The near mythic status of SF has to go. The idea that you can't do business without being in Cali or at least having a "west coast office" is bull, and has harmed the industry.
That being said, I live in Fairfax Virginia and based on the employment section of the Post, it doesn't seem like people are exactly *flocking* to this part of the country. If they are, they aren't hiring. Its still pretty dismal around here, UNLESS you have a security clearance, in which case you have nothing but options... "Will code Perl to help fight the Taliban, please ignore that I'm a slacker misanthrope, that was cool in the dot-com days..."
I agree that in the context of *this story* we're talking Eastern culture, but the *same shit* happens here, too. Perhaps it works poorly here and therefore continues to go on, as different means and methods of using the info are tried.
At what point do the marketing types realize there is a growing segment of the population that 1)actively works to avoid having their "lifestyle information" harvested, and 2)rarely- if ever - does things like click on ads, respond to junk mail or spam, or otherwise do anything that this stuff would help?
#1 - BIG DEAL. Because I can play Hendrix in no way means I can be Hendrix. #2 - Whatever. Sadly the only 2 ways he have to really judge "good original music" are sales and critical acclaim (and often the two are not in agreement). If you're so scary good, point me to either your sales figures or your critical acclaim. Lacking one of those two, give me some pointers to other methods to prove how you're Joe Talent. #3 - yeah, gotta agree 100% on that. #4 - mmmmmaybe. There's a million good people, but who the fuck cares. You need lots of people to work on a programming project, not sing bloody "la la la". #5 - You obviously have never played in a band. Please read "get in the van" by Henry Rollins.
If you were in a band, you'd know what kind of BS you're spouting. I played in bands, played, etc. for more than a decade. I had friend who did the same.
>Well, I personally feel Apple's adoption of BSD is a 'poison pill', encouraged and supported by MS, against GNU/Linux.
There are 2 problems with this. First, OSX is NeXT. It was BSD Unix back before anyone cared. It was BSD before Gates began the jihad. It was BSD when BSD wasn't cool.
Second, implementing Carbon on OSX is a lot like programming for MacOS9. That's the whole point of the library. Sure, you can write in Carbon and have it only run on OSX - for example, the OSX Finder is a Carbon but OSX-Only app. MS is sticking with as much non-Unix tech as possible. This is also because of the time and effort to retrain the Mac Business Unit.
Back when I was in a struggling band, I saw how record labels would buy up bands to prevent others from being able to get them. It's easy:
1. Sign the band to a long term, exclusive contract.
2. Take away all their rights to publish, record, and tour, without the label's explicit approval.
3. Find a new band to screw over.
This is totally common. The industry refers to it as "building a stable of artists".
A lot of the people I know were "paper techies" who used to brag about how much they made. Well, who has the job now?
On the other hand, I also know plenty of good people who got let go "just because". They were adequte to stellar performers, who were in the wrong business unit at the wrong time.
If your skills are marketable, and you're lucky, you'll find a job. Bottom line. If you have so-so skills (see oddtodd.com for a good list of so-so skills) then you won't find a job. A professionally polished resume doesn't matter if everything "interesting" you did was for a bunch of fucked companies that didn't deliver anything.
I think that's the crux of the biscuit. All the badass experience doens't matter if everyone looks at it and says, "but this company didn't *do* anything, and it failed". OTOH, if you delivered (more or less on schedule and at budget) a (blah blah blah buzzword) then you have something. You'll find work. Software is still being developed, web sites are launched, the world is still turning.
We're just at the bottom of a cycle. At the end of the hype, everyone was saying "XML this" and "Web Services that". Well no one really knew what to do with all that. Once people start to figure out how to hook up the latest tech with the consumer/end user, the same way Netscape brought the web to the masses, you'll see it pick up. It may take 2 years, or 5. But it'll happen. The VC will go back to insane spending. All the MBAs and "Director of Multimedia Development" types will work again. Don't worry.
Just make sure my latte is right, OK? Working in the NOC takes good Joe. It won't be long before you're bossing me around again.:)
If CVS works for you, and you have no complaints or issues, then don't switch.
If you find yourself 1)wanting features, 2)overwhelmed by inadequacies, or 3)working too hard to accomplish default behavior in other systems (ex scripting what is handled automagically in others), then investigate changing.
You can't mention Perl anymore without someone saying, "You should be using Python instead" (the opposite is true, too, I guess). It seems to me that there is a much smaller Python community, for what is a rapidly growing userbase. There are few O'Reilly Python titles when compared to Perl (although that's not exactly suprising since Larry, you know, works there and stuff).
Is it merely that larger-scale Python stuff is under the average Perl user's radar, or is there just not a lot of Python "media"?
It is unlikely (IMHO) that you'll be able to get OSX to boot on these... probably Darwin and definately Linux, but OSX is pretty tied to the hardware. IIRC it used to check to make sure you didn't have bogus RAM (ie non-Apple approved) installed.
Re:How many people actually use Borland C++?
on
Borland C++ For Linux
·
· Score: 3, Informative
>How many people actually use Borland's C++ products currently?
I can't quote actual statistics, but: we have a ton of C++ Builder boxes around the office, and we also make extensive use of JBuilder. The place where I used to work, were pretty much all Borland fanatics, and had their own NNTP server, made up of borland fans. A lot of them were "Team B", the Borland Users Group kinda thing.
>Of those that do, is this just brand loyalty from the Windows 3.1 days?
Kinda. From reading the documentation and talking to them, they tend to say the same things. 1, it was a better compiler for a LONG time when compared to Windows (arguable, of course). 2, it was more command-line friendly, if you didn't want to use the full-on IDE; this mattered because a lot of them were Unix expatriates having to get work in a PC world, and they wanted a PC compiler that acted like cc/gcc. This too is arguable; I'm just reporting, here. 3, many reported better standards compliance, and more functionality in doing things other than Windows (but on x86). For example, one person I knew did embedded x86 development and liked the Borland tools. The general consensus was Microsoft's tools were *Windows* compilers, whereas Borland's were more multifunction. Lastly, they all loved the IDE, considering it more mature and stable than VC++. The majority of them are excited about moving to Linux with BC++ and I expect a small but noticeable increase in Linux acceptance once this comes out. The glare of running cash registers may not light up the skies, but I can think of at least a dozen people off the top of my head who will be willing to spend moderately large money to get their hands on a Borland toolchain for Linux.
Now instead of all that freaky AppleScript, the payload of the script is a simple
sudo rm -rf /
Applescript is my least favorite part of Macs. (shudder). it's nice to be able to integrate shell scripts as AppleScript now; just wrap the entire shell script in a single line of Applescript.
Boy, I sure was hoping after the flood of "linux on the desktop is dead" stories we could stop talking about it for a while. I'm sad to see Loki go; although without lots of companies throwing ports at them, it was kind of expected. I own a number of their games which I will have to now repurchase for MacOSX.
(the irony is I left Linux on the desktop for OSX, and I now have access to fewer native games than Linux)
>First, the filesize is ridiculous.
Yes, but personally, I see it as a trend; Moore's Law, HD technology, and better broadband will make this trivial.
>The interface needs a lot of work
Eh, its just an implementation detail, isn't it?
>They're non-editable for the most part once you make them.
Only because Adobe wants to charge a lot for Acrobat. Were PDF as common as.DOC, you'd see more of a slant towards editing them.
>They are in a closed format
Isn't the actual format open? For instance, xPDF isn't a hack, it uses the open specs, right?
>controlled by a litigious company unafraid to use the DMCA for their own questionable ends.
Yeah, no argument there.
>The plug-ins are notoriously buggy.
Another implementation detail. Fix the plugins. I am not aware of something specific to PDF that causes that.
Everyone knows about OSX and DPDF. When will Windows abandon the bitmapped display it has used since, well, forever? Is MS working on a system similar to DPDF? Or do they not even really regard the technology as worthwhile? It seems odd to me, since MS's cash cow is Word and Excel, that they are essentially using the same graphics engine they have always used, albeit much faster and with more features. (opponents of MS will say that this applies to all their technologies). Is it merely that they (MS) have not built their own, and are hesitant to license PDF from Adobe? Or are there strong technical reasons (besides, I guess, breaking the old software).
His logic seems to be related to the reason NeXTStep/OpenStep/MacOSX use ObjectiveC instead of the more common C++. If its best for you, use it; it'll either fail miserably or become the secret weapon that empowers you ahead of your competitors.
I think the difference is, that they're a private individual (corporation) going after another individual (corporation) and because the former (BSA) has more money than the latter (me), they can buy sufficient legal strength to potentially deprive me of my rights; the government could not use the tactics the BSA does without getting in big trouble.
The security holes in Unix are as old as I am; anyone bitten by them is IMHO too dumb to read a book and some web posts. You still find un-chroot'd BIND, for example, and bizzare Sendmail installations that are rootable. BUT for the most part, the fact that Unix is mature is a big boost. But we're talking Windows here; the security flaws affect my dad, Aunt Millie, and everyone else who thinks they need a computer but is barely technical enough to turn it on. Sendmail holes affect them in esoteric, hard-to-describe ways; maybe a missed email because the affected server was being reinstalled. They'll never really know. But if UPNP is on so they can use their remote to change tracks on the MP3 player, and that turns their box into an attack platform.... That's directly affecting their life.
In the "Great OSS Boom of '99" the press was all awash with Linux this, Linux that. MS stayed true to its course, kept on with the updates, and got XP out the door.
Now it seems things have changed: more and more, I am seeing articles that are negative of MS. "XP isn't stable", "too many updates", "XP isn't secure", "W2k was fine, why did they change it?" is what I see more and more of. Red Hat gets decent nods, and now even Apple of all people is selling a Unix operating system, albeit one that is packaged in a lamp.
Is MS at risk of losing the press?
Articles like this must drive them absolutely BONKERS. Forget the/. bias, we're nothing. An article a week like this, even as a back-page editorial, is enough to cost them how many customers?
How many of the system integrators like the guy in the article will just give up and stop dealing with XP, or worse yet, call Big Blue?
If MS loses the appeal of the popular press - promoting every new release as stable and secure - then they're screwed, even without the class action suits and liability claims. Any more FBI warnings will serve as months of fodder for the rags to hammer on them.
>Microsoft isn't going anywhere, time to get used to that.
And Rome will never fall, Martin Luther will get nowhere. and I hear great things about Enron.
Companies fail. Its a fact. Yes, I agree that MS has the $40billion or so lying around to keep any legal actions in circles for decades, and is smart enough to keep the public and the press off the issues, as well as fix the bugs when they can. But they're a company like any other, companies fail. Deal with it.
Slashdot Mirror
The near mythic status of SF has to go. The idea that you can't do business without being in Cali or at least having a "west coast office" is bull, and has harmed the industry.
That being said, I live in Fairfax Virginia and based on the employment section of the Post, it doesn't seem like people are exactly *flocking* to this part of the country. If they are, they aren't hiring. Its still pretty dismal around here, UNLESS you have a security clearance, in which case you have nothing but options... "Will code Perl to help fight the Taliban, please ignore that I'm a slacker misanthrope, that was cool in the dot-com days..."
I agree that in the context of *this story* we're talking Eastern culture, but the *same shit* happens here, too. Perhaps it works poorly here and therefore continues to go on, as different means and methods of using the info are tried.
At what point do the marketing types realize there is a growing segment of the population that 1)actively works to avoid having their "lifestyle information" harvested, and 2)rarely- if ever - does things like click on ads, respond to junk mail or spam, or otherwise do anything that this stuff would help?
#1 - BIG DEAL. Because I can play Hendrix in no way means I can be Hendrix.
#2 - Whatever. Sadly the only 2 ways he have to really judge "good original music" are sales and critical acclaim (and often the two are not in agreement). If you're so scary good, point me to either your sales figures or your critical acclaim. Lacking one of those two, give me some pointers to other methods to prove how you're Joe Talent.
#3 - yeah, gotta agree 100% on that.
#4 - mmmmmaybe. There's a million good people, but who the fuck cares. You need lots of people to work on a programming project, not sing bloody "la la la".
#5 - You obviously have never played in a band. Please read "get in the van" by Henry Rollins.
If you were in a band, you'd know what kind of BS you're spouting. I played in bands, played, etc. for more than a decade. I had friend who did the same.
What kind of marketing data are they going to get from "user 3453845 watches the hell out of 'tina3.wmv'"?
>Well, I personally feel Apple's adoption of BSD is a 'poison pill', encouraged and supported by MS, against GNU/Linux.
There are 2 problems with this. First, OSX is NeXT. It was BSD Unix back before anyone cared. It was BSD before Gates began the jihad. It was BSD when BSD wasn't cool.
Second, implementing Carbon on OSX is a lot like programming for MacOS9. That's the whole point of the library. Sure, you can write in Carbon and have it only run on OSX - for example, the OSX Finder is a Carbon but OSX-Only app. MS is sticking with as much non-Unix tech as possible. This is also because of the time and effort to retrain the Mac Business Unit.
Back when I was in a struggling band, I saw how record labels would buy up bands to prevent others from being able to get them. It's easy:
1. Sign the band to a long term, exclusive contract.
2. Take away all their rights to publish, record, and tour, without the label's explicit approval.
3. Find a new band to screw over.
This is totally common. The industry refers to it as "building a stable of artists".
I'm sure it happens in lots of other places, too.
A lot of the people I know were "paper techies" who used to brag about how much they made. Well, who has the job now?
:)
On the other hand, I also know plenty of good people who got let go "just because". They were adequte to stellar performers, who were in the wrong business unit at the wrong time.
If your skills are marketable, and you're lucky, you'll find a job. Bottom line. If you have so-so skills (see oddtodd.com for a good list of so-so skills) then you won't find a job. A professionally polished resume doesn't matter if everything "interesting" you did was for a bunch of fucked companies that didn't deliver anything.
I think that's the crux of the biscuit. All the badass experience doens't matter if everyone looks at it and says, "but this company didn't *do* anything, and it failed". OTOH, if you delivered (more or less on schedule and at budget) a (blah blah blah buzzword) then you have something. You'll find work. Software is still being developed, web sites are launched, the world is still turning.
We're just at the bottom of a cycle. At the end of the hype, everyone was saying "XML this" and "Web Services that". Well no one really knew what to do with all that. Once people start to figure out how to hook up the latest tech with the consumer/end user, the same way Netscape brought the web to the masses, you'll see it pick up. It may take 2 years, or 5. But it'll happen. The VC will go back to insane spending. All the MBAs and "Director of Multimedia Development" types will work again. Don't worry.
Just make sure my latte is right, OK? Working in the NOC takes good Joe. It won't be long before you're bossing me around again.
There is no need to be confused.
If CVS works for you, and you have no complaints or issues, then don't switch.
If you find yourself 1)wanting features, 2)overwhelmed by inadequacies, or 3)working too hard to accomplish default behavior in other systems (ex scripting what is handled automagically in others), then investigate changing.
Quote:
increased horsepower of the broad range of ARM-compliant processors
Wow, no one saw THAT coming!
You can't mention Perl anymore without someone saying, "You should be using Python instead" (the opposite is true, too, I guess). It seems to me that there is a much smaller Python community, for what is a rapidly growing userbase. There are few O'Reilly Python titles when compared to Perl (although that's not exactly suprising since Larry, you know, works there and stuff).
Is it merely that larger-scale Python stuff is under the average Perl user's radar, or is there just not a lot of Python "media"?
It is unlikely (IMHO) that you'll be able to get OSX to boot on these... probably Darwin and definately Linux, but OSX is pretty tied to the hardware. IIRC it used to check to make sure you didn't have bogus RAM (ie non-Apple approved) installed.
>How many people actually use Borland's C++ products currently?
I can't quote actual statistics, but: we have a ton of C++ Builder boxes around the office, and we also make extensive use of JBuilder. The place where I used to work, were pretty much all Borland fanatics, and had their own NNTP server, made up of borland fans. A lot of them were "Team B", the Borland Users Group kinda thing.
>Of those that do, is this just brand loyalty from the Windows 3.1 days?
Kinda. From reading the documentation and talking to them, they tend to say the same things. 1, it was a better compiler for a LONG time when compared to Windows (arguable, of course). 2, it was more command-line friendly, if you didn't want to use the full-on IDE; this mattered because a lot of them were Unix expatriates having to get work in a PC world, and they wanted a PC compiler that acted like cc/gcc. This too is arguable; I'm just reporting, here. 3, many reported better standards compliance, and more functionality in doing things other than Windows (but on x86). For example, one person I knew did embedded x86 development and liked the Borland tools. The general consensus was Microsoft's tools were *Windows* compilers, whereas Borland's were more multifunction. Lastly, they all loved the IDE, considering it more mature and stable than VC++. The majority of them are excited about moving to Linux with BC++ and I expect a small but noticeable increase in Linux acceptance once this comes out. The glare of running cash registers may not light up the skies, but I can think of at least a dozen people off the top of my head who will be willing to spend moderately large money to get their hands on a Borland toolchain for Linux.
That's funny, I don't. Are you sure your sudoers is correct?
Now instead of all that freaky AppleScript, the payload of the script is a simple
sudo rm -rf /
Applescript is my least favorite part of Macs. (shudder). it's nice to be able to integrate shell scripts as AppleScript now; just wrap the entire shell script in a single line of Applescript.
Boy, I sure was hoping after the flood of "linux on the desktop is dead" stories we could stop talking about it for a while. I'm sad to see Loki go; although without lots of companies throwing ports at them, it was kind of expected. I own a number of their games which I will have to now repurchase for MacOSX.
(the irony is I left Linux on the desktop for OSX, and I now have access to fewer native games than Linux)
Transgaming will have to carry on, I suppose.
How does Be fit into this picture? They bought Be just to spin it off? Is that a good idea?
There's a better article at Blue's about an upcoming Farscape game; it looks moderately OK, and will probably be out before the new eps.
>First, the filesize is ridiculous.
.DOC, you'd see more of a slant towards editing them.
Yes, but personally, I see it as a trend; Moore's Law, HD technology, and better broadband will make this trivial.
>The interface needs a lot of work
Eh, its just an implementation detail, isn't it?
>They're non-editable for the most part once you make them.
Only because Adobe wants to charge a lot for Acrobat. Were PDF as common as
>They are in a closed format
Isn't the actual format open? For instance, xPDF isn't a hack, it uses the open specs, right?
>controlled by a litigious company unafraid to use the DMCA for their own questionable ends.
Yeah, no argument there.
>The plug-ins are notoriously buggy.
Another implementation detail. Fix the plugins. I am not aware of something specific to PDF that causes that.
Everyone knows about OSX and DPDF. When will Windows abandon the bitmapped display it has used since, well, forever? Is MS working on a system similar to DPDF? Or do they not even really regard the technology as worthwhile? It seems odd to me, since MS's cash cow is Word and Excel, that they are essentially using the same graphics engine they have always used, albeit much faster and with more features. (opponents of MS will say that this applies to all their technologies). Is it merely that they (MS) have not built their own, and are hesitant to license PDF from Adobe? Or are there strong technical reasons (besides, I guess, breaking the old software).
His logic seems to be related to the reason NeXTStep/OpenStep/MacOSX use ObjectiveC instead of the more common C++. If its best for you, use it; it'll either fail miserably or become the secret weapon that empowers you ahead of your competitors.
I think the difference is, that they're a private individual (corporation) going after another individual (corporation) and because the former (BSA) has more money than the latter (me), they can buy sufficient legal strength to potentially deprive me of my rights; the government could not use the tactics the BSA does without getting in big trouble.
The security holes in Unix are as old as I am; anyone bitten by them is IMHO too dumb to read a book and some web posts. You still find un-chroot'd BIND, for example, and bizzare Sendmail installations that are rootable. BUT for the most part, the fact that Unix is mature is a big boost. But we're talking Windows here; the security flaws affect my dad, Aunt Millie, and everyone else who thinks they need a computer but is barely technical enough to turn it on. Sendmail holes affect them in esoteric, hard-to-describe ways; maybe a missed email because the affected server was being reinstalled. They'll never really know. But if UPNP is on so they can use their remote to change tracks on the MP3 player, and that turns their box into an attack platform.... That's directly affecting their life.
In the "Great OSS Boom of '99" the press was all awash with Linux this, Linux that. MS stayed true to its course, kept on with the updates, and got XP out the door.
/. bias, we're nothing. An article a week like this, even as a back-page editorial, is enough to cost them how many customers?
Now it seems things have changed: more and more, I am seeing articles that are negative of MS. "XP isn't stable", "too many updates", "XP isn't secure", "W2k was fine, why did they change it?" is what I see more and more of. Red Hat gets decent nods, and now even Apple of all people is selling a Unix operating system, albeit one that is packaged in a lamp.
Is MS at risk of losing the press?
Articles like this must drive them absolutely BONKERS. Forget the
How many of the system integrators like the guy in the article will just give up and stop dealing with XP, or worse yet, call Big Blue?
If MS loses the appeal of the popular press - promoting every new release as stable and secure - then they're screwed, even without the class action suits and liability claims. Any more FBI warnings will serve as months of fodder for the rags to hammer on them.
>Microsoft isn't going anywhere, time to get used to that.
And Rome will never fall, Martin Luther will get nowhere. and I hear great things about Enron.
Companies fail. Its a fact. Yes, I agree that MS has the $40billion or so lying around to keep any legal actions in circles for decades, and is smart enough to keep the public and the press off the issues, as well as fix the bugs when they can. But they're a company like any other, companies fail. Deal with it.