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Fragmentation doesn't help either - which Desktop Manager to use, which distribution, and the general lack of consistency between apps.
I'm with Rob Pike on this one, who opined that if the state of the art was a clone of an O/S he helped write in the 1970's there is not much progress in software.(Rob Pike on Systems[^]).
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Heady forecasts showing Linux would become a major player on the desktop, on the server, and in embedded systems were published back in 1994
Well it took them 20 years but 2014 is surely going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
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You owe me a new keyboard. The monitor I can clean off.
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The diabolical Desktop/Window managers on Linux are what I blame.
.-.
|o,o|
,| _\=/_ .-""-.
||/_/_\_\ /[] _ _\
|_/|(_)|\\ _|_o_LII|_
\._. |\_/|"` |_| ==== |_|
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|-|-| ||LI o ||
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/_/ \_\ /__| |__\
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I started playing with Linux in the mid 1990ies - about 80 installation disks at that time. Got even my printer working! No, no plug n play, but many config files to be edited with vi or something like that...
Office was always a pain. Somewhen StarOffice was included with Suse Linux. After an update, it was no more available for free... And my files could no more be read (didn't I read something about three laws of data storage a few days ago? What's the first law? Here I met it).
Finding a Linux version which can use the Graphics card correctly is still a pain.
My last approach to Linux was some two years ago, when I thought I could use it as a server plus VMWare host system, and run virtual machines with Windows on it. Turned out to be abysmal slow; and password encoding issues for SAMBA were terrible.
Changed to Windows 7, won't consider Linux anymore a major component (a virtual machine for some special prupose could be OK).
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The NSA is funding quantum computer work that it hopes will allow it to break virtually any encryption used today — though there's no sign it's managed to crack the puzzle better than any of the other companies or agencies working on the same thing. That might be your password in that box
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This debate has raged on for a long time. In your opinion, what is the best programming language to learn as your first programming language? Why, Lisp of course. Doesn't *everyone* know that (at least the Lisp/Haskell developers do)
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Assuming that you want to be a well-rounded professional developer and not just a low-level coder in a sweat shop...
"will be the most valuable throughout a career."
"C) which language will make you the most marketable"
That's not important for the first few languages you learn.
"A) which language will provide the best conceptual foundation"
"B) which language will be the most helpful transitioning to other languages"
That's what's important in the first few languages.
Additionally, modern developers rely too heavily on IDEs (Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc.) which get in the way of learning the fundamentals of the actual languages.
I'm certainly glad that I never had to use punch cards, but I continue to prefer to use simple text editors and command-line compilers (and linkers).
My first two languages were BASIC (not VB  ) and Pascal, followed by Fortran and COBOL, then C. (Lisp and assembly came later.)
I think that Perl is an excellent first language; it may even be useful in the real world.
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I know VB has it foibles, but it was a VAST improvement on BASIC.
Or are you a fan of GOTO's, GOSUB's, Line Numbers, DATA statements and lack of local variables?
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: I think that Perl is an excellent first language; it may even be useful in the real world.
You had me up to this point (definitely agree on the IDE statement). While it's useful in the real world, Perl has got to be the poster child for "write-only language"
--------------
TTFN - Kent
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APL is much more a write only language than Perl.
TECO-10 macros came in a close second... They look awfully similar to acoustic modem line noise!
(I'm really dating myself here!)
Perl is actually quite readable.
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True - APL is in a class by itself. Now I have to look up TECO-10. My productivity thanks you.
--------------
TTFN - Kent
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TECO-10 was the text editor for the DECsystem-10 (PDP-10) timesharing system ... 1970's
Text Editor and COrrector.
It was a "blind" editor in that it didn't display what it was doing unless you asked for it.
Designed for use on hardcopy terminals, e.g. ASR-33 (10 chars/sec)
Just about any character sequence would do something!
(Other than file errors, very little was "illegal".)
There was also a TECO-11 and TECO-20 (if I recall).
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Assembly. Learn how the machine works at a nice low level so you actually understand why we have programming languages.
And frankly, assembly isn't that hard to learn. I'd say it's actually one of the easiest things to learn. What's hard about assembly is learning how to do more complicated stuff than moving bytes around. And that's where the real teaching happens.
Marc
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Sure... "Every high level language is the machine language of some virtual machine." 
I didn't really get any benefit from being introduced to assembly.
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Agreed, perhaps even maybe machine language.
Learning assembly might also resolve the issue of programming without "goto". 
Never moon a werewolf.
- Harvey
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I liked the IT curriculum I had in college in the late 1980s. The course sequence began with Pascal; the instructors acknowledged that it had little commercial value but was an excellent teaching language for the basic concepts of structured programming. After that came an "overview" course, which had students learn how to write simple "Hello, world" level programs in the languages that were in current use (for me, it was JCL, COBOL, FORTRAN, RPG and C.) After those two intro classes (which could be taken concurrently), students would branch out according to their major and interests.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Why, Lisp of course. Doesn't *everyone* know that
Nope not lisp. Paint! 
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JavaScript.
Empire of the Dev world in future.
Nothing is Impossible for Willing Heart.
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Spam. By far. Learn Spam.
And, you can eat it, too!
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Paul Hellyer, who has long insisted that aliens have visited Earth for many years, says that when aliens saw the atomic bomb they decided that we were a great threat to the cosmos. There you go, Fermi Paradox solved
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Who do you think makes iphones then? (Not area 51) 
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Cake-mix was also invented in the 40's, which is used far more often than atomic bombs.
So there's no reason for those aliens to be so judgemental.
Who do they think they are anyway? They crawled out of an ocean just like us, only because it was on the planet zrltyfloop doesn't make them special.
Anyway, if I was from a hyper advanced tool-making species I wouldn't 'give' my tech to a less advanced species because it's disrespectful and we could potentially benefit a lot more from each other if we evolved separately.
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WorldWide Telescope is an observatory on your desktop, allowing you to see the sky in a way you have never seen it before through individual exploration; multi-wavelength views; stars and planets within context to each other; the ability to zoom in and out; and the capability to create, search and view guided tours of the universe. "Eppur si muove."
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Huh. Microsoft actually did something cooler than Google for once? Amazing.
Marc
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