"VB.NET generates all its code into your file. You edit the code it generates, the designer picks up the changes and visa versa."
I'm not so sure you understand what I'm talking about.
Scroll to the top of the file. I could be wrong about VB.NET, but I know for a fact that VB6 and VC++6 both had a portion of the code marked "// DO NOT EDIT" or something like that.
"Besides... if you can't be bothered to upgrade your operating system once in eight years, then you obviously aren't interested in taking advantage of the latest technology anyways, right?"
That, or you can't afford it.
But MS doesn't know much about affording things - they're a big multi-million-dollar company.
People don't realize it yet, but the team that came up with that handcrank PC is fricking GENIUS - not only might they be able to make some money off it from campers who want the latest gadgets (you know the type - gotta have the latest GPS,the latest Leatherman, and all sorts of other tech), they'll be able to sell it to people who have a low budget.
Plus, in my mind, XP still sucks. I'd prefer Linux. If you want me to buy your products, make them UNIX-compatible. I doubt MS will let you do that with Quartz.
"Now, ActiveX was the best possible at the time..."
ActiveX was/is a shithole - it's WAY too insecure.
"My only concern is building my apps better and cheaper than anyone has ever built apps before. Quartz will help me do that, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Windows was fundamentally succesful in the operating system market back when they had something that could be called competition because their programming language, Visual Basic, was far cheaper to write rich, useable applications in than any other product on the market. More, better apps naturally led to a larger client base."
I think you're one of the few programmers who thinks that VB is a good thing. Sure, it's great for learning to program, but it's not good for much beyond that (except for the average Joe Schmoe who wants to create an app to his own special needs but doesn't know jack about programming). Not only is VB and VBScript commonly used for viruses, but VB is slow as hell. I wrote a simple "Drug Wars" like game back when I was taking VB Programming - it ran great on my desktop PC, but it was slow as hell on my 300MHz laptop (by "slower than hell" I mean yeah I had a slow laptop but EVERYTHING ran faster than VB -- and no, it wasn't because of sloppy code - I made sure to keep the code fairly small).
"Visual" anything is a BAD way to go because it generates a bunch of code for you, and half the time you don't even know what the hell it does. Is it secure code? You don't know - you didn't write it. Such code could make apps prone to things like buffer overflows. Is that what you want for your users? If your argument is for code reusability or how quick you can build an app, it's easy enough to reuse code that you previously wrote.
IE still has a very large marketshare, but let's not forget that not too long ago it had very close to 100% marketshare - and if you didn't use IE, on many sites you were just out of luck because they wouldn't want to bother to make a website for browsers with less than 5% marketshare. Nowadays they'll at least think about making sure it's compatible with FF (which follows Web standards pretty well, so other browsers should be able to properly view sites that work in FF).
So no, they haven't made sure their content works on "all major webbrowsers" - for a long time many of them only cared about IE.
I've never understood. . . why the hell would you want hotplugging for internal components? Isn't it always a smart idea to turn your PC off before you reach your hands inside the case?
How do you know it's a month old and has been known? Who told you about this bug?
Just because it's not widely publicized doesn't mean they "kept it secret". MS doesn't use MSNBC for telling everyone about new bugfixes. We/.ers know about these problems only because we visit/. where people often bring them to attention - the developers don't go out and notify everyone they know about new bugs/bugfixes.
Plus, by MS's terms, this would be seen as a "low-risk, low-priority" bug and therefore might not ever be fixed (at least not until someone exploits it).
It's not that hard to test KDE's JavaScript implementation - why should it take more than a few hours? Just create a test script that checks and makes sure all the functions are working properly (which is probably the same way they tested it in the first place, so all they have to do is run the script again).
"Come on. If you can show that FireFox merely linked to some libraries within Communicator then your analogy to DirectX and OpenGl would make sense. If the Communicator code wasn't designed as a library or if FireFox actually modified it than it doesn't make sense."
Oh, okay. So using code through a library rather than directly putting it into your code is somehow magically different? Maybe you're not a programmer, but libraries and classfiles all look the same to the compiler - it doesn't care if what the hell that "include" line links it to. Whether it links you to DirectX code or to some code that you wrote by hand doesn't matter to the compiler.
I can't tell if you're understanding my point or not. On the one hand you're saying that using another project's code doesn't necessarily mean you didn't write your program "from scratch"; on the other you're saying that Firefox isn't written from scratch because it uses a bit of Mozilla code.
Okay, let's see how off-track we can pull this by totally ignoring previous posts!
Seriously.
Sure, FF might not have been written 100% from scratch.
But then again, a LOT of software isn't - it depends on previously available programs and/or libraries (at least at compile time). We could say that Halo and Grand Theft Auto weren't written from scratch because they depended on DirectX and OpenGL libraries. That's not really being very fair, though, because it still leaves a massive portion of code that WAS written from scratch.
It's complete lunacy to expect programmers to NEVER reuse code. Ever heard the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? The same thing applies to programming. Sure, Mozilla Suite might have been considered bloated and/or "broken" by some, that doesn't mean that every single part of it was broken or bloated.
And also, you missed my point. I was responding to someone's question of whether or not an open-source browser written "from scratch" would've been just as effective as Netscape's releasing of their source to the OS community, by pointing out that Firefox (while maybe not being written 100% "from scratch" - but still not using a good portion of Communicator's code) is better than
From what I remember back when FF was still Phoenix. . . it's almost a complete rewrite of the code. In fact, for a while, you didn't even need to install FF - it was just a click-and-go.exe file.
Saying that FF is a "fork" of Mozilla Navigator simply means that some of the code in Navigator was used in FF - it doesn't say how much. Seeing as how FF even back then was much faster than Navigator and lacked many of the features Navigator had.
. . . who severely questions the validity and purpose of MS's new "Linux lab?"
Seems like now that they've got a Linux lab, they think they can trick everyone into thinking they know everything about Linux and they really care about Linux but it's just not good enough.
In all reality, if Linux didn't matter, then MS wouldn't be making a big deal about it.
"So that 3% number is probably inflated. Even more discouraging."
I'm gonna go with probably not.
I've been using Linux for about 6 years now, and I've never heard of W3Schools. A more accurate way to find this is via a site that (almost) EVERYONE uses, such as Google or Hotmail - or any other site that people have actually heard of.
"after trying to install various flavors of *nix on my P2-366 Toughbook, determined that none of the distributions will handle such a low-spec system as well as even -XP- does."
Something's wrong with your Toughbook, then. Linux runs fine on my 300mHz laptop.
Oh no! Guess we Linux users can't download the antivirus/antispam protection we don't need or the wonderful browser that already came with our distro. . . or the image organizer that does the same thing as the image organizers that came with our distro. . .
"Norton is by far the most annoying and disfunctional AV on the market. I would have prefered NOD 32 or Kaspersky. They do their job very well and are resource efficient."
How is a Linux company going to know your personal problems with a Windows antivirus program? They don't use NAV, they just know it exists and often ships with PCs (and probably thought that PC users might like to get another 6 months free).
I think the reason is that a lot of PC users have used NAV before (either because it was preinstalled or because they purchased it), and they'll be familiar with it. Plus, the fact that it's free makes it more likely that people will download Google's free version with the other software - after a while you have to pay Symantec again either by buying a newer copy of NAV or by getting a subscription.
" Except for using some OSS what are they doing for it, if all the products they put out are proprietary?
How does their reputation (which isn't all that "great" in my opinion) help OSS if they are doing this?"
A lot of their products are available for free, even if they're not open-source. And they're also funding certain open-source projects, which is more than we can say for most other companies. According to Netcraft, Yahoo! and Altavista both run FreeBSD, and AskJeeves uses quite a few Linux servers - but I have yet to hear about any of these funding open-source projects. Why don't we start complaining more about them and less about Google - at least Google had "Summer of Code" to help out open-source projects and is providing funding for some open-source projects.
"They use open source software, and yet, everything they put out is proprietary. That's not giving back, and it's not doing good (although I guess it's not"evil" either, just kinda shady.)."
That's not entirely true. They do release all their APIs, which does help open-source (and closed-source) projects out by allowing them to interface with Google.
Also, Google had their "Summer of Code" which helped out open-source projects quite a bit.
I do see what you're saying - Google itself isn't releasing a whole lot of open-source code. . . but you've got to realize that Google's in a bit of a tight position, with MS having them in the crosshairs and with them being the envy of all the other search engines. If Google open-sourced their major technologies, there'd be no doubt that they would immediately be used by other competing search engines and perhaps even by MS.
Strange how you leave so many other open-source companies unmentioned. What about Sun? They've got OO.o - nobody's bitching about how they haven't open-sourced Java, though. What about companies like Mandriva? They don't add much anything to Linux other than a pretty-looking installer and a help line. It looks IDENTICAL to Slackware, though, once you get it all set up - from that point on, there are only small differences such as their GUI package installation tool. Same with Apple - sure they've got Darwin, but they probably don't put that much into it. Be glad these companies do SOMETHING, though, because it would've been just as easy for them to NOT do anything.
Here's a question: how did they get those statistics? Simply from sales wouldn't be enough because a good portion of Linux users download Linux rather than buying it.
Slashdot may not be as aimed at advertising and making money, but it IS used to make money - it just isn't as obvious about it. Many members pay for extra features.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, maybe you need a better link or something because I can't even find any mention of Firefox on the site.
I'm not so sure you understand what I'm talking about.
Scroll to the top of the file. I could be wrong about VB.NET, but I know for a fact that VB6 and VC++6 both had a portion of the code marked "// DO NOT EDIT" or something like that.
That, or you can't afford it.
But MS doesn't know much about affording things - they're a big multi-million-dollar company.
People don't realize it yet, but the team that came up with that handcrank PC is fricking GENIUS - not only might they be able to make some money off it from campers who want the latest gadgets (you know the type - gotta have the latest GPS,the latest Leatherman, and all sorts of other tech), they'll be able to sell it to people who have a low budget.
Plus, in my mind, XP still sucks. I'd prefer Linux. If you want me to buy your products, make them UNIX-compatible. I doubt MS will let you do that with Quartz.
ActiveX was/is a shithole - it's WAY too insecure.
"My only concern is building my apps better and cheaper than anyone has ever built apps before. Quartz will help me do that, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Windows was fundamentally succesful in the operating system market back when they had something that could be called competition because their programming language, Visual Basic, was far cheaper to write rich, useable applications in than any other product on the market. More, better apps naturally led to a larger client base."
I think you're one of the few programmers who thinks that VB is a good thing. Sure, it's great for learning to program, but it's not good for much beyond that (except for the average Joe Schmoe who wants to create an app to his own special needs but doesn't know jack about programming). Not only is VB and VBScript commonly used for viruses, but VB is slow as hell. I wrote a simple "Drug Wars" like game back when I was taking VB Programming - it ran great on my desktop PC, but it was slow as hell on my 300MHz laptop (by "slower than hell" I mean yeah I had a slow laptop but EVERYTHING ran faster than VB -- and no, it wasn't because of sloppy code - I made sure to keep the code fairly small).
"Visual" anything is a BAD way to go because it generates a bunch of code for you, and half the time you don't even know what the hell it does. Is it secure code? You don't know - you didn't write it. Such code could make apps prone to things like buffer overflows. Is that what you want for your users? If your argument is for code reusability or how quick you can build an app, it's easy enough to reuse code that you previously wrote.
So no, they haven't made sure their content works on "all major webbrowsers" - for a long time many of them only cared about IE.
I've never understood. . . why the hell would you want hotplugging for internal components? Isn't it always a smart idea to turn your PC off before you reach your hands inside the case?
Or LemonParty (which, IMO, is WAY worse than Tubgirl and is maybe even worse than most of what you see on Goatse)
Because that would actually make sense. You can't ridicule open-source programmers for what they do right.
Just because it's not widely publicized doesn't mean they "kept it secret". MS doesn't use MSNBC for telling everyone about new bugfixes. We /.ers know about these problems only because we visit /. where people often bring them to attention - the developers don't go out and notify everyone they know about new bugs/bugfixes.
Plus, by MS's terms, this would be seen as a "low-risk, low-priority" bug and therefore might not ever be fixed (at least not until someone exploits it).
It's not that hard to test KDE's JavaScript implementation - why should it take more than a few hours? Just create a test script that checks and makes sure all the functions are working properly (which is probably the same way they tested it in the first place, so all they have to do is run the script again).
Oh, okay. So using code through a library rather than directly putting it into your code is somehow magically different? Maybe you're not a programmer, but libraries and classfiles all look the same to the compiler - it doesn't care if what the hell that "include" line links it to. Whether it links you to DirectX code or to some code that you wrote by hand doesn't matter to the compiler.
I can't tell if you're understanding my point or not. On the one hand you're saying that using another project's code doesn't necessarily mean you didn't write your program "from scratch"; on the other you're saying that Firefox isn't written from scratch because it uses a bit of Mozilla code.
Seriously.
Sure, FF might not have been written 100% from scratch.
But then again, a LOT of software isn't - it depends on previously available programs and/or libraries (at least at compile time). We could say that Halo and Grand Theft Auto weren't written from scratch because they depended on DirectX and OpenGL libraries. That's not really being very fair, though, because it still leaves a massive portion of code that WAS written from scratch.
It's complete lunacy to expect programmers to NEVER reuse code. Ever heard the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? The same thing applies to programming. Sure, Mozilla Suite might have been considered bloated and/or "broken" by some, that doesn't mean that every single part of it was broken or bloated.
And also, you missed my point. I was responding to someone's question of whether or not an open-source browser written "from scratch" would've been just as effective as Netscape's releasing of their source to the OS community, by pointing out that Firefox (while maybe not being written 100% "from scratch" - but still not using a good portion of Communicator's code) is better than
Saying that FF is a "fork" of Mozilla Navigator simply means that some of the code in Navigator was used in FF - it doesn't say how much. Seeing as how FF even back then was much faster than Navigator and lacked many of the features Navigator had.
Seems like now that they've got a Linux lab, they think they can trick everyone into thinking they know everything about Linux and they really care about Linux but it's just not good enough.
In all reality, if Linux didn't matter, then MS wouldn't be making a big deal about it.
I'm gonna go with probably not.
I've been using Linux for about 6 years now, and I've never heard of W3Schools. A more accurate way to find this is via a site that (almost) EVERYONE uses, such as Google or Hotmail - or any other site that people have actually heard of.
Something's wrong with your Toughbook, then. Linux runs fine on my 300mHz laptop.
Oh no!
I have yet to see frames in GMail, Google, OR Google Maps.
How is a Linux company going to know your personal problems with a Windows antivirus program? They don't use NAV, they just know it exists and often ships with PCs (and probably thought that PC users might like to get another 6 months free).
I think the reason is that a lot of PC users have used NAV before (either because it was preinstalled or because they purchased it), and they'll be familiar with it. Plus, the fact that it's free makes it more likely that people will download Google's free version with the other software - after a while you have to pay Symantec again either by buying a newer copy of NAV or by getting a subscription.
A lot of their products are available for free, even if they're not open-source. And they're also funding certain open-source projects, which is more than we can say for most other companies. According to Netcraft, Yahoo! and Altavista both run FreeBSD, and AskJeeves uses quite a few Linux servers - but I have yet to hear about any of these funding open-source projects. Why don't we start complaining more about them and less about Google - at least Google had "Summer of Code" to help out open-source projects and is providing funding for some open-source projects.
That's not entirely true. They do release all their APIs, which does help open-source (and closed-source) projects out by allowing them to interface with Google.
Also, Google had their "Summer of Code" which helped out open-source projects quite a bit.
I do see what you're saying - Google itself isn't releasing a whole lot of open-source code. . . but you've got to realize that Google's in a bit of a tight position, with MS having them in the crosshairs and with them being the envy of all the other search engines. If Google open-sourced their major technologies, there'd be no doubt that they would immediately be used by other competing search engines and perhaps even by MS.
Strange how you leave so many other open-source companies unmentioned. What about Sun? They've got OO.o - nobody's bitching about how they haven't open-sourced Java, though. What about companies like Mandriva? They don't add much anything to Linux other than a pretty-looking installer and a help line. It looks IDENTICAL to Slackware, though, once you get it all set up - from that point on, there are only small differences such as their GUI package installation tool. Same with Apple - sure they've got Darwin, but they probably don't put that much into it. Be glad these companies do SOMETHING, though, because it would've been just as easy for them to NOT do anything.
Here's a question: how did they get those statistics? Simply from sales wouldn't be enough because a good portion of Linux users download Linux rather than buying it.
Of course it would be. In fact, maybe even more effective. That's what Firefox is.
Slashdot may not be as aimed at advertising and making money, but it IS used to make money - it just isn't as obvious about it. Many members pay for extra features.