Re: Why no TextMate for Linux?

On 2010-03-20, David Masover <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Saturday 20 March 2010 07:41:20 am Seebs wrote:
>> But it's certainly a kind of thing you can own, and have, say, the legal
>> right to kill whenever you want to.  (Moral rights, well, maybe not.  Or
>> maybe so.  Certainly, most pet owners I know eventually hire someone to
>> kill their pets, unless their pets die quickly and unexpectedly.)

> Not the legal right to torture, and I'm not sure when you're allowed to kill 
> them.

So far as I can tell, whenever you want.

>> I lean towards letting them make whatever agreement they want, and if you
>> don't like a particular vendor's agreement, don't buy their product.  :)

> Unfortunately, again, I'm an outlier and I will continue to be, so long as so 
> many people continue to, say, buy iPhones. The net result is that very often 
> there's a product (or set of products) which I do want, but which have 
> intolerable licenses. (Imagine if _every_ restaurant required people to sign a 
> waiver not to sue for food poisoning.)

I'm not sure this is a problem, though.  My desire for something is influenced
by its licensing.  I don't view it as "a product I want, with an intolerable
license", but as "a product that is similar to one I'd want'.

>> am not sure that I would get enough better rates without that contract to
>> cover the full costs of the phones.  I'm not even sure I'd get better rates
>> at all without a contract.

> In particular, I think the question is whether a higher-end phone might be 
> cheaper to purchase unlocked (with a cheaper contract) than getting a more 
> expensive contract with a "free" phone. I haven't run the numbers lately, 
> though.

If it is, I have the option of buying the more expensive phone and the cheaper
contract.  However, in my experience, the contract rates are not usually
affected by the phone or lack thereof.  The contract has a fixed price.  If
you agree to pay that fixed price for 2 years, you get $N off a phone,
otherwise you don't.

> Maybe, but it has been tried in the past, and it's generally failed. Your 
> competition now is monthly plans in which, after a certain number of months, 
> you actually own the computer -- why would I rent when I can rent-to-own?

Some large businesses lease computers because they don't WANT to own
computers.  Personal users, of course, tend to want to buy things.

I rent a computer right now, in fact.  I think it's somewhere in Texas.
It comes with a bunch of bandwidth.  It was less hassle for me to rent
bandwidth+computer than it would be for me to own the computer, and I don't
WANT to "own" that -- I want it to be someone else's job to provide the
functionality to me.

> I suppose it depends. I do know that the more expensive the contract, the 
> better phones come "free" with it. I also know that Verizon, in particular, 
> charges much more for a "smartphone" plan than a straight data plan, even if 
> you're paying a certain amount up front for the phone.

Could well be.  That might be, in no small part, because smartphones tend to
use a LOT of bandwidth.

>> I have at least one machine that hasn't got Ruby because it's in a state
>> where I can't build or upgrade packages...

> Is this an example of a machine where you can compile C programs?

Yes.

> If so, I still don't see the barrier -- Ruby is a C program. You may not be 
> able to install it into the system, but you can certainly compile it and run 
> it locally.

It's a lot of work, though, and I'm not sure I can compile all the things
it would require, or at least benefit from having.

> Fair enough -- though with a brief glance, I wonder how much of it could be 
> done in Ruby, and might even make sense in Ruby.

My guess would be virtually none.  Certainly, virtually none could be done
with acceptable efficiency.

> There's actually one in progress. I don't know what the status of it is at the 
> moment. I know there's also a set of tests created by Rubinius.

Yeah.  When there's a formal standard, that's going to make Ruby a much more
attractive target in some cases.

-s
-- 
Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed.  Peter Seebach / [e-mail]
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