OSNews

I've been reading osnews for some time now, and this is the first time I see us (Portuguese) here!!!
Now I can't stop visiting osnews to see if there's more )))

No offense... but... who? I read the first page, but I'm still not quite sure who this is. Should I?

21 years old is not really a teenager... Have you even tryed reading the article?

Go Portugal

If Joao is indeed the visionary the interviewer claims, I think the interviewer did a very poor job with his questions. Joao clearly knows his stuff, but the interviewer wasted his chance by asking irrelevant questions about [oversimplification] windows this, linux that... [/oversimplification]

Besides, this:

13. How do you see the technological future?

JP: I see a networked, object oriented, XML database driven and XSL transformed world.

Hardly is the answer of a visionary, this same reply 5 years ago and I would have gasped in awe, now it's not even sophisticated.

I'm sorry I'm being a bit of a prick, just that the web seems to be full of visionaries as of late.

what seperates him from any other honors undergrad CS student?

I see nothing visionary - just a guy who knows a little about a lot.

So here's a guy who has done all kinds of interesting projects. He's in the process of learning things in numerous and varied topics, and here the interviewer bogs half the interview down with, "So how does Microsoft suck? Let's talk about Linux! Or is Windows awesome?" You could just see João struggling to pull the interview towards fresh innovative directions, while Andy worked to keep belaboring the decrepid Linux/Windows debate. It was painful. At least João got some words in edgewise towards the end.

for every programmer who says they've been programming since some ridiculously young age (whether true or not) i'd be a millionaire. seriously. that sentence in the new blurb by itself made me think i should skip it entirely.. then i read the first question, and knew i should skip it. who the heck is this guy anyway??

Well, I see a lot of people here saying bad thins about this interview. But I guess they cannot read, otherwise, they would have read it, and they would know why was the interview published. It adds so much constructive content to the hot topics today. And all the content of the interview is related with OSNews. I just see here a bunch of moorons who cannot do anything else than be corrosive. Please, say something when you have something constructive to say, otherwise, you'll just loose a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut.

>who the heck is this guy anyway??

He is a person, like you and me. Does he have to be a president of a country to get interviewed?
This interview was done as a part of a study in a university and the author was kind enough to reprint it here.
If you don't like it, don't read it. Being a$$hol3s about it won't change a thing.

I know Joao Paredes personally and he is a really cool guy... he is a great programmer and also a very intelligent person. Perhaps the questions of the interview are not the best so you can't judge him for that. For all the people who said bad things about Joao maybe they should redirect those comments to Andy.

Joao ps: continua com o bom trabalho.

I pretty much agree with everything my fellow countrymen said, except:
1 - windows bloat: who cares if microsoft keeps shipping old api's with windows (OLE comes to mind) , they're just dll's, they're only loaded when they're needed by some app. Same goes for linux libs.
2 - linux modularity: i think linux is modular enough, the problem is that they loose binary compatibility too frequently, unfortunately i think they do this on purpose and mostly for political reasons, but that is just my opinion, i can't really prove it.
I particularly agree with what he said about xfree.

and a strange naming convention to follow... not really mandatory.

Hungarian Notation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dn...

The use of C++ and other OOP languages first go thro! ugh C callbacks. That's really not a limitation imposed by Linux, but rather by the architecture it is supposed to support.

The windows API was written in C.

Maybe it's time to do some research.

Well, I woke up this evening and it was a nice surprise to find an interview with a Portuguese programmer here! Maybe he's not that well known around the world (or even in Portugal), maybe he's only on more of those thousands visionaries, maybe it's not important that he started coding when he was 5. But anyway who cares about that?
I share some of his points of view, but even if I didn't I'd still admite that he seems to be someone smart and who has some knowledge about osdev and a lot of subjects. Anyway, I admite this was not the best interview I ever read and I still ask myself wwhat "b! ut" means! Finaly, I can only say that above anything I am proud of being Portuguese and happy that another Portuguse fellow got some recognition for his work!

I care..
i only started programing 3 years ago(i have 16 years)
that is realy rare arond here...
and is the fisit time i see sommeting from potuguese in the osnews and that is realy something...
i'm not makinh any sense....i am going to hide myself.

Vai em frente Joao os geeks de portugal tao kom tigo(axu)

>>>
Do you think sysadmins like having that much work? They like sitting down with a cup of coffee in one hand and a modelling magazine in the other, waiting for a disaster to come. When it happens, they reboot, sit down continue enjoying the coffee and the magazine.
>>>>


Hahahaha, I couldn't stop laughing at that one.

>>>>
>Do you think sysadmins like having that much work? They >like sitting down with a cup of coffee in one hand and a >modelling magazine in the other, waiting for a disaster to >come. When it happens, they reboot, sit down continue >enjoying the coffee and the magazine.
>>>>>
>
>
>Hahahaha, I couldn't stop laughing at that one.

Have you read the lines immediatly after those?
If not, here they are:

"6. That was mean.

JP: I can only hurt the ones that let themselves get hurt."

Ok, guys I'm portuguese, but this interview... well, he says things with wich I agree and others that I do not. At some point in the interview he says, that he doesn't understand why the Server OS from Microsoft need graphical interfaces. Then almost at the end he says that sys admins aren't supposed to know by head 128 bit ip's when talking about IP6V. But are they supposed to know all the console commands?
Anyway, Windows GUI is heavy, isn't KDE too?
No, I'm not windows fanatic. I like both Windows and Linux, I just think about the things I say.
Anyway dude, keep the good work (e caga para os gajos).

I have never heard of João before, even though we are both Portuguese persons, but I've heard of his project a few weeks ago. But sincerely, and to be quite frank, I know not much about it. I'm amazed with his approaches and answers while not fully disappointed with the interview itself, I found that Andi or whoever set the questions for this specific interview, didn’t choose the best questions for a person who’s not involved in either Linux or Windows development as far as I can tell. Maybe I’m deeply wrong here, but if he was involved, he’d probably state that in his introduction.

I think that he neglected the fact that both OS’es follow different designs and directions in its unique and broad scope. Linux is a great implementation of an old OS design while Windows is a bloated implementation of a modern OS design. It’s like comparing buildings of five decades ago and buildings we’re used to see constantly nowadays. While some architects prefer to stick with old designs but improving them greatly (Linux), some remain on the edge of technology but using the wrong approaches to solve the actual problems and barriers and fully enhance their building block structures according to their market (Windows). I personally, need both OS’es too. I avoid x-windows whenever possible, as such Microsoft windows gives me what Linux doesn’t – a stable windows for multimedia purposes. As for programming, I found Linux to be better than Windows, but that is probably because I became a programmer in Linux rather Windows. To finish my comment, I’d like to congratulate João for being humble in his interview. Keep up the good work.

joao with your interview portugal now knows that the world is listening portugal.we're good in at we do, the prove of that is you. portugal is proud of your work...go on!

Portugal!

I am a very close friend of João Paredes, I work with him in Chefax R&D and also in our faculty's ACM student chapter. I just want to say I'm pround of working with him and wish we can take our projects beyond.

FORÇA JOÃO. AGORA É QUE O VIANA SE VAI CALAR!

I found this interview rather odd to be posted in OSNews. He seems to basically be a geek that happens to be mates with the interviewer. Nothing wrong with that but why should it be in here? As well, why are 50% of the comments here cheering because he is portuguese? Why is that relevant in any way?(note:i'm portuguese myself)

He is a person, like you and me. Does he have to be a president of a country to get interviewed?
This interview was done as a part of a study in a university and the author was kind enough to reprint it here.
If you don't like it, don't read it. Being a$$hol3s about it won't change a thing.

No he doesn't have to be the president of a country to get interviewed, but jeez.. at least have something of recognition. Hell, at least let us KNOW what he's done that we would recognise instead of this elitest shit. "He's been programming since he was 5", and "He's well known in his circles". C'mon. The dude in the next cube who codes VB can say those things. Otherwise, why wouldn't you just interview a bum off the street (or the VB dude in the next cube). He is a person too after all. And no one was being an asshole except for you. We're supposed to discuss and give opinions, yet when we do, we get chastised and called assholes. That was my honest to god opinion. I *SHOULD* have skipped the article. I was pretty blunt yes, but hey.. my apparent ineptitude and this being a comment place allows me to say such things.

And if i'm being an asshole, then you're being a bitch in your responses to readers and you should stop that also. Don't hate the playa, hate the game . Seriously, i love this site. But with the "why linux is not ready x, y and z" and "what linux needs to do to ____" articles that turn up at the rate of 5 per week.. and then this POS. What are we to do? Typically sites and other publications listen to their readership and try to change where appropriate instead of calling them names.

I am a brazilian guy and we speak a variation of the same language (portuguese). I think that the fundamental difference between Linux (and Unices) and NT is the philosophy, specially between Linux and NT. It is freedom, open standards and modularity versus proprietary standards, abusive EULAs and licenses and bloatware.

I spend my time only learning linux because I have much more control over it and can make my programs and projects without spend money. The only price of it is the time I spend to learn, but it is a pleasure for me.

X is not the reason to weak success of linux on desktops. X is old but it is powerfull and standardized. All the professional graphics workstations used in Hollywood were Unix machines using X, and Maya is much more "graphical" than M$ Word :-) Hardware is becoming much powerfull and there are no technical reason to blaming X. I can run OpenGL games on my linux box perfectly (ssing a GeForce 2MX400 vido adapter !).

I don't care about MacOS X, Windows, BeOS, OS/2 or other operating systems I cannot control and see how they work (the source code). Would you pay for a car with sealed (hermetically closed) motor box (I don't know the correct english word for it...) ?

At first, it thought "who?" as well. It wasn't until I read your background information framing the article that I was able to look at the interview from a different perspective, and it all suddenly seemed perfectly reasonable. To tell the truth, the whole "visionary" thing kind of made me expect something different from the interview than what it actually was. I think it would have made a little more sense to frame the interview for what it was, and give some background beforehand.

that was a really terrible interview. this kid doesn't seem like he's the visionary that the interviewer makes him out to be. better luck next time

Maybe with the introduction of the interview Andy should have asked "What were you programming at age 6, and then maybe age 8 12, etc ?"

It would have been interesting to see the progression of his programming talents and how they developed, without sounding like a CV/resume.

You forgot to ask about BeOS and what he thought about its direction as a modern OS. Don't say it is dead people, or else I'll say, "I didn't know my computer could do that!" I just had to sneak that in.

Also ask him what "Goodware" he has contributed to Opensourceware or Closedsourceware.

Obviously I could tell from the interview that the discussion about the OS his working on will remain a secret, it is probably a hobby of his to keep up with programming skills and to try out ideas that would not be allowed in a production OS.

To all the people asking who he is, I send a challenge. Find it out for yourselves! That his the beauty of learning!I give you an hint, check out http://chefax.com
João is not alone, he leads a development group at the University! Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Ricardo Guiamrães.I am a member of the Directive Board of ChefaxR&D, Director of Public Relations and a fellow student at the Univesity. Please try to be informed before embarassing yourselves

I would read from the website but I only know English and Greek.

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Stallman, those are visionaries...Interview sounded like it was Hello Magazine!, hey where's the glossy photo? I think the 21 yr old is confident, yep.

And don't swear at Eugenia, that's like calling yourself a punk. I like punk music.

What has portugal ever contributed to the Computing world? I mean Japan = Nintendo, Sega, etc, USA = Microsoft, Redhat, Apple, etc.
Russia = cracks, warez etc.. Spain = Roland on the Ropes (Amstrad CPC 464...1984). U get me!
oh I nearly forgot India/Arab = 0's and 1's...mathematics.Duhh!

I'm from Portugal (Lisbon) and i can only say that i'm proud for him.
And yes, it was a great interview.

Força Portugal!!!

What does Força mean?

I knew a few geeks not too different from this one when I was in university, but judging by what I have read here, they knew a lot more than he does.

Take his comments criticising the design of the Internet for example. No foresight by only using 32 bit addresses he laments. Wakey wakey, but TCP/IP was never designed to be the infrastructure behind "the Internet", 32 bits were heaps for Cerf and co's requirements. As for his IPv6 criticisms, automatic IP configuration means that admins don't need to remember heaps of 128 bit addresses as he seems to think anyway.

I don't mind that Eugenia posted this interview though, most of what I do read on OSnews is the discussion amongst readers anyhow. I don't expect readers to be geniuses before they can post their opinion.

One thing I would say though, is that it seems few of the article contributers run spelling or grammer checkers. Surely this isn't too much to ask of them.

What does "Força" mean?

"May the force be with you" (Wich is not the case !!!!! - IM Humble O !!

So many talk so little achievements !!

Get ou of here !!

(A real Portuguese).

I knew a few geeks not too different from this one when I was in university, but judging by what I have read here, they knew a lot more than he does.


Read this:
AD: The word "de" in your surname points to your noble roots, doesn't it?

MdI: Which is a shame in human history. Class differences are wrong.

At:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6833&mode=thread&order=...

(That might teach something to someone).

>By John Blink (IP: ---.wc.optusnet.com.au) - Posted on
>2003-04-26 02:08:04
>I would read from the website but I only know English and >Greek.
try this link:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fww...

and yuo say you "know English and Greek." maybe is more of "know English."

João continua com o bom trabalho, um colega do departamento de informatica do ISEP http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt

one more prof of the may bad english

I've read all comments about the interview, including the moderated down ones. I felt it was time for me to say something, because I understood a lot of people did not fully understand me, or the english translation of the interview. I will not defend Andy, because his defense is up to him and I may end up hurting him more than helping.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone that said a kind word for me. It really meant something.
Now, I'll answer all the comments in a professional, constructive and non-insulting way.

@j, "Was this a joke?"
No. I know about hungarian notation. I tryed avoiding using some terms because I didn't really know what would Andy do with that interview neither who would read it. And I do know that the windows API was written in C. I didn't said anything else. But I did said that it had a (as refered) "strong emphasys in OOP". And you have to agree with that, because is part of the Windows nature. It has been done in a way to easily make OOP usable, or was just destiny that made OOP come to windows.

@anonymous, "Re: if i had a nickle..."
I don't really know what you mean with recognition. I have, in my life, help a lot of people and helped in a lot of important and well known projects and distros never expecting anything in return, and in a way, that is what is behind the creation of the Chefax R&D team and why I lead our local ACM branch. Because I do it for all the others. I don't know if I deserve recognition, but if someone decided to post the interview here, and if the OSNews webmasters decided to publish the interview, then it is because they think I may deserve, or because they liked Andy's interview. So, if I really do deserve recognition, why shouldn't I be allowed to start to be know because of OSNews? It is as legitimate as any other way.

@m
Thank you for the positive and constructive comment. I did not express myself very well and the translation didn't help. I really didn't mean Windows Server not having GUI to have ONLY a command line. There are ways to do it both without a GUI and without a command line. Think of, for example, something like a text-based user interface, kinda like ncurses or TurboVision (or the microsoft widgets used in QBASIC, VBDOS and the like). Could be Windows without the real graphical engine. There are more than the two extremes. About KDE, I agree that it is heavy, and I did not said anything contrary.

@John Blink, "Started programming at age 5"
I have kept my OS a bit of a secret for a few reasons:
1) I really do not have time to write a webpage about it. I have to do my studies, to work, to represent Chefax R&D, to represent ACM in our local branch and only the spare time to develop. If I lose my time creating webpages, I'll never be developing the OS
2) Because of attacks I have suffered, especially from important and well positioned people I know that tryed to steal one my projects and ideas. So I got afraid, and started hiding my ideas. I do want my OS to get public, sometime. But util I have something really inovative to show, I rather not show it at all. That is also why I avoided talking and being descriptive about the projects during the interview.
3) I also lack equipment, because getting sponsorships isn't easy. I always get people saying I have great ideas, but when it comes to sponsorship, everybody steps back. Unfortunately, this is the way it works in Portugal. And my university can't help me much. As neither me, nor my colleagues, have much money, we have to work with what we have, which isn't much.

Also, I could have mentioned BeOS, QNX, etc. I choose not to because I had to answer the questions and that's it. Also, I haven't had that much of a big experience with them as I had with Windows, Linux or FreeBSD, as such, I would not feel comfortable talking about something I do not know enough to compare. I did used a lot of them but still not enough for me.

Eugenia, me and everybody around here loves you. Don't let trolls get to your nerves.

To all of you, with no exception, take care

what kind of inroads have computers/internet made in portugal, does lots of people have high speed internet? things of that nature.

"What has portugal ever contributed to the Computing world? I mean Japan = Nintendo, Sega, etc, USA = Microsoft, Redhat, Apple, etc.
Russia = cracks, warez etc.. Spain = Roland on the Ropes (Amstrad CPC 464...1984). U get me!
oh I nearly forgot India/Arab = 0's and 1's...mathematics.Duhh! "
Timex 2068, Cracks, Hacks (http://Toxyn.org, http://p.ulh.as) and inumerous participations in foreign projects.

A lot of people actually started coding at a very early age, but that doesn't mean that they are any better at coding than a guy who started when he was 18. I started when I was 6 myself and I have to say that I'm a pretty lousy programmer
And besides few people did any advanced stuff at that age. I remember coding some fairly simple graphics routines and text adventures in BASIC on my Sord M5 that's pretty much it.
You don't have to be some kind of wonderchild to do that, it's more a matter of opportunity and creativity.

It is very good to see a bright student giving his opinion and seeing so many people interested on it.

Congratulations, and I hope you keep improving your knowledge, experience anf vision!

João Falcão e Cunha, FEUP

To João Paredes,

Thanks for the reply and wish you all the best in life.

I wasn't going to go off on this kid for parroting things we've all heard on OS News and ./ many times before, but then he comes on the board and starts saying that people are trying to steal his Operating System secrets.

What a joke. And then he gets all of his portugese friends to comment on the board and say how proud they are that a portugal has been recognized. HAHA.

but the best line was how he has secret plans for Object Oriented cpu. Comical.

As a moderated down said, Can we interview my mailman now.

I am sorry you think that way.

I haven't said that people are trying to steal my operating systems secrets. I said one person did steal a project of mine. In fact it was a former teacher of mine, and it presented it at a conference as being his project.
And I did not ask anyone to come here and comment.
Also, I haven't said that it was an Object Oriented CPU. Please read things carefully, but, to make you happy, I'll just give you a hint: it's amazing what one can do with FPGA's.
I just think you hate me because my name got mentioned here. Are you jealous in any way?

I am sorry also that you cannot be constructive, and got to try make fun of me. But I guess inconstructive and bad minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.

ahmmm.. i just gotta say something about the win32 API.
it's simply too damn bloated. It's almost completly written in C though there are some calls that are included in the oficial reference that resemble C++ mostly. It has too many functions for the same purpose. it basicly sukz since the interesting parts of the API, as in, the usefull ones are documented by third party folk. (sysinternals and friends)

windows is damn stupid, linux suks too..

I 100% with the Xfree arguments, though not with the GTK/QT one..

btw.. backwards compatability is usefull even if sometimes at the expense of performance.


l8r.

PS: dá-lhe joao =) btw... redhat sukz now and mdk was never good.

That's exactly what I said about the Windows API. Glad someone agrees.

It seems to me that you are the joke! When someone doesn´t have anything construtctive to say about another person´s work, should keep his mouth shut! I belive you are on of those that "Hamers anyone who gets sucess, without kowing what are you talking about"! Like I said before, check us out at http://chefax.com or contact me at rp_chefax@yahoo.com to learn more about us and our activities. You would be surprised!!! Take the challenge... or don´t! It is your choice to be uninformed after this!

Ricardo Guimarães

Public Relations of Chefax R&D

translation of the header:
Well, I agree with some things, not with others, but Liked IT

OO in hardware?? what the hell...
sysadmins having to know ipv6 adresses?
sincerely, one of two things: or you don't know much about ipv6 expect for 128 addresses.. or I really don't see what you mean.
and ipv4/tcp is excelent, thought out by indeed very exceptional ppl. (remember its more than 20 years old, in a world that evolves at (what seems) exponential rate).


You like to have well designed and easy to reuse, expand and develop software, but use assembly??
how about paralelization, smp, platform independance, want to use i386 assembly in p4's and k7's, k8's?
can't I use ppc, sparc, ia64 for running your good aplications?
what about mms, sse, sse, threading, and much more hardware api inovations what happens with time?
assembly coding is something for:
OS's, hw drivers, performance quirks for _todays_ computer, in some specific task(divx encoding/decoding..etc).
But thats a hack, not a well designed and thought out thing.

About X, yes.. it's outdated, is the client/server aproach the problem? no, it's been proved.
direct hardware access is needed, grafical interface in UNIX's it years behind M$(alfa blending, proper font support, speed).
grafical API for unix, it lacks a good solid, performant, extendable, designed for the years to come. UNIFIED one.. is this what you mean, right?
That for me is the big problem of unix, and why it doens't go to the desktop, there isn't nothing compaired to the graphical api of MS, when it comes to doing autocad, photoshop, adobe, productivity tools for the unix world.
this is the problem, what's the solution... it's also part of the unix/opensource world things like branches of development, multitude of tools, each unique, for the same purpose... and you can't fight that, this happens 'cause ppl are working for free, to enjoy themselves... trying to do things the way they see fit. Solve that "problem solver". :-p


there windows really have a huge advantage.
also on this matter, what do you thing about mac os X (it is unix in the desktop...).

windows also have something that you don't have in linux/freebsd, besides the grafical API, and quality tool remote desktop(he he):
The active directory, there isn't anything has good, scalable and usefull thing in the unix world. (and yes, i've looked at afs+ldap+kerberos)
windows is building a complete and solid solution, good quality and really scalable... if the unix world doesn't wake up, windows will take the server side (i'm not talking about simple webserving pages, but about mid-range and mainframe computers).

Liked some of your Ideas, 100% agreed that monolithic kernels are "out", and performance wise, it only depends on the implementation.
And hardware drivers depend on this so that kernel development and releases don't interfere with having hardware drivers by manufacturers, who make them(drivers) once a year.

you like (like me) to see the hardware being well used, software without bloat, and that don't waste hw power, yet you don't talk about two things of the "future", paralelization, distributed computing, using simple desktop computers that are idling aroung all over the globe. Maybe it's not a area of your interest. Still the future of the web might just be that.

OOP, humm.. not shure if that is the future, there are quite a variety of programing paradigms, none is the solution, the solution is team work(human factor), good designing of aplications/tools(that means picking the right paradigm to meet the end purpose), and time!

You seem a brigh person, capable and creative one, hope to meet you someday, in the computing world.
The world needs ppl like you, keep strifing for something better.

Força com isso!

Well, I see this became a matter of national pride

A few days ago I was talking to a friend about our (portugese) tendency to underestimate ourselves... It's almost genetic. When we see something that makes us proud, we tend to grab on... That's why so many people got so excited about the interview and felt personally offended by negative remarks on it.

João Parede (who I don't know personaly) is not the representative of the portuguese programmers... He seems to know a lot of things, it is also impressive that he codes since 5 years old, but he is certainly not the only person (or even young person) to achieve something in CS in Portugal...

Dear Miguel,

I can't agree with everything you say. Some short comments on your statements.

>About X, yes.. it's outdated, is the client/server aproach >the problem? no, it's been proved.
>direct hardware access is needed, grafical interface in >UNIX's it years behind M$(alfa blending, proper font >support, speed).

Of course it is needed, and XFree86 provides good hardware access, via XFree86 extensions. In those cases it is not the old X standard in use but new extensions (ex:Xv, Xshm...)

The bigger problem of X is not its design (check the discussions on the Forum mailing list) but more the lack of resources for driver developments. The good drivers work _very_ well, the problem is that not all of them are good drivers (lack of developers, specs, hardware....)

About the fonts, I think we lack some free quality fonts, but we can use the M$ fonts with XFree.

>grafical API for unix, it lacks a good solid, performant,

That is why it outperforms windows on quake 3 / ut tests in some cases and is nearly as good in some others.....

That is why a friend of mine plays DVDs on linux on a PII 350 mhz , with no frame drops....

A XFree86 server running on a well supported card is as fast or faster than windows.

I am really sorry that you have a poorly supported piece of hw ;-) , but nowadays linux users still have to be picky about hardware if they want all the fancy features working. Next time, think twice before buying

This is something that people seem not to understand.

>extendable, designed for the years to come. UNIFIED one.. >is this what you mean, right?

There is a standard for X, which can be used througout *nix.


>That for me is the big problem of unix, and why it doens't >go to the desktop, there isn't nothing compaired to the >graphical api of MS, when it comes to doing autocad, >photoshop, adobe, productivity tools for the unix world.
>this is the problem, what's the solution...

I don't think that the reason autocad, photoshop, etc are not on unix is the API (or lack of a good one). Many people find the windows API to be awfull and that doesn't stop the applications from being developed. I think the reasons for this are well known...


>it's also part of the unix/opensource world things like >branches of development, multitude of tools, each unique, >for the same purpose... and you can't fight that, this >happens 'cause ppl are working for free, to enjoy >themselves... trying to do things the way they see fit. >Solve that "problem solver". :-p

The only solution is having the distros make reasonable picks and include only quality software. You can't really stop people from developing whatever they want, although I find silly to put some effort in developing , say, "yet another office suite"...

And yes, linux is quite ready for the corporate desktop, if you have a well informed and picky system administrator. There is more than enough good software for the demands of the typical users, which don't need word or excel, but only a working subset of their features.

Unfortunately we are still too narrow minded (even the geeks) to see that, here in Portugal...

Best regards
Gustavo

GO TUGAS !

Força portugal

I understand the common user doesnt care much about real-time and fault tolerance OS's, thats an industry thing, but because we are talking about visionary ideas, why not bring these very important concepts to mind?

Space Applications are the most critical systems around. ESA and NASA only use hardware & software that previously has proven its worth, that is 100% stable and does its job with extreme accuracy. Of course this still demands for special crafted hardware with advanced error detection mechanisms, redundancy and high debugging capabilities. But if we are talking visionary, why dont we walk in this direction too (at least in the software area) ?

To ones that didnt do it yet, take a closer look at real time programming characteristics and approaches. They can be applied to modern OS's. ADA (especially Ravenscar profile subset) and RT-C++ are the most well known i think.

That idea that Joao's suggest about implemmenting OO Hardware using FPGA's flexibility might be interesting if doable... I am not completely aware of FPGA's full capabilites, i just know of some applications that used FPGA's.

I will not discuss if Joao's is a visionary or not, because that doesnt matter at all.

Note: Of course im please to see other Portuguese out there (althought internet is a "country" itself)