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Posted by
michael
on Thu Feb 14, 2002 10:52 AM
from the honk-if-you-remember-netly dept.
from the honk-if-you-remember-netly dept.
Lots of .NET stories in the news today and yesterday; it's a total coincidence that Microsoft started a huge marketing push on Wednesday, including the occasional Doubleclick ad running on Slashdot. BrendanL79 writes: "Peter Wright at Salon.com contributes to public awareness of Microsoft's .NET with this exuberant piece. The praise borders on sycophancy ("Gutenberg ... Babbage ... now Gates") with no apparent tongue in his cheek. Comments?" Reader vw writes: "Active State has just released Visual Perl 1.2, Visual Python 1.2, and Visual XSLT 1.2 as plugins for Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET. Wonder how long it will take for a Mono hack." Numerous readers pointed to several stories about a buffer overflow problem in Visual Studio .NET which was supposed to be immune to buffer overflows - but it had passed Microsoft's stringent new security audit.
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congrats (Score:3, Funny)
Am I the only person who is hesitent about this? (Score:4, Funny)
Am I the only person who is just a little afraid to have all of my personal information online? There is just too little right now to keep it secure. Maybe when we are on IPv6 it will be better. But it becomes too easy to hit a few buttons and accidentally abort your new baby instead of inform your parents.
Re:Am I the only person who is hesitent about this (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm reminded of the movie Sneakers when Martin and his old friend (the villian) are on the roof and the villian is going on about how it's a new world, it's all electrons, just little ones and zeros. Everything is the information, the information is everything. It's a brave new world for humanity.. Martin's response is 'yeah, and there's nobody there' -- So we'll all have our PDAs and phones and everything, but who is there really to talk to? Get out, get some air, meet some REAL people and have some fun the old way.
Not does the technology have the ability to move our lives into greater convenience, but at the same time, to isolate us from ourselves and each other.
That, to me, is the scary part - not so much some marketer having a profile on me.
Re:Am I the only person who is hesitent about this (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I think that this new technology is going to take away from those accidental meetings I hope that, if it delivers on its promise, it will provide more time to create opportunities for human interaction. But then again, all the technology that we create to save time seems to require more time than we save to keep the technology saving us time. Wordy but true. I don't advocate a return to simpler times... I would die without my connection to the internet. But a week or two where I could just focus on getting to know the people around me while also getting to know more about the earth I am on would be a great thing.
Anyone for a camping trip? If you have 15 km of optical cable just laying around... we could run it down to our site and not miss
Re:Am I the only person who is hesitent about this (Score:3, Insightful)
At Kroger in Atlanta you can check yourself out with a mostly automated system (you still need a guy to manage every four units to check IDs and whatnot) that allows you to check out without having to deal with lines or bored cashiers.
Let's face it -- there are some things machines do better than people and ringing up groceries is only one of them (booking most airline tickets is another). The only advantage a cashier has over a machine is the ability to smile and ask how my day is, and if he/she isn't going to bother to do that, I'll take a machine any day.
Re:Am I the only person who is hesitent about this (Score:3, Interesting)
How long did it take for Microsoft to dominate the desktop market? They released Windows 1.0 a long time before OS/2 fell off the competitive map.
Microsofts domination kinda snuck up on everyone, since the IT industry assumed that there would allways be a company to compete with Bill&Co in the OS/Office Productivity space. This time, no such assumptions will be made. If they actually get something like this off the ground, there will be lots of people (Miguel) making great things that compete with Microsoft's offerings by the time it gets pervasive enough.
I'd suggest you take this for what it is at a base level - something that could be useful and cool. Remember, it is possible to enter a cage with a dangerous beast [crocodilehunter.com], as long as you know what to expect and how to counter it's natural responses.
IMHO, it's time to accept Microsoft as an industry leader. You just have to think of them in the same way that you do a clueless PHB.
Soko
What will more LIKELY happen (Score:2)
1) They'll be paranoid of having all that info available
2) There will just be too many friggen features for folks to care.
I don't know about you, but I programmed the addressbook for my FIRST phone. Three phones later, I pick the thing up and use it to dial numbers. I don't use the IR, I don't have it sync with my palm pilot, and I don't send two way messages, I just use it as a digital 'can and string' to talk to people.
Us Slashdot folks are pretty savvy gadget freaky people. That doen't mean my Mom's going to program her favorite MP#^H^H^HWMA's to play on Tuesday when the humidity is high and she's the only person at home.
Perl, Python under .NET? (Score:3, Insightful)
At least, I assume that's the case. If somebody had managed to create
Re:Perl, Python under .NET? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a python fan I had high hopes that Python would be the only language to bridge the JVM-CLR religious war and allow you to work in both.
It seems that ActiveState is just plugging in Python to VS, not compiling python to IL.
Re:Perl, Python under .NET? (Score:2)
However, I think they managed to do something else, like use the
ActiveState [activestate.com] has a lot of documentation about this on their site, specifically under PerlNET; it's worth taking a look.
Re:Perl, Python under .NET? (Score:2)
Last I looked, they weren't going to pursue a complete implementation.
Re:Perl, Python under .NET? (Score:3, Informative)
Visual Perl and Visual Python are development environments for Perl and Python for people that are using Visual Studio.
PerlNET takes any Perl code and wraps it up as a
If there is enough interest in a PythonNET, we will build that.
-- Dick
the beer went thru my nose... (Score:4, Funny)
am i the only one who reads this as
"we now pay attention to compiler warnings"
;)
Re:the beer went thru my nose... (Score:2)
gcc -Wall is for wimps -- you should follow the Tao and *just know* when you have a possible security problem. Besides everyone knows that MS codes in INTERCAL... what does the error
240 ERROR HANDLER PRINTED SNIDE REMARK
ON THE WAY TO %d
or
222 BUMMER, DUDE!
ON THE WAY TO %d
really tell you?
Sycophants? (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft has apologists? No way!
Salon article (Score:2, Insightful)
As if this were a bad thing.
Story not complete (Score:5, Informative)
I dare you. (Score:2, Interesting)
hmm, might be a good one for ask slashdot.
Re:I dare you. (Score:3, Informative)
The Simplest Way to Define .NET [microsoft.com] by Sanjay Parthasarathy, Vice President, Platform Strategy, Microsoft Corp.
Re:Story not complete (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft's alternative, of course, was to create a totally safe environment that wouldn't run any legacy code and wouldn't allow direct calls into the OS. But of course that's been done before (Java). Remember,
Parent
Tone of the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tone of the article (Score:2)
FYI, articles with opinion are called editorials. They usually have a picture of the person writing the article (in Salon's case it's a sketch). As was said in the post, I don't think this is tongue-in-cheek
I have nothing against
The point I'm making is that gushing like this is usually reserved for lesser publications. If I want to read a guy's opinion, I'll go read Dvorak on ZDNET. Salon had a pretty high standing in my books as a reputable news source, not some place that kissed the feet of new technologies - the downsides of
Python Dev Under VS.NET IDE (Score:2, Insightful)
Speaking about Python, does anyone know when the final release of ActivePython 2.2 will be released? It has been in "Alpha" for a while and the product page hasn't been updated in a while.
Those opening paragraphs... (Score:2, Insightful)
"In 1454, Johann Gutenberg changed the world forever when the first of his Bibles rolled off the world's first printing press. Three centuries later, in 1791, Charles Babbage was born. Best known for his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine, his work is widely acknowledged as providing the earliest steppingstones from which the modern computer would emerge. Again, the world would never be the same. From the article:
William Henry Gates arrived on the planet in 1951. Whether you love him or detest him with every ounce of your moral fiber, there is no denying the contribution Bill has made to this earth. Without Microsoft, the PC we have today would be a very different beast."
Does anyone truly believe that Gates has made a positive contribution to "this earth", other than his (admittedly laudable) charitable works?
From a technological standpoint, the only thing you can really say he has helped (and I say helped because he certainly cannot claim sole credit) achieve is the positioning of computers in everyday non-geek life. Even that would have happened sooner or later has Gates not existed.
This type of melodramatic, snivelling hyperbole is starting to crop up all over the IT press, with reviews reading like commercials and biographies gushing with misplaced hero-worship.
Ick.
Guttenberg, Babbage, & Gates (Score:2)
Ballmer on Mono (Score:2, Interesting)
I put this in quotes but I'm paraphrasing based on my best recollection. I gotta give him credit for being accessible and for answering questions. Still can't help hating him, though.
.Net fails the pr0n test (Score:5, Funny)
Human history has shown that with the advent of any new important media, pr0n has never been far behind. The printing press? One estimate says that within 10 years 30% of all presses were being used for pr0n. Glossy magazines? Pr0n. Pictures on your computer screen? Pr0n. The Web? Pr0n.
The simple fact is that
"betting the company" on a buffer overflow (Score:2)
Compiler: Stackguard! (Score:5, Informative)
It's not actually a _compiler_ overflow.
Instead, it's a subversion of the "buffer overflow protection" that's built-in to the compiler. The most startling piece of this technical review is that the Microsoft "Overflow Protection" in the compiler appears to be a port of StackGuard. The reviewers point out that an examination of the binary output reveals that the compiled code is nearly identical to the StackGuard output.
But stackguard is an option. (Score:3, Insightful)
Switching it OFF will turn off the stackguard functionality and you can build your code without it, but have to check buffer overflows yourself.
So it's perhaps wise to switch it ON in debug builds plus release builds that are tested, and switch it OFF in release builds that are deployed to customers.
Six weeks early? (Score:2)
I'm scared.
Peter Wright makes his money from MS (Score:4, Insightful)
-Isaac
This is not news. Doesn't ANYONE study history (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see, unified runtime, libraries of code with multiple versions, simplified networked object support, standardized metadata...
OpenStep circa 1995.
Sure, OS used plists instead of XML (which didn't exist), a private system instead of UDDI (which didn't exist) and was aimed at C people instead of Java (whichy didn't exist) but the broad strokes are the same:
A multi-platform runtime with standardized libraries, which can exist as multiple versions (with resources) at the same time, with objects that can write themselves out so they can be manipulated as flat data (for storage or network invocation).
The differences are interesting too,
I'm sure other "old timers" will have their own similar systems to include for comparison, but the real point is not that OpenStep did it, but that SOMEONE did it.
And years later no one is using OS (mostly), whereas I'm sure five years from now
Maury
Re:This is not news. Doesn't ANYONE study history (Score:3, Interesting)
> Once again I find myself ashamed to be a part of an industry that can't
> remember anything five years into the past.
> before, many times. The only news here is the hype, as always.
>
> Let's see, unified runtime, libraries of code with multiple versions,
> simplified networked object support, standardized metadata...
>
> OpenStep circa 1995.
You can go back even farther than that. OpenStep was based on NeXT, which was created by Steve Jobs in 1989. In 1990, it was used to create the world's first web server and client. NeXT was the cradle of the web itself! (http://www.netvalley.com/intvalnext.html)
> And years later no one is using OS (mostly), whereas I'm sure five
> years from now
> That's the power of marketting. Look how well it worked on the droid
> on Salon.
The plists are in XML now, but NeXT lives on in its beautiful child: Mac OS X. In fact, the new G4 iMacs running OS X are the only desktop computers on the planet that can be said to be "selling like hotcakes".
Apple is still selling WebObjects, only at $699 instead of $50,000. OS X ships with the Apache web server included. OS X is the best Java 2 desktop, with a full set of J2SE development tools in the OS X boxed version or as a free download or for $20 FedEx shipping. J2EE tools are readily available in open source or commercial form. If you don't care about portability, you can rapidly create a Cocoa front end on your application, and use any J2SE or J2EE classes on the back end to create a native compiled application with all the power of Java. If you are careful to separate the GUI classes from the rest, you can use the RAD Cocoa front end for prototyping, and replace it with a Swing front end after the back end is tested.
Apple's big goal in life right now is 10% of the market (probably with 20% coming after that
Microsoft? Well they mostly give me the urge to loose my lunch.
On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected an apple tree.
On December 14, 2001, she returned to see its fruit:
OS X, the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.
Salon lost major tech and street cred (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't have minded a piece on
But that fawning piece of crap was inexcusable. It was clearly written by the marketing department - no tech would ever favorably compare Bill Gates to Guttenberg - but it was presented as a straight story.
Now I'm going to find it impossible to take any other story the post seriously. I will always have to ask who really wrote the piece.
That's a shame - Salon has been a good thorn in the side of the powerful for a long time. Look at the old stories on the "Drug Czar" paying for anti-drug messages in prime time entertainment shows, or their coverage of the RIAA. But now there will always be a loud voice in the back of my head asking if this is another PR piece by the powerful.
.NET is SCRUMTRILESCENT! (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think you can discount it so easily:
About the writer
Peter Wright is a software consultant and the author of numerous books on Visual Basic programming. He is currently working on two
Have you read some of these quotes?
Bill Gates has already changed the face of the world as we know it, but his magnum opus has yet to be fully appreciated. On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled Bill's greater masterpiece -- in the guise of the Visual Studio.Net development tools suite.
It would be easy to dismiss this as just another Microsoft product launch, just another example of the Redmond behemoth rolling ever onward in its quest to gain enough funds to brand a continent. Don't. Visual Studio.Net will have as profound an effect on the way that we live our lives as the labors of love Babbage and Gutenberg gave us. To dismiss Visual Studio.Net and the technology it encompasses is to go back in time and dismiss Henry Ford's automobile as a passing fad.
[several pages of excited babbling deleted]
As developers move to embrace
.Net marks the dawn of the third age of computing -- embrace it.
It reminded me of Will Ferrell's Actor's Studio sketch as well. ".Net is such a masterpiece that there are no words to describe it- so I will make one up: Scrumtrilescent."
I guess if you've been stuck with Visual Basic for the past several years, an MS ripoff of Java would look pretty interesting. I doubt that Java programmers are going to flock to
Parent
Re: Now Waaaaait a Minute here.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought about this, but two things make it hard for me to dismiss it as just a troll:
I want to dismiss it as a troll. If there was any type of framing by the usual staff, or it was within a week of April 1st I wouldn't give it a second thought.
But now I keep coming back to the fact that the Microsoft PR machine can link to this seemingly glowing comment in "Linux friendly" Salon. We may know it's totally out of character, but a PHB concerned about Hailstorm or
That makes me wonder if I've been playing the fool on other stories. Salon has been valuable precisely because the articles often surprise me, but it's precisely because I'm not knowledgeable about those topics that I'll mistake a 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' troll for a serious piece.
Re:BS (Score:3, Funny)
The Microsoft emblem. Doesn't the trailing edge look like it's been out in the elements too long. Shattered. (Well it is Windows)
"Microsoft servers for small business let you connect with customers in ways you never have before." Somehow that sounds omnious.
My guess is that he has to say something, has nothing to say, and starts blithering.
Company releases new software. Film at 11 (Score:2)
In other news, Motor Trend covered the 2002 North American International Auto Show with two sentences: "Cobo Hall was filled with cars. Some of them were brand new."
Let me get this straight. Microsoft is, for better or worse, the most significant software company in the world. They have just released a profoundly significant update to their development environment. The computer trade media is paying more than just lip service to it all. And Michael somehow thinks it's media bias, simply because it's a company he doesn't like?
It's not a "total coincidence". It's news!
This "revolutionary" Bill Gates idea... (Score:2)
About the author... (Score:2)
the author of numerous books on Visual
Basic programming. He is currently
working on two
for release later this year.
Hmm. That explains a lot.
Michael, why must you be so ignorant? (Score:4, Informative)
From the summary (yes, it was written by Michael, not the submitters): Numerous readers pointed to several stories about a buffer overflow problem in Visual Studio .NET which was supposed to be immune to buffer overflows - but it had passed Microsoft's stringent new security audit.
Where to begin with this mess of falsehoods?
On a side note, since this only affects unmanaged code, it's not really related to the .NET/CLR stuff.
.Net as a marketing strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
First, let's get the myth out of the way. .Net is not a product. It's a marketing term,
This is probably the most telling statment of the whole article. .Net is not about a new way of using computers, cool technology, security or any of the other things Microsoft is spouting. .Net is a buzz word driven marketing push and nothing else. It is not going to solve any problems that have not already been solved, introduce any new technology or bring world peace. Microsoft is going to spend the next several years spending billions of dollars to bring us .Net Notepad, .Net Solitaire and the new and improved .Net Virus.
I capped my karma a few days ago, so feel free to moderate me down, just don't expect me to care.
I love the productivity claims (Score:3, Funny)
Fine print:
... at shops like Microsoft where the entire design cycle consists of coding. In more mature shops where requirements analysis, specification, design, and QA take up 80-90% of the design cycle things may be a bit different.
CFR (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft started a huge marketing push on Wednesday, including the occasional Doubleclick ad running on Slashdot.
This simply won't do. We must have Campaign Finance Reform for the IT industry. Because Slashdot is receiving money from MS, they must be corrupt. Therefore, it should be illegal for MS to place ads 60 days before the release of a new product.
In all seriousness, if you only read Slashdot you might think that the DMCA is the only threat to free speech. Peal yourself away from the CRT a little bit and wake up to what a bunch of jerks we have in congress. It's like the constitution just fell of a high-wire, and fell through the first net. Now if the president signs this bill it will fall through the 2nd net, and if the Supreme Court doesn't wack it our freedom will fall into the abyss. You would never know that if you just read Slashdot.
This post paid for by the Radical National Committee to Criticize Politicians less than 60 days before an election.
Python and Perl under .NET (Score:3, Interesting)
which seems to be a
they say on the web-site:
"PerlNET provides the following functionality:
Perl code runs at the same speed within
All extension modules, including the ones using XS code, are supported
PerlNET code is completely compatible with the standard Perl language, including the string form of eval and the runtime use of require
Features
Create
Wrap existing Perl modules into
Create new
Extend existing
(http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/Per
It seems that they really have done it !
python.net seems to be in a pre-alpha stage, as they say here:
"The Python for
and further:
"Probably the biggest single issue with Python for
(http://www.activestate.com/Initiatives/NET/Pyt
But it is only a matter of time that a python.net will exist.
Hahaha... The author bio on the Salon piece says (Score:3, Interesting)
About the writer
Peter Wright is a software consultant and the author of numerous books on Visual Basic programming. He is currently working on two .Net titles for Apress slated for release later this year.
Re:No buffer overflows? (Score:3, Funny)
Wrong. Java 1.4 has the same thing, an undocumented feature with the exact same name that hypocrit Bill Joy bashed. Yes that's right, Sun included something called 'Unsafe' mode for Java code, that lets it write all over memory to its hearts content. Don't tell Bill Joy though, he's likely to spasm from being called on his lie.
(PS I love Java. But Bill Joy is a LIAR and should be called on his LIE.)
Re:Wait a second (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Perl, Python, Mono, what next for Billy's Borg (Score:2)
1) Larry Wall, who gave a ringing endorsement of Visual Perl a few years ago (that was before
2) Yes! It's called Visual J#.