I wonder how much of this study is impacted by better medicine. They should also test an area with minimal air pollution as a control to see if the people there also experienced an increased life expectancy where the air quality remained relatively the same. More details of how the study was conducted should be published.
"why would you want people forming their first impression of your software from untested development releases?"
You're thinking like a product development manager rather than a programmer. If you think very practically, as a programmer, you have a tool that you need and you need it in a certain time frame. You don't have the resources, but it seems like something that others would want. So you hit the open source world and find that there are other projects that either have a vision to do what you want or maybe already have 90% of what you want. You add the 10% and now you've gained back the life you would have spent building that 90% for yourself.
That is why, if you run an open source project, you want as much exposure as early as possible. It's not about selling a product or competing in the market space. It's about getting something done that is unique and serves a purpose.
Perhaps it's because I fall into the Reagan-Republican category that it appeals to me, but I sort of like a razor-thin OS as a platform for applications. The one thing it should do in its "expanding role" should be to protect running programs from other running programs, but not try to protect a running program from itself. One program should not be able to consume all the resources on the machine, nor should it be starved for resources by other programs. IF the OS is successful at providing that service first and foremost, then perhaps it can start delving into other services, but not at the expense of the former.
I reject this logic. I can't believe that, given the same amount of time and familiarity, that users will find Gnome or KDE less user friendly than Windows. What exactly is less user friendly about a linux environment? The fact that you can't download any old executable file and install it? Do you really think that's easier than using a package manager? If linux got 1/10th the attention from software and hardware vendors, making things work wouldn't be NEARLY as difficult.
So I guess I call BS on you with that statement because I think what you are really saying is, "it needs to be more like windows", in which case I heartily disagree. I recently had to switch back from Linux to Windows because I changed jobs and I find the Windows environment so cluttered and annoying, I think it's LESS user friendly than the Gnome environment in Ubuntu. I can list a ton of reasons like the "always on top" feature, native virtual desktops, the ability to kill a locked process and have it actually die, a useful shell(much easier for giving people directions than spending most of your time telling them how to navigate a hierarchical menu), tons of tools for distributed system administration, tons of useful software for free, filesystem support that is GENERATIONS beyond FAT or NTFS, the ability to work without being continually asked if I really want to do something.... should I continue?
It's not given to the government. To give something implies ownership... and technically, no one owns the code if it's open source.
The point isn't valid, lots of schools use Linux in their server environment. Even my old high school that produces graduating classes of about 80 has mail servers running on Linux. The only difference is the desktop.
The problem is not this complex. It stems from people thinking that the OS someone learns today will be the OS they use in the workplace. I used Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, and TRS-80 when I was in school and I don't have a problem at all adapting to other OSs. What we do now is more along the lines of indoctrination than education. If they want to equip students, they need to teach them how to learn rather than how to use Windows... or Linux/Unix/Mac, etc for that matter.
It's somewhat true, there is really nothing for free. Someone spent the time to write the code that makes up free software, the difference is, they can't build an entire application by themselves(or don't have the time to), so they commit small portions. In and of themselves, those small pieces of code are nothing, but when you have lots of people doing the same thing you end up with a working product.
It's not about sharing or being kind to your neighbor or any of that warm, fuzzy crap. It's about a bunch of people who need the same thing so they work together on it and make it happen. I am reminded of an Amish barn building. The labor isn't free, but because they all need a barn and it's much easier if they all help each other than to do it by themselves.
THIS is what we need to be enforcing when we talk about free software. If you go around spouting RMS lines to people in Texas or the midwest they'll call you a communist and tune you out. The very fact is, open source works because none of the participants can build it on their own, but small contributions and enhancements make up a great end product. That's what this teacher doesn't understand and that's what people who say "you don't get anything for free" don't understand. It cost a lot of people a little and since no one can really claim ownership, we all benefit.
And by the way, that means if WE ALL contribute a little to an open source project that does something you need rather than making feature requests to developers who have day jobs, then you will realize how the process works and be better able to explain it to people when they come up with ignorant comments like that. It doesn't need to be code... it can be documentation or helping answer user questions in a forum. There are many ways to contribute to open source without writing a single line of code.
"What it is doing is trying to make the 50 states DLs uniform."
Why, so they can stop underage drinking? Besides, what information does a police officer look at on your drivers license? They take it back to their car, run it through their computer and get your full records. They way the license looks is irrelevant.
And require them to store a lot more data. I'm not saying that's a technical or financial barrier. Disk space is cheap... but it's the government and they very rarely make intelligent decisions when it comes to technology.
I mean, the young, hip, supposedly tech-savvy President-Elect uses a Zune. That right there should tell you something.
You can add to this that Microsoft's market share for the operating systems dropped below 90% for the first time in forever.
Now if I could only install a Linux desktop at work, my work life would be much improved.
That said, I will take American programmers any day over foreigners. At least the foreigners I've run into. The Americans I meet at least have a desire to do a good job where many of the foreigners are simply copy-paste artists. That's not to say there aren't good foreign developers, but I think the ratio of good to bad is much better for those educated in US schools than those educated in foreign schools... Japan, Britain and Europe being the exceptions.
The point made in the article is 100% valid. Even if they never need to think about it in everyday life, programmers should know the basics of how data structures work or how pointers and at least be familiar with pointers and memory allocation. They should know that there is an alternative to Java's pass by value-reference. It's like learning long division or fraction arithmetic... does anyone write it out? No, if it's easy enough they do it in their head and if it's not they use a calculator. But when you learn it, you learn it without the calculator.
Personally, I think that colleges shouldn't be in the business of teaching a language, they should be teaching the skills to learn languages. If you're in an OO class, you should be doing projects that explore concepts in the best language for demonstrating the concept. That's not always Java. In the real world, you will have to drop into situations where you need to learn a new language to solve a problem. In addition, there is always a time when the languages you learned in college are simply no longer in use. If you learned Fortran or Cobol in college, you either learned a new language or you aren't programming anymore... at least not professionally. The kids need to learn to fish, not simply be spoon-fed the hottest language at the time.
I'm not entirely sure how that applies... but I look at it this way, IF an insignificant number of the population is using OO, as compared to Word, it's because they don't know OO exists, not because they have made an intelligent decision. What exactly are the features of MS Office that make it $600 better than OpenOffice?
You've got something wrong with your system if it crashes. I watch youtube movies all the time in Firefox on Ubuntu. Did you download the proprietary drivers or are you afraid to taint the kernel?
I agree, Linux is anything but a second rate OS.
And can I just say, enough with the GNU/Linux already. Yes, there's a lot of stuff from GNU packaged with the kernel, but there's a lot of utilities and programs from other companies that are packaged into the distro as well. Linux is an easy name to market, tacking GNU on there because RMS is having a pity party is ridiculous.
They aren't really a monopoly so much as they have formed illegal trusts. The fact that they have all the hardware vendors in bed with them is the problem. They have found a way to give people the perception that it is Windows that supports hardware and Windows that can work on any x86 and so on. I think the Vista disaster should help people understand that it's hardware vendors that write drivers.
It's also a big reason why companies like Dell who have started offering people the choice of pre-installed Linux is so key. If they would open up their selection of Linux machines, I think they'd see a lot of growth there, even if people just install a pirated copy of Windows.
Consoles have eclipsed PCs for gaming now. If you want games, use the console.
As for the deal of mommy not being able to run the new computer, my wife isn't technical at all and she picked up Ubuntu in a few hours. Now she gets ticked off every time she has to go back to a Windows machine. That old "It's only good for hackers and programmers" is no longer applicable.
I disagree. I use open office even when the company supplies office on my machine. I just don't like Office and I think the popularity of OO on Windows means that there are a significant number of people who agree.
You are absolutely right, they should charge money for their software because of the way they build it. The open source model is different, so the fact that it's free is a consequence of the way it is written. There are some who like to wax poetic about liberty and all that, but when it comes down to it, Linux is free because the code is free.
However, if I'm going to buy software, it has to be markedly better than a free alternative... and Windows is not even close. If I'm going to buy something, I'd buy a Mac, but since I can use my same hardware, I run Linux.
Some developers like to sit in a hole and pretend that they are working on some great piece of art. The rest of us realize that in order for a team of people to get a very large piece of software work without heavy processes that slow things down, you have to collaborate. Collaboration is much easier when you can just talk to someone across the desk. Besides, there's always cross pollination going on when that happens so good ideas get incorporated by eavesdroppers as well as the people involved. I've worked in both environments and cubes lead to anti-social behavior, poor communication, and failing products. As much as I disliked the noise and distraction of the open environment, I could shut that out with headphones. I can't pretend this stupid grey wall doesn't exist.
Maybe it's an analogy for open vs proprietary.;)
We went to the moon with technology that didn't exist 40 years before. I am unconvinced that going to the moon is a great technological feat anymore. China had significant advantages including the fact that an example exists. Don't downplay how difficult it is to take theory into practice... that is what the physicists and engineers in the 60s did and why this accomplishment, while great for China, does not compare.
The same could be said of the Mars rovers, the expedition to Titan, taking core samples from a comet, and some of the other recent NASA and ESA accomplishments. I am not so sure the China is "catching up". They are progressing, but catching up would be more like sending their own missions to Mars or doing their own research into many of the yet untapped possibilities space has to offer. Doing what has been done before is not catching up, it's following where others have dared to explore.
Slight correction... they are a party of rich people who fool poor people into thinking they will get help, environmentalists into believing they care about the environment, union workers into thinking their jobs won't get shipped out of the country, and intellectuals into believing they are led by people smarter than them.
That's in opposition to Republicans who fool Christians into thinking they believe the same things, pro-lifers into thinking they are going to do something about abortion, and businessmen into thinking their taxes will be cut, and taxpayers into believing that government spending will be reduced.
The only real thing a politician believes in is his or her need for more power. The only difference between a Democrat and a Republican is the groups and ideals they use to get that power.
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I wonder how much of this study is impacted by better medicine. They should also test an area with minimal air pollution as a control to see if the people there also experienced an increased life expectancy where the air quality remained relatively the same. More details of how the study was conducted should be published.
"why would you want people forming their first impression of your software from untested development releases?" You're thinking like a product development manager rather than a programmer. If you think very practically, as a programmer, you have a tool that you need and you need it in a certain time frame. You don't have the resources, but it seems like something that others would want. So you hit the open source world and find that there are other projects that either have a vision to do what you want or maybe already have 90% of what you want. You add the 10% and now you've gained back the life you would have spent building that 90% for yourself. That is why, if you run an open source project, you want as much exposure as early as possible. It's not about selling a product or competing in the market space. It's about getting something done that is unique and serves a purpose.
I've been waiting for a good reason to get out of my Verizon account for a while now and they have just given it to me.
Perhaps it's because I fall into the Reagan-Republican category that it appeals to me, but I sort of like a razor-thin OS as a platform for applications. The one thing it should do in its "expanding role" should be to protect running programs from other running programs, but not try to protect a running program from itself. One program should not be able to consume all the resources on the machine, nor should it be starved for resources by other programs. IF the OS is successful at providing that service first and foremost, then perhaps it can start delving into other services, but not at the expense of the former.
The ~6k years number is derived mainly from genealogies. For instance, I could derive your father's age given your age and his age when you were born.
... it needs to be more user friendly ...
I reject this logic. I can't believe that, given the same amount of time and familiarity, that users will find Gnome or KDE less user friendly than Windows. What exactly is less user friendly about a linux environment? The fact that you can't download any old executable file and install it? Do you really think that's easier than using a package manager? If linux got 1/10th the attention from software and hardware vendors, making things work wouldn't be NEARLY as difficult. So I guess I call BS on you with that statement because I think what you are really saying is, "it needs to be more like windows", in which case I heartily disagree. I recently had to switch back from Linux to Windows because I changed jobs and I find the Windows environment so cluttered and annoying, I think it's LESS user friendly than the Gnome environment in Ubuntu. I can list a ton of reasons like the "always on top" feature, native virtual desktops, the ability to kill a locked process and have it actually die, a useful shell(much easier for giving people directions than spending most of your time telling them how to navigate a hierarchical menu), tons of tools for distributed system administration, tons of useful software for free, filesystem support that is GENERATIONS beyond FAT or NTFS, the ability to work without being continually asked if I really want to do something.... should I continue?
He just needs enlightenment. My dad is 80, my mom is 73 both run Ubuntu.
It's not given to the government. To give something implies ownership... and technically, no one owns the code if it's open source. The point isn't valid, lots of schools use Linux in their server environment. Even my old high school that produces graduating classes of about 80 has mail servers running on Linux. The only difference is the desktop. The problem is not this complex. It stems from people thinking that the OS someone learns today will be the OS they use in the workplace. I used Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, and TRS-80 when I was in school and I don't have a problem at all adapting to other OSs. What we do now is more along the lines of indoctrination than education. If they want to equip students, they need to teach them how to learn rather than how to use Windows... or Linux/Unix/Mac, etc for that matter.
It's somewhat true, there is really nothing for free. Someone spent the time to write the code that makes up free software, the difference is, they can't build an entire application by themselves(or don't have the time to), so they commit small portions. In and of themselves, those small pieces of code are nothing, but when you have lots of people doing the same thing you end up with a working product. It's not about sharing or being kind to your neighbor or any of that warm, fuzzy crap. It's about a bunch of people who need the same thing so they work together on it and make it happen. I am reminded of an Amish barn building. The labor isn't free, but because they all need a barn and it's much easier if they all help each other than to do it by themselves. THIS is what we need to be enforcing when we talk about free software. If you go around spouting RMS lines to people in Texas or the midwest they'll call you a communist and tune you out. The very fact is, open source works because none of the participants can build it on their own, but small contributions and enhancements make up a great end product. That's what this teacher doesn't understand and that's what people who say "you don't get anything for free" don't understand. It cost a lot of people a little and since no one can really claim ownership, we all benefit. And by the way, that means if WE ALL contribute a little to an open source project that does something you need rather than making feature requests to developers who have day jobs, then you will realize how the process works and be better able to explain it to people when they come up with ignorant comments like that. It doesn't need to be code... it can be documentation or helping answer user questions in a forum. There are many ways to contribute to open source without writing a single line of code.
"What it is doing is trying to make the 50 states DLs uniform." Why, so they can stop underage drinking? Besides, what information does a police officer look at on your drivers license? They take it back to their car, run it through their computer and get your full records. They way the license looks is irrelevant.
And require them to store a lot more data. I'm not saying that's a technical or financial barrier. Disk space is cheap... but it's the government and they very rarely make intelligent decisions when it comes to technology. I mean, the young, hip, supposedly tech-savvy President-Elect uses a Zune. That right there should tell you something.
You can add to this that Microsoft's market share for the operating systems dropped below 90% for the first time in forever. Now if I could only install a Linux desktop at work, my work life would be much improved.
That said, I will take American programmers any day over foreigners. At least the foreigners I've run into. The Americans I meet at least have a desire to do a good job where many of the foreigners are simply copy-paste artists. That's not to say there aren't good foreign developers, but I think the ratio of good to bad is much better for those educated in US schools than those educated in foreign schools... Japan, Britain and Europe being the exceptions.
The point made in the article is 100% valid. Even if they never need to think about it in everyday life, programmers should know the basics of how data structures work or how pointers and at least be familiar with pointers and memory allocation. They should know that there is an alternative to Java's pass by value-reference. It's like learning long division or fraction arithmetic... does anyone write it out? No, if it's easy enough they do it in their head and if it's not they use a calculator. But when you learn it, you learn it without the calculator. Personally, I think that colleges shouldn't be in the business of teaching a language, they should be teaching the skills to learn languages. If you're in an OO class, you should be doing projects that explore concepts in the best language for demonstrating the concept. That's not always Java. In the real world, you will have to drop into situations where you need to learn a new language to solve a problem. In addition, there is always a time when the languages you learned in college are simply no longer in use. If you learned Fortran or Cobol in college, you either learned a new language or you aren't programming anymore... at least not professionally. The kids need to learn to fish, not simply be spoon-fed the hottest language at the time.
I'm not entirely sure how that applies... but I look at it this way, IF an insignificant number of the population is using OO, as compared to Word, it's because they don't know OO exists, not because they have made an intelligent decision. What exactly are the features of MS Office that make it $600 better than OpenOffice?
You've got something wrong with your system if it crashes. I watch youtube movies all the time in Firefox on Ubuntu. Did you download the proprietary drivers or are you afraid to taint the kernel?
I agree, Linux is anything but a second rate OS. And can I just say, enough with the GNU/Linux already. Yes, there's a lot of stuff from GNU packaged with the kernel, but there's a lot of utilities and programs from other companies that are packaged into the distro as well. Linux is an easy name to market, tacking GNU on there because RMS is having a pity party is ridiculous.
They aren't really a monopoly so much as they have formed illegal trusts. The fact that they have all the hardware vendors in bed with them is the problem. They have found a way to give people the perception that it is Windows that supports hardware and Windows that can work on any x86 and so on. I think the Vista disaster should help people understand that it's hardware vendors that write drivers. It's also a big reason why companies like Dell who have started offering people the choice of pre-installed Linux is so key. If they would open up their selection of Linux machines, I think they'd see a lot of growth there, even if people just install a pirated copy of Windows.
Consoles have eclipsed PCs for gaming now. If you want games, use the console. As for the deal of mommy not being able to run the new computer, my wife isn't technical at all and she picked up Ubuntu in a few hours. Now she gets ticked off every time she has to go back to a Windows machine. That old "It's only good for hackers and programmers" is no longer applicable.
I disagree. I use open office even when the company supplies office on my machine. I just don't like Office and I think the popularity of OO on Windows means that there are a significant number of people who agree.
You are absolutely right, they should charge money for their software because of the way they build it. The open source model is different, so the fact that it's free is a consequence of the way it is written. There are some who like to wax poetic about liberty and all that, but when it comes down to it, Linux is free because the code is free. However, if I'm going to buy software, it has to be markedly better than a free alternative... and Windows is not even close. If I'm going to buy something, I'd buy a Mac, but since I can use my same hardware, I run Linux.
What company is that? That's interesting since ATT is bringing all their telecommuters back in house.
Some developers like to sit in a hole and pretend that they are working on some great piece of art. The rest of us realize that in order for a team of people to get a very large piece of software work without heavy processes that slow things down, you have to collaborate. Collaboration is much easier when you can just talk to someone across the desk. Besides, there's always cross pollination going on when that happens so good ideas get incorporated by eavesdroppers as well as the people involved. I've worked in both environments and cubes lead to anti-social behavior, poor communication, and failing products. As much as I disliked the noise and distraction of the open environment, I could shut that out with headphones. I can't pretend this stupid grey wall doesn't exist. Maybe it's an analogy for open vs proprietary. ;)
We went to the moon with technology that didn't exist 40 years before. I am unconvinced that going to the moon is a great technological feat anymore. China had significant advantages including the fact that an example exists. Don't downplay how difficult it is to take theory into practice... that is what the physicists and engineers in the 60s did and why this accomplishment, while great for China, does not compare. The same could be said of the Mars rovers, the expedition to Titan, taking core samples from a comet, and some of the other recent NASA and ESA accomplishments. I am not so sure the China is "catching up". They are progressing, but catching up would be more like sending their own missions to Mars or doing their own research into many of the yet untapped possibilities space has to offer. Doing what has been done before is not catching up, it's following where others have dared to explore.
Slight correction... they are a party of rich people who fool poor people into thinking they will get help, environmentalists into believing they care about the environment, union workers into thinking their jobs won't get shipped out of the country, and intellectuals into believing they are led by people smarter than them.
That's in opposition to Republicans who fool Christians into thinking they believe the same things, pro-lifers into thinking they are going to do something about abortion, and businessmen into thinking their taxes will be cut, and taxpayers into believing that government spending will be reduced.
The only real thing a politician believes in is his or her need for more power. The only difference between a Democrat and a Republican is the groups and ideals they use to get that power.