astrosmash - Slashdot User

Generic VMs Key To Future of Coding 139

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 18, 2008 @08:16AM from the acme-brand dept.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister calls for generic VMs divorced from the syntactic details of specific languages in order to provide developers with some much-needed flexibility in the years ahead: 'Imagine being able to program in the language of your choice and then choose from any of several different underlying engines to execute your code, depending upon the needs of your application.' This 'next major stage in the evolution of programming' is already under way, he writes, citing Jim Hugunin's work with Python on the CLR, Microsoft's forthcoming Dynamic Language Runtime, Jython, Sun's Da Vinci Machine, and the long-delayed Perl/Python Parrot. And with modern JITs capable of outputting machine code almost as efficient as hand-coded C, the idea of running code through a truly generic VM may be yet another key factor that will shape the future of scripting."

Submission + - Vista Windows Genuine Advantage(WGA) is down (microsoft.com) 1

Submitted by

z3razerviper

on Saturday August 25, 2007 @09:25AM

z3razerviper writes: "It appears that Vista's Windows Genuine Advantage seems to be down causing all sorts of problems for Vista users trying to download patches for their shiny OS. Oddly enough things get much less shiny when WGA disables Aero and other features once it decides your copy of Vista is invalid. Microsoft WGA Vista Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/"

Submission + - Apple's Billion Dollar Patent Bluster

Submitted by

DECS

on Monday December 04, 2006 @04:46AM

DECS writes: "It has been widely reported that Apple secured a patent worth a "billion dollars." According to a patent attorney involved in the issue, Apple will be "after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to pay royalties." The good news is that all the news reports were based on misleading hyperbole. Apple's Billion Dollar Patent Bluster"

Gracenote Founder Rewriting History At Wikipedia 201

Posted by kdawson on Saturday December 02, 2006 @05:12PM from the setting-the-record-straight? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf is busy again in his attempts to rewrite history after his recent interview at Wired. This time around he is aggressively deleting or seeking removal of any content on Wikipedia that discusses the controversy behind the commercialization of the formerly GPL'd cddb. Slashdotters may remember when cddb joined the Bad Patent Club back in 2000. Gracenote followed up by filing lawsuits against its customers for trying to switch to freedb and for alleged patent violations. Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote — its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help."

Submission + - Corporate America is not ready for Windows Vista

Submitted by thefickler on Saturday December 02, 2006 @04:44PM

thefickler writes: Corporate America is not ready for Microsoft's new Windows Vista, according to a new study by Softchoice. The study found that 50% of the PCs inventoried are below Windows Vista's basic system requirements and roughly half of these PCs will need to be replaced outright to run Vista. 94% are not ready for Vista Premium edition.

Submission + - Is gpa important for a MS degree?

Submitted by

Jack

on Saturday December 02, 2006 @04:37PM

Jack writes: "I will be completing my MS in Network Security in 2007. My BS is in Systems and Networking. If I get an A for my last graduate course I will be able to graduate with high honor (gpa 3.845). I will miss graduating with highest honor by .005 points. If I retake the course I got a B in and this time get an A I can graduate with distinction (gpa 3.90 or better). My question is will either of these titles help me? Does anyone care about GPAs anymore? I am a network and systems administrator with almost 10 years of experience, 3 MCSEs, and soon a MS. I left my job last year to work on my Master's full time (that and that my former boss was a self-centered egotistical fool that I could stand no longer)."

Submission + - Is OSS GUI innovation the linux weak spot?

Submitted by

hedgehog

on Saturday December 02, 2006 @05:37AM

hedgehog writes: "Looking at Ubuntu this evening, and having been an on-again / off-again Linux user for about eight years now, I'm often struck by how dated some of the design aspects to most desktop environments feel. This isn't intended to troll.

From early 90s icon design (though Gnome arguably looks a bit fresher) to nearly every distro sporting some kind of start button / taskbar interface, Linux always seems to be playing a game of catchup in this regard.

I understand the argument that grandpa wants something that looks familiar, but thinking of another OSS project — Firefox — won its audience on tabbed browsing. There was a feature that probably wasn't familiar to most novice users who switched. Yes everything else looked familiar, but where's the tabbed browsing equivalent on the desktop environment side? Arguably our elders are also not the only ones that should be courted into the Linux camp.

Skinnable apps often go the route of clunky, flawed usability on any OS, because there's no QA for zeeb69's manga skin. What about default, modern UI that sports a "killer app" feature?

I realize this is a number of visual aspects not-so-neatly rolled into one for purpose of discussion, but what's the Slashdot community's opinion on the state of UI? Is this a problem? If so, are distros simply not courting the right designers? What can be done to improve upon this? If my assumption is flawed, what might be done to change that stigma?"

Submission + - MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill

Submitted by Lawst on Saturday December 02, 2006 @04:12AM

Lawst writes: Wired is reporting how a "tough California bill that would have prohibited companies and individuals from using deceptive "pretexting" ruses to steal private information about consumers was killed after determined lobbying by the motion picture industry."

The bill won, which approval in three committees and sailed through the state Senate with a 30-0 vote encountered unexpected, last-minute resistance from the Motion Picture Association of America.

From the article: "The MPAA has a tremendous amount of clout and they told legislators, 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading'"

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