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TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

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Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#231

Post by meanguy »

btilly wrote: post #223
meanguy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard this story before, but time isn't kind to this particular conspiracy. The moment of clarity: Mr. Curry wanted to sue Microsoft but "couldn't find a lawyer willing to take on the case" -- in 1998. EVERYBODY was suing Microsoft in 1998, including multiple governments. If you couldn't find someone to sue them that year, I'm afraid you don't have much credibility. And this made my head hurt: "All computer…

I love how everyone is an instant expert on the Internet, even if they have only heard of the issue minutes before. I'm not a random internet conspiracist. I'm an established member of this community reporting what happened to someone that I considered a friend at the time that it happened. Here is the story as I remember it. The private lawsuit that Ed Curry had standing to bring was a complex contract violation bet…

And here's where I flash pocket aces: I sat in a room with no windows and no computers, across from men with strong chins and short haircuts, reviewing Windows NT source code line by line. On friggin' paper.

Never heard of this guy. Never heard this story. It makes no sense, and I cannot even imagine what "automatically open the processor up to accept commands on start-up" means.

Mr. Curry eventually met with senior NSA/DoD officials, aired what he had -- while a major government lawsuit against Microsoft played out -- and nothing.

Also, Windows NT 4.0 very much did get C2 certification and had E3 (equivalent but not transferable) at the time. Which again doesn't help the story in hindsight.

I mean, seriously... read this nonsense (gcn.com). This stuff doesn't even qualify him for a Wikipedia entry. It's just the story of someone who cracked under the pressure of releasing a version of NT every year for four years straight. He certainly wasn't the only one.

-----

Curry also gave Schaeffer an updated document pulled from Microsoft’s Web site. Under a section of frequently asked questions on security, the site answered the question: “Is Windows NT a secure enough platform for enterprise applications?” by stating that the company recently enhanced the security of NT Server 4.0 through a service pack.

“Windows NT Server was designed from the ground up with a sound, integrated and extensible security model,” the Microsoft Web site said as late as last week. “It has been certified at the C2 level by the U.S. government and the E3 level by the U.K. government.”

Hodson said the passage claiming C2 certification cited by Curry refers to NT 3.5 with Service Pack 3, which is the only version of NT to meet the NSA’s C2 level requirements to date. But because the passage earlier mentions NT 4.0, Hodson said, the meaning could be misconstrued.

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#232

Post by dmethvin »

btilly wrote: post #223
meanguy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard this story before, but time isn't kind to this particular conspiracy. The moment of clarity: Mr. Curry wanted to sue Microsoft but "couldn't find a lawyer willing to take on the case" -- in 1998. EVERYBODY was suing Microsoft in 1998, including multiple governments. If you couldn't find someone to sue them that year, I'm afraid you don't have much credibility. And this made my head hurt: "All computer…

I love how everyone is an instant expert on the Internet, even if they have only heard of the issue minutes before. I'm not a random internet conspiracist. I'm an established member of this community reporting what happened to someone that I considered a friend at the time that it happened. Here is the story as I remember it. The private lawsuit that Ed Curry had standing to bring was a complex contract violation bet…

I knew Ed Curry and worked with him at his home north of Austin for some reporting I did regarding bugs in the Cyrix CPUs. He was a friendly and kind-hearted person, was deeply devoted to both his religion and family. With respect, however, he did not have the best of business judgement. I spoke with him during the time he was setting up his NT certification business. I do not recall all the details, but even today I remember feeling uneasy that he was investing so heavily in creating a business for C2 certification before demand had proven itself. The alarms were going off in my head. I really think that Ed read a lot more into the relationship than he had a right to do.

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#233

Post by skrebbel »

nkohari wrote: post #219
skrebbel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly the same story here. At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I feel that while most tech BigCos (e.g. Google, Apple) have become more evil over time, MS has actually become less evil, to the point that using their tech (and some major tech at that) is relatively free of any lock-in risk. TypeScript seems very much in line with this trend, and I love it. This is exactly what I wanted - JavaScript but with decen…

Trust me when I say that if you use .NET, you're always going to be stuck with Microsoft. Mono, the only other somewhat viable implementation of the CLR, just doesn't really cut it in practice -- at least for ASP.NET.

hmm, mind sharing why? My limited Mono experience was that getting a simple ASP.NET application running on a Linux VPS was, without prior Mono experience, one hours' work. I was pretty impressed by this.

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#234

Post by [deleted] »

nkohari wrote: post #219
skrebbel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly the same story here. At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I feel that while most tech BigCos (e.g. Google, Apple) have become more evil over time, MS has actually become less evil, to the point that using their tech (and some major tech at that) is relatively free of any lock-in risk. TypeScript seems very much in line with this trend, and I love it. This is exactly what I wanted - JavaScript but with decen…

Trust me when I say that if you use .NET, you're always going to be stuck with Microsoft. Mono, the only other somewhat viable implementation of the CLR, just doesn't really cut it in practice -- at least for ASP.NET.

[deleted]

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#235

Post by btilly »

dmethvin wrote: post #232
btilly wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how everyone is an instant expert on the Internet, even if they have only heard of the issue minutes before. I'm not a random internet conspiracist. I'm an established member of this community reporting what happened to someone that I considered a friend at the time that it happened. Here is the story as I remember it. The private lawsuit that Ed Curry had standing to bring was a complex contract violation bet…

I knew Ed Curry and worked with him at his home north of Austin for some reporting I did regarding bugs in the Cyrix CPUs. He was a friendly and kind-hearted person, was deeply devoted to both his religion and family. With respect, however, he did not have the best of business judgement. I spoke with him during the time he was setting up his NT certification business. I do not recall all the details, but even today I…

I would not disagree with your evaluation.

It does not excuse Microsoft's behavior.

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#237

Post by Xcelerate »

munificent wrote: post #217
Xcelerate wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure function level scope over block level is a bad thing. It makes it more Lisp-y. And if you want block level scope, it's about as easy as (in CoffeeScript): do -> ... local variables right here ...

> I'm not sure function level scope over block level is a bad thing. It makes it more Lisp-y. Lisp has block scope.

Well, it can have both...

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#238

Post by btilly »

meanguy wrote: post #231
btilly wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how everyone is an instant expert on the Internet, even if they have only heard of the issue minutes before. I'm not a random internet conspiracist. I'm an established member of this community reporting what happened to someone that I considered a friend at the time that it happened. Here is the story as I remember it. The private lawsuit that Ed Curry had standing to bring was a complex contract violation bet…

And here's where I flash pocket aces: I sat in a room with no windows and no computers, across from men with strong chins and short haircuts, reviewing Windows NT source code line by line. On friggin' paper. Never heard of this guy. Never heard this story. It makes no sense, and I cannot even imagine what "automatically open the processor up to accept commands on start-up" means. Mr. Curry eventually met with senior…

Interesting. On Microsoft's own site they have http://support.microsoft.com/kb/93362 which does not list 4.0. But I found several references claiming that they did achieve C2 certification with service pack 6 in early 2000. My memory had that as a British certification that they claimed was equivalent, but Google is not turning up anything that supports my memory.

However that said, by the time they got that many service packs out, it was clearly no longer the same operating system that they were pushing in 1995. There will never be proof either way, but my belief is that the reason that it took 6 service packs before that certification happened is that there were real security flaws in early NT 4.0.

As articles like http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/05/12121 make clear, Ed Curry's claims were serious enough to be reported in the press at the time. And governments are large and diverse enough that there is no reason to believe that the opinions of people pursuing an anti-trust case about browsers would have much impact on people. This qualifies as a lot more than "nonsense".

As for your "pocket aces", I have absolutely zero clue who you are or whether you're telling the truth. I have no reason to doubt that people who would have been reviewing that code would find themselves on Hacker News. Obviously if you were working for the NSA, you wouldn't be likely to be inclined to leave a traceable trail all over the internet demonstrating that fact. However you wouldn't necessarily know everyone else involved. Nor after 17+ years can any of us claim perfect memory of everyone we might have worked with.

But I did know Ed somewhat. My impression of Ed, and the impression of many others we both interacted with, is that he was a credible witness. I never encountered any evidence that indicates that he was lying.

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#239

Post by Evbn »

maratd wrote: post #220
discreteevent wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google deliberately opened up dart development early. I thing that was a good thing. They could have kept it closed and released it today, it's roughly as mature as type script seems to be. Would you have been happier with that?

> Would you have been happier with that? Yes. Google (and others) need to stop releasing half-baked products. You release something half-baked, even if it gets up to speed down the road, people will still have perceptions of it being half-baked. The above exchange is typical.

Imagine if Linus Torvalds shared your point of view.

Re: TypeScript: a language for application-scale JavaScript development

#240

Post by pootch »

MS has no credibility in this space. If you think slapping an OSS license on their code gives them cred you must be some kind of fanboy. As for Javascript - well, browsers still sucks, webapps still suck, and web development still sucks. Javascript is a big part of that. 30%
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