Microsoft PDC Journal 193
OzzyFudd writes: "I have recently returned from the Microsoft Professional Developers conference and posted a scathing journal of my week there at www.ozzyfudd.com I am an architech who works in largely heterogenous environments, hence, I go because I have to. I offer here some commentary, criticism, and humor from behind enemy lines." Gives some interesting insight into the future of C#, as well.
Bitter? (Score:1)
Re:MS C# (Score:1)
hrm... now that sucks, I like yours better.
if microsoft sucks so bad, why does he run win2k? (Score:2)
Re:MS C# (Score:2)
question (Score:3)
If this passes for news I'll send in a review of my recent installation of Windows 2000, embellished with lots of Windows bashing so as to increase its readability.
Memo to ozzyfudd: just end it you pathetic loser.
Why on earth was this story posted? (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but this has to be the worst story I have ever seen posted on Slashdot. It has all the attributes of the worst, most self-opinionated, badly-written rants on Usenet. If I want to read poorly written, even more poorly argued crap from the mouths of self-righteous commie-hating, gun-lovin' far right maniacs there are all sorts of sources without having links on Slashdot.
For a start the author's credibility is immediately damaged by his warez-d00d style red on dark tiled background website complete with '5 minutes in Microsoft paint' linking images. Strange given that he says 'Web and Internet Development' are his 'life.' The script kiddie image is further bolstered by his bad English, and I'd almost think he was a disaffected teenager pretending to be an adult, except that the picture he links to (check it out at http://www.scottbushey.com/art/webcam.html, Bushey fans) would surely have been more attractive. I think it's obvious that this extravagantly bearded self-proclaimed genius lacks an education from his rant on 'The Failure of the Over-educated.' An example quote illustrates his views on education:
'The over-educated suffer from having spent too much time in school, and not enough time out in Corporate America, where like no where before have the laws of nature, the beauty of predator and prey, and the best of humanity manifested themselves.'
Er... OK. 'Corporate America' and 'the best of humanity' in one sentence... And he hates Microsoft, right? Surely Microsoft are the archetypal predator? But you see the alternative is the horrible spectre of 'socialism and its evil henchmen, the over-educated.' Shudder. What we need are far more people like Bushey with their razor sharp, thoroughly coherent thinking, honed in the supremely honourable corporate jungle, producing reams of polemic cadenced in that unique English you can only acquire by not going to college. But then apart from that terrible education that I shouldn't have had, I expect I've had my mind poisoned by the CNN because they're the 'Communist News Network' (see 'Tree Hugging Hippy Crap', his incisive discussion of environmentalists and their selfish denial of furniture to needy children by protecting trees).
Of all Mr Bushey's diatribes, however, I think the 'Speak!' one sums up his attitude best:
'Are you unhappy? Pissed off? Angry? Troubled? Are you fed up with the world or just the guy down the street? Well guess what! You have an outlet, a way to vent, you have the equivelent of a thirty second spot on worldwide TV. Get yourself a website...
'Was your order screwed up at the drive thru today? Fine, let the whole world know what total assholes those idiots at the local choke and puke are. Was the woman on the phone today when you were calling the electric company to find out why they sent you someone else's bill a total bitch! Call her out in front of the whole friggen world on your website, then post a link to it on every discussion board from Yahoo to Usenet.'
Sounds like the charter for every sad Usenet poster who's ever bellowed out their futile rage in the mistaken belief that anyone cares. The question is why should the readers of Slashdot care?
Why was this story posted? (Score:5)
I'm sorry, but this has to be the worst story I have ever seen posted on Slashdot. It has all the attributes of the worst, most self-opinionated, badly-written rants on Usenet. If I want to read poorly written, even more poorly argued crap from the mouths of self-righteous commie-hating, gun-lovin' far right maniacs there are all sorts of sources without having links on Slashdot.
For a start the author's credibility is immediately damaged by his warez-d00d style red on dark tiled background website complete with '5 minutes in Microsoft paint' linking images. Strange given that he says 'Web and Internet Development' are his 'life.' The script kiddie image is further bolstered by his bad English, and I'd almost think he was a disaffected teenager pretending to be an adult, except that the picture he links to (check it out at http://www.scottbushey.com/art/webcam.html, Bushey fans) would surely have been more attractive. I think it's obvious that this extravagantly bearded self-proclaimed genius lacks an education from his rant on 'The Failure of the Over-educated.' An example quote illustrates his views on education:
'The over-educated suffer from having spent too much time in school, and not enough time out in Corporate America, where like no where before have the laws of nature, the beauty of predator and prey, and the best of humanity manifested themselves.'
Er... OK. 'Corporate America' and 'the best of humanity' in one sentence... And he hates Microsoft, right? Surely Microsoft are the archetypal predator? But you see the alternative is the horrible spectre of 'socialism and its evil henchmen, the over-educated.' Shudder. What we need are far more people like Bushey with their razor sharp, thoroughly coherent thinking, honed in the supremely honourable corporate jungle, producing reams of polemic cadenced in that unique English you can only acquire by not going to college. But then apart from that terrible education that I shouldn't have had, I expect I've had my mind poisoned by the CNN because they're the 'Communist News Network' (see 'Tree Hugging Hippy Crap', his incisive discussion of environmentalists and their selfish denial of furniture to needy children by protecting trees).
Of all Mr Bushey's diatribes, however, I think the 'Speak!' one sums up his attitude best:
'Are you unhappy? Pissed off? Angry? Troubled? Are you fed up with the world or just the guy down the street? Well guess what! You have an outlet, a way to vent, you have the equivelent of a thirty second spot on worldwide TV. Get yourself a website...
'Was your order screwed up at the drive thru today? Fine, let the whole world know what total assholes those idiots at the local choke and puke are. Was the woman on the phone today when you were calling the electric company to find out why they sent you someone else's bill a total bitch! Call her out in front of the whole friggen world on your website, then post a link to it on every discussion board from Yahoo to Usenet.'
Sounds like the charter for every sad Usenet poster who's ever bellowed out their futile rage in the mistaken belief that anyone cares. The question is why should the readers of Slashdot care?
Re:Why on earth was this story posted? (Score:1)
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Irina Romanov
highlight it (Score:2)
As a previous poster noted, this is something us Netscape users have to do on occasion just to read the page.
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Or hit Alt-A (Linux) or Ctrl-A (Windows) (Score:2)
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Yielding to curiosity... (Score:2)
Wow, how did this ever get +5? (Score:4)
Only if you are their customer. If you are not their customer then they are your enemy. This is really quite plain, what is so hard to understand about that?
"THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good"
Um- no. It can result in vast amounts of useless wheelspinning and wasting of money. See Apple as of 1996-1997: at the time Apple was working on everything from QTVR to OpenDoc and every engineer seemed to have his own 'cool project' all funded by the endless supplies of Apple money, and very little of it got anywhere. Jobs 'steved' most of it, and now Apple tends to deliver on its ideas rather than not.
It looks very much like MS is in a place similar to where Apple was back in '97... full of themselves, spending vast amounts on ill-defined projects, not taking care of the important things (i.e. the bugs developers were clamoring to be fixed), and very possibly bleeding money in Niagara-like amounts. How is this possible? It's possible because MS _spends_ money in Niagara-like amounts, and in order for that to be useful behavior it needs to produce results.
It appears that the results currently amount to developer alienation so intense (and this is from CONVENTIONGOERS, not snotty linux purists shunning the thing) that there is no excitement and little attention paid to the new toys- contrast that to the days of W95, for instance.
This is partly due to a sense of betrayal ('stop playing with new e+e and fix this damn bug!') and apparently it's also due to the fact that the new technologies are entirely reactive- they are all about filling a laundry list of features and there's little attempt to pretend otherwise. It's like C#'s real purpose is to kill Java, and any usefulness as a programming language is way down on the list- comparatively unimportant. All this is really raising the Art Of Monopolistic Positioning to new heights- it's like an ever-deeper understanding of the viral nature of MS's position in technology- the job really ISN'T to solve techie problems, or even to enable computer solutions. The job is entirely, utterly, to stop other vendors from being able to do that. Actually delivering working and useful technology is decidedly secondary.
Leaving aside the reality that this approach is getting thwacked in the courts, there's another problem: this is an entirely reactive approach. It can be effective at hurting a competing vendor in a free market, but you start hitting diminishing returns as the other vendors die off. The endgame (which we are in) leads toward major vendor-lock, but under conditions of general crappiness and a constant battle to deny obvious customer dissatisfaction (i.e. the crowd of developers yelling at the MS rep about the bug that hadn't been fixed in 3 versions). The same tools that work to hurt other vendors (outright denial of any problems, establishing that your product's benefits are what you _feel_ they should be rather than what they actually are in practice) end up working to cause severe customer rage, which is a real set-up: under these conditions any schmuck can come along and if their promise includes "Oh, and I am not Microsoft" they get an automatic boost. (see Apple in recent years- and Linux)
It may seem like a wild notion that Microsoft would go the way of Kaypro and Visicalc- but there is almost no other way they can go. I am not aware of any Steve Jobs-like figure who can come into Microsoft and start firing people and killing off stupid projects that are only reactive and vapor-oriented. They are _stuck_ with that approach- and well past the point where it's working for them. The Microsoft Way will not become clear sailing- it will continue to be bogged down in efforts to put roadblocks in competing vendors' paths, and the developer and the consumer will continue to be a very low priority compared to the power politics that make up so much of Microsoft's field of vision.
Eventually this will cost more than it earns. At a blind guess I would say that it ALREADY is costing them more than they earn- that MS is in the red if you look at the REAL figures and not entertaining games with taking next year's payroll as a tax deduction for last year twice over etc etc and so on. I say they are losing money- not because they don't still make loads of money, but because they are SPENDING so damn much and are not, cannot show any signs of moderation about this. That's a deadly trap- they daren't show any sign that they have finite pockets like any business or small country, and so they are forced to go way into the red and cover it up at any cost for largely _ego_ reasons and to protect their stock price, which is so intimately linked with their financial resources. It's a recipe for total destruction, not a slide into irrelevance but a high-speed wreck leaving no survivors.
One could wish that MS was able to behave like a normal company for a change and avoid this fate...
MS Proxy Server ... (Score:1)
OMG, thats fscking lame! How about "Internet Deacceleration and Insecurity Server"? St00pid Micro$oft
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:2)
If you claim it is actual Budweiser it is definatly a no-no.
OTOH, testimony involving a blind taste test might mitigate the damages awarded.
Re:Both wrong - pointer arithmetic in Delphi (Score:2)
As I said, the equivalent C code "p++;" would be shorter, but do you really want to encourage this kind of code?
for(p=Array1, q=Array1+100;p<q;p++) { DoStuff(*j); }Will run faster than:
for(i=0;i<100;i++) { DoStuff(Array1[i]); }It's a question of priorities and need. The second form may be acceptable in a client, but the first is probably wanted in a server or compute intensive standalone. Inside an OS, the first is very definatly preferred.
It IS possable for the second form and the first form to optimize to the same thing, but many compilers won't do that.
Re:Both wrong - pointer arithmetic in Delphi (Score:2)
Did you actually try to profile such things? I did. The results were amazing. Code without pointer arithmetics executes as fast or faster. Go figure. Modern optimizers do wonders to your code.
I'll grant as fast on a modern compiler/processor, but have never seen faster. I have profiled such things many times. Optimizers ARE a wonder these days.
Re:Anyone Have an Objective Review of .net? (Score:5)
However, there are more pitfalls than potental good things. It allows easily for pay-per-use pricing since every use can be logged centrally as well. Privacy and security would be a high risk factor since basic network transactions are at the heart of this. And of course, these apps become dependant on decent bandwidth connections to work; no problem in corporate world, but not at 40,000 ft. Finally, MS has suggested that they'll have the .NET specifications all open for third-party developers to write for it, but most will appear to work only under MS OS's (which is why they need the proprietary C# and SOAP).
Some of these are MS-isms. However, more importanty, privacy, security, and bandwidth are going to be problems in any distributed app network whether created by MS or Linus. MO
Re:Can anyone read this? (Score:1)
Someone was mentioning Ariane 5... basically, a lot of the problem there was that they tried to recycle a lot of software elements wholesale from the Ariane 4.
Could rewriting in Eiffel from scratch have prevented the crash? Yes. Could rewriting from scratch in forth have worked too? Yes. BFD.
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:2)
Pretty cool, hey! Especially the maintaing of session state across different machines.
I've been using PHP3 and PHPlib for over 2 years now. PHPlib allows me to store sessions data *anywhere* I please just so long as I tell it where to look for the data. There's nothing stopping a developer doing the same thing with any language.
URL munging? been there for ages..
Besides,I wonder why someone has to mention that data will be safe across server-reboots.. surely servers are only rebooted during a known maintenance period?
Do a search on http://www.php.net for more info.
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:1)
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:1)
I'm not going to bother going into great detail as to why Java managed by Sun is doomed for failure. But if you read Roger Sessions explanation and take the time to grok it, perhaps you'll understand...
http://www.objectwatch.com/Issue_7.htm
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:1)
You mean like Java itself?
I'd say you better start brushing up on you C skills.
Use GPL'ed software! (Score:1)
Re:The Java Dump (Score:1)
Sun has always hated the upstart Microsoft because they were too stupid to realize themselves the importance of PC's in the computing world.
Oracle... well considering Larry Ellison is hiring private investigators to route through people's trash, the joke certain is on them.
Fixed in Windows 2000 and Windows 98... (Score:1)
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:1)
Java has evolved itself to writing components for the middle-tier, which is an interesting use but nowhere near the hype that Sun first tried to sell.
Re:C# name change for UK (Score:1)
In Spanish-speaking countries (like Mexico - GM's neighbor immediately to the south..) it easily translates into "no go"
t_t_b
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I think not; therefore I ain't®
I didn't even read... (Score:3)
But, I did read some of J. Scott Bushey's [ozzyfudd.com] other stuff (diatribes, he calls 'em - I call 'em tantrums..) and is this guy ever full of himself!
From: "Greed isn't Good My Ass!"
"Am I Evil? If you have ever asked one of your direct reports "What do you want to be when you grow up?" or tried to trade corporate culture for salary with an applicant, your answer is yes. I am coming for you and your organization, I am going to drive you out of business, gobble you up, split you into pieces, and if I can, buy your bank then foreclose on your house."
Christ! I'll bet that's Bill Gates on line 2 right now, wanting to cut a deal before you eat him alive!
"I am your future. I am greedy, self-centered, avaristic, and what's worse, I think the most altruistic thing in the world is to do something so well, for so much value, that people want to pay me for it."
Oh. You intend to work for a living. Good plan, and a novel concept! Welcome to the club.
"The juggernaut that is the J. Scott Bushey experience is heading to a neighborhood near you. I've finally got to feel what its like to own a car, a bed, a new pair of shoes. No more nights curled up on the concrete floor with sore arches for me baby, no way. Now its payback time, and you dare to despise greed, the lifeblood of capitalism, when I've finally gotten a taste...?"
Ah! The untrammeled enthusiasm of youth! They're so cute at this age!
But wait:
"Currently I am employed as a consultant with Information Control Corporation. assigned to a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier in the telecommunications industry."
So he's a consultant/worker-bee.
I bet the VC's are hounding him to get a piece of his action!
t_t_b
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I think not; therefore I ain't®
a little bit of objectivity please... (Score:2)
I also attended the PDC and I would like to make a couple of points.
1) There is nothing prohibiting a JAVA implementation on top of the MS Common Language Runtime. Since C# is so similar to java it fits nicely in the sphere of the CLR type system (I am not a java expert). Do you think the technical architects at MS don't want to support a Java implementation? Of course they do. It is the business side of MS (as well as the ongoing suit) that is limiting java support. At the runtime type talk the presenter mentioned that there "was not an announced implementation of java."
2) Cross langauge implementation inheritance. This means that I can right a base class in Python, extend it in C++, and then extend it again in C# (or any other of the 15 supported langauges). Of course, I have not seen this work nor has anyone examined the performance limitations. As far as I am concerned, this is a real innovation from MS (has anyone ever implementated anything like this before?). In many ways, it seems to bypass the issue of languages... use what you want because you can always interop with another language.
3) Prevalence of web services. It seems incredibly easy to expose objects on the web via SOAP and have them interoperate. Of course, we are still waiting to discover the limitations
4) Tools. Remember boys and girls, one of the ways Microsoft succeeds is making good tools for developers. Visual studio 7 seems really cool and looks like it will speed development of web apps. As long as developers like the tools they will stay with MS.
5). If you are not into web apps, XML, or B2B (biztalk) the conference probably was not that useful (except for the language stuff). If are working in the kernel, forget it
6) All of the "managed" languages (i.e. C#, VB, etc) always run in native code. They may be stored in MSIL and JIT compiled before execution, but there is no interpretation.
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:1)
Yup, a paperclip and someone by the name of Bob. These guys have hired most of the top line researchers (starting from Jim Blinn and downwards) in 3D graphics and have had them for over 3 years now and they still can't produce something new. Last thing I remember was something called taranatulla (sp?) I think and wasn't that a huge sucess!
These guys are obviously enjoying themselves, but I have yet to see a single Siggraph paper from someone with MS Research in their title. Don't know WTF they are up to, but obviously the life must be pretty good for the researchers.
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:1)
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:1)
Re:Can anyone read this? (Score:1)
Red on black, how freaking stylish. How freaking impossible to read. If you want people to read your thoughts, don't make them impossible to see.
Wording (Score:1)
Show that they is nothing new about Microsoft (Score:1)
It is a cool security disaster as well (Score:2)
Should every program on your computer be talking with the outside world? Do you trust all of those programmers to consistently get security right? Heck, do you trust Microsoft to get security right?
How do you firewall bad applications? Think you know? Now let me throw a twist in. What happens when Microsoft implements a licensing and registration check by tunnelling over https? Oops, your computer will not boot without allowing that traffic, and you now have no idea what other information is being sent home.
No, SOAP and
*sigh*
Ben
Re:And on a more interesting note... (Score:1)
Re:I'm afraid of American moderators (Score:1)
I'm about to head out to watch the lunar eclipse. (lunar eclipse? Where the earth blocks the moon?)
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:4)
- I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there. Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when
.NET is fully released.
I have to disagree with this. Java is one of the best implemented paradigms in the industry at the moment, and javadoc is a big part of that. Java doc is everywhere, you can find whatever you need to, it's clearer to read than most documentation (eg at the bad end: man pages hehehe), it's complete and it's easy to generate. Microsoft, also, do some documentation well. For instance, I learnt Visual Basic largely from msdn. But Microsoft documentation is always tied into some sort of rubbish interface (like msdn either on web or purchased cds) which is just ridiculous, and their technical documentation is bloaty. Further, it's often difficult to find simple answers to simple questions because of the absurd structure of their index tree. And if you do want more detailed, example based java documentation (beyond the examples standard with javadoc), there are thousands of good books and online references. Your criticisms of javadoc are right out.If you're currently developing in java, you'd have to be crazy to downgrade to an unproven proprietary platform with a shakey future.
Embrace and exend can be done well. It's what GNU is all about. But Microsoft's motives and practice are sure to make C# a one way tunnel to proprietaryville.
Bertrand Meyer (Score:4)
On the other hand, as much as the article's author doesn't know who Meyer is, he is right on the spot. From Microsoft point of view he is just
"a poor guy, Eiffel author" who is there to prove MSs VM is multi-language and, of course, "he won't be there next year".
Meyer is being used by MS and getting some publicity for Eiffel in the process. Maybe he can find one or two new developers in PDC. But it is somewhat sad, nevetheless.
Re:Why was this story posted? (Score:2)
Also, I think that articles that are submitted by the link's author should not be allowed at all...
Slightly OT: Smokers are selfish pricks (Score:4)
After that I didn't think it was worth another second of my time to read whatever pointless and probably inaccurate rant this idiot had to say. Does anyone have a review of the event from an intelligent source?
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:2)
(I've solved that problem by switching to Linux for most of my desktops, but my point's still valid).
D
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Re:Anyone Have an Objective Review of .net? (Score:2)
Do we really need yet another layer of MSOverhead(tm)?
D
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Re:One Point I Have To Agree On... (Score:2)
It helps to sign up for their frequent renter plan and get a card. You'll get much better treatment that way.
D
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Re:a little bit of objectivity please... (Score:2)
If these languages are compiled, where does the "common language runtime" fit in? I thought runtime was for interpreted languages. Is it just another standard library type of thing?
D
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Re:"strong and stable companies like Corel" ??? (Score:2)
I guess my rather ironic sense of humour didn't quite pass through correctly. That was exactly what I meant
D
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Cool components of .net (Score:3)
Let's say we have a
Tell Microsoft Outlook[tm] that you want to make an air reservation. It will bring up Microsoft Internet Explorer[tm] which will then send you to Microsoft Expedia[tm]. Make your reservation using Microsoft Expedia[tm], and the information will be automatically sent back to Microsoft Outlook[tm] using Microsoft XML[tm]. So if I make an air reservation to visit South Florida in October, the information will be automatically saved in my Outlook[tm] calendar. This is a bona fide convenience, albiet a small one. Now everyone in my office knows where I'm going, which they probably should. And I am reminded that I'm going, just in case I forget.
Although in theory this approach is based on Microsoft Open Technology[tm], in practice what happens is that people take the path of least resistance, continuing to use their Microsoft Windows[tm] computer, Microsoft Outlook[tm] and Outlook[tm] sends them automatically to Microsoft Expedia[tm]. So the end result is that the travel commission ends in Microsoft[tm]'s pocket.
In principle, then, this offers the promise of free software for all, since Microsoft[tm] makes its money by booking all my travel instead of selling me software. And I don't notice any change, since I've been paying the commissions to travel agents or rival services such as Travelocity. From the perspective of Microsoft[tm], they have just Helped The Consumer[tm].
So you could say this is neat, gee-wiz technology, or you could say it's a way to ensure that you never do business with a company other than Microsoft[tm]. Or you could say both, if it pleased you.
"But I don't LIKE Microsoft[tm] managing my life like this," you might respond. And there will probably be competition, by strong and stable companies such as Corel. They will copy the Microsoft
So if you want to know why this is a "bet the company" initiative, and why Microsoft[tm] considers this so important, well, now you know.
D
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Re:You are correct (sort of) (Score:1)
Re:Why oh why... (Score:1)
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:1)
Re:Anyone Have an Objective Review of .net? (Score:2)
This sounds like NFS, RPC, X, Java, etc.
I expect it will be most like Java, except not cross-platform and probably not sandboxed.
A lot of stuff I hear about .NET is the same sort of stuff I heard about when Java first appeared. The idea of getting the latest version of your application off the web every time you run it, saving your data to the server, maybe paying a per-use charge to the application service provider ("ASP"), etc. All of these things were possible with Java applets, but it hasn't really taken off, probably because of bandwidth contraints.
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:1)
For NT users, the bug was only fixed a few months ago when 2000 shipped, and in most cases the IS department hasn't started the upgrade yet. And this is the OS that supposedly is really good at multitasking, and is for power users.
The irony is that Windows 3.1/ NT3.x could handle background alerts without stealing focus. And they haven't even totally fixed it in Windows 2000 -- I've had blinking, minimized IE windows that were un-maximizable because there was invisible dialog box there in the minimized window. You can select the icon on the task bar and press Enter to dismiss the dialog, but for all know it's a ActiveX control asking me if I really want to delete my harddrive.
(Another annoying Windows bug which wasn't fixed for 5 years - Create a shortcut to a folder, say Q:\MYHOMEDIR, and then try to use the Save As standard dialog to navigate into the folder via the shortcut. Your file will end up being called Myhomedir.doc!)
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Re:Delphi has pointers (Score:2)
Yes, Delphi has pointers. This will be lost in a haze of moderation but I don't care. All object references in Delphi are pointers. They are automagically dereferenced, which is probably where the confusion comes in.
How could Delphi make Windows API calls without pointers? Delphi is a fully natively compiled OO language. The only thing missing is multiple inheritance, which is (quite arguably) not necessary.
So if I start a religious war is that good or bad for my karma? I can't ever seem to remember.
fluff and fluff (Score:2)
As for Eiffel, I think the importance you attribute to it is greatly exaggerated. Meyer didn't invent the concept of "design by contract", and it was widely used before Eiffel ever saw the light of day (and is widely used in Java and C++ today). Eiffel is a simple, efficient, if somewhat limited and flawed, OOL, but it isn't a major milestone of language design or computer science. To me, the co-appearance of Meyer and Gates, however, reflects poorly on Eiffel: it looks like Eiffel is now driven by fashion than by principle.
MS: poor documentation, poor APIs (Score:2)
I think we see different programming styles here. Microsoft's platforms seem great for hacking, experimenting, and poking around, but as far as I'm concerned, they aren't great for planning and implementing software in a well-defined, logical manner.
As for their "releasing source code", you make it sound like they are an open source company. Nonsense. The examples they publish are solely for getting people to be able to do anything at all with their messy APIs. The source code they publish is completely useless outside their environment, and (usually) the license prohibits any other use anyway.
Re:Show that they is nothing new about Microsoft (Score:1)
Actually, the only thing this journal shows is that Slashdot will print absolutely anything they can just to stir up the rabid anti-Microsoft crowd around here, no matter how little of a clue the author has. Just curious, but why would you trust what that twit wrote anymore than you would trust what Burger King has to say about McDonalds. Please don't tell me that you're not that much of a gullible simp, or that big of a sheep desperate to believe anything a Slashdotter writes about Microsoft.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
"strong and stable companies like Corel" ??? (Score:1)
This is a company that has cash problems out the ying-yang and whose stock has plummetted to about 3¾. Last time I was at ChumpUSA, they were giving away (yes, for free) their Deluxe version of their Linux distribution. Good luck making money that way. Stick a fork in 'em.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:1)
Re:C# name change for UK (Score:1)
Re:Can anyone read this? (Score:1)
"They held up a poor guy, Eiffel author, as proof of their party language support."
I really like Eiffel (except for the increased
amount of typing you have to do and the theoretical thread support; not a fan of those), but his comments on free software were a bit sad. And now we see he's a supporter of Microsoft (nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it certainly makes his earlier views seem less impartial than they otherwise might have been.)
Can anyone read this? (Score:2)
A sauna? (Score:1)
Um, I live in Orlando. It's not as bad as that. On the other hand, we do have something called "air conditioning" with which this fellow was apparently unfamiliar. :)
Randall.
Re:A sauna? (Score:1)
Randall.
Re:More MS buzzwords for the same old... (Score:1)
So do I. I just don't have any spots where it makes sense.
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Nice post. (Score:1)
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Re:On the brighter side... (Score:2)
A couple of years ago I saw a map based on this idea. It was on paper; anyone have a URL for it?
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On the brighter side... (Score:3)
Heavy on the "dystopian" part.
Ballmer apparently had his
MS has a pretty bad track record with high-profile demos. Are they that clueless? Is it that they don't care, knowing that hype will carry the field where technology fails? Is it that they really believe that their stuff works reliably outside the lab? Is it that their employees are so afraid of management that they won't say that a technology isn't ready for prime time?
You'd think these semi-annual doses of reality would make some heads roll down in QA. (Assuming they even have a QA department.)
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Re:Anyone Have an Objective Review of .net? (Score:5)
Sure. If you want your ability to conduct day to day operations to be at the mercy of backhoe operators, if you want your data to be stored on someone else's machine where it may or may not be snooped on without your knowing, if you want to be billed monthly for use of a critical resource, and if you want to be a victim of the ultimate vendor lock-in, then
(Notice that none of this has anything to do with whether you like MS or not. If you want the perspective on MS's role in it, it should suffice to point out that this is the scam^H^H^H^Hscheme that Sun has been pushing loudly for the past several years, and MS has been alternately laughing at it or getting on the bandwagon, depending day-to-day on which stance they deem most likely to keep their customers from going over to Sun. However, it looks like they have well and truly innovated it over the last few weeks, so now they won't be laughing at it anymore. At least not until they lose interest in it and start pushing something else, like Net# or whatever they decide to call The Next Big Thing [TM].)
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Re:Microsoft is the Best (Score:1)
You're wrong. Details supplied upon request.
Re:And on a more interesting note... (Score:1)
Re:And on a more interesting note... (Score:1)
Incidentally, that is one of the better songs on Green Day's Insomniac album.
You are correct (sort of) (Score:2)
Yes.
Delphi does have pointer arithmitic as well (I have no idea why I said it didn't), but you never use it.
As for garbage collection: I'm not too sure abotu that. Delphi does if you use Interfaces/COM, but it doesn't otherwise. Java and Python do, but I'm not at all sure about SmallTalk.
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:2)
(I was actually looking for that page when I wrote my original response, but I couldn't find it.)
Sounds good to me (Score:5)
I've just bothered to start reading stuff about .Net - I thought it was just MS marketing speak. There's actually some pretty cool stuff in there once you get past all the crap. (I've written something at http://www.kuro5hin.org [kuro5hin.org], but it was in the moderation queue when I posted this)
Anyway, reading this guys writing makes me even more impressed with .Net (although did anyone else get the impression he loves C++ even more than most Linux hackers?). For instance:
Pretty cool, hey! Especially the maintaing of session state across different machines.
This guy just doesn't listen. Even MS (now!) admits that VB is only object based. However VB7 (which is the .Net version) is a proper OO language. It has proper inheritance and encapsulation - and it even does exception handling.
I don't. There is no need for pointers in most coding, and generally the parts where pointers are used are the most bug prone. Java, Delphi, Python, Smalltalk - all proper OO languages and none have pointers. (Not sure about operator overloading)
The biggest worry is, of course, this:
The funniest thing his his whole speil:
Now this poor guy was (I believe) none other than Bertrand Meyer who (while he doesn't know much about open source software) does know his stuff when it comes to high quality software engineering. For the author of this piece not to know who he was, and to claim His language looks similar to C#... is pretty dumb. Since this guy seems to think he is some kind of technology guru, I would have expected he would have heard of Eiffel. It's not particually similar to C#, btw - have a look at design by contract for a start.
Re:Can anyone read this? (Score:1)
Re:On the brighter side... (Score:2)
Re:Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:2)
and another one here [vistasource.com]
There are also several IDEs written in java and at least one quicken like program.
Check them out.
MS native code required non-native changes (Score:3)
The Kid Is Alright. Blind, maybe... (Score:2)
Oh come on, the guy doesn't profess to be a genius or even to be taken seriously:
- Here are raw feelings and thoughts typed in to the beat of loud, raccous music. They are not meant to be taken seriously. If you are in doubt as to what is humor, truth, crap, or absurdity there is always feedback.
Delusions of web design cluefulness aside, the kid is alright.Besides, didn't his dad play drums for Iron Butterfly?
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
We WERE due for a magnetic storm. (Score:2)
I noticed that, even now (6:20 AM EST) the main page isn't updating with the number of comments.
Why oh why... (Score:2)
Re:Can anyone read this? (Score:3)
At my previous job, we had a similar situation: we were implementing a unique distributed timestamp generator which would generate timestamps which would fit in a very low number of bits (80, or sth even lower than that). Given that it was distributed, we had to include IP address and PID in the stamp. Suddenly we were noticing that we had so few bits left that we had to tradeoff lifetime of the project and number of timestamps that we could generate in a given lapse of time It was important to not make this too small, because that would limit the number of new objects that we could create in said lapse of time.
Eventually, we settled for a lifetime of 30 years. Which seemed quite low to me, so I inquired whether we had any logbook in house where we could mark the need for scheduled maintainance at a given date in the future (say 25 years from now, which would leave them 5 years to clean that thing away). There was no such procedure... We could still put the warning in our usual documentation, but who would look at that in 25 years? So now, we're in a situation where some poor Anderson Consultant will be scratching his head 30 years from now at a mysterious bug which had been identified from the start, but knowledge about which will have been lost because there was no formal way to write it down in a way that people will be alerted in time... The situation will be actually worse than for Y2K: for Y2K we at least knew we had to be careful, whereas this thing will strike out of the blue.
Comic Book Shop guy on The Simpson's (Score:2)
Just the whole "holier than thou" tone of the
article was unnecessary, though it made it a lot more interesting to read - much like Dvorak's "opinions", no?? Besides, why are you poisoning your mind with Ziff Davis publications?
rLowe
The Java Dump (Score:4)
We can speculate all we want about why MS dropped Java, but the bottom line is that they realised they were fighting a battle they just couldn't win. Either way they look like the bad guys, so they just chose the solution that took less time - dump Java, "replace" it with another language and pretend nothing happened, treating the J-word like it's the worst cuss we've ever been acquainted with.
You know what's funny? The university I go to just changed the language it uses for introductory CS classes from Pascal to Java (thank goodness). The network is comprised of mostly NT4 boxes (sad but true). What is administration going to do when the students are crying bloody murder because (they don't know any better and) they aren't using Windows 2000?? Use C#? Yeah right.
What's the bottom line? MS is just making more enemies. IBM already loaths MS (see: OS/2). Sun's relationship is questionable, if not deteriorated. MS and Gates make fun of Oracle at every turn. What is MS trying to do?? Gain playground respect by bullying everyone? They certainly won't have mine - and it certainly won't stop me from bitching about them either.
rLowe
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:2)
You can do this right now without too much trouble, it just takes a performance hit while the page-server needs to talk to the database.
-cwk.
Re:Aw what a blind hate again (Score:3)
They are not your enemy. THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good,
Such blind faith! I would say that that is 2 billion wasted dollars, judging by the quality of the output!
plus in some environments their products are better than other products.
Whilst I'd concede this is possible I can't envisage an environment where poor quality might be an advantage, you'll just have to enlighten me as to which environments you mean exactly?
It's also sad that the majority here who tends to post articles OR replies won't bother to look into what .NET is all about and when there is something useful to adopt and include in Open Source projects.
Well I'm not one of them .NET is simply marketing speak for DCOM version II, which is COM v3, which is OLE version what ever.
The majority focusses on DETAILS like ...
Two majorities! it's that type of sloppy thinking that gets the Microsofties into trouble in the first place.
Could it be Java's platform independence?
or fud that MS isn't capable of cooking up such an environment.
Microsoft seem capable of cooking up all sort of things, most of them unpalatable.
I don't care if this gets moderated down because some anti-microsoft moderator hates what I write ...
It will probably get moderated down because it's full of holes, just like M$ software.
Microsoft releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all.: The duwamish bookstore, a complete e-commerce application ready to roll (a complete online store), with code, docs etc. numerous examples, tutorials and docs.
In my experience the sample software supplied with M$ development tools is very poor, poorly designed [if at all] its buggy, and normally contains more lines of copyright than comment. Indeed if one of my programmers produced code as poor, he would not make it past his next assessment.
I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there.
Why because Bills marketing tells you or you've done a proper critical evaluation of each option and chosen the best.
Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when .NET is fully released.
Tradition of well done documentation ? Amateurs might find step by step tutorials useful, but properly skilled Software Engineers need the details to be correct and that's what JavaDoc provides. Accurate and timely documentation not some random musings of Microsoft Marketing spiel.
You should try it sometimes.
I already did, and I've decided I prefer Java as my after bloat beverage.
C# name change for UK (Score:3)
Are M$ planning to rename C# for the UK? or are they on some kind of ethical marketing push? Ah naw!
Because here # hash means the same as "bodge", basically it means "screwed up".
You are wrong... (Score:4)
I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there. Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when
First of all it is obvious that you have never truly investigated Sun's Java documentation. All the source code you claim MSFT releases are simply tutorials and examples on how to use their proprietary languages. Sun does the exact same thing for Java, at the online Java tutorial site [sun.com] Sun releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all . Here's a list of examples as useful as the Duwamish example I found in less than five minutes of browsing the online Java tutorial.
Bingo [sun.com] - Client/Server version of Bingo that shows how to use JFC ("Swing") User Interface classes,Multi-threading and thread synchronization, Inter-application communication APIs , Digital signatures , a Customized EventQueue , Managing program settings.
Duke's Bookstore [sun.com] -An online bookstore that utilizes the power of Java servlets and shows various aspects of session management, handling HTTP GET requests, and more .
Dozens of Applets [sun.com]- that are used to show how use various Swing layouts, GUI threading, event handling and playing sounds. There are over a 100 classes whose source code is available in the various examples. MSFT's MSDN does not come close when it comes to releasing source code.
As for documentation, I learned Java primarily from the aforementioned tutorial and the Online API [sun.com](which I happened to download for free) and am currently implementing an extensible regression testing framework that will be used on large B2B websites for a Fortune 500 company. All the Java knowledge I have I picked up online less than a year ago, I dare you to find someone who learned COM from online documentation only who can implement a large scale, cross platform, extensible automated regression testing toolkit in a month. The key here is from online documentation only. Call me when hell freezes over.
PS: Plus Sun's tutorials and API's are available for free download here [sun.com], while do only way to get the entire MSDN collection is to pay for it by subscribing to MSDN and getting a CD.
PPS: The company I worked for was very glad that all my code has HTML javadocs that the QA team and other developers can look at to get an overview of how my code works. What is MSFT's generated CRAP alternative, as you so call it?
WHY C SUCKS
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int i =0;
i = i + 1;
MS and the coffeepot (Score:2)
Strictly speaking, you're right in that they haven't been actively pushing it for developers, but look at how many times Java is mentioned in a typical Win2K press release. "Best platform for Java" "best platform for developing and deploying Java based applications" etc. etc. I think at last count the number of times Java is mentioned in Win2K resources almost outnumbers the bugs in Win2K.
MS has proven yet again that they can't be trusted, that they either change their corporate mind or obfuscate their strategy well. You'd think that Java were the center of the computer world in the coming century from looking at what they themselves gave as rationale for extending it with their own add-ons.
Java-bastardizing-then-dumping bastards.... (Score:5)
I think that pretty much sums it up. The anti-trust case must be ruled on and upheld as soon as possible, or else we're all royally fscked. Microsoft.NET is looking more and more like a dystopian corporate-controlled world worse than those in cyberpunk scifi. Imagine a world in which software firms buy pricey MS toolkits to develop in an MS language for a yearly-licensed MS operating system which is seamlessly integrated into the MS.Network, which provides monthly-licensed access to programmes you don't own executed by machines which MS does own filled with files we own but won't be able to access unless we keep paying for monthly MS.NET accounts. That is the future MS wants, a future in which we don't own good hardware or software or the tools necessary to develop for the leading platform, but instead we own WebTerms melded to MS.NET which rents us all our applications and Internet access, hosts all our files remotely, and locks us in forever.
More MS buzzwords for the same old... (Score:4)
Re:Anyone Have an Objective Review of .net? (Score:2)
The FBI is going to love this. Your whole life, and your whole business, on servers they can tap into with Carnivore. [slashdot.org]
Oh, and do you imagine that these Microsoft on-line services will come with a warranty? Not likely, based on their "AS-IS" approach to their services.
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:2)
IIS4 can already do this. (run your website in a separate process, 1 click in the property sheet). The author of the article didn't have that much knowledge of the stuff he talks about aparantly. :)
Even MS (now!) admits that VB is only object based
MS ships the MSDN with VB. In that large library there are several books in digital format. some are about VB. All these books say it's object based. The VB docs state that too (they never mention Object oriented once). But frankly, there are some holy wars started years ago about C++ not being truely OO etc, it's a definition thing I guess :)
Object oriented development in VB.NET
A good example for the OO definition miscommunication :) If you program with binary objects like COM objects in a SOAP environment, for example the multi platform as shown in MS example The hanson brothers [microsoft.com] (good read: com and corba on win2k and solaris), you are busy with Object oriented programming, however not with details like object overloading. You ARE programming with objects. I think that's the main miscommunication here: it's not smalltalk OO definition, it's semantically OO: use objects to build your application, and the glue between these objects is your code, in whatever scriptlanguage (or program language) you want to write it in.
The fuzz about C# is a bit weird to me. There are literaly thousands of programlanguages, every language serving a special case. C# is one of them. So what! if it does a better job than java then so be it! It's fine by me: I can then use a language that fits better to the job than the other languages available. :)
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Aw what a blind hate again (Score:5)
Newsflash: They are not your enemy. THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good, plus in some environments their products are better than other products. Choose the tool that fits the job, don't change the job to fit the tool
It's also sad that the majority here who tends to post articles OR replies won't bother to look into what .NET is all about and when there is something useful to adopt and include in Open Source projects. The majority focusses on DETAILS like the C# vs Java thing (both proprietry languages designed by 1 company. what's the difference?) or fud that MS isn't capable of cooking up such an environment.
I don't care if this gets moderated down because some anti-microsoft moderator hates what I write here, but I have to say it: Microsoft releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all.: The duwamish bookstore, a complete e-commerce application ready to roll (a complete online store), with code, docs etc. numerous examples, tutorials and docs.
I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there. Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when .NET is fully released.
You should try it sometimes. You can benefit from it. Instead of bashing it, you could do what made MS big and Japan's economy the world leader: adapt and extend.... Open your eyes. It will do good :)
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Whatever... (Score:2)
PDC Journal: C- (Score:2)
"In" Languages, and languages of the future. (Score:2)
These MS languages aren't the "in" languages of the day. The "in" languages over the next few months will be Python [python.org] and Squeak [squeak.org]
In time I think that the fascination with Python and Squeak will disappear though, and a new language will emerge that will combine the power of C with the syntax of Python. It will be called "Sheep". Sheep will be a portable assembler attempt in line with what C is trying to acheive, but much cleaner and more readable.C fans won't like it, but reasonable people will see the advantages of using Sheep to reimplement a lot of their software. System level software especially will benefit from be reimplemented in Sheep due to the far shorter development times it will produce.
C will seem like quite a laughable language in comparison. Microsoft will jump on the bandwagon and release Visual Sheep, but they won't move their existing codebase over from VC++ because of the sheer bloat of it.gcc will be coming out with a sheep compiler, gsp, (or something similar), in a few months. Java will be totally replaced as well, because if you think about, who needs an interpreted (bytecode interpreted then, whatever) WORA language, when there's a compiled language that does away with the #ifdef's of C, yet is faster than C and cleaner than both C and Java?
A lot of C fundamentalists (some Open Source gurus amoung them) will protest and insist on keeping C as the official language. A new open source Operating system, a system written mostly in Sheep, including most of the kernel, will replace Linux and FreeBSD because of their lack of support (and by support I mean, rewriting all of their software in Sheep, including the kernels).This new system will mostly be a clone of BeOS, but because of the better language, it will surpass BeOS is every way - and truly bring Open Source to the masses. It will combine the best elements of BeOS with the best elements of FreeBSD and Linux. A system that, while having a very smart GUI, will not be dependent on that GUI for normal operation, and will also be totally multiuser. C compatibility libraries, written in Sheep, will exist to make the transfer easier, but once reasonable developers start writing in Sheep, they will be sickened by the thought of going back to C.
Hope you've enjoyed this look into the futureRe:Both wrong - pointer arithmetic in Delphi (Score:2)
In C and C++, p++ means p now points to the next element of the array. Your example just makes p point to the next byte.
And yes, I don't know Delphi that much. See .sig.
Re:MS Proxy Server ... (Score:2)
Abbreviated, appropriately enough, as IASS.