Comment Re:Carmack on Snow Crash (Score 1) 535
Second Life was based on ideas in Snow Crash.
Greg
Comment Oculus Rift will become FB's redheaded stepchild.. (Score 1) 535
I have a feeling this acquisition will cause Oculus to become facebooks redheaded stepchild. What possible use for VR could facebook have?
Greg
Dinosaurs Done In By... Dark Matter? 135
bmahersciwriter writes "Theoretical physicists propose that the Sun periodically crosses into a dense layer of dark matter sandwiching the Milky Way. The gravitational push and pull that this creates disturbs debris in the Oort cloud sending deadly comets and asteroids ricocheting around the solar system. This passage happens, their admittedly speculative model suggests, every 35 million years, which jibes somewhat with evidence on impact craters. Take it with a dino-sized grain of salt."
Comment Re:2.4% duh (Score 1) 426
You know, I think it's those in the field who don't have CS degrees who always spout that they are not necessary out of some feel of inadequacy. It's like saying a you don't need to have an MD in order to operate on someone. You can, of course, but you're very likely to screw things up in ways that you're not immediately aware of. I can't tell you how many times I've had to clean up the messes of people who are NOT computer science graduates because they decided to solve a common problem poorly due to ignorance of the field.
Greg C.
Comment Meritocracy.... (Score 2) 263
The web is not a US colony it is a meritocracy. In this case the US has most of the services which are essential for NOW. But this may not always be the case. So, Sweden and other countries that are upset should start working on the technological things that might give them the edge in the future.
In this world it is now all about the information and the technology. There is no fair and balanced here. Whoever knows the most... wins.
GC
Comment Re:Hmmm (Score 1) 131
There's ARC in Objective-C for example, which is a huge difference. Not sure if that's implemented in GNUstep.
Yes, it's implemented. If you're using CLANG. GNUstep's libobjc2 runtime supports it fully. GCC, unfortunately, has a long way to go to catch up on some features since, for some reason, they don't consider ObjC to be release critical.
Comment Re:Hmmm (Score 1) 131
GNUstep is a lovely (and lovable) project, but "bring the implementation to API compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6's Cocoa"? Really? 10.6, when 10.9 is just around the corner? With such a huge delay, GNUstep will never be able to take off.
You expect me to be able to bring the API all the way from 10.4/5 to 10.8/9 in six months? Some are saying that 10.6 is a lofty goal, but I think it's more realistic than 10.8 or 10.9. Also, if I see opportunities to bring things up to 10.8/9 while I'm doing it, I will. It's a matter of setting a believable goal to achieve.
Comment Re:Why bother? (Score 1) 131
I'll take a quick stab at answering your question.
They're not trying to duplicate Mac OS X. The project started before that, to clone nextstep, or the api's at least, which were at one point being billed as a cross platform framework called openstep.
I assume these guys liked Objective-C(which came from nextstep) and liked openstep and you know then the whole thing took on a life of its own.
Now they could stick with the state of openstep when NeXT shutdown, or they could go off on thier own, or they could bring in the new stuff from Mac OS X(which is descended from nextstep).
They seem to want to the last one.
We've done the last one for many years now. The issue is that there are very few of us and none of us have the time to work on it full time. What I propose to do is take some time to purely work on GNUstep so that I can bring it up to a standard that everyone can live with and build on.
Comment Re:GNUStep is a great project (Score 1) 131
If by 'continually in the Top 5' you mean 'already second year in a row in Top 5', then I can agree. But I think that compared to other top-10 languages, 'just very recently became of any importance at all' would be more honest statement.
Well, first it's a couple years, then it's a third and a fourth, then it's 20.
Comment Re:GNU & GNUSTEP? (Score 1) 131
Isn't GNUSTEP, like OpenStep, a platform independent standard? If yes, then it would work on both GNU as well as non-GNU platforms, such as the BSDs. Also, how important is the GNU userland here - is it either an important part of GNUSTEP, or necessary for GNUSTEP to even work/run? If not, then leaving out GNU out of Linux doesn't mean much, since GNUSTEP could run on it, w/o things like glibc, x11 and so on.
GNUstep is completely platform independent. The only thing it requires is a POSIX layer for some of the low level functions (which is available on Windows in the form of MinGW). It abstracts the display and the events layers. GNUstep has implementations for X11 and for Windows and can have implementations for any windowing system you prefer.
The reason for the GNU in GNUstep is largely historical. Originally, GNUstep was supposed to be *the* development environment and windowing system for HURD and for Linux, but it didn't work out that way since KDE and GNOME came to prominence. GNUstep, since it followed OpenStep at the time and now follows Cocoa, had to be implemented against an existing spec as opposed to the "blow up the world and start everything new" philosophy of the other two projects. Implementing against an existing spec is much harder because it requires more discipline. Additionally, GNUstep is written using ObjC (for obvious reasons) and, back then, it wasn't as popular as it is now and developers interest both in ObjC and in coding for GNUstep were rare.
Comment Re:Will not support (Score 1) 131
NOTE: Some of the rewards say Linux instead of GNU/Linux. Apologies for the omission.
Sorry, I dont support projects with pedantic zelots leading them. There is "Linux" and the Linux kernel, "Linux" is a fine an appropriate generic term for the operating system as a whole. Otherwise you really should be saying stupid shit like: "Ubuntu/Debian/GNU/Linux" to be clear because GNU is just a toolchain and a collection of software but not the whole collection.
Get. Over. It.
The fact is that Debian calls the distro "Debian GNU/Linux" whether you or I agree with the philosophy behind it, that's their proper name. If you take this as a sign of zealotry from me, which it is not I was only trying to call them what they choose to be called, then you're being a zealot in the opposite direction and perhaps you need to "Get. Over. It."
Submission + - GNUstep Kickstarter Campaign Launched (kickstarter.com)
borgheron writes: The maintainer of GNUstep has launched a kickstarter campaign to get the time to make GNUstep more complete and get it's APIs up to at least a Mac OS 10.6 level of compatibility. This will allow applications for Mac OS X to run on Linux with a simple recompile using new tools developed by the GNUstep team to directly build from xcodeproj project files. If the kickstarter project is funded beyond it's $50,000 goal, it's possible that WebKit and Darling might also be completed allowing applications built on Mac OS X to run without the need for a recompile... think WINE-like functionality for Mac OS X applications on other platforms... including Windows, Linux, BSD, etc.
Comment How short sighted is that? (Score 1) 233
Fine, no manned *GOVERNMENT* mission... If the government isn't going to do it could they, at least, get out of the way and give the approvals so that private industry CAN do it?
Sheesh...
GC
Comment Come back to GNUstep. ;) (Score 1) 815
Miguel,
Given that you have decided to do the right thing and join the ranks of the Mac faithful, I, as GNUstep's Chief Maintainer, I would like to extend a formal invitation to re-join the GNUstep project.
Sincerely Yours,
Gregory Casamento
P.S. Kidding.
Comment Then they are looking in the wrong place. (Score 1) 165
From brutal experience I can attest to the fact that most people on Slashdot, save myself, are not that smart.
GC
