Hopefully we see the history of the color computer as well. Tandy was really surprising: they had three successful computer lines, all different, and all for different kinds of markets, and STILL ended up where they are.
I worked at one of their computer centers - I wasn't a great salesman either, because I didn't want to sell something to someone who didn't want it, but I did all right. They had a heyday and blew it.
I gotta admit, though: the TRS-80 series was a wonder, all told. You could legit go from a Model I to a 6000 running a full UNIX (Okay, it was XENIX, but still!)
You'd never WANT to do that - even running the 6000 on XENIX was a bad idea compared to running XENIX on an 80386, never mind that it was XENIX. This was back before SCO turned evil, anyway. But you COULD!
I think it looks okay, but noisy, and my main concern is that it adds so little to JSON - in particular, RJSON. The built-in token replacement MIGHT be nice, but... is token replacement part of the library itself? Or is that something applied elsewhere?
I've had this experience myself, with RMS. I actually was asking if the FSF had the right to assert the copyleft on bison, and sign a document asserting that Bison's open licensing applied to bison - who had the right to assert the license, which was open, basically.
As a consultant for IBM. We were trying to USE bison, and this was when MS would chase every possible avenue to sue people for violation of copyright, so it was a big deal ... and had RMS been willing to assert that the copyleft applied to bison, that the FSF actually wrote the software and applied the copyleft to its code, IBM told me that it was willing to _defend the GPL in court_. For a signature, RMS would have had the 800-pound gorilla defending the GPL. (We were also going to make a donation to the FSF to help them along, although that wasn't part of "the deal" - it was, like, "hey, you do good stuff, we're planning on putting this in the project budget next because if we can use your stuff, that helps us a lot."
And RMS first off refused to say the copyleft was assigned to bison; it did, of course, everyone knew it, but we needed the legal affirmation or it was pointless. (I can claim that I can fly, everyone knows it, but unless I'm actually airborne at some point...) Then he asked for money (less than we'd talked about budgeting internally) ANYWAY, before we'd even brought it up, if memory serves. (It's been a long time.)
... and IDEA community edition is also free. There's no reason to not choose any of the major IDEs on the basis of cost. You can get free and quite workable editions of all of them, and they're open source as well, so the "moral quandary" is avoidable unless it's artificial.
What's your definition of "proprietary?" All of the major IDEs are open-source in their free editions.
I mean, more seriously, I get it: you have a bee in your bonnet and you will find any reason possible to avoid it. VIM 4EVA and all that, raise your fist and yell.
But I wouldn't even bother with Java as any serious endeavor if I were you; a lot of employers will ask your preference of IDE just to get a sense of who you are as a programmer, and will hide their giggles when you say "I use emacs/vim/notepad++ like a BAWSSSS!" and move on to the next candidate who'll get the performance magnifier of a common and free tool.
What a strawman. I don't use Neovim with the intent of looking cool or something, but because it makes me highly productive, gives me complete control over my editing experience and I can use it anywhere, not just on powerful desktop computers with a large screen.
You actually wouldn't. You might once - but then you're counting "installing the IDE" as "using the IDE every time" and that just doesn't happen. You're also using a LOT of hyperbole, to the point where you're just plain wrong.
A few minutes for the IDE to open? Nah, bruh. Couple of seconds, and since you leave the IDE open for a while, that startup time gets to be ignored. You aren't starting the IDE, exiting the IDE, running your code, starting your IDE, exiting the IDE, running your code.
You're starting the IDE, writing, running, debugging, reaching some kind of finishing point, THEN shutting down the IDE... maybe. A lot of programmers have their IDEs open 24/7. Over a month's runtime, those three seconds opening the IDE seem (and are) irrelevant.
Billion GUI windows? Nah, bruh. Even IDEA, which has a lot of windows on initial installation, has only a few... and they're all for a point, if you, like, read them.
A second to process your keystroke? Also nonsense. Even a raspi can process faster than that. Unless you're deliberately overloading your machine, I suppose. That's always an option... but a counter to that is "... don't?"
And useless toolbars? Useless to whom? The IDEs you'll find in Java are battle-tested. The useless toolbars are hidden these days. You might not know what they're useful for, but that's not the same as being useless. If you write Java, you'll learn how useful they are.
And as a bonus, you'd ... did you say.. have to pay more money than your dorm costs? ... why?
Java has three major IDEs: IDEA, Eclipse, and Netbeans. (If you want to exclude netbeans, join the crowd. Everyone else excludes it, too.) All three have free editions that cost you ... like... literally... nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
The problem is that it's Salon - the writing is really badly biased, doesn't actually understand Libertarianism at all, and is mostly trying to smear Ron Paul.
The problem is that Libertarians have yet to explain their philosophy in such a way that non-libertarians would understand. "You don't understand" is the most common thing I hear when talking to a Libertarian. After awhile one just gets tired of it.
This is the genetic fallacy[1] -- you're claiming that the argument is bad because of its source, not its content. If you think the article misappropriates Libertarianism, show how it does that.
I'm generally in favor of the flavor of the narrative: a takedown of libertarianism is very much something I enjoy watching, but this is a horribly written article. It's a cringe-fest even I had trouble forcing my way through. The quality of writing is very poor, the points seem disjointed and unrelated. Libertarianism isn't too hard to attack in its honest form, no need for a smear piece like this.
Author defines Libertarianism as "eliminate all taxes, privatize everything, load a country up with guns and oppose all public expenditures". Not biased at all
Quite honestly the subject of "Replacing Java with Ruby/Python/..." is so complex I think it's a minefield to argue either for or against it in less than an essay.
Which organization? Product or internal app? Consulting gig or internal development? Telephone book of specs or stakeholders iteratively refining requirements? &c. &c.
It's true that I'm not writing Java any more, but the Java apps I used to write are still there making money for their owners, and none of them have called me up to say they want to do all new development in Ruby.
It's more a case of there being new kinds of opportunities afforded by a different style of development. And this is perfectly in accordance with the theory of disruptive technology put forth in "The Innovator's Dilemma."
So what was my point again? Oh yes, I agree from time to time there is talk of replacing Java, but it is a little more complex than a wholesale project-for-project replacement with all other factors remaining fixed.
If I were pitching it, I would pitch the benefits of a new way of developing software, and only when that point is made would I point out that Ruby and Javascript are tools that suit the new way more than Java.
I'd rather do that than pitch the languages and spring the "gotcha" that you'll have to change the way you develop software to be successful with the new languages.
Rails != Ruby. Play (http://www.playframework.org) successfully replicates the Rails experience in Java (finally).
What Rails did was introduce a new way of thinking about pragmatic approaches to developing CRUD web apps. While ruby apologists (I once was one!) will argue that Rails couldn't have existed without Ruby, that's simply not the case. Rails was just there first...a trailblazer. But Rails could've been written in perl, python, or even, as Play shows, Java.
Nope. That's like saying cycling pretty much is riding around on the street on sub $200 machines just because that's what most people do with a bicycle.
To you there may be relatively little Ruby that isn't used in conjunction with Rails but that is not the same thing as saying that there is very little in an absolute sense. And surprisingly, the uses outside of Rails may be the most influential in terms of its direction and future as a language, thanks to the particular circumstances of Matz and what interests him.
To cherry-pick an example, he is loathe to work on things that would have the side-effect of slowing Ruby's startup time. This is a tradeoff that is good for long-running server applications like J2EE stacks, but bad for writing scripts.
Of course, there's JRuby which goes in the other direction. We'll see what happens with that kind of thing.
