Re: what's a callback?

From: Anthony Fremont (spam_at_anywhere.com)
Date: 12/24/04 

Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 16:15:02 GMT

"Frank Bemelman" <f.bemelmanq@xs4all.invalid.nl> wrote

> You obviously never looked at a typical Linux distribution that
> comes on 4 CD's. Or what about 8 CD's and a DVD:
>
http://store.mandrakesoft.com/product_info.php?products_id=166&osCsid=7f8b48da611942205d5bf4553185534d

That's because you get all the source code and about 3000 other
applications as well. You should download a Knoppix live cd and see
what comes packed on that. You just stick it in your drive and boot it.
It detects all your hardware on the fly at boot time, no installation
required.

> A complete WIN98SE installation directory is 109MB.

A fresh install of XP with a copy of Office is about 3GB, that's a bit
fat don't you think?

> > One does NOT need hundreds of megabytes for a GUI based desktop
> > userinterface. Also look at RiscOS 3.11 that was available on a
>
> No, but it comes as hundreds of megabytes these days, because there
> is little reason to squeeze it in less. What I remember from ~10 years
> back is that windows 3.x came on a bunch of floppies. That were
> perhaps 20 floppies or 30MB. Those were also the days that you really

That's just plain wrong, Win 3.11 came on 6 floppies. It literally
boots in about 2 seconds on anything faster than 200Mhz, I really need
to dig out that old 40MB drive and try it on my p4 now. ;-)

Gem desktop ran on an 8088, loaded up quick and gave me a high-res
desktop with task switching. It was allot better than Win286. AIR, it
came on 1 5.25" floppy.

> ran out of memory or disk space, if you were careless. Today I don't
> bother about it all. I save/keep everything, even emails that have
> megabyte attachements. It is not that it is a lost art or something,
> for instance PocketPC Windows doesn't take up that much space either.
>
> My point is that the argument that Windows is 'bloated' doesn't hold.
> I bet that there are more PIC's running (relative) bloated code than
> PC's. Programmers at Microsoft aren't that stupid.

Yes they are, but it's not about stupidity. It's about selling stuff.
It's just simple collusion between the hardware makers and MS. Why do
you think Intel pushes software based hardware (printers, modems, sound
cards, etc...)? HP needs at least four background start-up tasks just
to run a printer as well as the driver. It's just to make sure you want
something faster. OEMS preload so much junk onto new machines that they
are crawling right out of the box. What about the fact that Excel
contained a full 3D flight simulator game easter-egg? How can that not
qualify as bloat?

> But I could be wrong about all that. My buggiest application is
Protel.
> It is full of bugs. That said, I find it a brilliant piece of
software.
>
> [snip]
>
> > The expectation that one needs multi-megabyte applications, that has
> > been created largely by Microsoft is actually holding things up
these
>
> I don't look at the size of an application to judge it's value. Who
knows
> what's in there, or wants to know.

You should, if you put personal information into it.

> > days. Todays hardware, with apps written a bit better would be
> > unbelievably fast.
>
> Yes, and nobody seems to be able to deliver. Have you tried
open-office ?
> Last time I checked, their spread*** was about 5 times slower than
an
> older version of Excel (2000).

It's written in Java, what would you expect? It also didn't cost
hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Have you tried the latest
version of Excel? I promise you that it loads whole lot slower than the
2000 version. Maybe if you press the right keys and click in the right
spots, you can get "Monster Truck Madness" to play. Perhaps even HALO-2
will be available after the install of the next MS Office Service Pack.
;-)

> But here is a great oppertunity for you. You only have to write it a
> 'bit' better.

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