From what I seen on Topcoder, C++ is preferred to Java mostly because it allows more compact coding using preprocessor. Generally I never seen any example that the same algorithm would run in 2 sec in C++, but more that 2 sec and so failed in Java.
Also notice that all Topcoder application is written in Java.
I bet this happened only because LISP is more obscure language, and so only LISP fans compared it's speed.
I am pretty sure read (in LISP Literature) that many AI projects were rewritten on C to gain speed.
Also main LIsp structure - linked list - is inherently slowest possible structure, and gain speed on Lisp is only possible using unnatural for Lisp structures like vectors (and I bet trying to escape recursion - which is natural thing to do in Lisp).
Recent Big promises of Hydrogen economy (in general economy area) and of going to Mars (in space area) were about the same quality as would be the pledge of reducing dependency by 50% in 10 years.
I can also add California experiments with Zero emission vehicles.
All these projects were and are impossible with current technology restrictions.
Making promises or even being stubborn isn't enough. You have to be clever, really understand science and understand, what is possible and desirable, and what is not.
Yes, software world behaves somewhat like natural monopoly, in the sense that using one common platform gives big advantages to programmers and users. It makes no sense to deny this. I think Windows model - where everyone can publish installer which presumably will work on any version of Windows has advantages over Linux model - where you have to go to repository for you distribution.
Growing food isn't natural monopoly, it was probably just the case that potatoes was most efficient culture. There is no advantages in growing the same as others, only that you know that potatoes grow OK and know how to grow them, because everyone does this.
The best for the costumers would be an environment in which MS, apple and Linux all got over 20% and none more than 40% that would be great for the costumers (us?) since no hardware or software company will be able to focus on a single platform...
This would be bad for programmers and for consumers. Programmers would have to program for many platforms (and will be less efficient), and consumers will have much more trouble to make their programs work. Example - Linux versions or game consoles.
Possible way out would be for everybody to program on multi platform language like Java, or use thin clients like browsers, - but this is not the way things are done now.
I read current version of LTO drives has 800 GB capacity.
I have problem - LTO drives use single reel cassette - where is the tape go while it is reeled of cassette?
If user only needs Firefox (with somewhat worse fonts) and office editor (somewhat worse than MS Word for document editing) and never installs other programs or does anything else, and has son familiar with Linux, yes, for him Linux computer is as good as Windows.
I think only minority groups end up with cult-like mentalities. Being minority is not enough. For example, I noticed that C++ users are much more enthusiastic in advocacy of their language than Java users, through now C++ use is only little less than Java (of course Python, Ruby, Lisp users leave them far behind in enthusiasm).
My interpretation is that there has to be inferiority complex. People become passionate about something when they know deeply inside that their favorite language / OS /... has some deep flaws that can prevent it from winning in honest competition.
Java advocacy became dull when it become clear that Java is winning language competition without any advocacy. On the other side, as C++ becomes more and more complex and useless, more and more people become passionate about it.
It also helps when language / OS is inherently complex to use and difficult to learn - this creates communities of people understanding them and somewhat closed from outsiders. This difficulty or complexity factor is clearly present in Linux, C++, Lisp, Haskell and so on, all of which have rather passionate cult followings.
I agree that Wikipedia sucks on science, but not because it is not accessible. There is just too little information, information on many many topics is absent, scientific value of existing information is often lacking.
It is because probably there is too few scientists willing to spend time adding information to Wikipedia. We probably need to understand that Wikipedia is public good and make adding to it something like little publishing in scientists estimations, so scientists could assume that adding valuable info to Wikipedia will improve their careers.
I noticed the same in Canada (I only visited Canada). All Canada learns French language and tries to be bilingual, but Quebec's people make a point in not knowing (or pretending not to know) English.
I noticed the same in Estonia, where Estonians make a point to show or pretend that they don't know Russian.
English isn't the dominant language in the world, but still i'm doing my best to type this in English... The difference is, that English IS the dominant language in the world, it doesn't needs protection - it will dominate anyway.
Having so said "culture" is no excuse for threating outsiders badly.
This is just French inferiority complex. They were once leading country in the world, and currently have no objective influence on world affairs. Now France only pretends to be world power - like holding for their nuclear weapons and place in UN Security Council. This makes them feel bad, and to envy USA which is real great power.
French language was also world language once, but these times have passed, even French can notice this if they thought a little bit, and now French people in France and Quebec just make fools of themselves demanding that everybody learn their language.
Just create France levels of welfare for Hispanics + France levels of unemployment to prevent Hispanics from working and you will surely have Hispanics ghettos and France level of riots in 10 years.
You can find some economist to support anybody.
Magazine "Economist" supported Sarkozy, as I think great majority of modern economists.
I myself have some economic education - and for me Sarkozy program made much more sense.
You can run RHEL3 binaries in RHEL4 however. And you can happily run Linux 1.0 binaries on the latest linux development snapshot. Thats because Linux DOES have a stable ABI: The syscall interface. That's the REAL ABI the Linux kernel has to support, and it's the one that it's really guaranteed to be stable. What you think as an abi it's not an "abi", it's an INTERNAL ABI. Drivers are not "software built in top of the kernel", they're plugins. And Linux developers do not care about it because linux is open source, in the open source world you can change source easily and it gets usually merged into the kernel. Basically, the Linux kernel gets more benefit from a internal unstable ABI that gets changed when it's needed and that improves all the linux drivers, than getting a stable internal ABI that only benefits a couple of external OSS drivers and another couple of propietary, illegal drivers. So can you run FC3 binaries on FC4 or not?
Or you have to have version of every program for every distribution / version of Linux (As I see happening)?
F) Any common task should be achievable with a clear and simple GUI utility.
Already there. Or do you have some counter-examples? You are joking, right?
Just recently - tried to add second head monitor - In windows Go Display/preferences/check button.
In Ubuntu - edit cryptic config files, several not working config utilities, nothing remotely resembling windows config panel in functionality.
Generally parent post is clear example of Linux inferiority complex.
In Windows XP/Vista 64 you cannot hibernate. With 32 bit windows hibernation eventually takes so long you might as well NOT hibernate and just turn the damn thing off. Windows machines will automatically wake up out of sleep mode and will run the battery to 0% and then crash. Windows laptops do NOT wake up when you open the lid, you have to press the power button.:-( Windows PC's do not wake from sleep 100% of the time and re-connect to a WPA wireless network. It has been difficult to get sleep mode to turn off all the fans on PC's when it is sleeping. Broken, Jackass, Broken... On my Toshiba notebook both hibernate and waking up on opening lid work perfectly. Power button You are clearly making things up.
May be there exist Windows PC on which hibernate apparently doesn't work, but apparently Microsoft has done it's part of work to make hibernate work.
2. User Interface
Ubuntu has a clean interface that refreshes quickly. It has simple cascading menus that allow logically related content to be grouped (as the paradigm has been for years).
Vista's interface also looks clean and fresh. Aero is a huge let-down (blurring windows and some transparency. That's it???). Display performance was slow - but could be a video driver problem. I really couldn't bear the start menu in Vista, so I reverted to the "classic" look. Thank goodness Microsoft provide this capbability! I don't have Vista, so I am talking about XP, and not last version of Ubuntu. I also reverted to "Classic" view of
There is big difference in configuration UI.
In Windows, you can really do configuration using GUI (and control panel).
In Ubuntu, there is some pretense of allowing GUI configuration, but below VERY THIN cover you immediately fall to need to edit usually very cryptic config files. If somebody said that this is good UI - he is an idiot. Also it is usually VERY easy to crush (and destroy) presumably solid Linux by playing with config files, and there is usually no easy way to know what you can do and what not.
My example was when I tried to use dual heads in Ubuntu. Graphic config tool simply didn't work, and after long play with not very user friendly config files and utilities dual heads finally worked (I was able to achieve this in Ubuntu, not so lucky in some other versions of Linux).
OLPC also will be difficult to repair - may be replacing power unit will be possible. It is possible to have contract for for example 1000 laptops and then you can have parts or warranties for them.
In my opinion, this possible drawback will be compensated by relative abundance of software, and by proven utility of PC's.
I agree such $300 computer is much better for consumer, is he is in India or Brasilia or anywhere else. Used computers are even cheaper and still more standard than OLPC (and of course have much more useful programs and games).
They would win competition for consumer dollars over Negroponte OLPC every time. So Negroponte doesn't try to compete on the market, he pushes his 'computers' through governments and schools on powerless students.
I don't mean here that politicians should prohibit adding alcohol to gas - they should not promote and subsidize it, and if they promote it they should allow import of alcohol, so this program will not be so directly connected with farmer politics.
I don't find concept of 'rights' particularly useful, especially in this case. I just observe that browser starts crashing much too often.
I actually don't remember very well, I remember I got tired of Netscape, and I usually don't drop software without reason.
Microsoft's tools are limited. Very limited. That you have a problem with complexity outside Microsoft's use cases is very narrow-minded. There are so many use cases that fall outside Microsoft's development range, you simply haven't had any experience with them. And what exactly (besides compiling kernel) you can do in Linux which you cannot do in Windows? I mean if you want to compile your compiler or look on the code of you driver, I agree Linux is better. But if you want OS (and compilers) as tools - I didn't see any real Linux advantages. Java is better under Windows. Apache is easier to deal with on Windows. MySQL works on Windows just fine. Editors are mostly better under windows, and for maniacs there are good (as far as I see) emacs ports. May be SBCL Common Lisp compiler not ported to windows - but who needs Lisp anyway.
May be I don't understand pleasure of Shell programming, AWK and command line?
Instead of being content in Microsoft's walled garden, check out a Linux distro and see what it's like. It will be like going from AOL to a real ISP. Here's a good link to get you started on Debian. Save such advices displaying only your Linux inferiority complex for your children.
apt-get install kdevelop And so you get the result. You can get Windows applications from anywhere on the internet, and you can get Ubuntu applications from Ubuntu maintained repositories. Or if somebody prepares Ubuntu version of program (less lack for less popular version of programs) (and then Fedora Version, and so on). Or, maybe, you can install program and then play with configuration files, patches and so on (and may be getting pleasure from this).
Of Course, Microsoft model wins 97 times of 100.
It was always 18 months. Looking at transistor speed and density (number of X-istors per cm2), Moore observed that it looks like we are doubling the density, and doubling the speed every 18 months. You look very wrong about speed. Look for example here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_ of_all_cpu_charts_2005/
No doubling in speed for last 5 years. (I mean Clock speed here - but it is directly connected to CPU speed)
It contributes to the production and distribution of really bad code. Firefox with tens of millions of copies is a case in point. (Oh yes, they *claim* with version 3 they are going to consider performance). I'm still waiting for Firefox to run in the same memory footprint and as fast as Netscape 4.72 did. (Firefox will not start with less than ~55MB of memory under Linux.) Firefox works rather reliably, which couldn't be said about Netscape 4.72. I was somewhat bothered which browser I will use while Netscape became less and less usable, and Firefox solved my problems.
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From what I seen on Topcoder, C++ is preferred to Java mostly because it allows more compact coding using preprocessor. Generally I never seen any example that the same algorithm would run in 2 sec in C++, but more that 2 sec and so failed in Java. Also notice that all Topcoder application is written in Java.
I bet this happened only because LISP is more obscure language, and so only LISP fans compared it's speed. I am pretty sure read (in LISP Literature) that many AI projects were rewritten on C to gain speed. Also main LIsp structure - linked list - is inherently slowest possible structure, and gain speed on Lisp is only possible using unnatural for Lisp structures like vectors (and I bet trying to escape recursion - which is natural thing to do in Lisp).
Recent Big promises of Hydrogen economy (in general economy area) and of going to Mars (in space area) were about the same quality as would be the pledge of reducing dependency by 50% in 10 years. I can also add California experiments with Zero emission vehicles. All these projects were and are impossible with current technology restrictions. Making promises or even being stubborn isn't enough. You have to be clever, really understand science and understand, what is possible and desirable, and what is not.
Yes, software world behaves somewhat like natural monopoly, in the sense that using one common platform gives big advantages to programmers and users. It makes no sense to deny this. I think Windows model - where everyone can publish installer which presumably will work on any version of Windows has advantages over Linux model - where you have to go to repository for you distribution.
Growing food isn't natural monopoly, it was probably just the case that potatoes was most efficient culture. There is no advantages in growing the same as others, only that you know that potatoes grow OK and know how to grow them, because everyone does this.
The best for the costumers would be an environment in which MS, apple and Linux all got over 20% and none more than 40% that would be great for the costumers (us?) since no hardware or software company will be able to focus on a single platform...
This would be bad for programmers and for consumers. Programmers would have to program for many platforms (and will be less efficient), and consumers will have much more trouble to make their programs work. Example - Linux versions or game consoles. Possible way out would be for everybody to program on multi platform language like Java, or use thin clients like browsers, - but this is not the way things are done now.I read current version of LTO drives has 800 GB capacity.
I have problem - LTO drives use single reel cassette - where is the tape go while it is reeled of cassette?
If user only needs Firefox (with somewhat worse fonts) and office editor (somewhat worse than MS Word for document editing) and never installs other programs or does anything else, and has son familiar with Linux, yes, for him Linux computer is as good as Windows.
My interpretation is that there has to be inferiority complex. People become passionate about something when they know deeply inside that their favorite language / OS /
Java advocacy became dull when it become clear that Java is winning language competition without any advocacy. On the other side, as C++ becomes more and more complex and useless, more and more people become passionate about it.
It also helps when language / OS is inherently complex to use and difficult to learn - this creates communities of people understanding them and somewhat closed from outsiders. This difficulty or complexity factor is clearly present in Linux, C++, Lisp, Haskell and so on, all of which have rather passionate cult followings.
I agree that Wikipedia sucks on science, but not because it is not accessible. There is just too little information, information on many many topics is absent, scientific value of existing information is often lacking.
It is because probably there is too few scientists willing to spend time adding information to Wikipedia. We probably need to understand that Wikipedia is public good and make adding to it something like little publishing in scientists estimations, so scientists could assume that adding valuable info to Wikipedia will improve their careers.
I noticed the same in Estonia, where Estonians make a point to show or pretend that they don't know Russian.
English isn't the dominant language in the world, but still i'm doing my best to type this in English
Having so said "culture" is no excuse for threating outsiders badly.
This is just French inferiority complex. They were once leading country in the world, and currently have no objective influence on world affairs. Now France only pretends to be world power - like holding for their nuclear weapons and place in UN Security Council. This makes them feel bad, and to envy USA which is real great power.
French language was also world language once, but these times have passed, even French can notice this if they thought a little bit, and now French people in France and Quebec just make fools of themselves demanding that everybody learn their language.
Just create France levels of welfare for Hispanics + France levels of unemployment to prevent Hispanics from working and you will surely have Hispanics ghettos and France level of riots in 10 years.
You can find some economist to support anybody.
Magazine "Economist" supported Sarkozy, as I think great majority of modern economists.
I myself have some economic education - and for me Sarkozy program made much more sense.
Or you have to have version of every program for every distribution / version of Linux (As I see happening)?
Already there. Or do you have some counter-examples? You are joking, right?
Just recently - tried to add second head monitor - In windows Go Display/preferences/check button.
In Ubuntu - edit cryptic config files, several not working config utilities, nothing remotely resembling windows config panel in functionality.
Generally parent post is clear example of Linux inferiority complex.
May be there exist Windows PC on which hibernate apparently doesn't work, but apparently Microsoft has done it's part of work to make hibernate work.
In Windows, you can really do configuration using GUI (and control panel).
In Ubuntu, there is some pretense of allowing GUI configuration, but below VERY THIN cover you immediately fall to need to edit usually very cryptic config files. If somebody said that this is good UI - he is an idiot. Also it is usually VERY easy to crush (and destroy) presumably solid Linux by playing with config files, and there is usually no easy way to know what you can do and what not.
My example was when I tried to use dual heads in Ubuntu. Graphic config tool simply didn't work, and after long play with not very user friendly config files and utilities dual heads finally worked (I was able to achieve this in Ubuntu, not so lucky in some other versions of Linux).
OLPC also will be difficult to repair - may be replacing power unit will be possible. It is possible to have contract for for example 1000 laptops and then you can have parts or warranties for them. In my opinion, this possible drawback will be compensated by relative abundance of software, and by proven utility of PC's.
I agree such $300 computer is much better for consumer, is he is in India or Brasilia or anywhere else. Used computers are even cheaper and still more standard than OLPC (and of course have much more useful programs and games).
They would win competition for consumer dollars over Negroponte OLPC every time. So Negroponte doesn't try to compete on the market, he pushes his 'computers' through governments and schools on powerless students.
I don't mean here that politicians should prohibit adding alcohol to gas - they should not promote and subsidize it, and if they promote it they should allow import of alcohol, so this program will not be so directly connected with farmer politics.
I don't find concept of 'rights' particularly useful, especially in this case. I just observe that browser starts crashing much too often.
I actually don't remember very well, I remember I got tired of Netscape, and I usually don't drop software without reason.
May be I don't understand pleasure of Shell programming, AWK and command line? Instead of being content in Microsoft's walled garden, check out a Linux distro and see what it's like. It will be like going from AOL to a real ISP. Here's a good link to get you started on Debian. Save such advices displaying only your Linux inferiority complex for your children.
Of Course, Microsoft model wins 97 times of 100.