To me, the biggest problem is abolutely no fallback to non-javascript browsers. I'm not so much worried about users, but search engine bots won't be able to spider me and drive traffic to me.
Your issue has nothing to do with GWT. JavaScript only has fallback for non-JavaScript browsers if you write fallback HTML; and GWT is no different.
The same applies for spiders; your content (either static or dynamic) needs to be in the HTML part in order for a spider to see it. If your content is loaded dynamically through AJAX then no spider will see it.
For fallback and spiders, JavaScript (either hand-written or compiled from GWT) can manipulate pre-rendered HTML. The pre-rendered HTML can either be static or dynamically-generated from PHP, Ruby, C#, brainf*ck, ect, ect...
My experience with GWT is rapid prototyping. Overall, I like playing around with GWT. It's a great way to quickly dynamic web sites without wading through the mess that JavaScript is. Considering that I do other kinds of software on a day-to-day basis; GWT has a learning curve that's gentle enough to allow me to write powerful UIs as a weekend project.
GWT's integration with Eclipse; especially its debugger, is a significant advantage. Its compiler is also another advantage. I tend to shy away from JavaScript because I prefer compiled environments with rich debuggers.
I think GWT's long-term strengths could be its maintainability, although someone who is experienced with both JavaScript and GWT will be better off making such a judgment. I have not written a large, multi-developer GWT application; thus I do not know what kind of complexities arise in such an environment.
GWT has an odd deployment system that's designed to take advantage of HTTP caching. Compiled javascript files are named based on a hashing algorithm, thus a web server can be optimized to instruct the browser to only download code when a new version is compiled. This makes storage of compiled JavaScript difficult for some deployment scenarios, because the files always change.
I've been reading the mailing list for about a year, and in general, it tends to have a lot of novices and hard-core Java developers. There's a lot of talk about using various Java frameworks within GWT. I get the impression that, even though GWT is Java-based, using frameworks like Spring or Hibernate is like ramming a square peg down a round hole.
Some novices don't understand that GWT doesn't run under the JRE, or assume that GWT can somehow magically make their favorite library run in the browser. GWT compiles Java into JavaScript; it does not deal with Java bytecode (except in its debugger.)
There's also a lot of talk about using various RPC / Remoting protocols when served from a Java web server. It seems that some Java programmers like that they can keep a simple layer between code running in the browser and code on the server. I personally avoid these layers and stick with simple AJAX calls into PHP or my custom-written C# server.
Now, you might think "wouldn't it be a cool idea to integrate an MP3 search engine into your demo?" I did, but it's locked behind closed doors because I don't want to get sued! (It turns out that the folks at Seeqpod got sued after I completed the version with the search engine.
I used to use Hibernate with Windows XP. It was fast and reliable enough on my laptop that I never used sleep mode. Hibernate's speed depends on the amount of RAM and the speed of the disk.
Run the analog output to an older cassette recorder. (Piano-style) Use a lamp timer to automatically turn on the cassette recorder at your desired time.
Run the analog output to a VCR. Use its internal timer to automatically record at the desired time. HiFi VHS is probably good enough to get an accurate recording.
Run the analog output to your computer. Use a cron job or a Windows Scheduler job to automatically schedule a command-line wave recording utility. Make sure that it's using at least 48khz, 16-bit.
Psystar buys a license of OS X for each machine they sell? Apple may claim that the copies aren't licensed since they violate the EULA, but US copyright law doesn't limits copyright holders rights to prevent installation of software. Furthermore, the doctrine of first sale gives Psystar the right to resell OS X.
Not quite... Psystar is distributing modified versions of Apple software. This is in violation of copyright law.
The biggest problem here for Apple is monopoly issues and tying, which I see Psystar counsel has wisely raised. (You can be a monopoly of a more restricted relevant market than just OSs in general..)
IANAL, and again, IANAL, but I don't see how monopoly would apply. Psystar has plenty of operating systems to choose from, and as far as I know, Linux has aproximately the same market share as OSX.
Tying seems like a stretch, considering that iTunes DRM-protected music only works on the iPod.
Again, IANAL, so someone who's more familar with the issues could probably make a better argument.
You are being disingenuous at best. Are your roads in order, is the traffic calm and orderly? Do you have electricity in your home? Are you being raided by armed bandits? what about clean water, can you drink the water coming out of your faucet? What about the mail, is it being delivered?
Need I go on? You are suggesting local, state and federal government do nothing.
I live about 45 minutes south of San Francisco...
My car was broken into last march with a crowbar. The theif did almost $4000 worth of damage. A crowbar counts as being "armed".
The water where I live is salty.
Local bicyclists do not obey red lights. They will enter intersections when there is oncoming traffic, even though the law forbids it.
The mail sometimes is late, but it always has so much junk in it that I'm afraid I'll throw out an important bill.
Now, excluding the theft from an "armed bandit", the other issues are minor; but they do indicate that my local government has much room to improve.
I guess I don't understand how combustion engines are supposedly tapped out. Keep in mind that most of the engine's performance characteristics are still very much mechanical and are basically "hard coded" for a good median of power output and fuel economy since they don't have the technology to dynamically change the characteristics when one is needed over the other.
ICE's are fundamentally limited in efficiency for two reasons:
The compression stroke takes a percentage of the efficency
The exhast stroke wastes energy by dumping heat from the gasoline into the atmosphere.
Noise! All that noise is wasted energy!
Electric motors don't have these limitations. We're already at a stage where inefficent electric cars use less energy then my hybrid.
Really? I haven't heard many people advocating that. Sounds like a load of crap to me, most likely written by someone who hasn't got the faintest idea what they're talking about.
I'm not sure if I'm a "greenie," but I've always seen fossil and nuclear as stepping stones towards renewables like solar. They're great for the short-term, but hopefully we'll be smart enough to move towards better forms by the end of the century.
Reading and writing, on the other hand, are things that millions of people over the world don't ever learn.
My mother taught me letters and plopped me in front of Seseme Street; I figured out the rest before I went to school.
My mom read many of the same books over and over to me. At some point, the words made sense and I was able to move to books that I hadn't heard before.
Language probably developed gradually over tens of thousands of years. The first words were probably danger warnings, then maybe things related to day to day survival such as words for various foodstuffs. I would not be surprised to find out that Homo Erectus had rudimentary language. Even today various animals have calls that correspond to danger signs, and primates such as chimps seem to be able to communicate fairly well without what we would call acutal language. Communication predates humanity, so it's only natural that apes with big brains (us) would take it to the next level and begin to transmit abstract information using vocalizations.
Last night I watched a documentary on the work "fuck." What's interesting about the word is that it communicates a primal, emotional meaning. One of the comedians joked that it was probably one of the first words uttered by primitive man.
In one short sentence, if the ability to speak/hear is innate in the human brain, then to say language only began abruptly 50,000 years ago is to say that the modern human brain really only developed abruptly 50,000 years ago. Forget the 10,000 year barrier some believe. Evolution is capable of many things, but I believe that the modern human brain was basically intact as we know it today before 50,000 years ago.
I frankly think we'll find that a mutation, or a few mutations, in a few people benefitted society.
What if Einstien had a mutation? Many people benefit from GPS devices, which use Einstien's theories.
Likewise, what if it took a mutant to invent words that everyone else used?
Freedom from the clock- I don't have to leave the bar with my friends to make that last 10:30 pm bus, I can stay til closing time (assume I'm sober for this one).
Which is why I wish there was better public transportation.
If electric cars can be made to charge from ordinary outlets, isn't the infrastructure already there? I suppose the trick would be to get the cars to charge fast enough and/or to last long enough on one charge that you don't have to stop every 4 hours to charge the car for 12 hours at a time, but assuming we can solve that, replacing all those gas pumps at fuel stations with extra outlets shouldn't be that big of a deal.
There's a last mile problem... Not everyone has an electrical outlet handy near their car. In my apartment, I could run an extension cord out the window because my car port is directly underneath me. However, there are many people who live in apartments that only have street parking or general-use parking lots. These people just don't have the luxury to run extension cords to their cars.
I recently listened to a talk from a company that is working with Isreal to support their switch to electric vehicles. The effort that they're going through to make most parking areas EV-friendly is staggering.
Re:Please explain exactly what is wrong with C#
on
Head First C#
·
· Score: 1
Can someone please explain what is wrong with C#? Something other than the fact it was created by Microsoft or simply that it is 'rubbish'.
I've been working with C# since 1.0 back in 2002. My biggest beef with the language is that Mono's development is much slower then I hoped for. C# on Mac or Linux just isn't "there" yet like Java is.
On the other hand, people who call C# a clone of Java can't seem to appreciate the tangible improvements that the language offered in V1. "foreach" is just easier to use then Java's iterators. Language / VM support for properties makes debugging much easier.
Re:C++ without solid understanding of OOP?
on
Head First C#
·
· Score: 1
Well if you have "experience with C++" but no "solid understanding of OOP", there might already be a problem with your programming skills.
There are a lot of people who need to write quick-and-dirty programs, but aren't expert programmers. In many cases, they use C++ because it was the language used in their "Intoduction to Programming" college course.
I read a few years ago that physicists found an accoustic effect created by the low frequency electrmagnetic energy working on water droplets of a certain size. This would make sense because when I did hear the "whoosh", I was lying on my back on the dewy grass. I've also read that wireframe glasses can account for the simultaneous sound.
I suspect the idea is that if you maintain your own website, people who are Googling you at random will come across that first, and may not pay attention to the shady results at all. Your name is essentially your very own brand; might as well try to paint it in a decent light.
They're boned as far as operating systems go. They can't break backwards compatibility, but that same backwards compatibility is killing them as they try to improve the system.
Think about it - if you're making a clean break from Windows, would you choose a mature, well established alternative like Linux or MacOSX, or would you choose a completely new, unproven and completely incompatible and unstandardised operating system from Microsoft? Even if the new Microsoft OS is cleaner, being incompatible with EVERY operating system out there would absolutely kill it.
So they can't keep going with the Windows they have, and they can't start over without losing the only asset Windows has, its backwards compatibility. The superior technology of Linux and MacOSX will keep them alive long after Windows' architecture crumbles, and Vista is the first huge sign that's happening.
The drop dead obvious confirmation of this is that Windows 7 was meant to be modularised and cleaned up, and all of that has been cancelled already.
All MS needs to do is run legacy applications in a virtual machine. I do this on an almost daily basis on my Mac via VMware Fusion.
Windows inside of Fusion on Mac is "good enough". MS could modify Windows to hook more cleanly into a VM; and then start from scratch.
I never got a good explanation of why black on white is good (think original Apple Mac), vs. white on black is bad (original IBM CGA).
You'll get it now: Depth of focus. Bright-on-dark results in a darker screen overall than dark-on-bright. This means that your pupils will open wider (to let more light in), which results in a smaller depth of focus (optics 101, ask anyone whose hobby is photography). And this, in turn, means that your eye has to re-focus more often.
Furthermore, the white text ghosts itself a bit in my neurons, causing me to see vertical lines. It makes it very difficult to read when I'm essentially seeing spots.
The odd thing is I never have that problem when I run text mode in full screen...
I'm of mixed minds about this. I support reasonable copyright laws -- "reasonable" being the operative word there -- and I object to piracy on general principle, but I have to say that the practices of some companies or industries are so egregious that I have a hard time mustering any sympathy for them. Textbook publishers are a case in point. New editions every other year, absurd prices... it's really quite a racket. I remember one hydrology textbook that was about 200 pages and cost $70. I bought the book, copied every page at 10 cents per page, and returned the book the following day. Can't say that I was all that broken up about what I did. Seventy bucks for a 200 page book is ridiculous... and that was more than 10 years ago. I can't imagine what that company is asking for a similar book today.
I used to have the same philosophy as you towards piracy... Then I learned about what Adam Smith wrote about Capitalism when he wrote "Wealth of Nations."
According to Adam Smith, when England was industrializing, the Landlord class used rent as a means to make money without doing any work. They would charge as much money as possible for rent without making any improvements to the property. Furthermore, such landlords would often impede technological progress in order to secure their income. Adam Smith then stated that tenants would get sick of supporting their landlords, and figure out how to push them out of the system. This is why homeownership is encouraged in the U.S; because it minimizes a landlord class.
The same can be said about copyright. We have copyright "slumlords" who are abusing a captive audience as a means to live without making a positive contribution to society. The copyright "slumlords" impede electronic distribution of information as a means to secure their income, while they do little to add value to the information that they distribute.
IMHO, that is what a CS degree should do. A little programming is fine, but I'd be loath to respect any CS degree that focussed on programming. Anyone can be a programmer - hell, even physicists program. A computer scientist is not the same thing as a programmer, and that's the way it should be.
And any mathematician who couldn't prove the theories (s)he taught would be laughed out of the field! A working program is a proof of the theory; I have no respect for my professors who taught computer science without actually demonstrating any real computing.
MS only hope is developer lock-in with.NET, to ensure that Windows has a future because of all the 3rd party software that is written for it means businesses cannot live without it, or cannot get the same software on Linux.
Mono is getting good; although it's a few years behind.Net... However, I would assume that part of Sun's motivation to open-source Java is to mitigate the risk of an open Mono eating away at Java's marketshare.
Slashdot Mirror
To me, the biggest problem is abolutely no fallback to non-javascript browsers. I'm not so much worried about users, but search engine bots won't be able to spider me and drive traffic to me.
Your issue has nothing to do with GWT. JavaScript only has fallback for non-JavaScript browsers if you write fallback HTML; and GWT is no different.
The same applies for spiders; your content (either static or dynamic) needs to be in the HTML part in order for a spider to see it. If your content is loaded dynamically through AJAX then no spider will see it.
For fallback and spiders, JavaScript (either hand-written or compiled from GWT) can manipulate pre-rendered HTML. The pre-rendered HTML can either be static or dynamically-generated from PHP, Ruby, C#, brainf*ck, ect, ect...
My experience with GWT is rapid prototyping. Overall, I like playing around with GWT. It's a great way to quickly dynamic web sites without wading through the mess that JavaScript is. Considering that I do other kinds of software on a day-to-day basis; GWT has a learning curve that's gentle enough to allow me to write powerful UIs as a weekend project.
GWT's integration with Eclipse; especially its debugger, is a significant advantage. Its compiler is also another advantage. I tend to shy away from JavaScript because I prefer compiled environments with rich debuggers.
I think GWT's long-term strengths could be its maintainability, although someone who is experienced with both JavaScript and GWT will be better off making such a judgment. I have not written a large, multi-developer GWT application; thus I do not know what kind of complexities arise in such an environment.
GWT has an odd deployment system that's designed to take advantage of HTTP caching. Compiled javascript files are named based on a hashing algorithm, thus a web server can be optimized to instruct the browser to only download code when a new version is compiled. This makes storage of compiled JavaScript difficult for some deployment scenarios, because the files always change.
I've been reading the mailing list for about a year, and in general, it tends to have a lot of novices and hard-core Java developers. There's a lot of talk about using various Java frameworks within GWT. I get the impression that, even though GWT is Java-based, using frameworks like Spring or Hibernate is like ramming a square peg down a round hole.
Some novices don't understand that GWT doesn't run under the JRE, or assume that GWT can somehow magically make their favorite library run in the browser. GWT compiles Java into JavaScript; it does not deal with Java bytecode (except in its debugger.)
There's also a lot of talk about using various RPC / Remoting protocols when served from a Java web server. It seems that some Java programmers like that they can keep a simple layer between code running in the browser and code on the server. I personally avoid these layers and stick with simple AJAX calls into PHP or my custom-written C# server.
I wrote this in GWT as a learning exercise: http://andrewrondeau.com/com.Memmexx.GearPod/GearPod.html
Now, you might think "wouldn't it be a cool idea to integrate an MP3 search engine into your demo?" I did, but it's locked behind closed doors because I don't want to get sued! (It turns out that the folks at Seeqpod got sued after I completed the version with the search engine.
I used to use Hibernate with Windows XP. It was fast and reliable enough on my laptop that I never used sleep mode. Hibernate's speed depends on the amount of RAM and the speed of the disk.
Use a low-tech solution!
Run the analog output to an older cassette recorder. (Piano-style) Use a lamp timer to automatically turn on the cassette recorder at your desired time.
Run the analog output to a VCR. Use its internal timer to automatically record at the desired time. HiFi VHS is probably good enough to get an accurate recording.
Run the analog output to your computer. Use a cron job or a Windows Scheduler job to automatically schedule a command-line wave recording utility. Make sure that it's using at least 48khz, 16-bit.
Psystar buys a license of OS X for each machine they sell? Apple may claim that the copies aren't licensed since they violate the EULA, but US copyright law doesn't limits copyright holders rights to prevent installation of software. Furthermore, the doctrine of first sale gives Psystar the right to resell OS X.
Not quite... Psystar is distributing modified versions of Apple software. This is in violation of copyright law.
The biggest problem here for Apple is monopoly issues and tying, which I see Psystar counsel has wisely raised. (You can be a monopoly of a more restricted relevant market than just OSs in general..)
IANAL, and again, IANAL, but I don't see how monopoly would apply. Psystar has plenty of operating systems to choose from, and as far as I know, Linux has aproximately the same market share as OSX.
Tying seems like a stretch, considering that iTunes DRM-protected music only works on the iPod.
Again, IANAL, so someone who's more familar with the issues could probably make a better argument.
You are being disingenuous at best. Are your roads in order, is the traffic calm and orderly? Do you have electricity in your home? Are you being raided by armed bandits? what about clean water, can you drink the water coming out of your faucet? What about the mail, is it being delivered? Need I go on? You are suggesting local, state and federal government do nothing.
I live about 45 minutes south of San Francisco...
Now, excluding the theft from an "armed bandit", the other issues are minor; but they do indicate that my local government has much room to improve.
I guess I don't understand how combustion engines are supposedly tapped out. Keep in mind that most of the engine's performance characteristics are still very much mechanical and are basically "hard coded" for a good median of power output and fuel economy since they don't have the technology to dynamically change the characteristics when one is needed over the other.
ICE's are fundamentally limited in efficiency for two reasons:
Electric motors don't have these limitations. We're already at a stage where inefficent electric cars use less energy then my hybrid.
Really? I haven't heard many people advocating that. Sounds like a load of crap to me, most likely written by someone who hasn't got the faintest idea what they're talking about.
I'm not sure if I'm a "greenie," but I've always seen fossil and nuclear as stepping stones towards renewables like solar. They're great for the short-term, but hopefully we'll be smart enough to move towards better forms by the end of the century.
Besides, 92 years is a LONG time!
Reading and writing, on the other hand, are things that millions of people over the world don't ever learn.
My mother taught me letters and plopped me in front of Seseme Street; I figured out the rest before I went to school.
My mom read many of the same books over and over to me. At some point, the words made sense and I was able to move to books that I hadn't heard before.
Language probably developed gradually over tens of thousands of years. The first words were probably danger warnings, then maybe things related to day to day survival such as words for various foodstuffs. I would not be surprised to find out that Homo Erectus had rudimentary language. Even today various animals have calls that correspond to danger signs, and primates such as chimps seem to be able to communicate fairly well without what we would call acutal language. Communication predates humanity, so it's only natural that apes with big brains (us) would take it to the next level and begin to transmit abstract information using vocalizations.
Last night I watched a documentary on the work "fuck." What's interesting about the word is that it communicates a primal, emotional meaning. One of the comedians joked that it was probably one of the first words uttered by primitive man.
In one short sentence, if the ability to speak/hear is innate in the human brain, then to say language only began abruptly 50,000 years ago is to say that the modern human brain really only developed abruptly 50,000 years ago. Forget the 10,000 year barrier some believe. Evolution is capable of many things, but I believe that the modern human brain was basically intact as we know it today before 50,000 years ago.
I frankly think we'll find that a mutation, or a few mutations, in a few people benefitted society.
What if Einstien had a mutation? Many people benefit from GPS devices, which use Einstien's theories.
Likewise, what if it took a mutant to invent words that everyone else used?
This system really won't help... San Francisco already has a low-tech solution!
The homeless people find open parking spaces and wave down cars!
Freedom from the clock- I don't have to leave the bar with my friends to make that last 10:30 pm bus, I can stay til closing time (assume I'm sober for this one).
Which is why I wish there was better public transportation.
If electric cars can be made to charge from ordinary outlets, isn't the infrastructure already there? I suppose the trick would be to get the cars to charge fast enough and/or to last long enough on one charge that you don't have to stop every 4 hours to charge the car for 12 hours at a time, but assuming we can solve that, replacing all those gas pumps at fuel stations with extra outlets shouldn't be that big of a deal.
There's a last mile problem... Not everyone has an electrical outlet handy near their car. In my apartment, I could run an extension cord out the window because my car port is directly underneath me. However, there are many people who live in apartments that only have street parking or general-use parking lots. These people just don't have the luxury to run extension cords to their cars.
I recently listened to a talk from a company that is working with Isreal to support their switch to electric vehicles. The effort that they're going through to make most parking areas EV-friendly is staggering.
Can someone please explain what is wrong with C#? Something other than the fact it was created by Microsoft or simply that it is 'rubbish'.
I've been working with C# since 1.0 back in 2002. My biggest beef with the language is that Mono's development is much slower then I hoped for. C# on Mac or Linux just isn't "there" yet like Java is.
On the other hand, people who call C# a clone of Java can't seem to appreciate the tangible improvements that the language offered in V1. "foreach" is just easier to use then Java's iterators. Language / VM support for properties makes debugging much easier.
Well if you have "experience with C++" but no "solid understanding of OOP", there might already be a problem with your programming skills.
There are a lot of people who need to write quick-and-dirty programs, but aren't expert programmers. In many cases, they use C++ because it was the language used in their "Intoduction to Programming" college course.
I read a few years ago that physicists found an accoustic effect created by the low frequency electrmagnetic energy working on water droplets of a certain size. This would make sense because when I did hear the "whoosh", I was lying on my back on the dewy grass. I've also read that wireframe glasses can account for the simultaneous sound.
They're wrong... The sound is caused by LSD!
I suspect the idea is that if you maintain your own website, people who are Googling you at random will come across that first, and may not pay attention to the shady results at all. Your name is essentially your very own brand; might as well try to paint it in a decent light.
The first hit on Google is my home page... All the rest promote a motivational speaker in the UK. http://www.google.com/search?q=andrew+rondeau&hl=en&sourceid=gd&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2007-50,GGLD:en At least the summaries sound nice.
They're boned as far as operating systems go. They can't break backwards compatibility, but that same backwards compatibility is killing them as they try to improve the system. Think about it - if you're making a clean break from Windows, would you choose a mature, well established alternative like Linux or MacOSX, or would you choose a completely new, unproven and completely incompatible and unstandardised operating system from Microsoft? Even if the new Microsoft OS is cleaner, being incompatible with EVERY operating system out there would absolutely kill it. So they can't keep going with the Windows they have, and they can't start over without losing the only asset Windows has, its backwards compatibility. The superior technology of Linux and MacOSX will keep them alive long after Windows' architecture crumbles, and Vista is the first huge sign that's happening. The drop dead obvious confirmation of this is that Windows 7 was meant to be modularised and cleaned up, and all of that has been cancelled already.
All MS needs to do is run legacy applications in a virtual machine. I do this on an almost daily basis on my Mac via VMware Fusion.
Windows inside of Fusion on Mac is "good enough". MS could modify Windows to hook more cleanly into a VM; and then start from scratch.
This is the Giorgio Moroder version
Working link: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002380/. (The original link is only for paying members of IMDB.)
I never got a good explanation of why black on white is good (think original Apple Mac), vs. white on black is bad (original IBM CGA). You'll get it now: Depth of focus. Bright-on-dark results in a darker screen overall than dark-on-bright. This means that your pupils will open wider (to let more light in), which results in a smaller depth of focus (optics 101, ask anyone whose hobby is photography). And this, in turn, means that your eye has to re-focus more often.
Furthermore, the white text ghosts itself a bit in my neurons, causing me to see vertical lines. It makes it very difficult to read when I'm essentially seeing spots.
The odd thing is I never have that problem when I run text mode in full screen...
I'm of mixed minds about this. I support reasonable copyright laws -- "reasonable" being the operative word there -- and I object to piracy on general principle, but I have to say that the practices of some companies or industries are so egregious that I have a hard time mustering any sympathy for them. Textbook publishers are a case in point. New editions every other year, absurd prices ... it's really quite a racket. I remember one hydrology textbook that was about 200 pages and cost $70. I bought the book, copied every page at 10 cents per page, and returned the book the following day. Can't say that I was all that broken up about what I did. Seventy bucks for a 200 page book is ridiculous ... and that was more than 10 years ago. I can't imagine what that company is asking for a similar book today.
I used to have the same philosophy as you towards piracy... Then I learned about what Adam Smith wrote about Capitalism when he wrote "Wealth of Nations."
According to Adam Smith, when England was industrializing, the Landlord class used rent as a means to make money without doing any work. They would charge as much money as possible for rent without making any improvements to the property. Furthermore, such landlords would often impede technological progress in order to secure their income. Adam Smith then stated that tenants would get sick of supporting their landlords, and figure out how to push them out of the system. This is why homeownership is encouraged in the U.S; because it minimizes a landlord class.
The same can be said about copyright. We have copyright "slumlords" who are abusing a captive audience as a means to live without making a positive contribution to society. The copyright "slumlords" impede electronic distribution of information as a means to secure their income, while they do little to add value to the information that they distribute.
IMHO, that is what a CS degree should do. A little programming is fine, but I'd be loath to respect any CS degree that focussed on programming. Anyone can be a programmer - hell, even physicists program. A computer scientist is not the same thing as a programmer, and that's the way it should be.
And any mathematician who couldn't prove the theories (s)he taught would be laughed out of the field! A working program is a proof of the theory; I have no respect for my professors who taught computer science without actually demonstrating any real computing.
MS only hope is developer lock-in with .NET, to ensure that Windows has a future because of all the 3rd party software that is written for it means businesses cannot live without it, or cannot get the same software on Linux.
Mono is getting good; although it's a few years behind .Net... However, I would assume that part of Sun's motivation to open-source Java is to mitigate the risk of an open Mono eating away at Java's marketshare.