I apologize for being a bit offtopic here but I couldn't let the following comment pass without addressing it.
"I think you are vastly overestimating the reach of and scope of MS's.NET program. More than anything, MS wants to solidify and calcify its disparate projects into a more unified, uniform offering..NET is so much in one name - a development environment, an execution environment, a web-services environment, and a server environment - that its goals are often misunderstood. Be clear - MS will not actively create products in one field that undermine directly the value of its other properties. Hence, I think that MS has an empire will not advance consoles to the point of threatning its OS market."
I see a lot of people under the mistaken (IMHO) impression that MS will do anything to protect the role of Windows in its suite of products. This is expressed above in the point that MS would not let.net threaten Windows. This assertion is predicated on the assumption that Windows is the more valuable of the two properties and is necessary to Microsofts future.
I disagree, and if you study the moves that MS has been making with its various products, I think it will become clear that they do too. MS has a clear strategy.
1. Control the runtime environment
2. Use control of environment to control strategic applications
3. Use revenue primarily from the applications to further strengthen control of the environment
Traditionally this cycle has been implemented through Windows(environment) and Office(revenue app). When a technology appears to threaten to provide an additional runtime environment that is not controlled by MS, they extend either the functionality of an existing product or build a new one to provide it. Then they use their other products to ensure that their new offering gets enough market penetration to allow them to control this new playing field. Internet Explorer is a good example of this strategy.
However, this approach is not infallible and MS has been looking ahead and seeing some threats on the horizon which may require more drastic measures. These are:
-The antitrust case
-Java
-Linux
-The saturation of the PC market and less room/funds for growth
So they asked themselves how they can continue to grow aggressively while preventing any of the above from doing an end-run around their defenses and eroding their control of the market to the point where they are simply another player in a fair market.
The answer is quite clever: Redefine what the standard runtime environment for applications is. Enter.Net
If Windows is under assault and may not be able to indefinitely provide the level of control they need to continue their strategy, then it is time to transition to an additional platform. This will provide them insurance in the case that Windows loses its iron grip on the market.
Does this mean that they will give up on Windows? I think not, it is a very valuable property and remains a powerful force. I am simply arguing that they will hedge their bets.
Java never pulled off the assertion that it would essentially become the new platform, supplanting the OS as the important factor. But MS paid attention and recognized that this could work if done properly. The same idea that this could be used to break the Windows monopoly could also work in MSs favor to marginalize the impact of up-and-coming OSs (Linux) as well as runtime environments (Java).
If they port their apps to.Net over the next couple of years but keep.Net running only on Windows (and incidentally MacOS) they maintain the current situation while manuvering themselves into a more secure position for the future.
If Linux (or some other OS) takes off and/or Windows loses its effectiveness, then they shift fully to.Net. The ports of.Net that they have already prepared for other OSs get released and it becomes their primary platform offering instead of their secondary one. Consider this as well, how much of the antitrust emphasis has focused on restricting Windows and how much has focused on restricting.Net? MS cares about retaining control, and Windows is a means to this end not an end in itself. If.Net becomes the more viable platform then they'll play that card for all its worth.
Also consider the issue of growth, this is where the Xbox comes in. MS needs growth for 2 reasons, revenue and control. The more people use their platform, the more apps they sell and the more money they make. The more people use their plaform, the more control they have over the market and the more difficult it will be for others to unseat them. Having millions of PC users use their platform provides a good level of security. Having 3x-10x that number through the addition of XBox users and MS Personal Video Recorder set top boxes is far better. They don't have to worry about much additional cost for software development since the apps will all be written to the conveniently standard.Net platform. Write once run anywhere...
The parent post said "I think you are vastly overestimating the reach of and scope of MS's.NET program. " and I think this is wrong...most people underestimate.Net because they look at it now and see it in the context of today, not in the context of where things are going. They don't look at it from a broad strategic perspective and miss the fact that MS does.
I don't particularly like or trust MS (I'm a Java developer and love it) but the terrible elegant beauty of their strategy never ceases to amaze me. The other thing that never fails to amaze me is how people continually forget to consider the big picture. Micorsofts actions are always viewed as discreet, isolated things and people choose to ignore the fact that they all come from the same company and often might be related.
Think it through and consider how all the markets they play in can support each other rather than as simple offerings to compete against the players in those markets. An interesting picture will develop.
I'm not weighing in at all on the question of which is faster, because I honestly don't know. But I do feel obligated to point out that very limited benchmarks on a site that is clearly focused on promoting.Net development are barely worth reading much less citing as an example of something. The chances of these benchmarks representing anything like actual facts are so slim they aren't worth considering.
I wonder if this would noticably impact peoples browsing habits? If people had to pay for each page view or refresh, it might cause them to be more aware of their browsing habits and to reduce behavior which consumes bandwidth. I doubt it would make a big difference, but I have to wonder if it would make a detectable one...
Back around the beginning of the year I was team lead on a project and my people started coming to me with an odd story. They told me that one of the other guys on the team (who we had all thought of as odd but harmless) was accusing them seemingly at random of tickling him. According to them, he'd suddenly yell out "Stop tickling me!" even when nobody was anywhere near him. Since it sounded kind of crazy, I figured I'd talk to him and get his side of the story. I took him out to lunch and delicately let him know some people had mentioned to me he had been making comments about tickling, and asked him what was going on. He calmly explained to me that at various points during the course of a regular workday he would get 'a ticklish feeling'. It was his belief that either the US Government (or possibly one of his coworkers) had found a way to use his computer to tickle him for some mysterious reason. Furthermore, yelling "Stop tickling me!" made the feeling go away.
Now stop for a moment and picture how YOU would go into your bosses office and try to explain to him/her that one of your people was saying these things... It wasn't fun.
Anyway, this event, combined with the fact that this guy had the amazing ability to write Java as if it were Cobol (completely useless code), got him fired shortly thereafter.
Why don't we have the FSF patent the business model of patenting obvious stuff that others are already doing in order to attempt to bludgeon them into paying us for the right to do it. Then we could sue McAfee for violating the patent.
>I don't know if there would actually be the draw to have 1000's of people watch a Quake/UT game though. I mean, tournaments are fun, but are there even that many fans who'd want to watch?
Well, I can't imagine wanting to watch an FPS, but I'd be really interested in watching real time strategy. Especially if I had control of my own perspective and could examine various points in the playspace. Turn based strategy would probably get fewer viewers, but I think it would really appeal to the same kind of person who would watch a chess match because you can deeply analyze the moves and strategy. I also think you might find a solid viewer base for sports games.
Since I am a Java developer, I was curious about whether it could be used to shore up Javas weakpoints as a game platform. I discovered 2 sourceforge projects to create bindings for java.
If I had mod points I'd use them but I don't, so I'll just have to settle for saying that Stormie is right. His points go straight to the heart of the matter, and neatly summarize the way I (and probably many other Java programmers) feel. Java is a good language and can be used for more than it is currently if people would just stop typecasting it.
Let me say up front, I couldn't care less about write once, run anywhere, I just want to write cool apps in a language I am comfortable with. The whole idea that Java MUST be used in 'write once, run anywhere' mode has been really holding it (and me) back. I feel that developments like this really open up new possiblities for me to develop applications which interest me. C and C++ are good languages but not everyone is a C/C++ programmer (or wants to be), so it is time for OS and GUI designers to stop acting as if they were.
Now, if only Be Inc. would make it easy to program directly to BeOS using Java...
I agree with the concept and began doing this last fall, however I have only been able to find one student. I've approached teachers at a local university about sending me people who might want some free tutoring, but I was met complete silence. Does anyone have any suggestions for good ways to connect mentors and students?
If anyone out there in/. land is in the NYC Metro area and wants some help with Java, let me know.
If there is anyone out there who is familiar with this area of research, there is something I've been wondering. Could this be used to build up a store of light (like a battery) or is it more for storing a short burst. Could you, for example, keep pouring light into this medium for a long time, to stop large amounts of it, then release it all at once?
This reminds me of something I'd like to see tried. If you take some of these small computers (a good example being the CerfBoard-SA 1110 - Headless Solution) and attach them to speakers all over the house, you now have networked speakers. Then write a little program to accept sound files (MP3s for example) through a socket and play it through the audio out. The final step would be to write a virtual soundcard which pretends to be a real sound card and pipes the selected file/stream to whichever speakers are in the room you specify.
Thoughts anyone?
I am sure there are a boatload of tests out there which "prove" just the opposite. The plain truth is that this really isn't an area where there is a definitive answer. Sometimes one is the better and faster tool, sometimes the other is. For those of you who seem to feel that the only way to get speed is to statically compile something (a la c/c++), you might want to have a look at an alternative approach. The following link goes to an article which outlines a different way of measuring the benefits and drawbacks of the static compile vs. VM speed question.
On a more serious note, consider what this could mean for military applications. Camoflage which adjusts itself to your environment. How easy would it be to disguise a vehicle or aircraft coated with it.
Well, you're already at 5 so I can't moderate you up. I guess I'll simply have to settle for expressing my admiration for a truly insightful post. Nice work.
This is just the kernel of an idea here so I am not sure how it would be implemented, but perhaps some sort of agent which would help the open source world find who is using various pieces of code in their software. This would allow for better policing of the GPL. It might constantly search any downloadable software packages it can find for files with a certain name or if the source code is offered perhaps the code itself to create a list of suspects for the author(s) to look into.
Another idea might be an agent that allows you to track all references to you, your website, e-mail address, personal info, etc. This would help people interested in preserving their privacy.
This sounds like a good idea except for one problem, it assumes everyone is a programmer. I am a programmer and an ex-sysadmin but even I would have trouble with what you are suggesting. I don't know anything about compiling C/C++ programs on Linux (I'd learn if I had the time but I don't). Like it or not, most people have neither the time, nor the desire to compile their software. They want the simplest install possible so they can get down to the business of using that software. Trying to troubleshoot a compile may seem like a trivial task to anyone who's done it a lot already, but the other 99% of us don't see it that way. Your idea might work better in combination with a binary distribution for the most used platforms.
I think you are off on a few points. First, prior to R5, the number of BeOS users was estimated at 100,000. The following is an excerpt from a Be press release last week:
"Within a week of the release of BeOS 5 Personal Edition, a record breaking 550,000 downloads were reported, and as of yesterday that total had increased to more than 870,000. These figures include all downloads from Be's web site, as well as from 18 reporting download partners. Be estimates that at least 39 other download sites have not yet reported."
Even if you figure that the remaining 39 FTP sites add only another 200,000 downloads and that none of the people who downloaded burned a CD or passed the file to a friend, this brings the BeOS userbase to about 11 times its pre-R5 release (i.e. 1.1 million).
Second, despite the marketing line that Be gave the world about being "the Media OS" (principly to avoid the wrath of Redmond) be has always been "a general purpose OS that does media really well", and not "a media OS that is not a good general purpose OS" as you seem to be implying. BeOS makes a truly great general desktop operating system (it still lacks on the server side but that is what we have Linux and BSD for).
QNX is not a general purpose OS and trying to hack it into one does not make a whole lot of sense (the same is true of Linux by the way). QNX & Linux make good embedded OSs. Linux makes a good server OS. Both are a mistake as a general purpose desktop OS, because it is not really what they are designed to do (THERE IS A REASON THEY ARE COMMAND LINE). Why re-invent the wheel when you have a GOOD desktop option already available in BeOS?
All of which brings me to something that I am truly curious about, what made the ex-Amiga people choose QNX over BeOS?
Slashdot Mirror
I apologize for being a bit offtopic here but I couldn't let the following comment pass without addressing it.
.NET program. More than anything, MS wants to solidify and calcify its disparate projects into a more unified, uniform offering. .NET is so much in one name - a development environment, an execution environment, a web-services environment, and a server environment - that its goals are often misunderstood. Be clear - MS will not actively create products in one field that undermine directly the value of its other properties. Hence, I think that MS has an empire will not advance consoles to the point of threatning its OS market."
.net threaten Windows. This assertion is predicated on the assumption that Windows is the more valuable of the two properties and is necessary to Microsofts future.
.Net
.Net over the next couple of years but keep .Net running only on Windows (and incidentally MacOS) they maintain the current situation while manuvering themselves into a more secure position for the future.
.Net. The ports of .Net that they have already prepared for other OSs get released and it becomes their primary platform offering instead of their secondary one. Consider this as well, how much of the antitrust emphasis has focused on restricting Windows and how much has focused on restricting .Net? MS cares about retaining control, and Windows is a means to this end not an end in itself. If .Net becomes the more viable platform then they'll play that card for all its worth.
.Net platform. Write once run anywhere...
.NET program. " and I think this is wrong...most people underestimate .Net because they look at it now and see it in the context of today, not in the context of where things are going. They don't look at it from a broad strategic perspective and miss the fact that MS does.
"I think you are vastly overestimating the reach of and scope of MS's
I see a lot of people under the mistaken (IMHO) impression that MS will do anything to protect the role of Windows in its suite of products. This is expressed above in the point that MS would not let
I disagree, and if you study the moves that MS has been making with its various products, I think it will become clear that they do too. MS has a clear strategy.
1. Control the runtime environment
2. Use control of environment to control strategic applications
3. Use revenue primarily from the applications to further strengthen control of the environment
Traditionally this cycle has been implemented through Windows(environment) and Office(revenue app). When a technology appears to threaten to provide an additional runtime environment that is not controlled by MS, they extend either the functionality of an existing product or build a new one to provide it. Then they use their other products to ensure that their new offering gets enough market penetration to allow them to control this new playing field. Internet Explorer is a good example of this strategy.
However, this approach is not infallible and MS has been looking ahead and seeing some threats on the horizon which may require more drastic measures. These are:
-The antitrust case
-Java
-Linux
-The saturation of the PC market and less room/funds for growth
So they asked themselves how they can continue to grow aggressively while preventing any of the above from doing an end-run around their defenses and eroding their control of the market to the point where they are simply another player in a fair market.
The answer is quite clever: Redefine what the standard runtime environment for applications is. Enter
If Windows is under assault and may not be able to indefinitely provide the level of control they need to continue their strategy, then it is time to transition to an additional platform. This will provide them insurance in the case that Windows loses its iron grip on the market.
Does this mean that they will give up on Windows? I think not, it is a very valuable property and remains a powerful force. I am simply arguing that they will hedge their bets.
Java never pulled off the assertion that it would essentially become the new platform, supplanting the OS as the important factor. But MS paid attention and recognized that this could work if done properly. The same idea that this could be used to break the Windows monopoly could also work in MSs favor to marginalize the impact of up-and-coming OSs (Linux) as well as runtime environments (Java).
If they port their apps to
If Linux (or some other OS) takes off and/or Windows loses its effectiveness, then they shift fully to
Also consider the issue of growth, this is where the Xbox comes in. MS needs growth for 2 reasons, revenue and control. The more people use their platform, the more apps they sell and the more money they make. The more people use their plaform, the more control they have over the market and the more difficult it will be for others to unseat them. Having millions of PC users use their platform provides a good level of security. Having 3x-10x that number through the addition of XBox users and MS Personal Video Recorder set top boxes is far better. They don't have to worry about much additional cost for software development since the apps will all be written to the conveniently standard
The parent post said "I think you are vastly overestimating the reach of and scope of MS's
I don't particularly like or trust MS (I'm a Java developer and love it) but the terrible elegant beauty of their strategy never ceases to amaze me. The other thing that never fails to amaze me is how people continually forget to consider the big picture. Micorsofts actions are always viewed as discreet, isolated things and people choose to ignore the fact that they all come from the same company and often might be related.
Think it through and consider how all the markets they play in can support each other rather than as simple offerings to compete against the players in those markets. An interesting picture will develop.
I'm not weighing in at all on the question of which is faster, because I honestly don't know. But I do feel obligated to point out that very limited benchmarks on a site that is clearly focused on promoting .Net development are barely worth reading much less citing as an example of something. The chances of these benchmarks representing anything like actual facts are so slim they aren't worth considering.
I wonder if this would noticably impact peoples browsing habits? If people had to pay for each page view or refresh, it might cause them to be more aware of their browsing habits and to reduce behavior which consumes bandwidth. I doubt it would make a big difference, but I have to wonder if it would make a detectable one...
This seems to be the story Fox summarized:
t s2 ftse2fmst2f.html
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/mon/11112tinyligh
Back around the beginning of the year I was team lead on a project and my people started coming to me with an odd story. They told me that one of the other guys on the team (who we had all thought of as odd but harmless) was accusing them seemingly at random of tickling him. According to them, he'd suddenly yell out "Stop tickling me!" even when nobody was anywhere near him. Since it sounded kind of crazy, I figured I'd talk to him and get his side of the story. I took him out to lunch and delicately let him know some people had mentioned to me he had been making comments about tickling, and asked him what was going on. He calmly explained to me that at various points during the course of a regular workday he would get 'a ticklish feeling'. It was his belief that either the US Government (or possibly one of his coworkers) had found a way to use his computer to tickle him for some mysterious reason. Furthermore, yelling "Stop tickling me!" made the feeling go away.
Now stop for a moment and picture how YOU would go into your bosses office and try to explain to him/her that one of your people was saying these things... It wasn't fun.
Anyway, this event, combined with the fact that this guy had the amazing ability to write Java as if it were Cobol (completely useless code), got him fired shortly thereafter.
You want to know why?
0 625mag-taliban.html
You want to understand?
Read this
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/2000
and it will be clear.
This article had an annoying lack of details. These stories have more information on why this is being explored now:
aviationnow
and
savannahmorningnews
Why don't we have the FSF patent the business model of patenting obvious stuff that others are already doing in order to attempt to bludgeon them into paying us for the right to do it. Then we could sue McAfee for violating the patent.
Not AS unreasonable as you might think.
http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/regex4j
Still, this isn't exactly Javas' core competency.
Reading through the outraged comments here, I've truly come to Grok the phrase "It's like herding cats"
;-P
>I don't know if there would actually be the draw to have 1000's of people watch a Quake/UT game though. I mean, tournaments are fun, but are there even that many fans who'd want to watch?
Well, I can't imagine wanting to watch an FPS, but I'd be really interested in watching real time strategy. Especially if I had control of my own perspective and could examine various points in the playspace. Turn based strategy would probably get fewer viewers, but I think it would really appeal to the same kind of person who would watch a chess match because you can deeply analyze the moves and strategy. I also think you might find a solid viewer base for sports games.
Since I am a Java developer, I was curious about whether it could be used to shore up Javas weakpoints as a game platform. I discovered 2 sourceforge projects to create bindings for java.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jsdl/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sdl4j/
One of them seems to have made a fair amount of progress.
I don't NEED it, I WANT it. I like Java, like programming in Java, and programming in C or C++ simply is unappealing to me.
If I had mod points I'd use them but I don't, so I'll just have to settle for saying that Stormie is right. His points go straight to the heart of the matter, and neatly summarize the way I (and probably many other Java programmers) feel. Java is a good language and can be used for more than it is currently if people would just stop typecasting it.
Let me say up front, I couldn't care less about write once, run anywhere, I just want to write cool apps in a language I am comfortable with. The whole idea that Java MUST be used in 'write once, run anywhere' mode has been really holding it (and me) back. I feel that developments like this really open up new possiblities for me to develop applications which interest me. C and C++ are good languages but not everyone is a C/C++ programmer (or wants to be), so it is time for OS and GUI designers to stop acting as if they were.
Now, if only Be Inc. would make it easy to program directly to BeOS using Java...
I agree with the concept and began doing this last fall, however I have only been able to find one student. I've approached teachers at a local university about sending me people who might want some free tutoring, but I was met complete silence. Does anyone have any suggestions for good ways to connect mentors and students?
/. land is in the NYC Metro area and wants some help with Java, let me know.
If anyone out there in
If there is anyone out there who is familiar with this area of research, there is something I've been wondering. Could this be used to build up a store of light (like a battery) or is it more for storing a short burst. Could you, for example, keep pouring light into this medium for a long time, to stop large amounts of it, then release it all at once?
That sounds similar to the inherent capabilities of the BeOS filesystem.
This reminds me of something I'd like to see tried. If you take some of these small computers (a good example being the CerfBoard-SA 1110 - Headless Solution) and attach them to speakers all over the house, you now have networked speakers. Then write a little program to accept sound files (MP3s for example) through a socket and play it through the audio out. The final step would be to write a virtual soundcard which pretends to be a real sound card and pipes the selected file/stream to whichever speakers are in the room you specify. Thoughts anyone?
This argument is fruitless, both sides can produce specs to "prove" they are faster. For example here is one showing Java as faster:
Benchmark here
I am sure there are a boatload of tests out there which "prove" just the opposite. The plain truth is that this really isn't an area where there is a definitive answer. Sometimes one is the better and faster tool, sometimes the other is. For those of you who seem to feel that the only way to get speed is to statically compile something (a la c/c++), you might want to have a look at an alternative approach. The following link goes to an article which outlines a different way of measuring the benefits and drawbacks of the static compile vs. VM speed question.
Dynamo
On a more serious note, consider what this could mean for military applications. Camoflage which adjusts itself to your environment. How easy would it be to disguise a vehicle or aircraft coated with it.
Well, you're already at 5 so I can't moderate you up. I guess I'll simply have to settle for expressing my admiration for a truly insightful post. Nice work.
This is just the kernel of an idea here so I am not sure how it would be implemented, but perhaps some sort of agent which would help the open source world find who is using various pieces of code in their software. This would allow for better policing of the GPL. It might constantly search any downloadable software packages it can find for files with a certain name or if the source code is offered perhaps the code itself to create a list of suspects for the author(s) to look into.
Another idea might be an agent that allows you to track all references to you, your website, e-mail address, personal info, etc. This would help people interested in preserving their privacy.
This sounds like a good idea except for one problem, it assumes everyone is a programmer. I am a programmer and an ex-sysadmin but even I would have trouble with what you are suggesting. I don't know anything about compiling C/C++ programs on Linux (I'd learn if I had the time but I don't). Like it or not, most people have neither the time, nor the desire to compile their software. They want the simplest install possible so they can get down to the business of using that software. Trying to troubleshoot a compile may seem like a trivial task to anyone who's done it a lot already, but the other 99% of us don't see it that way. Your idea might work better in combination with a binary distribution for the most used platforms.
I think you are off on a few points. First, prior to R5, the number of BeOS users was estimated at 100,000. The following is an excerpt from a Be press release last week:
"Within a week of the release of BeOS 5 Personal Edition, a record breaking 550,000 downloads were reported, and as of yesterday that total had increased to more than 870,000. These figures include all downloads from Be's web site, as well as from 18 reporting download partners. Be estimates that at least 39 other download sites have not yet reported."
Even if you figure that the remaining 39 FTP sites add only another 200,000 downloads and that none of the people who downloaded burned a CD or passed the file to a friend, this brings the BeOS userbase to about 11 times its pre-R5 release (i.e. 1.1 million).
Second, despite the marketing line that Be gave the world about being "the Media OS" (principly to avoid the wrath of Redmond) be has always been "a general purpose OS that does media really well", and not "a media OS that is not a good general purpose OS" as you seem to be implying. BeOS makes a truly great general desktop operating system (it still lacks on the server side but that is what we have Linux and BSD for).
QNX is not a general purpose OS and trying to hack it into one does not make a whole lot of sense (the same is true of Linux by the way). QNX & Linux make good embedded OSs. Linux makes a good server OS. Both are a mistake as a general purpose desktop OS, because it is not really what they are designed to do (THERE IS A REASON THEY ARE COMMAND LINE). Why re-invent the wheel when you have a GOOD desktop option already available in BeOS?
All of which brings me to something that I am truly curious about, what made the ex-Amiga people choose QNX over BeOS?