It could be affected be economic forces because the OS runs on hardware which costs money. If machines are experiencing end-of-lifetime events (No longer working, No longer useful) faster than new ones are being bought, then the entire market shrinks. But more important, is the market forces (The desire/need to own the product or products in the market).
I never said linux was going extinct. I doubt that will happen, probably ever. However, I also doubt that linux will "take over" based on the data we have so far. Linux started as, and the data shows it still is, and likely to remain a niche product. Because it's open source, and it does serve many useful purposes, it will likely be around for a long time without ever going completely extinct. After all, there are still people using Amigas and Ataris to do actual useful work. They aren't really extinct, however, their marketshare is so small they aren't a factor to most people.
Now of course, any and/or all of the above COULD change. Perhaps something linux does very well will all of a sudden appeal to the mass market, or perhaps with a large advertising/marketing push demand for it could rise substantially. That's not impossible, it just hasn't happened yet, and there are no current indicators that show that it will ever happen.
I did point you in the right direction. You are just are too lazy to use google.
You want a 4 line explanation, when there really isn't one that you would accept without pointing at it and asking why, so I can't give you one you'll likely accept without dragging it out until you understand all the details of both statistics and trending. But here goes anyhow:
Looking at the data, you can see early on there is a large dip in marketshare. It does recover, but then eventually leads into a near flat line growth pattern in the last 10 months. The flat line growth shows there is little need for this product to drive it upwards sufficiently to sustain growth even when there is sufficient market to expand into, and indicates that the market it is in is likely already saturated it's target audience. Other, similar products in the same market during the same period have experienced significant growth showing it isn't an economic or other market shrinking outside force at play. Additionally, the product not only has the potential to quickly destroy itself, it has already demonstrated it can do so at any time as shown in the first 6 months of data, and most likely would not stand up well to another competitive force/newer product if and when one appears.
There is a 4-line explanation that someone with now knowledge of statistics or marketing should be able to understand.
Sure, send me a copy of your SAT scores so I will make sure I'm not going to be wasting my time, then write me a check for $80,000 per quarter and I will be happy to sit down and privately tutor you on statistics. Otherwise, start on your own and look up the following terms: mean deviation sample size standard deviation margin of error prediction regression regression towards the mean
Although really, statistics isn't my chosen field, I do understand a fair amount of it. Enough to be able to recognize trends, etc as it was required of me in my line of work. Of which, I am currently working at the largest marketing and advertising company in the world. correlation coefficient variance
No, I said ActiveX was around before NPAPI, not that Microsoft shipped a browser that supported it.
NPAPI and JavaScript beat ActiveX and VBScript to market.
That is not correct. NPAPI appeared in March 1996, however, ActiveX was around since 1990 as OLE Client 1.0. Then OLE Client 2.0 came about, then OLE Custom Controls in 1994. ActiveX was just a renaming of OLE Custom Controls with all interfaces being optional and the first IE browser to support it was 3.0. While IE 3.0 was offically released in August 1996, developers had the code for many months before then, and support was even added for NPAPI before it's offical release. IE 3.0 also added CSS, and Java Applet support, both of which arrived before the Netscape versions.
Now as for JavaScript...Of course Netscape had theirs first. It was a proprietary language written by Netscape (LiveScript). It was renamed to Javascript before the release and it was eventually submitted as ECMAScript. ECMAScript 1.0 was ratified in June 1997, by which time both browsers had support for it. IE 3.0, however, actually had support for allowing scripting languages (both JScript and VBScript) to interact with ActiveX/NPAPI controls since August 1996 while Netscape didn't add support until 1997 and even then only for NPAPI.
You obviously don't understand much in the way of statistics or marketing and I have neither the time or will to educate you. Please learn the basics then come back so you don't make such insane conclusions.
Sorry, ActiveX (or the technology behind it... COM/OLE) was around long before netscape was even a company.
Granted, ActiveX got a name change in 1996 from COM/OLE 2.0, which was around the same time that NPAPI became available, but many had already been using it for years in VB, Word, etc. NPAPI didn't even support access from script (javascript/vbscript) until 1997.
it would be *very* bad for us if the US started seizing control of the internet
The US created the internet. They have and still currently have control on most of the infrastructure. The internet has flourished under their "control" or lack thereof, and I see no reason to change it. Unless you think the internet is currently broken, don't go trying to fix it by handing control over to the UN, which typically takes 15 years to do anything of importance, if they ever get around to it. THAT would be disastrous.
So your point is now that it's been losing ground in waves rather than steadily losing ground? The numbers completely dismiss everything you've said. Linux is losing ground (Not holding its ground, nor gaining popularity).
No, even currently IPv6 can't do everything IPv4 can do. I can't connect to all the websites on the internet using IPv6, but I can with IPv4. I can't currently use IPv6 at all because my ISP doesn't support routing it.
You will eventually be able to do everything a gas car can in an electric car. Just give it the same 10-15 years that IPv6 has been baking and the battery tech will be good enough (most likely), or you can stop off at a "gas station" and recharge just as quickly.
As for cost and availability, how is that different between cars and network equipment? What current commercial home routers support IPv6? Linksys doesn't have any that I know of, and definately didn't 10 years ago. In fact my Linksys (610N) router I just bought less than a year ago doesn't support it, and it wasn't exactly cheap.
Simple minded people tend to think all decisions are simple. Sorry, but in the real world, decisions are usually for a number of reasons, not just one. Sometimes there is one issue that is the final one that spurred action, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an avalanche of reasons in addition to it that was the basis of even considering it.
Well tesla has had all-electric vehicles for the past 4 years. Most people replace thier cars every 3-5 years. Given how you feel, you better buy one next year, or face being a hypocrite.
More like probably because I don't care. I understand the concept, and it makes no difference to me.
See I know that if I put x away for y years and stick it into a cash account that when I'm ready to retire at age y (y is an age that *I* define, although possible penalties apply if I take it out too early), then I'll be able to take out z each month for w months. Really, not that difficult. The only downside is that is if I live longer than w months, then I believe the defined benefits pension continues to pay while my cash account does not. However, if I die earlier, then I can give that money to my heirs where a DBP, I can not.
No, but the majority (bad programmers) would vote on things that would help them at the expense of the minority (good programmers). The bad programmers think things are unfair, when in truth, they are getting what they are worth. If they actually were worth more, they'd be getting more without a union already.
If you want a 401k retirement fund, then demand it, or find another employer/contract agency that does offer it. If you can't find one, then that says what the industry views your skills are worth.
I absolutely don't want a union. Unions would try and institute crazy things like standardized pay, and equal compensation to all programmers. No thanks!
I like getting paid well, usually to clean up some other programmer's mess because they were incompetent. I'd hate a union coming in and saying he should get paid as much as I do just because he's also a programmer.
Free market works well for those who actually DESERVE their pay. The rest of you asshats who can't program your way out of a for-next loop SHOULD get frustrated and go look for another job.
Perhaps, but more often than not, the majority of code (and time running) is actually doing things that are unrelated to the problem you are trying to solve. Many of these, can be abstracted and handed off to a library in which it will be run in a more optimized way than if the author coded it himself. Often many things can be optimized that otherwise would not have been otherwise, leading to dramatic speed increases.
However, I agree, writing code by hand in lower level languages and optimizing it as best you can will ALWAYS lead to code that performs better than code written in a higher level language and then recompiled/interpretted/compiler optimized. Unfortunately, most projects don't have the time, or funding to do those types of optimizations.
I often find that the junior level (and non-junior level as well) programmers of today don't understand enough about the actual inner workings of a PC or how things actually work that they could effectively optimize anything. I'd rather have them call DoSomethingComplicated than try and actually implement it themselves because they'd likely introduce bugs they don't understand, can't fix, and land up spending 10 times as long to come up with it.
In slashdot talk, using a car analogy... It's often better to show someone how to use the steering wheel, the gas (and brake) pedal, and leave it at that. Of course, you can make the car perform even better by using a wrench, soldering iron, chip burner, a screw driver and tuning/customizing it yourself, but hell if I want my wife using any of those things.
To be fair, the gb emu code is pretty inefficient. Using the same techniques with C/C++ would also run pretty bad (LOTS and LOTS of string concatenations, many many are just for readability). I'm not knocking the developer at all, as that was his choice for maintainability, however, the code would likely perform many times better if he removed code like this: function gb_SWAP(...) { return 'A' + 'B' + 'C' + 'D' + 'E'; } into function gb_SWAP(...) { return 'ABCDE'; }
String concatenation is notoriously slow, and removing those types of things would lead to an enormous speed increase. Try and remember that is also a version.2 code. I wonder how well your native code gameboy emulator v.2 would run on a 12MHz 386. Pretty poorly I would guess.
On an even funnier note, I ran Visual Gameboy Advance version 1.80 Beta 0, which is a native emulator for the Gameboy/Gameboy Advance. I had to turn on vsync because the screen tearing was terrible. I turned the sound off to make it comparable, and sure enough, it was running at a full 60fps, BUT USING 13% of my CPU which is worse than any of the browsers I tested, ROFLMAO.
Firefox 3.6.12 0 runs,ario land at 36fps using 9-10% CPU. Safari 5.0.3 (7533.19.4) runs mario land at 60fps using 5-7% CPU.
Firefox 4 Beta 7 - runs mario land at a full 60fps using 1-4% CPU. Chrome 8.0.552.215 beta - runs mario land using less than 1% CPU. IE9 Platform Preview - runs mario land using 3-4% CPU (Although buggy, long start up, no display).
I'm sure you had a point there somewhere, but it seems that all the (major) browsers either are, or will shortly be able to run that site at full speed with plenty of room to spare on current hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently his fantastic edukashon didn't taught him the diff btween students and student's.
Why? You can get a brand new netbook for under $300, and that has 1GB of ram and 160GB drive, and runs windows 7.
It could be affected be economic forces because the OS runs on hardware which costs money. If machines are experiencing end-of-lifetime events (No longer working, No longer useful) faster than new ones are being bought, then the entire market shrinks. But more important, is the market forces (The desire/need to own the product or products in the market).
I never said linux was going extinct. I doubt that will happen, probably ever. However, I also doubt that linux will "take over" based on the data we have so far. Linux started as, and the data shows it still is, and likely to remain a niche product. Because it's open source, and it does serve many useful purposes, it will likely be around for a long time without ever going completely extinct. After all, there are still people using Amigas and Ataris to do actual useful work. They aren't really extinct, however, their marketshare is so small they aren't a factor to most people.
Now of course, any and/or all of the above COULD change. Perhaps something linux does very well will all of a sudden appeal to the mass market, or perhaps with a large advertising/marketing push demand for it could rise substantially. That's not impossible, it just hasn't happened yet, and there are no current indicators that show that it will ever happen.
I did point you in the right direction. You are just are too lazy to use google.
You want a 4 line explanation, when there really isn't one that you would accept without pointing at it and asking why, so I can't give you one you'll likely accept without dragging it out until you understand all the details of both statistics and trending. But here goes anyhow:
Looking at the data, you can see early on there is a large dip in marketshare. It does recover, but then eventually leads into a near flat line growth pattern in the last 10 months. The flat line growth shows there is little need for this product to drive it upwards sufficiently to sustain growth even when there is sufficient market to expand into, and indicates that the market it is in is likely already saturated it's target audience. Other, similar products in the same market during the same period have experienced significant growth showing it isn't an economic or other market shrinking outside force at play. Additionally, the product not only has the potential to quickly destroy itself, it has already demonstrated it can do so at any time as shown in the first 6 months of data, and most likely would not stand up well to another competitive force/newer product if and when one appears.
There is a 4-line explanation that someone with now knowledge of statistics or marketing should be able to understand.
Sure, send me a copy of your SAT scores so I will make sure I'm not going to be wasting my time, then write me a check for $80,000 per quarter and I will be happy to sit down and privately tutor you on statistics. Otherwise, start on your own and look up the following terms:
mean
deviation
sample size
standard deviation
margin of error
prediction
regression
regression towards the mean
Although really, statistics isn't my chosen field, I do understand a fair amount of it. Enough to be able to recognize trends, etc as it was required of me in my line of work. Of which, I am currently working at the largest marketing and advertising company in the world.
correlation coefficient
variance
No, I said ActiveX was around before NPAPI, not that Microsoft shipped a browser that supported it.
NPAPI and JavaScript beat ActiveX and VBScript to market.
That is not correct. NPAPI appeared in March 1996, however, ActiveX was around since 1990 as OLE Client 1.0. Then OLE Client 2.0 came about, then OLE Custom Controls in 1994. ActiveX was just a renaming of OLE Custom Controls with all interfaces being optional and the first IE browser to support it was 3.0. While IE 3.0 was offically released in August 1996, developers had the code for many months before then, and support was even added for NPAPI before it's offical release. IE 3.0 also added CSS, and Java Applet support, both of which arrived before the Netscape versions.
Now as for JavaScript...Of course Netscape had theirs first. It was a proprietary language written by Netscape (LiveScript). It was renamed to Javascript before the release and it was eventually submitted as ECMAScript. ECMAScript 1.0 was ratified in June 1997, by which time both browsers had support for it. IE 3.0, however, actually had support for allowing scripting languages (both JScript and VBScript) to interact with ActiveX/NPAPI controls since August 1996 while Netscape didn't add support until 1997 and even then only for NPAPI.
Perhaps you need to learn what exactly it is you are talking about, or do you just like looking like a fool?
You obviously don't understand much in the way of statistics or marketing and I have neither the time or will to educate you. Please learn the basics then come back so you don't make such insane conclusions.
Sorry, ActiveX (or the technology behind it... COM/OLE) was around long before netscape was even a company.
Granted, ActiveX got a name change in 1996 from COM/OLE 2.0, which was around the same time that NPAPI became available, but many had already been using it for years in VB, Word, etc. NPAPI didn't even support access from script (javascript/vbscript) until 1997.
it would be *very* bad for us if the US started seizing control of the internet
The US created the internet. They have and still currently have control on most of the infrastructure. The internet has flourished under their "control" or lack thereof, and I see no reason to change it. Unless you think the internet is currently broken, don't go trying to fix it by handing control over to the UN, which typically takes 15 years to do anything of importance, if they ever get around to it. THAT would be disastrous.
So your point is now that it's been losing ground in waves rather than steadily losing ground? The numbers completely dismiss everything you've said. Linux is losing ground (Not holding its ground, nor gaining popularity).
Losing 8% of your marketshare over a two year period (.06 is 8% of .8%) is fairly significant.
No, even currently IPv6 can't do everything IPv4 can do. I can't connect to all the websites on the internet using IPv6, but I can with IPv4. I can't currently use IPv6 at all because my ISP doesn't support routing it.
You will eventually be able to do everything a gas car can in an electric car. Just give it the same 10-15 years that IPv6 has been baking and the battery tech will be good enough (most likely), or you can stop off at a "gas station" and recharge just as quickly.
As for cost and availability, how is that different between cars and network equipment? What current commercial home routers support IPv6? Linksys doesn't have any that I know of, and definately didn't 10 years ago. In fact my Linksys (610N) router I just bought less than a year ago doesn't support it, and it wasn't exactly cheap.
Simple minded people tend to think all decisions are simple. Sorry, but in the real world, decisions are usually for a number of reasons, not just one. Sometimes there is one issue that is the final one that spurred action, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an avalanche of reasons in addition to it that was the basis of even considering it.
Well tesla has had all-electric vehicles for the past 4 years.
Most people replace thier cars every 3-5 years.
Given how you feel, you better buy one next year, or face being a hypocrite.
More like probably because I don't care. I understand the concept, and it makes no difference to me.
See I know that if I put x away for y years and stick it into a cash account that when I'm ready to retire at age y (y is an age that *I* define, although possible penalties apply if I take it out too early), then I'll be able to take out z each month for w months. Really, not that difficult. The only downside is that is if I live longer than w months, then I believe the defined benefits pension continues to pay while my cash account does not. However, if I die earlier, then I can give that money to my heirs where a DBP, I can not.
You know most 401K's you can select what your money is invested in. Stocks, Bonds, Cash account, or a mix of all.
If you are concerned about stocks tanking, move it to bonds, or if you want absolute security, move it to a cash account.
No, but the majority (bad programmers) would vote on things that would help them at the expense of the minority (good programmers). The bad programmers think things are unfair, when in truth, they are getting what they are worth. If they actually were worth more, they'd be getting more without a union already.
If you want a 401k retirement fund, then demand it, or find another employer/contract agency that does offer it. If you can't find one, then that says what the industry views your skills are worth.
I absolutely don't want a union. Unions would try and institute crazy things like standardized pay, and equal compensation to all programmers. No thanks!
I like getting paid well, usually to clean up some other programmer's mess because they were incompetent. I'd hate a union coming in and saying he should get paid as much as I do just because he's also a programmer.
Free market works well for those who actually DESERVE their pay. The rest of you asshats who can't program your way out of a for-next loop SHOULD get frustrated and go look for another job.
Well since Firefox 3.6.12 javascript engine isn't multithreaded, I believe you mean 10% CPU (80/8 = 10). Try Firefox 4, Chrome, or Safari.
Perhaps, but more often than not, the majority of code (and time running) is actually doing things that are unrelated to the problem you are trying to solve. Many of these, can be abstracted and handed off to a library in which it will be run in a more optimized way than if the author coded it himself. Often many things can be optimized that otherwise would not have been otherwise, leading to dramatic speed increases.
However, I agree, writing code by hand in lower level languages and optimizing it as best you can will ALWAYS lead to code that performs better than code written in a higher level language and then recompiled/interpretted/compiler optimized. Unfortunately, most projects don't have the time, or funding to do those types of optimizations.
I often find that the junior level (and non-junior level as well) programmers of today don't understand enough about the actual inner workings of a PC or how things actually work that they could effectively optimize anything. I'd rather have them call DoSomethingComplicated than try and actually implement it themselves because they'd likely introduce bugs they don't understand, can't fix, and land up spending 10 times as long to come up with it.
In slashdot talk, using a car analogy... It's often better to show someone how to use the steering wheel, the gas (and brake) pedal, and leave it at that. Of course, you can make the car perform even better by using a wrench, soldering iron, chip burner, a screw driver and tuning/customizing it yourself, but hell if I want my wife using any of those things.
To be fair, the gb emu code is pretty inefficient. Using the same techniques with C/C++ would also run pretty bad (LOTS and LOTS of string concatenations, many many are just for readability). I'm not knocking the developer at all, as that was his choice for maintainability, however, the code would likely perform many times better if he removed code like this:
function gb_SWAP(...)
{
return 'A' +
'B' +
'C' +
'D' +
'E';
}
into
function gb_SWAP(...)
{
return 'ABCDE';
}
String concatenation is notoriously slow, and removing those types of things would lead to an enormous speed increase. Try and remember that is also a version .2 code. I wonder how well your native code gameboy emulator v.2 would run on a 12MHz 386. Pretty poorly I would guess.
On an even funnier note, I ran Visual Gameboy Advance version 1.80 Beta 0, which is a native emulator for the Gameboy/Gameboy Advance. I had to turn on vsync because the screen tearing was terrible. I turned the sound off to make it comparable, and sure enough, it was running at a full 60fps, BUT USING 13% of my CPU which is worse than any of the browsers I tested, ROFLMAO.
Hmmm just tested it...
Firefox 3.6.12 0 runs ,ario land at 36fps using 9-10% CPU.
Safari 5.0.3 (7533.19.4) runs mario land at 60fps using 5-7% CPU.
Firefox 4 Beta 7 - runs mario land at a full 60fps using 1-4% CPU.
Chrome 8.0.552.215 beta - runs mario land using less than 1% CPU.
IE9 Platform Preview - runs mario land using 3-4% CPU (Although buggy, long start up, no display).
I'm sure you had a point there somewhere, but it seems that all the (major) browsers either are, or will shortly be able to run that site at full speed with plenty of room to spare on current hardware.
cheaper
Nothing about free speech. Sorry if you thought that was a good point, but it isn't.