Tag: Microsoft
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Computer programming centre-right lovers of Swedish meatballs
According to YouGov (the UK’s largest polling company) that is what typical lovers of Linux are – though it’s based on just 272 individual profiles (out of 200,000 or so members of YouGov’s panel). Oh, and they are blokes. More at https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/Linux/demographics (YouGov made at least some of their profiling data available online this morning […]
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Wanted: a better C++ book
I first taught myself C++ back in 1993 – using Borland’s Turbo C++: a great product I had lots of fun with. After that I moved on Microsoft’s Visual C++ (it was their unilateral cancellation of my subscription that marked a key stage in my disillusionment with Redmond). In those days C++ was simple – […]
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Microsoft versus Linux: did we win after all?
At the end of John Le Carre’s Smiley’s People George Smiley is congratulated for having triumphed in his life’s struggle with Karla, the eminence grise of the KGB and told “George, you won”, to which the British spymaster, perhaps shamed by his need to adopt his opponent’s tactics of threat to the innocent replies “Did […]
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Do desktop computers have a future?
The market for desktop computers is in desperate trouble (and that for laptops not much healthier) – the latest sign being the decision to take Dell private. The issue is not that we don’t need desktops and laptops anymore, but rather that we do not need new ones: while Moore’s Law continues to increase the […]
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Proposals for a new English ICT curriculum
This morning’s Times carries an full page report – on page 3 no less (subscription required) – of the British Computer Society’s (BCS) proposals, on behalf of the Education Department, for a new ICT curriculum. In fact the newspaper report seems have been injected with more than a little bit of spin – The Times says that […]
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The year of Linux on the desktop?
For many who work or research in the industry, desktop computers have an “end of history” feel about them. The improvements in technology that allow chip makers to double the number of transistors in a given area of silicon every 18 – 24 months are still there but “Moore’s Law” as we understand it – […]
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Why choice in software matters … a story from the real world
Ten years ago today something happened that has had a significant impact on many millions of people across the world … Mozilla 1.0 was released. Above all else Mozilla, and it’s leaner, fitter, offspring, Mozilla Firefox, is the most important piece of free (as in freedom) software ever produced. For sure, it stood on the […]
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How much control can Microsoft exert in the development ecosystem?
It’s a long time – over a decade – since I last used a Microsoft development tool. For what it’s worth, I quite liked Visual C++ back then, but in the middle of my subscription (in 1998 if I remember correctly) Microsoft just tore up the contract and offered me something of less use. The […]
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Odd looking Microsoft logo
Is it just me who thinks that Microsoft’s cloud computing logo reminds them of Ubuntu? I cannot believe that Microsoft feel so threatened by Ubuntu and Canonical that they have done this deliberately, but it still seems like a very odd choice to me. PS: Remind me never to use OS X to write blog posts – this […]
cartesian product ... stuff about computing mostly 