João Paredes is an almost-21-year-old student of Electrotecnical and Computers Engeneering at Oporto’s State University for Engeneering (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto), in Portugal. He is well known and respected in his community, known to be a visonary and a good leader. Also known to be an excelent programmer, as he’s been programming computers for 16 years now (yes, since he was 5). 4. All that? So Microsoft has been doing it all wrong… 9. That seems to be contradictory. First you mentioned that you do not like to have too much work installing drivers and so, and now you say that you want it simple, and like to configure it yourself. 12. In your opinion, what are the most important technologies of today? 16. What about one of your preferred areas in software, operating systems? JP: I believe the Internet was created based on legitimate ideas, I mean military and self defence purposes. I think the reasons it was later developed were right, ie, for the cientific community. And was brought to the world when it was clear it should be of all of us. But I still think the internet was not developed correctly. For the right reasons and following the right stages, yes, but not in the right way, at architectural level. The guys that developed it were clearly not thinking about security at that time, which, for a network that was first developed for military reasons, is unacceptable. Security was also not the strong point of the scientific stage of the internet, which is also incompreensible, if scientific achivements can be commercially/economically or phisically dangerous and are to be shared only with the right people. So, we reached a stage where the internet is now an instrument for everyone, but this instrument is a big Pandora Box. No one can guaran! tee security, and the best thing people can do to assure the security of contents, is not to let the contents on connected machines. Second negative point: Scalability and expandability. The guys that developed the internet were also shortsighted enough to only let 4G of address space. 2^32, and not all of those addresses are usable. As a result we have a World Area Network, that is stagnating. The addressing space is reaching the end. That’s not good. And the solution they came up with is not that great also. IPV6 is also another limited addressing space even though bigger. And what about the sysadmins having to use and probably to remember 128 bits IP addresses? And now, for the last negative point I remember, although nobody could really have done nothing to prevent that. Garbage. Yes, garbage, the internet is full of crap. SPAM, SCAM, contentless sites, irritating pop-ups, and so… you know what I’m talking about. But in the internet, is like in the real life. We also r! eceive unsolicited mail, door sales man come to our houses trying to sell us things we’ll never use in our lifetime. It’s this way with real life, It was like this with the radio, with the TV and couldn’t be any other way with the internet. 19. Looking at everything that you don’t like, I noticed that you always have your own ideal of perfection. You don’t completely like any of the existing operating systems, so you decided to create your own. You felt that there is no language suitable to create your operating system, and decided to create your own. The same with the databases. So you think the internet is not that well, let’s say, implemented. Do you have your own ideal of how the internet should be, the addressing scheme, protocols, etc?
Facts
He knows and uses a variety of languages like C, C++, PHP, HTML, XML, XSLT, BASIC, Visual BASIC, VBScript, Perl, SQL, Pascal, x86 Assembly in the most of the variants of each language/compiler combination. Although a kind of a “swiss-knife” of programming, developing from operating systems and compilers, to databases and websites, he still prefers to be considered a low-level developer. But he is not only a programmer. He also develops hardware, being also involved in a project for the creation of a new 64-Bit CPU programming architecture, as he thinks it w! ould perfect. He has projects to start as soon as he finishes any of the current projects he’s in, like a small digital fone just for the fun, or an OC-48 switch. He is also known as “The Problem Solver”, because he manages to get things to work that nobody else could or thought it could be done. He is experienced in several operating systems. He used all versions of Windows since 2.x, several versions and distributions of Linux, FreeBSD, QNX, OS/2, BeOS, Solaris 8, and a few more. He is experienced in a few database management systems, like MySQL, PostgreSQL, FirstBase, and his all time favourite FirebirdSQL. He also ministers small courses on programming, Linux and networking.
João is pretty straightforward, sometimes more than he should. He created Chefax R&D (or Chefax I&D in Portuguese), a group of students that gather to develop because their faculty lacks the practical component. They wanted to “get dirty”, the hands-on approach, get to work with the things they learn. Amongst their projects there are an operating system, a complete integrated development system that includes compilers, linkers, library mangares, IDE’s and project managers, a relational XML-based database manager and a lot more. They are even making the entire faculty campus in 3D for the Half Life engine, and believe me, it’s big.
Why did I choose to interview him? I’ve known him for a few years now, and I was allways fond of his ideas about almost anything we have talked about – future and technology. I have been following all the discussions on OSNews about “Windows vs. Unix”, about whether is Linux ready for the desktop or not, etc. I thought that it would be interesting to share his ideas and opinions. I started with some tricky questions.
1. How much do you… hate Windows?
João Paredes: I do not hate Windows. I do not hate Windows, neither Microsoft, nor Bill Gates. I do think Windows (as a lot of Microsoft products) should and could be severely improved (well, Linux also, but in a different direction). Not my favourite OS to work with, but I admit I use it and I need to work with it.
2. Some of your friends do think of you as a biased anti-windows-linux-rules fundamentalist. Then…
JP: They are wrong. I see them as windows-rules fundamentalists. I only use what I have to use. What I need to and because I need to. Although there are a lot of operating systems out there, even with most of them being free or open source, the truth is that none of it serves completely my needs. For what I need at the moment, Linux and Windows are the operating system that do the work best. For a PC, these are the two that evolved the most. I already lost too much time trying to find the perfect OS. There is no such thing. Yet. At least for me.
3. So, let’s see. What do you really think it is wrong with Windows?
JP: Well, a lot of things. The first thing I complain about the size. Windows is big, and I mean big. It occupies space, space, space. I am sure those programmers at Microsoft could have done it smaller and better. Second: Windows is heavy. It drains all of the resources. Makes it look like it swallowed all of the system memory. Third, which everyone also knows, it is really, really buggy. The first two are, in part, prices to pay for maintaing backwards compatibility with systems and standards obsolete for decades. The NT versions are extremely more safe and stable than the ‘home’ versions, but still not enough. About the home versions of Windows… I think they sould already be dead by now, at least the actual concept MS understands for home version. The Unixes also have bugs. But in the unix case, rather than operating system or kernel bugs, most of them are application bugs. Fourth: Networking. Windows network security is the most well known security of all… because! throughout the years it has been almost none at all. I don’t say all other operating systems are safe, although most of them are a lot safer than Windows. And for a lot of others, they are only safe because they are not as much as used and explored… or exploited… this is a critical subject, because network security is allways critical, but it wouldn’t be the subject I would choose when starting a conversation about Microsoft… Microsoft has been developing operating systems for so many years now, that the programmers there should already have learned a few lessons. Their experience should have taught them that if they don’t get it right having the system working first and interfacing with the user, than there is not much chance it would work right in the network. About the GUI… well, I really have no complains about the GUI. Simple enough while not being ugly or losing funcionality, usually responds well, coherent. Probably a few minor details could make it better, b! ut nothing of great importance. But I still don’t understand why a server or an Advanced Server OS needs a GUI… just increases the code, the space occupied, the memory needed, the processor cycles needed… Couldn’t they do something with less eye-candy?
JP: I didn’t said that. In fact, I think the track Microsoft wants to follow is more or less the correct one. But they just have taken too much shortcuts and stopped too many times for a coffee and a donut…
5. Then what do you mean, when you said Linux could also be severely improved but in a different direction?
JP: The problems with Linux, at least most of them, are not directly Linux problems, but rather *nix world problems. The only big problem I see directly related to Linux, is the (un)modularity of the kernel. Linux is a monolithic kernel. In my opinion that sucks. I admit, the performance increases are big, but the functionality and the easyness of use decrease. Most of the times, when we’re to add a new piece of hardware to the system, there we go to a kernel recompile. For the hardware the kernel doesn’t support, some companies do provide drivers. But they need to have a version of the module for each new version of the kernel. Hardware makers don’t like having too much work with drivers. And they also don’t like to have the sourcecode of the drivers shown to everybody. Some companies were clever, they use the “big module technique”. They write a big module with almost all of the driver code inside, with no relations to the kernel version. Then they pack it wit! h a Makefile, an install script, a few headers and .C sources to build the final module. The real driver code isn’t shown. But then it’s the user that doesn’t like it. Sometimes it’s too much work. I don’t mean only for the unexperienced user. I mean for the experienced user also, because the experienced user doesn’t like to be reinstalling everyting and having to resolve all the compile time dependencies everytime he’s installing new hardware. Do you think sysadmins like having that much work? They like sitting down with a cup of coffee in one hand and a modelling magazine in the other, waiting for a disaster to come. When it happens, they reboot, sit down continue enjoying the coffee and the magazine.
6. That was mean.
JP: I can only hurt the ones that let themselves get hurt. Anyway, that is the reason companies do write drivers for Windows, but forget Linux. In Windows they do not have to show the sourcecode, and they only have to update the drivers on each new version of Windows, about every two years. In Linux, sometimes they would have to update them weekly. Or release the drivers using the “big module technique”. It already went beyond the case of “OS not known enough”.
7. And what are those things wrong with the *nix world?
JP: First of all, let me explain what I understand with *nix world. It’s the applicational and interface layer of the Unixes out there. Everything above the kernel. Well, I followed a discussion a few weeks back in OSNews, about X being the biggest reason why Linux wasn’t ready for the desktop. I believe that in part, that is right. X is too old. I mean X in the general way, X11, XFree86… It really sucks using X. We already do not need to use the remote connectivity X provided. IMHO it became heavy, big, with too much redundancies. I believe the next generation should connect directly to hardware, rather then going through the Client-Server layers and the exports. If we need a remote desktop… we use VNC which is small and fast. That’s one thing Microsoft did right. The Remote Desktop Connection is a useful tool. But as I said, X is only one of the reasons. There are more. For example, there are too many window managers. There are two major toolkits, GTK and QT and two! major desktops, Gnome and KDE. I recently read an article, saying that Gnome and KDE started a joint effort to ‘unify’ the desktop manager, not join both projects, but make them use some common standards. If true, I see this as a step forward. Still not enough, but a big step anyway.
8. But you cannot deny that are *nix world problems that arise only in Linux.
JP: That’s because Linux is now one of the most used *nix kernels. And because is the Linux kernel people mostly tries to use to build a desktop. And specifically about Linux, the big problem is the ‘flood’ of distributions that arose. I used to think Redhat was a good distro… back in the time of Redhat 5.2. It was simple, and stable. I used to like Mandrake… back in the time of Mandrake 7.1 and 8.0. Mandrake 8.1 was already bad. In fact I belive it was the worst version of Mandrake. Now, all those distros that used to be easy, aren’t anymore. The ‘distromakers’ hunger creating a distro for the home user (which is a milestone I believe they are not achiving), but doing so they are making them hard to use by an experienced user… Why on Earth would I want to have 1001 programs to do the same thing installed on my computer? The distromakers should choose one or two, and stick to them. When installing the distro, I’ll be deciding if I want any of them or not. I do not l! ike to be flooded with decisions I do not want to make and that I do not need to make. That’s why I use Rootlinux, simpler and stabler than the most, only the packages that are really needed. If I want anything else, I’ll go get it. And most of the work is done by hand, configuring it myself. That way I can learn more and refine my system to my personal use.
JP: No contradiction at all. First, I said sysadmins don’t like to have too much work. Second, I’m not really a sysadmin, I’m a programmer. I like to configure it myself, yes, but I also want it to be well configured and not having to change anything until I really need a major update. Do it once, enjoy it many style of living.
10: So, what is then the real problem with Linux? What is your real opinion, is Linux ready for the desktop or not?
JP: As I said, the problem is not with Linux, but with *nix. Linux is not the major problem. In fact, I do believe Linux is ready for the desktop. It’s the *nix world that is not, and as such, Linux suffers from that.
11. And what about a programmers point of view, what’s wrong and right?
JP: In Windows programming, there are a few things wrong also. For example, there are a lot of functions to do the same thing. And not much API documentation, although it appears to be well documented. We have a huge list of constants and types and a strange naming convention to follow… not really mandatory. And for some simple tasks, there are functions that go through multiple layers before executing the task. In the other hand, there is, let’s call it, a strong empahsis on object oriented programming. This is very good. Object oriented programming is excelent. And there are lot’s of development tools for visual oriented programming, which is also good, and those tools, usually have good documentation for the API they support/provide. In Linux, it’s the opposite. We have a simple and well documented API and enjoy more flexibility. The redundancy is, IMHO, residual. But, it is not an object oriented operating system. The use of C++ and other OOP languages first go thro! ugh C callbacks. That’s really not a limitation imposed by Linux, but rather by the architecture it is supposed to support. But in fact, that doesn’t cause that much overhead. I would rather program for Linux than Windows, in most of the situations, especially when developing console programs and services. But the GUI development is faster and easier in Windows than in Linux. There are not much visual development tools for Linux, ie, for X, and they are not as good as the Windows ones. The big exceptions are the Borland tools, my favourites under Windows (Borland C++ Builder). Kylix is also excelent, especially Kylix 3 which added C++ to RAD development with Borland tools under Linux, but I still prefer using Glade, GCC (g++), Glademm and GTK. The biggest problem of all, is the big costs associated with developing using such commercial tools. These tools are expensive, and I mean really expensive. There is always Glade and Lazarus.
JP: I immediatly remember XML. XML and XSLT. Those are revolutionary. XML brought the solution to an enormous amount of problems, some of the with several decades of existence. Especially in document and content management areas. Also I believe OOP is extremely important and databases also. I could mention the Internet and all the technologies around it, but it is already something of our lives, doesn’t have that taste of new thing anymore. That doesn’t mean the Internet is not important, because it is. Probably the most important concept right now. PHP is also very interesting.
13. How do you see the technological future?
JP: I see a networked, object oriented, XML database driven and XSL transformed world.
14. How about the hardware? In the future, I mean.
JP: That is a complicated question. There are too much hardware types that can improve, I can see object orientation in hardware too. No like the software, but object oriented in a hardware way. That’s one of the projects we have been developing secretly. In the Microprocessors, for example, the CPU developers will be less concerned about having the chip working at higher clocks, and more concerned about having it executing more instructions per clock, decreasing clock rates to decrease energy waste. Also, the CPU development is reaching a point of stagnation, where some architectures that are standards today will suddenly cease to exist, and be replaced by cleaner, improved, simpler, new ones. Hard drives will keep increasing size, SATA will take place in a more or less near future, and some time, not in the very near future, disk harddrives may well be replaced by big flash drives or equivalent technology. The user interfaces at some point will have to evolve. On keyboa! rds, I can imagine they will remain pretty much the same as today, some minor differences. On mice they can continue like today, remaining only the laser mice, or they can evolve to the currently existing touchscreens or some device that can follow eye movement or a finger movement. I don not forsee much future for small wireless devices like mice and keyboards, expecially for the radio based ones, because they are expensive, they drain more power, and they emit higher levels of radiation. I do think wired and wireless devices like these will continue to co-exist, but the wireless devices will continue expensive and restrained to some specific and special uses.
15. And what about the software?
JP: Besides the victory of Object Orientation and XML, I can also imagine software developers understanding finally that any program that does not take full advantage of the resources it has available it is a bad program. That any program that is not speed optimized is also a bad program. And that any program that wastes resources and that takes more space than it should, is not even worth of being called a program. Hard drives and memory will keep increasing in size, and CPU speed will increase also, but not to be wasted with unoptimized programs. Rather, they will be improved to accomodate more user data, and to process it faster.
From a programmers point of view, I can forsee them with a cleener, better documented, simpler and more powerful API. From a user point of view, the OS will tend to be more database oriented, more user friendly, more performing. The content itself will be of interest and not the way the content is stored. The use of object oriented generalization techniques will bring better performance and functionality to the operating systems, rather than decreasing performance.
17. Basically, the way you picture the operating system you are developing?
JP: Exactly.
18. Now about the Internet. What is your opinion about the current status of the Internet?
JP: Absolutely. Yes, I do have my own ideas of how the internet should be. Like everything else. I just dare saying something is not that good if I have anything constructive to add, like my own idea, so that it can be explored and developed if it really is better then the technology my idea is supposed to replace.
20. What do you really hate in the technological world right now?
JP: I can remember one thing right now: Those rules the manufacturers use for replacing TFT screens when talking about the dead pixels. I hate that!. In my opinion, all TFT screens should be ISO Class 1. Oh, and I also hate the way software developers waste the hardware resources the system has to offer. I hate the way developers and manufacturers tend to find solutions for today, and later find solution that fills that time, and that maintains compatibility. That usually results in performance degradation. Look at Windows, for instance. I also hate those discussions about opensource or free software being better than commercial products.
21. And you?
JP: I have a 17″ Class 1 in the big PC and a 13.1″ Class 1 on the portable. Luck, I guess. For now I’m satisfied, but I’ll have to upgrade sometime… Now, really, I naturally code extremely optimized programs with code clean and well written enough to be extended if necessary. I always code for forward compatibility, not backwards compatibility, I code so that my code will in the future still be suitable for the necessary purposes, or in a way that it can be set aside if necessary without causing any hassles. This is part of a programming philosophy I call Retroprogramming as a joke. I also have a certain tendency to use assembly, and I definitely hate Java and the alike. About the opensource and commercial products dilemma: I don’t buy any of BS both sides have to say. I believe in good software, not in opensource, not in commercial, not in shareware, not in freeware. Good software and good software only, no matter what is the license. That is my philosophy. G! oodware rules.
I’ve been reading osnews for some time now, and this is the first time I see us (Portuguese) here!!!
Now I can’t stop visiting osnews to see if there’s more
)))
No offense… but… who? I read the first page, but I’m still not quite sure who this is. Should I?
21 years old is not really a teenager… Have you even tryed reading the article?
Go Portugal
If Joao is indeed the visionary the interviewer claims, I think the interviewer did a very poor job with his questions. Joao clearly knows his stuff, but the interviewer wasted his chance by asking irrelevant questions about [oversimplification] windows this, linux that… [/oversimplification]
Besides, this:
13. How do you see the technological future?
JP: I see a networked, object oriented, XML database driven and XSL transformed world.
Hardly is the answer of a visionary, this same reply 5 years ago and I would have gasped in awe, now it’s not even sophisticated.
I’m sorry I’m being a bit of a prick, just that the web seems to be full of visionaries as of late.
what seperates him from any other honors undergrad CS student?
I see nothing visionary – just a guy who knows a little about a lot.
So here’s a guy who has done all kinds of interesting projects. He’s in the process of learning things in numerous and varied topics, and here the interviewer bogs half the interview down with, “So how does Microsoft suck? Let’s talk about Linux! Or is Windows awesome?” You could just see João struggling to pull the interview towards fresh innovative directions, while Andy worked to keep belaboring the decrepid Linux/Windows debate. It was painful. At least João got some words in edgewise towards the end.
for every programmer who says they’ve been programming since some ridiculously young age (whether true or not) i’d be a millionaire. seriously. that sentence in the new blurb by itself made me think i should skip it entirely.. then i read the first question, and knew i should skip it. who the heck is this guy anyway??
Well, I see a lot of people here saying bad thins about this interview. But I guess they cannot read, otherwise, they would have read it, and they would know why was the interview published. It adds so much constructive content to the hot topics today. And all the content of the interview is related with OSNews. I just see here a bunch of moorons who cannot do anything else than be corrosive. Please, say something when you have something constructive to say, otherwise, you’ll just loose a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
>who the heck is this guy anyway??
He is a person, like you and me. Does he have to be a president of a country to get interviewed?
This interview was done as a part of a study in a university and the author was kind enough to reprint it here.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Being a$$hol3s about it won’t change a thing.
I know Joao Paredes personally and he is a really cool guy… he is a great programmer and also a very intelligent person. Perhaps the questions of the interview are not the best so you can’t judge him for that. For all the people who said bad things about Joao maybe they should redirect those comments to Andy.
Joao ps: continua com o bom trabalho.
I pretty much agree with everything my fellow countrymen said, except:
1 – windows bloat: who cares if microsoft keeps shipping old api’s with windows (OLE comes to mind) , they’re just dll’s, they’re only loaded when they’re needed by some app. Same goes for linux libs.
2 – linux modularity: i think linux is modular enough, the problem is that they loose binary compatibility too frequently, unfortunately i think they do this on purpose and mostly for political reasons, but that is just my opinion, i can’t really prove it.
I particularly agree with what he said about xfree.
and a strange naming convention to follow… not really mandatory.
Hungarian Notation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dn…
The use of C++ and other OOP languages first go thro! ugh C callbacks. That’s really not a limitation imposed by Linux, but rather by the architecture it is supposed to support.
The windows API was written in C.
Maybe it’s time to do some research.
Well, I woke up this evening and it was a nice surprise to find an interview with a Portuguese programmer here! Maybe he’s not that well known around the world (or even in Portugal), maybe he’s only on more of those thousands visionaries, maybe it’s not important that he started coding when he was 5. But anyway who cares about that?
I share some of his points of view, but even if I didn’t I’d still admite that he seems to be someone smart and who has some knowledge about osdev and a lot of subjects. Anyway, I admite this was not the best interview I ever read and I still ask myself wwhat “b! ut” means! Finaly, I can only say that above anything I am proud of being Portuguese and happy that another Portuguse fellow got some recognition for his work!
I care..
i only started programing 3 years ago(i have 16 years)
that is realy rare arond here…
and is the fisit time i see sommeting from potuguese in the osnews and that is realy something…
i’m not makinh any sense….i am going to hide myself.
Vai em frente Joao os geeks de portugal tao kom tigo(axu)
>>>
Do you think sysadmins like having that much work? They like sitting down with a cup of coffee in one hand and a modelling magazine in the other, waiting for a disaster to come. When it happens, they reboot, sit down continue enjoying the coffee and the magazine.
>>>>
Hahahaha, I couldn’t stop laughing at that one.
>>>>
>Do you think sysadmins like having that much work? They >like sitting down with a cup of coffee in one hand and a >modelling magazine in the other, waiting for a disaster to >come. When it happens, they reboot, sit down continue >enjoying the coffee and the magazine.
>>>>>
>
>
>Hahahaha, I couldn’t stop laughing at that one.
Have you read the lines immediatly after those?
If not, here they are:
“6. That was mean.
JP: I can only hurt the ones that let themselves get hurt.”
Ok, guys I’m portuguese, but this interview… well, he says things with wich I agree and others that I do not. At some point in the interview he says, that he doesn’t understand why the Server OS from Microsoft need graphical interfaces. Then almost at the end he says that sys admins aren’t supposed to know by head 128 bit ip’s when talking about IP6V. But are they supposed to know all the console commands?
Anyway, Windows GUI is heavy, isn’t KDE too?
No, I’m not windows fanatic. I like both Windows and Linux, I just think about the things I say.
Anyway dude, keep the good work (e caga para os gajos).
I have never heard of João before, even though we are both Portuguese persons, but I’ve heard of his project a few weeks ago. But sincerely, and to be quite frank, I know not much about it. I’m amazed with his approaches and answers while not fully disappointed with the interview itself, I found that Andi or whoever set the questions for this specific interview, didn’t choose the best questions for a person who’s not involved in either Linux or Windows development as far as I can tell. Maybe I’m deeply wrong here, but if he was involved, he’d probably state that in his introduction.
I think that he neglected the fact that both OS’es follow different designs and directions in its unique and broad scope. Linux is a great implementation of an old OS design while Windows is a bloated implementation of a modern OS design. It’s like comparing buildings of five decades ago and buildings we’re used to see constantly nowadays. While some architects prefer to stick with old designs but improving them greatly (Linux), some remain on the edge of technology but using the wrong approaches to solve the actual problems and barriers and fully enhance their building block structures according to their market (Windows). I personally, need both OS’es too. I avoid x-windows whenever possible, as such Microsoft windows gives me what Linux doesn’t – a stable windows for multimedia purposes. As for programming, I found Linux to be better than Windows, but that is probably because I became a programmer in Linux rather Windows. To finish my comment, I’d like to congratulate João for being humble in his interview. Keep up the good work.
joao with your interview portugal now knows that the world is listening portugal.we’re good in at we do, the prove of that is you. portugal is proud of your work…go on!
Portugal!
I am a very close friend of João Paredes, I work with him in Chefax R&D and also in our faculty’s ACM student chapter. I just want to say I’m pround of working with him and wish we can take our projects beyond.
FORÇA JOÃO. AGORA É QUE O VIANA SE VAI CALAR!
I found this interview rather odd to be posted in OSNews. He seems to basically be a geek that happens to be mates with the interviewer. Nothing wrong with that but why should it be in here? As well, why are 50% of the comments here cheering because he is portuguese? Why is that relevant in any way?(note:i’m portuguese myself)
He is a person, like you and me. Does he have to be a president of a country to get interviewed?
This interview was done as a part of a study in a university and the author was kind enough to reprint it here.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Being a$$hol3s about it won’t change a thing.
No he doesn’t have to be the president of a country to get interviewed, but jeez.. at least have something of recognition. Hell, at least let us KNOW what he’s done that we would recognise instead of this elitest shit. “He’s been programming since he was 5”, and “He’s well known in his circles”. C’mon. The dude in the next cube who codes VB can say those things. Otherwise, why wouldn’t you just interview a bum off the street (or the VB dude in the next cube). He is a person too after all. And no one was being an asshole except for you. We’re supposed to discuss and give opinions, yet when we do, we get chastised and called assholes. That was my honest to god opinion. I *SHOULD* have skipped the article. I was pretty blunt yes, but hey.. my apparent ineptitude and this being a comment place allows me to say such things.
And if i’m being an asshole, then you’re being a bitch in your responses to readers and you should stop that also. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game
. Seriously, i love this site. But with the “why linux is not ready x, y and z” and “what linux needs to do to ____” articles that turn up at the rate of 5 per week.. and then this POS. What are we to do? Typically sites and other publications listen to their readership and try to change where appropriate instead of calling them names.
I am a brazilian guy and we speak a variation of the same language (portuguese). I think that the fundamental difference between Linux (and Unices) and NT is the philosophy, specially between Linux and NT. It is freedom, open standards and modularity versus proprietary standards, abusive EULAs and licenses and bloatware.
I spend my time only learning linux because I have much more control over it and can make my programs and projects without spend money. The only price of it is the time I spend to learn, but it is a pleasure for me.
X is not the reason to weak success of linux on desktops. X is old but it is powerfull and standardized. All the professional graphics workstations used in Hollywood were Unix machines using X, and Maya is much more “graphical” than M$ Word 🙂 Hardware is becoming much powerfull and there are no technical reason to blaming X. I can run OpenGL games on my linux box perfectly (ssing a GeForce 2MX400 vido adapter !).
I don’t care about MacOS X, Windows, BeOS, OS/2 or other operating systems I cannot control and see how they work (the source code). Would you pay for a car with sealed (hermetically closed) motor box (I don’t know the correct english word for it…) ?
At first, it thought “who?” as well. It wasn’t until I read your background information framing the article that I was able to look at the interview from a different perspective, and it all suddenly seemed perfectly reasonable. To tell the truth, the whole “visionary” thing kind of made me expect something different from the interview than what it actually was. I think it would have made a little more sense to frame the interview for what it was, and give some background beforehand.
that was a really terrible interview. this kid doesn’t seem like he’s the visionary that the interviewer makes him out to be. better luck next time
Maybe with the introduction of the interview Andy should have asked “What were you programming at age 6, and then maybe age 8 12, etc ?”
It would have been interesting to see the progression of his programming talents and how they developed, without sounding like a CV/resume.
You forgot to ask about BeOS and what he thought about its direction as a modern OS. Don’t say it is dead people, or else I’ll say, “I didn’t know my computer could do that!” I just had to sneak that in.
Also ask him what “Goodware” he has contributed to Opensourceware or Closedsourceware.
Obviously I could tell from the interview that the discussion about the OS his working on will remain a secret, it is probably a hobby of his to keep up with programming skills and to try out ideas that would not be allowed in a production OS.
To all the people asking who he is, I send a challenge. Find it out for yourselves! That his the beauty of learning!I give you an hint, check out http://chefax.com
João is not alone, he leads a development group at the University! Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Ricardo Guiamrães.I am a member of the Directive Board of ChefaxR&D, Director of Public Relations and a fellow student at the Univesity. Please try to be informed before embarassing yourselves
I would read from the website but I only know English and Greek.
Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Stallman, those are visionaries…Interview sounded like it was Hello Magazine!, hey where’s the glossy photo? I think the 21 yr old is confident, yep.
And don’t swear at Eugenia, that’s like calling yourself a punk. I like punk music.
What has portugal ever contributed to the Computing world? I mean Japan = Nintendo, Sega, etc, USA = Microsoft, Redhat, Apple, etc.
Russia = cracks, warez etc.. Spain = Roland on the Ropes (Amstrad CPC 464…1984). U get me!
oh I nearly forgot India/Arab = 0’s and 1’s…mathematics.Duhh!
I’m from Portugal (Lisbon) and i can only say that i’m proud for him.
And yes, it was a great interview.
Força Portugal!!!
What does Força mean?
I knew a few geeks not too different from this one when I was in university, but judging by what I have read here, they knew a lot more than he does.
Take his comments criticising the design of the Internet for example. No foresight by only using 32 bit addresses he laments. Wakey wakey, but TCP/IP was never designed to be the infrastructure behind “the Internet”, 32 bits were heaps for Cerf and co’s requirements. As for his IPv6 criticisms, automatic IP configuration means that admins don’t need to remember heaps of 128 bit addresses as he seems to think anyway.
I don’t mind that Eugenia posted this interview though, most of what I do read on OSnews is the discussion amongst readers anyhow. I don’t expect readers to be geniuses before they can post their opinion.
One thing I would say though, is that it seems few of the article contributers run spelling or grammer checkers. Surely this isn’t too much to ask of them.
What does “Força” mean?
“May the force be with you” (Wich is not the case !!!!! – IM Humble O !!
So many talk so little achievements !!
Get ou of here !!
(A real Portuguese).
I knew a few geeks not too different from this one when I was in university, but judging by what I have read here, they knew a lot more than he does.
Read this:
AD: The word “de” in your surname points to your noble roots, doesn’t it?
MdI: Which is a shame in human history. Class differences are wrong.
At:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6833&mode=thread&order=…
(That might teach something to someone).
>By John Blink (IP: —.wc.optusnet.com.au) – Posted on
>2003-04-26 02:08:04
>I would read from the website but I only know English and >Greek.
try this link:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fww…
and yuo say you “know English and Greek.” maybe is more of “know English.”
João continua com o bom trabalho, um colega do departamento de informatica do ISEP http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt
one more prof of the may bad english
I’ve read all comments about the interview, including the moderated down ones. I felt it was time for me to say something, because I understood a lot of people did not fully understand me, or the english translation of the interview. I will not defend Andy, because his defense is up to him and I may end up hurting him more than helping.
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone that said a kind word for me. It really meant something.
Now, I’ll answer all the comments in a professional, constructive and non-insulting way.
@j, “Was this a joke?”
No. I know about hungarian notation. I tryed avoiding using some terms because I didn’t really know what would Andy do with that interview neither who would read it. And I do know that the windows API was written in C. I didn’t said anything else. But I did said that it had a (as refered) “strong emphasys in OOP”. And you have to agree with that, because is part of the Windows nature. It has been done in a way to easily make OOP usable, or was just destiny that made OOP come to windows.
@anonymous, “Re: if i had a nickle…”
I don’t really know what you mean with recognition. I have, in my life, help a lot of people and helped in a lot of important and well known projects and distros never expecting anything in return, and in a way, that is what is behind the creation of the Chefax R&D team and why I lead our local ACM branch. Because I do it for all the others. I don’t know if I deserve recognition, but if someone decided to post the interview here, and if the OSNews webmasters decided to publish the interview, then it is because they think I may deserve, or because they liked Andy’s interview. So, if I really do deserve recognition, why shouldn’t I be allowed to start to be know because of OSNews? It is as legitimate as any other way.
@m
Thank you for the positive and constructive comment. I did not express myself very well and the translation didn’t help. I really didn’t mean Windows Server not having GUI to have ONLY a command line. There are ways to do it both without a GUI and without a command line. Think of, for example, something like a text-based user interface, kinda like ncurses or TurboVision (or the microsoft widgets used in QBASIC, VBDOS and the like). Could be Windows without the real graphical engine. There are more than the two extremes. About KDE, I agree that it is heavy, and I did not said anything contrary.
@John Blink, “Started programming at age 5”
I have kept my OS a bit of a secret for a few reasons:
1) I really do not have time to write a webpage about it. I have to do my studies, to work, to represent Chefax R&D, to represent ACM in our local branch and only the spare time to develop. If I lose my time creating webpages, I’ll never be developing the OS
2) Because of attacks I have suffered, especially from important and well positioned people I know that tryed to steal one my projects and ideas. So I got afraid, and started hiding my ideas. I do want my OS to get public, sometime. But util I have something really inovative to show, I rather not show it at all. That is also why I avoided talking and being descriptive about the projects during the interview.
3) I also lack equipment, because getting sponsorships isn’t easy. I always get people saying I have great ideas, but when it comes to sponsorship, everybody steps back. Unfortunately, this is the way it works in Portugal. And my university can’t help me much. As neither me, nor my colleagues, have much money, we have to work with what we have, which isn’t much.
Also, I could have mentioned BeOS, QNX, etc. I choose not to because I had to answer the questions and that’s it. Also, I haven’t had that much of a big experience with them as I had with Windows, Linux or FreeBSD, as such, I would not feel comfortable talking about something I do not know enough to compare. I did used a lot of them but still not enough for me.
Eugenia, me and everybody around here loves you. Don’t let trolls get to your nerves.
To all of you, with no exception, take care
what kind of inroads have computers/internet made in portugal, does lots of people have high speed internet? things of that nature.
“What has portugal ever contributed to the Computing world? I mean Japan = Nintendo, Sega, etc, USA = Microsoft, Redhat, Apple, etc.
Russia = cracks, warez etc.. Spain = Roland on the Ropes (Amstrad CPC 464…1984). U get me!
oh I nearly forgot India/Arab = 0’s and 1’s…mathematics.Duhh! ”
Timex 2068, Cracks, Hacks (http://Toxyn.org, http://p.ulh.as) and inumerous participations in foreign projects.
A lot of people actually started coding at a very early age, but that doesn’t mean that they are any better at coding than a guy who started when he was 18. I started when I was 6 myself and I have to say that I’m a pretty lousy programmer
And besides few people did any advanced stuff at that age. I remember coding some fairly simple graphics routines and text adventures in BASIC on my Sord M5 that’s pretty much it.
You don’t have to be some kind of wonderchild to do that, it’s more a matter of opportunity and creativity.
It is very good to see a bright student giving his opinion and seeing so many people interested on it.
Congratulations, and I hope you keep improving your knowledge, experience anf vision!
João Falcão e Cunha, FEUP
To João Paredes,
Thanks for the reply and wish you all the best in life.
I wasn’t going to go off on this kid for parroting things we’ve all heard on OS News and ./ many times before, but then he comes on the board and starts saying that people are trying to steal his Operating System secrets.
What a joke. And then he gets all of his portugese friends to comment on the board and say how proud they are that a portugal has been recognized. HAHA.
but the best line was how he has secret plans for Object Oriented cpu. Comical.
As a moderated down said, Can we interview my mailman now.
I am sorry you think that way.
I haven’t said that people are trying to steal my operating systems secrets. I said one person did steal a project of mine. In fact it was a former teacher of mine, and it presented it at a conference as being his project.
And I did not ask anyone to come here and comment.
Also, I haven’t said that it was an Object Oriented CPU. Please read things carefully, but, to make you happy, I’ll just give you a hint: it’s amazing what one can do with FPGA’s.
I just think you hate me because my name got mentioned here. Are you jealous in any way?
I am sorry also that you cannot be constructive, and got to try make fun of me. But I guess inconstructive and bad minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.
ahmmm.. i just gotta say something about the win32 API.
it’s simply too damn bloated. It’s almost completly written in C though there are some calls that are included in the oficial reference that resemble C++ mostly. It has too many functions for the same purpose. it basicly sukz since the interesting parts of the API, as in, the usefull ones are documented by third party folk. (sysinternals and friends)
windows is damn stupid, linux suks too..
I 100% with the Xfree arguments, though not with the GTK/QT one..
btw.. backwards compatability is usefull even if sometimes at the expense of performance.
l8r.
PS: dá-lhe joao =) btw… redhat sukz now and mdk was never good.
That’s exactly what I said about the Windows API. Glad someone agrees.
It seems to me that you are the joke! When someone doesn´t have anything construtctive to say about another person´s work, should keep his mouth shut! I belive you are on of those that “Hamers anyone who gets sucess, without kowing what are you talking about”! Like I said before, check us out at http://chefax.com or contact me at [email protected] to learn more about us and our activities. You would be surprised!!! Take the challenge… or don´t! It is your choice to be uninformed after this!
Ricardo Guimarães
Public Relations of Chefax R&D
translation of the header:
Well, I agree with some things, not with others, but Liked IT
OO in hardware?? what the hell…
sysadmins having to know ipv6 adresses?
sincerely, one of two things: or you don’t know much about ipv6 expect for 128 addresses.. or I really don’t see what you mean.
and ipv4/tcp is excelent, thought out by indeed very exceptional ppl. (remember its more than 20 years old, in a world that evolves at (what seems) exponential rate).
You like to have well designed and easy to reuse, expand and develop software, but use assembly??
how about paralelization, smp, platform independance, want to use i386 assembly in p4’s and k7’s, k8’s?
can’t I use ppc, sparc, ia64 for running your good aplications?
what about mms, sse, sse, threading, and much more hardware api inovations what happens with time?
assembly coding is something for:
OS’s, hw drivers, performance quirks for _todays_ computer, in some specific task(divx encoding/decoding..etc).
But thats a hack, not a well designed and thought out thing.
About X, yes.. it’s outdated, is the client/server aproach the problem? no, it’s been proved.
direct hardware access is needed, grafical interface in UNIX’s it years behind M$(alfa blending, proper font support, speed).
grafical API for unix, it lacks a good solid, performant, extendable, designed for the years to come. UNIFIED one.. is this what you mean, right?
That for me is the big problem of unix, and why it doens’t go to the desktop, there isn’t nothing compaired to the graphical api of MS, when it comes to doing autocad, photoshop, adobe, productivity tools for the unix world.
this is the problem, what’s the solution… it’s also part of the unix/opensource world things like branches of development, multitude of tools, each unique, for the same purpose… and you can’t fight that, this happens ’cause ppl are working for free, to enjoy themselves… trying to do things the way they see fit. Solve that “problem solver”. :-p
there windows really have a huge advantage.
also on this matter, what do you thing about mac os X (it is unix in the desktop…).
windows also have something that you don’t have in linux/freebsd, besides the grafical API, and quality tool remote desktop(he he):
The active directory, there isn’t anything has good, scalable and usefull thing in the unix world. (and yes, i’ve looked at afs+ldap+kerberos)
windows is building a complete and solid solution, good quality and really scalable… if the unix world doesn’t wake up, windows will take the server side (i’m not talking about simple webserving pages, but about mid-range and mainframe computers).
Liked some of your Ideas, 100% agreed that monolithic kernels are “out”, and performance wise, it only depends on the implementation.
And hardware drivers depend on this so that kernel development and releases don’t interfere with having hardware drivers by manufacturers, who make them(drivers) once a year.
you like (like me) to see the hardware being well used, software without bloat, and that don’t waste hw power, yet you don’t talk about two things of the “future”, paralelization, distributed computing, using simple desktop computers that are idling aroung all over the globe. Maybe it’s not a area of your interest. Still the future of the web might just be that.
OOP, humm.. not shure if that is the future, there are quite a variety of programing paradigms, none is the solution, the solution is team work(human factor), good designing of aplications/tools(that means picking the right paradigm to meet the end purpose), and time!
You seem a brigh person, capable and creative one, hope to meet you someday, in the computing world.
The world needs ppl like you, keep strifing for something better.
Força com isso!
Well, I see this became a matter of national pride
A few days ago I was talking to a friend about our (portugese) tendency to underestimate ourselves… It’s almost genetic. When we see something that makes us proud, we tend to grab on… That’s why so many people got so excited about the interview and felt personally offended by negative remarks on it.
João Parede (who I don’t know personaly) is not the representative of the portuguese programmers… He seems to know a lot of things, it is also impressive that he codes since 5 years old, but he is certainly not the only person (or even young person) to achieve something in CS in Portugal…
Dear Miguel,
I can’t agree with everything you say. Some short comments on your statements.
>About X, yes.. it’s outdated, is the client/server aproach >the problem? no, it’s been proved.
>direct hardware access is needed, grafical interface in >UNIX’s it years behind M$(alfa blending, proper font >support, speed).
Of course it is needed, and XFree86 provides good hardware access, via XFree86 extensions. In those cases it is not the old X standard in use but new extensions (ex:Xv, Xshm…)
The bigger problem of X is not its design (check the discussions on the Forum mailing list) but more the lack of resources for driver developments. The good drivers work _very_ well, the problem is that not all of them are good drivers (lack of developers, specs, hardware….)
About the fonts, I think we lack some free quality fonts, but we can use the M$ fonts with XFree.
>grafical API for unix, it lacks a good solid, performant,
That is why it outperforms windows on quake 3 / ut tests in some cases and is nearly as good in some others…..
That is why a friend of mine plays DVDs on linux on a PII 350 mhz , with no frame drops….
A XFree86 server running on a well supported card is as fast or faster than windows.
I am really sorry that you have a poorly supported piece of hw 😉 , but nowadays linux users still have to be picky about hardware if they want all the fancy features working. Next time, think twice before buying
This is something that people seem not to understand.
>extendable, designed for the years to come. UNIFIED one.. >is this what you mean, right?
There is a standard for X, which can be used througout *nix.
>That for me is the big problem of unix, and why it doens’t >go to the desktop, there isn’t nothing compaired to the >graphical api of MS, when it comes to doing autocad, >photoshop, adobe, productivity tools for the unix world.
>this is the problem, what’s the solution…
I don’t think that the reason autocad, photoshop, etc are not on unix is the API (or lack of a good one). Many people find the windows API to be awfull and that doesn’t stop the applications from being developed. I think the reasons for this are well known…
>it’s also part of the unix/opensource world things like >branches of development, multitude of tools, each unique, >for the same purpose… and you can’t fight that, this >happens ’cause ppl are working for free, to enjoy >themselves… trying to do things the way they see fit. >Solve that “problem solver”. :-p
The only solution is having the distros make reasonable picks and include only quality software. You can’t really stop people from developing whatever they want, although I find silly to put some effort in developing , say, “yet another office suite”…
And yes, linux is quite ready for the corporate desktop, if you have a well informed and picky system administrator. There is more than enough good software for the demands of the typical users, which don’t need word or excel, but only a working subset of their features.
Unfortunately we are still too narrow minded (even the geeks) to see that, here in Portugal…
Best regards
Gustavo
GO TUGAS !
Força portugal
I understand the common user doesnt care much about real-time and fault tolerance OS’s, thats an industry thing, but because we are talking about visionary ideas, why not bring these very important concepts to mind?
Space Applications are the most critical systems around. ESA and NASA only use hardware & software that previously has proven its worth, that is 100% stable and does its job with extreme accuracy. Of course this still demands for special crafted hardware with advanced error detection mechanisms, redundancy and high debugging capabilities. But if we are talking visionary, why dont we walk in this direction too (at least in the software area) ?
To ones that didnt do it yet, take a closer look at real time programming characteristics and approaches. They can be applied to modern OS’s. ADA (especially Ravenscar profile subset) and RT-C++ are the most well known i think.
That idea that Joao’s suggest about implemmenting OO Hardware using FPGA’s flexibility might be interesting if doable… I am not completely aware of FPGA’s full capabilites, i just know of some applications that used FPGA’s.
I will not discuss if Joao’s is a visionary or not, because that doesnt matter at all.
Note: Of course im please to see other Portuguese out there (althought internet is a “country” itself)