Python w/Forth Runtime????
Tim Daneliuk
http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
tun...@tundraware.com
Gerhard Häring
> Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for why:
>
> http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
What's the connection with the Subject of your posting?
Gerhard
--
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reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))
Tim Daneliuk
>
> Tim Daneliuk wrote in comp.lang.python:
> > Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for why:
> >
> > http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
>
> What's the connection with the Subject of your posting?
>
At the end of the piece I suggest that a "ideal" language would be one
which has the paradigmatic richness of Python but whose runtime execution
environment was reaslized in something very sleek and light like Forth.
The overal article is about the dangers of locking into a single programming
paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world problems require
multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable solutions. I think
Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate that very idea in
the language.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
tun...@tundraware.com
Christopher Browne
> Gerhard Häring wrote:
>>
>> Tim Daneliuk wrote in comp.lang.python:
>> > Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for why:
>> >
>> > http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
>>
>> What's the connection with the Subject of your posting?
>>
>
> At the end of the piece I suggest that a "ideal" language would be one
> which has the paradigmatic richness of Python but whose runtime execution
> environment was reaslized in something very sleek and light like Forth.
>
> The overal article is about the dangers of locking into a single programming
> paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world problems require
> multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable solutions. I think
> Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate that very idea in
> the language.
Python is not alone in this.
Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
--
(concatenate 'string "aa454" "@freenet.carleton.ca")
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/emacs.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #188. "I will funnel some of my ill-gotten
gains into urban renewal projects. Although slums add a quaint and
picturesque quality to any city, they too often contain unexpected
allies for heroes." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
Tim Daneliuk
>
> In the last exciting episode, Tim Daneliuk <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote::
> > Gerhard Häring wrote:
> >>
> >> Tim Daneliuk wrote in comp.lang.python:
> >> > Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for why:
> >> >
> >> > http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
> >>
> >> What's the connection with the Subject of your posting?
> >>
> >
> > At the end of the piece I suggest that a "ideal" language would be one
> > which has the paradigmatic richness of Python but whose runtime execution
> > environment was reaslized in something very sleek and light like Forth.
> >
> > The overal article is about the dangers of locking into a single programming
> > paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world problems require
> > multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable solutions. I think
> > Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate that very idea in
> > the language.
>
> Python is not alone in this.
>
> Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
Could you expand on this a bit? It has been a *very* long time since I
even looked at Lisp, let along programmed it...
Kendall Clark
> Python is not alone in this.
>
> Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
Hi Chris,
Mozart/Oz is perhaps even more rigorously multiparadigm than CL.
Now, if its syntax were as sweetly rational and friendly as Python's, you'd
really have something...
Best,
Kendall Clark
Skip Montanaro
>> > programming paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world
>> > problems require multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable
>> > solutions. I think Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate
>> > that very idea in the language.
>>
>> Python is not alone in this.
>>
>> Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
Tim> Could you expand on this a bit? It has been a *very* long time
Tim> since I even looked at Lisp, let along programmed it...
My feeble take on things: Various Lisp dialects support OO (CLOS, etc). I
can't imagine any don't beat the pants off Python as far as functional
programming is concerned. I'm sure there are interfaces to various
relational databases available. Event-driven programming is also possible
("when this happens, call this"). Programming using exceptions
(catch/throw?, condition-case, save-excursion, etc, instead of try/except).
As in Python, you're not constrained to any one paradigm, though its
functional tendencies may dominate. For that matter, C++ supports all these
paradigms as well. It's just that its OO support is emphasized.
Oh, wait minute. So does Perl. And Ruby. And Tcl. And Java.
I think the thing about Python is not that it supports this multi-paradigm
approach all that much better than any other language, it's that its
faithful don't get too hung up on any one of the paradigms it does support.
Of course, this thread ignores issues of clean syntax, batteries included,
and powerful builtin data structures that also help give Python a leg up on
most/all the competition.
--
Skip Montanaro (sk...@pobox.com - http://www.mojam.com/)
"Excellant Written and Communications Skills required" - seen on chi.jobs
Patrick W
> Christopher Browne wrote:
> >
> > Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
>
> Could you expand on this a bit? It has been a *very* long time since I
> even looked at Lisp, let along programmed it...
In Common Lisp you often use a mixture of procedural, functional and
object oriented styles. It's a perfectly natural way to use the
language, just as it is in Python. (But the functional support in Lisp
is obviously much more pervasive).
If you want to decompose a problem in terms of functions, and avoid
side-effects, that's fine. Everything returns a value (unless you ask
it not to), and you can treat every data structure as immutable if you
wish, but there is nothing forcing you to do this. If you want to use
a combination of functions and procedures that operate with our
without side effects, and with or without special (eg. global)
variables, again no problem.
As for object oriented programming, it's a somewhat overloaded term
that means different things to different people. In Lisp you have a
lot of choices. You can either implement objects as closures, or you
can use a complete fully-fledged object system that supports multiple
inheritance and is polymorphic on more than one of its arguments.
That's all part of CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) which is part of
the Common Lisp standard. (Incidentally CLOS was the first ANSI
standardised object oriented language, and is still arguably streets
ahead of the competition in terms of power and flexibility).
Beyond that, Common Lisp offers another form of abstraction that other
languages can only offer very awkwardly, if at all: ie. macros. You
can manipulate the language in its own language, which probably makes
Lisp better equipped to seamlessly incorporate future paradigms than
any other language.
If you haven't looked at Lisp since say, 1994, it's a very different
language from the one you remember. It's a pity more people don't seem
to know what's available in Lisp. It's an amazing language.
John Roth
"Tim Daneliuk" <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote in message
news:3CE5AFD...@tundraware.com...
I just read it, and I don't see any connection whatsoever
between your title and the subject of your paper. Nevertheless,
your paper is quite interesting in its own right, it's just in the
wrong newsgroup.
What you're missing is that (IMNSHO) the root problem
is how we manage projects. For a radically different approach,
you might look at Extreme Programming. While the methodology
is generally used with OO, it can actually be used with any
programming technology, as long as you can get a sufficiently
fast compile/execute cycle going.
John Roth
Peter Hansen
>
> "Tim Daneliuk" <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote in message
> news:3CE5AFD...@tundraware.com...
> > Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for
> why:
> >
> > http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
> I just read it, and I don't see any connection whatsoever
> between your title and the subject of your paper. Nevertheless,
> your paper is quite interesting in its own right, it's just in the
> wrong newsgroup.
I had to resort to Ctrl-F in Netscape to find the connection. The
paper *does* mention Python, almost in passing, and Forth...
-Peter
Christopher Browne
> Christopher Browne wrote:
>>
>> In the last exciting episode, Tim Daneliuk <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote::
>> > Gerhard Häring wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Tim Daneliuk wrote in comp.lang.python:
>> >> > Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for why:
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
>> >>
>> >> What's the connection with the Subject of your posting?
>> > At the end of the piece I suggest that a "ideal" language would
>> > be one which has the paradigmatic richness of Python but whose
>> > runtime execution environment was reaslized in something very
>> > sleek and light like Forth.
>> > The overall article is about the dangers of locking into a single
>> > programming paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world
>> > problems require multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable
>> > solutions. I think Python is almost alone in trying to
>> > incroporate that very idea in the language.
>>
>> Python is not alone in this.
>>
>> Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
>
> Could you expand on this a bit? It has been a *very* long time since I
> even looked at Lisp, let along programmed it...
Approaches that are well-supported off the top of my head include:
-> Traditional procedural programming;
-> Functional/applicative programming (rather like Python's functional
aspects);
-> Object oriented programming;
-> Rich sets of extendable data structures including complex
structures like arrays, vectors, hash tables, lists, structures,
objects with customizable sets of slots, ...
-> The SERIES package allows using Icon-like generators, with the
corresponding ability to do lazy evaluation;
-> Macros allow constructing custom control structures;
-> Reader macros allow constructing custom syntax.
You can do "procedural" if you want; you can do "OO" if you want; you
can do "functional" if you want. You're not forced to use stuff you
don't want (aside from being forced to use lots of parentheses :-)).
Contrast with Ruby (as an extreme case of 'single-paradigmic'); in
Ruby, _everything_ is an object, including numbers, which means that
_everything_ has to get fit into some part of the object hierarchy,
whether you wanted to care about that or not. It's not a horrid
language at all, but you know you're getting into 'purely OO' when you
get into Ruby.
C++ would also be an example of a "multiparadigmic" language,
unfortunately one that's pretty ugly. Its set of paradigms _includes_
OO as well as procedural programing. You can write code that is
essentially non-OO in C++, just as you can in Python and Lisp. (C++
doesn't offer FP or generators or a particularly powerful macro
system, from whence comes a lot of the pain of templates, but I
digress...)
Kendall pointed out Mozart/Oz as another "multiparadigmic" language;
it combines FP, constraint logic, OO, and distributed programming.
(If it wasn't so tied to running atop Emacs, I'm sure it would be more
popular. Note that I say this as an unabashed fan of Emacs...)
I'd point at Ada as another such language.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc@" "sirhc"))
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/languages.html
"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development
That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you."
-- Vance Petree, Virginia Power
Dean Goodmanson
> > your paper is quite interesting in its own right, it's just in the
> > wrong newsgroup.
>
> I had to resort to Ctrl-F in Netscape to find the connection. The
> paper *does* mention Python, almost in passing, and Forth...
>
> -Peter
After skimming the paper (and Ctrl-F,etc.), I was interested to see
what the original discussion on this paper was.
I didn't find an exact hit in comp.lang.forth, but did find this:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=3CE57855.AE29FA7E%40tundraware.com
I found the python portion especially interesting in light of Jython &
.Net:
"I reserve the right to be wrong, but it seems to me that we ought to
be evolving to a world in which programmers of complex systems write
in meta-languages like Python - which embrace OO, procedural, DBMS and
Functional Programming notions - but whose runtimes would be best
delivered in something like Forth (or Erlang).
...
This is is probably a pipe-dream because trying to efficiently map
the semantics of a late-bound dynamic language like Python onto a
sleek Forth runtime is likely too costly in terms of runtime size and
speed. " -
(Turning Faith Into Practice section, just before Heaven Or Hell? ,
http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/ , Time Daneliuk )
Dean Goodmanson
digesting.
According the the copyright section it should have been reproduced in
it's entirety, and my quote of the Python section may have consisted
of "condensing."
I apologize.
Now onto remedy..
I can either:
a. Post the entire text here.
b. ???
Tim Daneliuk
Umm, that's OK ;) The intent was that if the paper is distibuted, it
ought not to be condensed or modified.
Tim Daneliuk
>
> > > Nevertheless,
> > > your paper is quite interesting in its own right, it's just in the
> > > wrong newsgroup.
> >
> > I had to resort to Ctrl-F in Netscape to find the connection. The
> > paper *does* mention Python, almost in passing, and Forth...
> >
> > -Peter
>
> After skimming the paper (and Ctrl-F,etc.), I was interested to see
> what the original discussion on this paper was.
>
> I didn't find an exact hit in comp.lang.forth, but did find this:
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=3CE57855.AE29FA7E%40tundraware.com
>
> I found the python portion especially interesting in light of Jython &
> .Net:
>
> "I reserve the right to be wrong, but it seems to me that we ought to
<SNIP>
I am hopeful that both .NET and Jython (as well as other such efforts)
yield meaningful results. I have no direct experience with either, but
I am a bit sceptical, only because such efforts historically (like
the UCSD P system) have been less than spectacular. Certainly, there is
reason to believe this is more feasible today because of the much faster
processors and larger memories at our disposal.
.NET particularly ought to be view with great scepticism, IMO. It seems
clear to me that, for commercial reasons, the real focus of the CLR will
be C# which does not really meet the 'multi-paradigm' requirement.
Christopher Browne
Indeed.
What would be much more interesting to see succeed would be the
Perl-related "Parrot VM."
Unlike the VMs from Sun and Microsoft, it has the merit that there's
nobody with gazillion dollar pocketbooks that have a commercial
interest in trying to make sure that would-be competitors fail.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://www.cbbrowne.com/info/perl.html#PARROT
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
-- Noam Chomsky
Cameron Laird
Tim Daneliuk <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote:
>Gerhard Häring wrote:
>>
>> Tim Daneliuk wrote in comp.lang.python:
>> > Python does just what needs doing ... see the end of this piece for why:
>> >
>> > http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Bullet/
>>
>> What's the connection with the Subject of your posting?
>>
>
>At the end of the piece I suggest that a "ideal" language would be one
>which has the paradigmatic richness of Python but whose runtime execution
>environment was reaslized in something very sleek and light like Forth.
>
>The overal article is about the dangers of locking into a single programming
>paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world problems require
>multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable solutions. I think
>Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate that very idea in
>the language.
.
.
This thread has touched on all sorts of other languages,
including such favorites of mine as Erlang, Lisp, and Oz.
You might also want to look into Lua, which emphasizes
both near-Forthian lightness and Pythonic abstractive power.
We've got a piece on Lua scheduled for publication tomor-
row. Keep an eye on <URL: http://
starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.misc/lua.html >.
--
Cameron Laird <Cam...@Lairds.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
Dean Goodmanson
> ought not to be condensed or modified.
Thank you.
Peter Hansen
>
> Now I've blown it. Shouldn't have posted after skimming, but after
> digesting.
>
> According the the copyright section it should have been reproduced in
> it's entirety, and my quote of the Python section may have consisted
> of "condensing."
The "fair use" doctrine in copyright law would tend to suggest you can
do that kind of thing (post an excerpt) without needing permission or
forgiveness (especially as you properly attributed the source).
IANAL...
-Peter
John La Rooy
their fingers when they start adding non-standard extensions? Which they will of
course get away with when 90% of the developers get to play with the new toys.
It'll be the java debacle all over with noone to answer to at all.
John
On Mon, 20 May 2002 18:44:01 +1000
"Patrick" <post...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
> "phil hunt" <ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:slrnaeh8il...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk...
> >
> > To the best of my knowledge(*), C# is the only high-level language
> > designed explicitly to lock programmers in to a vendor.
>
> Submitting the language to a standards body and opening it up to other
> implementors is hardly a clever way to lock programmers into a specific
> vendor.
>
> C# has been standardised by ECMA, which leaves anyone free to provide their
> own implementation. http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ecma-334.htm
>
> At least one non-Microsoft implementation of C# already exists:
> http://www.go-mono.org
>
>
>
>
Kragen Sitaker
> Submitting the language to a standards body and opening it up to other
> implementors is hardly a clever way to lock programmers into a specific
> vendor.
It's an excellent way to get programmers to use it. ECMA does not
require that the standardized technology be patent-free, and Microsoft
has declared their intention to make it not patent-free. The ultimate
result will be that the patents will issue in a couple of years, at
which point you will be able to compete with Microsoft's .NET by
producing a compatible implementation as long as Microsoft finds it
convenient to allow you to do so, or as long as you don't need to sell
in the US. This is the clever way to lock programmers into a specific
vendor.
Patrick
"Kragen Sitaker" <kra...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:838z6ep...@panacea.canonical.org...
> "Patrick" <post...@yahoo.com.au> writes:
> > Submitting the language to a standards body and opening it up to other
> > implementors is hardly a clever way to lock programmers into a specific
> > vendor.
>
> It's an excellent way to get programmers to use it. ECMA does not
> require that the standardized technology be patent-free, and Microsoft
> has declared their intention to make it not patent-free.
Eek! I wasn't aware of that. Can you point me to a reference?
If this is the case, they've just lost one potential user.
> The ultimate
> result will be that the patents will issue in a couple of years, at
> which point you will be able to compete with Microsoft's .NET by
> producing a compatible implementation as long as Microsoft finds it
> convenient to allow you to do so, or as long as you don't need to sell
> in the US. This is the clever way to lock programmers into a specific
> vendor.
I guess it always pays to watch one's step with Microsoft.
The first time they release something technically interesting, it turns out
to be booby-trapped ... What a pity.
David LeBlanc
not free on (Li|U)nix. What's the big deal about C# anyway? It's mostly just
Java slathered with COM and marketing hype.
David LeBlanc
Seattle, WA USA
David K. Trudgett
> Also worth noting is that C# has COM intimately embedded in it and COM is
> not free on (Li|U)nix. What's the big deal about C# anyway? It's mostly just
> Java slathered with COM and marketing hype.
For those who don't know, C# is simply Microsoft's Java killer,
developed after Microsoft became purturbed after being unable to
subvert the openness of Java (which itself isn't as open as many would
like, by the way). Those who use C# are, knowingly or not, supporting
the systematic crushing of open standards.
This is all my opinion only, of course. May contain traces of nuts.
David Trudgett
Tim Daneliuk
I disagree fundamentally with the premise here that a language "locks"
anybody into anything - at least this has not been my experience in
the commercial sector (which is where all the money gets spent
on vendor offerings). I would note several things:
1) "Lock" happens when the cost to replace the sum total of the system
components (hardware, software, networking, and most importantly,
data) is not justified by some reasonable economic measure. Inevitably
the "lock" eventually disappears because the costs of maintaining the
old system rise at the end of that system's life-cycle to the point
where replacement *is* economically justified.
1A) Even pretty compelling new language implementations cannot really
guarantee lock. For its time, at least in commercial practice,
Visual Basic was a terrific innovation, particularly from the
perspective of programmer productivity. (Bear in mind that this
is a *relative* judgement - VB was a huge step up from the GUI
coding environments which it replaced.) But as compelling as the
IT organizations found VB, it did not, on the whole, prevent them
from using other language technologies, not did it materially
prevent the adoption of "new" languages like perl or TCL. Similarly,
Python itself is making great inroads into "pure Microsoft" shops.
2) Commercial systems routinely practice step-wise migrations away from
proprietary components - either to standards-based solutions or another
proprietary component which has some percieved benefit. Most large
IT operations are (and always will be) heterogenous in OS, languages,
DBMS products and so on, in part, for this very reason.
3) By far the most difficult thing to migrate is the sum-total of data
lying around an organization. It has been my consistent experience
that the cost of upgrading systems, languages, and the like is dwarfed
by the cost of data maintenance, cleansing, and translation.
4) Nothwistanding all the Microsoft-bashing so fashionable these days, it
is interesting to note that there are *more* languages, operating systems,
and hardware platforms from which to choose than ever before. Microsoft's
"lock" has failed by any objective measure. The only sense in which they
have been able to lock things up has been on the desktop where no one
has been able to beat their price/value point. In other words, they provide
such a good overall perceived value that its not worth considering the
alternatives. (Microsoft correctly judged that there was a huge market
for "good enough" technology on the desktop. It is why they won that
market but still struggle for the Big Bucks from the backrooms of the
IT department - their "good enough" isn't in those non-stop environments.)
5) Every vendor has tried to achieve account control in some manner. MS, IBM,
Sun, Oracle, et al play this game at fearsome levels. However, they
never manage to quite succeed because per 2) above, real IT problems
cannot be solved with a single-vendor solution.
6) "Standards" are overrated as a means of neutralizing vendor threats of
lockup. Real standardization does not come from ECMA, ANSI, POSIX,
X/Open (I have participated in both ANSI and X/Open efforts). Real
standards get set by *(technology) user adoption*. Technology users
such as IT departments usually do what is in their own best-interest in
the short- to medium-term. Whether or not it is "standardized" is an
interesting checkpoint in the vendor selection process, but it falls
*way* below the higher priorities of cost reduction, Return On Investment
calculations, time-to-solution and a host of business-driven factors.
It is demonstrable that proprietary solutions from Microsoft,
IBM, Tandem, and the like get chosen for the simple expedient that
they make lots of business sense in a given environment. Anyone who
limits themselves to only standards-based solutions will rapidly
find themselves at huge competitive disadvantage. Some industries
like high-volume transaction process (airlines, credit card processors,
banks, and equities trading floors) literally could not exist if
forced to play a standards only game.
7) The forthcoming battle is not about OSs or languages. These are merely
the underpinnings of the real fight we are about to witness which is all
about content interoperability. Even with "standards-based" content
markup like XML (which I claim is still mostly about data syntax and
presentation) there are deep and murky problems having to do with
what that data *means* (a semantic problem). Even if new data is
properly marked up to encapsulate its semantics, there is way more
old data than new, and making the two place nicely is lifetimes of
work. Microsoft gets this in a big way. .NET is *all* about getting
people to play *their* markup and content interoperability game. They
probably couldn't care less if you use C# or Python to code the endpoints
of a data transaction. They want to be in the *middle* directing traffic -
well, more to the point, they want to position themselves as a toll booth.
If they have any real threat if World Domination, it is in this area
because, again, people do what works for now. They have a real shot
at making this work, IMO, because there is no meaningful alternative
on the horizon which has the kind of grass-roots IT user support that
.NET is clearly garnering. By most measures, EDI was a "yawn heard
'round the world". Microsoft is earnestly positioning .NET to be
the "EDI" of the 21st century, except they'll expect you to "pay by
the drink."
So, I wouldn't worry too much about C# locking users in. I'd worry more (if you
object to Microsoft's further success - I don't) about them using .NET as a
Trojan Horse to get their mitts around corporate data exchanges which, in turn,
leads to corporate transactions and transaction managment. Then they *will* have
a shot a real vendor lockup because corporate data is Big, Ugly, and getting
worse every year. Anybody who conquers *that* mountain will win, big time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
tun...@tundraware.com
James J. Besemer
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> [...]
What a marvelous, well informed and refreshingly mature and objective analysis of the
situation. It is so much more informative and thought provoking than the usual
mindless, childish MS-bashing that usually goes on here.
Regards
--jb
--
James J. Besemer 503-280-0838 voice
http://cascade-sys.com 503-280-0375 fax
mailto:j...@cascade-sys.com
David K. Trudgett
> It is so much more informative and thought provoking than the usual
> mindless, childish MS-bashing that usually goes on here.
Argumentum ad hominis, as you do here by name-calling, doesn't serve
any useful purpose (except insofar as it is useful to metaphorically
bludgeon those who express an opinion that differs from the
intellectual aggressor).
People should be able to express facts and opinions, even strong ones,
without being labeled "childish" and "mindless". Not everyone has
hours of free time to write long diatribes in support of their
position (and good on those who do).
For those who think the sun shines out of corporate behemoths like
Microsoft, a simple statement of disagreement, perhaps with a few
actual reasons for it, might suffice, I should think.
Out.
David Trudgett
David K. Trudgett
When people start to think twice about sharing information by quoting
material, in full or in whole, it's a sign of a sick society.
Think for a moment about it. Is our solidarity with one another as
normal human beings going to decay to such an extent that we cannot
share information with those who need it?
I believe the Chinese have a concept about this, that has to do with
the term "xing ge", which translates (badly, probably) as "character".
Australians call it "mateship".
To bring in a bit of relevance to an otherwise OT post, the Python
community's spirit of sharing and mutual assistance, is one of the
highlights in what can be a rather dreary field (in terms of freedoms
and openness, and the ability to benefit from mutual sharing). The
open source Python licence itself, and no doubt Guido et al, strongly
encourage this environment.
Sharing not only has utilitarian benefits, it's also the human thing
to do.
David Trudgett
David K. Trudgett
> When people start to think twice about sharing information by quoting
> material, in full or in whole, it's a sign of a sick society.
Uhm, that should read, "in full or in part", but you knew that... :-)
David Trudgett
Tim Daneliuk
Since I am at the moment unemployed, and in that humanitarian spirit, might
I ask you to "share" your paycheck with me?
Intellectual property is still property. When shared voluntarily it is a wonderous
thing. When protected and profited upon, it is equally wonderous and by no means "sick".
Tim Daneliuk
>
><SNIP>
> People should be able to express facts and opinions, even strong ones,
> without being labeled "childish" and "mindless". Not everyone has
> hours of free time to write long diatribes in support of their
> position (and good on those who do).
Sorry if I was too windy...
>
> For those who think the sun shines out of corporate behemoths like
> Microsoft, a simple statement of disagreement, perhaps with a few
> actual reasons for it, might suffice, I should think.
For me, the "sun rises and sets" on economic reality. Every single good
thing I possess materially is possible because some corporation, typically
large, thought they could make money providing it to me. My technical strength
and strong preference is for Unix, but Microsoft's existence and products has
been very good for me personally and my industry as a whole. In my view, they
are national treasure, warts and all...
David K. Trudgett
> Argumentum ad hominis, as you do here by name-calling, doesn't serve
I should give up while I'm ahead! The above should read "Argumentum ad
hominem" I believe. I should learn some Latin.
Here's another useful one:
Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur
et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est.
David Trudgett
James J. Besemer
"David K. Trudgett" wrote:
> Argumentum ad hominis, [sic.] as you do here by name-calling, doesn't
> serve
> any useful purpose (except insofar as it is useful to metaphorically
> bludgeon those who express an opinion that differs from the
> intellectual aggressor).
Nothing in my reply was intended to specifically criticize your post. In
composing my reply I was merely thinking generally of the myriad
MS-bashing posts I have read here in recent weeks and months.
I merely felt compelled to praise Tim's, mainly because he did argue at
length why the contrary views are short sighted and (IMHO) child-like.
Furthermore, I found it a refreshing change of pace from the MS ankle
biting that is so prevalent here.
> People should be able to express facts and opinions, even strong ones,
> without being labeled "childish" and "mindless".
We each are free to express our opinion, even strong ones. Even ones that
by the writers own admission is purely "opinion" and "may contain traces
of nuts."
If YOU choose include what you said in my characterization as "childish,"
then so be it.
After all, "you are what you do," regardless of whether or how people
apply labels.
And yet you seem oddly hypocritical on the issue of "labels". You object
to someone MAYBE, INDIRECTLY applying an IMPLIED label to you but you make
some borderline libelous accusations and characterizations about MS corp.
and that's fair game. I guess it's like stealing from a big company is OK
because they have lots of money but it's still bad to steal from normal
people.
> Not everyone has
> hours of free time to write long diatribes in support of their
> position (and good on those who do).
True and irrelevant.
> For those who think the sun shines out of corporate behemoths like
> Microsoft, a simple statement of disagreement, perhaps with a few
> actual reasons for it, might suffice, I should think.
Which brings us back to Mr. Daneluck's thoughtful and insightful post,
which prompted my initial remark.
I'm no big fan of MS but as a businessman I appreciate and respect their
position in the market. It's stupid to ignore their installed base.
Whether you agree or not, their economic power is something to be reckoned
with. The value you get for what you pay is one of the best bargains in
the PC world. Like Intel, they're relentlessly competitive AND they take
a balanced view of running a business (paying attention to finance,
marketing, sales, strategic planning, HR and other functions in addition
to technology), which is the main reason they have been successful. It's
the quintessential American Success Story -- after all they started out
just 12 geeks in a room, writing software for the 8008. From a purely
meritocratic standpoint, they deserve to be where they are today. From a
pure Zen, go-with-the-flow standpoint, WinTel is the #1 platform to target
for commercial products. There are other choices and you don't have to
use Microsoft products, but like it or not MS IS a big part of our reality
today and its likely to be around for the rest of our lives.
From this standpoint, people who view MS as "evil" or some big scary bogey
man, ARE simply being childish, neglecting many practical and realistic
issues. You want bogey men? What about IBM, who spends more in marketing
each year than MS grosses in revenue? What about Big Oil, controlling
about 10% of the GNP? By last count, 100% of US oil companies today are
direct descendants of Rockafeller's Standard Oil. What about Big
Government? 20-25% of the GNP. MS's large fraction of the computer
industry is nothing by comparison.
Incidentally, re. C#, MS came out with it as a product well AFTER Sun
threatened to cancel their license to use Java (eventually making good on
this threat). So in forcing MS to abandon Java (rather than negotiate a
settlement), one could argue it's really Sun Microsystems rather than MS
that fucked up the wonderful world of "open standards" in this narrow
regard.
Oleg Broytmann
On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 03:20:06AM +0000, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> I would note several things:
Wow! Very nice and reasonable!! Thank you very much for the post!!!
> 1) "Lock" happens when the cost to replace the sum total of the system
> components (hardware, software, networking, and most importantly,
> data) is not justified by some reasonable economic measure.
Unfortunately, there are managers who, despite economic evidence, eat
ADs and FUD ("We don't want any linux in our office because it is text OS").
> 4) Nothwistanding all the Microsoft-bashing so fashionable these days, it
> is interesting to note that there are *more* languages, operating systems,
> and hardware platforms from which to choose than ever before.
Hm... When my children go to the nearset shop and buy games there, the
games are, by strange accident, always for Windows, DirectX, often
"optimized" for GeForce video card, etc. Now, what hardware and software
should I choose for my home PC? :) Isn't it "lock"?
> 5) Every vendor has tried to achieve account control in some manner. MS, IBM,
> Sun, Oracle, et al play this game at fearsome levels. However, they
> never manage to quite succeed because per 2) above, real IT problems
> cannot be solved with a single-vendor solution.
[skip]
> So, I wouldn't worry too much about C# locking users in. I'd worry more
> (if you object to Microsoft's further success - I don't)
I don't worry about their success - I worry about their power. They play
unlawful games, they lobbying to chnage the very law - that's scary. I want
to put them back unto lawful road, and then hope that your point 5 will be
applied to them.
Oleg.
--
Oleg Broytmann http://phd.pp.ru/ p...@phd.pp.ru
Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
Oleg Broytmann
On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 01:02:55AM -0700, James J. Besemer wrote:
> I'm no big fan of MS but as a businessman I appreciate and respect their
> position in the market.
I don't. They achived their positoin by using lie, spreading FUD, buying
rivals, forcing (abusing their power) other companies to do thing in their
favor, etc...
> Whether you agree or not, their economic power is something to be reckoned
> with.
What about their political power?
> It's
> the quintessential American Success Story -- after all they started out
> just 12 geeks in a room, writing software for the 8008.
Alas, the real story of M$ is not so nice. They didn't wrote MS DOS -
they bought it and resell to IBM. Then they climbed unto success on the
shoulders of IBM, they used IBM, and then threw IBM away like a soaked
lemon.
If this is typical American Success Story, I don't want American Success
Stories.
> From this standpoint, people who view MS as "evil" or some big scary bogey
> man, ARE simply being childish, neglecting many practical and realistic
> issues.
Call me "childish", call me "idealist", call me "merely dumb idiot", but
I don't want to take the reality for granted. It are we the people who
created and still are creating and recreating the reality. There are many
thing in the reality I want to change, and M$ is one of those things. To
change the reality I do many "childish", "idealisti", "idiotic" things - I
am writing Free Software, I am using Free Software, I am popularizing Free
Software, I am helping people to understand Free Software, to install it
and use it. And watch the fun - the reality is changing around me!
> You want bogey men? What about IBM, who spends more in marketing
> each year than MS grosses in revenue? What about Big Oil, controlling
> about 10% of the GNP? By last count, 100% of US oil companies today are
> direct descendants of Rockafeller's Standard Oil. What about Big
> Government? 20-25% of the GNP. MS's large fraction of the computer
> industry is nothing by comparison.
If they play the game by rules and laws - I don't care about them. M$ is
abusing their power more and more, and this must be stopped.
Garry Hodgson
>
> In the last exciting episode, Tim Daneliuk <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote::
> > Gerhard Häring wrote:
> > The overal article is about the dangers of locking into a single programming
> > paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world problems require
> > multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable solutions. I think
> > Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate that very idea in
> > the language.
>
>
> Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.
ocaml, too. and mozart (oz) supports most any pradigm known to man.
--
Garry Hodgson Let my inspiration flow
Senior Hacker in token rhyme suggesting rhythm
Software Innovation Services that will not forsake me
AT&T Labs 'til my tale is told and done.
ga...@sage.att.com
Chris Barker
> For me, the "sun rises and sets" on economic reality. Every single good
> thing I possess materially is possible because some corporation, typically
> large, thought they could make money providing it to me.
Every thing? scary!! I have the art my daughter makes for me, etc. I
suppose corporate influence is strong enough that one could argue that
my daughter needs crayons made be some corporation to make that art, but
it's a pretty sad way to think about the world! Besides, every BAD thing
you possess is the product of a corporation, too.
> Microsoft's existence and products has
> been very good for me personally and my industry as a whole. In my view, they
> are national treasure, warts and all...
I'm not so sure about that at all. We only have one path that was
followed. What would the computer industry look like if Bill Gates had
been hit by a bus 20 years ago? Who knows? I suspect it would look
better. What if MS had not dumped the OS/2 project with IBM ? we would
have been running a powerfull stable OS all over the place long before
winNT became useful. Where would office software be if MS had not
leveraged their market power to dominate the market? Maybe we'd have an
actual office software format standard, and a whole lot fewer systems
being contaminated by MSOffice macro viruses.
My point is that the the computer industry as a whole has done a lot of
wonderful things, and MS has played a major role in it, but we have NO
WAY of knowing what the industry would look like without MS. I suspect
better, apparently you suspect worse, but neither of us have any idea.
"James J. Besemer" wrote:
> Like Intel, they're relentlessly competitive AND they take
> a balanced view of running a business (paying attention to finance,
> marketing, sales, strategic planning, HR and other functions in addition
> to technology), which is the main reason they have been successful.
Absolutely true. Unfortuantely, what this means is they are more in the
business of making money than the business of making software, which
results in not-so-good, but very saleable, software.
> From a purely
> meritocratic standpoint, they deserve to be where they are today.
Only on the merit of running a business, and the ability to maintain a
monopoly (Palm is an example of a company that couldn't figure out how
to do that), not on their merit as software deveolpers.
> There are other choices and you don't have to
> use Microsoft products, but like it or not MS IS a big part of our reality
> today and its likely to be around for the rest of our lives.
Well, sure, but if I don't like it, I can do what I can to limit their influence.
> What about IBM, who spends more in marketing
> each year than MS grosses in revenue? What about Big Oil, controlling
> about 10% of the GNP? By last count, 100% of US oil companies today are
> direct descendants of Rockafeller's Standard Oil.
I'm just as scared and unhappy about Big Oil (and Big Energy in general:
anyone heard of Enron?), but that would be even more Off Topic in this newsgroup!
> What about Big
> Government? 20-25% of the GNP.
The only thing that scares me about Big Government is that is is being
controlled more and more by Big Corporations.
-Chris
--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
NOAA/OR&R/HAZMAT (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception
James J. Besemer
Chris Barker wrote:
> but it's a pretty sad way to think about the world!
It's actually really a neutral and objective way to view the world (if not optimistic
and positive).
Fact of the matter, the simple secret of success in business is to figure out what
your customers want and to give it to them for a better price than your competition
can. I've been to executive management training courses, and they don't teach you
how to cook your books and how to cheat customers. They teach you to get in close
with your customers, figure out how to best help them and then simply to provide that
help packaged according to the problem domain in question.
Sure there are some bad companies that give all the others a bad name. But most
companies are just trying to make an honest buck fulfilling bona fide customer needs.
> Besides, every BAD thing
> you possess is the product of a corporation, too.
Do you possess mostly good things or mostly bad things? By what ratio?
> My point is that the the computer industry as a whole has done a lot of
> wonderful things, and MS has played a major role in it, but we have NO
> WAY of knowing what the industry would look like without MS. I suspect
> better, apparently you suspect worse, but neither of us have any idea.
You show a lot of objectivity and sincerity in this statement. It is true we may
never know what if.
In wondering 'what if' I think it's instructive to look at the Unix industry.
Depending on how you count, they had a 10-20 year head start on Microsoft. And an
even longer period to get their act together before MS achieved any kind of dominance
with Windows. The Unix platform vendors had plenty of opportunities to unite and
forge inter operability and other standards. But IIRC each and every time a group
rose up to form an industry standard for GUI or whatever, it wasn't long before a
second competing group rose up in direct opposition. Motif vs. Open look, PowerOpen,
POE, COSE, X/Open, POSIX, etc. I don't recall all the names and battles but for
someone like myself who was rooting since the 70's for Unix to take over the world,
this SNAFU was a tragedy of unspeakable proportions. And MS had nothing to do with
it. Just a bunch of geeks didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground w/r/t
business. Why ISN'T there a killer office product on any Unix platform? MS never
competed there, so they certainly weren't using their vastly overrated "power" to
prevent it.
Or look at the Mac. If Apple had blown the thing out the door for 20% above their
manufacturing cost instead of demanding 250% or whatever the market would bear for as
long as they could keep it up, maybe the industry standard "PC" would not have an
Intel part inside and MS may never have realized the gains it did. Now THERE'S a
decision that could have changed the world.
We'll never know but I bet $1 that in the absence of a WinTel alliance, we'd have
little more than the same old pointless squabbling among the remaining competitors.
And STILL no killer apps to speak of. Really, Microsoft was handed their market
dominance position on a platter; they didn't have to cheat to get it. And the reason
their APPs dominate is because they've worked on continually refining and improving
them for almost 20 years.
> Absolutely true. Unfortuantely, what this means is they are more in the
> business of making money than the business of making software, which
> results in not-so-good, but very saleable, software.
The point is their practical approach should be viewed as a perfectly valid business
model in a practical world, rather than evil being propagated on the world unjustly.
If someone else finds the time or finds a sponsor where they can afford to carry
their own work to a higher technical standard, then so be it. The proper view is
both are equally valid choices in a free society, not that one is intrinsically good
and the other evil. The more costly solution usually is better quality but it's not
always affordable.
I'm often disappointed and frustrated that my own clients don't want to pay extra for
quality code. Usually they are pressed for time and want the quickest possible code
for right now. Never mind that it'll cost more in the long run, as often if the
short term objectives are not met then there won't be any long run.
> Only on the merit of running a business, and the ability to maintain a
> monopoly
Certainly the former, as we both agreed. RE the monopoly I think time will tell.
Historically monopolies always fall by the wayside and we've seen erosion in MS's
position in recent years. Linux seems a credible threat to their position on the PC,
particularly as it is being actively promoted by IBM.
Too, despite all their financial and other "power" and despite an express top level
strategy and tons of development dollars to be multi-platform, MS has consistently
failed to achieve a significant foot-hold on any non-PC platform.
> (Palm is an example of a company that couldn't figure out how
> to do that), not on their merit as software deveolpers.
Examples of people who know technology far better than business are tragically way
more common than people who have a balance. Too, it's generally the difference
between failure and success. But the bottom line is the only way to be truly
successful is to balance all aspects of business, not technology alone. A lot of
geek types have difficulty understanding and accepting this simple fact.
> Well, sure, but if I don't like it, I can do what I can to limit their influence.
You're certainly welcome to try your best. I don't fault people for trying. I wish
you the best of luck. I'm happy to use free software when it fits my needs.
It's going the next step beyond that and unnecessarily demonizing the opposition
which I find tiresome.
> The only thing that scares me about Big Government is that is is being
> controlled more and more by Big Corporations.
That's why everyone should fear big government. Whatever good it might be able to do
in your favor, imagine the much greater damage when your political enemies are in
control. Better if government is small so that neither can hurt the other.
David K. Trudgett
Thanks for your detailed reply. As this is OT, however, I will be
brief. Suffice it to say I don't agree with anything you said, though
I make a couple of specific notes below.
On Tuesday 2002-05-21 at 01:02:55 -0700, James J. Besemer wrote:
> Nothing in my reply was intended to specifically criticize your post. In
Well, that's good. Nothing in my post was meant to suggest you were
referring to me in particular.
> I merely felt compelled to praise Tim's, mainly because he did argue at
> length why the contrary views are short sighted and (IMHO) child-like.
> Furthermore, I found it a refreshing change of pace from the MS ankle
> biting that is so prevalent here.
Oh, yes, I fully see your point! I also find it immensely refreshing
to read about the US energy war in Afghanistan. It makes such a change
from the anti-terrorist propaganda one hears all the time. Perhaps
George Dubya and his oil cronies should just cut right through it all
and tell people like it is. It's not at all as if big business is
killing, torturing and starving thousands or millions of innocent men,
women and children. It's not like that at all. In fact, it would be
libelous even to think it.
David Trudgett
David LeBlanc
> From: python-l...@python.org
> [mailto:python-l...@python.org]On Behalf Of James J. Besemer
> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 1:03
> To: David K. Trudgett
> Cc: pytho...@python.org
> Subject: Re: "One Bullet is never enough" Paper
>
> I'm no big fan of MS but as a businessman I appreciate and respect their
> a balanced view of running a business (paying attention to finance,
> marketing, sales, strategic planning, HR and other functions in addition
> the quintessential American Success Story -- after all they started out
> meritocratic standpoint, they deserve to be where they are today. From a
> pure Zen, go-with-the-flow standpoint, WinTel is the #1 platform to target
> use Microsoft products, but like it or not MS IS a big part of our reality
> today and its likely to be around for the rest of our lives.
Ah yes, respect for Microsoft. I suppose they deserve the same "respect" as
any mobster or shark. Microsoft's main claim to their position is a
willingness to practice illegal and predatory marketing upon their customers
as demonstrated by the anti-trust suite. BTW, Microsoft didn't start out as
"12 geeks...". It was Bill Gates and Paul Allen in a dorm room at Harvard
(of which, Gates dropped out) working on 8080 code for the Altair 8800
microcomputer (Gates had interned there the summer before IIRC). MS has been
primarily successful because momma Gates served on the same charity board as
some big IBM bigwig's wife and who got him the lead for the PC work (AND
because Gary Kildahl was too much of a space cadet to see the opportunity,
not to mention the culture clash with IBM). At the point where they got it,
they where pretty much out of work after the Apple and TRS-80 Basic ROM
work. I believe they screwed Apple and Radio Shack too (I recall there was
some back and forth between Apple and Microsoft about floating point Basic,
but the details elude me after so long). We know they screwed IBM over both
DOS and OS/2. (To be fair, IBM did leave the door open for loosing DOS since
they didn't see the potential at the time they signed the contract.)
The value you get for what you pay is one of the best bargins in the PC
world? Actually, if you do the math, it's _infinately_ worse then... oh,
say... LINUX wich is FREE for the downloading. The ratio of one cent to zero
cents is infinite! With MS you pay a lot more then one cent. Of course, it
is nice being in that 90% profit margin market. 90% of Microsoft's revenue
stream from software comes from the mere act of granting use permission - no
physical product is actually produced. I bet GM would love to be in a market
where they could grant permission to drive a car without actually having to
produce the car!
I won't get into the quality or lack thereof of Microsoft products, but
suffice it to say an OS which verbosely pretty much says "it's broken, buy
more stuff to fix it" which is what NT and 2000's "help" systems do does not
make me believe that it's "mission critical and enterprise ready" (you did
want to spend the extra $200-$300 for the 2000 Resource kit with the real
diagnostic tools and messages in it didn't you?).
> From this standpoint, people who view MS as "evil" or some big scary bogey
> man, ARE simply being childish, neglecting many practical and realistic
> issues. You want bogey men? What about IBM, who spends more in marketing
> each year than MS grosses in revenue? What about Big Oil, controlling
> about 10% of the GNP? By last count, 100% of US oil companies today are
> direct descendants of Rockafeller's Standard Oil. What about Big
> Government? 20-25% of the GNP. MS's large fraction of the computer
> industry is nothing by comparison.
Damn! the US government is "being childish". While this isn't news
(considering who the presichimp is), I doubt it was a temper tantrum that
prompted them to prosecute AND WIN an anti-trust suite against Microsoft.
Alas, it looks as though Microsoft's wiggling and big payouts in the 2000
elections (a first for the company) has enabled them to wait for a favorable
administration to negotiate their "punishment" little though it may be.
Kudos to the states for not tamely laying down with the Justice Department!
I'm not in Oil or government. I am in computers, so that's my focus of
interest. BTW, speaking of the oil companies, if their GDP (to be accurate
since "GNP" is obsolete) fraction is so small, why are we busily fighting a
war in Afghanistan that will enable them to have the favored pipeline route
from the Tajikistan oil fields safeguarded? There is so much that has worked
out so well for the government and big oil from 9/11. Too bad they didn't
have a clue that _someone_ might use airplanes to fly into structures -
although the Japanese did it 55 years before in WW II.
BTW, I doubt your claim that "100% of US oil companies are descended from
Rockafeller's Standard Oil". Would you consider Arco a US company? They're
owned by British Petroleum (BP). Actually, it's moot - they're all so
mult-national now that debate about origions are pointless. (One of the
great things about being a multi-national is you can just move your base of
operations to where the legislative climate is either suitable to your
liking or can be bought cheap.)
> Incidentally, re. C#, MS came out with it as a product well AFTER Sun
> threatened to cancel their license to use Java (eventually making good on
> this threat). So in forcing MS to abandon Java (rather than negotiate a
> settlement), one could argue it's really Sun Microsystems rather than MS
> that fucked up the wonderful world of "open standards" in this narrow
> regard.
Yes indeedy, Sun did revoke Microsoft's license - after they won a court
case demonstrating that Microsoft violated said license. Nobody forced
Microsoft to abandon Java except they themselves with their insistance on
violating the terms of the license agreement they signed. I see C# as just
one more case of Microsoft "embracing and extending" (think of being grabbed
and bent over a desk) Java by making a proprietary language with a laughable
and cynical nod towards open sourcing. While the language might be open
source, OS features it depends on are either not open or not generally
available or both. C# won't ever run on non-Windows platforms as well as on
Windows given that C# is intimately dependent on COM, which costs $$ on
non-Windows platforms. As has been mentioned on the mailing list, it's worth
noting that Microsoft is persuing patents for features of C#, and that will
make it even more unavailable to the open source community.
Tim Daneliuk
>
> Hi James,
>
> Thanks for your detailed reply. As this is OT, however, I will be
> brief. Suffice it to say I don't agree with anything you said, though
> I make a couple of specific notes below.
>
> On Tuesday 2002-05-21 at 01:02:55 -0700, James J. Besemer wrote:
>
> > Nothing in my reply was intended to specifically criticize your post. In
>
> Well, that's good. Nothing in my post was meant to suggest you were
> referring to me in particular.
>
> > I merely felt compelled to praise Tim's, mainly because he did argue at
> > length why the contrary views are short sighted and (IMHO) child-like.
> > Furthermore, I found it a refreshing change of pace from the MS ankle
> > biting that is so prevalent here.
>
> Oh, yes, I fully see your point! I also find it immensely refreshing
> to read about the US energy war in Afghanistan. It makes such a change
> from the anti-terrorist propaganda one hears all the time. Perhaps
So 3000+ dead is merely "propaganda" - interesting. Just *what* would
it take to get you to "buy" the premise that the threat of
"terrorism/asymmetric warfare" is real, present, and directed
at the heart of all free societies? A vision from On High? A directive from
your government? The loss of someone close enough to you that you'd
notice?
Talk is cheap when you're not under threat. All free societies
are at risk in some degree here, but the US alone will carry the brunt
of it because we are seen as the opinion leader in the West. It is
morally offensive to me as a "converted" American (I was born a
Commonwealth citizen) for you or anyone to categorize the present
situation as propaganda.
> George Dubya and his oil cronies should just cut right through it all
> and tell people like it is. It's not at all as if big business is
> killing, torturing and starving thousands or millions of innocent men,
> women and children. It's not like that at all. In fact, it would be
> libelous even to think it.
I completely agree with you. My US tax dollars should never be used in
the interest of propping up foreign powers who happen to have a bunch
of dead dinosaur remains under their sand. I'm sick of my money and
my fellow citizens' lives being spent to further the interests of a bunch
of totalitarian tribal savages. Furthermore, said tax dollars
should *never* be given away to foreign nations of any stripe, no matter
how much the come begging at our door for handouts. This should not only
apply to the 3rd-world, but also to our nominal "allies" who are quick
to ask us to bail them out of their military and economic woes and even
quicker to complain about our "big business, torturing and starving thousands" -
what a crock. The people dying by the thousands are doing so because they
have failed to overthrow their dictators and embrace Capitalism.
>
> David Trudgett
Stephen J. Turnbull
James> Fact of the matter, the simple secret of success in
James> business is to figure out what your customers want and to
James> give it to them for a better price than your competition
James> can.
And the more complex secret to success in "Big" business is to foster
monopoly by figuring out ways to prevent your customers from migrating
to rivals (preferably backed by the government). Microsoft puts an
enormous amount of effort into (1) legal devices and (2) being
gratuitously different (often in destructive ways---character set
standard non-conformance being an example that has cost yours truly
_much_ pain).
Both of these are purely losses to the economy; you can only argue
they're related to net gain because on balance Microsoft's market
power is beneficial by enforcing standards ("any color you want, as
long as you want black") and accumulating capital to support expensive
development. Your argument that Microsoft-enforced desktop
standardization is very beneficial is plausible, but let's not confuse
"Microsoft is on balance good for the world" with "Microsoft is always
acting with the overall good of consumers in mind."
James> And the reason their APPs dominate is because they've
James> worked on continually refining and improving them for
James> almost 20 years.
But "refine and improve" is not absolute, it's relative to rivals. So
that includes bludgeoning or buying competitors, and deliberately
using "worst practice" development strategies (monolithic OS, for
example) which enhance market power while degrading the product. Not
to mention FUD like trumpeting the "Orange Book C2" security rating of
the Windows NT kernel, while somehow neglecting to note that
installing Word or plugging in the ethernet card violates the
assumptions of a C2 rating. Of course Microsoft _also_ put vast
resources into producing "good enough" software across the board, and
maybe even occasional "best of breed" implementations.
James> It's going the next step beyond that and unnecessarily
James> demonizing the opposition which I find tiresome.
Microsoft is not the threat that the rabid slashdotters claim. But
Microsoft got big by directing its strategy at beating (or beating up)
the competition, not at satisfying the customer. Sometimes those are
the same. Sometimes they aren't. There may be big social gains to
reining in Microsoft (and maybe there aren't, of course, since doing
so requires the presence of Big Government).
>> The only thing that scares me about Big Government is that is
>> is being controlled more and more by Big Corporations.
James> That's why everyone should fear big government.
Maybe. I fear Big Government just because it's Big. Big entities are
vulnerable to Big mistakes. Those mistakes can be issues of fairness,
as you point out, but they can equally well be simply destructive.
Biodiversity in each ecological niche is good for the ecosystem, and
other things being equal, economic diversity in each market is good
for society.
--
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things. I don't
have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember. Scott Gilbert c.l.py
Kragen Sitaker
> The Unix platform vendors had plenty of opportunities to unite and
> forge inter operability and other standards. But IIRC each and
> every time a group rose up to form an industry standard for GUI or
> whatever, it wasn't long before a second competing group rose up in
> direct opposition. Motif vs. Open look, PowerOpen, POE, COSE,
> X/Open, POSIX, etc. I don't recall all the names and battles but
> for someone like myself who was rooting since the 70's for Unix to
> take over the world, this SNAFU was a tragedy of unspeakable
> proportions. And MS had nothing to do with it.
Yep, that's exactly right. Unix was on a path to take over the world
until about 1985, when AT&T decided to try to make money off of it and
made source licenses expensive and hard to get, where before they had
been available at nominal cost.
From about 1985 until about 1993, Unix made essentially no
technological progress. And then Linux happened.
> Why ISN'T there a killer office product on any Unix platform?
For the 1980s and early 1990s, offices generally didn't have Unix
platforms; Unix ran on proprietary hardware that was therefore several
times as expensive as PCs. Even Macs were much cheaper than Unix
workstations, despite being built on the same CPU for much of that
time.
Unix was available for PCs, of course. I suspect it didn't catch on
because the software available for it was very limited.
> Really, Microsoft was handed their market dominance position on a
> platter; they didn't have to cheat to get it. And the reason their
> APPs dominate is because they've worked on continually refining and
> improving them for almost 20 years.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson produced a 70-page document describing,
in detail and with extensive sources, how Microsoft cheated to get
their present position of market dominance, and why their apps
dominate; you should read it.
Paul Boddie
> what a crock. The people dying by the thousands are doing so because they
> have failed to overthrow their dictators and embrace Capitalism.
Can you now take this discussion, if it is to continue, to another
forum? Firstly so that the number of blatantly irrelevant
contributions to this group is reduced, and secondly so that your
opinions can be subject to the scrutiny (and in certain cases,
ridicule) that they deserve.
Paul
P.S. Don't bother replying to me directly - I don't have the time or
inclination to endlessly debate these topics, which is seemingly the
objective of political discussions on non-political newsgroups (after
having observed such discussions many times before).
Tim Daneliuk
You're absolutely right - I will desist immediately - my apologies...
Cameron Laird
Tim Daneliuk <tun...@tundraware.com> wrote:
.
[tons of important stuff,
all worth arguing more]
.
.
>1A) Even pretty compelling new language implementations cannot really
> guarantee lock. For its time, at least in commercial practice,
> Visual Basic was a terrific innovation, particularly from the
> perspective of programmer productivity. (Bear in mind that this
> is a *relative* judgement - VB was a huge step up from the GUI
> coding environments which it replaced.) But as compelling as the
> IT organizations found VB, it did not, on the whole, prevent them
> from using other language technologies, not did it materially
> prevent the adoption of "new" languages like perl or TCL. Similarly,
> Python itself is making great inroads into "pure Microsoft" shops.
.
.
Small technical clarification, for those who don't know the field
as well as Tim:
1987: Perl born.
spring 1988: first version of Tcl applied.
February 1991: Guido first publicly releases Python.
May 1991: Visual Basic 1.0 released.
--
Cameron Laird <Cam...@Lairds.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
phil hunt
>
> James> It's going the next step beyond that and unnecessarily
> James> demonizing the opposition which I find tiresome.
>
>Microsoft is not the threat that the rabid slashdotters claim.
On its own, no. In concert with pernicious laws such as the DMCA and
software patents, which can be use to ban compatible software, it
may be.
> But
>Microsoft got big by directing its strategy at beating (or beating up)
>the competition, not at satisfying the customer. Sometimes those are
>the same. Sometimes they aren't. There may be big social gains to
>reining in Microsoft (and maybe there aren't, of course, since doing
>so requires the presence of Big Government).
Or smaller govmt: repeal the DMCA, abolish software patents.
>Maybe. I fear Big Government just because it's Big. Big entities are
>vulnerable to Big mistakes.
There's also the issue that power tends to corrupt.
--
<"><"><"> Philip Hunt <ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk> <"><"><">
"I would guess that he really believes whatever is politically
advantageous for him to believe."
-- Alison Brooks, referring to Michael
Portillo, on soc.history.what-if