Chinese entertainment for engineering students

(I entered the last chapter, revised it once, and still failed. Hey, I have to wait 48 hours before revising it again, which is against the rules)

Shuimu University, back hall of main building, computer room.

There is no anti-static floor, and there is no requirement to change into slippers. The computer room donated by Wang Fei looks more like an office in later generations, with cubicles inside. This idea was of course Wang Xu's.

The computer room in the school cannot be used for playing games. It is mainly used for doing things, so there is no need to make it as comfortable as an Internet cafe. Just have a chair.

Therefore, Mizuki found a big house, arranged rows of computers, and arranged them hastily according to the regulations of the office.

The machines are all 386 or above, and half of them are equipped with new COS systems, which are mainly used for programming.

Wang Xu's supercomputing plan has been expanded countless times. It includes some basic language packages, in addition to the C language for developing underlying applications.

Commonly used engineering languages ​​include assembly, C, C++, Fortran, Pascal, Basic, etc. All have been transplanted, and now these machines have compilers for these languages.

Even Java, which Wang Xu used most in his previous life, has been arranged. He directly uses the Java2 version of the syntax and writes his own executor. In this era, it can be regarded as an original language product of Shuimu.

The main thing is that too many network applications in later generations are built on this language. Since Wang Xu has developed so many network applications in advance, how could he forget this network development language that accounts for the vast majority of the market share.

The biggest problem with Java in this era is that it is slow. It is a translation language, which means that the compiled code of Java programs is not binary and can be run directly on the operating system.

Instead, a virtual machine environment is needed in which the code runs. The biggest benefit of this is not the portability that was originally considered, but that this method can ignore the complex operations of memory management.

People who have written programs, especially those who have written low-level programs, will definitely hate the complex various memory operations at the bottom. It is the kind that can crash if you are not careful.

However, it is much better to use a virtual machine to manage memory. The virtual machine is responsible for memory allocation, which greatly reduces the possibility of memory call errors and accordingly reduces the probability of various crashes.

This stable operating effect has no special benefits for personal systems, but it is a very superior performance for servers.

This is because, for memory calls, most self-developed application programmers are not experienced in developing underlying applications. They are more likely to make mistakes in this area, and such mistakes will cause the entire server to completely hang up. Lose.

If it is a personal computer, just restart it if it crashes. Anyway, you are the only one using it.

The server is not only used by one person, but also has more than one application running. There are often many programs running at the same time. If one service hangs up, the entire machine will be brought down, and other applications cannot be used. This harm can be serious. It's very serious.

This is also the reason why various languages ​​for developing network applications emerged later, most of which are interpreted, just because such languages ​​are more suitable for developing server applications.

By the way, the real Java is still called Oak, lying quietly in Sun's laboratory without any application.

However, Java is not of much use yet. After all, the shortcoming of slow speed will make it impossible to have much application scenarios.

However, the characteristics of Java itself make it very suitable as an object-oriented learning language. After all, there are not many fully-supported object-oriented languages ​​in this era.

The computer room is full of busy students. This computer room is open to all students, but you have to reserve a time in advance, and it is not like an Internet cafe.

Two young students are sitting in front of a computer busy. Yes, two people have one computer. This is allowed. Who makes the number of machines insufficient?

One of the boys was holding a stack of floppy disks, diligently replacing them one by one, and tapping on the keyboard from time to time.

"Haitao, this thing can be downloaded for free in school. Maybe it will be pirated all over the world in a few days. Why are you torturing him?" Peng Li asked his friend in front of him with some doubts.

"Shh, be quieter." Zheng Haitao made a universal silence gesture, raised his head and looked around, feeling that no one was paying attention to his side.

Then he lay down in his friend's ear and whispered, "Keep your voice down, I'm selling it to pirates. A set of software, packaged and guaranteed, for five hundred yuan."

"Ah, the pirates bought it from you?" Peng Li's eyes widened. He was only a sophomore and didn't know anything about these things.

I just like to tinker with all kinds of open source software, and I can say that I am very familiar with various packaging methods.

Zheng Haitao graduated with a master's degree last year and went to the south to work. He is currently working in a telecommunications company in Lingnan Province.

Unexpectedly, his status as a Shuimu graduate led him to receive a very special job.

That is, copy the software from Shuimu's open source pool.

A piece of software costs 500, package it, and take it to the south on a floppy disk. Then the gang will make pirated CDs and sell them all over the country.

The current education network has not yet been completed, and there are not many universities that can access the Shuimu network, and the remote access speed is very slow. Therefore, the content in the Shuimu open source pool is getting more and more, the updates are getting faster and faster, and the reputation is also increasing. It started to spread slowly.

At the beginning, some students from other schools heard about the new software here, and then they asked students from Shuimu to help copy it, and then copied it to each other and spread it to each other.

Later, I was targeted by pirates. This is a good job, not to mention low cost, and the content is very rich.

Some people are already selling the floppy disk version of COS on the market. It costs 5 yuan per set and only costs one floppy disk. It is cheap and easy to use, and you can get started with a little learning. All the tools and software in it can be purchased on the pirated market.

This is Wang Xu's original intention. It is really difficult for you to make money from software now. Piracy can ruin all your efforts in an instant, and selling software will lead to a dead end.

It can be said that except for financial software, almost all other software has been pirated. As for financial software, people really don’t dare to use pirated software for fear of contracting a virus or something and causing a bad debt.

Not even Microsoft can make money in China in this era, let alone the new Chinese software vendors.

Fortunately, in the past two years, CD drives have not yet become popular on a large scale. Piracy still relies on floppy disks, and the spread is not that fast. Therefore, domestic software vendors still have some breathing space, and they can still win some orders by relying on their advantages in localization and service.

When CDs became the main storage medium, the overwhelming piracy of foreign software completely wiped out the last hope of domestic software vendors.

Wang Xu also found a desperate solution. He might as well just open source it. I'll even give you the code, so it doesn't matter whether it's pirated or not. Development depends entirely on the enthusiasm of programmers and Wang Xu's subsidies.

Even if these things are the foundation for the future, as long as we continue to update them, we will eventually find a way to make money.

The open source here uses a license model similar to Linux. It doesn't mind you commercializing it, nor does it mind you package and sell it, nor does it restrict you from keeping confidential subsequent development.

However, in order to ensure subsequent compatibility, most commercial manufacturers will also re-contribute some publicly available parts to the open source community and become contributors to this software.

On Mizuki's side, all he needs to do is control the version.

Just like Android in later generations, it is a classic case completed by programmers all over the world.

Recently, Mizuki's voice in the world is quite big. This university that has continuously produced heavyweight results has attracted the attention of universities around the world.

All kinds of communication are exploding on a geometric scale, and email has naturally become the most convenient medium for communication in the world.

Shuimu's education network can connect to the world. Although it is slower, you can still contact universities around the world through email.

Through various academic exchanges, information about the various open source products newly developed here has gradually become known to overseas universities, and the Shuimu open source community has successfully attracted overseas attention.

New concept operating systems, convenient code management tools, development tools, new languages, new network management tools, network servers, and all kinds of new applications are displayed in this open source community.

Although many documents are in Chinese, there are enthusiastic people who can't help but translate them. Soon the full English version of the documents appeared in the code base of the open source community.

This is the vitality of the open source community. Mizuki is already discussing with Stanford and MIT to establish mirrors there. This thing is not complicated. The main reason is that other cooperation negotiations are slow, otherwise it may have taken shape long ago.

But even so, it did not delay the emergence of Mizuki's first overseas contributor soon. A young programmer translated COS documents into Japanese.

Ah, yes, contribution documents can also belong to contributors.

At this time, COS is actually quite mature. It can support 32-bit directly at the bottom layer. It is a pure 32-bit operating system. It can even be slightly modified and recompiled to directly become a 64-bit operating system.

Who told Wang Xu to design for 64-bit from the beginning? However, the current mainstream of desktop computer CPUs is still 32-bit chips, so Shuimu's programmers can't help but develop according to 32-bit.

There will definitely be a lot of trouble caused by 64-bit porting in the future, but there is no way, the software is like this, and no one can sacrifice current performance for the future.

In short, Shuimu's open source community has begun to influence the whole country. The education network is one of the earliest open networks in China. However, it has not yet been rolled out to every university, but the backbone network has been rolled out to major large and medium-sized cities.

Top universities are already connected to this network. In the previous life, this network had no application at all in its early stages. Apart from sending occasional emails, it had almost no special function.

Even the teachers in the computer department don't use this network very much because there is really nothing available.

But this life is completely different. Shuimu has been very popular recently. How could other universities not be jealous? Naturally, all kinds of news from Shuimu are very clear.

Mizuki's two major projects have already spread throughout the university circles. The growth method is officially guided and it is difficult for other schools to interfere.

However, the supercomputing project is a student-initiated and privately-led project, and software design and development are conducted in an open source manner, which leaves ample room for the participation of other schools.

The full text version of the "Mercenary World" project management system directly publishes tasks on the Internet. If your people from Shuimu can take it, why can't those from our other colleges and universities take it.

The first is the major universities in the imperial capital. Imperial University is the first to bear the brunt, although they have also taken several sub-projects from Mizuki through negotiations for research. But it’s really not enough for so many departments. Since the Education Network has posted your project on my doorstep, I won’t go overboard by accepting it.

Then a professor from Imperial University directly took over the development of a scientific computing algorithm, and with the support of their powerful mathematics department, uploaded the code in just one week.

This incident quickly alarmed Wang Xu, who could be said to have been waiting for the participation of other institutions, especially Imperial University. He has long been salivating over the various science resources at Imperial University.

He rushed to school almost immediately and urged his tutor to take this matter seriously.

Then a grand money-distribution ceremony was held for the Imperial University teacher, and a commission of 500 yuan was solemnly distributed to the Imperial University teacher. A photographer was also hired to take a very formal group photo.

As for how they will divide the money and settle accounts when they go back, Wang Xu has nothing to do with it.

This is a milestone event, marking that the software part of Shuimu's "supercomputing project" has officially stepped out of Shuimu's door, and has gradually become an open source project shared by all of China and even the world.

In later generations, China has contributed a lot to open source projects, but there are very few open source projects started and led by China. On the one hand, this is related to China's accumulation, and on the other hand, it is also due to China's long-term piracy, which makes it difficult for programmers to truly It’s related to the environment in which they grew up.

The piracy industry is a real double-edged sword. On the one hand, it expands the horizons of Chinese people and allows too many engineers to have excellent software to use very early.

But on the other hand, crazy piracy has almost wiped out all of China's original software. Except for a few fields, China's software has almost no achievements in the world.

All software requires an iterative process before it can be truly adapted. Continuously collecting user opinions and reflecting them in the next version is a necessary process for all software.

But China’s software has been directly facing competition from pirated overseas software since it was born. Your functions are easier to use than others, you have more defects than others, and the price is much more expensive than pirated software. How can anyone buy your product? .

In the 1990s, Huaxia's independent CAD, CAM, and EDA software had finished products, and several companies were even in operation. Wang Xu knew that the Shuimu Computer Department had established a company specializing in producing CAD software, and it was operated for a time. Not bad.

Unfortunately, in less than a few years, CD versions of pirated software became wildly popular. Almost all Chinese software was lost in this wave of impact, and even Jinshan, the leader, could only survive.

This period can be said to be the darkest moment of China Software. It was not until the rise of network software that China had some independent software products again.

But those software used for stand-alone machines, workstations, and various other software are almost insulated from China.

Therefore, people say that it is stuck. In fact, what China really lags behind is software, and the gap does not even know how to make up for it.

Wang Xu can only do what he can. Advocating open source is one of the countermeasures he can think of. Taking advantage of Huaxia's large number of students and their diligence, he organizes a small team to build software products module by module. .

Why does it feel like a guerrilla fighting against the Japanese?

This of course requires an excellent level of advanced architecture, and this is Wang Xu's specialty. It's exciting to think about it. In his previous life, he didn't have the opportunity to build so many awesome products.

Now the door to open source software has been opened in Shuimu. What will happen in the future depends on Wang Xu's efforts.

——

(See you tomorrow. May the Sanqing bless you and pass the trial once)