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Re: [Alug] Ow! MS strikes out against cross-platform?
by MJ Ray 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Andrew Savory <a.savory(a)btinternet.com> writes: > > > (That's the new technology bit. It's innovation.) > > Not our innovation. That's the point I was making: why are we trying > > to implement theirs ahead of our own? > Oh, that's just daft. Talk about "Not Invented Here". If it's good, use > it. If it's not, don't. NIH has nothing to do with this. If it's proven to be good, then use it and shout about it from the rooftops. There's not even much harm with quietly exploring implementation for ourselves. Until then, we've got our own innovations to promote and shouldn't be wasting our energy doing their marketing department's work for them. > > Making a big noise before these projects have started is just > > *begging* to be knocked back. > For sure, but look how much noise the Gnome and KDE lot make. And look at the lumps Gnome took for too much PR too early. KDE were actually quite quiet until they had something half-working. Gnustep are like church mice just now. > [...] I think that along with Open Source should be an open mind -- > all too often people tend to discard good ideas just because they > came from dubious sources. No, dubious licensing. That viral shared source licence is a really nasty trick, I think. I also care more about Freedom than Openness. > If Microsoft is making a noise about > something that we've all been doing in similar ways for years, or > making a noise about some fantastic new innovation, why not steal > their thunder by offering an Open Source alternative? Why not, indeed?

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Re: [Alug] Ow! MS strikes out against cross-platform?
by MJ Ray 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Andrew Savory <a.savory(a)btinternet.com> writes: > Um, yeah, let's not get bogged down in paranoia though, eh? Ignore the > fact that it is Microsoft for a minute: some very bright minds have sat > down and designed a new framework for internet-based applications and > services. Who? I've only seen one recognised language guru involved with the project. It mostly seems to be being advocated and evangelised by the management who have so much to lose if Microsoft don't retain their monopoly as the battle moves to service provision. > (That's the new technology bit. It's innovation.) Not our innovation. That's the point I was making: why are we trying to implement theirs ahead of our own? > Remember that Microsoft had a significant input into SMIL and XML > (and many other funky technologies and innovations). "Significant input" does not equate to Microsoft-led and -owned. > Should we discard these lest we wind up staring at the competition? > Does it matter who the competition is? Well, I don't see acres of newsprint devoted to these other worthy technologies and I don't see the huge waste of programmer talent in their pursuit. Where Free software has got on quietly and provided sound implementations of useful techologies, it works well. Making a big noise before these projects have started is just *begging* to be knocked back. > Surely, if the competition have the cash to employ some > extremely talented designers, engineers, geeks etc, shouldn't we let them > pay while we steal their ideas? ;-) Depends if they want to steal our revolution...

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Re: [Alug] [fwd] Re: Very Worried at MS .net
by MJ Ray 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Andrew Savory <a.savory(a)btinternet.com> writes: > http://www.ximian.com/tech/mono-index.php3 or So, Mono is a C-hash compiler (yuck), the CLI and CLR. Where are the other languages? Will the viral nature of the MS Shared Source licence kill them? > http://www.microsoft.com/net/whatis.asp for more details. It doesn't seem to like my web browser. I guess they're looking at the user agent. > I think to say .NET is "the new Windows API" is a little too glib. ...but depending on the contents of the CLI, it could be entirely fair.

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bash script...
by Andrew J Glover 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Could somebody explain to me why the following doesnt work, or offer a better solution please? -- DIRECTORY=".thumbnails" remThumbs() { rm -rf $DIRECTORY } for i in `ls -a` ; do if [ -d $i ] ; then echo "Yup, $i is a directory" if [ $i == $DIRECTORY && $i != "." || $i != ".." ] ; then echo "Removing $i ..." # remThumbs else echo "Entering $i ..." cd $i $HOME/bin/remThumbnails fi else echo "Nope, $i is a file" fi done -- Thanks, Andrew.

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LaTeX help
by David Freeman 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Hi, Can any one tell me how to change the way the date is displayed in LaTeX? ATM it shows up as July 19, 2001 which I don't want. I want it to show tomorrows date (20th July) as: 20 July 2001 This is being used in a letter which needs to be done tonight for tomorrow! Thanks D ===== -------------------- "We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." Linus Torvalds __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Re: [Alug] bash script...
by MJ Ray 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Andrew J Glover <flexifoil(a)btinternet.com> writes: > if [ $i == $DIRECTORY && $i != "." || $i != ".." ] ; Almost certainly that line wants [ ]s around each test (man test and man bash to see why). Use Brett's way though. Much nicer.

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test message
by Brett Parker 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

OK, this is just to see if I have now stopped my self from being blocked and having to wait for admins to approve the mails, please ignore, delete, set fire to, whatever ;) Brett

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Re: [Alug] cron job
by MJ Ray 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > when I first started using linux, I was logged in as root and typed Don't you think that root and the -f flag really don't mix? I also su lots for very short spaces of time these days too ;-)

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The Java Debate
by tom potts 20 Jul '01

20 Jul '01

Just a few comments: C# looks interesting but is designed by Microsoft to Lock you in - they've already stated that in the future they will be charging for the XML standards. Froma design point of view its a bit of a mish mash of old technologies glued together. If theres a design flaw in Microsoft they provide a work around. Java is meant to be multi-platform and if there is a design flaw Sun have the temerity to go back and rip up all the previous work and start again. If you get a chance check out Forte - the Java IDE its free for now and runs on Windows/Solaris/Linux and if it doesnt scare the hell out of Microsoft i'll be surprised. Now some added bitching: As a Microsoft Technet user I was offered extra free information at the technet site. I went in and was told to fill in a Passport (all the usual lies for any market research). And on returning to the site I discovered it couldnt use the passport data and I would have to enter it all again to get my free info. Anyone know what it was? Beware trends: XML provides little more (over EDI peer to peer) than a nice way to view Data. But ask yourself why you would want to view data that is meant to be pumped straight into your business system? Tom ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Re: [Alug] locale
by MJ Ray 19 Jul '01

19 Jul '01

Andrew.Chandler(a)ftid.com writes: > Just one of those strange things about our country - we are the UK > but for some purposes we have to be GB? Like at the Olympics etc. I think it's something like ISO says GB, but reality often says UK. Sometimes reality beats a standard.

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