Being from Minnesota and living in Chicago, I would usually agree with you, but after this summer, I could do without it. Those 25+ days over 90 degrees were enough for a northern midwesterner like myself.
The advances in PCs over the last ten years has been nothing short of amazing. I'm not one to balk at the latest developments, but every industry goes through lulls. Considering that I was using a 486DX2 w/ 8MB of memory back in '95, I have trouble sympathizing with people that whine about the current state of advancement.
I agree (with what I think you're saying), that cygwin is a better package overall. I was just responding that it is not the only available posix/unix system available on windows.
FireFox is the probably the greatest thing to happen to the web development world. I personally have my team develop using it and only testing with IE. It creates many fewer compatibility problems (except for random IE quirks).
Plus, FireFox provides a ton of useful developer tools.
Actually, the tobacco companies offering tips for quitting smoking (you are probably thinking of the Philip Morris commercials) is a condition of the lawsuit brought against them a few years ago.
But you are correct about what drives a corporation. Unlike many on/. though, I agree with Milton Friedman's quote:
Yeah, Europe is the epitome of "balance, well-rounded individuals." Those "religious outcasts" *left* because of state-sponsored religion in Europe.
Your post shows that you've never actually spent any time in the U.S. If you had, you would know that what is presented in the media is very unrepresentative of the average person in the U.S.
Um, actually, I would say that many of the "current crop of developers" have had a fair amount of experience with Linux. Depending on what you mean by "current crop," many of us were going to school or already out when Linux started becoming big, plus we were developing on Unix systems in college. As a graduate in '98, I can say that I and most of the developers I was hanging around with in college were using Linux from circa 1995 and on.
But, I do agree that the new developers are also a great source of new development.
I agree. However, steroids can be the devil in disguise. I don't want to turn anyone off to them that needs them, but after a few of them to the same area of the wrist, they can turn the muscles and tendons to -- as my doctor put it -- "mush". Cortisone can be a lifesaver when you are in excruciating pain, but it isn't a long-tem (or even medium-term) solution.
Remember that RSI's are not just caused by the wrist (even if that's where the pain is), but can can be caused by pressure on nerves in the neck, forearm, wrist, hand, etc.
1) Regardless of your posture (and yes it matters), make sure you are not sitting in a static position for any period of time. Holding you muscles in a single floating position causes them to -- for lack of a better word -- "seize up" and tighten. Those "ropes" you feel in your forearms are caused by this.
2) Take a break every 10 minutes or so. Just take your hands off of the keyboard, shake out your arms and stretch a bit.
3) Get a deep muscle massage regularly on your back and arms to break up those tense muscles.
4) Find a new line of work;-) (just kidding)
As a recoverer from mild RSI, I made changes before they became serious (as they did for my mother who got surgery). Please do the same so we don't lose great developers to the new epidemic of our age.
Actually, it's been running an a number of Palm devices for a while (before PocketPC devices came out, I believe). Also, PalmSource is moving to Linux as their kernel in the future.
In a world: simplicity. I can get to pretty much anything on my Palm in a tap or two. It is extremely elegant, as it was designed for palmtop devices. WinCE feels like Win95 smashed into a small device. I never thought the Windows UI was that elegantly designed in the first place, and that problem is only magnified on a palmtop. I also can't say I've ever wanted to play a video on my palmtop, and I have an iPod for my music (20GB beats a couple hundred MB any day).
I totally agree. However, I would say that if the solutions these consultants created were open source, there would be more reuse among consultants and you would get some sort of standardization. I may just be living in a fantasy world, though. I've worked with a number of ADP consultants, and -- while some were really great -- many are complete hacks when it comes to software development. Add to that the fact that they have to understand software and the business practices, it certainly isn't the same as the "hacker" environment of the traditional open source project.
The worst part is that ADP/PeopleSoft was written so long ago and never updated (just extended) that it is a mess of 16-bit code that is really flaky. So, I guess I'm agreeing with your statement that "[it is] nearly impossible to do any housecleaning without breaking everybody's customized solution."
I admit to slightly misreading the article initially, so I concede your point. It was more an article against so-called "zealots" rather than the community as a whole.
I would have to say that the Linux kernel is a fairly non-trivial, successful project though.;-)
Great post. The only thing I would add is that it is still possible to keep "proprietary" projects open source. For example, look at a closed source application like ADP (or PeopleSoft, etc). Their software sucks.. badly. But they make most of their money on two things: salary processing and consulting. You can't just drop ERP packages into a company and go. You need a number of consultants to set it up, maintain it, and extend it.
That said, consulting is not a panacea. To increase revenue, you need to hire more people. In the software industry, the margins are an order of magnitude better because once the software is developed, you can simply print more copies.
I'm not an open source/free software zealot, but Mr. Fleury seems to be ignoring an important point. Namely, that while individual developers are only going to give for free until they get tired of giving (this is true as it's a tautology), the "community" as a whole will continue giving. The power of OSS is in numbers. Once it reaches critical mass, it drives forward regardless of any single individual.
If OSS relied on any one developer, of course it would fail, and I think that is the mistake many detractors make in commenting about it. They fail to understand that OSS is greater than the sum of its parts.
Slashdot Mirror
Google is a profitable company due largely to advertising revenues. The piper is getting paid.
"Charging would do nothing but start a price war."
Price wars benefit the consumer by forcing prices down. I wouldn't call this "nothing."
Being from Minnesota and living in Chicago, I would usually agree with you, but after this summer, I could do without it. Those 25+ days over 90 degrees were enough for a northern midwesterner like myself.
The advances in PCs over the last ten years has been nothing short of amazing. I'm not one to balk at the latest developments, but every industry goes through lulls. Considering that I was using a 486DX2 w/ 8MB of memory back in '95, I have trouble sympathizing with people that whine about the current state of advancement.
I agree (with what I think you're saying), that cygwin is a better package overall. I was just responding that it is not the only available posix/unix system available on windows.
I would say that "results" includes "quality" if not "service."
FireFox is the probably the greatest thing to happen to the web development world. I personally have my team develop using it and only testing with IE. It creates many fewer compatibility problems (except for random IE quirks).
Plus, FireFox provides a ton of useful developer tools.
Actually, ActiveX is the renamed OLE Automation. COM is the low-level layer it is based on.
At the most basic level, COM is the interface:
IUnknown
- AddRef
- Release
- QueryInterface
At the most basic level, ActiveX is the interface:
IDispatch: IUnknown
- GetTypeInfoCount
- GetTypeInfo
- GetIDsOfNames
- Invoke
Unix Services for Windows (Interix) http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sfu/d efault.mspx is also a freely available download. Unfortunately, you have to download a number of other packages to make it completely useful: http://www.interix.com/
Any company that doesn't just focus on profit, speed to market, and results is going to be a failed company.
That's not to say you can't get all of that with OSS.
PeaPod failed? News to me: http://www.peapod.com/
Actually, the tobacco companies offering tips for quitting smoking (you are probably thinking of the Philip Morris commercials) is a condition of the lawsuit brought against them a few years ago.
/. though, I agree with Milton Friedman's quote:
s /issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html
But you are correct about what drives a corporation. Unlike many on
"The social responsibility of business is to increase its profit":
http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarian
Yeah, Europe is the epitome of "balance, well-rounded individuals." Those "religious outcasts" *left* because of state-sponsored religion in Europe.
Your post shows that you've never actually spent any time in the U.S. If you had, you would know that what is presented in the media is very unrepresentative of the average person in the U.S.
As a long time Linux user, I still always cringe when these articles come along. Can we at least keep the attacks on Microsoft original this time?
Um, actually, I would say that many of the "current crop of developers" have had a fair amount of experience with Linux. Depending on what you mean by "current crop," many of us were going to school or already out when Linux started becoming big, plus we were developing on Unix systems in college. As a graduate in '98, I can say that I and most of the developers I was hanging around with in college were using Linux from circa 1995 and on.
But, I do agree that the new developers are also a great source of new development.
Let the two-minute hate begin!
Read the article, the summary above doesn't do it justice.
I agree. However, steroids can be the devil in disguise. I don't want to turn anyone off to them that needs them, but after a few of them to the same area of the wrist, they can turn the muscles and tendons to -- as my doctor put it -- "mush". Cortisone can be a lifesaver when you are in excruciating pain, but it isn't a long-tem (or even medium-term) solution.
Remember that RSI's are not just caused by the wrist (even if that's where the pain is), but can can be caused by pressure on nerves in the neck, forearm, wrist, hand, etc.
A few other things:
;-) (just kidding)
1) Regardless of your posture (and yes it matters), make sure you are not sitting in a static position for any period of time. Holding you muscles in a single floating position causes them to -- for lack of a better word -- "seize up" and tighten. Those "ropes" you feel in your forearms are caused by this.
2) Take a break every 10 minutes or so. Just take your hands off of the keyboard, shake out your arms and stretch a bit.
3) Get a deep muscle massage regularly on your back and arms to break up those tense muscles.
4) Find a new line of work
As a recoverer from mild RSI, I made changes before they became serious (as they did for my mother who got surgery). Please do the same so we don't lose great developers to the new epidemic of our age.
I'm more interested to find out what kind of administrative tools they would bring to the table. Debian has had RPM support for a while.
Actually, it's been running an a number of Palm devices for a while (before PocketPC devices came out, I believe). Also, PalmSource is moving to Linux as their kernel in the future.
In a world: simplicity. I can get to pretty much anything on my Palm in a tap or two. It is extremely elegant, as it was designed for palmtop devices. WinCE feels like Win95 smashed into a small device. I never thought the Windows UI was that elegantly designed in the first place, and that problem is only magnified on a palmtop. I also can't say I've ever wanted to play a video on my palmtop, and I have an iPod for my music (20GB beats a couple hundred MB any day).
I totally agree. However, I would say that if the solutions these consultants created were open source, there would be more reuse among consultants and you would get some sort of standardization. I may just be living in a fantasy world, though. I've worked with a number of ADP consultants, and -- while some were really great -- many are complete hacks when it comes to software development. Add to that the fact that they have to understand software and the business practices, it certainly isn't the same as the "hacker" environment of the traditional open source project.
The worst part is that ADP/PeopleSoft was written so long ago and never updated (just extended) that it is a mess of 16-bit code that is really flaky. So, I guess I'm agreeing with your statement that "[it is] nearly impossible to do any housecleaning without breaking everybody's customized solution."
I admit to slightly misreading the article initially, so I concede your point. It was more an article against so-called "zealots" rather than the community as a whole.
;-)
I would have to say that the Linux kernel is a fairly non-trivial, successful project though.
Great post. The only thing I would add is that it is still possible to keep "proprietary" projects open source. For example, look at a closed source application like ADP (or PeopleSoft, etc). Their software sucks.. badly. But they make most of their money on two things: salary processing and consulting. You can't just drop ERP packages into a company and go. You need a number of consultants to set it up, maintain it, and extend it.
That said, consulting is not a panacea. To increase revenue, you need to hire more people. In the software industry, the margins are an order of magnitude better because once the software is developed, you can simply print more copies.
I'm not an open source/free software zealot, but Mr. Fleury seems to be ignoring an important point. Namely, that while individual developers are only going to give for free until they get tired of giving (this is true as it's a tautology), the "community" as a whole will continue giving. The power of OSS is in numbers. Once it reaches critical mass, it drives forward regardless of any single individual.
If OSS relied on any one developer, of course it would fail, and I think that is the mistake many detractors make in commenting about it. They fail to understand that OSS is greater than the sum of its parts.