Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor forme.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.

<bob@coolgroups.com> wrote in message news:1181971615.438083.282360@a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com...> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.You might try Vim, which supports formatting of a number of languages, including Javahttp://www.vim.org/ 

bob@coolgroups.com wrote:> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.> If all you need is an editor, vim and gvim are pretty good.I'd look into a full IDE like NetBeans, though.  Java with it's reflection allows much more support from an IDE that a language like C++ (in my opinion).  It's time to move beyong vim and make and use a full featured IDE.

On Jun 16, 2:10 am, Mark Space <marksp...@sbc.global.net> wrote:> b...@coolgroups.com wrote:> > Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> > me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.>> If all you need is an editor, vim and gvim are pretty good.>> I'd look into a full IDE like NetBeans, though.  Java with it's> reflection allows much more support from an IDE that a language like C++> (in my opinion).  It's time to move beyong vim and make and use a full> featured IDE.Not one but TWO insane recommendations that a newbie try a vi-basededitor. Are you mad? Suggesting an editor that does just abouteverything bass-ackwards or just plain weird to a newbie is a cruelprank indeed. I wonder how soon before he shows up here complainingthat it's broken because when he types into it, it complains ofinvalid commands or does freaky stuff instead of his textappearing...matter of hours I suppose, maybe just minutes.If he wants automatic indent I'm sure there's a lot of free or easily-cracked Windoze programmers' editors out there that do it and follownormal user interface conventions, and which will be a lot easier touse and more familiar to the OP than anything whose name starts thesame as the word "vile". ;)I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one likeNetbeans. ;)

Twisted wrote:> On Jun 16, 2:10 am, Mark Space <marksp...@sbc.global.net> wrote:>> b...@coolgroups.com wrote:>>> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for>>> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.>> If all you need is an editor, vim and gvim are pretty good.>>>> I'd look into a full IDE like NetBeans, though.  Java with it's>> reflection allows much more support from an IDE that a language like C++>> (in my opinion).  It's time to move beyong vim and make and use a full>> featured IDE.> > Not one but TWO insane recommendations that a newbie try a vi-based> editor. Are you mad? Suggesting an editor that does just about> everything bass-ackwards or just plain weird to a newbie is a cruel> prank indeed. I wonder how soon before he shows up here complaining> that it's broken because when he types into it, it complains of> invalid commands or does freaky stuff instead of his text> appearing...matter of hours I suppose, maybe just minutes.> > If he wants automatic indent I'm sure there's a lot of free or easily-> cracked Windoze programmers' editors out there that do it and follow> normal user interface conventions, and which will be a lot easier to> use and more familiar to the OP than anything whose name starts the> same as the word "vile". ;)> > I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like> Netbeans. ;)> There's nothing wrong with vi* editors.  vi was created for *nix environments in the day before there were arrows on the keyboard and if its good enough for the original builders of Unix, it's good enough for me.  However, on a Win* platform, it may not be the best choice, although there is a version of vim available.  On windows, I would suggest emacs with the appropriate plug-ins or something like JCreator, which is about half way between a flat editor and an IDE.When I first started to play with java 3 or 4 years ago, I used JCreator and found it quite good enough.To the OP, here is a link for JCreatorhttp://www.jcreator.com/download.htmSelect the LE and you'll have a nice editor for free.

bob@coolgroups.com wrote:> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.Hi!SciTE works great with several languages.(I'm using it under Linux.)http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTE.htmlBest regardsGerald

bob@coolgroups.com wrote:> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.> Short answer: any decent editor with a C language mode. The editors I mainly use support auto-indentation and bracket balancing:- Windows. I use PFE - its been around for quite a while but is still a good editor - a multi-window editor within a private desktop (MDF) - and the ability to run a compiler and pipe its output into a new window.- Linux/UNIX. I use microEmacs. Its small, fast and fully customisable. Its available as source and has been ported to a large number of operating systems and C compilers. Its also good under Windows. I useit in Linux/Unices/Windows/OS-9 and it retains not only the same look&feel but all the same keystrokes work the same everywhere.-- martin@   | Martin Gregoriegregorie. | Essex, UKorg       |

bob@coolgroups.com writes:> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.     Emacs and JDEE (http://jdee.sunsite.dk/).Regards,Patrick------------------------------------------------------------------------S P Engineering, Inc.  | Large scale, mission-critical, distributed OO                       | systems design and implementation.          pjm@spe.com  | (C++, Java, Common Lisp, Jini, middleware, SOA)

If u find an IDE, Eclipse is a good choice.Good luck!<bob@coolgroups.com> ??????:1181971615.438083.282360@a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com...> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.>> 

On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:26:55 -0700, bob@coolgroups.com wrote:>Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for>me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.Hee hee!  You have stirred up some hornets ;-)Personally I found TextPad quite convenient to use (Windows platform).But I won't say it's the best 'cos I haven't tried the others.

On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:26:55 -0700, bob@coolgroups.com wrote:>Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for>me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.It would help to know what OS you are using.  There is no point insuggesting something that does not run on your OS.rossum

rossum wrote:> On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:26:55 -0700, bob@coolgroups.com wrote:> >> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for>> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.> It would help to know what OS you are using.  There is no point in> suggesting something that does not run on your OS.Unless like JEdit, NetBeans, Eclipse, emacs, vi, ..., it runs on nearly all developer platforms.-- Lew

bob@coolgroups.com �:> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.> JGrasp is another choice.

> I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like> Netbeans. ;)> What's the difference between Eclipse and Netbeans?I've used Eclipse only.

On Jun 16, 11:56 pm, tony <tonywinslow1...@gmail.com> wrote:> > I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like> > Netbeans. ;)>> What's the difference between Eclipse and Netbeans?> I've used Eclipse only.Well, Eclipse is guaranteed to be excellent. As for Netbeans ... itmight, or it might not. Who the hell knows? I've never used it. ;)

Twisted wrote:> I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like> Netbeans. ;)Can either Eclipse or Netbeans work with an existing project structure, rather than insisting on defining their own? i.e. can you say "here is my project, which is c:\my-project and the .java files therein, now I want to edit some of those .java files, keeping them where they are, I do not want you to create any other files, folders or anything else"?-- "Always look on the bright side of life."To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

Twisted wrote:> On Jun 16, 11:56 pm, tony <tonywinslow1...@gmail.com> wrote:>>> I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like>>> Netbeans. ;)>> What's the difference between Eclipse and Netbeans?>> I've used Eclipse only.> > Well, Eclipse is guaranteed to be excellent. As for Netbeans ... it> might, or it might not. Who the hell knows? I've never used it. ;)I know.  NetBeans is also excellent.Who makes the guarantee on Eclipse?  (I agree that it's pretty good; I wouldn't rate it "excellent" for my particular style.)  Do you get your money back if not satisfied?-- Lew

Russell Wallace wrote:> Twisted wrote:>> I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like>> Netbeans. ;)NetBeans is just fine.  Many people prefer it to Eclipse; many prefer Eclipse.> Can either Eclipse or Netbeans work with an existing project structure, > rather than insisting on defining their own? i.e. can you say "here is > my project, which is c:\my-project and the .java files therein, now I > want to edit some of those .java files, keeping them where they are, I > do not want you to create any other files, folders or anything else"?Both can import existing projects and maintain their structure.  Neither does it without creating directories or files; both need additional files to manage the IDE's awareness of your project(s).  Neither creates those management artifacts within the code base.I am a heavy user of both Eclipse and NetBeans.-- Lew

bob@coolgroups.com wrote:> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.> Vim and Emacs can both do that, but are tricky if you're new to them. (I don't use emacs, but the vitutor tool gets up to basics quickly and learning advanced features doesn't take so long).As for GUI editors, the best IDEs seem to be Eclipse and NetBeans in some order (potential flame war there). I've used both jEdit and JCreator LE as well, and found them satisfactory (jEdit is my preferred editor on Windows machines, although it needs a lot of plugins to be useful). I have also used BlueJ, JGrasp, and RealJ in the past, and found them not satisfactory -- the last one seems to no longer exist, the first one is impossible to use for anything mildly complex (e.g., packages). JGrasp has had one or two recommendations, but I would stay away from it as it is rather unintuitive and can easily drive you crazy.I don't know how many of those support automatic indentation, but the first four -- vim, emacs, Eclipse, and Netbeans -- definitely support out, although they might need simple configuration.

"Lew" <lew@lewscanon.nospam> wrote in message news:0pOdnX2WcqzT2OjbnZ2dnUVZ_gCdnZ2d@comcast.com...> Twisted wrote:>> On Jun 16, 11:56 pm, tony <tonywinslow1...@gmail.com> wrote:>>>> I recommend an IDE also though, but one like Eclipse, not one like>>>> Netbeans. ;)>>> What's the difference between Eclipse and Netbeans?>>> I've used Eclipse only.>>>> Well, Eclipse is guaranteed to be excellent. As for Netbeans ... it>> might, or it might not. Who the hell knows? I've never used it. ;)>> I know.  NetBeans is also excellent.Eclipse is Good.  IntelliJ is excellent, but not free.  I base this distinction on a place I was consulting at recently.  The project standard was Eclipse, but many developers there spent their own money to buy IntelliJ .. 

Lew <lew@lewscanon.nospam> wrote:> Who makes the guarantee on Eclipse?  (I agree that it's pretty good; I > wouldn't rate it "excellent" for my particular style.)  Do you get your money > back if not satisfied?Absolutely!  In fact, they'll give you a million times your money back if you're not satified.  (Disclaimer: offer not applicable if you somehow managed to pay something for Eclipse, which would be silly, nor to commercial Eclipse-based products like WSAD.)-- Chris Smith

On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:26:55 -0700, bob@coolgroups.com wrote, quotedor indirectly quoted someone who said :>Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for>me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/ide.html--Roedy Green Canadian Mind ProductsThe Java Glossaryhttp://mindprod.com

> Vim and Emacs can both do that, but are tricky if you're new to them. (I> don't use emacs, but the vitutor tool gets up to basics quickly and> learning advanced features doesn't take so long).I would NOT recommend either vi or Emacs to anyone who is interestedin a Java editor unless they already use them (and if they do theymost likely already know that they support more or less everything,including indentation, and are quite good editors overall (except forvi;-)).> As for GUI editors, the best IDEs seem to be Eclipse and NetBeans in> some order (potential flame war there).True if and only if you add the word "free" before IDE, anyone who hasused IDEA (which cost money) knows that they are both a bit behindtrying to catch up.

On Jun 18, 7:31 am, Olle <olle.sundb...@gmail.com> wrote:> > As for GUI editors, the best IDEs seem to be Eclipse and NetBeans in> > some order (potential flame war there).>> True if and only if you add the word "free" before IDE.......as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more foranything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficientand dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly oranother by directly subsidizing it.

Twisted wrote:> On Jun 18, 7:31 am, Olle <olle.sundb...@gmail.com> wrote:>>> As for GUI editors, the best IDEs seem to be Eclipse and NetBeans in>>> some order (potential flame war there).>> True if and only if you add the word "free" before IDE...> > ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for> anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient> and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or> another by directly subsidizing it.Unless you are paying for value over and above that provided by free or cheaper alternatives.The beauty of the Invisible Hand is that it tends to balance the supply and demand equations.  Value is a perceived attribute, and those with the means and desire to obtain that value will pay for it, even to a degree substantially higher than the reproduction cost.  This supports no monopolies necessarily, evil or otherwise; a free market economy tends to spawn competition.Case in point: Some brands of perfume reputedly do not sell well until their price is raised to a point that achieves marketing credibility.Case in point:  The high sales of CDs, DVDs and the like for movies and games.Economics is a social science, and reason and emotion both play a part.-- Lew

Olle <olle.sundblad@gmail.com> writes:>> Vim and Emacs can both do that, but are tricky if you're new to>> them. (I don't use emacs, but the vitutor tool gets up to basics>> quickly and learning advanced features doesn't take so long).>> I would NOT recommend either vi or Emacs to anyone who is interested> in a Java editor unless they already use them     Why not?  Do you want to keep newbies trapped in IDE hell with nohope of transcending to Emacs?Regards,Patrick------------------------------------------------------------------------S P Engineering, Inc.  | Large scale, mission-critical, distributed OO                       | systems design and implementation.          pjm@spe.com  | (C++, Java, Common Lisp, Jini, middleware, SOA)

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182198918.246649.111210@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...> On Jun 18, 7:31 am, Olle <olle.sundb...@gmail.com> wrote:>> > As for GUI editors, the best IDEs seem to be Eclipse and NetBeans in>> > some order (potential flame war there).>>>> True if and only if you add the word "free" before IDE...>> ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for> anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient> and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or> another by directly subsidizing it.That may be the stupidest comment I've ever seen on Usenet, and that's no small feat. 

On Jun 18, 6:39 pm, Lew <l...@lewscanon.nospam> wrote:> Twisted wrote:> > ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for> > anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient> > and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or> > another by directly subsidizing it.>> Unless you are paying for value over and above that provided by free or> cheaper alternatives.That only applies if there is scarcity. In the case of informationobjects, that would have to be artificial scarcity (though it can beeven with physical objects). Causing artificial scarcity is evil,negative-sum Pareto-suboptimal behavior tantamount to theft.(Naturally, those that frequently perpetrate such crimes turn rightaround and accuse those who try to reduce the scarcity "thieves" inturn...as they can't think in any terms other than thievery, beingthieves themselves, not to mention people who think in, at best, zero-sum terms.)> The beauty of the Invisible Hand is that it tends to balance the supply and> demand equations.As long as some greedy idiot doesn't go and legislate a state-sponsored monopoly, enshrine some form of artificial scarcity in law,or create impediments in the law against trust-busting and competitionthat would undermine their campaign donors' plans to engage in price-fixing and the like, anyway.> Case in point: Some brands of perfume reputedly do not sell well until their> price is raised to a point that achieves marketing credibility.The price is part of the product in this case, because someone isbuying "expensive perfume" rather than just "perfume". As in,"expensive" is actually a trait they require, for some impressing-gullible-folk sort of reason. (The smart, efficiency-minded sort willobviously be underwhelmed by their spending decisions.) That doesn'teven create an exception to the rule, since the marginal cost ofreproduction of "a $100 bottle of perfume" is $100 almost bydefinition -- if you're reproducing and selling the perfume for alower price, you're not reproducing 100 dollar bottles of perfume anymore. The marginal cost of "any perfume that smells the same as that$100 brand" might be a lot less of course, and the product chemicallyidentical.> Case in point:  The high sales of CDs, DVDs and the like for movies and games.Case of artificial scarcity in point, you mean.

On Jun 18, 9:36 pm, Patrick May <p...@spe.com> wrote:> Olle <olle.sundb...@gmail.com> writes:> >> Vim and Emacs can both do that, but are tricky if you're new to> >> them. (I don't use emacs, but the vitutor tool gets up to basics> >> quickly and learning advanced features doesn't take so long).>> > I would NOT recommend either vi or Emacs to anyone who is interested> > in a Java editor unless they already use them>>      Why not?  Do you want to keep newbies trapped in IDE hell with no> hope of transcending to Emacs?I'd be more worried about newbies going a few rounds with the pointy-tailed, brimstone-smelling ruler of Emacs hell and then giving up onthe entire concept of programming not realizing that it's just Emacsthat makes things unnecessarily more complicated and makes them stopmaking sense.This applies equally to the other netherworld and its equally vileruler. Pun intended.

On Jun 19, 12:59 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>wrote:> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message>> > ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for> > anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient> > and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or> > another by directly subsidizing it.>> That may be the stupidest comment I've ever seen on Usenet, and that's no> small feat.Barbs from a small mind, trying to grasp large issues in economics andclearly failing. If you actually believe any of the fascist* andcommunist** propaganda copiously flowing out of the big entertainmentindustry lobbying organizations lately, I'd suggest you stop byhttp://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm and drinkdown a hearty draught of clue sometime soon.* Fascism tending to involve government meddling in free enterprise,price controls and the like, and also strong corporate influence ongovernment.** Communism tending to also involve government meddling in freeenterprise, price controls and the like, and state-enforced and state-owned monopolies.(Another turn-around trick of the monopolists: they like theinformation communism of state-sponsored monopolies and artificiallypropped up prices, and turn right around and accuse their betters whosupport information free trade and market competition of beingcommunists.)

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182302512.290857.248240@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...> On Jun 19, 12:59 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>> wrote:>> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message>>>> > ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for>> > anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient>> > and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or>> > another by directly subsidizing it.>>>> That may be the stupidest comment I've ever seen on Usenet, and that's no>> small feat.>> Barbs from a small mind, trying to grasp large issues in economics and> clearly failing. If you actually believe any of the fascist* and> communist** propaganda copiously flowing out of the big entertainment> industry lobbying organizations lately, I'd suggest you stop by> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm and drink> down a hearty draught of clue sometime soon.Previously, I said that your comment was stupid.  Now it's clear that you think that software developers don't need to be paid, since you talk about the cost of reproduction but ignore the cost of development.  And that you're happy using free software from IBM (Eclipse) and Sun (Netbeans), but think that paying a small company like IntelliJ for their work perpetuates a monopoly.    And that you throw around words like "fascist" and "communist" with no notion of what they mean.  Hint: wanting to be paid for your work is neither.You are a waste of space.

On Jun 19, 11:18 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1182302512.290857.248240@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > On Jun 19, 12:59 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> >> > ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for
> >> > anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient
> >> > and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or
> >> > another by directly subsidizing it.
>
> >> That may be the stupidest comment I've ever seen on Usenet, and that's no
> >> small feat.
>
> > Barbs from a small mind, trying to grasp large issues in economics and
> > clearly failing. If you actually believe any of the fascist* and
> > communist** propaganda copiously flowing out of the big entertainment
> > industry lobbying organizations lately, I'd suggest you stop by
> >http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htmand drink
> > down a hearty draught of clue sometime soon.
>
> Previously, I said that your comment was stupid.  Now it's clear that you
> think that software developers don't need to be paid, since you talk about
> the cost of reproduction but ignore the cost of development.

Obviously you didn't bother to follow that link.

Copies of a piece of published software aren't (or at least shouldn't
be) scarce and therefore aren't (or at least shouldn't be) expensive.
However, serious programming talent is scarce, and someone who has
some will always be able to market their skill so long as there
remains a computer-using civilization around here. Their expertise
with code they wrote will be in demand if that code ever becomes
popular, and they may also be hired to custom-make software by someone
(someone who needs it for their own productivity, rather than so they
can sell copies at artificially inflated prices). A lot of software is
developed even now by people for their *own* productivity, and the
development is paid for down the road by the productivity improvement
it causes.

It's also worth noting that other industries manage to fund R&D
without extortionate pricing schemes and state-enforced monopolies.
Car companies compete heavily, unlike operating system companies. And
the result seems to be better cars, with more R&D, not less. While the
OS market stagnates. Lots of innovation is seen in the unpopular (and
free!) Linux OS, while the best the giant, money-sucking Microsoft can
manage after over five years is the piece of shit they call Vista, in
the way of "improvements" over WinXP? Something is clearly wrong
there. In practise, companies with government-granted monopolies on
anything don't tend to do much innovating; they tend to line their own
pockets with half the ill-gotten gains, and spend the rest on
aggressive marketing. MS is one culprit. The entire pharmaceutical
industry is another, and some of their advertising is downright
dangerous and irresponsible.

It is a complete fallacy to assume that if copies of software (or
music, or movies, or anything else) were free, the talent wouldn't get
paid. The better talent would get paid a fair amount more, and get a
LOT more exposure, in fact. Some mediocre but heavily marketed
"talent" (the Britneys of the world) might do more poorly -- oh how I
weep -- and some corporate fatcats whose chief talent is in the field
of endeavor that economists call "rent-seeking" and political science
types "gaming the system" (boo hoo!)...

Now go read what's at that link I provided. Don't worry - it won't
bite, although there are pdf files. If you're really worried, paste
the link into Firefox, and at the pdfs, right click them, "save as",
do a full virus and badware scan, and read them offline later.

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182318354.605264.50090@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...> On Jun 19, 11:18 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>> wrote:>> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message>>>> news:1182302512.290857.248240@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...>>>>>>>> > On Jun 19, 12:59 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>>> > wrote:>> >> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message>>>> >> > ...as anybody sensible will do, since paying substantially more for>> >> > anything than its marginal cost of reproduction is both inefficient>> >> > and dumb, and invariably helps perpetuate some evil monopoly or>> >> > another by directly subsidizing it.>>>> >> That may be the stupidest comment I've ever seen on Usenet, and that's >> >> no>> >> small feat.>>>> > Barbs from a small mind, trying to grasp large issues in economics and>> > clearly failing. If you actually believe any of the fascist* and>> > communist** propaganda copiously flowing out of the big entertainment>> > industry lobbying organizations lately, I'd suggest you stop by>> >http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htmand drink>> > down a hearty draught of clue sometime soon.>>>> Previously, I said that your comment was stupid.  Now it's clear that you>> think that software developers don't need to be paid, since you talk >> about>> the cost of reproduction but ignore the cost of development.>> Obviously you didn't bother to follow that link.Can't speak for yourself?

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:45:54 +0000, Twisted wrote:> It's also worth noting that other industries manage to fund R&D without> extortionate pricing schemes and state-enforced monopolies. Car> companies compete heavily, unlike operating system companies. And the> result seems to be better cars, with more R&D, not less. While the OS> market stagnates. Lots of innovation is seen in the unpopular (and> free!) Linux OS, while the best the giant, money-sucking Microsoft can> manage after over five years is the piece of shit they call Vista, in> the way of "improvements" over WinXP? Something is clearly wrong there.> In practise, companies with government-granted monopolies on anything> don't tend to do much innovating; they tend to line their own pockets> with half the ill-gotten gains, and spend the rest on aggressive> marketing. MS is one culprit. The entire pharmaceutical industry is> another, and some of their advertising is downright dangerous and> irresponsible.You are basing all monopolies off of one, rather exceptional, example. Even then, you're grasping at straws: I think many people would agree that Windows is a rather bad OS (although it does have two good points: its UI and Windows Explorer (not IE)), but Microsoft Office is still an office suite that is rather unmatched: I have found no satisfactory replacements for Excel or Powerpoint.Monopolies have very good points that you ignore. First, they prevent most efficiently the "tragedy of the commons;" without them, the government would have to oh-so-badly intervene. As you seem so enlightened on economics, there is no need for me to explain what that is. Second, they impose a measure of standardization. And here, I'm talking about /true/ monopolies, not /virtual/ monopolies. Would you rather let the ICANN or the IANA dissolve as holding monopolies over web controls and watch anarchy reign as the internet dissolves?Finally, you are misusing the term "government-granted monopoly." A /true/ government-granted monopoly would be my local water provider. It spends very little money on advertising (I'm not sure if it even spent any over the debacle on trying to extend the network to Great Falls), and I might add that I probably pay less for water than you do because of this monopoly. MS is just an example of where the government decided that the OS market is not exhibiting monopolistic qualities.In short: go back to school and take an economics class. While you're there, you might want to take Statistics 101 as well.

On Jun 20, 2:01 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>wrote:> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message> > Obviously you didn't bother to follow that link.>> Can't speak for yourself?Sure can, and did, but if you want a lot of evidence, detailedargumentation, and whatnot, there's little point in my reinventing thewheel instead of pointing you to the ready-made one athttp://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

On Jun 20, 10:33 am, Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeo...@verizon.net> wrote:[snip]Oh boy. My film came out fuzzy and overexposed, and the needle on thisgauge is jumping madly. Looks like there's a big bogon flux developingin this area. Please excuse me while I go put on my Tyvek suit andrespirator.......back. Er, you're the one who needs to go back to school and take aneconomics class. A few swift point by point rebuttals for youredification:* Monopolies that are tightly regulated may behave themselves, and areoften desirable in key built-out infrastructure, such as pipes, wires,and roads; or state ownership even. Monopolies that are not regulatedare another matter entirely.* The tragedy of the commons occurs when a regenerating resource isconsumed faster than it recovers, generally as a result of treating asa public good something that more properly should be a metered good.In particular it has to be consumed by its use in some manner; in theclassic example, the grass in the commons is consumed when peoplegraze animals there, and there is net transport of nitrogen andphosphorus out of the area. Metering access and using the money tofund fertilizing and aerating the soil from time to time fixes theproblem handily. However, information objects are not consumed bytheir use. In fact, they tend to actually be *produced* by their use!This argues for exactly the opposite treatment -- if not as a publicgood, then as one that's negatively metered, so you *get* paid toreceive the information. Interestingly exactly one industry does payothers to receive content -- the advertising industry. It is currentlydoing reasonably well.* I am not basing all monopolies off one. I gave multiple examplesbesides Microsoft: several pharmaceutical companies. It's easy to findlots more.* Standardization is easily achieved without a monopoly. Defactostandards emerge naturally from market forces in the face ofcompetition -- VHS winning over Betamax is perhaps the classicexample. Windows and Mac interface standards are closely similar, asthey copy off one another while competing with one another. On theother hand, we see monopolies abuse and misuse standards an awful lot.MS is especially guilty of this, especially often ("embrace andextend", anyone?), but is certainly not the only culprit. And oneoften gets BAD standards, consumer-rights-hostile ones, such as theDVD and now HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards, which arbitrarily restrictusers from navigating the disc the way they want, making personal-usebackups, and the like.* The IP monopolies are actively eroding the few remaining restraintson them (e.g. fair use, first sale) by purchasing judges andlegislators with their ill-gotten gains.* If any of your precious theories about innovation being impossiblewithout royalty-type incentives were true, there'd be no thriving opensource software community -- and in particular, no NetBeans, noEclipse, and likely, no Java at all. Think on that for a little while-- just keep an eye on your core temperature, since it seems your CPUsmay have to struggle a fair bit on that one. :P* Anyone caught recommending a paid product over a free equivalent isreasonably suspected of having an ulterior motive. In the interests ofdisclosure, are any of you employed by the monopoly selling one ofthese products? Be honest, now.* One last point: The sale of any product whose price tag is 99%margin and 1% parts and labour, instead of 1% margin and 99% parts andlabour, is a scam, pure and simple.I won't participate further in this thread. Any more educating youneed can be had over at http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htmwhich I am sure will also greatly interest our mutual audience oflurkers. The rational among them (and among you) will draw theinevitable conclusions from the evidence presented here and there, aswell as the observation that one side is being calm and rational andsometimes humorous while the other is exploding with evident fury,insulting people and launching into polemics and tirades, and exhibitsthe humorlessness of those who are outmatched in mortal combat.By the way, has nobody here ever even heard of OpenOffice? It hasequivalents of all the MSOffice apps, including Excel. :P

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182371996.405628.79200@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...> * If any of your precious theories about innovation being impossible> without royalty-type incentives were true, there'd be no thriving open> source software community -- and in particular, no NetBeans, no> Eclipse, and likely, no Java at all. Think on that for a little whileAll of which were developed by large companies for strategic reasons of their own.> * Anyone caught recommending a paid product over a free equivalent is> reasonably suspected of having an ulterior motive. In the interests of> disclosure, are any of you employed by the monopoly selling one of> these products? Be honest, now.I recommended IntelliJ as superior to bith Netbenas and eclipse.  I have no connection with that company other than being a satisfied user.Oh, and calling that tiny company a "monopoly", for the second time now, confirms that you're a moron. 

And (having been a text editor + command line compiler guy until now) I finally got around to trying out Netbeans and Eclipse. I didn't get anywhere with Eclipse, but Netbeans seems good; I'm pleasantly impressed with the way when you try something you think ought to work, it typically does. I'll recommend it to anyone who, like I was, is thinking they really ought to move up to a modern IDE but don't have a lot of spare time to invest in getting up to speed.Tip: the option to create a project from an existing source folder works, but I recommend instead creating a blank project with a Main class, so you can see how Netbeans likes to organize things, then just copying all your source files into the resulting source folder.-- "Always look on the bright side of life."To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

On Jun 20, 6:23 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>wrote:> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message>> news:1182371996.405628.79200@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...>> > * If any of your precious theories about innovation being impossible> > without royalty-type incentives were true, there'd be no thriving open> > source software community -- and in particular, no NetBeans, no> > Eclipse, and likely, no Java at all. Think on that for a little while>> All of which were developed by large companies for strategic reasons of> their own.That doesn't refute anything I've said. There are plenty of otherreasons than expected revenue from the direct sale of copies todevelop software.> Oh, and calling that tiny company a "monopoly", for the second time now,> confirms [insult trimmed in the interests of civility and decorum]Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they havea monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ".http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

Twisted wrote:> Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they have> a monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ".But not on Java programmers' editors.  The definition of "monopoly" does not extend to the use of trademarks but to dominance in a market segment.  You aren't seriously suggesting that IntelliJ has such a dominant position in the programmers' editor segment as to suppress competition, surely?It is best in this type of discourse not to emulate Humpty Dumpty from /Through the Looking Glass/ by changing the definitions of terms to idiosyncratic ones.-- Lew

On Jun 22, 5:45 pm, Lew <l...@lewscanon.nospam> wrote:> Twisted wrote:> > Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they have> > a monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ".>> But...[snip]If you are seriously going to argue that copyrights (and patents) arenot a type of monopoly right, then this discussion is over. :PNobody can build their own identical IntelliJ from their own spareparts (i.e. electrons) and sell it legally, even under another name.That smacks of state-monopoly power to me. Same as building their own<foobar> from nuts and bolts, if <foobar> is patented, and going intocompetition against the originator, and so forth. Nobody can maketheir own Mickey Mouse cartoons -- even with wholly original plots --without Disney's permission. Still think copyrights and patents don'tgrant monopoly powers?

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182541207.121185.8170@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com...> On Jun 20, 6:23 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>> wrote:>> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message>>>> news:1182371996.405628.79200@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...>>>> > * If any of your precious theories about innovation being impossible>> > without royalty-type incentives were true, there'd be no thriving open>> > source software community -- and in particular, no NetBeans, no>> > Eclipse, and likely, no Java at all. Think on that for a little while>>>> All of which were developed by large companies for strategic reasons of>> their own.>> That doesn't refute anything I've said. There are plenty of other> reasons than expected revenue from the direct sale of copies to> develop software.But you think that developing software  i  order to make money by selli g it is a bad idea, which is why you want it to be illegal.>>> Oh, and calling that tiny company a "monopoly", for the second time now,>> confirms [insult trimmed in the interests of civility and decorum]Surely you've been called worse than "moron".>> Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they have> a monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ". Can anyone other than the Coca-Cola company sell Coca-Cola?  Can anyone other than the onwer of a house sell that house?  Monopolists, every one of them.> 

<nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182554428.009600.283210@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com...> On Jun 22, 5:45 pm, Lew <l...@lewscanon.nospam> wrote:>> Twisted wrote:>> > Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they have>> > a monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ".>>>> But...[snip]>> If you are seriously going to argue that copyrights (and patents) are> not a type of monopoly right, then this discussion is over. :PThen it's over, because that's not what "monopoly" means.    There are lots of Java IDEs, some of them free, and IntelliJ has no ability to control that market or to affect the sales of other IDEs by any means other than out-competing them.  You could argue with equal logic [1] that Wonder Bread is a monopoly, because no other bakery can sell its white bread under that name.1. That is, none. 

nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:> On Jun 22, 5:45 pm, Lew <l...@lewscanon.nospam> wrote:>> Twisted wrote:>>> Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they have>>> a monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ".>> But...[snip]> > If you are seriously going to argue that copyrights (and patents) are> not a type of monopoly right, then this discussion is over. :PNow don't go changing your argument in mid-stream, Twisted.  You said that IntelliJ had a monopoly, not that they exercised a "monopoly right".  Two different things.I am seriously arguing that IntelliJ does not have a monopoly, in the usual sense of the word "monopoly".  Thank God, that means the discussion is over.-- Lew

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:40:07 +0000, Twisted wrote:> Can anyone else copy and sell "IntelliJ", legally? No? Then they have a> monopoly -- a state-enforced one at that -- on "IntelliJ".From the OED (emphasis added):monopoly (n.)I. Simple uses.    1. a. The exclusive possession or control of the trade in a commodity, product [1], or service; *the condition of having no competitor in one's trade or business*. Also: an instance of this.  In Eng. Law: a situation in which one supplier or producer controls more than a specified fraction of the market.    b. As a mass noun: [trimmed]    c. Monopolies Commission, [trimmed]    2. An exclusive privilege conferred by a monarch, state, etc., of selling a particular commodity or of trading with a particular region.    3. In extended use (often with conscious metaphor). [trimmed]    4. The commodity, trade, etc., in which a monopoly is held, granted, or operated. Also in extended use.    5. A company that has, operates, or claims a monopoly.    6. In form Monopoly. [trimmed]IntelliJ has several competitors in its business (Java IDEs): NetBeans and Eclipse, for starters. Therefore, by definition, it is not a monopoly under any definition.[1] I should mention that "product" here is used as a noun in the same vein as "output" or "commodity", being used as a general descriptor as in "The product of the mills..."

In article <1182318354.605264.50090@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 19, 11:18 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message

[ snip ]

> > > Barbs from a small mind, trying to grasp large issues in economics and
> > > clearly failing. If you actually believe any of the fascist* and
> > > communist** propaganda copiously flowing out of the big entertainment
> > > industry lobbying organizations lately, I'd suggest you stop by
> > >http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htmand drink
> > > down a hearty draught of clue sometime soon.

[ snip ]

> Obviously you didn't bother to follow that link.

Well, I did, and found ....

[ snip ]

> Now go read what's at that link I provided. Don't worry - it won't
> bite, although there are pdf files. If you're really worried, paste
> the link into Firefox, and at the pdfs, right click them, "save as",
> do a full virus and badware scan, and read them offline later.

as you say, PDF files [1], but PDF files that seem to represent
the chapters of a book.  I'm mildly curious about this argument
you find so compelling, but not interested enough to read a book.
I don't suppose you'd care to point us to a shorter summary?

[1] Are PDF files really a potential security risk?  Huh.  I guess
it must be possible to embed more in them than I thought ....
<shrug>

-- 
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

On Jun 23, 12:49 pm, Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeo...@verizon.net> wrote:> IntelliJ has several competitors in its business (Java IDEs): NetBeans> and Eclipse, for starters. Therefore, by definition, it is not a monopoly> under any definition.In response to this and two other new posts here: To the extent thatthe others cannot be substituted for IntelliJ, its makers do holdmonopoly powers. For example, if there are problems withinteroperability. (Likely they can all work as clients to commonversion control servers, but supposing this were an issue, you wouldthen have one company gatewaying access to interoperate with yourIntelliJ-using shop. This happened for real for years with theMSOffice document formats making having, and frequently upgrading,MSOffice effectively mandatory for all business computers in theworld, and only recently has OpenOffice and its MSOffice compatibilityseriously eroded Microsoft's monopoly power in this area.)To the extent that copyrights and patents limit the ability for anyoneto make products that can completely substitute for or interoperatewith IntelliJ, there exists a significant problem. In principle, thethreat is enormous, especially given the ability to use gratuitousencryption on some protocol IntelliJ uses and then claim"circumvention" under the DMCA and equivalent laws against anycompetitor that tried to reverse engineer it and make an interoperableor fully-substitutable product. Likewise, if the protocol involvessome gratuitous and patented convolution, even an independentlydesigned or clean-room-reverse-engineered third-party codec allowinginteroperation has to license the patent or it infringes. Ouch!In fact, the threat isn't just theoretical. Both types of tactics areused to stop competitors making substitutable or interoperableproducts every day. There have been attempts to use legal measures tostifle interoperable third party:* Game servers (BnetD);* Remote controls;* Ink-jet ink cartridges and print heads (multiple occasions in thecase of ink, and at least one with print heads);* Car parts; and* Assorted software of various sorts.That's just so far. Some of the times the bullies lost in court.Fairly often they've won and retained a lock on interoperableproducts.While I have no reason to believe that the makers of IntelliJ aredoing anything nasty like that at this time, the only way you can besure a vendor won't pull a stunt like this to enforce lock-in at somefuture date is if the product is open source. At minimum you better beable to get your data out in an open format via an open protocol or asa disk file. In the case of IntelliJ, if it can interface to bog-standard CVS or SVN, or output plain ASCII or Unicode .java files (andit can probably do all three), you are not at serious risk of lock-in,though it would be nice if project definitions could be output in auniversally usable form as well (ant buildfile? I know Eclipse can dothat, but can IntelliJ?...)Even then the original issue still stands. If IntelliJ is notsuperior, wasting money on it instead of using a free IDE is silly. Ifit is, the question arises of why Eclipse and/or NetBeans don't catchup rapidly. If it involves patents or circumventing encryption in waysthat may run afoul of the DMCA, then it means it's because IntelliJ'smakers have a bona fide monopoly. If it does not, then you might wantto consider carefully whether you want to spend money to line some fatexecs' pockets, or instead spend some time improving the Eclipse orNetBeans codebase to have equivalent functionality.If the functionality is proprietary, ask whether it's as desirable asit seems ... or even desirable at all, as proprietary functionalitymay be a route to becoming locked in to one provider of some service,and then you'll have to pay, and pay, and pay perpetually. That waylies digital serfdom, as with adopting any kind of "software as aservice" with a high cost of switching. The one kind of "software as aservice" I'll ever accept is the sort that does not involve anyproprietary protocols and so provides no cost of switching. Web searchand Google Groups being cases in point -- Google don't have theworld's only search engine or access to nntp news, and no importantdata is built up over time that I can't easily either lose or extract(just the read/unread data for news postings), so the cost ofswitching away is virtually nil. No danger of lock-in.

On Jun 23, 2:04 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > That doesn't refute anything I've said. There are plenty of other
> > reasons than expected revenue from the direct sale of copies to
> > develop software.
>
> But you think that developing software  i  order to make money by selli g it
> is a bad idea, which is why you want it to be illegal.

Whoa, words in my mouth --! I never said I wanted it to be illegal.
You go right ahead and try to make money by selling copies, if you
think you can even without restricting other peoples' abilities to
make more copies and use them as they see fit, including resell them.
It isn't impossible -- Red Hat makes money partly by selling install
kits, which anyone could freely copy under current law as it's all
GPL, and there's often a market for limited edition/original signed
whatevers, where copies may be made, but don't have the market value
the originals command. Why is an original Rembrandt saleable for huge
amounts of money even if cheap copies can be had everywhere? It isn't
copyright law. And that means copyright law isn't needed to motivate a
future Rembrandt. Build up a reputation and originals of your own
works, including retroactively ones you made before you became famous,
may be worth a fortune on eBay. Of course becoming rich and famous has
always been something of a crapshoot, but that won't be changed, and
if large industry groups didn't gateway access to the major methods of
distribution and venues of visibility, it might become less of one.
Actually, no matter what happens to the law, in the immediate future
those groups will lose most of their power anyway. Now they can be
bypassed and distribution and exposure had by way of torrents, cheap
web hosts, Myspace, and Youtube, with a big push of momentum from
being blogged about, if you make something worthy of note. In fact, in
the next twenty years the world is going to change more than you can
possibly imagine ... whether you want it to or not. Prepare as best
you can; hedge all bets, avoid those slow-maturing bonds, and keep
your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times, because we are
going to be experiencing some turbulence.

>  Can anyone other than the Coca-Cola company sell Coca-Cola?  Can anyone
> other than the onwer of a house sell that house?  Monopolists, every one of
> them.

Sure, and irrelevant. Anyone can make Coca-Cola and sell it; they just
can't call it Coca-Cola unless they have the trademark. I'm fairly
sure the formula is only a trade secret, not a patent, so if you can
discover it you can probably use it, as long as you don't do something
like bribe or otherwise induce a Coca-Cola employee to breach a
confidentiality agreement or the like, or break wiretapping or
trespassing laws. Finding it out by dumpster-diving is probably
perfectly legal, assuming it's possible. Trial-and-error discovery of
a fizzy formula that tastes identical is certainly legal.

As for the house, nobody else can sell that house, but they can
probably legally build their own exact replica out of their own
pocket, and sell that. They can't build their own replica of IntelliJ
that way and sell it, even if the parts (a blank CD, some bandwidth,
some electricity) are paid for out of their own money. Therein lies
the difference.

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182652847.405980.10350@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...> Even then the original issue still stands. If IntelliJ is not> superior, wasting money on it instead of using a free IDE is silly. If> it is, the question arises of why Eclipse and/or NetBeans don't catch> up rapidly.Presumably because a small software company whose income depends on software sales is motivated to produce a superior product.  A hardware company that gives software away is not.  If that disturbs you, feel free to move to North Korea.> If it involves patents or circumventing encryption in ways> that may run afoul of the DMCA, then it means it's because IntelliJ's> makers have a bona fide monopoly. If it does not, then you might want> to consider carefully whether you want to spend money to line some fat> execs' pockets,Not some talented developers' pockets?  As I thought, you hate the profit motive.> or instead spend some time improving the Eclipse or> NetBeans codebase to have equivalent functionality.You've evidently never looked at the NetBeans codebase.  It would be best improved with gasoline and a match.  At any rate, your notion that excellent software can be produced in the spare time of a mob of people with no specific expertise in the subject area shows, once again, that you're a moron. 

On Jun 23, 8:37 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:> as you say, PDF files [1], but PDF files that seem to represent> the chapters of a book.  I'm mildly curious about this argument> you find so compelling, but not interested enough to read a book.> I don't suppose you'd care to point us to a shorter summary?>> [1] Are PDF files really a potential security risk?  Huh.  I guess> it must be possible to embed more in them than I thought ....> <shrug>Not that I'm aware of, but I'll vouch for these ones in particularbeing apparently safe. I can also vouch that you can skim them or getquite a lot from reading just part, and that it's not especially long.In summary, though, there is strong evidence that so-called"intellectual property" laws hinder innovation rather than aid it, andaid only corporate rent-seeking, lining the pockets of various three-piece suits and raising the cost of living for the little guy.Consider that all that money, if it didn't line those expensivepockets, would probably be spent regardless, but instead trickle downto real laborers of various stripes. That's a lot of wage increasesand new jobs, along with a cost of living decrease, in a bundle alsoknown as "economic progress". That would include actual programmers,who last time I checked are salaried employees or freelancers for themost part and don't see a dime of any copyright royalties, and whosefairly scarce skills ensure their employability for the foreseeablefuture in this computer-rich civilization. Lack of copyright royaltiesmight mean some no longer work for certain big corporate behemoths,but they'll have plenty of other opportunities, and their own costswill have gone down. The ones that might be in dire straits are thereally awful ones Microsoft keeps hiring, who don't know their nullpointers from their NICs, but they really should not be working in thefield anyway, for the sake of our sanity. I'd be happy to see my lastever "illegal operation" dialog that was due to some chimpanzee'sinability to recall that errno should be checked after calls tohwMakeFooWidgetSocketConnection(); or at least the return valuechecked for being null. Happier still to see the last one resultingfrom a rhesus monkey forgetting that declaring "int a[1000];" followedby stuffing a value in a[1000] is a Bad Idea(tm), and using "strcpy"instead of "strncpy" and the like an even worse one. And don't get mestarted on the IO functions that can suck an arbitrary amount of datadown and append it all to a 4096-byte array. Those are responsible forfully half of all Windows exploits and a lot of common unix ones. Allby themselves. Some of the half-bad C code I've seen has shocked meinto wishing all network-facing code was written in Java, right downto the last line. The worst C code I've seen has made me suspicious ofthe wisdom of using C for anything except the kernel, some drivers, abasic API layer to access these, a low-level debugging and recoverytool, and a VM. With only root, and only when logged in at thephysical console, having access to any component outside of the VM.Maybe on the computer system of the future...

In article <1182654458.076941.5600@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 8:37 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > as you say, PDF files [1], but PDF files that seem to represent
> > the chapters of a book.  I'm mildly curious about this argument
> > you find so compelling, but not interested enough to read a book.
> > I don't suppose you'd care to point us to a shorter summary?
> >
> > [1] Are PDF files really a potential security risk?  Huh.  I guess
> > it must be possible to embed more in them than I thought ....
> > <shrug>
> 
> Not that I'm aware of, 

Then why did you say, in your earlier post:

> > > Now go read what's at that link I provided. Don't worry - it won't
> > > bite, although there are pdf files. If you're really worried, paste
> > > the link into Firefox, and at the pdfs, right click them, "save as",
> > > do a full virus and badware scan, and read them offline later.

?

> but I'll vouch for these ones in particular
> being apparently safe. I can also vouch that you can skim them or get
> quite a lot from reading just part, and that it's not especially long.

Call me lazy, but when I discover that the first chapter has
about 14 pages, I say -- "no, not that interested".  So thanks
for summarizing below.

> In summary, though, there is strong evidence that so-called
> "intellectual property" laws hinder innovation rather than aid it, and
> aid only corporate rent-seeking, lining the pockets of various three-
> piece suits and raising the cost of living for the little guy.
> Consider that all that money, if it didn't line those expensive
> pockets, would probably be spent regardless, but instead trickle down
> to real laborers of various stripes. That's a lot of wage increases
> and new jobs, along with a cost of living decrease, in a bundle also
> known as "economic progress". 

Seems plausible.  My feeling is that it shortchanges the people
who create "intellectual property", but -- <shrug>.  The ease and
negligible cost with which many forms of intellectual property
can now be reproduced does seem to change things.  I don't have
a preferred solution at this point.

> That would include actual programmers,
> who last time I checked are salaried employees or freelancers for the
> most part and don't see a dime of any copyright royalties, and whose
> fairly scarce skills ensure their employability for the foreseeable
> future in this computer-rich civilization. Lack of copyright royalties
> might mean some no longer work for certain big corporate behemoths,
> but they'll have plenty of other opportunities, and their own costs
> will have gone down. 

Yeah, maybe.  If it's impossible to copyright software and enforce
copyright protections -- I don't know.  I used to work for a
little software company, so I'm fairly sympathetic to the argument
"how can we make money if we can't charge for the code we write?"
For me, the attraction of no-cost software is as much the lack
of irritating licensing restrictions as about not having to pay.
"YMMV", maybe.

> The ones that might be in dire straits are the
> really awful ones Microsoft keeps hiring, who don't know their null
> pointers from their NICs, but they really should not be working in the
> field anyway, for the sake of our sanity. I'd be happy to see my last
> ever "illegal operation" dialog that was due to some chimpanzee's
> inability to recall that errno should be checked after calls to
> hwMakeFooWidgetSocketConnection(); or at least the return value
> checked for being null. 

Huh.  I know a few people who've worked at Microsoft in technical
jobs, and they're smart folks, and they say the other technical
people there are equally bright people.  I would therefore suspect
management pressure to get the products out the door rather than
programmer incompetence.  But I could be wrong; the only way to
be sure is probably to look at source code.  <shrug>

[ snip ]

-- 
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:07:38 +0000, Twisted wrote:> In summary, though, there is strong evidence that so-called> "intellectual property" laws hinder innovation rather than aid it, and> aid only corporate rent-seeking, lining the pockets of various three-> piece suits and raising the cost of living for the little guy.Imagine a world without software patents: would companies like Apple or Microsoft be inclined to create OSs if they were guaranteed to make money off of it? No matter what you say, people need money to live [1]; therefore they need to make money. People would not be inclined to program if they were not compensated for it [2]; therefore a corporation would have to find some means to pay for this talent (innovation is included in my discussion). A corporation would be very bad off it had no source of income, ergo they would have to charge money for software.Now, the reason that corporations will bother investing in innovating at all is that it would bring the prospect of more income. In a world without patents, or IP rights, someone else could swoop in, take the hard-wrought final product and go make money off of it. Look at problems in China with so much scavenged software. IP rights, in summary, encourage more companies not to scavenge but to truly foster innovation.In short, intellectual property laws are necessary to some degree to aid innovation (although, in the most predominant scenarios, they are probably a little too strong).[1] The only way money would become unnecessary is in a world without scarcity, therefore money would need to exist no matter what economic process a society is in.[2] People will counter with OSS, but most OSS programmers tend to be students not yet having to fully compensate themselves. Once these programmers begin to enter the workforce, they tend to stop programming on OSS.

"Joshua Cranmer" <Pidgeot18@verizon.net> wrote in message news:huzfi.1682$ss5.1042@trndny03...> [2] People will counter with OSS, but most OSS programmers tend to be> students not yet having to fully compensate themselves. Once these> programmers begin to enter the workforce, they tend to stop programming> on OSS.Many OSS programmers are being paid foir it.  That's also true of the core developers of Eclipse and NetBeans, who are employees of IBM and Sun respectively. 

On Jun 24, 2:57 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > > [1] Are PDF files really a potential security risk?  Huh.  I guess
> > > it must be possible to embed more in them than I thought ....
> > > <shrug>
>
> > Not that I'm aware of,
>
> Then why did you say, in your earlier post:
>
> > > > Now go read what's at that link I provided. Don't worry - it won't
> > > > bite, although there are pdf files. If you're really worried, paste
> > > > the link into Firefox, and at the pdfs, right click them, "save as",
> > > > do a full virus and badware scan, and read them offline later.
>
> ?

I know people can find PDF files annoying, and I know at least some
PDF files may contain evil DRM. I don't know if they can do worse,
although I do know a wide variety of browsers misbehave if you stumble
into a PDF file -- for example, IE will just lock up and sometimes
crash, sometimes eventually recover. Firefox will freeze for a short
while, with the stop button, other tabs, etc. all nonfunctional, but
invariably quickly recover. Most likely this behavior is actually bad
behavior of Adobe's plugin, combined with browsers that don't ensure
that plugins can't lock out the browser UI or crash the browser.
Judicious use of threading would have permitted Firefox to still work
while a plugin that was slow to load hogged a thread and didn't yield,
for example, and let users use the Stop button to abort loading the
plugin when they realized they'd hit a PDF link (leaving a blank page
to hit Back from, or Refresh if they decided to go ahead despite the
slow load).

I don't know what level of security risk pdfs pose though in practise
I think it's quite low, at least for non-IE-users.

> Call me lazy, but when I discover that the first chapter has
> about 14 pages, I say -- "no, not that interested".  So thanks
> for summarizing below.

No problem.

[snip]

> Seems plausible.  My feeling is that it shortchanges the people
> who create "intellectual property", but -- <shrug>.

I find it likely the market would find ways to remunerate them, and
the people would find business models, suited to the internet age,
without ham-fisted regulation being needed.

> The ease and negligible cost with which many forms of intellectual property
> can now be reproduced does seem to change things.  I don't have
> a preferred solution at this point.

The important thing is that unlike some you appear to have an open
mind.

> Yeah, maybe.  If it's impossible to copyright software and enforce
> copyright protections -- I don't know.  I used to work for a
> little software company, so I'm fairly sympathetic to the argument
> "how can we make money if we can't charge for the code we write?"

Why couldn't they? They could say they could do such-and-such if
pledged some money, etc.; there's a lot of scope for work-for-hire
without copyright royalties. If someone needs particular code done
urgently they may be willing to pay a premium for it to be prioritized
instead of getting it for free "eventually". Other people won't be so
willing; but so long as someone pays, it's not like the work has to be
repeated for everyone else who wants to use the new feature. Once it's
done it's done and it's easy to copy. If nobody is willing to pay,
then it may be longer before someone with the programming talent does
something. But desired features lots of people want might end up
having a "bounty" on them, and talented coders with the right area of
knowledge might be able to collect those bounties. Needless to say
there might be a lot more freelance-type stuff and guns-for-hire and
less cubicle farms involved in programming within such an economic
environment. That might not be a bad thing. Cubicle farms might still
have their place, as a company could form a business model based on
organized bounty-hunting. I'll bet there'd even end up freelancers
moaning that all the best stuff is being snatched by businesses
instead of individual lone-wolf coders after a while. Of course,
narrow expertise would give you the pickings from some niche areas --
high-performance mathematical/numerical arcana for example, or
massively-parallel optimized code.

> For me, the attraction of no-cost software is as much the lack
> of irritating licensing restrictions as about not having to pay.
> "YMMV", maybe.

Likewise. One important part of software freedom is not being locked
into dependence on the beneficence of a single vendor. Freeware
doesn't guarantee that freedom; open source as a rule does. Nor is
open source even automatically at odds with selling copies; as
mentioned earlier Red Hat makes a fair bit of money selling copies,
despite disavowing any copyright-type restrictions on a customer
turning right around and selling their own second-generation copies.
One company started doing exactly that, and Red Hat still outperforms
them financially, probably because they have a trusted and
recognizable brand and a first-mover advantage; copiers are always
playing catch-up, both on features or other changes to the product and
on the expertise used to deliver ancillary services such as support.
One area that will always be lucrative is selling genuine technical
support to those for whom the software is mission critical and it
costs them more money to wait for a helpful forum posting or their own
local geek brigade's eventually fixing a problem than it does to pay
an expert who's seen the same problem a thousand times and knows the
fix backwards and forwards. The code's author is the sort of expert
whose ancillary expertise will remain scarce and valuable, even if
copies of the code are abundant and cheap to the point of being
essentially free.

Also worth noting is that content of any kind works as a loss leader
to sell storage media, hosting capacity, bandwidth, etc. by making the
latter more valuable as people have more stuff to store or transmit.
Imagine buying all music rights and a large broadband ISP, then
charging by the gigabyte of transfer and allowing unlimited p2p music
sharing for your customers, subject to their paying their ISP bills on
time. Related post-copyright business models, where someone sells
bandwidth or storage space of some sort and pays content creators to
make it more valuable by giving away content, are a gold mine waiting
to be exploited.

> Huh.  I know a few people who've worked at Microsoft in technical
> jobs, and they're smart folks, and they say the other technical
> people there are equally bright people.  I would therefore suspect
> management pressure to get the products out the door rather than
> programmer incompetence.  But I could be wrong; the only way to
> be sure is probably to look at source code.  <shrug>

The source code is going to be shoddy either way. It might be partly
management pressure, but I suspect they also just hire any old person
who knows a C compiler from a carburetor and throws a lot of them into
a bunch of cubicles and circulates a set of requirements for the next
version of Winword; out pops something that manages to creak along
looking sort of like it knows what it's doing, on which marketing
slaps a pretty splash screen and a bunch of logos. It finally
compiled! -- Ship it!

If genuinely talented coders are there, they're probably living a
nightmare of terrible and confining management policies combined with
spending their time fixing bad coders' bugs.

I'm quite sure MS has loads of net-negative-producing coders on the
payroll, though. Maybe the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sees them
as charity cases or something and donates jobs? :)

On Jun 24, 3:20 pm, Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeo...@verizon.net> wrote:> Imagine a world without software patents: would companies like Apple or> Microsoft be inclined to create OSs if they were guaranteed to make money> off of it? No matter what you say, people need money to live [1];> therefore they need to make money. People would not be inclined to> program if they were not compensated for it [2]; therefore a corporation> would have to find some means to pay for this talent (innovation is> included in my discussion). A corporation would be very bad off it had no> source of income, ergo they would have to charge money for software.Explain how open source can thrive then. Linux is an OS that wasdeveloped without the traditional guarantees of remuneration. Despitewhich Linus Torvalds is filthy rich these days. Obviously theinvisible hand has ways of making products and remunerating laborwithout requiring shackling information in chains. Those who thinkcopyrights or (worse) software patents are necessary grosslyunderestimate the power of a free market.> Now, the reason that corporations will bother investing in innovating at> all is that it would bring the prospect of more income. In a world> without patents, or IP rights, someone else could swoop in, take the hard-> wrought final product and go make money off of it. Look at problems in> China with so much scavenged software.China has problems alright. It has a booming economy these days,rapidly developing industries, a gradually improving politicaloutlook, and military might enough to be a contender for co-superpowerversus the United States Real Soon Now. I'd say they have a bigproblem with growing pains. I suppose shackling information in chainsmight make that problem go away. Giving everyone in the world anabortion would get rid of labor pains too -- as well as H. sapiens,once the existing generations grew old and died. Does it seem like avery good idea despite this?> IP rights, in summary, encourage more companies not to scavenge but to truly foster innovation.But a healthy ecosystem needs scavengers, and all kinds of othersafety valves against becoming brittle. Scavengers never get the firstpickings, which balances their advantages with disadvantages; theydon't get a free lunch as they never get the first-mover advantage.> [2] People will counter with OSS, but most OSS programmers tend to be> students not yet having to fully compensate themselves. Once these> programmers begin to enter the workforce, they tend to stop programming> on OSS.This has already been rebutted in another post by a different author.I see no reason to repeat what has already been said.

Joshua Cranmer (Pidgeot18@verizon.net) wrote:: On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:07:38 +0000, Twisted wrote:: > In summary, though, there is strong evidence that so-called: > "intellectual property" laws hinder innovation rather than aid it, and: > aid only corporate rent-seeking, lining the pockets of various three-: > piece suits and raising the cost of living for the little guy.: Imagine a world without software patents: would companies like Apple or : Microsoft be inclined to create OSs if they were guaranteed to make money : off of it? Apple started by making hardware.  The hardware would have been useless ifthey had not provided some kind of OS, so if they wanted to make moneyselling their hardware they would always have had a strong inclination tocreate an OS for it.It might be true that if people had been allowed to steal ideas fromApple's OS then Apple would not have been inclined to improve it after theinitial version was created.  But on the other hand, if anyone else had abetter idea of how to use Apple hardware then Apple themselves would havebeen free to steal those ideas to put them back into the original AppleOS, which would represent a cheap way to improve their own software -which would leave them inclined to do the improvements after all.I don't see it's cut and dried that Apple would not have created their OSeven if they knew the ideas in it could be stolen.

In article <1182726643.424812.238700@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 24, 2:57 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:

[ snip ]

> > Then why did you say, in your earlier post:
> >
> > > > > Now go read what's at that link I provided. Don't worry - it won't
> > > > > bite, although there are pdf files. If you're really worried, paste
> > > > > the link into Firefox, and at the pdfs, right click them, "save as",
> > > > > do a full virus and badware scan, and read them offline later.
> >
> > ?
> 
> I know people can find PDF files annoying, and I know at least some
> PDF files may contain evil DRM. I don't know if they can do worse,
> although I do know a wide variety of browsers misbehave if you stumble
> into a PDF file -- for example, IE will just lock up and sometimes
> crash, sometimes eventually recover. Firefox will freeze for a short
> while, with the stop button, other tabs, etc. all nonfunctional, but
> invariably quickly recover. Most likely this behavior is actually bad
> behavior of Adobe's plugin, combined with browsers that don't ensure
> that plugins can't lock out the browser UI or crash the browser.
> Judicious use of threading would have permitted Firefox to still work
> while a plugin that was slow to load hogged a thread and didn't yield,
> for example, and let users use the Stop button to abort loading the
> plugin when they realized they'd hit a PDF link (leaving a blank page
> to hit Back from, or Refresh if they decided to go ahead despite the
> slow load).

Huh.  Firefox on the Linux systems I use sometimes just displays
a blank page for PDF files.  I misremember whether this happens
only when using Adobe's reader or is sometimes a problem when
using one of the comes-with-the-system PDF browsers [1].  On one
of the systems I use, it seems to have helped to configure things
so the PDF reader always pop up a new window rather than trying
to display in the browser window.  Probably not the optimal 
solution, but okay for now.

[1] Two that I know of.  This is a Unix-like system, after all.

[ snip further discussion of intellectual property and how
to compensate programmers ]

Snipped because of lack of time to think further about it right
now.  I came across the following link in another newsgroup,
though, which seems to contain an interesting summary, including a
proposal for what sounds to me like an irritating "solution" (ads):

http://www.invece.org/article/financing.html

"FWIW", maybe.

[ snip ]

> I'm quite sure MS has loads of net-negative-producing coders on the
> payroll, though. Maybe the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sees them
> as charity cases or something and donates jobs? :)

Curious.  Microsoft has a reputation for having a very tough
interview process for programmers.  But of course that doesn't
necessarily mean they hire only the competent.  

-- 
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

On Jun 25, 5:14 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Huh.  Firefox on the Linux systems I use sometimes just displays
> a blank page for PDF files.  I misremember whether this happens
> only when using Adobe's reader or is sometimes a problem when
> using one of the comes-with-the-system PDF browsers [1].  On one
> of the systems I use, it seems to have helped to configure things
> so the PDF reader always pop up a new window rather than trying
> to display in the browser window.  Probably not the optimal
> solution, but okay for now.

Adobe is evil and its software is crap. (Sounds like another software
company that casts a somewhat larger shadow for non-Mac-users, hmm?)

> [ snip further discussion of intellectual property and how
> to compensate programmers ]
>
> Snipped because of lack of time to think further about it right
> now.  I came across the following link in another newsgroup,
> though, which seems to contain an interesting summary, including a
> proposal for what sounds to me like an irritating "solution" (ads):
>
> http://www.invece.org/article/financing.html
>
> "FWIW", maybe.

Ads, schmads. Ads are going to go the way of the dodo in a decade at
most. Narrowcast, foo-on-demand, smart client devices, users being in
charge of their own client devices, and filtering capabilities will
kill any kind of advertising that isn't either interesting content in
its own right or embedded plugs and product placements. The latter
will, if too blatant, damage the host content's rating on the peer
review based charts, and it won't make the top forty that week or any
week. (We already have the beginnings of this. Firefox with Adblock.
Rotten Tomatoes and other sites with crowdsourced movie ratings.)

The only thing that can save the traditional commercial is the
imposition by fiat of "trusted computing", i.e. taking our computers
away from us and renting the functionality back at ridiculous prices,
or at minimum "a government/Hollywood cabal owns root on all boxes;
everyone else, regardless of if they paid for and own the physical
hardware, is a mere unprivileged user". I find it unlikely the forces
pushing for that nightmare can prevail in the end. Putting region and
"UOP" restrictions in DVD players provoked consumer backlashes and
griping; reaching into our general-purpose computers to impose similar
restrictions would provoke a broad-based revolt by IT professionals
and serious non-professional computer users alike. (Microsoft's put
some evil stuff like that into Windows Vista. At last report, Windows
Vista is not selling very well, and those statistics fail to take
account of those who try it and then reinstall Windoze XP, counting
them as one more Vista convert. Contrast the rapid uptake of Windows
95, and later of Windoze XP despite the controversy over WPA.)

One other form of ad will survive, besides an ad that's entertaining
in its own right and an embedded plug. That will be the classified ad,
where people specifically go when they want information about things
for sale, and can be considered to include online things like
sponsored links at Google and sites like Craigslist and eBay. (Google
AdWords is another matter. It will die, though not quite yet.
Sponsored links on the other hand appear while you're searching for
something rather than getting in your way when your goal is something
other than search, and, if they are relevant to the user's search,
they may remain successful indefinitely.)

> Curious.  Microsoft has a reputation for having a very tough
> interview process for programmers.

How did you think they kept out the ones that know what they're doing?
The ones that would spot code that was there just to make Netscape or
(these days) Google Desktop Search perform poorly, or win.exe not work
with 4Dos and PCDos (ok, maybe before your time), or whatever and blow
the whistle to the media, or would spend all their time fixing bugs
and thereby denying the Microsoft Support side of the operation
revenue, or would make Notepad so efficient and useful that nobody
would shell out for Word anymore, or would fix some of the dumber
algorithm choices like Explorer's frequent use of bubble-sort and
other quadratic-time algorithms, thereby causing Microsoft to fail its
under-the-table obligations to Intel to force people to buy ever-
faster CPUs in exchange for kickbacks?

Let's face it -- Microsoft does not want to produce quality software.
If they did, with their money they could surely manage it and yet they
do not. Therefore they obviously don't want to. Quality software is
easy for the competition to interoperate with. It's easy for users to
avoid paying your support department if the software simply works. If
the built-in abilities don't suck they compete with your own paid add-
ons. Hardware manufacturers pay you to make your software gratuitously
slow and bloated, and pay a lot more than your customers do. The
entertainment industry pays you to cripple it in other ways*, and pays
a lot more than your customers do.

* Disclaimer: documented in the case of Zune-related goings-on. Not
proven in connection with Vista misfeatures. Yet.

In article <1182812867.607808.44440@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:[ snip ]> > Curious.  Microsoft has a reputation for having a very tough> > interview process for programmers.> > How did you think they kept out the ones that know what they're doing?Dumb luck, maybe, since the reputation is for asking questions thatreveal general smarts and an ability to think on one's feet?I suppose, though, that those characteristics don't necessarilycorrelate with ability to write good code.Just out of curiosity, are you basing your opinions on the qualityof the products Microsoft ships (based on how they behave), or onacquaintance with some of their technical employees?> The ones that would spot code that was there just to make Netscape or> (these days) Google Desktop Search perform poorly, or win.exe not work> with 4Dos and PCDos (ok, maybe before your time), Yes and no:"Yes" in the sense that my exposure to anything produced byMicrosoft only goes back to 1980-something, and I've rarely beenin circumstances in which I was working mostly in a DOS/Windowsenvironment.  The Microsoft-versus-others wars you describe --nope, I wasn't really aware of them."No" in the sense that I've been working with computers of somesort (mostly mainframes/minis/workstations) since 1970-something.(That background undoubtedly explains a lot about my taste intools.  I *am* willing to agree that moving from punched cardsto terminals with text editors was an improvement, and thatfull-screen text editors are an improvement over line editors.Beyond that the "advances" start to seem a little iffier.  Sort ofa :-).  )[ snip ]-- B. L. MassingillObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

On Jun 25, 8:31 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:> "No" in the sense that I've been working with computers of some> sort (mostly mainframes/minis/workstations) since 1970-something.> (That background undoubtedly explains a lot about my taste in> tools.  I *am* willing to agree that moving from punched cards> to terminals with text editors was an improvement, and that> full-screen text editors are an improvement over line editors.> Beyond that the "advances" start to seem a little iffier.  Sort of> a :-).  )Well, apropos of a certain other thread, I have the opinion thathaving a proper folder view (especially with the tree) when browsing,opening, and saving files is to full-screen text editors as tab-completion on a one-line prompt is to line editors. So there. ;P

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:07:47 +0000, Twisted wrote:
> Putting region and "UOP" restrictions in DVD players provoked consumer 
> backlashes and  griping; reaching into our general-purpose computers to 
> impose similar  restrictions would provoke a broad-based revolt by IT
> professionals and  serious non-professional computer users alike.
> (Microsoft's put some evil stuff like that into Windows Vista. At last 
> report, Windows Vista is not selling very well, and those statistics
> fail to take account of those who try it and then reinstall Windoze XP, 
> counting them as one more Vista convert. Contrast the rapid uptake of
> Windows 95, and later of Windoze XP despite the controversy over WPA.)

You're misrepresenting the reasons people are relectuant to switch to 
Vista:

1. It is a proven resource hog (15 GB for an OS ?!?!) that therefore 
requires (expensive) upper-middle-end computers to run effectively. 
2. Vista costs $200 or so; but upgrading Office is another $200, and then 
there's the anti-virus software, your money management, etc. most of 
which would probably need to upgrade. For the average user, a Vista 
upgrade is a $400+ investment /on top of/ hardware, whereas XP is closer 
to $100 or so.
3. The UI is such a radical change from the Windows 95-XP standard that 
people can become lost in it.
4. It has gotten at best mediocre reviews due to some of the 
aforementioned reasons and more (e.g., networking horrors).

DRM comes about bottom of the mindset for the average user.

If I graphed a chart of people's shoe sizes compared to their preference 
for liver or broccoli, I would find that high shoe sizes correlate to 
high preference for liver/broccoli and low shoe sizes correlate to low 
preference for liver/broccoli. Does that mean that having large feet 
makes you prefer liver and broccoli? No. They both happen to depend on 
another hidden variable, age (older people have larger shoe sizes, etc.).

In summary:
Correlation does not necessitate dependence.

In article <1182823202.310927.187230@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:> On Jun 25, 8:31 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:> > "No" in the sense that I've been working with computers of some> > sort (mostly mainframes/minis/workstations) since 1970-something.> > (That background undoubtedly explains a lot about my taste in> > tools.  I *am* willing to agree that moving from punched cards> > to terminals with text editors was an improvement, and that> > full-screen text editors are an improvement over line editors.> > Beyond that the "advances" start to seem a little iffier.  Sort of> > a :-).  )> > Well, apropos of a certain other thread, I have the opinion that> having a proper folder view (especially with the tree) when browsing,> opening, and saving files is to full-screen text editors as tab-> completion on a one-line prompt is to line editors. So there. ;P Tab completion in a line editor ....  Hm, I wonder if there areline editors that offer that.  (Have you ever worked with a lineeditor?  Examples in Unixworld are "ed" and "ex".  I don't knowwhat the DOS/Windows equivalent might be.)-- B. L. MassingillObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:> In article <1182823202.310927.187230@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,> Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:>> On Jun 25, 8:31 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:>>> "No" in the sense that I've been working with computers of some>>> sort (mostly mainframes/minis/workstations) since 1970-something.>>> (That background undoubtedly explains a lot about my taste in>>> tools.  I *am* willing to agree that moving from punched cards>>> to terminals with text editors was an improvement, and that>>> full-screen text editors are an improvement over line editors.>>> Beyond that the "advances" start to seem a little iffier.  Sort of>>> a :-).  )>> Well, apropos of a certain other thread, I have the opinion that>> having a proper folder view (especially with the tree) when browsing,>> opening, and saving files is to full-screen text editors as tab->> completion on a one-line prompt is to line editors. So there. ;P>  > Tab completion in a line editor ....  Hm, I wonder if there are> line editors that offer that.  (Have you ever worked with a line> editor?  Examples in Unixworld are "ed" and "ex".  I don't know> what the DOS/Windows equivalent might be.)> edlin - and its a really minimal, barely usable, editor.-- martin@   | Martin Gregoriegregorie. | Essex, UKorg       |

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:10:04 +0000, blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:> Tab completion in a line editor ....  Hm, I wonder if there are line> editors that offer that.  (Have you ever worked with a line editor? > Examples in Unixworld are "ed" and "ex".  I don't know what the> DOS/Windows equivalent might be.)Two things:1. Windows, to my knowledge, has no line editor. It doesn't even have a proper shell!2. I believe that tab-completion in this case refers to shell-level completion of filenames, so I could type mod<Tab> -> modules/ This, Windows' pseudo-shell DOES have, albeit in a more obnoxious form.

In article <JdAgi.2226$s%.473@trnddc02>,Joshua Cranmer  <blah@somewhere.invalid> wrote:> On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:10:04 +0000, blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:> > Tab completion in a line editor ....  Hm, I wonder if there are line> > editors that offer that.  (Have you ever worked with a line editor? > > Examples in Unixworld are "ed" and "ex".  I don't know what the> > DOS/Windows equivalent might be.)> > Two things:> 1. Windows, to my knowledge, has no line editor. It doesn't even have a > proper shell!> 2. I believe that tab-completion in this case refers to shell-level > completion of filenames, Yeah, maybe.  What Twisted wrote was this:>>> Well, apropos of a certain other thread, I have the opinion that>>> having a proper folder view (especially with the tree) when browsing,>>> opening, and saving files is to full-screen text editors as tab->>> completion on a one-line prompt is to line editors. So there. ;Pand clearly the "proper folder view" is meant to refer to thingsthat happen once the editor has started, rather than just to starting it up.  Experiment suggests that vim and emacs offer tab-completion offile names for operations that need a file name (open, "save as",etc.), but ex and ed don't.  I think both of them, though, dateback to a time when tab-completion wasn't offered in shells either."Whatever", maybe.  > so I could type mod<Tab> -> modules/ This, > Windows' pseudo-shell DOES have, albeit in a more obnoxious form.True (at least about Windows having something like this -- I don'tknow it well enough to compare it to its Unix/Linux counterparts).-- B. L. MassingillObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

blmblm@myrealbox.com (blmblm@myrealbox.com) wrote:
: In article <1182823202.310927.187230@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
: Twisted  <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
: > On Jun 25, 8:31 pm, blm...@myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
: > > "No" in the sense that I've been working with computers of some
: > > sort (mostly mainframes/minis/workstations) since 1970-something.
: > > (That background undoubtedly explains a lot about my taste in
: > > tools.  I *am* willing to agree that moving from punched cards
: > > to terminals with text editors was an improvement, and that
: > > full-screen text editors are an improvement over line editors.
: > > Beyond that the "advances" start to seem a little iffier.  Sort of
: > > a :-).  )
: > 
: > Well, apropos of a certain other thread, I have the opinion that
: > having a proper folder view (especially with the tree) when browsing,
: > opening, and saving files is to full-screen text editors as tab-
: > completion on a one-line prompt is to line editors. So there. ;P
:  
: Tab completion in a line editor ....  Hm, I wonder if there are
: line editors that offer that.  (Have you ever worked with a line
: editor?  Examples in Unixworld are "ed" and "ex".  I don't know
: what the DOS/Windows equivalent might be.)

edlin

dropped from dos years ago, but now included again with NT/XP/etc,
presumably because it allows batch files to do simple editing (using M$
tools only with no additional cost to M$).

On a 128K machine with just one small floppy disk drive it was a fine
enough editor for small tasks, but its sole benefit now is that you can do
simple edits at the command line without having the editor take over your
screen.  Of course with multiple windows that is not that big a deal
anymore.  I haven't used it for years.

A much more useful old utility now included again is "debug" - because it
can do hex dumps of files.  I use that a few times a year.

Joshua Cranmer wrote:> On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:07:38 +0000, Twisted wrote:>> In summary, though, there is strong evidence that so-called>> "intellectual property" laws hinder innovation rather than aid it, and>> aid only corporate rent-seeking, lining the pockets of various three->> piece suits and raising the cost of living for the little guy.> > Imagine a world without software patents: would companies like Apple or > Microsoft be inclined to create OSs if they were guaranteed to make money > off of it?They can make money on their code due to copyright.Patents are something completely different than copyright.Copyright gives you the right to your code.Patents prevents other from writing code that can competewith your code.>              No matter what you say, people need money to live [1]; > therefore they need to make money. People would not be inclined to > program if they were not compensated for it [2]; therefore a corporation > would have to find some means to pay for this talent (innovation is > included in my discussion). A corporation would be very bad off it had no > source of income, ergo they would have to charge money for software.And so has the software industry for a half century. The majorityof those without software patents.> Now, the reason that corporations will bother investing in innovating at > all is that it would bring the prospect of more income. In a world > without patents, or IP rights, someone else could swoop in, take the hard-> wrought final product and go make money off of it.You need to make the distinction:   - practically noone opposes copyright   - many opposes software patents> [2] People will counter with OSS, but most OSS programmers tend to be > students not yet having to fully compensate themselves. Once these > programmers begin to enter the workforce, they tend to stop programming > on OSS.Completely wrong.IBM, SUN, Oracle, Novell pay programmers to develop open source.And even the graybeards with a day job not involving open sourceoften continues writing open source.Arne

On Jun 30, 9:13 pm, Arne Vajh=F8j <a...@vajhoej.dk> wrote:> Joshua Cranmer wrote:> > On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:07:38 +0000, Twisted wrote:> >> In summary, though, there is strong evidence that so-called> >> "intellectual property" laws hinder innovation rather than aid it, and> >> aid only corporate rent-seeking, lining the pockets of various three-> >> piece suits and raising the cost of living for the little guy.>> > Imagine a world without software patents: would companies like Apple or> > Microsoft be inclined to create OSs if they were guaranteed to make mon=ey> > off of it?>> They can make money on their code due to copyright.>> Patents are something completely different than copyright.>> Copyright gives you the right to your code.No, ordinary property rights give you the right to your code.Copyright takes away other people's rights to copies of your code (andof other things ... ALMOST ALL THINGS in fact), even where they wouldmake such copies on their own dime (bandwidth, storage media, etc.)and even though they would not be taking your copy away from you.

On Jun 16, 3:26 pm, b...@coolgroups.com wrote:
> Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for
> me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.

The Zeus IDE will do Java auto indenting:

   http://www.zeusedit.com

It also has features like syntax highlighting, code
folding, integrated version control, project/workspace,
class browsing etc.

Zeus can also be configure for Java Intellisensing:

  http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=731

or integrated Java SDK help:

  http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows IDE

On Jun 20, 3:45 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:> However, serious programming talent is scarce, and someone> who has some will always be able to market their skill so> long as there remains a computer-using civilization> around here.Give it a few years and I think you'll find the world willbe awash with "serious programming talent".The best thing about free software is it allows every man andhis dog the opportunity to learn just enough about softwaredevelopment to call him/herself a programming talent.Market forces are quickly turning the programming professioninto a race to the bottom where the winner is the one offeringthe lowest price.Just add in a large numbers of India, Chinese, etc programmersand you'll find the price of "serious programming talent" willapproach that of open source and also become nearly "free".> Car companies compete heavily, unlike operating system> companies. And the result seems to be better cars.Tell that to the laid off car workers of Detroit.Jussi JumppanenAuthor: Zeus for Windows IDEhttp://www.zeusedit.com

On Jul 1, 8:38 pm, JussiJ <jus...@zeusedit.com> wrote:> On Jun 16, 3:26 pm, b...@coolgroups.com wrote:>> > Hi. I was just wondering if someone can recommend a Java editor for> > me.  I'm looking for something that supports automatic indentation.>> The Zeus IDE will do Java auto indenting:>>    http://www.zeusedit.comThis Zeus thing isn't freeware. Eclipse is (and is even open source).Ditto netbeans.

On Jul 1, 9:12 pm, JussiJ <jus...@zeusedit.com> wrote:> > Car companies compete heavily, unlike operating system> > companies. And the result seems to be better cars.>> Tell that to the laid off car workers of Detroit.Let's see. We have lots of cheaper cars. We have a bunch of expert carworkers looking for work. Shall we predict a substantial boom in thecar-repair sector in the near term then? Not to mention auto glass,oil changing, third-party spare parts manufacturing...

On Jun 25, 7:07 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:> Let's face it -- Microsoft does not want to produce quality software.So...when it became apparent that MS Office is very much a standard inthe business world, and has remained as such (despite flaws, as alllarge projects will have), should Microsoft have issued a pressrelease saying, "Oops"?> If they did, with their money they could surely manage it and yet they> do not. Therefore they obviously don't want to.You, sir, fascinate me. Don't be fooled into taking that as acompliment, though.Are you familiar with a Usenet discussion (spanning multiple groups)about the Modernization of Emacs? I'm sure you are, since yourarrogant, condescending, I'm-right-and-you're-wrong posts make upabout a third of its volume.What fascinates me is that you spent a large amount of time therearguing fervently against emacs because it wasn't "standard" and thatit didn't use the control schemes that are "modern" and "familiar",saying that it was instead "arcane." You are quite clearly in the Alt-F4 camp of doing things. And yet here you are railing against thecompany whose products are largely responsible for the standards youcrave. Core features of their programs are things you laud inarguments against other software, and yet you say that not only dothey not produce quality software, but they do not even /want/ to?A less vehement position I might be able to accept is "Microsoftsoftware is the worst, except for all the others" (sorry Churchill),but your position seems to be "Microsoft software is absolutely andhorrifically useless, but anything that doesn't behave like it is alsoterrible."You have been consistently closed-minded and condescending in everypost of yours that I have read, and fairly stubborn about things whichmatter relatively little in the big picture. Dislike emacs, feel free!Dislike Microsoft, feel free! Dislike paying for better software when"good enough" software is out there for free. I don't care what youchoose to like or dislike. Just Stop. Telling. Us. We're. Wrong.TMTOWTDI, ass.

On Jul 2, 9:56 am, kaldrenon <kaldre...@gmail.com> wrote:[snip a whole lot of insulting spew]Get a neurosurgeon to take a look at that broken XOFF flow controlbetween your angry, spiteful amygdala and the motor cortex controllingyour mouth. :P> A less vehement position I might be able to accept is "Microsoft> software is the worst, except for all the others" (sorry Churchill),> but your position seems to be "Microsoft software is absolutely and> horrifically useless, but anything that doesn't behave like it is also> terrible."Actually, my position is "Microsoft software is horribly broken underthe hood but at least pays lip service to user-interface design andhuman factors stuff". In practise, most software seems to be either ashiny and easy to try to use Edsel or a Mercedes-Benz with parts andrivets showing everywhere, requiring actually shorting wires togetherand stepping on hydraulic tubes to operate the thing because nobodybothered to put the actual paneling, upholstery, and proper controlson the surface after they got the engine to start.Basically, on the one hand we have Microsoft's "The interface issnazzy and it compiled? Ship it!" and on the other hand we have anattitude of "It works perfectly and you can toggle in some sort ofdata to make it run? Ship it!"> You have been consistently closed-minded and condescending in every> post of yours that I have read, and fairly stubborn about things which> matter relatively little in the big picture. Dislike emacs, feel free!> Dislike Microsoft, feel free! Dislike paying for better software when> "good enough" software is out there for free. I don't care what you> choose to like or dislike. Just Stop. Telling. Us. We're. Wrong.Who is "us" here? I need to know who this subset of people is that areinfallible and whom I am strictly disallowed to disagree with even onmatters of opinion. (Then when I have a list of names I'll be makingsome calls to lawyers, the electronic frontier foundation, theACLU, ...)> TMTOWTDI, ass.I'm sorry, but this is Usenet, not Scrabble. You don't get any extrabonus points for forming some obscure word using all seven of yourletter tiles including the Q and the Z and landing on triple wordscore. Rather, here you get bonus points for communicating clearly andcoherently. Not to mention civilly.

On Jul 2, 9:20 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:> Actually, my position is "Microsoft software is horribly broken under> the hood but at least pays lip service to user-interface design and> human factors stuff". In practise, most software seems to be either a> shiny and easy to try to use Edsel or a Mercedes-Benz with parts and> rivets showing everywhere, requiring actually shorting wires together> and stepping on hydraulic tubes to operate the thing because nobody> bothered to put the actual paneling, upholstery, and proper controls> on the surface after they got the engine to start.>> Basically, on the one hand we have Microsoft's "The interface is> snazzy and it compiled? Ship it!" and on the other hand we have an> attitude of "It works perfectly and you can toggle in some sort of> data to make it run? Ship it!"I can respect that attitude, since I do agree that neither userinterface alone nor under-the-hood features alone are enough to call aproduct a great product. However, what has frustrated me about yourposts and attitude is that you have not been presenting yourself assuch. In the "Modernization of Emacs" thread you come across as azealous devotee of the "standard" user interface that Microsoftproducts established, which leads to a fair inference that you are afan of Microsoft, or at least of their products. Then you have comehere and posted angry diatribes against them and their ilk, arguingabout all the things that are wrong with them.I realize that in one case you are talking about user interfaces andin the other you are talking about business models and softwarefeatures, but there is still a stark duality in your attitude towardMicrosoft and their products.In short, the position you have stated here is one I don't mind, butthe position I saw in your posts was self-contradictory.> Who is "us" here? I need to know who this subset of people is that are> infallible and whom I am strictly disallowed to disagree with even on> matters of opinion. (Then when I have a list of names I'll be making> some calls to lawyers, the electronic frontier foundation, the> ACLU, ...)There is a difference, at least among the civil, between disagreeingwith someone and telling them outright that they are wrong, not tomention refusing to accept any arguments they make or evidence theyoffer in defense of their thoughts. When I and several others in the"Modernization of Emacs" thread pointed out that we had an easy timestarting out with emacs, a reasonable person would have said, "Wellthen, I guess emacs is just not intuitive to me and some others, but Iguess it works for some people," and been on his way. You, on theother hand, actually suggested that we might have been /lying/, justbecause your experience was different.I am not asking you to stop disagreeing, or to change you opinion, orto stop posting on Usenet, etc. I am asking you to stop presentingyour opinions as though it is impossible for anyone to disagree. I amasking you to stop insisting upon yourself. And this time I'll asknicely, since I was rude yesterday:Please don't tell people they are wrong unless the disagreement isover facts and not opinions. Please allow others the right to think asthey think, at least in subjective matters, and especially insuperficial ones.> > TMTOWTDI, ass.>> I'm sorry, but this is Usenet, not Scrabble. You don't get any extra> bonus points for forming some obscure word using all seven of your> letter tiles including the Q and the Z and landing on triple word> score. Rather, here you get bonus points for communicating clearly and> coherently. Not to mention civilly.TMTOWTDI is a Perl slogan: "There's more than one way to do it." I hadhoped, since you have presented yourself as one who knows more (andbetter) than the rest of us, that you might know this piece ofprogrammer's dialect. My apologies for underestimating you. Nopromises about it happening again though.