Doctor John wrote:
> Generally, reverse engineering mechanical hardware is easier than
> reverse engineering M$ software

You don't really have to reverse engineer it. You print it out on paper 
and look at it.

> The particular case that I used is a law firm. It's not just money, it's
> people's lives and livelihoods.

Fair enough.

> Sorry. Not a valid argument. You've confused physical format with coded
> format.

They're all coded, so I'm not sure what your point is. Formats change, 
and if you want continued access to your data, you need to periodically 
go through the pain of upgrading formats. This is true of every format.

Some formats last longer than data tends to be worth, so you really only 
see that pain when you're (say) an archeologist, but it's always there.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47f0f8da@news.povray.org...

> > And yet, I run Vista (Home Premium, even!) on a rather moderate machine.
> >  2.6 P4, 200GB harddrive, and 2.5G ram. It runs rather smoothly,
> > actually. I didn't notice any considerable performance drop from WinXP
> > to Vista.
>
> In which universe is a machine with a 200 GB HD and more than 1 GB of
> RAM considered "moderate"? That sounds pretty high-end to me...

My 3+ year old desktop is slightly higher spec'ed than that.
High end today is quad core processor, 4 GB+ memory and 1/2 TB disk space.

I'm currently speccing a new desktop.
Quad core 2.4
4 GB memory
400GB HDD
8800 GT graphics card
Total price - R9500 (+-)
That's just under 600 pounds at current exchange rate.

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Invisible wrote:
> How many people use a supercomputer to read their email? ;-)

Anyone using gmail? :-)

> [Depending on your definition of "supercomputer". Compared to the 
> Commodore 64 that I started out with, the dual-core multi-GHz thing I 
> have at home probably *seems* like a damn supercomputer!]

I was just thinking the other day, what kinds of computers are we 
running that not that long ago, the US considered a 486 a 
"supercomputer" enough to restrict its export to countries that might 
use it to do nuclear bomb simulations. And now there's probably an order 
of magnitude more power in the graphics chip of a game console than what 
used to be a supercomputer 15 years ago.

> The best software for running a supercomputer is *not* necessarily the 
> best software for running a desktop. I'm not saying Linux isn't good, 
> I'm saying this particular snippet of logic is flawed.

Yeah, Linux is definitely superior if what you're doing is dicking 
around with the OS.  Like Amazon's ECC or something - can't even imagine 
that being supported via Windows.

Not that Windows is great either. They just have a user base that 
expects computers to be easy to use, and a financial need to keep those 
users happy. Plus, lots of Linux weenies don't know Windows' 
capabilities and complain it doesn't work when it does. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Warp wrote:
> That's because the format is closed, proprietary
> and owned by MS. 

Not any more. :-)

In any case, it's again a business decision. Is it more expensive to 
export everything from MS Word into some other software, or is it more 
expensive to pay MS their fees?

Pure business.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Invisible wrote:
> How about deliberately defining it in such a way that only Word itself 
> can really "understand" what its content means?

This is what happens when you have support for dozens of versions of a 
program in your file format. Not unlike C++.  "How about defining a 
source input format that can't be checked for syntactic correctness 
without a potentially infinite storage space?"  ;-)

> XML is no magic bullet for instant portability...

It will let you get enough of your data out that you can then import it 
into another format.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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> Invisible wrote:
>> How many people use a supercomputer to read their email? ;-)
> 
> Anyone using gmail? :-)

I am, but over IMAP.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

>> Invisible wrote:
>>> How many people use a supercomputer to read their email? ;-)
>>
>> Anyone using gmail? :-)
> 
> I am, but over IMAP.

Tht was an answer, not a question. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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> Tht was an answer, not a question. :-)
> 

You were talking about the slow-ass GMail web interface?

That's why I use IMAP. (and NNTP to get in here)

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> This is what happens when you have support for dozens of versions of a 
> program in your file format. Not unlike C++.  "How about defining a 
> source input format that can't be checked for syntactic correctness 
> without a potentially infinite storage space?"  ;-)

  It's incredible how you find ways to bash C++ in every possible context.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

>>> Invisible wrote:
>>>> How many people use a supercomputer to read their email? ;-)
>>>
>>> Anyone using gmail? :-)
>>
>> I am, but over IMAP.
> 
> That was an answer, not a question. :-)
> 
Yes, the question mark was a dead giveaway.

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