You make the large assumtion that people that do not attend a university are incapable of learning the theory of why/how things work
They may be "capable" of learning it, but the unversity grad has already proven that he/she already knows it.
Given the choice between the person who claims they "could" learn a particular thing, but they haven't yet, and a person who already knows it, speaks intelligently about it, and has a 3.85 CGPA bachelors degree from a reputable university certifying that yes, indeed, he/she knows it, I'll take the latter.
Actually, I got to thinking about this the other day. Maybe it's just me, but has anyone else noticed it's getting harder and harder to find the info you want? Even Google, which used to be the "Old Faithful" of relevant hits, is becoming more and more diluted with commercial garbage. It used to be (and maybe I'm just remember things incorrectly), that when you searched for something, if you chose the right keywords, you'd get a nice collection of helpful links.
Nowadays, it seems that when I do a search, I get a page of 10 hits, of which maybe 1 is actually what I want, while the rest end up being links to pages of other search listings (with ads, of course), or links to products for sale, or books or videos about the topic I'm trying to search on.
My wishlist for Google has just one item: Give me a way to specify that I am only interested in FREE information. If I want a book, video, class, or other commercial source of info on a topic, I'll go to Amazon. If I'm looking up "database design" on Google, I want FREE information.
The recording industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I download music or not.
Which, of course, you do, right?
Let's switch some of those words around, and see if it still sounds as hypocritcal and self-serving.
"The software industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I illegally download warez or not."
"The movie industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I sneak into movie theaters without paying or not."
"My favorite band has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I sneak into their concerts without paying or not."
Yup, it does.
In each of my examples though, notice that nothing physical was stolen, yet in every case, you're taking something you didn't earn, didn't pay for, and thus, don't deserve. If you can justify one, you can justify them all.
Who will create the next Unreal Tournament when no one feels like paying for them anymore? Will we bitch and moan on places like Slashdot about how "all current video games suck, why isn't anyone making any GOOD games anymore?", oblivious to the obvious causation - the fact that we've all turned to stealing our software/games/music/movies rather than paying for it?
No, I'm planning on shipping generic i586 binaries and giving the user the option to compile the source code during the Setup Wizard.
OK, fine. I will concede that in cases where your userbase is intelligent enough to actually know what CPU architecture they are running, and they won't be scared away when an installer says the word "compile," then C can be as fast as Java.:)
Besides, I often work with small hardware. Does a JIT JVM plus a program both 1. fit into 256 KB of RAM and 2. allow for garbage collection without noticeably interrupting the flow of events that occur at 60 Hz?
Though I've never used it, and can only quote the whitepapers, it appears Java 2, Micro Edition does in fact meet those criteria, with the possible exception of the JIT compilation.
Are you planning on compiling custom binaries for every platform? Heck, most users have enough trouble deciding whether they're supposed to download the "Windows or Mac" installers. Are you suggesting it is practical to compile your app for every conceivable platform and CPU combination, and allowing your users to select the one appropriate for their configuration?
With Java, you'd just download the one JAR file. The user already has the correct, optimizing runtime for their platform, and that will take care of optimizing your bytecodes to the proper target platform instructions.
You have no idea what you're talking about. I have mod points, and already modded in this discussion, but you are spouting such clearly incorrect nonsense that I feel compelled to respond anyway, lest any newbies actually think you know what you're talking about, and repeat your nonsense.
What will you use for your low level device drivers?
C. There you go, congrats, you found one use for C. Now, I ask you: How many low-level device drivers have you written lately? I've never written any, and probably never will. I would wager that over 99% of Slashdot readers are in the same boat as me.
Or how about that code that needs run fast?
Sigh. Go read some benchmarks. JIT-compiled Java is just as fast as C/C++ for virtually everything. You are apparently unaware that compilers have been steadily advancing for several decades now, and are actually extremely sophisticated and smart. They are very good at what they do. When you execute a Java program, nothing is interpreted. It is compiled to optimized native code and executed full-speed.
Actually, in some cases, Java code is faster than C code. When you compile a C program for an x86 platform, you compile to the lowest common denominator. Your compiler cannot assume the presence of advanced instruction sets, like MMX or SSE2. It must restrict itself to outputting code that will run on a 386. A Java interpreter, on the other hand, already knows what platform it is running on, because the native compilation happens at run time, instead of compile time. Thus, it already knows what CPU it is running on, and can take advantage of the precise instruction set availble on the host CPU.
In fact, the java virtual machine and compiler are both written in C.
This was the comment that really had me screaming "You IDIOT!" at my monitor. The Java compiler is written in Java, not C. It lives in com.sun.javac.Main. Go look at the "javac.exe" executable. It's tiny. Know why? Because it's nothing more than a native bootstrapper that executes java com.sun.javac.Main <args>. The interpreter is, in fact, written in C. But the compiler is 100% Pure Java (TM).
Don't believe me? Look disassemble it and look at the code. That should be easy for you, what with your professed experience writing low-level device drivers, eh?
Are you sure about that? I've never heard that before. When my wife was in a rear-ending in which her car was shoved under a school bus, her airbag went off, but the fire department wouldn't let anyone inside the car (i.e., to collect our belongings) until they'd cut the cable to the battery. The reason they gave was that the airbags might still go off. The corrolary being, once they'd cut the battery, there was no longer a fear of the airbags deploying.
Got a reference to back up the claim that airbags have their own power source?
They forget to mention that if you are accused of breaking the law you can use the black-box to prove you weren't.
Only if you were still involved in an accident. If you're pulled over for speeding, you can't cite your black box as evidence that you weren't, because it only records the last 5 seconds of data prior to an airbag deployment. No airbag (that is to say, no crash), no data.
However, if you meant that you are being blamed for an accident that wasn't your fault, then yes, in that case the data could be used to exonerate you.
Nor do I like the assumption that the government has the right to know what I'm doing and how I'm driving
Curious comment, considering the government already has this "right," by virtue of the fact that your driving license is a privilege, and not a right. Ergo, you posess the license at their discretion.
As for them monitoring your driving, are you not aware of the hundreds of thousands of speed traps, and automated red-light/photoradar camera installations that populate the continent? They do have a right to know how you're driving, and they are exercising that right vigorously, daily.
As for calibration errors, I think it's a non-issue. If you're involved in a collision in which your bumper is crushed, but the rest of the car is intact, and the black box claims you were impacted the tree at 182 MPH, I'm pretty sure common-sense would prevail and the data would be discarded.
I'm not carrying a gun into the theater, so I have no problem walking through a metal detector. Frankly, I'd be quite fine with knowing that the other people watching aren't packing heat either. =)
To quote Chris Rock:
"Don't go to parties with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe
inside, but what about all those n*****s waiting outside with guns? They know you ain't got one."
The inner system never sleeps. The outer system never wakes.
Sounds deep, but unfortunately, it is incorrect. Mercury (it doesn't get more "inner" than that) "sleeps" a great deal. Due to its eccentric orbit and bizzarrely-coordinated orbital period and rotational period, a single day on Mercury lasts as long as two of its years! That is to say, its rotational period is exactly two-thirds of its orbital period, meaning "nighttime" on Mercury lasts several Earth months. That's a lot of "sleeping" for a planet in the inner system which, according to you, never sleeps.
Incidentally, while we generally presume Mercury to be a very hot place (and it is, during the day), the temperature on side of the planet that is in nighttime can drop to -150 degrees Celcius.
You're perfectly free not to use even the tiniest bit of GPLed work in your project in the first place.
But that's not "free!" Don't you get it? Your response is analogous to someone saying, "Music CDs are not 'free', because I'm not allowed to rip them to MP3 and give them to my friends," and you responding "You're perfectly free to not buy the CDs, and to make your own music."
Just because you happen to agree with the agenda in the GPL doesn't mean you can deny that the agenda exists.
The original poster is correct. If I am not free to use your software however I want, including closing up my derived source and selling the whole she-bang, then it is not truly "free."
Sun wanted a new computer language. Why? BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD WRITE AN OS IN IT! An OS based on an interpreted bytecode language! Was this moronic or what?
To be fair, Sun's plans included executing those bytecodes natively, on Java CPUs. So from that perspective, they were simply inventing a new reduced-instruction-set stack machine architecture, using knowledge gained from 50 years of CPU evolution. The plan was to create and market Javastations running the JavaOS natively on those Java CPUs, providing cheap dumb terminal remote access to central application servers.
Nothing moronic about that.
They abandoned plans for the Java OS around the same time they realized the dumb terminal market wasn't coming back. They still make and sell Java chips for embedded devices though.
No, it means free so long as you share any new software you write that derives from it, even if it doesn't modify the original GPL'd code at all.
If you don't like that, write your own code, or negotiate a separate license from the copyright holders.
I completely agree that that's fair, and as the author of the original code, that's your right to demand that. However, the point is don't try and call that "free." It's not. The GPL forces itself on all derivative works.
Gosling's point was that users of GPL'd code are not free to choose their own license for their derivative works. They are forced to use the same license, i.e., the GPL. That's not freedom. Just because you happen to agree with the viral agenda of the GPL doesn't mean you can deny that the agenda exists at all.
Why is this even news? People, the days of anonymous traveling are coming to an end. It's just a fact. The government is determined to know who is going where, especially when using risky modes of transit, such as trains or airplanes.
I predict that within 20 years, USAmerican citizens will be ID'd even as they cross state borders. Adjust my prediction to 10 years, if there is another September-11-like attack in the near future.
I was refuting the original poster's claim that the "Lord of the Rings" isn't mainstream. That's like claiming Britney Spears isn't mainstream.
You appear to be suggesting that the original poster in fact meant that it was the simple act of reading that drew stares of curiosity, rather that the subject matter itself (LotR). I ignored that possibility because the suggestion that "reading" isn't mainstream is so obviously ludicrous that it doesn't even warrant consideration.
According to Netcraft Kombat's site (www.kombat.org) is running Apache on Linux.
Yup, it probably is. I don't host my own website. What, you think I've got a closet of rackmounted blade servers at home, with dedicated net access, to host my piddly little personal website?
I pay $10 a month for BlueGenesis to host my website. Sorry to spoil your fun.
I'm sorry, but.NET is garbage - too much glitter and not enough of the important stuff like platform-independence.
You clearly have never used.NET to develop any serious web applications. While you are correct that it sacrifices platform-independence, you are way off the mark when you call it "garbage." If you are using Microsoft products from end-to-end,.NET is actually an extremely powerful and simple platform.
We develop web applications using Visual Studio.NET, connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server backend, hosted on Windows2000 server boxes, with clients all running various Windows boxes, using IE. We test with Mozilla and older versions of Netscape too.
We've found this setup to be extremely powerful, allowing very rapid development. Sure, it's homogeneous, but so what? It's working great for us, and our customers.
Since we are hosting the actual sites, we get to control the backend platforms. And we've chosen Windows. So, there's no issue about "platform independence." We've chosen a platform that enables us to deliver the best results to the customers, on a very rapid schedule.
Apparently, you're not aware of the existance of J#. C# is not Microsoft's version of Java. J# is.
J# is basically just Java that runs on.NET. But of course, they can't call it "Java," so they call it J#. But that's what it is.
C# is a nice language on its own, but it's not Java. The syntax is similar, and it's OO, but many parts of it are dramatically different, too. J#, on the other hand, is virtually indistinguishable from Java.
Slashdot Mirror
You make the large assumtion that people that do not attend a university are incapable of learning the theory of why/how things work
They may be "capable" of learning it, but the unversity grad has already proven that he/she already knows it.
Given the choice between the person who claims they "could" learn a particular thing, but they haven't yet, and a person who already knows it, speaks intelligently about it, and has a 3.85 CGPA bachelors degree from a reputable university certifying that yes, indeed, he/she knows it, I'll take the latter.
Wouldn't you?
Actually, I got to thinking about this the other day. Maybe it's just me, but has anyone else noticed it's getting harder and harder to find the info you want? Even Google, which used to be the "Old Faithful" of relevant hits, is becoming more and more diluted with commercial garbage. It used to be (and maybe I'm just remember things incorrectly), that when you searched for something, if you chose the right keywords, you'd get a nice collection of helpful links.
Nowadays, it seems that when I do a search, I get a page of 10 hits, of which maybe 1 is actually what I want, while the rest end up being links to pages of other search listings (with ads, of course), or links to products for sale, or books or videos about the topic I'm trying to search on.
My wishlist for Google has just one item: Give me a way to specify that I am only interested in FREE information. If I want a book, video, class, or other commercial source of info on a topic, I'll go to Amazon. If I'm looking up "database design" on Google, I want FREE information.
Am I alone in this wish?
Software...now this is something I do pirate...why? Because I'm a broke ass college student and can't afford to pay $180 for Office XP
But you can afford $nn,000 tuition and housing fees, hundreds of dollars in textbooks and other learning tools, but not the software?
I suppose you never drink beer then? Or heard of "Academic Pricing" on virtually every piece of software that Microsoft produces?
Which, of course, you do, right?
Let's switch some of those words around, and see if it still sounds as hypocritcal and self-serving.
Yup, it does.
In each of my examples though, notice that nothing physical was stolen, yet in every case, you're taking something you didn't earn, didn't pay for, and thus, don't deserve. If you can justify one, you can justify them all.
Who will create the next Unreal Tournament when no one feels like paying for them anymore? Will we bitch and moan on places like Slashdot about how "all current video games suck, why isn't anyone making any GOOD games anymore?", oblivious to the obvious causation - the fact that we've all turned to stealing our software/games/music/movies rather than paying for it?
No, I'm planning on shipping generic i586 binaries and giving the user the option to compile the source code during the Setup Wizard.
:)
OK, fine. I will concede that in cases where your userbase is intelligent enough to actually know what CPU architecture they are running, and they won't be scared away when an installer says the word "compile," then C can be as fast as Java.
Besides, I often work with small hardware. Does a JIT JVM plus a program both 1. fit into 256 KB of RAM and 2. allow for garbage collection without noticeably interrupting the flow of events that occur at 60 Hz?
Though I've never used it, and can only quote the whitepapers, it appears Java 2, Micro Edition does in fact meet those criteria, with the possible exception of the JIT compilation.
Are you planning on compiling custom binaries for every platform? Heck, most users have enough trouble deciding whether they're supposed to download the "Windows or Mac" installers. Are you suggesting it is practical to compile your app for every conceivable platform and CPU combination, and allowing your users to select the one appropriate for their configuration?
With Java, you'd just download the one JAR file. The user already has the correct, optimizing runtime for their platform, and that will take care of optimizing your bytecodes to the proper target platform instructions.
You have no idea what you're talking about. I have mod points, and already modded in this discussion, but you are spouting such clearly incorrect nonsense that I feel compelled to respond anyway, lest any newbies actually think you know what you're talking about, and repeat your nonsense.
What will you use for your low level device drivers?
C. There you go, congrats, you found one use for C. Now, I ask you: How many low-level device drivers have you written lately? I've never written any, and probably never will. I would wager that over 99% of Slashdot readers are in the same boat as me.
Or how about that code that needs run fast?
Sigh. Go read some benchmarks. JIT-compiled Java is just as fast as C/C++ for virtually everything. You are apparently unaware that compilers have been steadily advancing for several decades now, and are actually extremely sophisticated and smart. They are very good at what they do. When you execute a Java program, nothing is interpreted. It is compiled to optimized native code and executed full-speed.
Actually, in some cases, Java code is faster than C code. When you compile a C program for an x86 platform, you compile to the lowest common denominator. Your compiler cannot assume the presence of advanced instruction sets, like MMX or SSE2. It must restrict itself to outputting code that will run on a 386. A Java interpreter, on the other hand, already knows what platform it is running on, because the native compilation happens at run time, instead of compile time. Thus, it already knows what CPU it is running on, and can take advantage of the precise instruction set availble on the host CPU.
In fact, the java virtual machine and compiler are both written in C.
This was the comment that really had me screaming "You IDIOT!" at my monitor. The Java compiler is written in Java, not C. It lives in com.sun.javac.Main. Go look at the "javac.exe" executable. It's tiny. Know why? Because it's nothing more than a native bootstrapper that executes java com.sun.javac.Main <args>. The interpreter is, in fact, written in C. But the compiler is 100% Pure Java (TM).
Don't believe me? Look disassemble it and look at the code. That should be easy for you, what with your professed experience writing low-level device drivers, eh?
her airbag went off,
Doh! That should read, "her airbags DIDN'T go off"
Sorry, my bad.
airbags also have their own backup power supply.
Are you sure about that? I've never heard that before. When my wife was in a rear-ending in which her car was shoved under a school bus, her airbag went off, but the fire department wouldn't let anyone inside the car (i.e., to collect our belongings) until they'd cut the cable to the battery. The reason they gave was that the airbags might still go off. The corrolary being, once they'd cut the battery, there was no longer a fear of the airbags deploying.
Got a reference to back up the claim that airbags have their own power source?
They forget to mention that if you are accused of breaking the law you can use the black-box to prove you weren't.
Only if you were still involved in an accident. If you're pulled over for speeding, you can't cite your black box as evidence that you weren't, because it only records the last 5 seconds of data prior to an airbag deployment. No airbag (that is to say, no crash), no data.
However, if you meant that you are being blamed for an accident that wasn't your fault, then yes, in that case the data could be used to exonerate you.
Nor do I like the assumption that the government has the right to know what I'm doing and how I'm driving
Curious comment, considering the government already has this "right," by virtue of the fact that your driving license is a privilege, and not a right. Ergo, you posess the license at their discretion.
As for them monitoring your driving, are you not aware of the hundreds of thousands of speed traps, and automated red-light/photoradar camera installations that populate the continent? They do have a right to know how you're driving, and they are exercising that right vigorously, daily.
As for calibration errors, I think it's a non-issue. If you're involved in a collision in which your bumper is crushed, but the rest of the car is intact, and the black box claims you were impacted the tree at 182 MPH, I'm pretty sure common-sense would prevail and the data would be discarded.
To quote Chris Rock:
Have you actually read the source code to that thing? I downloaded it out of curiousity, here's a tidbit of the main() function:
...
int main (void) {
char b[99];
int W=GN,H=GN,i,n;
nl=GN;ns=GN;
_f x,y;
F(nl) RP(LI)
F(ns) {RP(SI.c) SI.r=GN; RP(SI.l) SI.f=GN;}
char* s = new char[(n=W*H*3)];
memset(s,0,n);
PT p={0,0,CZ},q={0,0,0},c;
Skipped the class on "meaningful variable names," did we?
While a 2K raytracer is marginally impressive, a 5K raytracer with readable source code would be far MORE impressive, IMHO.
I believe the original poster said "landers." Let me double-check
The inner system never sleeps. The outer system never wakes.
Sounds deep, but unfortunately, it is incorrect. Mercury (it doesn't get more "inner" than that) "sleeps" a great deal. Due to its eccentric orbit and bizzarrely-coordinated orbital period and rotational period, a single day on Mercury lasts as long as two of its years! That is to say, its rotational period is exactly two-thirds of its orbital period, meaning "nighttime" on Mercury lasts several Earth months. That's a lot of "sleeping" for a planet in the inner system which, according to you, never sleeps.
Incidentally, while we generally presume Mercury to be a very hot place (and it is, during the day), the temperature on side of the planet that is in nighttime can drop to -150 degrees Celcius.
You should read up a little on Libertarianism. Particularly the edict regarding "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose."
Raping someone clearly crosses this boundary. Extending a piece of software someone else wrote does not.
You're perfectly free not to use even the tiniest bit of GPLed work in your project in the first place.
But that's not "free!" Don't you get it? Your response is analogous to someone saying, "Music CDs are not 'free', because I'm not allowed to rip them to MP3 and give them to my friends," and you responding "You're perfectly free to not buy the CDs, and to make your own music."
Just because you happen to agree with the agenda in the GPL doesn't mean you can deny that the agenda exists.
The original poster is correct. If I am not free to use your software however I want, including closing up my derived source and selling the whole she-bang, then it is not truly "free."
Sun wanted a new computer language. Why? BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD WRITE AN OS IN IT! An OS based on an interpreted bytecode language! Was this moronic or what?
To be fair, Sun's plans included executing those bytecodes natively, on Java CPUs. So from that perspective, they were simply inventing a new reduced-instruction-set stack machine architecture, using knowledge gained from 50 years of CPU evolution. The plan was to create and market Javastations running the JavaOS natively on those Java CPUs, providing cheap dumb terminal remote access to central application servers.
Nothing moronic about that.
They abandoned plans for the Java OS around the same time they realized the dumb terminal market wasn't coming back. They still make and sell Java chips for embedded devices though.
You mean it's only free so long as you share it.
No, it means free so long as you share any new software you write that derives from it, even if it doesn't modify the original GPL'd code at all.
If you don't like that, write your own code, or negotiate a separate license from the copyright holders.
I completely agree that that's fair, and as the author of the original code, that's your right to demand that. However, the point is don't try and call that "free." It's not. The GPL forces itself on all derivative works.
Gosling's point was that users of GPL'd code are not free to choose their own license for their derivative works. They are forced to use the same license, i.e., the GPL. That's not freedom. Just because you happen to agree with the viral agenda of the GPL doesn't mean you can deny that the agenda exists at all.
Why is this even news? People, the days of anonymous traveling are coming to an end. It's just a fact. The government is determined to know who is going where, especially when using risky modes of transit, such as trains or airplanes.
I predict that within 20 years, USAmerican citizens will be ID'd even as they cross state borders. Adjust my prediction to 10 years, if there is another September-11-like attack in the near future.
I was refuting the original poster's claim that the "Lord of the Rings" isn't mainstream. That's like claiming Britney Spears isn't mainstream.
You appear to be suggesting that the original poster in fact meant that it was the simple act of reading that drew stares of curiosity, rather that the subject matter itself (LotR). I ignored that possibility because the suggestion that "reading" isn't mainstream is so obviously ludicrous that it doesn't even warrant consideration.
People still look at me funny when I tell them I've read LOTR thrice.
Even though its becoming more accepted, I still wouldn't call it mainstream.
All-time worldwide box-office rankings:
2. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Tell me again how the trilogy that dominates the top-10 all-time worldwide box office rankings isn't "mainstream?"
Source.
According to Netcraft Kombat's site (www.kombat.org) is running Apache on Linux.
Yup, it probably is. I don't host my own website. What, you think I've got a closet of rackmounted blade servers at home, with dedicated net access, to host my piddly little personal website?
I pay $10 a month for BlueGenesis to host my website. Sorry to spoil your fun.
I'm sorry, but .NET is garbage - too much glitter and not enough of the important stuff like platform-independence.
.NET to develop any serious web applications. While you are correct that it sacrifices platform-independence, you are way off the mark when you call it "garbage." If you are using Microsoft products from end-to-end, .NET is actually an extremely powerful and simple platform.
.NET, connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server backend, hosted on Windows2000 server boxes, with clients all running various Windows boxes, using IE. We test with Mozilla and older versions of Netscape too.
You clearly have never used
We develop web applications using Visual Studio
We've found this setup to be extremely powerful, allowing very rapid development. Sure, it's homogeneous, but so what? It's working great for us, and our customers.
Since we are hosting the actual sites, we get to control the backend platforms. And we've chosen Windows. So, there's no issue about "platform independence." We've chosen a platform that enables us to deliver the best results to the customers, on a very rapid schedule.
Apparently, you're not aware of the existance of J#. C# is not Microsoft's version of Java. J# is.
.NET. But of course, they can't call it "Java," so they call it J#. But that's what it is.
J# is basically just Java that runs on
C# is a nice language on its own, but it's not Java. The syntax is similar, and it's OO, but many parts of it are dramatically different, too. J#, on the other hand, is virtually indistinguishable from Java.