How else would they be able to slurp Linux users?
Ubuntu Linux now on Windows Store (for Insiders)
Microsoft finally confirmed that Hell has indeed frozen over – Ubuntu is at long last available from the Windows Store. Canonical's Linux distro is now available for installation on Windows Store on Insider build 16215 and higher. Windows 10 already supports Ubuntu via the Windows Subsystem for Linux, rolled out in the …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 11th July 2017 14:51 GMT m0rt
HAHAHAHAH ahhahahahhha HEEEEEEEEEE *SNORT* ha aha ha h ha haa *COUGH* HAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaaa....ha...ha...chortle...titter..*CHOKING SOUND* GUFFAW HHaHAHAHAHHAHAAHhahahahahahahahahahaha *gasps* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahaahhahahahah AHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAhahahaahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......
ahh snorlax. Thanks for that.
So glad you brought your childhood Amiga vs ST rants with you into adulthood.
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Tuesday 11th July 2017 15:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
STE?...Amateur.
If you were a true Atari person, you'd have a at least a TT or even better a Falcon.
Mines a Falcon 040 with maths co-processor and internal HDD with CubaseVST locked and loaded....most likely somewhere in the loft, next to my Jaguar with CD drive....still waiting for my VR headset to arrive mind.
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Thursday 13th July 2017 18:31 GMT Number6
"Aaah, MENSA"
That fraction of the population who are too stupid to understand what's wrong with the notion of an IQ.
No, it's that fraction that's daft enough to pay the membership fee. It's perfectly possible to have a 150+ IQ and not waste your money.
I do still remember Noel Edmonds taking the piss, starting a competing organisation he called DENSA for those who weren't smart enough, and then trying to persuade MENSA to offer a joint membership to him and his mate because the sum of their IQs was above the qualifying threshold.
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Thursday 13th July 2017 12:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: MENSA = underachiever
"Bitter, failed the test." nope, never applied to be a MENSA member but I have met a lot of them in real life and yes many were driving buses and similar jobs that showed that did not require greater inteligence than the average.
My point was that if getting a high MENSA rating does not mean you are smart enough get a job where you use your brain then what is the point.
I am sure that there a any number of people with above average intelligence that can also get high results in MENSA tests but it does not mean that the MENSA test is meaningful as a measure of intelligence or success.
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Tuesday 11th July 2017 16:49 GMT Snorlax
Re: Mensa
@Anonymous Coward: "All these MCSE's who freeze when confronted by a command line."
Uhh, Server Core and Powershell have been around since Windows Server 2008 - you might want to Google them.
It's pretty much impossible to get an MCSA/MCSE without knowing your way around a command line, but it's great to see the linux fanbois showing their ignorance. I'd post as an AC too if I was you...
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 06:21 GMT naive
Re: Mensa
For me the complexity of Powershell is mind boggling, combined with a non-intuitive syntax from hell. When Unix ksh/bash/perl is compared to a lego kit with 20 different building blocks, MS Powershell needs over thousand to make the same thing. Even after an intensive course I see my MS colleagues struggle and avoid it all together when they can, luckily there is strawberry Perl for Windows, which makes non-trivial scripting on Windows easy. To me it is unclear why a serious company like MS started making such a monstrosity like Powershell at all, whatever they make, it all has this weird complexity and unpleasantness of it. Maybe it is the difference between OpenSource and paid stuff, OpenSource is made because people have fun doing it, while a company like MS thinks they can shovel anything through the throats of their users, since their boss orders them to use it.
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 09:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Mensa
Powershell is really useful for me - it's a tool for administrators though, rather than developers so I would imagine there are circumstances in which something like Strawberry Perl would be preferable, although of course MS would push their won development tools in those cases.
I think that trying to get Powershell "to make the same thing" that people are used to doing in other shells / scripting languages is likely to be the cause of much of the frustration.
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 11:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Mensa
"For me the complexity of Powershell is mind boggling, combined with a non-intuitive syntax from hell."
Erm, no - it's basically plain English with very standard object orientated interface and scripting approaches that most modern programmers would immediately recognise.
"MS Powershell needs over thousand to make the same thing"
It's not the same thing. Powershell is a lot more powerful than ksh/bash/perl. As Powershell is fully modular, commandlets are frequently built for specific products and loaded into the environment in addition to the base functionality of the OS which might be what is confusing you. All have online help / search / autocomplete. Just use update-help and get-help if finding it difficult...
"To me it is unclear why a serious company like MS started making such a monstrosity like Powershell at all, "
Because there was a need for a modern, powerful and object orientated shell that wasn't a legacy from the 1970s...
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Saturday 15th July 2017 10:03 GMT Fluffy Cactus
Re: Mensa
With regard to Windows PowerShell: I must be very, very dumb, because I don't understand
it. Or else Windows & MSFT did not ever explain it properly.
I do not know what "very standard object orientated interface and scripting approaches" actually means.
I do remember what I could figure out all by myself: DOS 3 up to DOS 6.22, when the "help system"
actually did help. Also the Lotus 123 "Macro programming language", it make sense from just trying
it out. Worked nicely.
Those were the days when you could actually "update and re-install the operating
system" without having to re-install each and every program on your computer. In other words, those were the days when MSFT still honored that it was "YOUR COMPUTER, YOUR DATA, AND YOUR PROGRAMS", and that it was not proper or even remotely "normal" to "DESTROY YOUR DATA AND YOUR PROGRAMS" willy nilly simply because your came up with a new OS (Operating system).
The "Windows Registry" was a total and complete step away from that: Instead of MSFT honoring
YOUR DATA and YOUR PROGRAMS, it instead took the simple liberty to destroy them whenever and wherever possible. I hate them for that, and I still hate them for that. I consider MSFT still to be as
honorable as a "used car dealer repair shop" that "destroys and switches out perfectly good parts"
all in order to sell you new stuff for no good reason. May they roast in hell for that, except Satan Nutella doesn't believe in hell, or customer service or anything else.
Consider, if you will, an alternative to the "Windows Registry" approach: Every program existing currently on your computer could be "polled, analyzed, and made standardized" so that the Windows
Registry COULD EFFING REBUILD ITSELF, WITHOUT A SINGLE PROGRAM HAVING TO BE
REINSTALLED due to a change in the OS. That would be be possible by using transparent standards. INSTEAD, MSFT is effing with every computer, every user, and every program. Do you see? Can you think? Can you think this through? Consider the hours, days, nights and weeks of re-installing stuff, simply because MSFT acts like the elephantine gorilla in the china store! There is a difference between being a careful and considerate servant and a gorilla. I am sorry if I accidentally insult gorillas. MSFT is worse than gorillas, more like ISIS or DAESH or something creepy like that. Destructive is the word.
So let me ask you again: What is the "object" of "object oriented programming"? To me it is sheer and
utter mean-spirited and unnecessary obfuscation, without any good explanation available anywhere.
If you ask MSFT any questions, you are considered an ignorant customer, not worthy of attention.
Anyone who tells me different is a paid lackey of MSFT. Essentially, MSFT destroyed "personal computing" as much as possible, preventing people from fixing their own, making their own, deciding what goes on their own computers. I hate them for this.
Currently I use Windows 7. I got 2 more years. Because it's cheap, and I could not get clear info on whether my programs would work on Linux. Linux people don't want to talk about that, or else they might appear too helpful. Meanwhile, Win 8 and Win 10 is useless, unless you are a mindless gamer and/or facebook/smart-phone consumer. ("Me big indian chief, and me say: Smart-phone make people stupid!" So what if it comes across as dumb, racist and ignorant, because kernel of truth is paramount.)
I may have to go to Linux, but it is too late, because MSFT has their tentacles already around them. With MSFT, partnership means one thing: "sneaky, slowly embracing overbearing control, until you give up." The people inventing and supporting Linux are blind, because they don't see what's happening there. They are also ignorant, because they did not see that a simple
measure of basic paid marketing and support would have helped Linux greatly to become a workable alternative. Instead, they kept Linux their own little secret, that way preventing it from becoming clear, obvious and commonplace. Ask any Linux genius a question, and you can see how "annoyed they are that anyone would admit to not knowing as much as they", and thus their and Linux's independence will end because they are "too smart to be kind". They do not understand the difference between "being uninformed" and "being a complete idiot". If you refuse to properly inform your potential customers, that does not make them idiots. You'd think people could see that. But they don't.
To end this post properly, here is something timeless
from "The Who" - "My Generation"
People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Don't try to dig what we all s-s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to 'cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
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Saturday 15th July 2017 17:41 GMT h4rm0ny
Re: Mensa
>>With regard to Windows PowerShell: I must be very, very dumb, because I don't understand it. Or else Windows & MSFT did not ever explain it properly.
What do you mean they didn't explain it properly? They are obviously not going to come around to your house and sit down with diagrams. There are a number of good books and sites on Powershell. Which have you read / frequented? MS provided a lot of resources for those who are interested.
>>I do not know what "very standard object orientated interface and scripting approaches" actually means.
It means they are consistent from tool to tool. So if you want to turn an array of objects to a CSV table (attributes become columns), then you can use ConvertTo-CSV. If you want to convert the array to HTML, you can use ConvertTo-HTML and if you want to convert it to JSON objects you can use ConvertTo-JSON. And that's a trivial example, it goes beyond that into consistency of parameters and usage across a very wide range of tools. So you will see common and consistent parameters across like tools such as -DisplayError. That's what is meant by standardised interface. It means the elements you learn once you can reliably use again elsewhere. Ditto for language syntax.
>>I do remember what I could figure out all by myself: DOS 3 up to DOS 6.22, when the "help system" actually did help
DOS is hardly comparable to Powershell which has features including Exception handling, fan-out remoting and more. Also, DOS never had hover over descriptions of what every command did along with a list of acceptable parameters and their types, iirc.
>>So let me ask you again: What is the "object" of "object oriented programming"? To me it is sheer and utter mean-spirited and unnecessary obfuscation, without any good explanation available anywhere.
Object orientation allows for more flexibility and simplicity. Nearly every part of the Windows OS is exposed as an object. Therefore nearly every part of it can be managed from Powershell scripts. The modularity afforded by object orientation allows easy combining of distinct tools and adherence to the UNIX principle of 'do one thing and do it well'. For example, if I want to output a list of files and their attributes, I can take the output of ls which is an array of file and directory objects and pipe it to a tool such as ConvertTo-CSV and the latter tool will work fine because it simply uses the attributes of the passed in objects. Later, I might want to output a list of security settings and I can pipe it to the same tool (ConvertTo-CSV) and it will all just work because it's arriving as an array of objects just as before. The receiving tool doesn't need to know how to parse a list of file paths. It doesn't need to know anything about security settings. It simply accepts and works with an array of objects whatever they may be. No text mangling, no special coding. All just OO niceness.
>>Anyone who tells me different is a paid lackey of MSFT. Essentially, MSFT destroyed "personal computing" as much as possible, preventing people from fixing their own, making their own, deciding what goes on their own computers. I hate them for this.
Yeah, no. I built my own computer, I'm comfortable working around in it. I honestly don't think, based on your post, that you've taken the time to really learn how Windows works.
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 00:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Mensa
"The vast majority of MCSE's I've met are totally brainless clods."
The exams are pretty hard to game these days - lots of randomly switched selections, etc.
MCSE is a fairly involved qualification with a fair number of exams that requires a reasonable degree of knowledge so I would think it more likely they just put it on their CV without actually having it....
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 10:00 GMT h4rm0ny
Re: Mensa
>>"but I don't really consider MCSE an asset when reviewing resumes, in fact I deduct points for it"
You can value the knowledge or not, consider the qualification an asset or not. But to actually count it against someone just shows you to be a snob. Someone put in time and effort and money to try and improve their career and you consider that a minus! Not smart.
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 11:37 GMT FuzzyWuzzys
Re: Mensa
"The vast majority of MCSE's I've met are totally brainless clods."
That's because you only need to take a look around some of the certification forums to see that half the people gaining certs in MS, Oracle, CISCO, etc are simply performing verbatim regurgitation of test questions you can buy or simply rip off torrent sites.
I'd been working as an Oracle DBA for 10 years when I thought I might take my Oracle 10g certs for a laugh. I diligently studied the official cert guides, then I thought I'd find some test questions just to make sure I was ready for test day. Well let's just say that 98% of the test questions I got hold of were word-for-word identical to the actual test questions. I completed my Oracle 10g OCP exam, 80 questions in 9 minutes!! I didn't even read half the questions properly as I knew them off by heart. I'd wasted a month reading the cert guide ( plus £30 for the book! ) when I didn't need to. While I was looking for test questions I checked into a few forums and it was simply full of people just learning the test questions then taking the official tests.
Certs are a waste of time and nothing more than money spinners for the software vendors, Oracle make you take a single official course at £2500 before you can take a pro cert test. I assume MS et al are much the same. The second I'd finished my cert exams I felt cheated, I knew that anyone else who had taken those sort of multiple choice tests by groups like Pearson can't be trusted. While I had them on my CV as they ensured you get your foot in the door, I knew they're worthless as anybody with a good memory for Q&As can pass multiple choice cert exams.
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 12:15 GMT TheVogon
Re: Mensa
"That's because you only need to take a look around some of the certification forums to see that half the people gaining certs in MS, Oracle, CISCO, etc are simply performing verbatim regurgitation of test questions you can buy or simply rip off torrent sites."
The Microsoft exams at least were heavily redesigned about 5 years ago to stop that. The questions, scenarios, parameters and answers are now randomly selected and shuffled, meaning that you can no longer just learn a list of correct answers because the actual questions themselves are dynamic in content.
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Wednesday 12th July 2017 09:49 GMT keithpeter
Just think the unthinkable for a bit...
Suppose you had a proprietary operating system that was decades old and which has accumulated a fair degree of technical debt. You are finding it hard to recruit programmers and onboard them in the arcane knowledge of millions of lines of code and obscure work-arounds for problems that existed in the 90s. Part of the reason for these difficulties is the availability of a robust free/open source operating system (in fact several) that students in Universities often learn in some detail in their systems and hardware courses, *and* that many of your potential recruits have worked on extended projects deep in the grungy legacy bowels of these systems, because they can get access to the code.
Times are hard: the market is saturating, and the free/open source OSes are well entrenched in the server market and on some classes of consumer devices. All you have left is the network effect of organisations that depend on your proprietary *middleware* and very successful end user productivity software. Increasingly, you want to move maintenance and routine systems work to low cost countries in preparation to the ultimate automation of the basics.
Would you not be tempted to eliminate the maintenance cost of the underlying OS by ensuring that the middleware and productivity software could run on a 'good-enough' endpoint/client OS based on the free/open source alternatives?
Would a way of exploring this radical move be to coopt free/open source OSes into your cloud offerings and in your software distribution channels so that users become more familiar with the endpoint/client interfaces, and so that your programmers and systems people become familiar with the new metaphors?
Might be one to watch over the next decade. Canonical is after investment as evidenced by their recent streamlining. Mr Nadella was a UNIX kind of chap was he not?
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