SMILODON AND THE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM by Charlie Martin
I think pretty nearly everyone goes through a stage in childhood where they’re fascinated with dinosaurs. I certainly did. Along with dinosaurs, I was fascinated by the saber-tooth cats, a fascination that has stuck with me.
One of the most interesting facts about the saber-tooths was that the big, robust, saber-toothed monsters actually evolved no fewer than four times, from Thylacosmilus (which was really a marsupial, a sort of saber tooth possum) to Smilodon, which actually was a kind of cat. They also died out four times, and the general agreement is that they died out each time because the big saber-like canines are an advantage right up until they get so big they are a disadvantage. The saber teeth get bigger and bigger until they become a dead end and the saber-tooth whatever dies out.
Computer programs are like that. Most successful ones start out small (Martin’s Law of Software Projects is that the first version of any successful computer program is running within 90 days of the project kickoff party) and grow. Over time they grow so large, have so many people involved, and become so complex they can no longer be maintained; they die off, or they reach a stage where all available resources are devoted simply to keeping the things running. These programs are then replaced by other small programs. With the exception of real game-changers, like the first spreadsheet programs, those small programs don’t do anything radically different from the big programs. They just do things better.
Last week’s big tech news was that Google is coming out with a “new” operating system, called Google Chrome. The scare-quotes are because it’s not really new at all in some senses, since it will be based on the Linux operating system kernel. What’s new is that Google is building a new collection of basic lightweight tools on top of this kernel, in order to have a consumer operating system suited for netbooks and other small computers, that doesn’t require a degree in computer science to manage, and that can be given away essentially for free.
Why bother? I don’t think Google is particularly interested in being the “Microsoft killer”. They’re not in that business, the business of selling computer programs, and since this is intended to be a free open-source product, they don’t apparently plan to be in the business of selling computer programs anytime soon. Google’s business is selling access to information on the Web. They give away access to the whole Web via the search engine, and then sell advertising on their search pages to pay for it. It’s a business model that’s hard for people to understand – it seems like Google is giving away their services.
It works, though, because the economics of the Web are built on services that cost almost nothing to provide. It’s like the Crazy Eddie business model: they lose money on almost every use of the system, and then make it up in volume.
For that model to work, though, Google has to be able to provide those services to many many people so that the very rare people who actually click through an advertisement add up to the revenue Google dearly loves. Google needs new users for the web.
Google also knows that a very large proportion of computer users don’t do anything very difficult with their computers; in fact, a lot of people only use the computers for surfing the web. Most people use Windows for that, but Windows has become pretty unsatisfactory.
Expose a new Windows box to the unfiltered Internet, and it will be infected with some kind of malicious software within literally minutes. Even if it isn’t infected, Windows has tried to become an “enterprise” operating system; it runs on your desktop, but it also runs business applications, big databases, and large-scale web sites, all functions that have essentially nothing to do with reaching email and reading Drudge Report.
The answer Google has come to is Chrome: a small, robust, simple system that can be sold on a small computer, and that does nothing except make it easy to get on the web. They aren’t targeting Microsoft specifically; they just want more eyes on web browsers, for more of the day. A simple, cheap, unbreakable operating system would make that more likely.
The consequences, for Microsoft and very likely for Intel, will be devastating. A very large proportion of the people who use computers now will find that they can get by happily using Google Chrome the free operating system, and Google Chrome the free browser, on a hundred-dollar computer, and do whatever they need to do besides surfing on Google Docs or any of the competing web-based services. To do the same things with a conventional desktop computer means bigger hardware, a relatively expensive copy of Windows, and a copy of Office — and there is always a market for letting people do something for $100 that used to cost them $1000.
Intel potentially has the same problem: for years, they’ve worked on making better, faster, stronger, versions of their processors, always trying to stick to a price point of a couple hundred bucks. They’ve been very successful, but with Moore’s Law, that processor that you can buy for a couple of hundred bucks is now a supercomputer in a box the size of a candy bar, and people don’t really need to do weather simulations at home.
As Windows has grown, the processors have grown, but people are going to find that Google Chrome runs fine on the processor in an iPhone or a hand-held computer game.
Historically, Intel has been a more agile company than Microsoft, and after all, they can make small simple chips using the same factories that now make big complicated chips. They might be able to adapt.
Soon Microsoft will find itself in the situation that eventually killed Sun: fewer and fewer people need the size of computer on which you make your money. They’ve gotten the biggest, shiniest, sharpest teeth on the planet.
Chrome is just a linux distro. The only thing special about it is the Google name. Will it eventually eat Microsoft’s lunch? Maybe a little. But nobody’s going to put their enterprise on a Google platform.
CE is available in a number of flavors for embedded, and while it’s more expensive (as in, it costs something), it still may be the platform of choice for many embedded apps. But yes, we’re headed for interesting times.
Don’t forget, while all of these OSes run on ARM and similar platforms, Intel still has the 960 microcontroller, and can compete with all of these 32-bit micros. They might not make as much of a margin as on a Pentium, but if they want to, they can blast all of the ARM manufacturers out of the water, and make it up in volume. They’re not unable to compete in the embedded market; they invented it with the 8051.
Strawman — I’m not sure it’s just another linux disty; the description sounds like the Chrome browser and some utilities might be all that runs on it as delivered. If so, a vanilla Chrome should be capable of being much more stable and secure than Windows. I agree with you about Intel, but it will change their profit picture pretty significantly if they need to compete in the axes of power consumption and piece price too. Their big margins come from the big honking processors.
TO: Charlie (Colorado) Martin
RE: Only….
….if you trust an outfit that sold its soul to the Communist Chinese, suppressing the freedoms we enjoy in the US amongst a billion+ people.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[They can only take away those freedoms you are willing to give up.]
P.S. Looks like you’re ready to give a LOT up…..
Charlie, the market is what it is. If they have to compete, they have to compete. I’m actually surprised that it’s taken this long for the embedded devices to start challenging the desktop PCs. I expected this five years ago.
The whole point of this article it that the computer industry is where the American auto industry was in the early ’70s. They thought they could keep selling bigger and bigger V8s, and the market wanted little cars. Eventually, the market sorted itself out with a mix of both. If Intel thinks they can prosper over the next couple of decades by offering nothing more than more and more flops, they’re going to go the way of GM. And faster.
There’s another dynamic that has yet to play out, also. While Apple has their “i” embedded platforms, and Microsoft has their Zune and so on, the counterpart to the PC doesn’t yet exist. The embedded market is a lot like the PC market in 1980, with everything from the Tandy to the Osborne, to the Commodore (and, of course, the Apple). Some alliances are going to have to form, so that you can get a dominant virtual platform that third parties can fight over.
Apple has already screwed their pooch by getting in bed with ATT, and lording over what apps can run on their platform. Between Microsoft, Intel, AMD, all of the ARM guys, Google, and a couple dozen Chinese hardware shops, I see a couple of alliances forming, and duking it out before a series of de facto standard embedded platforms arise.
I strongly suspect that this is going on right now as we type.
Charlie,
This might be what it takes to finally push Linux onto the mom & pop computer. My dad, who hates computers but likes to read about the Detroit Tigers in Florida, is constantly frustrated by what Vista does to his laptop. I offered to put Ubuntu on it, but he doesn’t want something “nobody’s heard of.”
A lot of small businesses are the same: they don’t want to switch until others do.
Once you go open source, you don’t go back.
“Soon Microsoft will find itself in the situation that eventually killed Sun…”
Well, Sun’s management has much more to do with their decline. CEO Schwartz just might have been the worst CEO in all of Sun’s history, and one of the worst in the IT industry (not to mention the board of directors.)
Google has nothing on Microsoft, in the short or medium term. Linux has never made progress on the “desktop”, and it will take decades before there is any real competitive threat. No to say that Chrome and OS will not be popular, it is just not revolutionary.
“They’re not unable to compete in the embedded market; they invented it with the 8051.”
Sigh. Always the bridesmain; never the bride.
Remember Corel Linux? It was a nice, neat package that included WINEed versions of Wordperfect and Draw. It worked flawlessly, and was more user-friendly that windows. But it was a distro.
That’s what a distro usually means; a combination of kernel, GUI, and a few specific apps. And yes, as long as you limit yourself to the pre-installed apps, it’s usually pretty user-friendly and bug-free. It’s when you start trying to load some game that was never intended for your distro that things get ugly.
Of course, some of the monster distros like SuSE try to be able to run anything and everything, but you’d better be a card-carrying nerd if you want to try that.
Chuck, I’ll have you know you won me a bet. I had a line with Malone on the over/under before someone accused me of being a commie.
(Ps. Dude, it’s open source. if you don’t like Google, don’t buy the device. if you don’t trust the code, read it yourself.)
Intel’s Atom is well positioned in the netbook and low-end device space. Chrome will only help their sales. The ARM vs. Atom debate is long and technical but safe to say Intel is doing just fine.
Microsoft is very very good at what it does despite the rhetoric that is fashionable on the internet message boards. Saying Google’s Chrome is a threat to MSFT is akin to saying MSFT’s Bing is a threat to Google. Technically true, but not really. Even on the off chance that Chrome did turn in to a major contender MSFT certainly wouldn’t take it laying down.
Chrome is interesting but not revolutionary. And I love to see new developments like these. But, all the MS killer hype lately is a reach. More realistically developments by any of these three companies will only help each other.
You know what amazes me? My first 286 PC was a 10 MHz processor with 1 MB of RAM–and it ran adequately fast, at least for word processing and spreadsheets. Today, we have vastly faster processors with incredible amounts of RAM–and for a lot of what ordinary people do (surf the Web, word processing, small spreadsheets), they aren’t dramatically more effective than that 10 MHz 286 box.
I’m afraid that Microsoft, in trying to build ultimate whiz-bangs for business purposes, may have missed that something a bit simpler would be quite sufficient for many users. I see a market opportunity there…
I don’t believe this for a second. It may be true that successful innovations start small, and that certain classes of software are the same way, but a lot of enterprise software (one of the areas I develop for) are very different.
The airlines are still running PARS/ACP, a system developed (not in 90 days) in the 1960s. I led the development of a revolutionary hotel industry reservation system starting in 1988. It first went into operation at the end of 1990, and still powers a lot of the industry. My current employer is replacing it with a “new” system which has only been about 8 years in development.
As for ChromeOs… I suspect it will only whack Microsoft in the arena where there are limited options on peripheral devices. On the other hand, that area is growing (cell phones run Linux, and you don’t have too many choices on devices).
I do believe that it or something like it will eventually be significant in replacing corporate desktops, but the question is: when? Microsoft has a strong lock in that are, not because of its OS, but because of its continually changing suite of Office Products, which will only run on windows.
11, the enterprise systems are going to remain Microsoft until there’s a good reason the change, and Google isn’t giving them any reasons. Who in their right mind wants to give up control of their servers in exchange for a bunch of advertising? Ads and snoopware are the only way Google knows how to make money, and no enterprise is going to put up with that. That, and the security issues with running everything over the innertubes. That’s just nuts. Ain’t gunna happen.
What’s a “free brwoser”?
*teasing*
I use a plethora of windows based programs:
Font programs
Art programs
SFX programs
HTML programs
Skinning programs [windows gui]
Cursor programs
Movie programs
–and the list goes on and on.
I like windows but, I’m not the average moron who doesn’t know how to protect their computer from viruses and hackers.
Does windows piss me off? Hell yes! Ever since my first BSOD on windoze 95 but, you take the good, you take the bad and you hope for the best.
I’m curious about windows 7 but I have three computers running on XP and one on Vista and 1 old fart running on 95 [NOT connected to the net ha-ha] and Microsoft really pisses me off when they say, “Oh this is the new PERMANENT OS!” and then, kaboom…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! Then, the @ssholes even go so far as saying they won’t provide needed security updates for their older operating systems! F*CK THAT!
*air punches fists towards monitor*
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
WTF? Now 11 is 15.
Clayton (I don’t trust numbers on this thread any more), that was what I was driving at with the analogy to the auto industry. The simple truth is that except for a very small number of very esoteric applications, we just don’t need any more gigaflops. It’s like we have cars with 50,000 hp jet engines, and they want to get us to trade them in for 100,000. Unless you’re trying to predict the weather, what’s the point?
The simple fact is that everything you would ever need for word processing can be done on a $5 chip, and everything you would ever need for graphics processing is built into a wii. Who needs PCs any more? They’re like commuting in an 18-wheeler.
At this point in time, given the advances and cost drops in CPU power, memory and storage, there is no good reason why there can’t be a low power PC or notebook, fully loaded with the usual web & email access, plus apps for playing music and video, plus running word processing and spread sheets that turns on and off like a calculator, and is just about as worry free.
The one and only reason we don’t is Microsoft’s bloat-o-matic crapware. There’s very little practical, functional difference between a PC running Office 97 on Windows 95 and one running Office 2007 on Vista except that the Win95 combo would run fine and quick on a 266 PII with just 32 Mb of memory, whereas the Vista combo would damn near choke a 2.6 GHz P4 w/2 Gb of memory. Even ancient Windows 3.11 is still a much more complete OS that Windows CE/Mobile despite it being a much more compact OS.
Linux distros come in all sizes, and if Google can just come up with something no fuss, compact, hardware friendly, and with a nice clean, sensible interface — maybe something like a combo OS X/Win Xp Lite — and a good selection of apps at the ready (I’d like to see Softmaker’s solid products get more exposure), then, well, they might have something that will finally bring back innovation to the desktop and be the beginning of the end to the stultifying Microsoft era.
Strawman,
It’s a ‘moderation’ thing. If you post here without moderation [in good standing with the blog author] then, your posts show up insantly. But, posts by others who are moderated show up after the moderators get a chance to moderate and therefore, the numbers end up skewed once the other commentors posts make it through moderation.
I hope I didn’t over explain that. lol
“your posts show up insantly?” Gah! ‘instantly’. I deserved to make that typo though. he-he
More to the point, a win95 workalike with all of that would run great on a 90 mhz ARM9 with 32mb of RAM, and a gig of flash.
Like, maybe, windows CE?
OTOH, I’ve seen some very usable micro linux distros (like DSL), so a stripped-down linux can still have a full-featured GUI. Ubuntu runs quite comfortably on half a gig. Sorry, we just don’t need the silicon equivalent of a Hummer, when a Tata is more than satisfactory, and a couple of Tatas is quite affordable.
Strawman, my point is that the linux kernel is really quite robust (I’d claim Solaris 10 is better, but I’m prejudiced.) A robust kernel, and a robust well-sandboxed browser like Chrome’s browser, tested and updated regularly, should be an extremely robust platform. That, with GMail Google Calendar, and Google Docs, especially with their offline Gears capability, is all the computer MOST people need.
Add in the usual disty, with gcc and God knows what all on it, not so much. (God knows I’ve blown up enough Linux systems.)
Clayton, your point:
is a good one. I’ve got an elderly laptop set up to run a bare-bones Linux kernel, the old UNIX tools, and vi and emacs — which is basically as powerful as the computer I shared with the entire Computer Science department at Duke in 1983 — and it runs fine. My Mac is comparable in compute power to a Cray 1, but I manage to use it up. I think this is a sign of a basic error.
John:
John, that’s purposefully a little overstated for the sake of starting arguments. I have in fact seen and participated in development projects where there was no running code for two years. I’ve also seen a helluva lot of them that wen’t more than two years and never succeeded. (Hell, long ago I started on one that had already been going eleven years, and hadn’t delivered. DoD project, some special conditions.) I guess if I were going to be more rigorous, I’d say instead that the longer a project goes before demonstrating a subset of functionality, the lower the probability it ever will.
Well, I remember DOS from way back. Matter of fact, my first computer was a Commodore 64. The first version of DOS I ran was 3.11.
Google Chrome is an attempt at a simplified OS for those that only need certain functions. It certainly wont run SQL Server. If Windows needs anything it is a complete rewrite, and I dont meen Win 7 but a rewrite starting with machine code and some serious shrinkage. After all, when I was in college, the mainframe had 2 MB of memory and 40 MB of HDD space. It served the entire college well. But that was a long time ago(2.9.1 BSD Unix). Programs have simply become too big. I learned on a Mac, no viruses, no hard disk. PCs were kept only for the kids going after their business degrees. I wish Google well.
But what can that do that you can’t do right now with Ubuntu and Firefox? A little tighter integration is all I can see. But then again, that, and the Google name, may be all you need to get the masses to migrate.
When I was using SuSE on my desktop, the big issues that I had were WMA/WMV and certain hardware drivers. If Google targets this toward the diskless internet node, they’ll fix the former, and the latter won’t matter.
All linux really needs to be viable on the desktop is a little more attention to detail than the Red Hats and Novells of the world can afford. Google can do that.
I think I just…uh…wait…ahhhh. Geek-gasm. Oops. TMI?
27. Cyclist,
My very first computer was my Aunt’s old MS-Dos Tandy. lol!
I’ve got so much expen$ive $oftware invested in my windows computers that for me to be able to ‘switch’ would be a joke but, for people who just want to ‘fool around’ on their computers and don’t have a lot of windows software invested…I say…GO FER IT!
My very first computer (that I actually played with) was MANIAC – all tubes, input was paper tape, memory was CRT persistence
TO: Charlie (Colorado) Martin
RE: Sorry….
…Charlie….
….but I didn’t “accuse” you of being a Communist. I just said that only people who trusted Google, who support the Communist Chinese, would go with Google’s OS.
Now…
…IF you decided to go that way….you could win that bet with Malone. But, in order to win that bet you’ll have to go with Google. At which point, I’ll think you more a ‘fool’ than I’ve orginnaly
thought.
But being a ‘fool’ doesn’t make you necessarily a ‘Communist’. I think you have to have a ‘card’ to be one. Something along the lines of paying your ‘dues’.
But anyone can be a ‘fool’. No dues required.
Do you understand?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Rebuke a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. -- Proverbs]
Back when my brother worked for Intel most of their business was in embedded processors. Embedded processors aren’t as visible as the processors in a desktop/laptop but they are everywhere. I would be surprised if that side of things doesn’t still have a dominant market share, although it may be more vulnerable to competition.
Tommy rot. Utter balderdash.
Google SUCKS and will be in Chapter 11 long before they get 2% of the Market share.
If one wants to avoid Microsucks, go Linux.
Ubunto is pretty much a turn key system. With WINE you can run most of your Win Apps so you needn’t spend a fortune on new software that duplicates the software you already have.
I will say that Ubunto is a little weak on some of the games. I run a dual boo system because my favorite games are Windoze based and I haven’t had any luck getting them to run right under Linux. So I run Ubunto for the web and windoze for my games.
This article reads like an infomercial. It misrepresents the basic problem with Microsucks, which is that 75% of computer people HATE Microsucks and loath Bill Gates ( before Gates bills you). The Malware written to screw over Windoze is an indirect attack on Mr. Gates. It is also an attack on a big, ugly, evil monopoly.
Google will suffer the same fate if they get as big as Microsucks.
Most of the pimple faced geeks that write malware for Windoze do it because Microsucks is such a foul, disgusting POS corporation. So the geeks see themselves as Knights in shining armor slaying the Mirosucks Dragon.
Wait until they start in on Google, which is just as foul and disgusting of a POS corporation as Microsucks. They will have the kernel to work with so it could get vicious.
Linux is left alone because if you want to hack Linux, the Linux people will help you, then put you to work. No money but MASSIVE amounts of ego-bo and netcred.
http://www.trybuntu.com/
Better then Chrome.
The BEST OS ever was Geoworks Ensamble which was murdered in the crib by Microsucks. Gates saw Geoworks as a threat and Ensamble as a Windows killer, so he used the same market tactics that Standard OIL did to put them under. This was back in the Mid 80′s IIRC, just before DOS 5.0 morphed into Windows 3.0 Ensamble was decades ahead of it’s time, but they were a start-up and had no Capital. So Gates, who was a multi-billionaire from DOS, gave away copies of Win 3.0 to keep Geoworks broke. He eventually ( two years, IIRC) drove them out of business, then Windoze went from free to 199.99 $US. Any OS is worth 50 bucks max. There are so many free ones out there, it’s like paying for a hooker at a Grateful Dead concert.
TO: chuck, et al.
RE: Heh
Not that I’d expect Google, an already proven opponent to freedom, from put THAT idea ‘aside’.
And not that I’d expect ‘Charlie’ to explain such to US.
I have to wonder how much money Charlie has ‘invested’, directly or indirectly, in Google.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.....sorry Charlie.....]
Chrome is not MS killer, but Open Office approach may be. You can Google it, ( open office . Org ) it just came out and is proven system to replace MS Office…and its free. There are several more apps coming out to replace MS products, all free and stable just like Open Office. These are developed over many years to be a system, and not bolt ons like MS tends to be.
Egad. Chuck, Chuck, and Charley. Is your other brother Daryl? I don’t think Chuck P understood what Chuck or Charlie were saying. This is about how this is going to play out, not what’s good, bad, or indifferent. Embedded means everything from your Blackberry to your microwave. Microsoft will continue to own the PC market, but that leaves a lot of gadgets that are smart enough to run apps. This is what Google might move in on. But even if they don’t, it doesn’t mean Microsoft gets it by default. What OS does your wii run?
As these gadgets keep getting smarter, there’s more on an incentive to furnish them with a real OS, and open them to apps. That’s what this is all about. When your dishwasher runs linux (yes, I’m serious), that means you can fiddle and twiddle with the cycles and then set it up to run at 2 am or whenever the power company wants in exchange for a break on the power price.
It’s coming. And no, it’s not a communist plot, although there are a lot of linux commies. As far as I’m concerned, anyone willing to write software for free is more of a useful idiot.
I have been using the g chrome browser…just the last few days….So far it is a whole lot better than Microsoft Explorer…I got sick of the constant upgrades and and slowing of the browser from both Microsoft and my virus protector…We will see in the long run, but so far so good…seems like a good product.
I’ve never been impressed by Google’s attempts at software to be honest. Their search engine – fantastic. Everything else…hmmmm.
I tried so hard to like Google Calendar but at the end of the day it’s just not well designed and doesn’t work properly. Every tried syncing recurring appointments from Outlook to it? Good luck. The same goes for the rest of their “office” suite. As for Chrome the browser, I hated it. Nothing new, nothing particularly advantageous about it…and no smooth scrolling (despite this being 2009).
I’ve tried much of what they have to offer over the years and they’ve yet to wow me. So I’m not holding my breath for a Google operating system. Besides, I’m loving every square inch of Windows 7 and wouldn’t swap it for anything.
It’s fashionable (nerdily so) to bash Microsoft and pretend that they don’t write great software – and yes, they have put out a few turkeys – but their new OS is the best ever, I have never found anything as good as Outlook for organizing my business scheduling and Visual Studio remains the best development environment for coders bar none, what’s more their Express editions are free.
By the way the notion that a new Windows box will be infected within minutes when connected to the internet is just pure poppycock. I can’t believe people are still making this ridiculous claim. I’ve exposed many a new Windows install to the internet without any virus software at all and in over 10 years of Windows use I have not had ONE virus infection.
35. alex:
Chrome is not MS killer, but Open Office approach may be. You can Google it, ( open office . Org ) it just came out and is proven system to replace MS Office…and its free. There are several more apps coming out to replace MS products, all free and stable just like Open Office. These are developed over many years to be a system, and not bolt ons like MS tends to be.
Show me the Open Office replacements for:
Outlook
One Note
Then I’ll take seriously your claim that Open Office replaces Microsoft Office.
There’s a real opportunity here.
The first netbook that launched (asus eee 701) shipped with linux only. And they sold like hot cakes. Microsoft responded and responded decisively. Now the netbook prices have crept up, while the price of the actual hardware components has dropped.
Finally the ARM guys have gotten off their rears and are joining the fray. This is the “second wave”, likely with prices starting ~$150 perhaps even down to $100. Microsoft has no real answer here. Windows CE isn’t windows, it’s more an embedded toy with poor multi process functionaly, and any costs cut into the profit margins.
So no, perhaps google chrome OS itself isn’t anything revolutionary, but looking at what it enables and what it accompanies, it could possibly be a game changer.
JasonS, your opinion about visual studio being the best is definitely YOUR OPINION. If anything Microsoft has done a ton of disservice to developers by subtly and not so subtly ignoring/breaking compatibility and standards. They do this with their c/c++ compiler, they tried to do it with Java.
As for free sofware guys being useful idiots…I develop cross platform high performance commercial apps which leverage much of the BSD/LGPL libraries available. We’re a very small shop and we throw money back into the open source community when we start to make a profit.
The best open source counterpart to outlook is Thunderbird. WTF is One Note?
42. Brian:
JasonS, your opinion about visual studio being the best is definitely YOUR OPINION. If anything Microsoft has done a ton of disservice to developers by subtly and not so subtly ignoring/breaking compatibility and standards. They do this with their c/c++ compiler, they tried to do it with Java.
Well if there’s a better IDE than Visual Studio I’ve yet to hear about it. I’ve tried dozens. I know programmers who HATE Microsoft who will nonetheless concede that nothing beats it. Even if you don’t think it the best, there is no denying that it’s a fantastic piece of software. Why not peruse a few C/C++ forums and see what people think?
43. Strawman:
The best open source counterpart to outlook is Thunderbird. WTF is One Note?
Thunderbird is an email client, so perhaps it’s a counterpart to Outlook Express but NOT the full Outlook program. I use it to handle all of my personal and business scheduling – I’ve got calendars for 12 employees on it and they work better than anything else I’ve tried. It’s a joy to set up and alter schedules on it and I can set employee’s schedules side by side for comparison. It’s recurring appointment handling is perfect. I love it.
One Note, by the way, is a fantastic little program which allows you to create rough notes for a project comprised of any number of clippings and information sources. It’s a great multi-purpose application and I haven’t seen anything quite like it or as good for what it does. I use it all the time, couldn’t be without it now!
The issue is both technical and consumer spending. Technically, bigger and more power-hungry CPUs in laptops create more and more heat, and less and less laptop life. It’s believed by many Toshiba laptop owners that heat kills those notebooks within two years. Higher clock speeds, more power means more heat. Consumers are not happy spending all that money for laptops that need replacing every few years, even for lower cost Windows machines (Apple Laptops are even more pricey).
This means that consumers are predisposed to want less powerful machines that give off less heat, have longer battery life, and are more reliable. With the recession in full bore, and huge issues with consumer spending (likely down for years) things are changing radically. As noted above, Netbooks have crept up in price, quite a bit, and Microsoft just can’t compete at the very low end given their license cost.
Moreover, technically Linux-based systems can be tuned for lower power, storage needs, vs. Windows 7 which is basically all MS has. With price points equal to the Windows license, i.e. $50 making a difference in consumer sales, given recessionary spending habits.
Also, Google seems maxed out in growth on search, they’ve closed down their radio advertising booking service, and a few other areas. Google is not any more well placed for mature, non-growth business than Microsoft. They seem (Android Cell Phone operating system, Google Docs, etc.) to seek growth in other areas. I would not be shocked at a “Google Netbook” offered through Wal-Mart and Best Buy in concert with some manufacturer: Asus, HP, Toshiba, Sony etc. The idea being to blast low-cost netbooks (pioneered btw by the One Laptop Per Child project) out to consumers at prices around $100-$175. Appliances that do basic web surfing, e-mail, and basic office docs. Aimed not at business pros but consumers.
Why would Google release a new Linux-OS/Distro? I mean, what’s in it for them, how do they make money? My guess, their own branded laptops, cheap, Google acting as a mini-Apple, i.e. software integrator, though with much lower margins.
That is the real story of Google Chrome, a low-cost competitor to Apple.
Anecdotally, the Apple Store nearest me in SoCal, a region afflicted by over 11% unemployment, was booming. Though nearly all customers were female and under 40, a big change from even a few years ago where neither condition would have applied.
I just can’t be bothered even to try Google’s apps other than the search engine, and I tend to use Scroogle for privacy anyway. I don’t want to get sucked into the Googleverse; moreover, I frequent areas where net access is slow, intermittent, or non-existent, so net-only doesn’t work for me.
Chrome might make real money in cellphones, but there are big or odd applications that people rarely use but occasionally must. If Chrome doesn’t run it, they don’t run Chrome.
What that tells you is that they’re the only ones who haven’t been laid off in significant numbers. That, and they tend to favor form over substance. There are two kinds of people in this world who you can’t talk sense to; the global warmitarians, and the Apple cultists. It’s not a company, it’s a religion.
Heh. My first real computer was an IBM System/370. I wrote programs in APL. I’m one of the teeny tiny minority of people who actually use a computer for computing. I (heart) Fortran.
I recall the day I first knew Sun was headed for the dustbin of history. The fairy godmother of procurement had just dropped off a shiny new Sun workstation. I opened the boxes and started to assemble the creature. I actually had to crack open the system case and install the hard drive and optical drive myself. Then I had to install and configure the operating system, which did not come preinstalled. WTF? The system box had two ethernet ports, and I had to go through a trial-and-error process to figure out which device label went which physical port (the label had to be typed into some /etc file). None of this was beyond me, but why on earth would Sun think they could expand their customer base with this kind of business? In the end I had a workstation which was incompatible with 90% of the software on the market and crunched my numbers no faster than a PC costing half as much.
FWIW I think Mozilla is awesome, I use Firefox and Thunderbird constantly and find their functionality and stability far exceeds Explorer and Outlook. I can understand why someone [#44 JasonS] who thinks of a computer as some kind of enterprise secretary would have different needs, though.
I wouldn’t exactly say I love Microsoft, but Windows XP seems to be the least evil operating system I’ve used. I’ve programmed on everything from mainframes (IBM and Cyber) to pocket calculators (HP-65!), I’ve used enterprise unixes on various workstations and servers (Solaris and Irix), I’ve installed Linux in various incarnations starting with Slackware 1.09 (I’ve got Personal Ubuntu on my Windows desktop) — and I hate Apple. Apart from the mainframes and HP-65, I’ve never had an OS that didn’t lock up from time to time.
But evolution is good. I’m looking forward to playing with Google’s OS. The open source movement has really progressed significantly in the past few years, to the point where I look for an open source alternative first when I am looking for new software. (I love using R, the statistics package. The interface is still a bit clunky, but the output is fabulous.) Maybe the Chrome OS will make the grade.
BBB
Chuck, as I said, I knew I could depend on you. Not only are you sure to bring in an amusing, whites-showing-all-the-way crazy-uncle riff, but Malone likes it when I get lots of comments, and you’ll add ten percent to any thread on your own.
Strawman, I can think of two things that Chrome-the-OS has to offer over Ubuntu and Firefox: first, Ubuntu, like most distys, has every bit of free software ever made installed on it. This will be a Mom operating system, with only the things needed to set up a laptop or small computer. One that did nothing but show a good browser and not get viruses would be perfect for my 74 year old mother, or really does nothing but play solitaire, some web stuff, and read email with her computer. (Finding something that was robust and didn’t need me to tech-support it every couple of weeks is what started me to becoming a Mac convert.)
Second, while FF is a lot more stable than it used to be, it still starts to suck badly as the number of tabs, and amount of javascript running, increases. Chrome-the-browser has architecture advantages, plus as a Google product, I’d think the QA would be considerably better.
Now, would you, or John Moore, or I like it as our everyday environment? I’d bet not, at least without a lot of hacking. But as a hack-free environment for small CPUs and little old ladies, I suspect it will be pretty good.
I must be a useful idiot because I’ve created free fonts, free cursors and free windows GUI skins in the past. GAHHHHHHHHHH! I iz st00pid. *smacks self*
My favorite Browser is Opera [has been for years even when I had to 'pay' for it]. Mozilla-Firfox is my second favorite and I.E. is a hunk of crap that I only use for windoze updates and to surf a few rare websites that only work properly on I.E.
Opera is a tweak-addict’s dream. he-he-he
48. bbb,
I agree about XP. Vista is a ‘control freak’s’ worst nightmare. All of my old XP tweaks don’t work on Vista. :\
45. whiskey,
My Sony Vaio lasted 5 years before it ‘died’ on me. It would get so hot I couldn’t even put it on my friggin’ lap! I actually had to buy a laptop vent-thingy so I could put it on my lap.
My Gateway laptop runs hot too. It’s only around two years old and I’m constantly making back-ups to my external hard-drives [I own 5 external hard-drives for back-ups, I double up my back-ups to be on the safe side]. My 3 desktop computers sit upstairs in my office but I only have my newest Dell connected to the internet. I’ve been putting off changing the cmos battery but, so far, it hasn’t crashed even though I’ve been getting that bleepin’ message to change it for over a year now. ha-ha
44. JasonS: Though not “Open Office” there are replacements for your apps. I understand what you mean, though, especially about Visual Studio. But it is possible to replace Outlook, and you may like the open source OneNote replacement as well. Have a peek.
To replace Outlook, try one of these:
Evolution
Kontact
Lightning
Make special note on each of what “groupware” servers they connect to, including MS Outlook. (!!!)
To replace One Note, try Baskets:
Regards
54. Ditto,
Thank you for the links! I downloaded Open Office a couple months ago but haven’t gotten around to installing it and ‘playing’ with it yet.
A replacement for Outlook would be very handy. New toys! YAY!
Charlie, Ubuntu fits on a CD, and thus can easily fit on a $10 thumb drive. It’s kind of pointless to strip that down much further, because even a phone will have several gig of flash. As for your criticisms of FF, they’re valid, but not show-stoppers. But if Google wants to make something better, great.
36. Strawman:
And no, it’s not a communist plot, although there are a lot of linux commies. As far as I’m concerned, anyone willing to write software for free is more of a useful idiot.
There’s an unexpected connection between Marxist ideology and the phenomenon of computer bloatware. It’s not so much a communist plot, as it is a consequence of blindly applying Marxist model building epistemology to computer software design.
The proximate cause of bloatware is object-oriented programming: it’s counter-integration by nature, and it results in programs that are many times larger and slower than integrated procedural programs.
Object-oriented programming was invented by Kristen Nygaard, a Norwegian mathematician. According to a co-worker of Nygaard’s, “It [object-oriented programming] was originally thought of as a socialistic movement.”, from Nygaard’s obituary in the San Jose Mercury News, August 14, 2002.
If you contrast the principles of integration used in object-oriented programming with those used in procedural programming, it emerges that OOP doesn’t scale as well, eventually collapsing due to a total loss of control information — the so-called “principle of information hiding” when taken to the limit, results in an eclipse of system state information. In other words, OOP contains the seeds of it’s own destruction through a process of incremental blindness.
57. Kim:
SPOOKY! :SHOCK:
Intel is just one of many players in embedded processors. I’ve done embedded stuff for years and haven’t used an Intel processor since the ’80s.
Try Eclipse for Java, or Sun Netbeans for Ruby.
Eclipse is open source (originally provided by IBM), supports over 20 languages, and is constantly being improved.
At my day job, I would estimate Eclipse + Java gives me 20x the productivity I had with C (and I was a C wizard). Eclipse itself probably increases Java productivity 2-5X.
There’s embedded, and there’s embedded. Most microcontrollers aren’t suitable for running any kind of OS; they’re just simple controllers. Then there are the 32-bit ARM and AVR32 and MIPS, and Coldfire, etc. Some of them are, and some of them aren’t suitable. Intel could very easily move in on the high end that can run an OS if they wanted to. But as it stands, you’re right, they don’t seem that interested.
As for all of the 8 and 16 bit PICs and AVRs and even the 8051, Intel’s lost that market for good. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
BTW, FWIW, AMD has an interesting chip called the “elan”, which is a complete 486-compatible microcontroller on one chip. It’s not a real hot seller, but it’s used in some embedded apps where i86 compatibility is necessary. Another possibility for Intel would be to make a complete P-I or P-II class microcontroller that would be somewhat like the ARM9 in size and power and power consumption, but be i86 compatible. That might give them a niche, but Microsoft would have to make an edition (reedition?) of windows to work with it. Since linux works fine on ARM with MMC, there wouldn’t be an advantage to this with linux.
There are two kinds of people in this world who you can’t talk sense to; the global warmitarians, and the Apple cultists. It’s not a company, it’s a religion.
I would guess that a large proportion of Mac users and Apple “cultists” as you call them are attracted to Apple first and foremost because of their fashion appeal and styling.
They certainly have the fashion-conscious gay guy market cornered. Walk into any Starbucks in Chelsea or the West Village here in New York and you’re confronted by a sea of open laptop lids with the glowing Apple logo. It’s eerie.
Those terminally afflicted by fashion and cannot bring themselves to own anything but a Mac. In my business I get to see inside a lot of New York apartments and high-end super-trendy pads are almost certain to contain copious amounts of Apple equipment, especially if the place is predominantly white in color. I see these super-swanky all-white penthouse condos that look like something out of a science fiction movie and I just know that I’m going to see a brilliant white Mac system on the white desk in the corner, complete with all the brilliant-white Apple trimmings. These people cannot bring themselves to own computer equipment of any other brand. If they did, their pretentious friends would probably mock them.
I can understand why someone [#44 JasonS] who thinks of a computer as some kind of enterprise secretary would have different needs, though.
LOL – what is an “enterprise secretary”? And who said I use computers just for business? Like most people in business, I rely on them to make my life easier, but that’s not all I do with them. I make music too and program as a hobby, although it’s great to have the skills to write programs tailored for my own business, for instance I just wrote a program in C which goes through my exported Outlook data and creates a neat little report which I use to invoice clients and do my books at the end of the week. But I’m also writing an app for guitar players too, which is purely a fun thing. I’m completely fascinated by computers and have been since my Commodore 64 days but primarily, they’re a tool to me.
54. Ditto:
44. JasonS: Though not “Open Office” there are replacements for your apps. I understand what you mean, though, especially about Visual Studio. But it is possible to replace Outlook, and you may like the open source OneNote replacement as well. Have a peek.
To replace Outlook, try one of these:
Evolution
Kontact
Lightning
Make special note on each of what “groupware” servers they connect to, including MS Outlook. (!!!)
To replace One Note, try Baskets:
All look very good and interesting in their own right, especially if you’re not looking to pay for such a program, but I don’t think any of them are Outlook replacements, particularly with regard, say, syncing my calendar and contacts to a Blackberry, which I have to do a few times a day. Baskets looks good though.
Kim, on the OOP front, that’s simply not correct. OO programs, correctly built, have smaller code bases and can be at least as fast an efficient as conventional programming. I participated in rebuilding the OS/400 rebuild in pure OO C++, and the code base was about one quarter the size, and had more device support, than NT, the contemporary Windows OS.
What is true is that a sufficiently talented programmer can write crap in any language.
As far as OO being “socialistic”, I’m not sure which I think is sillier: the original claim, or people whom read it and took it seriously. If we just insist on trying to match political philosophy with software designs, though, I’d think the OO approach — with autonomous, loosely-coupled objects, grouped into classes on by their actual capabilities rather than by some rigid outside structure imposed from above — is more analogous to a libertarian capitalistic meritocracy than to socialism.
Jason, I’ve got to admit that the lack of Outlook and OneNote strikes me as a positive advantage.
Strawman is working so hard here to stop people making their own minds up. You’d even think he was in someone’s pay.
So go on, folks, defy him: make your own minds up. True he won’t like it, but there you go. Just another Microshaft lover getting steamed up that Bill’s billions might get dented.
I wouldn’t trust any Google apps to run on my computers. Remember the fine print on their user agreements that said the rights for anything produced or transmitted on their software automatically belong to Google or something like that?
65. Charlie (Colorado):
Kim, on the OOP front, that’s simply not correct. OO programs, correctly built, have smaller code bases and can be at least as fast an efficient as conventional programming.
I respectfully disagree. OOP code by its nature produces larger object code than functionally equivalent procedural code, due to the added indirection that comes from object encapsulation, and the consequent need for data accessor functions.
I did a study to compare the efficiency of accessor functions in simple arithmetic benchmarks on nine different CPU’s (Intel and PowerPC family CPU’s). I timed the performance and disassembled the object code to see what the compiler was generating.
Here are the essential results: accessor functions are 3 to 18 times slower (depending on the CPU) than directly fetching data from a memory location. And that’s just for one layer of encapsulation. It isn’t a stretch of the imagination to consider the performance hit for nested objects in a large scale application, where lower function density also means more code cache misses.
If I may anticipate an objection: while it is true that some compilers will compensate for OOP inefficiency by inlining accessor code, so that the code runs as fast as directly fetching a memory location, this is a property of some compilers and not a property of object-oriented programming methodology as such.
Some people also miss the dual nature of source code, it actually runs on two computers: first in your mind, then on the machine. A comprehensive review of OOP efficiency needs to take into account the extra work inherent in understanding OOP code, since OOP muddies it’s own waters by making objects opaque.
66, dude. You’re perfectly welcome to go google “linux”, and work your way to the distro of your choice, and then download it for free, load it, and use it. I did. I ran SuSE on my desktop for years. Be my guest. Knock yourself out. There’s no reason why anyone with an i86 box of any sort has to use one byte of Mickeysoft for anything.
But don’t sit there using windows, and then bitch about how it’s all a big conspiracy.
And 67, that’s an extremely important point that got lost in all of the background noise. That’s the main reason why enterprises will never use Google (but may use linux with an in-house server). That’s also why I’ll never use Google for anything where privacy might matter. You gotta be out of your mind to turn valuable data over to anybody like that.
And FWIW, Mickysoft was heading there several years ago with their “trusted computing” thing. They wanted to own your data. Fortunately, most IS people saw right through that, and it never went anywhere.
Business or personal, you’re nuts to sign your data over to anyone, no matter how good a deal it appears to be. This goes for Facebook and the social networking sites, as well. Most people have no idea how much personal information they have and who has access to it.
If you value your privacy, keep it on your local hard drive, encrypted. If you absolutely have to, send it over the internet encrypted. And don’t, whatever you do, put it on a public anything. It’s like letting your partner take porn videos of you, and then handing them out on the streetcorner. Dumb.
Kim: is that study available? I’d like to read it.
In any case, though, I’m old enough that I remember when “structured programming” was the new idea that was far too inefficient. As you suggest with OO, part of the eventual solution was for compilers to get smarter. C++ inlined accessors with modern compilers in non-virtual functions are exactly as fast as direct access, because the generated code is direct access. Virtual functions are slower, because of the indirection, of course.
Another part of the issue though is that CPU cycles are cheap and people are expensive. That’s compounded by creeping feature-itis, the thing that made Microsoft Word so annoying for someone who just wants to type a damn letter, but if we hold the actual implemented function constant, it takes a lot less time to build those functions in an OO world. I now tend to write most everything I’m building in Ruby or Python; there’s no question the same functions would be immensely faster in execution if I built them in C, but on the other hand, I can write a program in a hundred lines of Python that would take 10K lines in C.
Strawman:
It’s like letting your partner take porn videos of you, and then handing them out on the streetcorner. Dumb.
Damn right. What do you think paysites are for?
TO: Charlie (Colorado) Marting
RE: Amusement
I couldn’t care less what ‘Malone’ thinks. You might have guessed that from how much I ‘care’ about what YOU ‘think’.
By the way….
….if you want to talk about ‘crazy’…..
….when did YOU do anything for US? Anything, for example, like laying your life on the line for the rest of US?
Crazy enough for you? Or are you truly ‘gutless’?
[Note: Be advised. You're the one who brought up the concept of 'crazy'.]
So…..
….tell US, what have YOU done for US?
I mean besides sitting on your fourth-point-of-contact and writing what, in my honestly held opinion, amounts to ‘drivel’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. In a combat environbment, you’d be something less than a ‘cook’. And….there’s a goodly chance we’ll see such an environment amongst US in the not too distant future….given the way Obama’s ‘working’……
P.P.S. I’d love to join you and Jed and others tonight, but I’ve other obligations to attend to…..
71. Charlie (Colorado):
Below is a link to that accessor function study. The first 4 pages have the gist of it, with the actual measurements and source code following. Thanks for your interest!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17447288/AccessorEfficiency1998
Re the OO debate… there is no question in my mind that OO, used properly (not with deep hierarchies, for example) provides dramatic increase in programmer productivity.
I’ve been programming since the days of Fortran II, and used a lot of languages and paradigms. I still program in assembly language and C on machines too small to run Java (my current primary OO language).
In the case of Java (a strictly typed OO language), the advantages of OO include a model that matches very well with IDE’s, multiplying the programmer’s productivity.
Opaqueness of code is not a problem with OO unless you don’t have the source, and that’s no different than not having the source of your favorite C or Fortran or whatever libraries.
Strawman:
“Remember Corel Linux? It was a nice, neat package that included WINEed versions of Wordperfect and Draw. It worked flawlessly, and was more user-friendly that windows. But it was a distro.”
Yes, the memories… I ran Corel for a good year before they decided to drop the Linux line.
But why do we need their Draw when we got our GIMP?
Though I’ve gone thru a variety of distros, I’ve been pretty solid with openSuse (desktop and laptop).
But I’ve come across a couple, though not advertised for netbooks specifically, do darm well on my mini Acer Aspire One. The current allstrar is LinuxMint-7, with runnerup being CrunchBang.
Both are built from Debian/Ubuntu, both suckup very little resources (unlike openSuse 11.1 on my laptop). Both are quite speedy!
And even better, LinuxMint-7 comes with all the restricted codecs, so out of the box you’ve got most all multimedia working just fine – I didn’t need to go searching for bunches of dependencies…
Only thing I didn’t care for with CrunchBang is it’s windows manager, Openbox…
But I’m sold enough with LinuxMint-7 on the mini, it may soon end up on my laptop. It’s a very nice distro!
I spent weeks looking for an ISO of Google Android or Google Chrome, it’s plain not ready for us geeks to look at.
I found another showed some potential for minis, xPUD, but development seems to be a bit show.
Me, 4 computers with some flavor of Linux 3 of the 4. I still don’t know why I keep a Windows box, there’s an app I use called PlayOnLinux that makes WINE setup for a Windows app a total piece of cake! Yup, I’ve got IE 6 & 7 running on WINE – but don’t use that crap.
My main use for wine/PlayOnLinux is to run some sample test engines I purchased to get ready for LPI certification testing.
Now that I’ve bragged up Linux enough, here’s an UN-OS tip for all:
Regardless of OS, most minis and laptops need additional cooling, especially if you’re like me and let everything run 24/7.
Aside from that, Linux has come a long ways in the 8-10 years I’ve been running it!
And I already saw Win XP doesn’t belong on a mini.
-Pat
http://linuxmint.com/
http://crunchbanglinux.org/
TO: Charlie (Colorado) Martin, et al.
RE: Speaking of Google ‘Chrome’
Here’s some interesting observations.
Charlie, you can trust Google all you like. I think I’ll keep my data to myself.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[External Security is watching you, via Chrome....]