I have used JMeter a couple of times to detect bottlenecks and synchronization problems with web apps. Very simple to set up and run just using a GUI. Apart from http/https it can appearently call java methods, EJBs etc too, but I haven't tried that. I think this tool is easier to use for stress testing rather than going through a whole use case. Also, when running against a web server of course it just tells you that something is slow, not what.
At Java One I talked to some fellow Swedes who were a bit disappointed with JProbe, they claimed it was a bit of a resource hog and that they had found a better more light weight open source library to use instead. I've looked through my notes, but it seems I didn't write down the name of the one they recommended. Darn.
Symantec had an app that seemed pretty impressive, though I don't know how much they charge for it. I think it was this one. I remember them because unlike most who just had a lottery for prizes, you actually had to run the demo to be able to answer their quiz. Pretty clever, made people remember and gave you a better chance of winning because most people wouldn't bother. I won a PSP.:-)
Also at Java One this year Sun had loads of labs and talks on profiling tools and frameworks that come with the JDK itself these days - JMX (especially in combination with DTrace if you run on Solaris), jconsole, jmap, jhat.
When I went through this process, it was not yet possible to resign through Internet. I had to visit the church office and the priest wanted to have a serious discussion with me. I was a bit rude and cut it short...
Wow, that's hardcore. When I did the same in Sweden, all I had to do was print and sign a letter and send to my church and BAM! Straight to hell!
For a typical computer under load, that is off by a factor of 3 (AMD Athlon) or 4 (Intel P4). I'm supposed to trust these guys with something as complex as climate prediction when they assume values that far off for something you could look up on any hardware site?
It may just be that the FAQ is old. They have been running that project for many years now. I'm going to mail them about that, thanks for the heads up.
If these distributed projects were in fact run by the big pharma companies, I would agree with you. But as I have already stated in three earlier posts for this topic, they are in fact not, they are run by universities or non-profit organizations, they make the results publicly available and can research things that the big pharmas don't see much profit in. For instance - medicines for the HIV subtypes currently spreading in poorer nations.
As one of those pharmaceutical researchers, I assure you that it does not make one particle of difference to us (let alone the Wall Street Journal) whether or not some overclocker runs some "fighting cancer" thingy on his computer. If there were a computational problem that we cared about, we'd throw a cluster at it, not wait for a bunch of squabbling AMD and Intel fanboys to solve it.
I work at a medical university (the Karolinska Institute in Sweden), but as a programmer. What a nice place you must work at since it seems to have infinite funding for interesting projects.
And as for global warming, I'm no climatologist but I've got to think that turning your damn computer off is more valuable than anything you could run on it.
Regardless of what they do with the data, or where they release it, most likely some company will go through all the data/findings, and figure out a way to use the information. At that point it will be patented, and locked up for years to come. All the time we put in, running our computers at 100%, will be wasted, on drugs that we can't afford.
By objections to this:
a) You don't know for sure that will/can happen. b) If the steps taken to take this research and create a anti-cancer drug from it were obvious, it would be an outcry if the US pantent office gave the patent to a single company. c)Even if this worst-case scenario did happen, the cycles donated would not be wasted. You would have helped advance human scientific research, and the medicines created would still be saving peoples' lives.
"Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.
Moreover, we will make the data available for others to use. In particular, the results from Folding@home will be made available on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication. Next, after publication of these scientific articles which analyze the data, the raw data of the folding runs will be available for everyone, including other researchers, here on this web site."
For instance, you can read the 37 papers generated so far here.
of course the WSJ would much rather you where crunching numbers for their drugs companies under the guise of "fighting cancer" or "protein folding" so your results can be turned into their profit (you didnt think that cure/treatment would be free like your CPU did you?)
"Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.
Moreover, we will make the data available for others to use. In particular, the results from Folding@home will be made available on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication. Next, after publication of these scientific articles which analyze the data, the raw data of the folding runs will be available for everyone, including other researchers, here on this web site."
"Instead, he donates his spare computer power to a global warming project" Does this attempt to determine how much global warming is being caused by donating CPU cycles.
I think that issue is answered pretty well in the FAQ. When it comes to the real experiments being run by that particular project and their results, you can start here.
What's really "funny" is that people (slashdotters and their ilk) criticize Microsoft when they backport tech from Vista to XP, saying, "Well, there's no reason to buy Vista then". Yet when Microsoft doesn't backport tech from Vista to XP (like DirectX 10), you guys still bitch.
Oh, that's fresh, a Slashdotter accusing other Slashdotters of groupthink. Yet for all your snide accusations, most of the highly rated posts at this time of writing seem to support their decision, as backporting would be difficult and expensive.
I can only speak for myself. I like to play PC games, but I don't want to pay for new versions of Windows. Actually I have made an oath to avoid paying ever again for Microsoft products as far as possible (not because I think their products are bad, but because I loathe their business practices). If most new games start using DX10, I'll guess I'll have to decide what is most distasteful choice - stop gaming, buing a console or buying Vista.
Well, if I know the EU, it will go to French farmers. Seriously, almost half the EU budget each year goes to the "Common Agricultural Policy". If only they would spend it on research, education or healthcare instead...
I did my military service in the Swedish coast guard, looking for submarines in 1994 (yes yes all Swedes, que the otter jokes). We had survaillance cameras in strategic places in the archipelago. Originally they had 360 degrees horizontal visibility, but residents in the luxury houses that are scattered throughout the archipelago complained that the cameras were following them around all the time instead of looking out over the waters...
Of course it was bored conscripts passing the time spying on people, trying to see some bare flesh. So by the time I was drafted, the cameras had metal sheet "blinders" installed behind them to help us concentrate...:-)
In case you were wondering, we were aware that subs tend to spend their time below the surface. The real detecting was done through magnetic sensors on the seabed and hydrophones. The cameras and radars were to help us see which indications came from passing ships. Magnetic field indication or hydrophone noise + nothing visible on surface = suspicious activity.
We ALSO had manned observation posts, with cameras inside them doing feedback to the central to check that the people weren't asleep at night. Appearently two guys were making out one night a couple of years earlier. "The conscripts sure found a way to pass the time...":-)
So... to summarise, some people were acting like assholes, and you punished them. And then you started acting like assholes, and someone else punished you. Therefore the server sucks?
I'm with you the first two sentences, but I fail to understand how you arrive to your conclusion.
I can't quite remember, but I seem to recall that the records are scanty on this point -- it may be that the designers of the ship just didn't have the expertise and understanding of buoyancy of later shipwrights, or it may be that there was some kind of kickbacks or other shenanigans that interfered with the building and compromised the design.
A major factor was that the king ordered another row of cannons added to the design to increase firepower and make it look more impressive. They did do stability tests by having sailors run en masse back and forth across the deck, but it started tipping so dangerously they had to stop. Even so the people in charge didn't dare to go against the kings wishes. And down it went...
If you ever get to Stockholm, the Vasa museum is defenitely worth a visit.
Star Fox, which was released in 93, was the first to actually render a 3D environment on a home console. I can't think of any PC games that did it prior to Star Fox, though I know Virtua Racer was released in 92.
Even worse, the open source driver (on supported cards) significantly outperforms the proprietary driver on several systems I've tested. Also, I've never managed to get GL117 to run on ANY ATI card, but NO problems on NVidia or even Screw ATI.
Agreed. I tried to get the DVD player to work on my T43 Thinkpad. Downloading proprietary ATI drivers and trying to get them to work cost me a day of frustration. I eventually got image, but terribly low framerate and artifacts. Once I went back to the open source Radeon drivers I got perfectly smooth image. Running the ATI installer has somehow managed to mess up the sound drivers however, and now I'm too busy at work to fix it...
Psychonauts! One of the best games I've played in a long time. By Tim Schaefer, the guy behind Full Throttle, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle.... Fantastic character design and many laugh out loud moments.
It didn't sell very well unfortunately, I think console players didn't know who he was, and PC players dismissed it as a console game and platformer. Ok, large parts of it was a platformer, but WHAT a platform game! And the rest was a glorious adventure game.
Re:Rumors that they're 'upgrading' from Ada.
on
Mars Rover Upgraded
·
· Score: 1
While Java was initially developed for such embedded environments, it isn't somewhere that we've seen it get a lot of use.
Think again. At JavaOne this year Boeing held a presentation showing how they are using real-time Java to control drones for instance. There are around 1.5 billion java smart cards sold, and similar number of mobile phones with J2ME.
I also believe that Sun's implementation of Java does not allow for it to be used in mission-critical systems.
Standard legal "cover your ass". It says the J2SE you download for free is not INTENDED for mission critical systems and if anything goes wrong Sun cannot be held liable. All corporations put in these clauses.
I dont think DTrace on FreeBSD is going to sway over and change the mind of those who use and pay and contribute to the GPL. From a strategy point of view it just made BSD's that much more competitive with Solaris and Sun offers. With the GPL you at least get some improvemnts back if your contribution is of value and nobody can close its acess.
Well, or GPL people could take the fine contribution of the BSD people, and port it to GPL. Therefore both communities can benefit. If Sun had released it under GPL, the BSD people would have been prevented from doing this. At least that is my understanding. So in this case the BSD licence seemed like a good choice, the one that maximises freedom for developers.
Furthermore, I believe Sun has stated that they would be happy if DTrace was ported to Linux, and though they can't pay developers to do it, they can provide other help (perhaps like the testsuites).
Again I'm baffled by the level of hostility towards Sun on Slashdot. Here they open source an amazing tool, and help us port it, and they get a lot of nasty comments for it.
For those who want to play something different... Well... It would be nice to have sometehing other than the old "kill things over and over to level up to kill bigger things over and over again to level up to kill bigger things over and over again" because that is pretty much the same formula of WoW, EQ 1/2, and every other MMOG known the man these days. (SWG and UO rest in peace)
You should check out Puzzle Pirates, or the "just reached beta" Bang! Howdy from the same company.
More mature players, you don't have to kill stuff, you can play a lot of the content for free, and they launch simultaniously on Linux, Mac, Windows. (Though I'm having some troubles getting Bang! Howdy to run on my Suse box, appearently because of some.so troubles).
Seems Microsoft is pushing REALLY hard these days to gain dominance in the mobile phone and small devices market. Well, I'm not going to help them. You know what will start to happen if they get to dictate the standards.
Me, I'll go with JavaME. There are over 300 million Java enabled phones in the world, and 60% of new phones sold come with it preinstalled. There were a lot of prizes to be won at the this years Java One. Sony Ericsson and Motorola among others encourages people to use JavaME.
I tried developing for it a couple of years ago, and it was not pleasurable back then, mainly because of incompatibilities between devices. It looks much better these days, and if you use Netbeans you can build applications just with drag and drop. Remember than Carmack got started with developing for mobile phones because the wide availability of free tutorials and tools for J2ME.
Well, it makes you wonder whether you have been to any conference that included even a small social-like part where no one causes some stir. Usually, with alcohol involved.
Well, I just got back from a six-day conference with more than 14000 people (guess which) and I didn't see any bad behaviour once, even on evenings when there was a lot of free booze.
he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne.
Gee, thanks for that little dig. I was at Java One this year and was delighted to see Mark Shuttleworth there and hear that Sun are going to support Ubuntu on their servers. Many others liked it too considering the applause he got (much more than Marc Fleury for instance...). On Netbeans day (day before the official start of Java One), when Jonathan Schwartz asked Rich Green on stage "So, are you going to Open Source Java?" as his first question, there was a lot of applause and laughter.
Also Sun announced loads of stuff that was open sourced at the conference. The Java Studio Creator, Mobility pack, Matisse, JMS, etc. Licensing for Java has been changed to make it easier to distribute it with Linux. I have considered doing a writeup of Java One for Slashdot, but then I realise, what is the use. Positive stuff about Sun or Java doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of being accepted by the editors. Lets just say it was educational and lots of fun. Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters were at the after dark bash. PDFs of all the session are available for free here.
Let's face it: pointer manipulation is necessary because there are real life problems that are more complex than textbook examples. If there weren't, inventing the C language wouldn't have been necessary, we could have stuck with Fortran all along.
What? Not having pointer manipulation makes complex and fast systems impossible, when you have multiple access and locking? Interesting, I have to tell the programmer I recently talked to at OMX Group who told me they use Java for all their new systems (some older ones are written in RPG). Their software runs, among others, the Singapore Exchange and the Stockholm exchange.
Or the people I work with who did the Swedish online tax systems. Or the people at this years Java one who talks about doing the French online tax system. Or the guy from eBay... etc etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I have used JMeter a couple of times to detect bottlenecks and synchronization problems with web apps. Very simple to set up and run just using a GUI. Apart from http/https it can appearently call java methods, EJBs etc too, but I haven't tried that. I think this tool is easier to use for stress testing rather than going through a whole use case. Also, when running against a web server of course it just tells you that something is slow, not what.
:-)
At Java One I talked to some fellow Swedes who were a bit disappointed with JProbe, they claimed it was a bit of a resource hog and that they had found a better more light weight open source library to use instead. I've looked through my notes, but it seems I didn't write down the name of the one they recommended. Darn.
Symantec had an app that seemed pretty impressive, though I don't know how much they charge for it. I think it was this one. I remember them because unlike most who just had a lottery for prizes, you actually had to run the demo to be able to answer their quiz. Pretty clever, made people remember and gave you a better chance of winning because most people wouldn't bother. I won a PSP.
Also at Java One this year Sun had loads of labs and talks on profiling tools and frameworks that come with the JDK itself these days - JMX (especially in combination with DTrace if you run on Solaris), jconsole, jmap, jhat.
And then of course there is this whole site...
When I went through this process, it was not yet possible to resign through Internet. I had to visit the church office and the priest wanted to have a serious discussion with me. I was a bit rude and cut it short...
Wow, that's hardcore. When I did the same in Sweden, all I had to do was print and sign a letter and send to my church and BAM! Straight to hell!
For a typical computer under load, that is off by a factor of 3 (AMD Athlon) or 4 (Intel P4). I'm supposed to trust these guys with something as complex as climate prediction when they assume values that far off for something you could look up on any hardware site?
It may just be that the FAQ is old. They have been running that project for many years now. I'm going to mail them about that, thanks for the heads up.
If these distributed projects were in fact run by the big pharma companies, I would agree with you. But as I have already stated in three earlier posts for this topic, they are in fact not, they are run by universities or non-profit organizations, they make the results publicly available and can research things that the big pharmas don't see much profit in. For instance - medicines for the HIV subtypes currently spreading in poorer nations.
As one of those pharmaceutical researchers, I assure you that it does not make one particle of difference to us (let alone the Wall Street Journal) whether or not some overclocker runs some "fighting cancer" thingy on his computer. If there were a computational problem that we cared about, we'd throw a cluster at it, not wait for a bunch of squabbling AMD and Intel fanboys to solve it.
I work at a medical university (the Karolinska Institute in Sweden), but as a programmer. What a nice place you must work at since it seems to have infinite funding for interesting projects.
And as for global warming, I'm no climatologist but I've got to think that turning your damn computer off is more valuable than anything you could run on it.
See my other post about that...
Regardless of what they do with the data, or where they release it, most likely some company will go through all the data/findings, and figure out a way to use the information. At that point it will be patented, and locked up for years to come. All the time we put in, running our computers at 100%, will be wasted, on drugs that we can't afford.
By objections to this:
a) You don't know for sure that will/can happen.
b) If the steps taken to take this research and create a anti-cancer drug from it were obvious, it would be an outcry if the US pantent office gave the patent to a single company.
c)Even if this worst-case scenario did happen, the cycles donated would not be wasted. You would have helped advance human scientific research, and the medicines created would still be saving peoples' lives.
Personally, I think protein folding is lame because I know that the IP generated is going to be locked up for the next 70 years.
Since people posting FUD gets modded up like crazy here I guess I have to repost this:
From the Folding@home FAQ
"Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.
Moreover, we will make the data available for others to use. In particular, the results from Folding@home will be made available on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication. Next, after publication of these scientific articles which analyze the data, the raw data of the folding runs will be available for everyone, including other researchers, here on this web site."
For instance, you can read the 37 papers generated so far here.
of course the WSJ would much rather you where crunching numbers for their drugs companies under the guise of "fighting cancer" or "protein folding" so your results can be turned into their profit (you didnt think that cure/treatment would be free like your CPU did you?)
From the Folding@Home FAQ:
"Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.
Moreover, we will make the data available for others to use. In particular, the results from Folding@home will be made available on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication. Next, after publication of these scientific articles which analyze the data, the raw data of the folding runs will be available for everyone, including other researchers, here on this web site."
"Instead, he donates his spare computer power to a global warming project"
Does this attempt to determine how much global warming is being caused by donating CPU cycles.
I think that issue is answered pretty well in the FAQ. When it comes to the real experiments being run by that particular project and their results, you can start here.
What's really "funny" is that people (slashdotters and their ilk) criticize Microsoft when they backport tech from Vista to XP, saying, "Well, there's no reason to buy Vista then". Yet when Microsoft doesn't backport tech from Vista to XP (like DirectX 10), you guys still bitch.
Oh, that's fresh, a Slashdotter accusing other Slashdotters of groupthink. Yet for all your snide accusations, most of the highly rated posts at this time of writing seem to support their decision, as backporting would be difficult and expensive.
I can only speak for myself. I like to play PC games, but I don't want to pay for new versions of Windows. Actually I have made an oath to avoid paying ever again for Microsoft products as far as possible (not because I think their products are bad, but because I loathe their business practices). If most new games start using DX10, I'll guess I'll have to decide what is most distasteful choice - stop gaming, buing a console or buying Vista.
Well, if I know the EU, it will go to French farmers. Seriously, almost half the EU budget each year goes to the "Common Agricultural Policy". If only they would spend it on research, education or healthcare instead...
I did my military service in the Swedish coast guard, looking for submarines in 1994 (yes yes all Swedes, que the otter jokes). We had survaillance cameras in strategic places in the archipelago. Originally they had 360 degrees horizontal visibility, but residents in the luxury houses that are scattered throughout the archipelago complained that the cameras were following them around all the time instead of looking out over the waters...
:-)
:-)
Of course it was bored conscripts passing the time spying on people, trying to see some bare flesh. So by the time I was drafted, the cameras had metal sheet "blinders" installed behind them to help us concentrate...
In case you were wondering, we were aware that subs tend to spend their time below the surface. The real detecting was done through magnetic sensors on the seabed and hydrophones. The cameras and radars were to help us see which indications came from passing ships. Magnetic field indication or hydrophone noise + nothing visible on surface = suspicious activity.
We ALSO had manned observation posts, with cameras inside them doing feedback to the central to check that the people weren't asleep at night. Appearently two guys were making out one night a couple of years earlier. "The conscripts sure found a way to pass the time..."
So... to summarise, some people were acting like assholes, and you punished them. And then you started acting like assholes, and someone else punished you. Therefore the server sucks?
I'm with you the first two sentences, but I fail to understand how you arrive to your conclusion.
I can't quite remember, but I seem to recall that the records are scanty on this point -- it may be that the designers of the ship just didn't have the expertise and understanding of buoyancy of later shipwrights, or it may be that there was some kind of kickbacks or other shenanigans that interfered with the building and compromised the design.
A major factor was that the king ordered another row of cannons added to the design to increase firepower and make it look more impressive. They did do stability tests by having sailors run en masse back and forth across the deck, but it started tipping so dangerously they had to stop. Even so the people in charge didn't dare to go against the kings wishes. And down it went...
If you ever get to Stockholm, the Vasa museum is defenitely worth a visit.
Star Fox, which was released in 93, was the first to actually render a 3D environment on a home console.
I can't think of any PC games that did it prior to Star Fox, though I know Virtua Racer was released in 92.
Elite, 1984.
Even worse, the open source driver (on supported cards) significantly outperforms the proprietary driver on several systems I've tested. Also, I've never managed to get GL117 to run on ANY ATI card, but NO problems on NVidia or even Screw ATI.
Agreed. I tried to get the DVD player to work on my T43 Thinkpad. Downloading proprietary ATI drivers and trying to get them to work cost me a day of frustration. I eventually got image, but terribly low framerate and artifacts. Once I went back to the open source Radeon drivers I got perfectly smooth image. Running the ATI installer has somehow managed to mess up the sound drivers however, and now I'm too busy at work to fix it...
Psychonauts! One of the best games I've played in a long time. By Tim Schaefer, the guy behind Full Throttle, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle....
Fantastic character design and many laugh out loud moments.
It didn't sell very well unfortunately, I think console players didn't know who he was, and PC players dismissed it as a console game and platformer. Ok, large parts of it was a platformer, but WHAT a platform game! And the rest was a glorious adventure game.
While Java was initially developed for such embedded environments, it isn't somewhere that we've seen it get a lot of use.
Think again. At JavaOne this year Boeing held a presentation showing how they are using real-time Java to control drones for instance. There are around 1.5 billion java smart cards sold, and similar number of mobile phones with J2ME.
I also believe that Sun's implementation of Java does not allow for it to be used in mission-critical systems.
Standard legal "cover your ass". It says the J2SE you download for free is not INTENDED for mission critical systems and if anything goes wrong Sun cannot be held liable. All corporations put in these clauses.
I dont think DTrace on FreeBSD is going to sway over and change the mind of those who use and pay and contribute to the GPL. From a strategy point of view it just made BSD's that much more competitive with Solaris and Sun offers. With the GPL you at least get some improvemnts back if your contribution is of value and nobody can close its acess.
Well, or GPL people could take the fine contribution of the BSD people, and port it to GPL. Therefore both communities can benefit. If Sun had released it under GPL, the BSD people would have been prevented from doing this. At least that is my understanding. So in this case the BSD licence seemed like a good choice, the one that maximises freedom for developers.
Furthermore, I believe Sun has stated that they would be happy if DTrace was ported to Linux, and though they can't pay developers to do it, they can provide other help (perhaps like the testsuites).
Again I'm baffled by the level of hostility towards Sun on Slashdot. Here they open source an amazing tool, and help us port it, and they get a lot of nasty comments for it.
For those who want to play something different... Well... It would be nice to have sometehing other than the old "kill things over and over to level up to kill bigger things over and over again to level up to kill bigger things over and over again" because that is pretty much the same formula of WoW, EQ 1/2, and every other MMOG known the man these days. (SWG and UO rest in peace)
.so troubles).
You should check out Puzzle Pirates, or the "just reached beta" Bang! Howdy from the same company.
More mature players, you don't have to kill stuff, you can play a lot of the content for free, and they launch simultaniously on Linux, Mac, Windows. (Though I'm having some troubles getting Bang! Howdy to run on my Suse box, appearently because of some
Seems Microsoft is pushing REALLY hard these days to gain dominance in the mobile phone and small devices market. Well, I'm not going to help them. You know what will start to happen if they get to dictate the standards.
Me, I'll go with JavaME. There are over 300 million Java enabled phones in the world, and 60% of new phones sold come with it preinstalled. There were a lot of prizes to be won at the this years Java One. Sony Ericsson and Motorola among others encourages people to use JavaME.
I tried developing for it a couple of years ago, and it was not pleasurable back then, mainly because of incompatibilities between devices. It looks much better these days, and if you use Netbeans you can build applications just with drag and drop. Remember than Carmack got started with developing for mobile phones because the wide availability of free tutorials and tools for J2ME.
Well, it makes you wonder whether you have been to any conference that included even a small social-like part where no one causes some stir. Usually, with alcohol involved.
Well, I just got back from a six-day conference with more than 14000 people (guess which) and I didn't see any bad behaviour once, even on evenings when there was a lot of free booze.
[Java] has never done anything for OpenSource.
Well, it is difficult for inanimate objects to "do" something in that sense. Sun however, have donated more code than most companies to open source.
Also, Java is the most popular language on Sourceforge these days, so you obviously don't know what you are talking about.
he considered this small group important enough to be worth more of his time than the 14,000 people who went to JavaOne.
Gee, thanks for that little dig. I was at Java One this year and was delighted to see Mark Shuttleworth there and hear that Sun are going to support Ubuntu on their servers. Many others liked it too considering the applause he got (much more than Marc Fleury for instance...). On Netbeans day (day before the official start of Java One), when Jonathan Schwartz asked Rich Green on stage "So, are you going to Open Source Java?" as his first question, there was a lot of applause and laughter.
Also Sun announced loads of stuff that was open sourced at the conference. The Java Studio Creator, Mobility pack, Matisse, JMS, etc. Licensing for Java has been changed to make it easier to distribute it with Linux. I have considered doing a writeup of Java One for Slashdot, but then I realise, what is the use. Positive stuff about Sun or Java doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of being accepted by the editors. Lets just say it was educational and lots of fun. Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters were at the after dark bash. PDFs of all the session are available for free here.
Let's face it: pointer manipulation is necessary because there are real life problems that are more complex than textbook examples. If there weren't, inventing the C language wouldn't have been necessary, we could have stuck with Fortran all along.
What? Not having pointer manipulation makes complex and fast systems impossible, when you have multiple access and locking? Interesting, I have to tell the programmer I recently talked to at OMX Group who told me they use Java for all their new systems (some older ones are written in RPG). Their software runs, among others, the Singapore Exchange and the Stockholm exchange.
Or the people I work with who did the Swedish online tax systems. Or the people at this years Java one who talks about doing the French online tax system. Or the guy from eBay... etc etc.