Re: Learning C++
In article <8f8a2a9d-e6cd-43a3-b8ce-0862cbabbccf@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, Brian Wood <woodbrian77@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 12, 8:18 pm, ta...@mongo.net (tanix) wrote:
In article <9c44dedc-1d35-4cdc-a38a-0417a8415...@j5g2000yqm.googlegroups.=
com>, Brian <c...@mailvault.com> wrote:
On Jan 12, 5:10=A0pm, James Kanze <james.ka...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 11, 10:05 pm, Ian Collins <ian-n...@hotmail.com> wrote:
There are also a lot of high quality, long standing opens
source projects as well. =A0The products my team develops use
several and they are a lot better quality than a large piece
of smelly proprietary software we have to use.
I don't know about lots; there are some reasonably good open
source projects, even if they're far from the majority. =A0
I thought about challenging the "a lot" also. The only
open source project that uses C that I like is bzip2.
I use linux and gcc, but they both have caused me some
grief. Boost and Loki I think are two C++ based, open
source projects that I think sometimes do pretty well.
There are so many others that don't do as well. Recently
I've been looking at openssl. That is really disappointing.
I tried searching for a C++ alternative but haven't found
anything. There's something called crypto++ but it doesn't
seem to have an ssl implementation. I sent an email to the
author and he said he was too busy and referred me to the
mailing list. The answer on the mailing list was to
consider using openssl. I am reconsidering openssl, but
only because beggars can't be choosers or something like
that.
Well, what I see is that people somehow underestimate the
value of something added to something.
Look at it this way. The guy(s) wrote some piece of code.
It works. It does something of value to you.
But...
As it oftent happens, it is poorly documented and quite often
poorly structured. Not necessarily a good architecture.
But...
That is ALL that is avaiable to you.
Something HAS been done.
So, what are your options?
Well, either you live with it as it is, or...
Tadaaam!
Add something of value to it and give it another spin.
If the value you have added is available to others, then
they can do the same thing.
The basic principle is care-ness. You need to CARE.
If you care, it is life affirmating.
It ADDS to the equasion.
The very radical idea of "free software" or "open source"
has basically to do with this.
Yes, it takes some inner strength to be able to afford to give
something to others without getting a penny in return.
It kinda contradicts the whole "modern world" ideology.
But...
It is not such a "stoopid" idea, just as open source approach
shows. It is alive. It does produce value. And millions of people
enjoy that value and enjoy that very feeling of not being tied
up with their hands to some mega-sucking enterprise, such as
microsoft, google or poogle.
It IS a life affirmative approach.
And a
lot of closed source is pretty poor as well. =A0(Of course, when
the projects aren't open source, it's hard to know whether
they're good, or just lucky.) =A0
Well, some companies allow you to download their software
for a free trial. Others have free on line services that
you can evaluate at your leisure. So the "hard to know"
is maybe more like it takes a little effort to figure out
if they're good or not.
I bet it would be more beneficial to reconsider the pricing issue.
Sure, free trial gives you at least something.
You don't have to shell out an arm and a leg just to see if
you like something enough to get married to it for a while.
But at the same time, one way or the other, you need to pay for
things. You need to pay for water. You need to pay for electricity.
You need to pay for food.
In today's world, software is like water or food.
And you can not expect to get something for nothing.
I would rather see Sun charging a small fee for Java
instead of giving it for free and eventually going out of business,
being bought by some sharks of Oracle, Microsoft of Google type.
You don't have to go to extremes.
Either you charge an arm and a leg or give it for free.
In an ideal world you wouldn't have to go to extremes, but
this is not an ideal world.
Understood.
But let us even attempt to look at the ways to make it more
workable. I think people just accepted the capitalist model
as some kind of ultimate reality, while paying lil or no
attention to the fact that that model eventually resulted
in what we have and that is devastation and rootless exploitation
of anyting that moves or does not.
Times have changed.
The game is different now.
Totally different.
Time for a wakeup call.
Given the pressures that
politicians face from their people to do something to help
them out of their difficult circumstances, the politicians
of countries like China and Russia will throw even large
companies like Microsoft under the bus when it comes to
issues of software piracy.
Good. I fully support that. Except I do not think what you
are saying is true.
Companies like Microsoft have been probably the biggest
disaster. Because the only thing they are interested in
is maximization of the rate of sucking.
At this very moment I am having an issue of my new box
totally locking up. My suspicion it is an OS issue.
The problem is I am working on XP and that thing is basically
abandoned. Microsoft is not likely to move a finger to fix
the problem because they are interested in making me pay
again and again and again. For the same thing.
That is why I fully support the open source approach
regardless of how "imperfect" it is, and it is getting to
be quite competitive with commercial version.
In fact, by this time, I basically have everything I need
in the open source version. What is left is more or less
"would be nice to have".
As soon as I see one of my major "would be nice to have"
implemented, I'll HAPPILY say "good buy" to Microsoft,
and add "thanks God. What a hell that was! What a nightmare!"
The on line, free model works
out best I think since control over the software is
maintained by the authors and because its free it spreads
more quickly. It is exactly what you want from a business
model perspective. Garage sales are popular where I'm
from. This is 100 times better than a garage sale because
everything is free. People need quality software that
is free just like they need decent but cheap stuff at
garage sales.
I do not agree with this "free code" idea.
Would you like to do some work for someone and not get a
piece of bread on your table?
I think this isssue is LONG due to be resolved.
We just need to start looking at it and pass our ideas
and words to politicians, employees and to each other.
With the brains of software guys I BET you there is a reasonable
solution that will allow everyone to get a benefit of it
at a MUCH more attractive prices and, at the same time,
to assure that people that do some crative work do get taken
care of. For one thing, they'll have more time to document
their code and hopefully write a better user documentation.
Because they know they are going to get paid and not merely
waste their lives away doing something for nothing.
There is no free cheese.
Brian Wood
http://webEbenezer.net
651) 251-9384
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