Lost in all this anti-ms sentiment is the fact that this is a really good idea.
As computers get faster and faster, the overhead generated by a virtual machine becomes less and less. If a standardized CLR existed (preferably one that was open, and not controlled by any one corporation), then all that would be necessary to have "write once, run everywhere" would be to have a hardware abstraction layer written for each hardware platform. Imagine how much easier it would be to code an operating system if you could use a javaish language instead of c and assembly.
Does anyone know of any open-source projects that are working on an open CLR and/or open OOP language? If such things existed, then instead of seeing the "WM of the month" we'd start seeing the "OS of the month." By making it easier to code OS's, we might start to see some innovation in the field instead of the stagnation we've seen for the past couple of years.
You could buy all sorts of expensive hardware so that you could run lots of cool apps...but a true geek will take a slow machine a tweak the hell out of it to be able to run the same stuff.
Never underestimate the geek clout gained by statements like, "I got x to run on a box that only had y (MHZ, MB, GB, whatever)."
(besides...being able to play quake3 at 10 fps is a *skill* god damn it!)
Hmmm...Word docs are only usable in Windows, huh? What about Macs? You might try,
"I'm sorry, but I cannot view the attachment that you sent to me because it is a Microsoft Word document (.doc extension). Microsoft Word documents are only accessible to people using software that is approved by Microsoft. Please consider using a format that is freely accessible such as HTML, PDF or plain text. This will ensure that files that you send are readable by anyone who receives them."
If Sun open-sourced Java, someone would immediately take it and fix all the problems (i.e. clean up the API, function pointers, enums and closures...the list is long but pretty easily achievable). This would cause an immediate fork between Sun Java and some newcommer.
Sun has to maintain backwards compatibility with everything that is currently java, and thus would either have to stick with the current Java or maintain two seperate Javas (deprecation can only do so much...and it can't really effect more than the API). If they chose to stick with the current Java, customers would be likely to choose a competing java for non-legacy applications.
No matter what Sun chose to do, it would end up hurting them. It may end up helping Java immensly which would help Sun in the long run, but that's a hard argument for people to swallow.
How soon until sufficient AI exists to automate the process
Well...the AI for the way cyber-cases are currently resolved would be pretty easy.
public int decideCase(Plaintiff plaintiff, Defendant defendant)
{
if(plaintiff.getNetWorth() > defendant.getNetWorth())
{
return(Judgement.PLAINTIFF);
}
else
{
return(Judgement.DEFENDANT);
}
}
Incidently, this AI will also work for WIPO disputes as well. There's even rumors of this code being used in Washington by lawmakers when trying to determine what legislation to pass.
I don't think most of us would say we want no rights for content creators to be compensated for their content. However if, given the (inevitable) conflict between the right to freely express one's self and the right of a content creator to be compensated for their creations (e.g. fair use), the majority of/.ers believe that free speach should prevail.
This is a fundamental principle of American ideology. The idea that we'd rather let 10 murderers go free if it meant that 1 innocent person was saved from being wrongly convicted. It is the fundamental purpose of a society to balance the rights of the individual against the rights of the rest of the society. There is fundamentally a grey area here. To one extreme, how is my right to own and fire a gun balanced against another person's right not to be shot. To the other extreme, how is my right to post my opinions balanced against the fact that it could, to the detriment of someone else, influence public opinion.
I think the sentiment you see expressed on/. is a lament that American public policy used to tend much more toward the rights of the individual over the rights of the masses and that now that is starting to change. At one end of the spectrum is anarchy, at the other Fascism. Democracy is supposed to find the happy middle ground between the two. For better or for worse, America is becomming more and more fascist.
I (and I'll assume that I'm pretty typical of the average/.er) tend to believe that leaning toward anarchy is far better than leaning towards fascism. While I think that it is wrong to steal content, I would rather not see a single individual's free speach silenced to prevent that theft.
If you're not in any db already...otherwise, anyone with your records can claim prior art.
However, if you have somehow escaped tracking thus far, a pre-requisite for filing for the copyright would be entering the name of the copyright applicant into their own db (try { copyright } catch(22) { })...
Or...given how easy it is to get someone's SSN, why not mandate that a person's credit history not be tied to their SSN. It is a number to identify you to the *government*, not to the credit card companies (or any other private industry, for that matter). Make private companies assign you their own number (different from your SSN, of course;).
So I have my iBook, but the resolution is too low, so I thought I'd get a PC laptop, but I don't want windows on it, so I'm thinking...Linux...that's the way to go, problem is when I go to take a class, I get defrauded, so now I'm thinking...Solaris Intel...that'll solve all my problems, so I go to download it and wouldn't you know sun removed it from their website, but that's ok cause I got this friend who has an ISO on his box at home and says I can download it, so I go to download it, but it turns out his upload speed is capped at 15K/sec which is just way too slow for pulling an entire ISO, so now I'm basically stuck with Windows (*sigh*)...oh well, at least/. recommended some cool books to read during the install.
Carpal Tunnel in the wrists is not so much a result of too much time spent in the wrong wrist position and more a case of not enough time spent in the other wrist positions.
I have terrible typing posture. So much so, that only about a year after I learned to touch type, I started feeling the early stages of carpal tunnel. A friend of mine showed me some exercises that you can do with your wrists (basically anything that uses the full range of motion of your wrists...just keep them moving in a circular pattern). Within a month of starting those exercises, there was no sign of any pain. I still type with horrible typing posture for 8 hours a day (programming) and I haven't had any discomfort for the past 6 years now. And all I have to do to avoid it is about an hour a day of the above exercise (I do it on the bus...I usually get my own seat since no one wants to sit next to the weird guy doing strange things with his wrists).
So, if Aikido encourages this kind of variety in wrist posture, then I'm sure it's a great way to fend off CT.
Therefore, I should easily be able to compress The Matrix into a single byte with 256 passes.
I'm not so sure about that...It takes a lot of bytes to represent our entire society (in 1999, at least). The AI for Hugo Weaving's character must have been a couple of gigs of code at least.
However, if you want to compress the movie "The Matrix" into a single byte...here goes:
<breathy_keanu_voice>Whoah...</breathy_ke anu_voice> (soundByte® compression...far from lossless compression, but this is as close as anyone will ever come to one byte compression).
I'm buying both. I'm sure that, in the three years between when the release FOTR and the boxed set, I'll easily be able to get my $20 worth out of the first one.
Shit...I've worn through two sets of copies of the books...I don't see why the dvds should be any different.
OSX applications arent gonna evolve into Unix applications
No, they aren't going to turn into *Linux* applications.
You just conceded his point to be true. BSD and Linux are subsets of the larger UNIX superset (with OSX being a subset of the BSD family). Apache, for example, is a UNIX application because it can, with not a whole lot of tweaking, be made to run on *any* flavor of UNIX. By conceding that OSX apps will never run on any flavor of UNIX other than OSX (not even other flavors of BSD), it ceases to be a UNIX app, ceases to be even a BSD app, and becomes solely an OSX app.
In contrast, since X11 can be made to run on pretty much any flavor of UNIX, X11 apps are, for the most part, UNIX apps. Since GTK and QT stuff is intended to be portable (rather than proprietary to a single variant of the UNIX family), it earns the distinction of being UNIX, something that Cocoa/Carbon/OSX apps do not.
If this thing actually works, maybe they should get rid of the cockpit voice/data recorders and just upload all the information off the plane.
In addition to being able to determine the cause of crashes more quickly, it might help ground personel know what is happening with airplanes long before they crash (perhaps helping pilots avoid crashes).
The rule that I've learned is, If there is something wrong with the way it is architected,
then go ahead and re-write it if you have the time. If you aren't going to change the design, then there is no reason to throw away the resource you have.
Proper program design (modularity, well defined interfaces, bla bla bla...you've heard it all before) makes code much easier to manage and improve. If you don't have it, then re-writing might be worth it.
However, far too often, people feel the need to re-write code because it feels messy and it is hard to maintain. The fact is that it is easier to write code than to read it and an engineer will almost always find more enjoyment in writing something from scratch than in fixing/upgrading someone else's code. Be careful listening to engineers bitch about messy code. It usually isn't half as bad as they say it is.
However, in this case, it sounds like they do need a serious design revision. I'm not sure I can think of any justification for using Perl CGI for an app that size (mod_perl, java, c++ and even asp would be better).
Ummm...never underestimate the governments interest in preserving a channel to the attention of its citizens. Think of how much Hollywood can affect the opinions of the populus (especially in this country, but to a lesser extent all over the rest of the world), and you realize the incentive to be strongly allied with the "Content Faction."
And, should anyone in congress forget this fact, they need only run down to the local Blockbuster and rent a copy of "Gladiator" (the one with Russell Crowe, not Cuba Gooding Jr):
(Paraphrasing)"Rome is the mob. Keep them entertained and you control Rome."
Save your cheering for when there are actually two sides that are at odds with each other. This is really just a case of two extremely large entities getting together and discussing how they're going to screw the rest of us in order to maximize their profits (I guess they think that by calling it "collateral damage" we'll swallow it easier).
To suggest that these factions are at odds is kinda funny. Why is the government basically giving up on their prosecution of Microsoft? Well, in large part due to the opinion (and campaign contributions) of the "Content Faction". The "Content Faction" may want to see DRM mandate laws in place, but they'll be happy to settle for a Microsoft DRM'd OS that is on 99% of all desktops.
So save your cheering for when the real struggle starts. Once they figure out how they want to turn your computer into a DVD player that allows you limited email/web privileges, there's going to be a huge fight to get it implemented.
That's exactly the wrong way to go about things...
The issue has never been about Microsoft's making money off their operating system. If they only sold a stand alone operating system, I and many others would not have any problem with them.
The issue is the fact that they leverage their operating system to force consumers into using their other products. Then, once those other products are firmly in place, they leverage those products to force the use of new ones (from an above sig: Endless Loop: (n) see Loop, Endless).
Taking away the profits that Microsoft makes from it's OS doesn't get rid of this trend, it only forces Microsoft to do more of this in order to make any profits at all.
What is truly needed are ways to give people and companies "outs" from having to use a Microsoft product simply because they chose to use a completely different Microsoft product. In my mind, this is best accomplished through standards compliance, open file formats and open API's. If the public had access to the same Windows documentation that an Outlook developer or a IIS developer at Microsoft has, it would be much harder to push those products on the public.
Slashdot Mirror
Lost in all this anti-ms sentiment is the fact that this is a really good idea.
As computers get faster and faster, the overhead generated by a virtual machine becomes less and less. If a standardized CLR existed (preferably one that was open, and not controlled by any one corporation), then all that would be necessary to have "write once, run everywhere" would be to have a hardware abstraction layer written for each hardware platform. Imagine how much easier it would be to code an operating system if you could use a javaish language instead of c and assembly.
Does anyone know of any open-source projects that are working on an open CLR and/or open OOP language? If such things existed, then instead of seeing the "WM of the month" we'd start seeing the "OS of the month." By making it easier to code OS's, we might start to see some innovation in the field instead of the stagnation we've seen for the past couple of years.
You could buy all sorts of expensive hardware so that you could run lots of cool apps...but a true geek will take a slow machine a tweak the hell out of it to be able to run the same stuff.
Never underestimate the geek clout gained by statements like, "I got x to run on a box that only had y (MHZ, MB, GB, whatever)."
(besides...being able to play quake3 at 10 fps is a *skill* god damn it!)
So do we support Phillips when they try to buy some "Mickey Mouse" legislation to extend their patent?
Hmmm...Word docs are only usable in Windows, huh? What about Macs? You might try,
"I'm sorry, but I cannot view the attachment that you sent to me because it is a Microsoft Word document (.doc extension). Microsoft Word documents are only accessible to people using software that is approved by Microsoft. Please consider using a format that is freely accessible such as HTML, PDF or plain text. This will ensure that files that you send are readable by anyone who receives them."
would have been cool to see nsyck get blow to bit with the best special effect money can buy
Don't know about you, but I'd settle for seeing without the effects...
If Sun open-sourced Java, someone would immediately take it and fix all the problems (i.e. clean up the API, function pointers, enums and closures...the list is long but pretty easily achievable). This would cause an immediate fork between Sun Java and some newcommer.
Sun has to maintain backwards compatibility with everything that is currently java, and thus would either have to stick with the current Java or maintain two seperate Javas (deprecation can only do so much...and it can't really effect more than the API). If they chose to stick with the current Java, customers would be likely to choose a competing java for non-legacy applications.
No matter what Sun chose to do, it would end up hurting them. It may end up helping Java immensly which would help Sun in the long run, but that's a hard argument for people to swallow.
Microsoft's Research is pretty good...
These guys spend a lot of effort answering the kind of questions you're asking.
How soon until sufficient AI exists to automate the process
Well...the AI for the way cyber-cases are currently resolved would be pretty easy.
public int decideCase(Plaintiff plaintiff, Defendant defendant)
{
if(plaintiff.getNetWorth() > defendant.getNetWorth())
{
return(Judgement.PLAINTIFF);
}
else
{
return(Judgement.DEFENDANT);
}
}
Incidently, this AI will also work for WIPO disputes as well. There's even rumors of this code being used in Washington by lawmakers when trying to determine what legislation to pass.
I don't think most of us would say we want no rights for content creators to be compensated for their content. However if, given the (inevitable) conflict between the right to freely express one's self and the right of a content creator to be compensated for their creations (e.g. fair use), the majority of /.ers believe that free speach should prevail.
/. is a lament that American public policy used to tend much more toward the rights of the individual over the rights of the masses and that now that is starting to change. At one end of the spectrum is anarchy, at the other Fascism. Democracy is supposed to find the happy middle ground between the two. For better or for worse, America is becomming more and more fascist.
/.er) tend to believe that leaning toward anarchy is far better than leaning towards fascism. While I think that it is wrong to steal content, I would rather not see a single individual's free speach silenced to prevent that theft.
This is a fundamental principle of American ideology. The idea that we'd rather let 10 murderers go free if it meant that 1 innocent person was saved from being wrongly convicted. It is the fundamental purpose of a society to balance the rights of the individual against the rights of the rest of the society. There is fundamentally a grey area here. To one extreme, how is my right to own and fire a gun balanced against another person's right not to be shot. To the other extreme, how is my right to post my opinions balanced against the fact that it could, to the detriment of someone else, influence public opinion.
I think the sentiment you see expressed on
I (and I'll assume that I'm pretty typical of the average
If you're not in any db already...otherwise, anyone with your records can claim prior art.
However, if you have somehow escaped tracking thus far, a pre-requisite for filing for the copyright would be entering the name of the copyright applicant into their own db (try { copyright } catch(22) { })...
You could probably register your kids tho...
Or...given how easy it is to get someone's SSN, why not mandate that a person's credit history not be tied to their SSN. It is a number to identify you to the *government*, not to the credit card companies (or any other private industry, for that matter). Make private companies assign you their own number (different from your SSN, of course ;).
So I have my iBook, but the resolution is too low, so I thought I'd get a PC laptop, but I don't want windows on it, so I'm thinking...Linux...that's the way to go, problem is when I go to take a class, I get defrauded, so now I'm thinking...Solaris Intel...that'll solve all my problems, so I go to download it and wouldn't you know sun removed it from their website, but that's ok cause I got this friend who has an ISO on his box at home and says I can download it, so I go to download it, but it turns out his upload speed is capped at 15K/sec which is just way too slow for pulling an entire ISO, so now I'm basically stuck with Windows (*sigh*)...oh well, at least /. recommended some cool books to read during the install.
Carpal Tunnel in the wrists is not so much a result of too much time spent in the wrong wrist position and more a case of not enough time spent in the other wrist positions.
I have terrible typing posture. So much so, that only about a year after I learned to touch type, I started feeling the early stages of carpal tunnel. A friend of mine showed me some exercises that you can do with your wrists (basically anything that uses the full range of motion of your wrists...just keep them moving in a circular pattern). Within a month of starting those exercises, there was no sign of any pain. I still type with horrible typing posture for 8 hours a day (programming) and I haven't had any discomfort for the past 6 years now. And all I have to do to avoid it is about an hour a day of the above exercise (I do it on the bus...I usually get my own seat since no one wants to sit next to the weird guy doing strange things with his wrists).
So, if Aikido encourages this kind of variety in wrist posture, then I'm sure it's a great way to fend off CT.
Oh...and Rockclimbing works well too.
Therefore, I should easily be able to compress The Matrix into a single byte with 256 passes.
I'm not so sure about that...It takes a lot of bytes to represent our entire society (in 1999, at least). The AI for Hugo Weaving's character must have been a couple of gigs of code at least.
However, if you want to compress the movie "The Matrix" into a single byte...here goes:
<breathy_keanu_voice>Whoah...</breathy_ke anu_voice> (soundByte® compression...far from lossless compression, but this is as close as anyone will ever come to one byte compression).
I'm buying both. I'm sure that, in the three years between when the release FOTR and the boxed set, I'll easily be able to get my $20 worth out of the first one.
Shit...I've worn through two sets of copies of the books...I don't see why the dvds should be any different.
ven with potential
OSX applications arent gonna evolve into Unix applications
No, they aren't going to turn into *Linux* applications.
You just conceded his point to be true. BSD and Linux are subsets of the larger UNIX superset (with OSX being a subset of the BSD family). Apache, for example, is a UNIX application because it can, with not a whole lot of tweaking, be made to run on *any* flavor of UNIX. By conceding that OSX apps will never run on any flavor of UNIX other than OSX (not even other flavors of BSD), it ceases to be a UNIX app, ceases to be even a BSD app, and becomes solely an OSX app.
In contrast, since X11 can be made to run on pretty much any flavor of UNIX, X11 apps are, for the most part, UNIX apps. Since GTK and QT stuff is intended to be portable (rather than proprietary to a single variant of the UNIX family), it earns the distinction of being UNIX, something that Cocoa/Carbon/OSX apps do not.
Why do their investments have to be 'either-or'?
see "cash-starved" adjective in the above statement.
If this thing actually works, maybe they should get rid of the cockpit voice/data recorders and just upload all the information off the plane.
In addition to being able to determine the cause of crashes more quickly, it might help ground personel know what is happening with airplanes long before they crash (perhaps helping pilots avoid crashes).
The rule that I've learned is, If there is something wrong with the way it is architected,
then go ahead and re-write it if you have the time. If you aren't going to change the design, then there is no reason to throw away the resource you have.
Proper program design (modularity, well defined interfaces, bla bla bla...you've heard it all before) makes code much easier to manage and improve. If you don't have it, then re-writing might be worth it.
However, far too often, people feel the need to re-write code because it feels messy and it is hard to maintain. The fact is that it is easier to write code than to read it and an engineer will almost always find more enjoyment in writing something from scratch than in fixing/upgrading someone else's code. Be careful listening to engineers bitch about messy code. It usually isn't half as bad as they say it is.
However, in this case, it sounds like they do need a serious design revision. I'm not sure I can think of any justification for using Perl CGI for an app that size (mod_perl, java, c++ and even asp would be better).
Ummm...never underestimate the governments interest in preserving a channel to the attention of its citizens. Think of how much Hollywood can affect the opinions of the populus (especially in this country, but to a lesser extent all over the rest of the world), and you realize the incentive to be strongly allied with the "Content Faction."
And, should anyone in congress forget this fact, they need only run down to the local Blockbuster and rent a copy of "Gladiator" (the one with Russell Crowe, not Cuba Gooding Jr):
(Paraphrasing)"Rome is the mob. Keep them entertained and you control Rome."
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time lending any credence to an argument where "the girl next door won't wear any clothes" is a bad thing....
"I don't really know who to cheer for..."
Save your cheering for when there are actually two sides that are at odds with each other. This is really just a case of two extremely large entities getting together and discussing how they're going to screw the rest of us in order to maximize their profits (I guess they think that by calling it "collateral damage" we'll swallow it easier).
To suggest that these factions are at odds is kinda funny. Why is the government basically giving up on their prosecution of Microsoft? Well, in large part due to the opinion (and campaign contributions) of the "Content Faction". The "Content Faction" may want to see DRM mandate laws in place, but they'll be happy to settle for a Microsoft DRM'd OS that is on 99% of all desktops.
So save your cheering for when the real struggle starts. Once they figure out how they want to turn your computer into a DVD player that allows you limited email/web privileges, there's going to be a huge fight to get it implemented.
Well...it might not be his real name, but he has published books under that name (This one and That one) that a lot of us have read...
So, if he used his real name here, we wouldn't care what he thinks about BeOS (as it is, I'm not sure I do anyways, but some here might)
That's exactly the wrong way to go about things...
The issue has never been about Microsoft's making money off their operating system. If they only sold a stand alone operating system, I and many others would not have any problem with them.
The issue is the fact that they leverage their operating system to force consumers into using their other products. Then, once those other products are firmly in place, they leverage those products to force the use of new ones (from an above sig: Endless Loop: (n) see Loop, Endless).
Taking away the profits that Microsoft makes from it's OS doesn't get rid of this trend, it only forces Microsoft to do more of this in order to make any profits at all.
What is truly needed are ways to give people and companies "outs" from having to use a Microsoft product simply because they chose to use a completely different Microsoft product. In my mind, this is best accomplished through standards compliance, open file formats and open API's. If the public had access to the same Windows documentation that an Outlook developer or a IIS developer at Microsoft has, it would be much harder to push those products on the public.