If you can not record a video of your 1 year old son dancing to a well-known song, your ability to participate in the society and extended family is seriously curtailed.
What if you can do it provided you license that well-known song for the purpose for which you intend to use it?
I'm not saying I agree with this at all... but its basically the RIAA's position. They are more than happy to whore out their content.
Python is a more elegant language but doesn't have a comparable IDE.
I somewhat disagree.
The use of indentation alone to convey semantics is an extremely annoying flaw. It makes python code particularly susceptible to mangling. I like that I can write C# code (or code in most languages), copy and paste it, or make significant edits, and then simply tell the IDE to reformat it.
I also like that C# checks typing at compile time. I fail to see a worthwhile advantage to how Python does it. The more simple bugs you can fix during compilation the better. I concede that Python makes certain types of action easier, since you can basically have 'anonymous interfaces', but in practice it leads to more errors, and really only saves a little bit of coding effort, in my opinion.
Meanwhile C#3 extension methods, lamda expressions, and linq syntax in particular are truly a pleasure to work with.
I'm not going so far as to say c# is more elegant than python, and c# has its flaws too... and I'd put them both in the running for most elegant language... but python's semantic indentation drives me nuts. There's nothing that fundamental to C# that annoys me the same way to the same extent.
There is much more to it, however, than Vista and Office.
Indeed, it would be best if every assignment required them to shift down to the next PC in a heterogeneous lab... a mix of Vista, 2k, XP, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and OSX units, with a mix of MS Office XP, 2007, Mac Edition, OpenOffice 2, iWork...
Teach kids to learn what a spreadsheet, presentation, document is, and what can be done with them, and they'll figure out how to make it do what they need on each platform.
But such a perfect world would be too much to ask... and not nearly as efficient as 200 stations that all boot from a single disk image on a server... whatever the platform is chosen. I'd prefer it not be windows though... I know my kids will get plenty of exposure to that one regardless. So a bias to a minority platform makes sense in a teaching environment.
After several years of deployment, Google Maps still displays incorrectly in Firefox 2 if you spin the scroll wheel too fast. That's about where window refresh was at Microsoft Windows 2.x or so - broken.
AJAX is a method to shoehorn functionality into a trifecta of legacy platforms that was never really designed for it. Like retrofitting a horseless carriage with a honda civic engine and bolting on some wings, a rudder, and a propeller with the intent to fly across the atlantic.
Just because you've gotten it to fly doesn't mean you've invented a modern aircraft.
This would be the same Adobe that doesn't have 64-bit flash yet? on any platform! Whose linux flash support even in 32-bit is way behind the times?
If there was ever a platform that Microsoft had a real chance of overtaking, Flash would be it. If sliverlight/moonlight can get an installed base it has a real chance of being a flash killer.
And considering windows update just prompted me to try the new 'silverlight' beta version, MS *IS* putting the effort in to use silverlight on their own sites, and putting it in places where it will get installed by a LOT of people.
If they can co-exist with flash on a site like youtube for 64-bit... that would be a real coup for Microsoft.
If I am concentrating on the road, I've noticed that I tend to block out the passenger. Sometimes what the passenger says will get processed a good 5 seconds or so later when I'm in safer circumstances (straight driving in my lane). And if I'm instead thinking about what the occupant is saying, I will tend to miss turns that I know full well I need to take.
I personally think there are two layers of processing for driving. Because if I'm distracted I will make navigation decisions automatically -- e.g. e.g. as you described... failing to make turns I know I need to make. but also, for example, if I'm coming out of my house, I'll make turns as if I'm going to work instead of the actual destination.
My driving itself doesn't suffer though, I maintain a safe distance, and speed, follow the lights, react to obstacles, and other events, make shoulder checks and so forth, even when making the wrong turn.
So I can drive just fine while distracted, I just can't navigate.
I suspect its sort of like walking. Our 'subconscious' brains can cope with the balance issues, the stepping forward issues, and can handle the general safety issues of distance and obstacles. And it will elevate any events of note to interrupt our conscious brains to handle.
However, our subconscious doesn't know where we're going so it will just keep going 'forwards' unless our conscious brain directs otherwise.
Their cable management system and mouse surfaces are marketing materials on a par with buying a "Ford" T-shirt because you really like your "Ford" truck.
No. Ford has never said you'll driver smoother, faster, and more precisely because you bought a ford t-shirt, for never told me their shirt was made with space age materials tested in a wind tunnel to ensure minimal drag when reaching for the radio. Nor does one pay 5 to 20x what a normal t-shirt costs for the privilege of wearing one.
Meanwhile Razer claims their 'destructor' mouse pad was.
'designed with top professional gamers' 'that it was engineered to push the boundaries of invention beyond all expectations' 'a product whose level of refinement is only possible at the highest echelons of competitive tuning' 'superior tactility, improved responsiveness, enhanced tracking'...
Its a mouse pad for crying out loud. And you don't have to pay anywhere near $40 to get one that is just as good.
I both mocked and applauded them in the same post.
Why does anybody care about them?
They make very good quality mice in general.
They make very good quality AMBIDEXTROUS mice in particular.
I hate ergonomic mice. As a left hander I find most of them, being designed for right handed people, extremely uncomfortable. Logitech, for example, doesn't make any of their worthwhile products in a left handed configuration, hell they don't make anything really good that's ambidextrous.
Their mice only have two buttons,
Mine (copperhead) has 6 'buttons', two of which are hard to reach. Plus a clickable scrollwheel, so 7 if you count that. Being that its ambidextrous I can forgive 2 buttons being hard to reach because its symmetrial. The buttons I can't reach are the right hand thumb buttons. I'm sure a right hander would find it equally awkward to press the two left hand buttons. But all the buttons are discrete and can be mapped independantly.
and half of them have the laser in the ass for some bizarre reason.
A lot of gamers hold the mouse with their fingers instead of resting their hand on it. And they make fine left/right mouse movements by swivelling the mouse with their thumb and ring finger, instead of actually pushing the whole mouse because you can make much more precise movements with minimal effort - e.g. for sniping. (imagine it was bolted to the table through the scrollwheel; that's the rough axis its swivelled on). Locating the laser in the 'ass' gives you better control and range doing this.
Razer's not for everyone. I like their mice, not much else. Their cable management system and 'mouse surfaces' are a scam on par with Monster, I prefer the saitek eclipseII to their keyboards, and their headsets? Nothing wrong with them, but I use plantronics . And honestly evem with mice I recommend logitech to most people. They make some very well regarded mice. But if you are a left handed mouser logitech sucks complete and total ass.
Like I said in my original post... you have to separate the quality products from the hype.
So, if that's what it all boils down to, than why bother calling this stuff "gaming" equipment?
Its marketing. They've identified a target demographic with: a) interest in the product b) disposable income
Your average enterprise manager isn't interested in equiping his team with higher quality peripherals, and is even less interested in shelling out for them. To a phb, they only reason you got an optical mouse was that they were the same price as wheel.
Why can't you get the same features and comfort on something that doesn't have that doesn't make you look like a status-whore to own?
You can actually. Razer for example has a 'pro' series of its mice that are white. And the product name is 'Click v1.6' or something instead of 'Death Adder in Biohazard Green', specifically to be more palatable to getting your PO approved at the 'office'.
Logitech and Microsoft also make decent quality mice that aren't overly garish.
But at the end of the day the big market for this stuff are teens. And they buy it as much for the status as the performance. And there is plenty of 'gaming hardware' that is ALL flash and no substance. The same 'Razer' that makes extremely good quality mice also has a 'cord manager' (to keep your mouse cord from getting out of control, pulling, tangling, etc. That little dohickey is little more than steel bolt and screw that that they charge $20 bucks for. You could improvise somethign equivalent from the hardware store for maybe $2.
Other products, like gamers computer cases are often poorly designed cheap plastic monstrosities -- while others are genuinely high end product.
Mousing around for eight hours a day is a significant part of many jobs the average/.er will take. You should have something better than a dollar-store wrist-rapist for that.
And a laser mouse is better than an optical mouse.
a silent and/or small motion motion keyboard helps
I tend to say, "go with what is most comfortable". Quality keyboards tend to have 2 crucial gaming features:
1) more simultaneous key presses. Nothing sucks worse than side strafe moving while crouching and flicking the reload button and having nothing happen.
2) quality = durability/consistency. the only thing that sucks worse than 1) above is playing on a keyboard where one of the w-a-s-d has gone 'squishy' or 'sticky' or otherwise doesn't have the same feel or travel as the other 3, for example. Any keyboard can fail, but cheap ones fail sooner and more often.
most of these 15 button mice are useless because only the standard 5 buttons can normally be mapped without having to run some special software in the background which impeeds the performance
Trading 0.1 fps to be able to run a useful mouse macro is nearly always worth it. The trick is coming up with useful macros -- some games have them... some don't.
From a user's perspective, one large search engine is better than three small ones.
No.
If you're selling bicycles or other product then normal market conditions apply, but with free-to-use search, bigger is better. Would you rather have to hit three or four smaller search sites to find something or just one site?
If you are arguing that search is a natural monopoly that's absurd there's no reason MS, Yahoo, and Google can't split the market 3 ways and all profit.
And even if it were a natural monopoly then it should be carefully (but ultimately ineffectively) regulated to try to prevent abuse by a google that will inevitably start occurring.
The point is, Google has the leading position because they earned it.
But they already retain the leading position by momentum and critical mass. Their search results are full of ad-spam and shit, SEO these days is really just about gaming google pagerank, and thinghaven't gotten 'better' in a few years now. Meanwhile they perpetually release and then neglect new totally unrelated features, but it doesn't matter, because they have a critical mass on search that is virtually unassailable.
Once upon a time even Microsoft earned their position too.
It just doesn't work anymore, and I'm sad because I really liked being able to develop code without artificial roadblocks in my path.
And they are in the business of selling products.
Its not just a cash grab.
When word got out that you could buy an MSDN subscription and kit out your whole office with Office, Servers, and Windows workstations for chump change, the system got badly abused.
I think the 'funny part' was that he based a legal argument on the name of the product, and further considered 'pointing out the obvious' was also worth billing for. I found it pretty funny on that level too.
But at the same time I'm sure he genuinely believed foss names are not misleading, which was ironic as his use of it highlights a non-obvious potential doublespeak gotcha in the very example he chose... GNU/Linux.
Microsoft released Photoshop and Adobe Acrobat Reader?
I was looking for proprietary software names, not Microsoft specifically.
I suppose I could substitute... Microsoft Paint for Photoshop, and Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 for Acrobat Reader if you wanted to keep it purely microsoft.:)
All I ever wanted was to rebutt the OP's assertion that 'FOSS' names are better than proprietary software names because they aren't. And I pointed at some counter examples. I don't really expect anyone to change anything.
Firefox is now $Distro Web Browser, Opera is now Opera Web Browser, gFTP is now $Distro FTP Client, gimp is now $Distro Artiste, Pidgin is now Instant Messenger, etc.
Such a move would probably actually probably really help new users. It should be seriously considered.
Grandparent post didn't make any argument that the names were good or descriptive, he said they were not doublespeak. "OPENXML" implies it is an open standard where it is not. Doublespeak.
Actually this was pointed out to me elsewhere in the thread. I think it was in fact the first response to my post. And its a fair point.
That said, and as I mentioned in my reponse to that:
GNU/Linux is not saying Linux is not unix. Its saying GNU is not Unix. The point is the 'GNU' in GNU/Linux is SELF-REFERENTIAL, and applies only to GNU part of the GNU/Linux package. Its not saying anything about the Linux part.
And its ironic because the OP claimed that GNU/Linux is not Unix because "GNU means GNU's not Unix. Ergo. Linux is not Unix. Which is a logical fallacy. GNU is not Linux either. GNU is GNU. Linux is Linux.
To illustrate. What would happen if we setup a GNU/FreeBSD package?
By contrast, "Adobe Acrobat Reader" is an example of a bad name... I, for one, don't really want to read any acrobats, they might find it rude.;)
Adobe Acrobat is a bad name. But if you know what Adobe Acrobat is/does, then Adobe Acrobat Reader is a good name... sort of like 'mySQL Server' is a bad name if you don't know what SQL is, but a fine name if you do.
In all seriousness, the name "Internet Explorer" has always bothered me. It can only explore the Web and occasionally FTP servers - only a portion of the Internet. But I digress...
FTP does mroe than just transfer files. And http moves a lot more than hypertext... its all relative. Besides, compare 'Internet Explorer' to 'IceWeasel'. There's only so much info you can convey in two words. Internet Explorer is a good hint at its application domain... IceWeasel... not so much.
The difference is those ARE the names. Yes they are acronyms or shorthand expansions for something that does mean something but the expansions aren't the names, they are the entymology of the name. The icon in my application menu and the startup spash, and the title bar, all say: gimp, not 'GNU Image Manipulation Program'. GIMP may stand for GNU Image Manipulation Program. But the name of the program is GIMP.
I'm not saying MS is immune from bad/meaningless names... "windows Vista" springs to mind, for example. (Not that Windows XP was any better.)
If I had just run across it on the internet I would think it was a program that "acrobatically" handled reading a large number of file types but nope it just does pdf.
Unless you knew about Adobe Acrobat. And then it would make perfect sense. Granted Adobe Acrobat isn't the best of names itself, but that's a separate issue.
Sort of like "MP3 Player" or "SQL Server" are a descriptive names for program that plays MP3s or serves sql databases... but it doesn't say much if you don't know what MP3 or SQL is.
Photoshop -- A website where I can buy photos? Digital camera software? who knows the name isn't very descriptive.
At least your in the right application domain. 'Something to do with photos' What application domain is 'gimp'? Something handicapped? Or TightVNC? I'm drawing a complete blank.
iTunes = tunes - music!! hurray amarok = ???
internet explorer - exploring the internet! hurrah firefox - maybe a game [like starfox]?
Slashdot Mirror
If you can not record a video of your 1 year old son dancing to a well-known song, your ability to participate in the society and extended family is seriously curtailed.
What if you can do it provided you license that well-known song for the purpose for which you intend to use it?
I'm not saying I agree with this at all... but its basically the RIAA's position. They are more than happy to whore out their content.
I'll be impressed when computers are able to tag images without using anything learned from correctly tagged data to do so.
I'll be impressed when humans are able to tag images without using anything learned from correctly tagged data to do so.
Python is a more elegant language but doesn't have a comparable IDE.
I somewhat disagree.
The use of indentation alone to convey semantics is an extremely annoying flaw. It makes python code particularly susceptible to mangling. I like that I can write C# code (or code in most languages), copy and paste it, or make significant edits, and then simply tell the IDE to reformat it.
I also like that C# checks typing at compile time. I fail to see a worthwhile advantage to how Python does it. The more simple bugs you can fix during compilation the better. I concede that Python makes certain types of action easier, since you can basically have 'anonymous interfaces', but in practice it leads to more errors, and really only saves a little bit of coding effort, in my opinion.
Meanwhile C#3 extension methods, lamda expressions, and linq syntax in particular are truly a pleasure to work with.
I'm not going so far as to say c# is more elegant than python, and c# has its flaws too... and I'd put them both in the running for most elegant language... but python's semantic indentation drives me nuts. There's nothing that fundamental to C# that annoys me the same way to the same extent.
There is much more to it, however, than Vista and Office.
Indeed, it would be best if every assignment required them to shift down to the next PC in a heterogeneous lab... a mix of Vista, 2k, XP, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and OSX units, with a mix of MS Office XP, 2007, Mac Edition, OpenOffice 2, iWork...
Teach kids to learn what a spreadsheet, presentation, document is, and what can be done with them, and they'll figure out how to make it do what they need on each platform.
But such a perfect world would be too much to ask... and not nearly as efficient as 200 stations that all boot from a single disk image on a server... whatever the platform is chosen. I'd prefer it not be windows though... I know my kids will get plenty of exposure to that one regardless. So a bias to a minority platform makes sense in a teaching environment.
After several years of deployment, Google Maps still displays incorrectly in Firefox 2 if you spin the scroll wheel too fast. That's about where window refresh was at Microsoft Windows 2.x or so - broken.
AJAX is a method to shoehorn functionality into a trifecta of legacy platforms that was never really designed for it. Like retrofitting a horseless carriage with a honda civic engine and bolting on some wings, a rudder, and a propeller with the intent to fly across the atlantic.
Just because you've gotten it to fly doesn't mean you've invented a modern aircraft.
Because Adobe is not Sun?
This would be the same Adobe that doesn't have 64-bit flash yet? on any platform! Whose linux flash support even in 32-bit is way behind the times?
If there was ever a platform that Microsoft had a real chance of overtaking, Flash would be it. If sliverlight/moonlight can get an installed base it has a real chance of being a flash killer.
And considering windows update just prompted me to try the new 'silverlight' beta version, MS *IS* putting the effort in to use silverlight on their own sites, and putting it in places where it will get installed by a LOT of people.
If they can co-exist with flash on a site like youtube for 64-bit... that would be a real coup for Microsoft.
If I am concentrating on the road, I've noticed that I tend to block out the passenger. Sometimes what the passenger says will get processed a good 5 seconds or so later when I'm in safer circumstances (straight driving in my lane). And if I'm instead thinking about what the occupant is saying, I will tend to miss turns that I know full well I need to take.
I personally think there are two layers of processing for driving. Because if I'm distracted I will make navigation decisions automatically -- e.g. e.g. as you described... failing to make turns I know I need to make. but also, for example, if I'm coming out of my house, I'll make turns as if I'm going to work instead of the actual destination.
My driving itself doesn't suffer though, I maintain a safe distance, and speed, follow the lights, react to obstacles, and other events, make shoulder checks and so forth, even when making the wrong turn.
So I can drive just fine while distracted, I just can't navigate.
I suspect its sort of like walking. Our 'subconscious' brains can cope with the balance issues, the stepping forward issues, and can handle the general safety issues of distance and obstacles. And it will elevate any events of note to interrupt our conscious brains to handle.
However, our subconscious doesn't know where we're going so it will just keep going 'forwards' unless our conscious brain directs otherwise.
Their cable management system and mouse surfaces are marketing materials on a par with buying a "Ford" T-shirt because you really like your "Ford" truck.
...
No. Ford has never said you'll driver smoother, faster, and more precisely because you bought a ford t-shirt, for never told me their shirt was made with space age materials tested in a wind tunnel to ensure minimal drag when reaching for the radio. Nor does one pay 5 to 20x what a normal t-shirt costs for the privilege of wearing one.
Meanwhile Razer claims their 'destructor' mouse pad was.
'designed with top professional gamers'
'that it was engineered to push the boundaries of invention beyond all expectations'
'a product whose level of refinement is only possible at the highest echelons of competitive tuning'
'superior tactility, improved responsiveness, enhanced tracking'
Its a mouse pad for crying out loud. And you don't have to pay anywhere near $40 to get one that is just as good.
You haven't seen it all until you encounter this page.
Someone should open a restaurant there.
Stop talking about Razer.
I both mocked and applauded them in the same post.
Why does anybody care about them?
They make very good quality mice in general.
They make very good quality AMBIDEXTROUS mice in particular.
I hate ergonomic mice. As a left hander I find most of them, being designed for right handed people, extremely uncomfortable. Logitech, for example, doesn't make any of their worthwhile products in a left handed configuration, hell they don't make anything really good that's ambidextrous.
Their mice only have two buttons,
Mine (copperhead) has 6 'buttons', two of which are hard to reach. Plus a clickable scrollwheel, so 7 if you count that. Being that its ambidextrous I can forgive 2 buttons being hard to reach because its symmetrial. The buttons I can't reach are the right hand thumb buttons. I'm sure a right hander would find it equally awkward to press the two left hand buttons. But all the buttons are discrete and can be mapped independantly.
and half of them have the laser in the ass for some bizarre reason.
A lot of gamers hold the mouse with their fingers instead of resting their hand on it. And they make fine left/right mouse movements by swivelling the mouse with their thumb and ring finger, instead of actually pushing the whole mouse because you can make much more precise movements with minimal effort - e.g. for sniping. (imagine it was bolted to the table through the scrollwheel; that's the rough axis its swivelled on). Locating the laser in the 'ass' gives you better control and range doing this.
Razer's not for everyone. I like their mice, not much else. Their cable management system and 'mouse surfaces' are a scam on par with Monster, I prefer the saitek eclipseII to their keyboards, and their headsets? Nothing wrong with them, but I use plantronics . And honestly evem with mice I recommend logitech to most people. They make some very well regarded mice. But if you are a left handed mouser logitech sucks complete and total ass.
Like I said in my original post... you have to separate the quality products from the hype.
So, if that's what it all boils down to, than why bother calling this stuff "gaming" equipment?
/.er will take. You should have something better than a dollar-store wrist-rapist for that.
Its marketing. They've identified a target demographic with:
a) interest in the product
b) disposable income
Your average enterprise manager isn't interested in equiping his team with higher quality peripherals, and is even less interested in shelling out for them. To a phb, they only reason you got an optical mouse was that they were the same price as wheel.
Why can't you get the same features and comfort on something that doesn't have that doesn't make you look like a status-whore to own?
You can actually. Razer for example has a 'pro' series of its mice that are white. And the product name is 'Click v1.6' or something instead of 'Death Adder in Biohazard Green', specifically to be more palatable to getting your PO approved at the 'office'.
Logitech and Microsoft also make decent quality mice that aren't overly garish.
But at the end of the day the big market for this stuff are teens. And they buy it as much for the status as the performance. And there is plenty of 'gaming hardware' that is ALL flash and no substance. The same 'Razer' that makes extremely good quality mice also has a 'cord manager' (to keep your mouse cord from getting out of control, pulling, tangling, etc. That little dohickey is little more than steel bolt and screw that that they charge $20 bucks for. You could improvise somethign equivalent from the hardware store for maybe $2.
Other products, like gamers computer cases are often poorly designed cheap plastic monstrosities -- while others are genuinely high end product.
Mousing around for eight hours a day is a significant part of many jobs the average
You should. Do you? If not, why not?
an optical mouse is better than a ball,
And a laser mouse is better than an optical mouse.
a silent and/or small motion motion keyboard helps
I tend to say, "go with what is most comfortable". Quality keyboards tend to have 2 crucial gaming features:
1) more simultaneous key presses. Nothing sucks worse than side strafe moving while crouching and flicking the reload button and having nothing happen.
2) quality = durability/consistency. the only thing that sucks worse than 1) above is playing on a keyboard where one of the w-a-s-d has gone 'squishy' or 'sticky' or otherwise doesn't have the same feel or travel as the other 3, for example. Any keyboard can fail, but cheap ones fail sooner and more often.
most of these 15 button mice are useless because only the standard 5 buttons can normally be mapped without having to run some special software in the background which impeeds the performance
Trading 0.1 fps to be able to run a useful mouse macro is nearly always worth it. The trick is coming up with useful macros -- some games have them... some don't.
I thought the complaint was that KDE looked like Windows?
:)
That's not really a conflict, because everyone says Windows gets all ITS inspiration from the Mac too.
From a user's perspective, one large search engine is better than three small ones.
No.
If you're selling bicycles or other product then normal market conditions apply, but with free-to-use search, bigger is better. Would you rather have to hit three or four smaller search sites to find something or just one site?
If you are arguing that search is a natural monopoly that's absurd there's no reason MS, Yahoo, and Google can't split the market 3 ways and all profit.
And even if it were a natural monopoly then it should be carefully (but ultimately ineffectively) regulated to try to prevent abuse by a google that will inevitably start occurring.
The point is, Google has the leading position because they earned it.
But they already retain the leading position by momentum and critical mass. Their search results are full of ad-spam and shit, SEO these days is really just about gaming google pagerank, and thinghaven't gotten 'better' in a few years now. Meanwhile they perpetually release and then neglect new totally unrelated features, but it doesn't matter, because they have a critical mass on search that is virtually unassailable.
Once upon a time even Microsoft earned their position too.
Most Yahoo and MSN are going south and Google is going north.
Its unfortunate. The last thing the world needs is a company with a monopoly on internet search, any company. And that includes google.
It just doesn't work anymore, and I'm sad because I really liked being able to develop code without artificial roadblocks in my path.
And they are in the business of selling products.
Its not just a cash grab.
When word got out that you could buy an MSDN subscription and kit out your whole office with Office, Servers, and Windows workstations for chump change, the system got badly abused.
I really shouldn't have to point out the obvious but 30 euros a month isn't free.
Also, saying "we do not comment on unannounced products" pretty much admits that the product in question exists.
Not if your smart enough to reply that way when asked about products that don't exist too...
Hey Microsoft, are you going to realease Windows for the Cell processor?
"we do not comment on unannounced products"
Are you going to release a universal remote to compete with logitech's harmony?
"we do not comment on unannounced products"
What did we learn? not much.
Also, Adobe Acrobat Reader is available for Linux.
However its not an open source product.
I think the 'funny part' was that he based a legal argument on the name of the product, and further considered 'pointing out the obvious' was also worth billing for. I found it pretty funny on that level too.
But at the same time I'm sure he genuinely believed foss names are not misleading, which was ironic as his use of it highlights a non-obvious potential doublespeak gotcha in the very example he chose... GNU/Linux.
Microsoft released Photoshop and Adobe Acrobat Reader?
:)
I was looking for proprietary software names, not Microsoft specifically.
I suppose I could substitute... Microsoft Paint for Photoshop, and Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 for Acrobat Reader if you wanted to keep it purely microsoft.
So what the hell, exactly, do you want us to do?
All I ever wanted was to rebutt the OP's assertion that 'FOSS' names are better than proprietary software names because they aren't. And I pointed at some counter examples. I don't really expect anyone to change anything.
Firefox is now $Distro Web Browser, Opera is now Opera Web Browser, gFTP is now $Distro FTP Client, gimp is now $Distro Artiste, Pidgin is now Instant Messenger, etc.
Such a move would probably actually probably really help new users. It should be seriously considered.
Grandparent post didn't make any argument that the names were good or descriptive, he said they were not doublespeak. "OPENXML" implies it is an open standard where it is not. Doublespeak.
;)
Actually this was pointed out to me elsewhere in the thread. I think it was in fact the first response to my post. And its a fair point.
That said, and as I mentioned in my reponse to that:
GNU/Linux is not saying Linux is not unix. Its saying GNU is not Unix. The point is the 'GNU' in GNU/Linux is SELF-REFERENTIAL, and applies only to GNU part of the GNU/Linux package. Its not saying anything about the Linux part.
And its ironic because the OP claimed that GNU/Linux is not Unix because "GNU means GNU's not Unix. Ergo. Linux is not Unix. Which is a logical fallacy. GNU is not Linux either. GNU is GNU. Linux is Linux.
To illustrate. What would happen if we setup a GNU/FreeBSD package?
By contrast, "Adobe Acrobat Reader" is an example of a bad name... I, for one, don't really want to read any acrobats, they might find it rude.
Adobe Acrobat is a bad name. But if you know what Adobe Acrobat is/does, then Adobe Acrobat Reader is a good name... sort of like 'mySQL Server' is a bad name if you don't know what SQL is, but a fine name if you do.
In all seriousness, the name "Internet Explorer" has always bothered me. It can only explore the Web and occasionally FTP servers - only a portion of the Internet. But I digress...
FTP does mroe than just transfer files. And http moves a lot more than hypertext... its all relative. Besides, compare 'Internet Explorer' to 'IceWeasel'. There's only so much info you can convey in two words. Internet Explorer is a good hint at its application domain... IceWeasel... not so much.
pgAdmin III, gimp, pidgin, tightvnc...
The difference is those ARE the names. Yes they are acronyms or shorthand expansions for something that does mean something but the expansions aren't the names, they are the entymology of the name.
The icon in my application menu and the startup spash, and the title bar, all say: gimp, not 'GNU Image Manipulation Program'. GIMP may stand for GNU Image Manipulation Program. But the name of the program is GIMP.
I'm not saying MS is immune from bad/meaningless names... "windows Vista" springs to mind, for example. (Not that Windows XP was any better.)
If I had just run across it on the internet I would think it was a program that "acrobatically" handled reading a large number of file types but nope it just does pdf.
Unless you knew about Adobe Acrobat. And then it would make perfect sense. Granted Adobe Acrobat isn't the best of names itself, but that's a separate issue.
Sort of like "MP3 Player" or "SQL Server" are a descriptive names for program that plays MP3s or serves sql databases... but it doesn't say much if you don't know what MP3 or SQL is.
Photoshop -- A website where I can buy photos? Digital camera software? who knows the name isn't very descriptive.
At least your in the right application domain. 'Something to do with photos' What application domain is 'gimp'? Something handicapped? Or TightVNC? I'm drawing a complete blank.
iTunes = tunes - music!! hurray
amarok = ???
internet explorer - exploring the internet! hurrah
firefox - maybe a game [like starfox]?