TSS bringing out the best in us
Sure, I’m a big fan of Java. Yes, I do sneer, point, and laugh at all those Ruby naysayers, there is however something deeply offensive about leaches on the java society like Bruce Tate and his ilk.
By all means brucey, go forth and shove a Ruby glowstick in every orifice of yours you can find. You can squeal along like a stuck pig with your fellow foreign object aficionados, and we’ll even think it’s cute. If you want to be taken seriously though, injecting a dose of realism in your deranged ravings will get you a long way.
So, some clarifications are due perhaps. First of all, if you write an application in 4 months in any language, rewriting it in any other will take you significantly shorter, assuming you’re doing a direct rewrite.
Secondly, in two months, RoR’s dominance will STILL be a question. It’s an up and coming tool, fit for certain things, it’s not the solution to world peace, and even if it were, it’d take a hell of a lot more than two months to get there. You with your pathetic little books and dirty shilling might find it perfectly adequate for all your sexual needs; many others do not, and some of those, dare I say it, will not.
So if you’re so unhappy with Java, and have seen the light, perhaps you’d care to just Go Away, and we’ll see how long you last without your endless Java whoring. Move on to your greener pastures, I assure you you will not be missed nor mourned. If you do want to stay in our playground though, you’d have to do a lot better than constantly shit in the corner like some overgrown child sans potty training. I realise you have books you need to sell, but you’re doing yourself no favours by arguing with that insane glint of religion in your beady royalty counting little eyes. Set down that crack pipe before it’s too late and you lose the last shreds of credibility you’ve ever had.
So now that I have that off my chest (inspired by Bruce’s endless whinging on his ‘Beyond Java’ thread on TSS), it’s time to whine about TSS a bit.
Exactly what genius thought it’d be a good idea to allow Kirk Pepperdine to post news stories? Granted, TSS is generally one of the dirtier toilets of javaland, where every passer by gets to deposit his own personal collection of dangleberries and tagnuts, but really Kirky, it’s NOT your personal blog.
Kirk has the dubious honour of being the only editor that I know of at TSS who has managed to get a story pulled by a more senior editor. Kirk, in his infinite wisdom, decided that what he finds funny is the last word of Funny, and TSS, armpit that it is, should be treated no better than his personal blog. For shame Kirk, for shame. See, it’s one thing if we could say it’s an isolated incident. Sadly, at the time of writing, almost every story on the frontpage by Kirk is about as useful or relevant as Andy Oliver in a conversation, and about as considered and well thought out as Gavin Fleury in, well, anything. We have a story about Geronimo (the little container that, if it had a mouth, would be screaming for euthanasia 24/7) choosing a logo, another amazingly non-humorous piece about ‘Samy’, and a new job for Ward Cunningham. The best the guy can hope for is to induce a yawnfest, and that’s when he isn’t out trying to convince everyone that he is indeed the most close minded person in javaland.
Kirk, you might know your way around java performance, if I were you though, I’d avoid speaking up about anything else, or you’ll ruin that mystique you have, and suddenly show everyone that you’re just another loudmouth who refuses to ever learn anything, and believes that his anus delivers golden eggs instead of foetid log shaped lumps of unpleasantness.
Java benefits tremendously from competing technologies. It’s always good to be forced to re-evaluate one’s approach to almost anything. There can be a rich, vibrant, and dynamic discussion and exchange of ideas. The one thing I caution all you spastic self-appointed ‘thought leaders’ is not to insult your audience. We’re not your dirty little congregation who need some kind of holy book or religious nonsense. Treat us with respect, and we’re a lot more likely to take you seriously.
October 23rd, 2005 at 2:25 am
first !
October 23rd, 2005 at 3:17 am
To me, Bruce Tate is a pure joke. Not sure how the guy got his fame/notorioty. He has not made a single piece of contribution to Java, except perhaps being one of the first ones to write about (in a printed book format) the obvious shortcomings of entity beans, after it had become amply obvious to the majority of us. I bought and returned in 24 hours both his “Bitter” books b/c I just could’t bear with his writing style. I did not even bother to pick up his “Lighter” book last year. Evidently he recently sinned again by putting out a real stinker in “Spring: A Developer’s Notebook”, and he himself had to admit how bad the book is (see his own book review at Amazon). To me, Bruce Tate is not even relevant in the Java community, let alone bashing Java.
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:09 am
Hani shows the bitterness of many “java programmers” over at TSS. See they’re not programmers, but just “java programmers”. If you take away their IDEs then they’ll just be flipping burgers.
Most “programmers” already knew that a dumbed down C++ wasn’t going to cut it and “java programmers” just hate facing reality.
Hani, I’m sure you’ll be paid well as a Legacy programmer. I know the COBOL guys are.
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:45 am
The bile blog surely must have a G rating by now. Wheres the pink/meat or gang bangs on loosers who say/do silly things.
The bile blog is just a sham now.
October 23rd, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Incidentally, I’m the one who invited Kirk to be an editor on TSS.
October 23rd, 2005 at 2:10 pm
I bet $1,000 Bruce Tate will also be the one writing “Beyond Ruby”
I loathe the ‘evangelists’, they sell their souls to whatever makes money.
October 23rd, 2005 at 2:19 pm
I am just waiting for the wheels to come off the rails.
After that, what will these suckers do?
Try and find another piece of shit, and spin a story around it. So “Beyond Rails” these guys will probably be looking at
1. Lisp
2. Haskell
3. Domain Specific Languages (SAS anybody?)
For them, just about anything, including Swahili, qualifies to be the next Java.
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:21 pm
I have the utmost respect for Bruce Tate. His books taught me everything I know about Java. Kirk Pepperdine is my role model too and taught me everything about humour. Jo O (my role model) had a great idea when he invited him to join TSS as an editor / blog aggregator. We should be eternally grateful for that.
I have just written several sentences that do not start with “I”. I am such a modest guy. I consider myself well read, as opposed to well written. I am Prick Lowtower, father of Ruby. Buy my books, sign up for some training with me. I will teach you Ruby and put your career back on Rails hahaha (Kirk suggested that great joke to me).
I am Prick Lowtower and I insist that you *do* know me.
October 23rd, 2005 at 6:02 pm
It was time that somebody stand up and say something about TSS, i mean how silly are stories about a new logo for geronimo. This bile has indeed some truth in it, the stories at TSS are in fact quite insulting, Hani just mentioned the most hilarious ones.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:14 pm
Hani’s poop musket was laser-guided on this one. The only thing sillier than the Tom Cruise-like shenanigans of the evangelistic born agains is all the tangential pissing on each other about who got it and when. Oh, Ruby favors convention over configuration? Yeah, we really did need a new language to promote that principle.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:50 pm
“dangleberries and tagnuts” – isn’t that Viz circa about 1989?
October 24th, 2005 at 6:20 am
Hi there,
Funny, I just farted. Any chance that I make it to the front page at TSS, preferably with a “Beyond farting” headline ??
October 24th, 2005 at 9:02 am
THE KAYAKER:
Dozens of the brightest minds in the Java community are moving to more dynamic languages like Ruby because the newer languages better solve the most interesting problems.
CORRECTION
Dozens of the brightest minds in the Java community are moving to more better newer dynamic languages like Ruby because the better languages are better and newer and solve the most better newer .. ah ..interesting problems.
October 24th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
What the person before me meant was that dozens of morons who think that they are the brightest minds in the Java community, not realizing how stupid they, are moving away to project their stupidity on the newly created Ruby community.
Don’t you guys worry, these people, especially the “Bitter” guys will carry on their reputation to the Ruby crowd. Ever wonder why they call their books “Bitter”? May be because they only learned java in a “Light” way so they were left with a very “Bitter” aftertaste. And since Ruby has no taste I guess they will be writing a lot of “Tasteless” books on Ruby.
October 24th, 2005 at 2:53 pm
Come on, I invented Ruby while working as JDJ editor. Do you like ruby? google
“Joseph Ottinger”, read my articles on ruby! I am a musician too.
- u dun no me
October 24th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
It’s about time the RoR and other crap at TSS gets mentioned here. C’mon! Java IS OUR DADDY!
October 24th, 2005 at 11:05 pm
Funny stuff, as always.
Can you smell the fear?
October 25th, 2005 at 3:04 am
At a guess im thinking the ruby method dispatch checks a map with the method name or has a field with the method destination. Any comments why this extra layer of indirection makes it slow ?
October 25th, 2005 at 3:05 am
At a guess im thinking the ruby method dispatch checks a map with the method name or has a field with the method destination. Any comments why this extra layer of indirection makes it slow ?
October 25th, 2005 at 3:05 am
Wheres the cheese!
If your interested in cheese check out google maps!
October 25th, 2005 at 3:06 am
Lets go visit cancun and florida tomorrow. We will probably get free/really cheap hotel rooms.
October 25th, 2005 at 3:22 am
WHeres a blog about the biggest wank of them all in java, yes you know what im talking about. Ill give you a clue…
Its got tons of boiler plate code just to handle all the crappy checked exceptions that can get thrown.Lets not forget the distributed architecture thing. I could go one but its getting boring…
EJBS are the biggest sickness in our java world.
Its pretty obvious that they were created so vendors could charge big $ for no reason to clueless management types.
Stop thinking go blinking.
October 25th, 2005 at 3:23 am
BTW im so stupid i cant remember my name from my previous post…
Apologies
Ive got a tattoo on my left testicle to remind me im the real….Thinker
October 25th, 2005 at 4:48 am
Bruce,
Can I be the first to get a copy of your up coming book “beyond Ruby and Rails”?
I can’t help but feel that by the time Ruby really hits it’s stride, it will be old news replaced by the shiny object that catches an authors eye.
Right now it’s something nice to create hysteria behind to sell books.
Rob
October 25th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
Guys, I am currently working on two new books:
Bitter Ruby
Shitty Rail
You can preorder them from APRESS.
I also offer consulting services on Ajax and Lisp.
Don’t forget buy my old book “Mastering Resin” though.
As you can see, I am way ahead of Bruce Tate!
- I am Prick Lowtower, author, consultant, husband, father, XML guru, shithead etc. etc.
October 26th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
Hani,
what about blogging about new CE version of IBM Websphere which is actually Geronimo?
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-ag-cosbybuck/?ca=dgr-lnxw03WAS-CE
October 26th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Hani is right about Tate. The guy has no technical capability at all. A friend of mine worked on a book with him and he simply made up the kayak and monkey parts while the others did all the tech details.
October 26th, 2005 at 3:56 pm
All: buy my bad books and be grateful!
Prick: just STFU, don’t even think of becoming a bigger windbag than I am!
You don’t mow me.
October 26th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Mr. Sheila Tate, may I ask what does STFU stand for?
Joe Ottinger (aka. u dun no me)
October 26th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
Shut The Fuck Up and get a clue, Joe!
October 26th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Tahnk you Mr. Sheila Tate. Now go read my columns on JDJ.
- j Ottinger
p.s.
u dun no me
October 26th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
I hate to break the news to you, Joe, but your columns are bad. Quite possibly worse than my books, and that’s saying a lot. But all is forgiven. Prick and myself are starting a new consulting business, wanna join us as senior consultant ? It involves preparing coffee for us and brushing the toilet bowl clean.
October 26th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Mr. Sheila Tate, I am already a senior consultant for a well known Indianapolis consulting firm. I’m afraid that I can not help you and prick. But the company I’m working for sepcializes helping dumb ass customer such as you with Javascript coding. so contact us for initial free consultation.
Why is my column bad. It is read by millions and I get tons of fan letters everyday?
go JDJ!
- Joesph Ottinger
p.s.
u dun no me
October 27th, 2005 at 1:30 am
Someone should really start up a blog or app that includes profiles for each and everyone who is fairly visible in the Java community.
Then we could all slag or bag or rag or chag each and everyone.
WOuld be fun and people like Rick Tate and Bruce Hightower might find out what people really think of them. Bruce Hightower get a fucking clue why scripted languages will never cut it for the near future. Well maybe when CPUS are 100x quicker ppl wont mind so much.
October 27th, 2005 at 1:32 am
Hani
You are the biggest bile on jroller and tss and http://www.sexaramma.com. Your push to ban green coke will never happen
The Thinker!
October 27th, 2005 at 1:34 am
Hani
Why dont you write something about a technology and then bile yourself ? And since you know yourself personally you can probably write up a few other things about your bilinguilous self !
Who dares wins!
Another killer idea from one o f the brilliant few.
So joe ?
Why didnt you quit DJJ, or were the camels too attractive ?
October 27th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Confession: I avoid desktop GUI programming with Java like the plague. But every couple of years, some manager wants me to write a little desktop tool to use around the office. For one reason or
another, it can’t be hosted in a browser, so I try to use my ever-waning VC++, VB, or even VBA skills.
Me: “Can I write it in Visual C++?”
Manager: “We don’t have a Visual Studio license.”
Me: “How about use Bloodshed C++ with ming. Open source.”
Manager: “Nobody else knows C++. Who will maintain it when you’re hit by that truck?”
or:
Me: “Can I write it in Visual C++?”
Manager: “It has to work on unix for Ted.” (Everyone knows a Ted — that long-haired admin who sits in the basement corner, has penguin stickers all over his cubicle, and wears the same “Got Root?” t-shirt every Friday)
It was the latter case this time. So I almost asked if I could try GTK with C++, even though I dreaded learning YACL (yet another class library). In the end, I decided to go with a Java Web Start app. Hey, I’d learn about Sun’s answer to .NET Zero Deployment and this time REALLY LEARN THOSE SWING LAYOUT MANAGERS instead of using absolute
positioning of GUI controls. HA, RIGHT!
Is there any modern language more cumbersome for writing even the simplest of rich desktop clients than Java? In my nightmares, I dream of being forced to take a long-term Java Swing job because all the decent work was offshored to Cameroon. The Indians were too busy moving in on American hospitals, convincing them to outsource their surgeries to Bangalore where tens of thousands of MDs were waiting to perform surgery via remote video for 1/15 the price.
Swing. I spent hours trying to learn the layout managers again. This has got to be the 7th time I’ve tried to understand them since Swing’s ill-fated genesis. Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/352g5 and tell me if you’ve ever seen a desktop app that even vaguely
resembles any of these? Aren’t you glad to have the BoxLayout?
After spending hours trying to create a dialog-style app with maybe 7 controls on it, I gave up. I tried the GridBagLayout, GridLayout, the You’reAStupidFuckLayout, and a few others. The visual wizards in WSAD were useless until I remembered I could forego Swing layout managers
altogether and use absolute positioning of controls. WAIT, wasn’t that the same conclusion I arrived at every other time I’ve ever used
Swing in my career?! If I only used Swing more than once every 3 years, I might have remembered that and kept those 3 weeks I just shaved off my life from stress.
Should I bore you with my rant about JAWS? Sun: “We came up with this great acronym–it rivals AJAX!–why isn’t anyone using it?” Well, diego’s got a nice summary of WHY JAWS SUX: http://tinyurl.com/7verv but I can add quite a few more comments if you’d like.
October 27th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Dear Al Koholic,
All your problems could be solved by switching to Ruby. Just make sure that you buy some proper potty training from me.
But you’re right, all the decent work is being offshored to Cameron. Evil hashmap guy!
October 27th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
*In My Own Defense*
I’ve been lambasted recently in a few relatively small circles for being a flaming conservative, pro-war, anti-Arab, rabid and blind Zionist, and for couching completely unreasonable conclusions in sane and justifiable arguments, and for being racist.
I disagree. I’d like to take a fairly circuitous tour through some thought processes to show why.
The discussion that started all of this was on the US action in Iraq. I am not pro-war; for one thing, it’s too uncontrollable to be respectable. For another, I’m not especially fond of the deaths of anyone, not of those I love, not the deaths of those I like, not the deaths of people I respect, not the deaths of people who I disagree with, not the deaths of people who I dislike, not the deaths of people who hate me, not the deaths of people for whom it could be said I carry hate.
However, I do think there comes a time when action has to be taken. I do not necessarily agree with all of the reasoning. I do not prefer the mode of action. I do, however, understand it: the people who chose to undertake war felt that all alternatives had been exhausted. I am not one of those people. I understand that they have resources I do not, access to information I do not have the right to access. They have different views than I do, and I assume there are two reasons: they are not me, with my biases and preferences, and they have vastly different sets of information to work with. I assume that, because their resources are much better than mine, they are reasonable people and act according to the information they have.
The assumption that they’re reasonable people covers a lot of ground. If they act unreasonably, then I have to try to figure out why. Are they truly unreasonable? That’s hard to judge, because I don’t have the same set of information they do: what appears unreasonable to me might make perfect sense given more information, much as “salt is made of two poisons” adds reasonableness (of a sort) to an assertion that we should “eat two poisons every day for better health.” Thus, I have to consider them in toto, to consider whether the unreasonableness is in character or not. If they act unreasonably in other areas – and remember, the same criteria that expects my knowledge to not encompass theirs applies to all situations – then perhaps they’re simply unreasonable. However, the criterion still applies. I think action “A” is unreasonable. However, I don’t know all there is to know about action “A”; they know far more than I do. Likewise, I think action “B” is unreasonable. However, my knowledge of “B” is far from all encompassing, so my judgment may be incorrect because my assumptions of my own superior knowledge are flawed.
That said, I don’t presume superior knowledge. I’m only myself. What I know about, I know about; what I don’t know about, I don’t pretend to know about. I’m unafraid to make conclusions based on my limited knowledge and data, and I’m likewise unafraid to admit that my conclusions are based on potentially invalid information. I tend to not make unqualified statements because of my awareness of my own humanity.
So, the war on Iraq: I would far prefer another solution. I have no direct interest in regime change in Iraq for its own sake, although what I hear about the regime in Iraq is horrible. I don’t care about Iraq’s oil for my own purposes, because I want alternate energy sources in use. I do, however, see the Iraqi government encouraging and sponsoring actions I find deplorable and criminal, and dangerous. Do I think it is the United States’ responsibility to rein in Iraq’s government? No, I do not. Do I think it’s the United Nations’ responsibility? Yes, I do, and I also think the U.N. has abdicated its authority entirely by being willing to make resolutions without being willing to enforce them, and thus the responsibility falls elsewhere. I would prefer for some other nation to do it. I also recognize that the kind of passivity that implies is deadly: someone has to be willing to shoulder the burden. The United States is willing to do so, against the tide of “public opinion” (meaning “the will of some in the United Nations”) using methods it deems fair, despite their danger. Perhaps the methodology would change, if there were more solidarity, and the U.S. certainly could have worked harder to build solidarity among the U.N. member nations, but why? France had drawn a line in the sand, saying that they would not be convinced, at all, regardless of reasoning. (It turns out that France’s version of the Maginot Line in the U.N. was almost as effective as the Maginot Line in 1941; possible use of chemical weapons was offered as a reason to support the US action. However, it’s a little late for that; if France felt that way, then they should have said so long before. Saying that you’re willing to seek a common ground and alliance if conditions are met after you’ve stated that you cannot find a common ground and alliance is a bit misled.)
So the U.S. Government, having a goal in mind in accordance with the U.N., chose to go to war. This is regrettable. It’s also based on choices built from information I do not have, and I think it’s reasonable for me to expect to never have it, because information can often lead to direct danger for the ones providing the information, and also lead to the information stream being terminated.
What’s more, even though I’m ostensibly anti-war (although I understand the effort that includes war), I disagree with the anti-war protesters. I certainly don’t find their protests invalid; I celebrate free speech, even to the point where I’m unwilling to tell those who castigate me for my views to just shut up. They have a right to their opinions, as I have a right to mine; they have a right to express their opinions just as I do. However, many of the anti-war protesters seem to be missing the concept that the other view might be valid, and they seem to care more about preventing corrective action (as the “pro-war” view holds) than they do about preventing the action that needs correction. Where are the “Saddam, free your people” placards? Where are the “Hussein, allow dissidence without fear in Iraq” posters? Where are the “Hussein, elected by 100% – because nobody else was able to run” signs?
Maybe they’re there. I haven’t seen them. I have seen little if any outrage directed towards the regime in Iraq, which is cruel by all accounts but their own. I’ve seen defenses based on poor logic: “If they had weapons of mass destruction, we would have found it, therefore they have no weapons of mass destruction.” I’m sorry; you can’t prove a negative. You can’t say, “There are no dinosaurs” while being scientifically accurate. You can only say, “We know of no living dinosaurs,” which allows for the possibility of a living group deep in the ocean, for example. In Iraq’s case, you have an active belligerent that would certainly benefit from deceiving the U.N. inspectors; we have their assertions, and an incomplete search. (The search, incidentally, was followed by, after the onset of war, their use of weapons they supposedly did not have.)
I would have preferred for a longer inspection. However, the U.N. had mandated a thorough inspection and cooperation on the part of Iraq for twelve years; Hans Blix began the recent round of inspections within the past year, delayed largely to resistance on Iraq’s part and inaction on the United Nations’. “That’s not long enough,” some say, and I agree; Iraq should have begun cooperating with the inspections long ago. The U.N. Resolution addressing this was met with more delays on Iraq’s part.
Note that I am not trying to take a stand here. I support the men and women doing their duty; I would prefer a peaceful solution, but recognize that one may not be readily available. The situation is regrettable, but my willingness to accept the situation regardless earns me a lack of consideration in many areas.
For example, I’ve been called “inauthentic” because I am willing to say that the “other side” might be right or justified, and defending their viewpoints in reasonable terms. I’m not sure I understand that, outside of a definition of slander, and it’s not as simple as it seems.
For one thing, the attacks made tend to be ad hominem. That’s all right; I’m an adult, and I understand how to respond to such things: by ignoring the attacks themselves, although I’m curious about the reasoning. If my reasoning is sound, how does that make me “inauthentic?” It means that I may have different assertions as starting points. It means I may be drawing different conclusions. However, I’m not sure how either of those makes one “inauthentic.” I understand that different starting points tend to yield different conclusions, and I’m open to the concept that I could be wrong. The most relevant attribute of those who call me inauthentic is their lack of openness: they could not be wrong. If they were, then the sky would fall and the earth would shake; there’s a lot of reality invested in their absolute rightness. However, I am “inauthentic” and “arrogant,” while admitting that I could be drawing the wrong conclusions, but that I still had the conclusions I have and being willing to take the heat for them.
The attacks also include the claim of racism. Obviously, I do not feel I’m a racist, but I recognize preferences within myself, and I’m honest about them. I am Jewish. I tend to prefer Jewish goals to non-Jewish goals, given no other information, although there are certain and clear exceptions. Here is how I see it: Let us assume you must hire one person out of two, but you are given only cards with their names. For example, the cards might have “Moshe” and “Mohammed.” That is literally all the information you receive. You do not get last names, or qualifications, or skin color, or eye color. You do not get to see the candidates: you have two cards, one with “Moshe” and one with “Mohammed.” I do not know which you would choose. I would choose “Moshe,” because “Moshe” is a Jewish name, and I’m more likely to feel an affinity for a Jew than a non-Jew. It’s fully possible that “Moshe” is someone for whom I have no affinity, the person might not be Jewish at all, and I certainly have no idea of their ethical systems; likewise, “Mohammed” might be perfectly qualified and far preferable. If I had more information about them, perhaps I’d choose “Mohammed.” I have no qualms about this.
Likewise, another test: two cards, one with “Michael” and one with “Gabriel.” Which do you choose? Why? I choose “Michael,” because that is my brother’s name. There is no other criterion I have.
Yet another test: black man, or white man? I choose the one for whom I’m more likely to have affinity given no other information.
This is basic human psychology; one prefers more affinity to less affinity. One also prefers benefit to bane. It’s not racist of me to choose “Moshe” over “Mohammed,” given the level of information on the cards; racism would be me choosing “Moshe, the unqualified but Jewish” over “Mohammed, the qualified but Gentile.”
Likewise, my stance on Israel and Palestine is related to my Jewishness. I feel affinity for Israel vibrantly, because I have seen pictures of my family from 1936, since eradicated by the Nazis; yes, I take those who advocate destruction of Jews personally, and those who advocate destruction of Israel advocate the deaths of Jews. I am Jewish. One cannot say, “We hate the Jews,” without including me in that statement. Expecting me to be dispassionate about that is inadmirable. I can support Israel’s right to exist without supporting every action Israel takes. I can likewise detest Palestine’s actions in supporting suicide bombers without hating Palestinians. I can detest Palestine’s declared wish to destroy Israel while respecting Palestine’s right to exist as well. I can support Israel while wishing Israel would stop supporting additional settlements on land allocated to Palestine, and while fervently hoping a peace can be forged between the two states. I can also prefer one between the two, because of the policies of the given states. This is not racism; this is reason. Others may (and do) disagree. I do not expect people to agree with me; I put forth my understanding, and my conclusions are my own.
Lastly, I’ve been accused of being a “drone.” Another ad hominem attack, this implies that I’m drawing my conclusions from others. If that’s the criterion, then it might be true: I’m definitely not witnessing the situations first-hand. I am not in Iraq. I am not in Palestine. I am not in the U.N. meetings. I am far removed from these places, so my information is very much filtered. I try to see as much information as I can, but I’m limited by time; therefore, I try to choose sources that I think are reliable to the best of my ability. I’m aware that these sources can be and often are flawed. (CNN comes to mind.) I’m also aware that there are two sides to every story, and I try to see things from the all sides to see if I consider them to be “more valid” than my original position. Therefore, I definitely accept information through filters. That’s why I try to be careful to describe my reasoning before my conclusion, because the reasoning is likely to be more easily corrected than the conclusions are, and the causals might serve as better guides than conclusions anyway. “XYZ is evil” is far less relevant than “XYZ murders people for misspelling transitory verbs in foreign tongues, and will kill the brothers of women who do not accept advances,” because the first part is a conclusion, while the second part leads to that conclusion, unless you consider such behavior as not being evil. I would think that explaining causals would be far less “dronelike” than simply deciding that a view was unpopular, despite being reasoned, and therefore deciding that those who hold that view were drones. Applying peer pressure does not make a conclusion valid. If eight people pressure one person into saying, “a box of rocks is as light as a similarly-sized box of feathers,” that doesn’t make it true. Even if the person gives up and agrees with the assertion, it’s still false. Likewise, if the one person says that a box of rocks is as light as a box of feathers, and the eight disagree, the eight countering the assertion with “You’re just wrong,” as opposed to explaining density, the eight aren’t likely to convince the one to their way of thinking.
Please accept my apologies for the length and breadth of this essay. I’ve tried to limit it in some ways, because I’m aware that I think in terms of interrelationships, which makes linear thought and discourse very difficult for me.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
AJAX is mine! I invented it, Joe, just after I invented Ruby, and you’re not allowed to sell any AJAX consulting or Ruby consulting for that matter. Go write some crap JDJ (RDJ?) article to hype it all up if you want but the ensuing business is mine and mine alone muhahahaha!
You don’t mow me.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
AJAX is mine! I invented it, Joe, just after I invented Ruby, and you’re not allowed to sell any AJAX consulting or Ruby consulting for that matter. Go write some crap JDJ (RDJ?) article to hype it all up if you want but the ensuing business is mine and mine alone muhahahaha!
You don’t mow me.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
Oh my. JRoller is fucked up again and messes up the posts. This wouldn’t happen if it was written in Ruby.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
All:
Don’t listen to Sheila Tate, the windbag! Read my JDJ articles instead. Don’t switch to Ruby either. The next big thing is Ajax. I offer Ajax consulting too.
Subscribe to JDJ and you will get free consulting from me on html, javascript, java (POJO), j2ee, j2me, Ruby, Rail, hibernate, Spring, Rodsass, Pricksbutt… and many many other tools.
- j. o.
p.s.
u dun no me
October 27th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
I like open source. I use open source software when it’s appropriate. I write open source software, at that, and I’m happy to do so. (To wit: PortalWizard, LogN, Opensymphony components, RSSLibJ, as well as others.)
That said, I really, really dislike the Free Software Foundation. When I have a choice between their offerings and someone else’s, I nearly always go with the alternatives. I don’t use their licenses. I don’t defend them, or even their goals, really. In many ways, I’m actively antagonistic.
Why?
It’s pretty simple. I thought the FSF rocked until I had to deal with them directly, and the repercussions of that interaction made me reconsider all my assumptions.
Starting Down the Slippery Slope
I was working as a consultant for IBM in 1997, on their ProductManager suite. ProductManager needed a little language, for which I designed a grammar and lexer. When you need a compiler compiler and a lexer, you look at packages in the yacc and lex family… and the best of those, for C, remain the FSF’s bison and Vern Paxson’s flex. Not only was I trying to do well for IBM, but I was also aiming at using the best products available.
IBM, understandably, wanted to cover its pockets in the case of liability, so they had me talk to the respective authors to make sure that their code was actually theirs to give away. The reasoning was, as I understand it, that if (say) flex incorporated some copyrighted Microsoft code, and Microsoft discovered that IBM was using that code, Microsoft could sue both the author of flex and IBM. However, if IBM had a signed affadavit from the respective authors that asserted their right to distribute code, then IBM would have done due diligence to protect itself and other companies from illegal activity. It wouldn’t have been a full defense, but would be enough to mitigate most damage in court. (The realisation that IBM didn’t expect due diligence to be a complete shield was a blow to my faith in civil courts, too, even though that faith was pretty weak to begin with.)
So I wrote Vern Paxson and the FSF (because Richard Stallman was listed as the author of bison, which surprised me.) Vern got back with me after a few hours, and said he’d be happy to sign a form for us. When I talked to him on the phone and explained the exact situation, he reversed his position, saying that he simply couldn’t honestly say that flex had no copyrighted code in it. He didn’t think it did, but he wasn’t able to get such an assertion from each author.
That eliminated flex for our project. I didn’t mind, for a few reasons: one was that lexers are fairly trivial, and we could replace lex with something feature-comparable; another reason was that Vern was very straightforward about the situation. I got the feeling that he actually considered the needs of his potential userbase.
A few hours after Vern’s initial reply came back, the FSF responded, too. (I was genuinely surprised at how rapid both responses were made.) They said that Richard Stallman was, indeed, the author of bison, and soon we managed to strike up a dialog with him directly.
Eventually, we were in a conference call with him. I was a little awed, considering that I’d been using some of RMS’s tools (like Emacs) for quite some time even then. Basically, we had in mind a sort of quid pro quo, in that we wanted an affadavit signed and he wanted a monetary grant. It was also a chance for the FSF to score points in the courts, since the GPL hadn’t been challenged. Our reasoning was that if IBM was using the code, and was challenged, then the FSF would be piggybacking a defense of the LGPL from IBM’s defense team.
RMS would have none of it. What we were asking for, to be clear, was an assertion that the FSF had the right to apply their license to the software they made available. A denial of that assertion undermines their whole reason for being, after all, and we were certainly going to recompense the FSF for making good software available. Instead, RMS refused outright to sign the affadavit, and suggested quite bluntly that ProductManager (which costed IBM millions to develop, and was a pretty vertical product) should be open source, and we could send a check to him at this address, etc.
I was not impressed. It wasn’t so much the open source spiel that bothered me, but the refusal of the assertion. If it was my code, I’d have been happy to say it was mine, as long as I knew (a la Vern Paxson’s response). RMS, however, didn’t even entertain the thought from the impression he gave us. Instead, he came across as a complete hypocrite, an impression confirmed with further investigation of the FSF’s policies and approach. He was effectively implying that he’d stolen the code, and released it as open source just to further his personal views on software source code availability.
The Air Over There
I think the FSF is on crack. They want software to be open-sourced, as a statement of ethics, and yet they advocate strong-arming companies in order to get what they want. They don’t want the code, even – they just want all code to be open source, and they’re willing to act like brown-shirts to do it.
If you go to their home page, for example, you see this announcement at the end of the first paragraph:
Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred to as `Linux”, they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems.
The opening sentence for the paragraph is “Welcome to the GNU Project web server.”
Um.
Not only is the sentence about Linux inappropriate for the paragraph’s subject matter, it’s retarded. Their justification is something like this: “Linux is just the kernel, and GNU provides the rest of the system that makes the kernel useful, so the name should be GNU/Linux instead of just Linux.”
That’s idiotic. For one thing, they’re targeting Linux in this, for reasons of publicity only. (Yes, that’s right, I just said the FSF was a bunch of publicity whores.) If they were going to be fair about this, they’d apply that reasoning to a lot of software: “GNU/Cygwin,” et cetera. To my knowledge, they don’t do this. For another, they presume that GNU is central to Linux… and it’s not. I know of developers who’ve created Linux distributions with BSD tools instead of GNU, for example, and the mere fact that it’s doable suggests that maybe GNU isn’t as critical to Linux as the FSF seems to suggest. Sure, maybe Linus used GNU tools to generate the kernel. Does that mean that every Visual Basic app needs to trumpet “MS/Whatever” as part of its name, too?
It gets worse. The FSF not only demands recognition (which, by the way, it got plenty of already), but it actively supports piracy, offering this newspeak as a replacement. “Use neutral terms to describe piracy,” they suggest, offering “unauthorized copying” as well as “sharing information with your neighbor.” Pardon me, fellows, for actually setting the price I want as recompense for my effort. The freedoms the FSF supposedly tries to work for include the rights to say “No, I wrote this with my blood, sweat, and tears, I want $100 for it or you don’t have to use it.”
And that brings up another annoyance with the FSF – the GPL. The GPL is a viral license, requiring programs that use GPLed code to be under the GPL themselves. In a way, that makes sense, although most other similar licenses are less militaristic;most of them respect the right of authors to keep their code proprietary, usually requesting links to the source of licensed software. The GPL, on the other hand, says that it’s all open, and they choose licenses accordingly.
To wit, they have a “Lesser GPL,” the LGPL, which doesn’t have the same viral effect that the GPL does. The FSF has a document, called Why you shouldn’t use the Library GPL for your next library (written before the LGPL was renamed to “Lesser GPL”), which explains that the LGPL is used where there’s no real reason to rely on the GNU offering. In other words, all the truly useful stuff they have (and there’s a good bit of it) is basically bait for the GPL; “use GetOpt, and we have you!”
That’s cowardly, in my opinion, arguing from a position of weakness.
And that’s the FSF for you.
October 27th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
Geesh, joseph….
I’d rather spend my time jerking off instead of writing that piece of lengthy shit.
I could even ejaculate 3 times during that period.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Jo… (the jewish jo).
I’d say it again, one more time, solamente una vez, y nada mas:
———–
I’d rather spend my time jerking off instead of writing that piece of lengthy shit.
I could even ejaculate 3 times during that period.
———–
I’m not jewish, i’m not moslem, i;m not arab. I have no affinity for those stuffs. I just want to say “I’d rather be masturbating… etc”.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Mr. Sheila Tate, I demand you to go to
http://www.sysy-con.com
Sign up your JDJ subscription by 8:00pm tonight!
Why? because:
I am a Jew. I am a Jew who studies the momentum his Jewishness gives his personality and mores, and is unapologetic about it. I will never forget what I am, or what brought me here, the fires of Europe and the blades of Russia, the whips of Egypt and the chains of Babylon.
I am broken. Is that not enough? Being broken, I strive for completion, and I don’t even know what completion will manifest itself as. Quoting Rush’s “The Fountain of Lamneth,” I’m forever at the start… and still, I am.
U Dun No Me.
J O – Chief Editor of JDJ. World most talented Java consultant who specializes in Ajax.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Hey, Joe, you can’t bile in Hani’s bile ! You gotta bile your own bile if you wanna bile right !
The FSF is funny – but then, ‘Open Source’ is a funny idea also, isn’t it ? Imagine it – the reaction by skilled programmers to the fact that their management wants to outsource their jobs until they are all working at clerical wages is …
… to give away the product of their skill for free.
A good idea ! Working for nothing should help to build up the American standard of living.
I guess it has, at least, the same dignity as suicide : you had complete control over your own disaster. Yukio Mishima understood this, unlike Paul McCartney, and gained thereby some measure of respect. For a dead guy, I mean. Mishima, not McCartney. Only parts of Paul are dead.
Still, at least neither of them used Lotus Notes.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Joseph.
Why didnt you quit DDJ after all the other staff did ? Or did you come and shit in their office of shit after they left ?
You are a fungus on the nose of a pig who has eaten too much cow pads.
Throw null;
October 28th, 2005 at 9:12 am
Hey what’s happening Hani ???
Maven 2 and Continuum 1.0 are released, the Maven mailing list is spammed with 96 emails a day (one every 15 min) indicating that the build is broken and you’re not biling anything ? You’re getting old !
October 28th, 2005 at 10:07 am
>>You’re getting old
Thinker, actually Hani is dead. He choked while using maven in secret and since then my cousin and I are copy/pasting from old biles to write new ones, but as you could see we’re not up to the task. We tried embalmying his body to get inspired, but did not worked — we even tried putting objects in his oriffices as the old scriptures told us but no success here too. Any ideas ?
October 28th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Yeah, print the Maven documentation and stuff his corpse with it through orifices of your liking. That’s the kind of embalming he’d have cried for.
October 28th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
>>news update<<
I am starting a new book:
Matering Maven
I am also offering Maven consulting now.
Don’t even think about writting ‘Bitter Maven’ now Mr. Tate. Maven is mine!
October 28th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
I think I’ve never seen more boring comments in any bile than this one. Please bile those retards who still jerk off when they read joe-ottinger-prick-lowtower-cut-and-paste comments they posted themselves … ya-haw-hawn. Even clown puncher is too bored by this crap, which is sad, but true…
October 28th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to let you know that I have made progress in rolling my own Spring – I’ve just released Hivemind 1.1 which I have also dubbed as the ‘Feature Catchup Release.’
Please try my framework; please?
PS: as an added bonus, I’ve thrown in a complete rewrite of the collections implementations from Java collections (HHashMap, HArrayList, HSet, etc… – please be sure to try these too).
Thanks,
HLS
October 28th, 2005 at 5:13 pm
All:
I promise that I will go away if I can get
3 readers of this forum sign up at JDJ by 5:00pm today
+
100 Ajax consulting request.
Thank you!
- Joseph Ottinger
p.s.
U Dun No Me
October 28th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Like someone said some time ago: It’s just not the same without the Clown Puncher…
October 29th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
Looks like TSS is down yet again…
October 31st, 2005 at 11:06 am
Did you mean leech? “leach” doesn’t seem to apply to Brucey!
October 31st, 2005 at 11:08 am
All:
Forget about Hani!
Read my articles on TSS (about struts) instead.
You are all losers! I can’t even get one JDJ subscription out of you. Whats wrong with you?!So here I am, again.
p.s.
u dun no me
October 31st, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Bruce Tate is a fucking moron.
November 19th, 2005 at 12:35 am
Hani is right about Bruce, who is crapping in his own meal plate while eating from it too.Bruce just stick to Ruby and like Hani says, NOBODY would miss you if you left the java world.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:34 am
[Trackback] I want to way in on this flame war that James Gosling has triggered with his mild criticism of scripting languages. I think it is unfair and unhelpful. Here is my two cents worth. I am still feeling my…