Re: Edu in linux
On Friday 03 January 2003 09:29, Uri Bruck wrote: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Xavier Gentoo wrote: Unless of course *you* are comfortable that *your* kids are going to be deprived of elementary independent thinking, that is. If you are, I suggest you watch Total Recall 2070 to see how bright out future is going to be. So someone who chooses MS is deprived of elementary independent thinking, and someone who chooses linux is an independent thinker, just like all the geeks. Wrongthinking is punishable ...? MS-Word nicknamed MS-Unword? No, this is not what I said. What I said was that choice is when you choose between this and that. When you use something because there is no alternative (that you are aware of) it is not really a choice. Even if the software you use comforts you. -- I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
On Friday 03 January 2003 09:34, Uri Bruck wrote: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Alon Altman wrote: I think we should try and pass legislation that schools will be forbidden to require the students to purchase closed software to submit their schoolwork. How is that different than requiring students to buy a certain textbook? (In Haifa we rarely did that. Most textbooks were loaned to us, but I believe in most of the country high school students are still required to buy them, and sometimes they are required to buy a specific edition) It is most different in that it allows a choice, not subdues it. If for example the schools demanded that the works be submitted in RTF format, one could have chosen between this or that office suite. But how can you choose if a specific format that the schools require can only be produced correctly by proprietary software? Also, we should reduce public spending on non-open software development - CET should be producing open software that could then be ported by the community (maybe using winelib). Alon -- I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
no cause it would be full open spec format, everyone can look at the spec and implemant it. it's like saying email it propraity cause some platfroms doesn't have e-mail clients, but e-mail's spec is open you can just write one with not much problem. anyhow it's XML so you can read it at least partly with normal text editor. Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Shoshannah Forbes wrote: On Thursday, Jan 2, 2003, at 19:17 Asia/Jerusalem, Ely Levy wrote: anyhow I would like to remind the EU is working on enchant OO file format that would become the official file format for documetation and passing info between goverment and citizans. The guys who work on it seems to be very nice, maybe it can be used in israel as well. Hmm... And then what about users on platforms where OO with Hebrew support is not available (and RTF is)? Aren't we replacing one proprietary format with another? -- The News, Uncensored http://www.tellinglies.org/news/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
Let's not forget the target: - free (fsf style if possible) knowledge to
everyone.
The platform is not important , as long as it's not limiting.
For the young ones, there is no answer in GNU and others afaik.
For older kids, there are plenty of tools and resources. I mentioned earlier
phpbb which is an excellent
example. You should see the joy of this kids when they dwell into the
source, change it and immediately
see the results - not to mention the cultural experience using public
forums. It's just the beginning:
they share ideas and modifications to the software - minute as it comes but
I think you are getting my point.
they couldn't have been free to do so unless it was free. I remember that I
wanted to install the Turtle (it's a program
from Matah I think used to teach VERY young kids) and I found out that it's
not free and thus only few
could afford it. WHY? It's public money and it should be free.
Now I'm getting to my point, so please wake up :)
*
Every software developed with public money should be free, FSF style.
**
I think that MOE should be the first target because in education, lame
security (MOD style) excuses will not hold
and at least formally, education is free and equal.
- Original Message -
From: Tzafrir Cohen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Ely Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 12:48 AM
Subject: Re: Edu in linux
I'd like to try to give a summary of some of the points raised in this
thread:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Ely Levy wrote:
Hey,
I wanted to raise a discussion about the intergation of linux on schools
and kindergardens around israel.
there are few questions that come to mind.
There are a number of approches:
Some people consider the option of totally replacing windows.
Others considered partial replacement, where possible.
1)What programs does schools/kindergarden uses?
2)How many of them already use linux?
No name was given specifically. Just a vague claim that some use linux
for a number of years. On the server side or on the client side?
3)What can linux offer that windows can't?
- lower software cost
- lower hardware cost (?)
- development environment
- Compared to win9x: a real OS, with solid networking support, with proper
users system, remote control and such facilities
- Compared to w2k and XP: Hardware requirements, and others
Anybody tried to take a look at existing linux programs (e.g: TuxTyping?):
- linux comes with a wealth of programs out-of-the-{cd|network} .
Well-integrated (a least in debian). Quite easy to build a customized
system from a major distro.
4)What kind of problems might they get into while trying to move to
linux?
* Existing windows-only knowledge:
- managers making decisions
- existing support contracts
- Matach software
* Hebrew supprot is not yet solid
* running specialized applications: Matach programs, and other existing
programs.
5)Where are the places that linux might be most needed?
My opinion:
See what linux can do, and where there are schools that need it. There are
many 486-s and pentuims in schools, that ned to be better-used. Whereever
a school considerd using XP, the junk PCs should be utilized by linux
for:
- web browsing
- development classes (C, C++, logo, perl, php, python, whatever)
There are many computers today still running Borland C 3.1 on DOS. Some of
them are even used for C++, even though that compiler is a horrible C++
compiler (as it was written at around 1990)
Such computers should be replaced with linux, because linux simply has
more to offer (legal note: the TC IDE is not freely-distributable, IIRC.
There are some nice linux clones, however).
6)Does matach does programs which can't be replaced by opensourced
programs?
Aparanetly: No
My opinion: first get some computers inside schools, and then there will
be pressure on Matach. In the mean-while: run it on wine, if it is very
important.
BTW: I've read this thread with pine 4.50 . unicode support is not yet
there, but threading-view support is finally here (a-la-mutt)
--
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir
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Re: Edu in linux
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Uri Bruck wrote: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Xavier Gentoo wrote: Unless of course *you* are comfortable that *your* kids are going to be deprived of elementary independent thinking, that is. If you are, I suggest you watch Total Recall 2070 to see how bright out future is going to be. So someone who chooses MS is deprived of elementary independent thinking, and someone who chooses linux is an independent thinker, just like all the geeks. Wrongthinking is punishable ...? MS-Word nicknamed MS-Unword? That not what he said, come on.. he said that people who use ms cause they don't know of any alternatives and cause they are not capble later in their life to chose something else cause of lack of knowladge are deprived of independent thinking. someone who chose ms over linux is plain stupid;))j/k:) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Ely Levy wrote: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Uri Bruck wrote: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Xavier Gentoo wrote: Unless of course *you* are comfortable that *your* kids are going to be deprived of elementary independent thinking, that is. If you are, I suggest you watch Total Recall 2070 to see how bright out future is going to be. So someone who chooses MS is deprived of elementary independent thinking, and someone who chooses linux is an independent thinker, just like all the geeks. Wrongthinking is punishable ...? MS-Word nicknamed MS-Unword? That not what he said, come on.. he said that people who use ms cause they don't know of any alternatives Which may be true for some people. However, the general sentiment I'm getting list is that this is the only reason to choose MS for any task. Lots of tech writers use FrameMaker rather than Office. Are they independent thinkers because they chose a non-ms product, or deprived drones because they're running it on Windows? and cause they are not capble later in their life to chose something else cause of lack of knowladge are deprived of independent thinking. someone who chose ms over linux is plain stupid;))j/k:) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Thanks, Uri http://translation.israel.net = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Uri Bruck wrote: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Alon Altman wrote: I think we should try and pass legislation that schools will be forbidden to require the students to purchase closed software to submit their schoolwork. How is that different than requiring students to buy a certain textbook? (In Haifa we rarely did that. Most textbooks were loaned to us, but I believe in most of the country high school students are still required to buy them, and sometimes they are required to buy a specific edition) In a way it does and in another way it doesn't, but the biggest 2 diffrances I see is that school books won't make you chose one format or company later in life, and most important in school books you sometimes don't have choise, on the other hand in computer field the choise is here. anyhow once you go to online learning and matach like programs you would need less and less books which would solve that problem as well;) ely = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
HERE HERE ! - Original Message - From: Xavier Gentoo [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Alex Shnitman [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 5:15 AM Subject: Re: Edu in linux On Thursday 02 January 2003 19:30, Alex Shnitman wrote: On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 17:57, Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote: Don't forget that not everyone in this world is meant to become a programmer. In fact, *all* the people in the modern world are mere consumers of most of the technologies and products that they use, be it computer software or canned tomato paste, and they neither know nor care about the way they're created. This is where you and I completly differ. I don't like the concept of being a consumer and that children are being brought up to be one. This is exactly the drone mentality I as referring to. Well, you may not like it, but you are one. There's no way that somebody could know everything about everything, and that's why we specialize in different things. You have no choice but accept that most of the technologies and products in this world you will never completely dissect and understand -- it just all got too big for one person. Objection. 95% of people don't own BMW, use Hitachi DVDs, have an iMac at home and only drink Lipton tea. That's because there's competition and that's because they have something to choose from. Now please enlighten me what kind of choice a consumer (not us Linux geeks, but a consumer, as in truck drivers, blond secretaries and investment brokers) has when it comes to operating systems? And even hardware platforms? What we're trying to do here is compensating for this. And you're telling us that we're drones who have no other choice but to accept things the way they are and... move along people, nothing to see here? The basic understanding you mentioned elsewhere in your e-mail is what makes all the difference -- it's very good to thrive to have a basic understanding of everything, but tweaking the source of your word processor is way beyond that. So the boy who specializes in music in his school has a computer class, and you as a teacher must give him the knowledge that will serve him best when he later has to use a computer (as a *consumer*), and not draw him into the free software argument and make him a showcase of your opinion at the expense of his time and mindshare. Let me summarize you the free software argument in schools for you so that you rethink your above statement: 1) There's no reason why a state maintained school should waste taxpayers' money for proprietary software when an [equally good] free alternative exists. In fact, in a people's government (wow, a herd of pigs flying by) there is absolutely no reason why proprietary software should be used at all. 2) There's no reason why a state sponsored school should be a poster boy for a proprietary company's marketing campaign, establishing that this proprietary company's inherently inferior software, user interface and data formats are a de facto standard 3) There's no reason why a state sponsored school should encourage the students' family to choose one particular proprietary piece of software (not that there's many) and pay for it or, even worse, encourage piracy. It is not our moral duty to teach people that proprietary software, copyright, intellectual property, privacy, communism or gaysexwithdogs is right or wrong. It is our moral duty however to compensate for commercial propaganda and give people enough tools and knowledge to make a reasonable judgement themselves. What we were trying to do here is exactly that. If you don't like it, you're welcome to not participate. The aforementioned boy in the music class has a right to be aware that software is going to play a vitally important software in everyone's life soon - it already does, in case you didn't notice. It is also his very right to be aware that choices exist, and that he has a choice instead of someone (in this case, the school) choosing a default standard for him. Unless of course *you* are comfortable that *your* kids are going to be deprived of elementary independent thinking, that is. If you are, I suggest you watch Total Recall 2070 to see how bright out future is going to be. -- I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
On Thu, 2 Jan 2003 15:39:28 +0200 Boulgakov Andrei [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: we can do in school - work with 15-17 aged. As example I can tell you about activities of Amuta leAtid aNegev. They did Web Olympiad for youth. (btw, guess what was the platform for web+db server with PHP for it?) Now, they want to do Hi-Tech Kid Incubator (hamama technologit). They begin with courses on Linux, SQL, Apache, PHP, cvs, bla-bla-bla 20 clever boys will switch from Ms to Linux. This is very good example. Now maybe you (and others who claimed Ort and other schools uses Linux in EDU) can post some contact info (e.g. URLS, people involved) so we can collect them as an aid (maybe in some web page -- Tal, Gilad -- hint hint). This will: - Help advocate other schools. - Focus us on the best strategies. - Help us avoid mistakes. - Give ideas how support is handled. - etc. Thanks, Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron I love deadlines, especially the whooshing sound they make as they go by. -- Douglas Adams = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
On Friday 03 January 2003 11:53, Uri Bruck wrote: That not what he said, come on.. he said that people who use ms cause they don't know of any alternatives Which may be true for some people. However, the general sentiment I'm getting list is that this is the only reason to choose MS for any task. Lots of tech writers use FrameMaker rather than Office. Are they independent thinkers because they chose a non-ms product, or deprived drones because they're running it on Windows? Okay, repeat #4. Majority of people don't choose MS Office. They aren't aware that there are other choices. Ok? and cause they are not capble later in their life to chose something else cause of lack of knowladge are deprived of independent thinking. someone who chose ms over linux is plain stupid;))j/k:) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: C vs. Pascal vs. the World [was Re: Edu in linux]
lets get the facts straight. pascal was designed for students and for learning purposes, since C is DIFFICULT to learn because of all the possible bugs u can get in a 50 lines program. and pascal has many saftey measeures. C was designed to write operating system code. and it was desgined to be flexible and efficient enough for the task. my opionion is that C is a relic of the past when u write program who does not really need efficiency! and short of writing kernel code C is the most dumb thing to use. C++ is a little better for the task, but if efficiency is not what you need, for example, in a program that sends queries to a database or numerous other high level programming tasks. there is no need to use C or C++. you have java, visual basic, and delphi on the top. phyton and scripting languages at the sidebars for straight forward tasks. and libraries that acompany various languages. my point is, why program in C when you have JAVA? why write in C++ when you have visual basic? why write in perl when u have java applets or similar thingies that should make you job less difficult and buggy? ego? bravado? pure delight? :) i myself currently write in visual C++ because they were going to make me write in java. just going back to whats familiar, i guess, which is the real reason why i chose to program in C++, thinking logically, i would have a less buggy job writing in JAVA. and before someone points at me and says, see see! he doesn't know java debuggers are buggy too! nananana.. then i say: thats because you won't really need a fancy debugger with java, because JAVA is not C or C++. * - * - * Tzahi Fadida [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] My Cool Site: HTTP://WWW.My2Nis.Com * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * WARNING TO SPAMMERS: see at http://members.lycos.co.uk/my2nis/spamwarning.html -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Oleg Goldshmidt Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 9:52 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: C vs. Pascal vs. the World [was Re: Edu in linux] Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And C is the only language that is expected to bootstrap itself.[1] snipped to footnote [1] - There are a few exceptions. ghc is an Haskell compiler that is the only tool capable of compiling its own Haskell code. The GNU Ada compiler is written in Ada. There's also a Dylan compiler written in Dylan, but luckily there's also a Dylan interpreter written in C that can compile it I cannot sit silent: obviously you are forgetting Lisp Machines that ran Lisp interpreters written in Lisp. ;-) Now, going backwards in time from the beginning of the UNIX epoche, to the two oldest high level languages that are still in use today: Fortran and Lisp. Any self-respecting Lisp/Scheme book shows how to write a Lisp engine in Lisp. Was there ever a Fortran compiler written in Fortran? The only page that mentions something like that in passing is http://www.nersc.gov/~deboni/Computer.history/Mendicino.html -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Another Language War [was RE: C vs. Pascal vs. the World [was Re:Edu in linux]]
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Tzahi Fadida wrote: lets get the facts straight. pascal was designed for students and for learning purposes, since C is DIFFICULT to learn because Actually, AFAIR Pascal has been around a long time before C, but was indeed designed for educational purposes. of all the possible bugs u can get in a 50 lines program. and pascal has many saftey measeures. Not too many measures. Wirth' later languages (Modula-2, Modula-3 and Oberon) corrected some of the problem that Pascal had which could result in buggy code. C was designed to write operating system code. and it was desgined to be flexible and efficient enough for the task. my opionion is that C is a relic of the past when u write program who does not really need efficiency! Quite true. Of course, every program has some efficiency in mind. Imagine a program to merge two directories that takes running all day long. Luckily a Virtual machine like Perl is fast enough to do that. An equivalent C program would be faster, but Perl would still be fast enough. Then again, if you design brain-dead algorithms, like such that have O(n) lookup, you can end up in programs that run as slow as a dog whether they are written in C or in Perl. Then there's Visual Basic where I was told arrays are implemented as linked lists... and short of writing kernel code C is the most dumb thingto use. Kernel code, or code that needs to be very efficient, compile fast, and be very portable, and with an expected behaviour. C gives you all that, and C++, unfortunately does not yet. Unless, of course, you stick to using GNU C++. If you'll look into the source code of open-source projects that are not written in a high-level language, you'll see that most of them are written in C and not in C++. And you can write kernel code in C++ if you'd like, as long as you don't use exceptions. C++ is a little better for the task, but if efficiency is not what you need, for example, in a program that sends queries to a database or numerous other high level programming tasks. there is no need to use C or C++. you have java, visual basic, and delphi on the top. Visual Basic is Windows-specific and your code will not be portable. Delphi is proprietary, available only on Windows and Linux/x86 and the language itself is quite limited in comparison to higher-level languages like Perl, Python (or for you, Oleg, LISP). Java is nice, but proprietary. If you ask me it's a mid-way between C and Perl, which is very verbose and overly object-oriented. But if you need to write computationally-intensitive portable code, or such that can be deployed on web-browsers, it's a good choice. phyton and scripting languages at the sidebars for straight forward tasks. and libraries that acompany various languages. Using libraries and modules that other people wrote to you is always a good idea in any language you use. They can often save you a lot of labour. my point is, why program in C when you have JAVA? why write in C++ when you have visual basic? I cannot write in Visual Basic, because I expect my code to be deployed on Linux. Java itself is written in C, and C still outperforms Java. If you want to write a virtual machine or a similar platform C is still a better choice. Not to mentione with very efficient code, code that uses hardware, and other things I've mentioned. Some people avoid writing in Java because its only complete implementations are proprietary. whywrite in perl when u have java applets or similar thingies that should make you job less difficult and buggy? I beg your pardon? Java applets less difficult to write in with Perl? System.out.println(Hello World) anyone? public static void main()? extermely verbose class names like InputStream for doing trivial tasks? I can produce Perl code much faster than I can ever do with Java. And I need to compile the Java code and then interpret it, while in Perl I run it out of the file. Less buggy? There can be bugs in Perl code and there can be bugs in Java code. If you are careful and experienced, your Perl code will not have too many bugs. Java code can have many bugs. If you are looking for a language that eliminates as many bugs as possible, look in the direction of Haskell or O'Caml. Writing my system scripts, text-processing and automation programs in Java, does not sound substantially better than doing it in C. I'll take Perl (or Python or whatever, if that's your preference) any day. ego? bravado? pure delight? :) i myself currently write in visual C++ because they were going to make me write in java. just going back to whats familiar, i guess, which is the real reason why i chose to program in C++, thinking logically, i would have a less buggy job writing in JAVA. and before someone points at me and says, see see! he doesn't know java debuggers are buggy too! nananana.. then i say: thats because you won't really need a fancy debugger with java, because JAVA is not C or C++. Let me
Re: C vs. Pascal vs. the World [was Re: Edu in linux]
On 3 Jan 2003, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And C is the only language that is expected to bootstrap itself.[1] snipped to footnote [1] - There are a few exceptions. ghc is an Haskell compiler that is the only tool capable of compiling its own Haskell code. The GNU Ada compiler is written in Ada. There's also a Dylan compiler written in Dylan, but luckily there's also a Dylan interpreter written in C that can compile it. I cannot sit silent: obviously you are forgetting Lisp Machines that ran Lisp interpreters written in Lisp. ;-) LOL. I mentioned a few cases that made this decision, but naturally there are others. An interesting case is what they are planning to do in Parrot: The back-end will be written in C, but the front-end can be written in higher-level language. Some of them are now written in Perl. Now, they want to write a Perl 5 compiler for Parrot in Perl 5, compile it to parrot bytecode, and then use the bytecode as a Perl compiler which can compile its own code. It will be bootstrapped with the current perl5 implementation. Now, going backwards in time from the beginning of the UNIX epoche, to the two oldest high level languages that are still in use today: Fortran and Lisp. Any self-respecting Lisp/Scheme book shows how to write a Lisp engine in Lisp. I've seen the Meta-Circular Evalutaor of SICP. But I find it hard to believe that the entire Common Lisp can be re-implemented in itself (without using the native eval), in a reasonable amount of code that would fit into a textbook. It's simply too big. Was there ever a Fortran compiler written in Fortran? The only page that mentions something like that in passing is http://www.nersc.gov/~deboni/Computer.history/Mendicino.html. I know that many Fortran compilers were written throughout the ages, but I don't know in what languages. An optimizing Fortran compiler was recently voted as one of the top ten algorithms of the 20th century. Now, in the Mythical Man-Month Fred Brooks describes how they wrote OS/360 in Assembler, but that he would then recommended to use a higher-level language instead, preferabbly PL/I. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe |mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups... Wait a second - is n a natural number? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Shoshannah Forbes wrote: On Thursday, Jan 2, 2003, at 19:17 Asia/Jerusalem, Ely Levy wrote: anyhow I would like to remind the EU is working on enchant OO file format that would become the official file format for documetation and passing info between goverment and citizans. The guys who work on it seems to be very nice, maybe it can be used in israel as well. Hmm... And then what about users on platforms where OO with Hebrew support is not available (and RTF is)? Aren't we replacing one proprietary format with another? Assuming the format is well-documented, it is possible that it will be implemented by programs otheer than OO. A test to that may be its implementation by import/export filters of other word processrs, like kword. -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dinner with RMS - By bus #90, Tel-Aviv - Hertzelia Pituach?
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 08:48:00AM +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote: On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Alon Altman wrote: I'd like to have a ride, as well (from Ramat Aviv to the restaurant). In any case, Alon you don't really need a ride. All you need to do is cross the road from the university catch a 24 bus and go to the junction of the Ha'aretz Museum/Malon Ramat-Aviv/Seminar Hakibutzim (it's the end of Rehuv Ha'universita). There you'll have a bus station for 501 and 502. One can even walk there. I believe you can also use #90 that is operated by Dan. But don't take my word for it: do verify that with www.dan.co.il or other information resources. -- Shaul Karl, [EMAIL PROTECTED] e t = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Another Language War [was RE: C vs. Pascal vs. the World [was Re: Edu in linux]]
I won't get into this war, but I'll respond to a small comment: And you do need a good Java debugger. Trust me. You could always use a good debugger, regardless of which language you write in. Too bad jdb is pure useless crap. I've been coding in Java both professionally and as a hobby (an open source project) for over 3 years now and my most powerful debugging tool is still System.out.println(). And no, I'm not writing 50 line programs. When you have well designed, thought out code in a language that has very few surprises (although any language can be like that if you know it well enough), all bugs are trivial mistakes. So I'm with Tzahi on this one. Alexander Maryanovsky. At 13:39 03.01.2003 +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Tzahi Fadida wrote: lets get the facts straight. pascal was designed for students and for learning purposes, since C is DIFFICULT to learn because Actually, AFAIR Pascal has been around a long time before C, but was indeed designed for educational purposes. of all the possible bugs u can get in a 50 lines program. and pascal has many saftey measeures. Not too many measures. Wirth' later languages (Modula-2, Modula-3 and Oberon) corrected some of the problem that Pascal had which could result in buggy code. C was designed to write operating system code. and it was desgined to be flexible and efficient enough for the task. my opionion is that C is a relic of the past when u write program who does not really need efficiency! Quite true. Of course, every program has some efficiency in mind. Imagine a program to merge two directories that takes running all day long. Luckily a Virtual machine like Perl is fast enough to do that. An equivalent C program would be faster, but Perl would still be fast enough. Then again, if you design brain-dead algorithms, like such that have O(n) lookup, you can end up in programs that run as slow as a dog whether they are written in C or in Perl. Then there's Visual Basic where I was told arrays are implemented as linked lists... and short of writing kernel code C is the most dumb thingto use. Kernel code, or code that needs to be very efficient, compile fast, and be very portable, and with an expected behaviour. C gives you all that, and C++, unfortunately does not yet. Unless, of course, you stick to using GNU C++. If you'll look into the source code of open-source projects that are not written in a high-level language, you'll see that most of them are written in C and not in C++. And you can write kernel code in C++ if you'd like, as long as you don't use exceptions. C++ is a little better for the task, but if efficiency is not what you need, for example, in a program that sends queries to a database or numerous other high level programming tasks. there is no need to use C or C++. you have java, visual basic, and delphi on the top. Visual Basic is Windows-specific and your code will not be portable. Delphi is proprietary, available only on Windows and Linux/x86 and the language itself is quite limited in comparison to higher-level languages like Perl, Python (or for you, Oleg, LISP). Java is nice, but proprietary. If you ask me it's a mid-way between C and Perl, which is very verbose and overly object-oriented. But if you need to write computationally-intensitive portable code, or such that can be deployed on web-browsers, it's a good choice. phyton and scripting languages at the sidebars for straight forward tasks. and libraries that acompany various languages. Using libraries and modules that other people wrote to you is always a good idea in any language you use. They can often save you a lot of labour. my point is, why program in C when you have JAVA? why write in C++ when you have visual basic? I cannot write in Visual Basic, because I expect my code to be deployed on Linux. Java itself is written in C, and C still outperforms Java. If you want to write a virtual machine or a similar platform C is still a better choice. Not to mentione with very efficient code, code that uses hardware, and other things I've mentioned. Some people avoid writing in Java because its only complete implementations are proprietary. whywrite in perl when u have java applets or similar thingies that should make you job less difficult and buggy? I beg your pardon? Java applets less difficult to write in with Perl? System.out.println(Hello World) anyone? public static void main()? extermely verbose class names like InputStream for doing trivial tasks? I can produce Perl code much faster than I can ever do with Java. And I need to compile the Java code and then interpret it, while in Perl I run it out of the file. Less buggy? There can be bugs in Perl code and there can be bugs in Java code. If you are careful and experienced, your Perl code will not have too many bugs. Java code can have many bugs. If you are looking for a language that eliminates as many bugs as possible, look in the direction
Debuggers [was Re: Another Language War [was RE: C vs. Pascal vs.the World [was Re: Edu in linux]]
Hi Alexander! Next time please delete the rest of the message - it was quite long. On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Alexander Maryanovsky wrote: I won't get into this war, but I'll respond to a small comment: And you do need a good Java debugger. Trust me. You could always use a good debugger, regardless of which language you write in. Too bad jdb is pure useless crap. I've been coding in Java both professionally and as a hobby (an open source project) for over 3 years now and my most powerful debugging tool is still System.out.println(). And no, I'm not writing 50 line programs. When you have well designed, thought out code ina language that has very few surprises (although any language can be like that if you know it well enough), all bugs are trivial mistakes. So I'm with Tzahi on this one. I also use printf's: in Perl, in C and in languages where I did not learn to use the debugger yet. Still, using gdb or the perl debugger can sometimes help you trap bugs that catching with print's will take you much more time. Especially in languages like C or Java where there's compilation involved. As much as a code can be well-thought and well-designed, there can always be typos and things you did not thought about. A misplaced operator, two consecutive if's instead of one nested in the other or vice versa. A missing if altogether. And it can happen while your program is in the 1000's iteration. Would you like to analyze a log of N*1000 lines? Unless you have proven the correctness of code, and verified that your proof is correct, you still can't be entirely free of pitfalls. That's where powerful debuggers like gdb and perl -d kick in. If Java does not have a convenient debugger with similar capabilities, then debugging it can become much more painful than with Perl or C. Regards, Shlomi Fish Alexander Maryanovsky. -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups... Wait a second - is n a natural number? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Some NAT Questions
I am now connected to ADSL by using and ADSL router. The router serves as a Network Address Translator (NAT). It takes the address 192.168.1.1 (which serves as the gateway to the Internet) and talks to the ADSL modem. Now my dual boot Win98/Linux machine is connected to the router via Ethernet and gets the address 192.168.1.100 (or 192.168.1.101 if it was connected second). A Win98 laptop gets the other address and is connected via a Phone Network Adaptor. Now, I have two questions: 1. How do I set up a listening server socket on the Linux machine that will be accessible to the outside world. If the IP address of the NAT subnet is 80.x.y.z then I want to bind to 80.x.y.z:8080 or whatever. 2. I'd like to configure a firewall on the Linux box. I used Bastille Firewall for my plain ADSL connection, but in recent versions of Mandrake it was superceded by shorewall. It has some configuration files with lots of comments under /etc/sourcewell, which I suppose I can read and tweak for my needs. What I want to accomplish is that no server ports on the Linux box will be accesible besides an Apache port (that can be anything) which I'd like to explicitly allow or disallow. Furthermore, I want the Win98 box to be only able to connect to the Linux box for this same Apache port and for the SMB services. Now, which parts of these configuration are already handled by the NAT? Can I do what I want to do using Shorewall? My Linux system is a Mandrake 9.0 system running on a Pentium III. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups... Wait a second - is n a natural number? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Edu in linux
Quoting Xavier Gentoo [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Well, you may not like it, but you are one. There's no way that somebody could know everything about everything, and that's why we specialize in different things. You have no choice but accept that most of the technologies and products in this world you will never completely dissect and understand -- it just all got too big for one person. Objection. 95% of people don't own BMW, use Hitachi DVDs, have an iMac at home and only drink Lipton tea. That's because there's competition and that's because they have something to choose from. You're barging into an open door here. Nowhere in my message was I talking about competition, or lack thereof. I was saying that every single one of us understands some of the technologies he's using, and blindly accepts and consumes most others, for good and bad. That's an unfortunate property of the exceedinly complex world that we live in. I said that as a response to Gilad's opinion that there are other properties of software besides usability and utility in the real world, such as moral issues of software freedom or technical issues of code hackability, that should interest someone who doesn't specialize in computers in school. I do not agree with that. I hope I'm coming across clearer now. As to competition, unfortunately you're very correct -- Microsoft has a strong and abusive monopoly on the OS and software market, especially here in Israel. More on that below. The basic understanding you mentioned elsewhere in your e-mail is what makes all the difference -- it's very good to thrive to have a basic understanding of everything, but tweaking the source of your word processor is way beyond that. So the boy who specializes in music in his school has a computer class, and you as a teacher must give him the knowledge that will serve him best when he later has to use a computer (as a *consumer*), and not draw him into the free software argument and make him a showcase of your opinion at the expense of his time and mindshare. Let me summarize you the free software argument in schools for you so that you rethink your above statement: 1) There's no reason why a state maintained school should waste taxpayers' money for proprietary software when an [equally good] free alternative exists. In fact, in a people's government (wow, a herd of pigs flying by) there is absolutely no reason why proprietary software should be used at all. Again, you're hitting beside the mark. In a perfect world, you would be completely correct. However, your message is somewhat akin to that of the sixties hippie pacifists: Lets just all stop fighting, throw all our weapons away, and there will be world peace. As reality has showed, our world is a little more complicated than that. I agree that the Microsoft monopoly is terrible in just about every way possible, and we must do our best to change the situation. However, *today* the poor boy who learns music *will* have to use Word, whether you like it or not, because we haven't done changing the world yet. So making him a tool in the anti-Microsoft revolution is irresponsible towards him. I think that the way to changing the Microsoft situation lies through the computer specialists. Those are the people who can handle changing software environments. At this point, even among this folk there's very little awareness to Microsoft alternatives and issues of software freedom. Especially in Israel -- c.f. the thread about Israeli web development. *That's* where our efforts should be concentrated. This includes schools, too -- I definitely think that kids specializing in computers at schools should learn different kinds of software, especially free software, and should be made aware of the issues of software freedom and free competition. However, kids who will only use computers as users, and the only reason they learn computers is to be able to make them do their job with minimum effort, should learn the tools that they will get to use in the real world, and for the time being, these are Microsoft tools. -- Alex Shnitman [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hectic.net/ UIN 188956 PGP 0xEC5D619D / E1 F2 7B 6C A0 31 80 28 63 B8 02 BA 65 C7 8B BA = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RMS story in ynet
http://news.walla.co.il/ts.cgi?tsscript=itempath=4id=331040 I think it's nothing original but qoutes from old places Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RMS story in ynet(walla)
I ment on walla not ynet ofcourse:) Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Ely Levy wrote: http://news.walla.co.il/ts.cgi?tsscript=itempath=4id=331040 I think it's nothing original but qoutes from old places Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RMS story in ynet
On Friday 03 January 2003 15:36, Ely Levy wrote: RMS story in walla, maybe ;) http://news.walla.co.il/ts.cgi?tsscript=itempath=4id=331040 I think it's nothing original but qoutes from old places Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debuggers [was Re: Another Language War [was RE: C vs. Pascal vs. the World [was Re: Edu in linux]]
Hi Alexander! Next time please delete the rest of the message - it was
quite long.
Ok.
As much as a code can be well-thought and well-designed, there can always
be typos and things you did not thought about. A misplaced operator, two
consecutive if's instead of one nested in the other or vice versa. A
missing if altogether. And it can happen while your program is in the
1000's iteration. Would you like to analyze a log of N*1000 lines?
Those are exactly the trivial mistakes I was talking about - they are very
easy to catch with a println because it's immediately visible that some
variable's value is incorrect. As for analyzing a log of N*1000 lines - why
would I do that? The language has a beautiful mechanism for conditional
printlns:
if (controlVariable != expectedValue){
System.out.println(error on iteration +i+. var1: +var1+ var2: +var2);
Thread.dumpStack();
}
The only thing that is hard to debug in Java (and in any other language) is
multithreading, with or without a debugger. I avoid multithreading bugs by
being 5 times as careful about multithreaded code as I am about single
threaded code.
Alexander Maryanovsky.
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Re: Edu in linux
another important diffrent is that it would be out of the end of specific software makers, it would be a europian standart and therefore if some company like sun or ms would want to change it they would have problems in the EU. Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Shoshannah Forbes wrote: On Thursday, Jan 2, 2003, at 19:17 Asia/Jerusalem, Ely Levy wrote: anyhow I would like to remind the EU is working on enchant OO file format that would become the official file format for documetation and passing info between goverment and citizans. The guys who work on it seems to be very nice, maybe it can be used in israel as well. Hmm... And then what about users on platforms where OO with Hebrew support is not available (and RTF is)? Aren't we replacing one proprietary format with another? Assuming the format is well-documented, it is possible that it will be implemented by programs otheer than OO. A test to that may be its implementation by import/export filters of other word processrs, like kword. -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Big Companies' Linux support
Hi, I just thought.. Many big companies are begining to sell (or just thinking of selling) computers with Linux installed. This includes Sun, HP, IBM and Dell. Also, some big software companies are selling their software for Linux, and I think that Oracle is a good example. I'm just curious how is their support. Let's say that my Oracle works very slow.. Do they have Linux gurus that will come to debug the problem? People that know Linux well are also needed from the hardware vendor such as the ones I mentioned above, though less than from a software vendor. And I'm talking about the companies' support in Israel only ofcourse. What do you say? Anybody used the Linux support of such a company? Do they have any? :) I've just never dreamt of a technician/supports-man coming to some company to fix a Linux problem.. can it be? :) - Oren = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debuggers [was Re: Another Language War [was RE: C vs. Pascalvs. the World [was Re: Edu in linux]]
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Alexander Maryanovsky wrote:
Hi Alexander! Next time please delete the rest of the message - it was
quite long.
Ok.
As much as a code can be well-thought and well-designed, there can always
be typos and things you did not thought about. A misplaced operator, two
consecutive if's instead of one nested in the other or vice versa. A
missing if altogether. And it can happen while your program is in the
1000's iteration. Would you like to analyze a log of N*1000 lines?
Those are exactly the trivial mistakes I wastalking about - they are very
easy to catch with a println because it's immediately visible that some
variable's value is incorrect. As for analyzing a log of N*1000 lines - why
would I do that? The language has a beautiful mechanism for conditional
printlns:
if (controlVariable != expectedValue){
System.out.println(error on iteration +i+. var1: +var1+ var2: +var2);
Thread.dumpStack();
}
I don't think I agree with you here. OK controlVariable does not have
expectedValue somewhere - but why? With an interactive debugger you can
step the program statement by statement and see where exactly the value
was changed. You can also sometimes set a watchpoint and then just run the
program to the exact place where it happened.
With using println's you'll need to set up a lot of them. Sometimes I do
just that, and it helps me, and then I need to remove them all. (or use
#ifdef DEBUG ... #endif beforehand). But gdb is helpful more than not. An
improper value can originate from anywhere in the program, and an
interactive debugger help you spot the exact location without turning it
inside out.
The only thing that is hard to debug in Java (and in any other language) is
multithreading, with or without a debugger. I avoid multithreading bugs by
being 5 times as careful about multithreaded code as I am about single
threaded code.
Agreed. Debugging Multi-threaded applications is very painful. We wrote
the IP-Noise arbitrator in Perl using multiple threads, and I think we
usually used print's then, and it was quite straightforward. Then when we
converted everything to ANSI C, gdb gave us a lot of trouble. (I think gdb
has some multi-threading bugs). Plus synchronizing several concurrent
threads is very delicate and prune to errors.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
Alexander Maryanovsky.
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--
Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups...
Wait a second - is n a natural number?
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Re: Edu in linux
On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Nadav Har'El wrote: On Thu, Jan 02, 2003, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote about Re: Edu in linux: terms of both production tools and training. Also, many of the academic community who plan the content want to use features that Msoft offers that are not standard technologies in order to get maximum visual effect - things that you can't do in HTML or even in Java. We are a long, long way from providing the tools that they need to make cuting edge educational content. This thread is really making me sad. Is that what the teaching-software people really think? That Linux (or whatever non-Microsoft solution) doesn't have enough features to help kids? Does a kid who still cannot read as well as his class need super-fancy Windows-specific featuresto practice the alphabet? Does a kid who can't remember the multiplication table need features not available in Windows for the maximum visual effect? I can testify that this is not the case. I'll even make a bolder claim. It is possible and not hard at all to write educational software that will run equally well on both Linux and Windows from an almost unmodified codebase. 1. If it's a multimedia application - by using SDL (the Simple DirectMedia Layer), OpenGL (Mesa3d) and other cross-platform technologies. They have served as the basis for several real-time super-aesthetic games so I think can handle educational programs easily enough. If you wish to script your application you can use Perl/Python/Tcl/Ruby or whatever, as they run equally well on Windows and UNIXes. 2. If it's a GUI application - by using a cross-platform abstraction library like wxWindows, Qt or Mozilla XUL. That or using Java or the Tk toolkit. wxWindows, Qt and Mozilla XUL will even look and behave like a native applications in both operating systems. 3. If it's a web-based application - by either sticking to simple HTML or implementing everything using perfectly standards compliant HTML/EcmaScript/DHTML/CSS that will run equally well on all modern browsers. The main problem I think why we don't see it, is because vendors of educational program feel the market for Linux is too small and so decide to develop and deploy only for Win32. It's not a question of superiority. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups... Wait a second - is n a natural number? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Big Companies' Linux support
Oren! I think we can all safely say that software support is virtually NON EXISTANT where closed source software for the masses is concerned. Did you ever see a commercial company release a a bug fix just for you ? Did you ever manage to get in contact with ANYONE in MS who knows what the ?%$% they are talking about (meaning someone who actually saw the code and knows how it works) ? No. Software support is a myth devised by companies to better sell their string of bits which has 0$ duplication cost. I don't blame them. Software makes for tough sell so they try to sell the support. In the Open Source case software support is a much more viable solution since you can actually DO something about a problem without forcing RedHat to release a full bug fix version because a problem that is bugging you but is a non problem in the eyes of RedHat. This is indeed a viable business and such companies do exist. Sometimes the distributions do it themselves and sometimes it's small Linux consulting companies who know the system better than you and can actually fix the userspace and kernel code for you. About hardware support: did you ever get a visit from NVIDIA, Creative, IBM hard disk devision or other people to check what went wrong with your hardware ?!? Enough said. The hardware market is built on: build it, write a device driver, test test test and ship it out. No support is included unless the thing is totally broken in which case you could probably return it. I don't see why it would be any different on Linux except the device driver code would be open source in most cases. From the hardware perspective the only difference is that releasing a driver for linux is still not a standard (I would still prefer an open source driver when I can get one because they are written better). In any case you can hire a kernel hacker to write a device driver for just about anything these days, or, if you have enough weight, try to convince the hardware manufacturor to write one. Cheers, Mark -- Name: Mark Veltzer Title: Research and Development, Meta Ltd. Address: Habikaa 17/3, Kiriat-Sharet, Holon, Gush-Dan, Israel 58495 Phone: +972-03-5508163 Fax: +972-03-5508163 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage: http://www.veltzer.org OpenSource: CPAN, user: VELTZER, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], url: http://search.cpan.org/author/VELTZER/ Public key: http://www.veltzer.org/ascx/public_key.asc, wwwkeys.pgp.net, 0xC71E5D38 To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Edu in linux
On 2 Jan 2003, Alex Shnitman wrote: On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 15:03, Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote: So you think what your children need to be successful adults is full knowledge of Word? Funny, I prefer my children to learn to think for themselves, be self reliant, learn to solve problems and be creative, learn to protect their rights and ask smart questions, not operate a word processor like good drones. And for this they need tools they can take apart and put together again like Lego, not closed source systems. Comeon, Gilad, you're being a bit of a demagogue here. Operating a computer or a word processor has nothing to do with being a drone -- it's a skill, just like any other. Like knitting or cooking or juggling balls, it's something you learn, practice, and become good at. And you can very well think for yourself, be self-reliant, learn to solve problems, be creative, learn to protect your rights and ask smart questions, while at the same time using Windows for your computing needs. I respect and believe in the values of free software, but you're taking it way too far. I agree with Alex. Using Windows does not make a person less liberal or idealistic. There's nothing illegitimate about proprietary software. My stance on it is that open-source is just a better strategy of managing and producing software. (or at least seems so). Don't forget that not everyone in this world is meant to become a programmer. In fact, *all* the people in the modern world are mere consumers of most of the technologies and products that they use, be it computer software or canned tomato paste, and they neither know nor care about the way they're created. People do not expect to be able to take apart their cell phone and put it back together like Lego, and they don't expect to do that with software either. For you, as a software developer, it's a natural desire, but you must understand the other people who couldn't care less, and it's just fine for them to think that way! Here I do not entirely agree. It is perfectly legitimate not to be a programmer and to use Computers mechanically. However, I believe we will see that programming is more and more becoming a necessary skill. Everyone is expected to be able to read, write and do arithmetics. That's because these are the essential skills needed to acquire other skills. I'm not claiming programming falls into this category. Modern computer systems are usually abstract enough to allow a person to comfortably use them without the need to program. However, being a computer hacker gives you the possibility to tweak, automate, control and customize your system in ways that are not possible without it. This is as true for programs like Excel and Windows as much as it is true for UNIX. There is a limit to how much functionality you can give with a point and click interface. Even in spreadsheets, you have to enter equations manually. Building more and more complex interface to satisfy the needs of hungry users who are just stubborn enough not to learn how to program, can only work is bound to fail. I think we'll soon a world where most people are able programmers. A computer is not an ordinary tool like a hammer, a cell phone or a dish washer. It's an all-purpose, Turing complete tool that simplifies every storage, processing and exchange of data. Much like the human language and conceptual thinking is an important tools of thought and communication for us humans. As such, learning to interact with computers, in a way that they understand will become more and more necessary. I expect that one day we can easily rely on the fact that Aunt Tillie will be an able programmer. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Alex Shnitman [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hectic.net/ UIN 188956 PGP 0xEC5D619D / E1 F2 7B 6C A0 31 80 2863 B8 02 BA 65 C7 8B BA = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups... Wait a second - is n a natural number? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Server Databases Clash
Check: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,293,00.asp This is a benchark ZDNet performed for several popular database servers: IBM DB2 7.2 MS SQL Server 2000 EE MySQL 4.0.1 Max Oracle9i EE Sybase ASE What bothers me here is that PostgreSQL, another open-source alternative that was reported to be faster than MySQL under high loads by some sources was not present. In any case, the tests were contacted on a Quad Xeon 700 MGz machine with 2 GB of RAM and on Windows 2000 Advanced Server (%-)). I wonder how the results would have been different had it run on the latest development Linux kernel (or one of those avante-garde 2.4.x kernel trees) where multi-tasking and multi-processoring was greatly improved. Note of course, that for a small amount of queries per second and relatively small load, I don't think this test says much. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups... Wait a second - is n a natural number? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Edu in linux
On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 22:59, Uri Bruck wrote: Everyone has a choice, of course. I do think that such an attitude is a bad one though. No, not everyone needs to be a rocket scientist. But I don't think you need a rocket scientist to have a basic understanding of how things work. This I can relate to, and your complaint is also relevant to the scarcity of home-ec and shop classes (for both genders) Indeed. Robert A. Heinlin wrote: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, conn a ship, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve an equation, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. Gilad -- Gilad Ben-Yossef [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://benyossef.com A 24-year-old South Korean man died after playing computer games nonstop for 86 hours, police said. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/10/1034061260831.html = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Big Companies' Linux support
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 18:00:45 +0200, Mark Veltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we can all safely say that software support is virtually NON EXISTANT where closed source software for the masses is concerned. You are definitely wrong here. If your site is large enough or is ready to pay for it, you can get on-site support (I know few sites where the seller gives on-site system support). Did you ever see a commercial company release a a bug fix just for you ? They do it, They send you a patch or binary to test. They don't release it just for you. It is included in their next release. Did you ever manage to get in contact with ANYONE in MS who knows what the ?%$% they are talking about (meaning someone who actually saw the code and knows how it works) ? I don't have first hand experience with M$, but from what I here, if you are called Bank Leumi or Bank Ha-Poalim you'll get support from someone who has access and actually read the source. I can recall at least 2 occasions where the company I work for got support from the source. About 3.5 years ago we had problem with the Informix DB engine and persons from London connected to our computer (by phone, not Internet) to analyze it (I ported the GDB to DGUX on Intel processors for that purpose). I can testify that they really fixed some bugs we found or suggested way to work around them. We had problems with a propriety file server we bought. The company flew a man from Germany who was here a week to fix the problems. Ehud. -- Ehud Karni Tel: +972-3-7966-561 /\ Mivtach - Simon Fax: +972-3-7966-667 \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign Insurance agencies (USA) voice mail and X Against HTML Mail http://www.mvs.co.il FAX: 1-815-5509341 / \ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Better Safe Than Sorry = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Big Companies' Linux support
Hi, I think we can all safely say that software support is virtually NON EXISTANT where closed source software for the masses is concerned. [...] Maybe you misunderstood me. I'm talking about another kind of support. Not something that'll require the software company to write OS patches, but something that'll require them to guide me, let's say, how to install a kernel patch that'll fix a problem. I'm talking about situations when the company doesn't have a Linux-guru in their system team. I think that highschools would be a fine example. About hardware support: did you ever get a visit from NVIDIA, Creative, IBM hard disk devision or other people to check what went wrong with your hardware ?!? Enough said. The hardware market is built on: build it, I'm not talking about my PC. I'm doing fine with it indeed :) Again, think of a high-school. They have 100 PCs they bought from Dell with Linux installed. One of them doesn't recognize the sound card, for some weird reason. The system person of the school doesn't succeed to fix it. He calls Dell's support. Will they help him? Will they do it well? (I have nothing against Dell, just an example :) ) - Oren = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Big Companies' Linux support
Hi! Actually the company I work for give on-site linux and unix support. We are not a BIG company, but besides our company there are a lot more of small and medium sized companies that support Linux. So, not all is lost in our small country :-) --- Oleg Kobets Network Administrator Breakthrough LTD. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Big Companies' Linux support
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 19:56:13 +0200, Oleg Kobets [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually the company I work for give on-site linux and unix support. We are not a BIG company, but besides our company there are a lot more of small and medium sized companies that support Linux. I forgot to add that Informix (now Big Blue - IBM) is giving support to the Informix DB engine on Linux. Their distributer in Israel - Comsoft - also gives Linux system support as stand alone contract. Ehud. -- Ehud Karni Tel: +972-3-7966-561 /\ Mivtach - Simon Fax: +972-3-7966-667 \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign Insurance agencies (USA) voice mail and X Against HTML Mail http://www.mvs.co.il FAX: 1-815-5509341 / \ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Better Safe Than Sorry = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
STAROFFICE FREE TO DANISH STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
http://listserv.educause.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0301L=edupageD=1T=0P=74 STAROFFICE FREE TO DANISH STUDENTS AND TEACHERS Sun Microsystems has added Denmark to the list of countries in which its StarOffice software package will be made available free for students. Deals had already been announced between the software company and the ministries of education in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chile. The new deal between Sun Microsystems Denmark and Denmark's ministry of education is worth an estimated $27.4 million. Sun said it hopes to reach similar deals in France, Germany, and Sweden, as well as in some countries in Africa. A spokesman for Sun Microsystems Denmark said that students and teachers in Denmark will be allowed to use StarOffice 6.0 at school and at home and that there are no limitations regarding copying the program. Associated Press, 2 January 2003 (registration req'd) http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/699138p-5172231c.html -- Thanks, Uri http://translation.israel.net = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
