Yes, and I agree with the sentiment that you shouldn't just re-write code just because it is ugly or something. However, I also remember using Netscape Navigator during that time period. It wasn't a pleasant experience because of the crashes and such. It is quite possible that they could have concentrated and started refactoring the code, and fixing all the bugs. Maybe. We'll never know now. At any rate, even the early Mozilla browser releases were a breath of fresh air compared to Navigator.

Curious that JWZ and his time at Netscape were particularly lauded here.

It's quite likely I'm being a bit snarky here... but Netscape lost the browser wars just a few years after they hit it big. And the core code of Netscape Navigator was bad enough that they eventually abandoned it around 1999 with the start of the Mozilla project.

Now don't get me wrong, it was only through the herculean efforts of guys like JWZ at Netscape that allowed them to ship a product at all. And certainly it made him and some of the founders a lot of money, which is a valid measure of success in business.

But to point to that particular code base as an example we all should follow? I don't think so. Certainly, choosing C++ then (or now in my opinion) is a mistake. And I've definitely seen people get overly rambunctious with architecture... especially in the Java world. But I think that's mostly the result of programming languages sucking as much as anything else. That and most people just aren't that good at design. Mostly meaning that when they've come up with a bad design themselves, they can't admit that and then really do what it takes to try and fix it. Of course, in the business world there are always severe time / money constraints, so that makes it real hard. And that's when not having unit tests hurts more... because it is harder to make significant changes to the code and have some assurance you didn't make mistakes.

That N900 is nice. Really nice screen and processor.

But the battery isn't going to be big enough. I had to get a 2600mAh battery for my G1 (which makes the phone quite fat) just to get some decent usage out of it. The standard 1100mAh wasn't nearly enough on the G1, so I doubt a 1300mAh one on the N900 is going to be sufficient either.

The other critical factor for me is the keyboard. The G1 has all the symbols you'd normally use in programming, and I really appreciate that. Well, except for the escape key, but that's mapped to the trackball with the ConnectBot application (local terminal and ssh client).

Still... a laudable effort from Nokia. If I could just talk them into one more row of keys...

I'd like to know why there will only be limited quantities available for the NA market. Is there some reason for that? Don't they want to accept as many donations as possible?

I strongly considered getting an XO laptop for myself. (Screw the kids, why should they have all the coolest stuff. :-)) I ended up going with the Asus Eee PC because it has a more traditional LCD screen, more RAM, more storage and a built-in SD card slot. Battery life isn't nearly as good with the Asus, and it is only about as rugged as a normal PC. But hey.

I've almost finished setting up my Eee PC with standard Debian GNU/Linux (testing). Don't have open-source drivers for the WLAN, Ethernet, camera, and SD card. Did get the WLAN running with ndiswrapper though. I don't think I'll go back to the default Xandros install, I'd need to recompile too many other packages I get from Debian by hand.