Also a trans person and I felt obligated to log in for the first time in over a year seeing your comment.
I've seen comments here that are a nicely packaged up version of 4chan (non lgbt boards), and I strongly suggest you leave here because I think the issue is inherently a lack of moderation and I don't anticipate that changing. I'll be banned for this comment most likely, probably because its "inflammatory" but blatant transphobia apparently isn't, but this is the first HN link I've seen since I quit this site a long time ago and I'm just perpetually disappointed by this website. Cutting out transphobic joints like this was one of the best things I've done for myself.
And @ anyone else who is reading this - there's nothing more injustice loves than inaction. Take it from a trans person who quit because of the bigotry they saw - please believe me, it's a lack of moderation. Speak up for what's right. If you think you have nothing to do with it - by continuing to let it happen, you are silently condoning its existence.
I completely agree. The transphobia on this site is plentiful and abhorrent. The moderators are less than worthless when it comes to it (heavily implying they are part of the issue) and the moderators HATE when you point out failures in their moderation.
It should be expected given the rest of HN, but I'm putting it plainly for others as well, the site has a massive bigotry problem with its users, and a moderation issue with its moderators
It's a lot more up to date than IceCat, which rarely has binary packages for distributions and hasn't seen an official binary release from the FSF since version 60.7.0 a few years ago.
Hi. I submitted this because I am an AP (American program that allows you to get college credit) CS Principles student that uses code.org for the class. I took the class after being told by the school we'd learn actual Java in the class (our school doesn't offer AP CS A which i know now is the actual Java class). However, I now realize that this isn't Java, or even JavaScript - it's just a nonexistent version of the JavaScript they think is too scary to teach us.
First of all, let me tell you that the particular programming language you learn doesn't matter very much. Programming is much more about a certain kind of structured thinking (knowing what you want and then coming up with a detailed plan to achieve it) and implementing that plan in a programming language is the easiest part. Switching to a different language just means you need to look up how to do basic stuff for a while until you get used to it. The not-so-basic stuff mostly stays the same.
Secondly, the author of the article should've known they have no idea what they're talking about (quote: "I’m not a JS developer") yet that doesn't stop them from repeatedly and confidently stating that code.org uses FakeScript, not JavaScript.
The test they use to "prove" that is flawed: "This is not real code. It’s psuedocode. As is evident by using js.do: JavaScript error: Uncaught ReferenceError: onEvent is not defined on line 2"
If the code were not valid JavaScript, there would be a syntax error instead. The error message tells us that the code is syntactically correct JavaScript, but could not be executed successfully because it references values ("onEvent" in this case) that are not present in the current environment.
Having different functionality available in different environments is completely normal, especially for JavaScript where every browser ships their own variant and we need websites like https://caniuse.com/ to tell us which browser supports what functionality.
That code.org provides additional features in their environment doesn't mean what you're learning is less "real", it just means you'll have to provide that functionality yourself if you switch to a different environment.
Finally, when submitting this article to HN, you should've lowercased the headline.
And how will we start the change to more open systems, except by starting in the start of the workforce chain in schools?
Imagine if schools starting teaching everyone Blender over Autodesk Maya, for instance. We create a workforce where most people will end up knowing Blender over Maya. At that point, there is a compelling reason for enterprises to switch, and we see a world in which Blender becomes dominant and where people will encounter it in their daily working lives.
There are practical reasons to do this - Blender is free so schools pay significantly less, it still has its usage in freelance/smaller companies, and it has a wealth of resources from its large community on learning it compared to Maya. Many free/open source software suites are similar in these aspects compared to their proprietary counterparts. This, alongside the ideological reasons, is enough to switch.
And the ideological part matters too! In the English classes I've taken they regularly teach individualism and critical thinking. Why then, should we take away that thinking aspect when it comes to software and just tell students "use whatever they use, don't question its ethics?"
We have to start somewhere, and there's no better place to do so than schools, where it still benefits the school and students overall to use free software over proprietary software.
Odd how no one has mentioned the addition of client side decorations. Personally it's a huge dealbreaker for me, I really dislike how they look. It's a shame, because the release and Xfce in general otherwise seems really good. Guess I'll stick to MATE for now.
Yeah I agree, I been using XFCE for many years but I think that CSD is a bad move! I hope they at least remove search bar from titles. If they don't improve it, I may have to switch to i3.
First off, you are right in that Linux has major security issues and isn't perfect in it. However, outside of the comments that have already been posted in defense of linux's security, in the end, Linux's relative obscurity at the moment DOES effectively lead to less viruses. Compare that to Windows, who for all the security measures they implement ultimately lead to more because it is simply more targeted. While this isn't truly reliable security, at the moment it works better.
Either way, Windows compromises all of your data nonetheless. So not only are you actually getting viruses, your data's stolen anyways. Compare that to Linux, where viruses aren't as frequent and no ones siphoning your data. In the end, who's better off?
It is missing one crucial truth that dispels the thesis: The fact that a social network does not need to be owned by one entity for everyone on it to be able to interact with each other. See Federation[0], federated social networks like Mastodon[1], PeerTube[2], Pleroma: where you have an account on a Mastodon "instance" (computer), but you can talk to anyone speaking the same protocol, ActivityPub[3]. A Mastodon account can follow PeerTube accounts and Pleroma accounts. And no one controls all Mastodon servers, your Mastodon server is controlled by your server administrator.
The author does not seem to understand the internet fundamentally.
Email is an example of a federated communications protocol.
[0]: https://fediverse.party/
[1]: https://joinmastodon.org/
[2]: https://joinpeertube.org/
[3]: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/
To the extent that corporations are capable of producing "Free Software" as defined by Stallman then I would find it likely that they would succeed, but the comment I replied to argued that commercial software was inferior and that seems obviously false outside of what I called "boring" stuff. But I think the boring stuff is really important and good, and wish more things became "boring" in the sense of being solved problems rather than open problems.
There's a few but those are quite prominent. Most notably I remember when I took Physics 1 we used some very specific software which name I do not remember but it was proprietary and only on Windows. Other than that almost every class can be done entirely with free software, at least in HS.
I've seen comments here that are a nicely packaged up version of 4chan (non lgbt boards), and I strongly suggest you leave here because I think the issue is inherently a lack of moderation and I don't anticipate that changing. I'll be banned for this comment most likely, probably because its "inflammatory" but blatant transphobia apparently isn't, but this is the first HN link I've seen since I quit this site a long time ago and I'm just perpetually disappointed by this website. Cutting out transphobic joints like this was one of the best things I've done for myself.
And @ anyone else who is reading this - there's nothing more injustice loves than inaction. Take it from a trans person who quit because of the bigotry they saw - please believe me, it's a lack of moderation. Speak up for what's right. If you think you have nothing to do with it - by continuing to let it happen, you are silently condoning its existence.