best language for 3D manipulation over web ?

[Attila Feher]

TGOS wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 03 Jun 2001 17:21:30 +0300, Attila Feher <Attila.Feher at lmf.ericsson.se>
> wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > Just to inform you: the worlds easiest to hack and crack systems are the
> > UNIX systems.
> 
> That's absolutely incorrect.

That is _absolutely_ correct.  There is no system like unices, full with
security holes.  Crackers _does_ start on unices, the easiest to crack
systems.  If you think they start on VMS, you are alone.

> It's easily provable by having a look at "how" hackers were entering a Unix
> system. Whenever a new hack is made public somewhere on the Internet, I first
> have a look at "how it was done" because that's most interesting to me (more
> interesting than "who was hacking the system" and "for what reason"). And
> usually I'll read the following:
> "This hack was possible because of a security hole in XYZ, that got fixed in
> version 1.234, which was released <long time ago>".

So that is what you find.  You don't search hard enough.  BTW,
commercial Unices are no better than MS: they _only_ publish holes found
after they have corrected it.

> But that's all only valid for maybe 5% of all hacks, 95% of all hacks are only
> possible because the hired system admin wasn't qualified for this job. Come on,
> if you leave your UNIX server widely open to the public, it's no wonder if you
> get hacked.

The Unix systems are _designed_ to be wide open.  So you _do_ need an
expert to close them.  Not such with VMS.

> IOW most UNIX hacks only result of poor administration and hacking a perfectly
> secured UNIX system is extremely hard. In most cases it's harder than hacking
> Windows, because only a "root-hack" is really useful on UNIX systems, whereby
> on Windows systems it's enough to be an ordinary user in many cases.

Creating a perfectly secured Unix system is equally extremely hard.

It is not enough on Windows NT to be an ordinary user to do a crack. 
You don't even seem to know the diff between hack and crack...

So if you are going to compare win9x/me to Unix, you are out of your
mind.  And on (a well secured) NT it is not enough to get in as an
ordinary user to crack it.  Same as with Unix. :-)

> Despite that, more people will be able to see UNIX source code before it gets
> released than are actually working for Micro$oft as whole, so the chance that
> they find hidden bugs in network code (for example) is a lot higher than in
> case of Windows.

Not really.  Windows code is seen by thousands before release.  The fact
you were not invited to this circle of privileged non-MS people does not
mean it does not exist.

> But leaving this all aside for a second:
> *Where* in my post did I say that Unix is extremely secure and hard to hack?
> All I said is that Windows isn't secure.

You put it as a favour to UNIX!  Implying that UNIX is.

> PLEASE, don't put words into my mouth that I never used!
> I suggest you read my post a second time.

Don't be a politician!!!  You know if I start defend UNIX based on that
Windows _is_not_ secure (WHICH ONE?????) than people automatically think
UNIX is.  You imply that Unices are used in banks and secure places
which is not true either, at least not for most.  They use VMS.

> > Serious users (security, incl. but
> > not limited to NATO, banks etc.) use VMS.  Some smaller banks use(d)
> > OS/2.
> 
> Same situation as above.
> I never said that those use UNIX, did I?
> (if you disagree, please post the line!)
> All I said was that those don't use Windows.
> Are you sure you have read my post?

Yes.  Your whole post was a defense of Unix (Linux) with comments about
why Windows is bad.  BTW I have not seen any airport where the terminals
were non-Windows...

> And speaking about cross-platform development:
> OS/2 is a very good Java platform. I don't know anything about VMS, but it's
> certainly not impossible to port a Java Virtual Machine for this system as
> well.

No.  And I guess it exists.  And I guess it is a security risk as all
Java VMs are.

> Again, I never said that UNIX is used in all the places you described above.
> I get the feeling that you are replying to the wrong post here.

You implied.

> > So don't take UNIX to any higher level than it is.
> 
> I never did that, you are currently doing that because you assume ... well, I
> have no idea what you are assuming.

What your post was about. :-)

> > And about Windows being a shit: Just try to look around and find a
> > portable async gethostbyname or a standard gethostbyname_r for
> > Unices...  Good luck.  BTW you can find numerous workarounds which fail
> > in numerous environments.
> 
> And the fact that this function (which I personally have never needed up to
> now) doesn't exist on UNIX is the proof that Windows isn't shit? Funny, but
> that makes no sense to me.

Did I say it exists in Windows?  Did I say that?  When?  _If_ you never
needed it how do you know by hearth it does exists as a service in
WinSock and does not in Unix???

> > Windows is not better than UNIX and UNIX is not better than Windows and
> > none of those are neither secure nor realtime O/Ss.
> 
> 1) I never said that UNIX is better than Windows (correct me if you can!), I
> only said that Windows is unstable, insecure and not very well thought out.

Just like Unix in general.

> 2) I never said that UNIX is secure, neither in my last post nor  in this post.

You implied

> 3) There actually is a realtime version of Linux ... just thought I should
> mention that.

Which is not "realtime enough".

> > Don't make a religious war about this.
> 
> It rather looks like /you/ are making a religious war out of that.
> I nowhere said "UNIX is better" and that all people shall use UNIX PC instead
> of Windows PCs. I use Windows myself (not as only OS, but still more often).
> 
> I was only pointing out that not 99.9999% of all PCs run with Win32 (the
> reality is not even close to that) and that cross-platform development has no
> disadvantages.

Yep, U R right in that.  Only disadvantage is if your market size for
Win32 platforms is the 80% of your market and you spend too much time to
serve 15% of the rest (you will never have a fully PI SW) and so you
loose that whole 80%, too.

> > Like online casino SW.  Would they survive with a Linux only solution?
> 
> I don't know and I don't care. I'm a supporter of cross-platform solutions and
> a Linux only solution is no cross-platform solution.

All I was pointing out is that a Windows solution might cover 60-90% of
your existing market.  Which is usually not true with Unix solutions. 
But working on Unices: you are right.  There is no such thing as Unix. 
You _must_ do cross platform development, know all the non-standard sh*t
and all the errors of all O/Ss you ever want to support.  HP-UX fails at
different places than Solaris 2.7 etc.

> You seem to misunderstands my motives. Saying how shitty Windows is and only
> developing Linux software from this day on isn't making the situation any
> better. You exchange one "platform dependent solution" with another "platform
> dependent solution". Cross-platform development meaning to not develop for any
> specific platform.

I'd like to see you to make a full featured GUI which runs on Windows
(all the 5+1 versions in use plus CEs) _and_ all Unices with all Window
Managers with no incompatibilities (clipboard etc.).  They are simply
way too different to be able to use the same code base.  If you can, you
end up with: either a Java monster, a ported MFC-crashing monster, or a
SW which supports only unacceptable subset of the GUI capabilities of
the Windows platform.

Business logic can be portable easily.  GUI.... maybe if it is HTML
based...

> It means developing a base version that can run everywhere and then only
> fine-tune this base version for different systems. That's cross-platform
> development.

There is no such thing.  If you believe in that...  Maybe for very
simple applications where it is enough to use what the GUI meant 10
years ago.

> To get back to your question: Would the casino SW developers also survive when
> creating software that can run on Windows, Linux, Solaris, Irix and OS/2?
> Certainly! Maybe even better than they are doing right now.

Certainly not.  They would be about to finish the first beta version of
their SW, when the market is already shared between the players.  If my
friend would have decided to make a cross platform version he would
certainly loose the game.  You know individual users don't care if you
casino SW will not run on the Mac of somebody else.  In that sector
cross platform hgas no marketing value in the mass market: the home
Windows user.  Not even NT needed to be supported for a looong time.
:-))))

> > So there is a huge market for Windows apps.
> 
> Just like there's a huge market for other OSes, so why not supplying software
> for more than a single market? Because you could gain more customers and earn
> more money? Yeah, that would certainly be a big disadvantage.

Why not?  Because the market compared to the Windows one (depending on
your area) might be too small or too far to be worth the effort.  Same
thing can happen for areas where Windows users have no need but Unix
users/systems.

> If you are developing a online application that people shall be able to use
> within their browser (and that's what this whole thread is all about...but I
> assume you don't know that because you haven't read anything within this thread
> up to now, including my post to that you are replying), where is the advantage
> of limiting it to a single platform? I don't see any.

Online application is not necessarily "within the browser".  "Withing
the browser" is Java, ActiveX or C# or goodbye.  Java is still a very
unstable and unsecure stuff where VMs are incompatible etc.  No 1.3 for
IE etc.  ActiveX is Windows only.  C# - I have not heard much good about
it yet.

> The cross-platform solution is there, all you need to do is using it!

I have been working together with _the_ Java evangelist of Hungary, who
was been using, promoting, supporting Java, making large systems for all
the years Java existed.  If you believe in effortless Java code
portability, you did not work enough with Java... esp. between different
VMs.

A