When faced with an unknown binary, there's not a heck of lot you can do but poke away at it hopefully.
Thats true from a user standpoint, but the OP was talking about it w.r.t to being a developer.
And do you know what the documentation of the process for a piece of software is? Do you? It's the Source Code. Yes, that includes the Makefile and documentation of the toolchain used for the build.
I don't get how that's relevant to the point at hand. Anyway, I'm not debating the process. I just don't get the argument against the NT platform here that the OP was trying to make. There exist poor tools and libraries on any platform. But blaming the platform for the poor tools? Heck if you think all tools made by Microsoft are horrible.. well. don't use them. That doesn't make NT bad at what it does. Also its a pretty weaksause argument when you bring up number of arguments to APIs as an example of "gratuitous complexity" (Also, AFAIK, there isn't a Win32 API offhand that takes 30 arguments)
The feeling I often get when developing for Microsoft's platform is that it is gratuitously complex.
What Microsoft platform are you talking about? Win32? DirectX? XNA?.NET? F#? MFC? ATL? WPF? PowerShell? Silverlight?
Those are just APIs anyway. The "Microsoft platform" here is meaningless. The Operating system just sends machine opcodes from compiled binaries to the processor and doesn't care which tools you used to create the binary. (Yes.NET type languages have another translation abstraction from bytecode to machine instructions but its essentially the same)
The process by which you get compiled code is determined by which toolset you use, which language, which library, runtime etc, etc. So whats you're beef here?
That every developer tool (whether its written by Microsoft or others) and programming library and language that can be used to create a compiled binary file on windows is "gratuitously complex"? I wont be so bold as to presume you are stupid enough to make that claim, but what you said sounded to me like you are not basing your opinions on rational thought.
I think its the same thing as a "hall of famer" coming back to play and people thing hes going to ruin his legacy. Why don't we give this guy a chance?
Well, OK, My main point was that picture wasn't as rosy in 2007 as the OP was trying to paint.
Anyway targets are always being revised and I don't really know what Jobs was predicting them to be for each quarter. However, I know that there as a significant price cut on the iPhone before Christmas '07 and maybe the analysts were expecting higher sales from that announcement.
That's why I cant eat out anymore and have started wearing a tin foil hat. They're watching me, dammit ! They can read my thoughts ! Every week I send them letters to call off the watch but they keep denying it.. aaargh !~
No, I am not rejecting cost. I am rejecting the current system.
No, What you're doing is just hiding behind words. You want talented people to create creative works and then you want to consume them without compensating them through the current model. The authors of these works enter the system expecting a reciprocal response from others. If you want to reject the system then do not take part in it.
You have unilaterally decided that X,Y,Z are your "rights" and "freedoms" and that restricting you from copying trespasses on your rights/freedoms. Well, rights and freedoms aren't decided that way. You can choose to embrace or reject any model you like but then society can also choose to cast you out as a non-cooperative member. (e.g. by locking you up for copyright infringement) Don't like it? Tough shit, move into a jungle and do what you like.
I may "reject" the current law and order model and embrace the property rights system from 500BC and basically club my neighbour to death and take over his land. Hey, I'm only rejecting the system right?
Server admins are 10 orders of magnitude more paranoid about security than the average Windows user who clicks on random ads and gets infected. Which BTW, Servers are never used for. (casually browsing the net)
What you're probably thinking of is patch for the Big Kernel Lock(BKL) in Linux which basically was the origin of SMP scaling in Linux. This article is talking about the kernel dispatcher lock in NT. Two separate things.
Still have wacky affinity issues, one processor will be pegged out and nothing on the other cores
An OS cant make a program run on both cores. For that to happen the developer should write multithreaded code.
NT has some neat thread management & i/o prioritization features. For e.g. Even with a large number of threads just spinning (and pegging the CPU at close to 100%), I can get smooth and crisp audio to play alongside without skipping.
Try running this piece of code with a mp3 playing in the background
Depends on what kind of geek you are. Me personally, I don't usually care for much of the visuals in most OSs so I guess this most useful feature for me is the new taskbar. I cant say if the entire OS is worth the $200 or w/e they're charging but since I got mine for $30 in an edu discount deal type thing, it was worth it for me.
As a developer, I'm much more interested in some of the under teh hood changes and I'll probably get around to downloading the platform SDK once I have some free time and taking a peek.
Yes, I do. It should be filed under "Common Fucking Sense".
People adapt. You give them an OS without a browser, they will learn how to get a browser. If you haven't observed this behaviour in people you're just ignorant.
People adapt. If you give them an OS without a browser, they switch to another OS. If you haven't observed this behavior in people you're just ignorant.
It's about the operating system Windows bundling the browser IE inside it.
Um, no a web browser is important part of the OS itself. Not the 'traditional' definition of an OS but what consumers expect to be in an OS, like how all the other consumer OSs on the planet include all kinds of crap.
What the EU should really have done is specifically allowed (if this wasn't already the case) Computer sellers to choose whatever combination of software they want to be sold. i.e. Dell could choose to install Firefox, HP could chose Opera, etc. And if MS makes contracts with Dell/HP to not allow the above, then the EU should regulate on that, but forcing MS, as a software company to promote their competition is ludicrous.
I will not have much trust for Microsoft until MS Office is GPLed (v3) and I can get it working on GNU.
Translation: "Hey, thats a nice piece of software there, thats made millions for you, umm.. Why don't you make it free so I can have it?"
You would be better off substituting your delusions with a mental model that agrees with reality. Microsoft is in the business of making money. They are not a charity. Besides there are millions of commercial software vendors that wont ever release GPL code. Microsoft is just one of them. If Windows or Office is GPL'd (v3) then that would mean a huge scare for all vendors that have 'components' that interact with GPL v3 software. Drivers, addons, plugins and what not. And especially a direct threat to whatever patents they hold. Its pretty much NEVER going to happen.
I wonder if zealots recognize they are zealots...
The Linux (and GNU) project was started to duplicate and copy proprietary software from day 1. You guys would be better off writing a good clone for office than dreaming and hoping for MS to give up their 'money-maker'.
So after typing all that drivel, you didn't even answer his question. How do you know if you have a virus on Linux?
Linux does a much better job at isolating system space from userspace.
Not exactly true. Even with 'root' credentials things like ioperm() are impossible on windows. You have to write that in kernel mode which means on 64bit windows atleast, you can only run digitally signed code.
You haven't stated what you mean by that anyway. "isolating system space from userspace" is done in every modern OS.
Linux was developed under the assumption that it would be attacked from all sides, so it made sure to harden and protect its vital components from the everyday users.
What does this mean? Love conquers all? Anymore platitudes from you? State technical facts please..
So, you're telling me if you hand me an executable to run on Linux, Linux would tell me before hand if that the executable is going to delete my/home directory? Great, how do I use this feature ?
If not, how do I sue RedHat/Novell/Cannonical/+++ for hiring programmers that made Linux insecure?
So? I run Vista and I don't even run an anti-virus. No, I don't download random stuff and after being on the internets for 13 years I can navigate through all the shady stuff out there.
Competent & savvy users could always secure whatever OS people hand them. If I write a C program to delete someones/home directory (or basically any data files owned by the logged in user) and just give a Linux user the program to execute. Neither he nor Linux is capable of stopping that program from running. (once you chmod +x it..:p)
The problem was always for the typical 'aunt' / 'mom' / 'grandma' / 'joe-6-pack' stereotype. Its slightly easier on Linux because of the repositories guaranteeing (or as close as you can get) that the user isn't installing malware. Given the billions of apps on windows, that completely breaks down. Anyone want to volunteer to pay my bandwidth bills to download all games and apps from the repositories?:p
[..]they still haven't been able to turn that feature of their experimental OS, a feature they spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince us all was the Bee's Knee's, into a component of a shipping OS.
R&D shouldn't always have to end up in a shipping product, but announcing that the R&D project has features you've been promising was in the works for your shipping products and never actually delivering is stupid.
I don't think WinFS was a R&D project in MS research, nor do I have any evidence that it started its life as an experimental OS.
WinFS was sold as a major feature in the Longhorn OS. Parts if it ended up in SQL Server. Yes, they didn't ship it with Vista, but that is really disconnected from what MS research is doing here. I don't see any promises from MS Research in the FA that this is going to be used in a product. Ofcource this isn't just 'free beer' , its a PR move too, but that's a given whenever a corporation puts out any kind of release.
Slashdot Mirror
When faced with an unknown binary, there's not a heck of lot you can do but poke away at it hopefully.
Thats true from a user standpoint, but the OP was talking about it w.r.t to being a developer.
And do you know what the documentation of the process for a piece of software is? Do you? It's the Source Code. Yes, that includes the Makefile and documentation of the toolchain used for the build.
I don't get how that's relevant to the point at hand. Anyway, I'm not debating the process. I just don't get the argument against the NT platform here that the OP was trying to make. There exist poor tools and libraries on any platform. But blaming the platform for the poor tools? Heck if you think all tools made by Microsoft are horrible.. well. don't use them. That doesn't make NT bad at what it does. Also its a pretty weaksause argument when you bring up number of arguments to APIs as an example of "gratuitous complexity" (Also, AFAIK, there isn't a Win32 API offhand that takes 30 arguments)
The feeling I often get when developing for Microsoft's platform is that it is gratuitously complex.
What Microsoft platform are you talking about? Win32? DirectX? XNA? .NET? F#? MFC? ATL? WPF? PowerShell? Silverlight?
Those are just APIs anyway. The "Microsoft platform" here is meaningless. The Operating system just sends machine opcodes from compiled binaries to the processor and doesn't care which tools you used to create the binary. (Yes .NET type languages have another translation abstraction from bytecode to machine instructions but its essentially the same)
The process by which you get compiled code is determined by which toolset you use, which language, which library, runtime etc, etc. So whats you're beef here?
That every developer tool (whether its written by Microsoft or others) and programming library and language that can be used to create a compiled binary file on windows is "gratuitously complex"? I wont be so bold as to presume you are stupid enough to make that claim, but what you said sounded to me like you are not basing your opinions on rational thought.
Do people actually install those updates?
Yes, people who care about having 1 less bug to deal with in their OS, generally run each update.
There is nothing like those updates to bring your system to a crawl.
What?
The only updates I install when using Windows are Service Packs and Antivirus updates.
Service pack just means a cumulative pack of all the updates released so far. (Most of the time)
I think its the same thing as a "hall of famer" coming back to play and people thing hes going to ruin his legacy. Why don't we give this guy a chance?
Well, OK, My main point was that picture wasn't as rosy in 2007 as the OP was trying to paint.
Anyway targets are always being revised and I don't really know what Jobs was predicting them to be for each quarter. However, I know that there as a significant price cut on the iPhone before Christmas '07 and maybe the analysts were expecting higher sales from that announcement.
This one is just blatantly false. The iPhone hit all Apple's announced targets,
Not exactly true.
Proof:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter.svg
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/technology/24cnd-phone.html
Understanding technology is different from predicting trends. One does not follow the other.
You can be the best kernel hacker in the world and yet be ill-equiped to predict whether the iphone would have been a success in 2001. :P
That's why I cant eat out anymore and have started wearing a tin foil hat. They're watching me, dammit ! They can read my thoughts ! Every week I send them letters to call off the watch but they keep denying it.. aaargh !~
No, I am not rejecting cost. I am rejecting the current system.
No, What you're doing is just hiding behind words. You want talented people to create creative works and then you want to consume them without compensating them through the current model. The authors of these works enter the system expecting a reciprocal response from others. If you want to reject the system then do not take part in it.
You have unilaterally decided that X,Y,Z are your "rights" and "freedoms" and that restricting you from copying trespasses on your rights/freedoms. Well, rights and freedoms aren't decided that way. You can choose to embrace or reject any model you like but then society can also choose to cast you out as a non-cooperative member. (e.g. by locking you up for copyright infringement) Don't like it? Tough shit, move into a jungle and do what you like.
I may "reject" the current law and order model and embrace the property rights system from 500BC and basically club my neighbour to death and take over his land. Hey, I'm only rejecting the system right?
Server admins are 10 orders of magnitude more paranoid about security than the average Windows user who clicks on random ads and gets infected. Which BTW, Servers are never used for. (casually browsing the net)
What you're probably thinking of is patch for the Big Kernel Lock(BKL) in Linux which basically was the origin of SMP scaling in Linux. This article is talking about the kernel dispatcher lock in NT. Two separate things.
Still have wacky affinity issues, one processor will be pegged out and nothing on the other cores
An OS cant make a program run on both cores. For that to happen the developer should write multithreaded code.
NT has some neat thread management & i/o prioritization features. For e.g. Even with a large number of threads just spinning (and pegging the CPU at close to 100%), I can get smooth and crisp audio to play alongside without skipping.
Try running this piece of code with a mp3 playing in the background
When did they start designing the taskbar for KDE and when did they start designing the taskbar for Windows 7. Do you have any evidence?
Depends on what kind of geek you are. Me personally, I don't usually care for much of the visuals in most OSs so I guess this most useful feature for me is the new taskbar. I cant say if the entire OS is worth the $200 or w/e they're charging but since I got mine for $30 in an edu discount deal type thing, it was worth it for me.
As a developer, I'm much more interested in some of the under teh hood changes and I'll probably get around to downloading the platform SDK once I have some free time and taking a peek.
Why not just a VM running whatever OS you want?
Why MSFT always seems to be piss poor on basic tools I have no idea,
At this point, including *ANYTHING* with windows will be seen as "leveraging their monopoly to gain a competitive advantage in other markets"
http://www.google.com/search?&q=microsoft+*+monopoly+*+leverage
Is there a study to back this up?
Yes, I do. It should be filed under "Common Fucking Sense".
People adapt. You give them an OS without a browser, they will learn how to get a browser. If you haven't observed this behaviour in people you're just ignorant.
People adapt. If you give them an OS without a browser, they switch to another OS. If you haven't observed this behavior in people you're just ignorant.
It's about the operating system Windows bundling the browser IE inside it.
Um, no a web browser is important part of the OS itself. Not the 'traditional' definition of an OS but what consumers expect to be in an OS, like how all the other consumer OSs on the planet include all kinds of crap.
What the EU should really have done is specifically allowed (if this wasn't already the case) Computer sellers to choose whatever combination of software they want to be sold. i.e. Dell could choose to install Firefox, HP could chose Opera, etc. And if MS makes contracts with Dell/HP to not allow the above, then the EU should regulate on that, but forcing MS, as a software company to promote their competition is ludicrous.
I will not have much trust for Microsoft until MS Office is GPLed (v3) and I can get it working on GNU.
Translation: "Hey, thats a nice piece of software there, thats made millions for you, umm.. Why don't you make it free so I can have it?"
You would be better off substituting your delusions with a mental model that agrees with reality. Microsoft is in the business of making money. They are not a charity. Besides there are millions of commercial software vendors that wont ever release GPL code. Microsoft is just one of them. If Windows or Office is GPL'd (v3) then that would mean a huge scare for all vendors that have 'components' that interact with GPL v3 software. Drivers, addons, plugins and what not. And especially a direct threat to whatever patents they hold. Its pretty much NEVER going to happen.
I wonder if zealots recognize they are zealots...
The Linux (and GNU) project was started to duplicate and copy proprietary software from day 1. You guys would be better off writing a good clone for office than dreaming and hoping for MS to give up their 'money-maker'.
So after typing all that drivel, you didn't even answer his question. How do you know if you have a virus on Linux?
Linux does a much better job at isolating system space from userspace.
Not exactly true. Even with 'root' credentials things like ioperm() are impossible on windows. You have to write that in kernel mode which means on 64bit windows atleast, you can only run digitally signed code.
You haven't stated what you mean by that anyway. "isolating system space from userspace" is done in every modern OS.
Linux was developed under the assumption that it would be attacked from all sides, so it made sure to harden and protect its vital components from the everyday users.
What does this mean? Love conquers all? Anymore platitudes from you? State technical facts please..
So, you're telling me if you hand me an executable to run on Linux, Linux would tell me before hand if that the executable is going to delete my /home directory? Great, how do I use this feature ?
If not, how do I sue RedHat/Novell/Cannonical/+++ for hiring programmers that made Linux insecure?
So? I run Vista and I don't even run an anti-virus. No, I don't download random stuff and after being on the internets for 13 years I can navigate through all the shady stuff out there.
Competent & savvy users could always secure whatever OS people hand them. If I write a C program to delete someones /home directory (or basically any data files owned by the logged in user) and just give a Linux user the program to execute. Neither he nor Linux is capable of stopping that program from running. (once you chmod +x it .. :p)
The problem was always for the typical 'aunt' / 'mom' / 'grandma' / 'joe-6-pack' stereotype. Its slightly easier on Linux because of the repositories guaranteeing (or as close as you can get) that the user isn't installing malware. Given the billions of apps on windows, that completely breaks down. Anyone want to volunteer to pay my bandwidth bills to download all games and apps from the repositories? :p
Just like how you might be talking out of your ass ? Just sayin..
You changed the operating system on your computer because you didn't win in a raffle?
Haha. Don't know why but this really cracked me up..
[..]they still haven't been able to turn that feature of their experimental OS, a feature they spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince us all was the Bee's Knee's, into a component of a shipping OS.
R&D shouldn't always have to end up in a shipping product, but announcing that the R&D project has features you've been promising was in the works for your shipping products and never actually delivering is stupid.
I don't think WinFS was a R&D project in MS research, nor do I have any evidence that it started its life as an experimental OS.
WinFS was sold as a major feature in the Longhorn OS. Parts if it ended up in SQL Server. Yes, they didn't ship it with Vista, but that is really disconnected from what MS research is doing here. I don't see any promises from MS Research in the FA that this is going to be used in a product. Ofcource this isn't just 'free beer' , its a PR move too, but that's a given whenever a corporation puts out any kind of release.