All anyone cares about is to have hardware with free drivers, from there any distro can be installed.
All *we* care about (as current Linux users) is that. It will help boost Dell's sales of hardware to current Linux users, if they did take up that kind of policy.
Perhaps, though, the wider picture is that a pre-installed Linux would speed up adoption. Certainly, a pre-installed (and thus a configuration with hardware issues ironed out) Linux distro such as Ubuntu is perfectly capable for what, probably, a majority of people need. There are certainly very few users who actually *need* features which are difficult to use or install on Linux (gaming, complete compatibility with MS Office or a Windows specific program).
The audience Linux should be targetting is those who use their computers for the simple things - Web Browsing, E-mail and simple word processing/office suite work. By including Linux pre-installed on big manufacturers such as Dell, you will be hitting a large part of that audience. So what if someone buys it without understanding the difference between the OS's - it surely helps resolve ubuntu bug#1.
As a student currently studying Computer Science in the UK, I can tell you there are a number of universities that include compiler design in their courses - Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton and UCL to name a few.
Most proper computer science courses do not have any creative writing aspects - if you go to a reasonable institution, you will have the oppurtunity to study the technical side. What you are describing tends to be ICT style courses rather than computer science ones.
Formal education is not a scam - it provides you with evidence that you understand the concepts. Sure, you may go out and purchase books - you may even understand the content matter. But this won't give you the same proof that completing a compilers module as part of a wider degree will give you. That's the point of a degree - not to necessarily teach you, but to give future employers evidence of what you can do.
I don't think it's the fault of Java - I think the fault lies with universities teaching a "Java" course. It seems far more appropriate to instead teach "Object Orientated Programming" in a way which is applicable to any OOP language. The important bit is *how* you use these programming paradigms - the rest is just syntax, which you can certainly find out for yourself.
All of our courses are designed round this style of thinking - so we have "Functional Programming", "Procedural Programming" and "Object Orientated Programming". This make you a far more rounded programmer - and give you a chance to see how common algorithms and patterns are implemented in each paradigm, rather than having syntactical issues of a particular language described to you.
This is the problem with the article as a whole. It assumes that you've read the title and agreed, and that the rest is just deciding what to get. There's no comparison to what other vendors offer, or exactly how it weighs in, in terms of features and pricing.
A sensible comparison would be *far* more likely to gain support - people get turned off by the whole fan-boy attitude, the whole "the only comparison you can make with a mac is another mac" attitude. Plus, the whole sillyness of pointing out features which are *clearly* not needed on an enterprise desktop - I mean, remote control anyone?
At the moment, both formats seem too powerful to lose. They both have big backers, and a signficant studio input. As no clear leader has emerged, dual format would seem to be sensible for any early adopters. Why back only one, when you can back two? Price, of course, is going to be the deciding factor - as long as it is comparable to seperate player prices, it will do well.
Another interesting point it raises is whether the two might be taken for different purposes - maybe HD-DVD being chosen as a cheaper alternative, and then Blu-ray chosen for special edition discs with extra content?
Agree in principal, but he's talking about a way to fast track the actual process - so manually placing e-mails in a folder and then not having to jump through hoops to submit.
Of course, if users then misuse it by setting up filters to automatically put mail in there...
The article's a bit lacking on details, but...
Isn't store and forward unnecessary? It's definitely possible to get it down to a much lower latency than is stated in the article if you don't use it.
I was recently talking to a UK developer from Eidos, who said they had had PS3 development kits for about 4 months. Suggests it's a limited supply problem, or just a problem for those particular companies. Either way, the big publishers are certainly aiming titles now towards the PS3.
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All *we* care about (as current Linux users) is that. It will help boost Dell's sales of hardware to current Linux users, if they did take up that kind of policy.
Perhaps, though, the wider picture is that a pre-installed Linux would speed up adoption. Certainly, a pre-installed (and thus a configuration with hardware issues ironed out) Linux distro such as Ubuntu is perfectly capable for what, probably, a majority of people need. There are certainly very few users who actually *need* features which are difficult to use or install on Linux (gaming, complete compatibility with MS Office or a Windows specific program).
The audience Linux should be targetting is those who use their computers for the simple things - Web Browsing, E-mail and simple word processing/office suite work. By including Linux pre-installed on big manufacturers such as Dell, you will be hitting a large part of that audience. So what if someone buys it without understanding the difference between the OS's - it surely helps resolve ubuntu bug#1.
As a student currently studying Computer Science in the UK, I can tell you there are a number of universities that include compiler design in their courses - Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton and UCL to name a few.
Most proper computer science courses do not have any creative writing aspects - if you go to a reasonable institution, you will have the oppurtunity to study the technical side. What you are describing tends to be ICT style courses rather than computer science ones.
Formal education is not a scam - it provides you with evidence that you understand the concepts. Sure, you may go out and purchase books - you may even understand the content matter. But this won't give you the same proof that completing a compilers module as part of a wider degree will give you. That's the point of a degree - not to necessarily teach you, but to give future employers evidence of what you can do.
I don't think it's the fault of Java - I think the fault lies with universities teaching a "Java" course. It seems far more appropriate to instead teach "Object Orientated Programming" in a way which is applicable to any OOP language. The important bit is *how* you use these programming paradigms - the rest is just syntax, which you can certainly find out for yourself.
All of our courses are designed round this style of thinking - so we have "Functional Programming", "Procedural Programming" and "Object Orientated Programming". This make you a far more rounded programmer - and give you a chance to see how common algorithms and patterns are implemented in each paradigm, rather than having syntactical issues of a particular language described to you.
This is the problem with the article as a whole. It assumes that you've read the title and agreed, and that the rest is just deciding what to get. There's no comparison to what other vendors offer, or exactly how it weighs in, in terms of features and pricing.
A sensible comparison would be *far* more likely to gain support - people get turned off by the whole fan-boy attitude, the whole "the only comparison you can make with a mac is another mac" attitude. Plus, the whole sillyness of pointing out features which are *clearly* not needed on an enterprise desktop - I mean, remote control anyone?
At the moment, both formats seem too powerful to lose. They both have big backers, and a signficant studio input. As no clear leader has emerged, dual format would seem to be sensible for any early adopters. Why back only one, when you can back two? Price, of course, is going to be the deciding factor - as long as it is comparable to seperate player prices, it will do well. Another interesting point it raises is whether the two might be taken for different purposes - maybe HD-DVD being chosen as a cheaper alternative, and then Blu-ray chosen for special edition discs with extra content?
At least Elder Scrolls might be ready for the European Launch...
Agree in principal, but he's talking about a way to fast track the actual process - so manually placing e-mails in a folder and then not having to jump through hoops to submit.
Of course, if users then misuse it by setting up filters to automatically put mail in there...
The article's a bit lacking on details, but... Isn't store and forward unnecessary? It's definitely possible to get it down to a much lower latency than is stated in the article if you don't use it.
I was recently talking to a UK developer from Eidos, who said they had had PS3 development kits for about 4 months. Suggests it's a limited supply problem, or just a problem for those particular companies. Either way, the big publishers are certainly aiming titles now towards the PS3.