OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/21593/Episode_11_Hurting_Cats Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 24 May 2013 01:30:39 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com silverlight vs. flash http://www.osnews.com/thread?366561 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366561 praising flash because adobe made the spec open is a bit hypocritical
because it was thanks to silverlight that adobe opened up flash Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (smashIt) Comments RE: silverlight vs. flash http://www.osnews.com/thread?366565 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366565 We were only speaking relatively. We both hate Flash for a number of reasons, but it’s true nevertheless that that move by Adobe does give Flash the slight edge as far as trustworthiness. Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE[2]: silverlight vs. flash http://www.osnews.com/thread?366573 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366573
We were only speaking relatively. We both hate Flash for a number of reasons, but it’s true nevertheless that that move by Adobe does give Flash the slight edge as far as trustworthiness.


I might take that into consideration if Flash was full open and documented; the reality is that only a small subset of the Flash specification has actually been opened. In the case of Microsoft, they are working with Novell to improve compatibility with Silverlight - when are we going to see Adobe pull finger and help them work with the opensource implementations of flash? or is this'opening' of specifications nothing more than hollow rhetoric by them to win some 'dev cred'?

Adobe management still don't get it, the value isn't in the technology but in the development tools themselves; win32 is the most horribly ugly API in existence BUT it is made usable by good development tools provided by Microsoft. Microsoft will crush Flash, not because of any apparent technical superiority by simply because they realise that the value is the implementation of the development tools - he who makes development easier will win the technology race.

Its also time for Adobe to drop their anti-opensource and anti-anything-that-isn't-Microsoft bigotry and realise that they're isolating a large group of developers whom they could harness in the development and propagation of their technology. They've treated Linux users like the bastard red head step child through their half baked Flash implementation, they've ignored their Solaris users which is why some are looking at alternatives like JavaFX, they've screwed over their Mac users which is why a good many are praying that maybe Sproutcore will take off, and then you have the remaining niche operating systems hoping for salvation from a white knight.

Adobe have done very little to raise the confidence of either users or developers through their lip service so far; the day when I see real moves being made by Adobe, like them actually fully opensourcing their plugin under a LGPL licence or bare minimum working with an opensource group like gnash, then I'll believe that things have changed; until then Adobe is no better than Microsoft, in fact, I'd say they're worse in many regards.Edited 2009-06-01 22:24 UTC Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments Comment by mtzmtulivu http://www.osnews.com/thread?366595 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366595 i must admit, the discussion about unix/linux file system structure sounded more like two ignorant people complaining about something they find to be difficult not because its difficult in it self, but because ignorant people just look at something and expect it to just understand it and complain when they dont

linux file system has structure, and it is intuitive if you know the structure, nobody was born knowing anything ..we all had to learn stuff ..some stuff are harder to be learned that others but they must be learned never the less.

For a person coming from an OS that didnt have any file system structure, any structure will appear to not be intuitive to them

programs in linux are installed in what is called a prefix. WHen a program is installed, binary files go in $prefix/bin, library files go in $prefix/lib and supporting files like icons and documentations go in $prefix/share,how is this confusing?

different distros can not be expected to have all file and folders in the same locations but i am pretty confident the layout is more than 95% the same.

if you install a program and you have no idea where it went, make an "intelligent guess" and go look for it first in "/usr/bin" ..

programs in windows go in program files and thats simple and logical to you? how is that different from programs in linux going in "bin" folders? generally in "/usr/bin" ..programs that arent there most likely are the programs you shouldnt be concerned about and if one of you had their way, these programs and places will be hidden from view.

you guys totally failed to convince me on this topic Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mtzmtulivu) Comments herding cats http://www.osnews.com/thread?366614 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366614 Hurting cats is much easier than herding cats (which is probably what you meant).

I really hate that /usr/bin has everything...it makes gnome/qt dialogs stall badly.

One answer might be to install nothing by default into distros instead of the vast amounts of software that come withh (a lot legacy posix apps included here). That's probably not acceptable though. Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bnolsen) Comments hurting cats http://www.osnews.com/thread?366628 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366628 herding cats maybe?... Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chekr) Comments RE: hurting cats http://www.osnews.com/thread?366630 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366630 It comes from 43:40 onwards in the podcast where I say "It’s herding cats at the end of the day", and Thom then adds "It’s also hurting the development" ;) As if somehow “hurting cats” is an English colloquialism.Edited 2009-06-02 08:32 UTC Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments Hidden = bad ?? http://www.osnews.com/thread?366641 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366641 File systems are complex. Hiding the complexity doesn't mean its bad. I think Mac os X makes the best of a complex situation. I would say its the least worst approach at the moment.

The innards of the computer are hidden from me. I only see they keyboard and the screen... still there's allot of complexity underneath. .. Is that stretching an analogy to far?

Still, I enjoy these pod casts. The "also hurting developers" thing did bring a smile to my face.

EDIT - Doh just got to the bit about the car analogies..Edited 2009-06-02 13:08 UTC Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siraf72) Comments RE: herding cats http://www.osnews.com/thread?366652 http://www.osnews.com/thread?366652 bnolsen: so you don't like /usr/bin/(several thousand exceutable files) because it's slow to browse?

How would /Programs/(several thousand directory names) work any faster, then? Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments