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rbanffy
194,611karma·63,760submissions·March 12, 2008
about
Seasoned software developer, proficient in Python, Java. Less proficient in Ruby and Lisp. A bit rusty in C and C++. Learning Erlang very slowly. Also a computer collector and restorer, lover of 8-bit computers, mainframes and interesting Unix workstations.
email: username at that google mail thing
http://about.me/rbanffy
https://linkedin.com/in/ricardobanffy
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/rbanffy; my proof: https://keybase.io/rbanffy/sigs/HtF1uAf_RNpwIkNP1-YGWP_-3doWV6S5Cc1KywXeLYo ]
recent activity (63,760 total)
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"This may be inaccurate, but this is a fact of life." Please decide. Something can't be a fact of life and also be inaccurate.
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Actually, it's self-serving stupidity.
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"and the original project is still around - completely free" Also more or less irrelevant when compared to its competition. As much as I respect the BSD stack and folks - they rock - the BSD operating…
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"why should I invest my own free time in a project that could be subverted from bringing freedom to its users?" More important, why should I invest company resources on software that could be used to …
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"but never to use in a commercial environment" You must be kidding, right? I have 2700+ Linux boxes in our 4 data-centers and I am quite sure we are not playing with those machines. We also have a who…
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"Dishonesty is a losing strategy in the long run, and no one is likely to try it." Erm... Microsoft?
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"I think the same about Ruby/RoR, it just seems like a perfect crowd/match for "web designer turned scripter" mindset" And that is probably one of the greatest strategic weaknesses of Rails - it will …
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It's not about doing stuff in platform A that can't be done in platform B. It's about delivering things faster than your competition, something that can't be done if you use the very same tools they u…
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Agree. I let the programmer write code and the designer create the looks. Hiring one to do both is a cost-cutting measure I am not ready to take
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Won't let programs share a single in-process object the way proper threading support would.
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"PHP will always be better for the "web designer turned scripter" set" It all depends on who you want to build your web applications, the guy who knows how to build them or the guy that knows how they…
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I am not sure. Rails seems far better positioned than PHP for future growth. This means PHP will peak and Rails will surpass it eventually.
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As much as I appreciate the momentum behind Rails, I cannot stop reminding me that if I go with the herd and do whatever most people are doing I will have to find my competitive advantages in places o…
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"best expressed in the BASIC programming language"?! Come on! Do we still pay attention to this guy? Even if it were best expressed in BASIC, but early 70's BASIC cannot even express 70's BASIC. Not t…
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That's about all the good I could see coming from this marriage. I hope Sun gets back to its feet by itself.
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And it's so ironic that people who were not married to x86 architectures enjoyed 64-bit computing a full decade before it became mainstream (as in "you could order a box from Dell")... And that Sun ha…
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There is one nice way to boost Sun's survivability: to get the server room rid of Windows boxes - a segment where Sun can't compete. To deploy a solution that currently runs on Linux/x86 on a SPARC/So…
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Because Linux is (and will be for the foreseeable future) licensed under GPLv2, which is incompatible with software under v3. There are also some issues on driver architecture that make ZFS and the Li…
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The notion that child abuse would end because there would be no market for commercial child abuse is a stupid idea. It's also the kind of idea that so frequently bubbles up in law enforcement: the era…
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They are a hardware company. Why would they want people to clone their hardware is beyond me. The IBM PC was cloned and the result is that IBM is a relatively minor player in the PC arena and one that…
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CDDL is already free. I would love if it were GPLv3, but, again, this wouldn't help Linux a bit.
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Reminds me of the day Compaq announced they bought DEC... Evolution needs diversity.
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The problem is the screen. 600x1024 is the bare minimum. I use an Acer Aspire One, which is a great netbook, very responsive, runs everything I throw at it at decent, if not breathtaking, speeds, but …
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I want an OMAP-based laptop that can run off batteries for 24+ hours on a single charge, that runs Linux, emacs and Django on a decent, 800+ line screen. The way it is, the article is a series of comp…
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Well... Without a meaningful nervous system, I bet the odds are pretty low.
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Can the vetting team ask the FBI for information on an active investigation on one of its job candidates? The FBI should never answer such a question and the mere idea they ever could is a bad sign th…
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So that was the strategy: generate lots of bad impressions with Vista and then improving the perception with a somewhat better OS a short time later. Not that I dislike 7. It's really a better Vista, …
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"when he founded Fog Creek, he allowed a developer to write a custom scripting language to implement common-codebase cross-platform, rather than waiting using one of the many totally acceptable cross-…
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Hackers like to laugh, but, in this case, the joke is not very funny ;-)
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HN works flawlessly in w3 under emacs.