass along certain rights. If it did, then in RMS's terminology, it would be a form of CopyLeft Licence. The GPL is a CopyLeft Licence. But RMS makes it clear that a licence can be Free without imposing CopyLeft.
It may be that my original post was confusing. Perhaps I should have said that when the BSD licence is combined with the MS licence, then the resulting combination is not Free or Open Source.
Doug Moen
I am not confusing Open Source and Free Software.
You need to read the open source definition at OpenSource.org:
7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
Doug Moen
"The most powerful and successful country in the world is further to the right than the rest of the world."
and:
the U.S.S.R. was left of the rest of the world and now is no more
Bush's ideology and the Soviet Union's ideology are not polar opposites. In fact, the whole idea that all political ideologies can be categorized as either "left" or "right" is very suspect; the world is more complicated than that.
- The "right wing" is normally associated with conservatism, which includes fiscal conservatism,
while the "left wing" is normally associated with big government and out-of-control government spending. Bush has increased government spending and the size of government to historic highs. This is behaviour that we associate more with the soviet union than with the "right". Bush has already caused a lot of damage to the U.S. economy. If he were to continue along this path (and hopefully he isn't stupid enough to do so), then he will precipitate a Soviet Union style economic collapse.
-
The illegal invasion of Iraq was a soviet-style act of naked imperialism. I don't know how else to describe it, since we know that Bush's justifications for the invasion were all lies (WMDs, the Al-Quaeda link).
-
Bush is the most authoritarian president ever. Americans have lost a number of freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, including freedom from arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial. Just like the soviet union.
Please understand that I am not arguing that Bush is "left wing", whatever that means. I'm arguing that the categories themselves are useless and meaningless.Doug Moen
That's not true. The MS licence is NOT compatible with a BSD licence, or with any open source licence. The licence is incompatible with both the Open Source Definition and the Free Software Definition. And that's why Sender-ID was rejected as a standard the first time through.
Specifically, the problem is that if you want to run an open source MTA that contains microsoft's patent-pending algorithm, then you have to first execute a signed licence agreement with Microsoft. And that means the MTA is not open source. The most fundamental freedom provided by any free or open source program is the freedom to run the program, for any purpose, without getting first getting permission. The fact that you don't have to pay MS money to get permission does not make it "free" or "open".
Doug Moen
IANAL, but the licence restrictions for incorporating the patented Domain Keys algorithm into source code appear to be incompatible with both the GPL, and with BSD style open source licencing. Isn't this the same problem that killed Sender-ID in favour of SPF?
http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys-license-01
Doug Moen
So that's why most MacOS X users will not have their machines infected--they aren't running Classic at the time they insert the CD.
Doug Moen.
All of the Italian media is under direct government control, mostly because it is controlled by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns all the media. Criticism of the government, and criticism of Berlusconi in particular, by the media, is not tolerated.
Most people spell it Wal-Mart, not Walmart.
Most people spell it Macy*s, not Maceys.
No they don't, because if you hadn't noticed, most people either can't spell, or just can't be bothered when posting to slashdot. It's not a crime, you know.
Doug Moen.
I agree. We probably don't agree on the definition of "better", however.
Software with crappy or lacking documentation isn't good software, no matter what interface it uses.
This is also a good point. BTW, one of the things I noticed when moving from RedHat to FreeBSD is that the documentation is (in my opinion) better.
one of the tenets of user interfaces is: if the user requires a manual, then the interface has failed in its task.
By this argument, vi is an abject failure. I found vi incredibly hard to learn, and I've been anticipating its imminent death for years, based on this tenet. But vi has defied my expectations. It continues to be quite popular, so there must be something wrong with the tenet. Based on empirical evidence, the vi interface is not a failure.
Doug Moen
But this doesn't interest me. I don't like Windows, and I can't imagine liking a Linux based Windows clone that is just as easy to use as Windows any better.
The more Windows-like Linux becomes, the less I am interested in running it. I've mostly switched to FreeBSD (I used to be Redhat only).
I use the CLI, I edit with vi, I write lots of scripts, and so on. In my opinion, text based, scriptable interfaces have a flexibility and power that Windows lacks, and which I refuse to do without.
This is not to say that traditional Unix is perfect. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to make the Unix user interface better and more powerful. I think there is a lot of interesting work that could be done on making Unix suck less. I just don't see building a Windows clone as movement in the right direction.
I understand that the general public doesn't want a better operating system. The general public wants Windows. So feel free to donate your time building an open source windows clone, but count me out.
Doug Moen
The Sega Genesis had only 320 x 224 resolution, which would have been unuseably small on the Mac. It also had a custom graphics chip with sprites and scrolling playfields to take the load off the CPU, while the Mac did everything with the CPU.
I didn't know that the Lisa had "colour capability". I do know that it had a monochrome display, just like the Mac.
The first colour Mac was the Mac II, which had a 16Mhz 68020, significantly faster than the original 7Mhz 68000.
Doug Moen
Yes, it certainly was. The Mac was not Apple's first computer with a mouse and a graphical interface. That was the Lisa, which nobody bought, because it was too expensive. A colour Mac would have required a huge frame buffer in order to provide adequate resolution. The memory costs of this would have pushed the price too high. Also, the 7MHz CPU was not fast enough to draw text and windows on a colour graphics display (again, unless the resolution was too small to be useful).
And keep in mind that the Lisa, despite its immense cost, was also black and white. So was the Xerox Star (another failed GUI computer that cost too much).
The Mac was not the first personal computer with a GUI. It was the first GUI computer that was cheap enough for ordinary people to buy. The hardware limitations you mention were necessary to keep the cost down.
Doug Moen
Doug Moen
Gator is a menace to the internet, and I'm talking about measureable economic damage. One of my employer's clients (I'm in the network security business) found that 18% of their internet bandwidth was being sucked up by Gator. We sold them a solution, of course.
Blocking Gator's spyware is big business. Corporate customers are eager for solutions, and lots of companies are selling them. The term "spyware" is not going to go away as long as Gator's evil behaviour continues to create a big market for spyware removal and blocking software.
Gator can threaten to sue people of course, but since they are clearly the ones engaged in criminal behaviour, not the anti-spyware firms, I really don't believe Gator can come out on top in the long term.
So there.
Doug Moen.
Doug Moen
But the SIL licence terms are too restrictive: you can't use their tables in an open source/free software program, because the SIL tables themselves are not freely redistributable: "You are not authorized to redistribute the downloadable code or mapping tables, whether in the exact form they were obtained from this site or in a modified form you have developed, without the written consent of SIL International.
Doug Moen.
The Translucent Screen of Death in MacOS X.2 is waaay cooler looking than Microsoft's current BSoD. M$ needs to do something about this to keep up.
Meanwhile, my FreeBSD system just keeps running...
Doug Moen.
If you want something new and different, you can't also ask for it to be compatible. Break out of your preconceptions and help today's technology re-invent itself as tomorrow's.
Some knowledge of history would help here.
Cars and horse-drawn carriages are indeed compatible: cars were designed to use the pre-existing road system that was built for horse drawn carriages.
Colour television was designed to be compatible with black and white television sets. This was critical to its success.
And the years of work that have been spent making Linux compatible with Windows are finally paying off, as large institutions are beginning to deploy Linux on the desktop. (I'm thinking of OpenOffice, support in Evolution for MS Exchange servers, and so on.)
Doug Moen
In fact, Microsoft already has a Unix/Windows hybrid: it's SFU (windows services for unix), and it includes a component called Interix, which extends the Windows NT/2000/XP kernel with a set of Unix system calls, and adds a few hundred Unix utilities.
If buying a SCO licence wasn't pure propaganda, then it's likely that Microsoft bought the SCO licence for the benefit of the SFU product.
It is highly unlikely that Microsoft would ever follow Apple's lead and create a new version of Windows that is layered on top of a Unix kernel. This is because of Microsoft's corporate culture. They are as rabidly pro-Windows and anti-Unix as the Slashdot community is the reverse of this.
Doug Moen.
'Nuff said.
Good luck getting your laptop past airport security and aboard an airplane.
Oooooh nooooo! Not the anal probe!!!!
eventually the whole population will get the mods for free from their parents, meaning that (a) the companies doing them need to make all the money they want up front
That sounds like theft to me. I'm sure there is a technical fix to ensure that your descendents are forced to keep paying GeneCorp for the enhanced genes they inherited from you. Maybe it's a pill that you must take every month, to which GeneCorp holds the patent. Or it's something else (use your imagination).
Whatever this genetic social control mechanism is, I bet the more authoritarian states will jump at the chance to get into the game. In the future, the "genetic elite" may be those that aren't modified.
Doug Moen