Respect and Disappointment

[Navindra Umanee]

You need to do some research on psychology. You really need to be
looking at the person and their ability, not at the fact they strongly
dislike Bovril and have a passion for Sushi.

Personally, I hate Sushi. Well, I've never eaten nor tasted it... so
I guess I really only hate the idea of it. I mean, raw fish? Gross!
That's bad enough but stuffing it with nutritionally deficient rice
for filler? The only redeeming part is the seaweed, IMHO.

Just looked up Bovril and it sounds just as disgusting!

On the other hand, I quite like Ruby...

Cheers,
Navin.

/me wonders what his job prospects in Japan are now... ;-)

 

[Lloyd Zusman]

[ ... lots of stuff by lots of people deleted ... ]

The more of this thread that I read, the more I find myself wondering
where's alt.cascade when you need it.

 

[Stephen Kellett]

I am not sure, however I seem to recall that it was developed more along the
lines of the VAX VMS than Unix.

Dave Cutler was the architect for VMS and NT. Under the Win32 API,
pretty much everything is an object. This is exposed at the API level by
handles to the objects. Probably better considered as object-based
rather than object oriented.

Stephen

 

[Mark Probert]

Hi ..

"They're not real computers.
A real computer is one that would kill you if it fell on you"

I liked the old one: Real computers are black and have blinking lights.

BeBox got it right, and Tandem were a past master of the Art ;-)

 

[Stephen Kellett]

It's true Macs ship with a one-button mouse.

Thanks. Could have sworn someone here was claiming I was telling
untruths about this.

(So if one can afford $15 for a third party mouse, the one-
button thing is a non-issue.)

But it shouldn't have to be. For something which is an infinite
improvement. Anyone trying to sell a one button mouse for windows
machines would be committing commercial suicide.

So to me that makes OS X significantly less proprietary
than Windows. (At least as far as software goes. Maybe
you were referring to hardware.)

Both. The core OS software is not proprietary, but the layer on top,
well its what makes it a Mac and not a G5 with a free OS. As for the
hardware, its Apple specific, made so that it can accept accessory cards
already made for the Wintel arena. Smart move, but still proprietary.
Jobs killed the Mac clones for a reason.

In any case, ..... MY AMIGA CAN BEAT UP YOUR ATARI-ST !!!

Damn right it can. I could never afford an Amiga, so had to settle for
an Amiga. Nice hardware.

Stephen

 

[Ben Giddings]

Personally, I hate Sushi. Well, I've never eaten nor tasted it... so
I guess I really only hate the idea of it. I mean, raw fish? Gross!
That's bad enough but stuffing it with nutritionally deficient rice
for filler? The only redeeming part is the seaweed, IMHO.

Ok, well this is waaaay off-topic, but so is this whole thread, so I'll
just do a little sushi-education.

Sushi is actually all about the rice. The fact that a lot of sushi is made
with raw fish is actually a minor aspect. One of the tastiest (and most
difficult to make) sushi treats is "tamago", a sweet scrambled egg. Sushi
can also be made with cooked seafood: bbq eel, cooked shrimp, etc. The
one common thread is the rice. The rice is not just plain white rice,
it's a special rice cooked with sugar and rice vinegar so that it is
sticky, sweet, and a bit sour.

Raw fish by itself is sashimi. It's almost always served with rice, but
this time the focus is on the fish, not the rice.

In any case, raw tuna and raw salmon are two of my all-time favourite
things to eat. I like the other things you'll find in sushi too, but
these two are common, and delicious. I used to hate fish, but it turns
out that what I hated was badly-prepared cooked fish. Raw tuna and
salmon, like you'll see in sushi, is nothing like cooked fish. It's
almost like lightly-flavoured jello. I don't mind a medium-rare tuna
steak, but to me, cooking fish is now pretty much ruining it.

You should try a "california roll" sometime. It's made from cooked crab
(well normally imitation crab), cucumber, and avocado, often sprinkled
with sesame seeds. Nothing raw in there, other than the veggies.

I've had sushi in Tokyo, and it was pretty good. I couldn't afford
high-class places, just little stalls. The best sushi I've found is in
Vancouver, Canada. I guess the ultra-fresh salmon is what does it.

Ben

 

[Paulo Sérgio]

Can we all just get back to talking about Ruby?

At least David didn't admit to being a member of Mensa

-- Matt
Nothing great was ever accomplished without _passion_

+1. Let's just talk about Ruby ... better for all

 

[Douglas Livingstone]

In any case, raw tuna and raw salmon are two of my all-time favourite
things to eat.

Aah, yes, I've had some lovely smoked salmon from Scotland - nothing
like the stuff I can buy down here. Will have to 43 things some raw
tuna.

Douglas

 

[Stephen Kellett]

, Apple are on many fronts a role model. The shared appreciation of
Apple's products is an important component of the company culture. Just
like a shared appreciation of the open source benefits is an important
component.

That I do not understand. Apple has been a very litigious corporation,
making premium priced products for a fashion conscious, niche market.
How does that mesh with the OSS model, of free access to source code and
use, a copyleft licence and increasingly a less and less niche market?
If I was developing OSS the last platform I'd choose would be a Mac,
based on their previous behaviour of burning customers (incompatible
hardware changes), premium pricing, etc. You don't have the hardware
problems with Linux or Windows on WinTelAMD.

As an example of good fit, I don't think it's a surprise that pretty
much all
of the Rails core contributors are Mac users. That Rails heavy shops
like

Perhaps there are other trends at work. The Mac has historically scored
well for Artwork and Music. I have not been involved with the music
industry for some time. It would not surprise me if many arty-types (for
want of a better phrase) realised they could do work with the Web and
started doing websites and continued using their Macs and this has fed
into the increase in use of Macs. Many years later, and you get the
current situation where support on the Mac for the web is equivalent in
terms of design tools (you tell me, I'm guessing). That good web design
can be/is done by good arty people with talented software people behind
them doesn't surprise me one bit. That the arty people may prefer Macs
also doesn't surprise me. That some of them decided to learn to write
software also doesn't surprise me (although statistically it should be
lower than the norm as more dyslexic people are found in the
art/creative community and thus staring at screen all day is not their
thing). That people that use Macs for web design and write software
thing Ruby is useful, or like the Ruby approach, well that seems fair
enough. Rails is a web application, so matches that pattern. If your
general claim (if I understand you) is true, then we will see, over
time, a real increase in web and non web applications also written on
the Mac, simply because it is a better platform (in your view).

Maybe you should consider the occasion ripe to do a chance of computing
environment? I know this great platform... oh, wait. My

If I could go out and buy a Mac clone maybe (I could always put Linux on
it if I still didn't like it). Whilst I have to pay a premium to Apple
for their hardware, No. When the Mac clones were announced (November
1994, I think) I was pleased. I thought we'd see a rebalancing of sorts,
but Mr Jobs saw to that.

Stephen

 

[vruz]

I know FOR A FACT that people who use mechanical pencils cannot be

trusted. They are liars. And often they will lie about not having an
extra pack of lead in their breast pocket. I know FOR A FACT that they
have lead -- right there -- in their breast coat pocket!

yeah, let's lynch them.

who'd let this riff-raff into the room ?

 

[Joe Van Dyk]

Ridiculous. You're saying Rails (I'm assuming that's what you mean by
'best domain specific language for free') wouldn't exist if David used
Wintel? Please describe how these two concepts are related.

Curt Hibbs has a good point, and I think he was completely
professional about it. David's post _was_ pretty arrogant. I
personally don't like OS X. I don't like the idea of having to run my
OS only on proprietary hardware.

There's non-proprietary hardware out there?

 

[Joe Van Dyk]

Thanks. Could have sworn someone here was claiming I was telling
untruths about this.


But it shouldn't have to be. For something which is an infinite
improvement. Anyone trying to sell a one button mouse for windows
machines would be committing commercial suicide.

Macintosh software is different from Windows software. Due to the one
button mouse, developers are pressured to not hide application
functionality into context menus.

And only having one button makes it much easier for computer
neophytes. I've known so many people who have problems knowing when
to right and left click on Windows machines.

 

[Hal Fulton]

Utter bullshit. Please grow up.

I'll assume that was sarcasm or some for of metahumor.

Hal

 

[Hal Fulton]

Haha... let's table that one.


Hal

 

[Dave Burt]

What about all the Windows users who look forward to using Macs?!?
Am I the only one?

I must say I've been impressed with all I've seen of Mac OS X. The most
impressive thing to me is how amazingly pretty it is! (The menu... see a
poor reproduction at http://www.dave.burt.id.au/googlex/)

I've always held the view that the Mac assumes a level of stupidity on the
part of the user, and makes a bunch of technical and complicated stuff
harder to do that it would be on Win or Nix. But I've never given it a shot,
and from all reports, the interface is just thoroughly really well designed.
I'd be only too happy to be proven wrong.

I seriously looked at getting one about a month ago, and it was the prices
that turned me off. That and the fact that a Mac is essentially a black box;
no upgrading the video card or adding (internal for convenience) HD-DVD in a
year or two. So I'm still running Windows.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Lyndon Samson]

Additionally, I don't buy into the notion that discussion choice of
computing platform is similar to discussing what color you like better
or other instinctive matters. The choice is a conscious one and open
for debate.

What is it about IT types that brings out religous discussions like
this so readily?

Maybe its all about testosterone and we need a few more women in the forum

I wonder what OS Knuth uses...

 

[Aredridel]

Ah, a fellow total commander addict. It's the one application I have

I'm NOT an addict. I can give it up any time I ...

NO YOU WILL NOT DELETE IT FROM MY SYSTEM!

This one application makes me at least 20 times more productive in
Windows than I will be in bash. With its built in FTP support and
pluggable SFTP support (flaky, but...), it is the *single* application
that is *always* running on my system. Always.

Time to try the new VFS plugins to Nautilus ;-)

 

[Luc Heinrich]

There is every point. Its a matter of fact, not opinion. Either you are
right or you are wrong.

The world is not black and white, the world is gray.
There's always a "but".

You are wrong on the price front as others have noted.

<http://osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=23
50&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0>
<http://homepage.mac.com/jpapola/iblog/C142463209/E1992940857/>
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2002/06/13/deal/>
<http://www.apple.com/macmini/>

These are just examples (among hundreds of others, Google is your
friend) of why the 'overpriced' stance is not a fact, but usually an
uninformed out-of-context opinion.

I may not be right, but I am definitely not wrong either. The world is
not black and white, the world is gray.

On the remaining two point you are taking the classic "I know
better than thou" stance but refusing to provide the answers.

On the infamous 'one button mouse', here's a good read:
<http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/news/article/why_apple_makes_a_one_bu
ttoned_mouse_01280820/>

Now, saying that you hate Macs because they come with a one button mouse
is probably as moronic as saying that I hate Windows because it comes
with Internet Explorer (except that MSIE is proven to be technically
inferior to alternatives, while the one-button-mouse isn't). So yes,
Macs come with a one button mouse, here's your fact. So what ? How is
that a problem ? Leave it in the box and plug a multibutton mouse, OS X
will support it just fine. That's exactly the same as leaving MSIE alone
and downloading/installing Firefox (or Mozilla, or Opera, or whatever),
and if that is all you have to prove that Macs suck, I wonder who have
an attitude problem here... :>

Now, on the 'proprietary' thing, again you are being just vague and
out-of-context.

Proprietary software ? Go and have a look here:
<http://opensource.apple.com>

Not white (fully opensource), but also *very* far from being black, as
your "fact" would suggest.

Proprietary hardware ? As someone else already asked in this thread,
what is non-proprietary hardware exactly ? Does it really exist ? If
Apple's hardware is so proprietary and opaque, how is it possible that
you can run and install half a dozen Linux distros and/or BSD variants
on it ?

Again, you hating the Mac is not a problem for me, I really don't care,
it's your loss. You spreading FUD and presenting it as "facts", yes,
that is a problem for me. The world is not black and white, the world is
gray.

And now finally, I'd like to apologize to the group/list as a whole, I
promised to not followup and add more offtopic material and noise, but I
got enough insults by email after this (you know who you are) to at
least try to clarify.

 

[Robert McGovern]

What is it about IT types that brings out religous discussions like

this so readily?

I've always wondered, its either editors, languages or OS's and
sometimes desktops

I wonder what OS Knuth uses...

I'm guessing the good old fashion pen and paper. He has a secreatry to
write up his notes and I'd guess he'd have junior's to do any software
testing he might want.

Ro

 

[Luc Heinrich]

I seriously looked at getting one about a month ago, and it was the prices
that turned me off.

That and the fact that a Mac is essentially a black box;
no upgrading the video card or adding (internal for convenience) HD-DVD in a
year or two. So I'm still running Windows.

Uh ?!??

<http://www.apple.com/powermac/expansion.html>

You can basically replace or add anything that makes sense, optical
drive, hard drive, video card, RAM, etc. Why would they have the funky
removable side door in the first place if it wasn't for expansion ?

Or are you talking about a different Mac ? The mini ?

<http://www.apple.com/macmini/>

In that case, yes, expansion might be a possible issue, but on the other
hand, the 'overpriced' would make even less sense... :>