Slashdot Mirror

Well, no, that's not why that's there. The reason 'flags' exists is because chrome doesn't branch. Any features that are in development go right in the main branch, so there's no costly merging. It has basically nothing to do with UI concerns; it's a result of the dev process.

Well I have outright rage over CVS. Primarily because of its slowness in large projects....

It is possible the reason you don't have problems with SVN merge and I did was because you use the command line and I use tortoise. I'm not the only one who thinks it's painful, though.

Other source control systems parse the code to detect methods that have moved around. This makes merging even easier, since if all you did was move a method, or add some whitespace, it will notice that it's not really a conflict. That's kind of nice, but generally I'd rather just not have two people work on the same piece of code at the same time.

You can also use other languages for the Dalvik, like Scala.

"input, output, and logging" as you describe is _one_ data store in the original post, namely the disk cum filesystem. That's why the original article said (paraphrased) "the disk being one data store."

The database is stored on the disk.

disk + database + net is probably unnecessarily complex.

I have one program that scrapes information from a web site into a database. (I have another that makes reports on the disk.) Does this mean the logging should also be to the database?

Since ImageMagick is also a _library_ there is no need to call it through fork/exec anyway.

In that case, PIL vs. PMW may be a wash. But in context, I understood the gist as the following: if shell is good enough, don't use Python.

games, at the level you are speaking of, are always CPU bound for rendering.

I thought they were GPU bound. But if they're fill-rate bound (as opposed to vertex shader bound), putting four 960x540 pixel windows on one screen won't tax the pixel shaders any more than one 1920x1080 pixel window. And some game styles don't even need four different views: look at Bomberman.

and the network latency of transferring pre-rendered frames

Why would you need to transfer frames over a network? You just display all four players' frames in windows on one monitor. Goldeneye 007 for Nintendo 64 does this. Or you render one frame that's suitable for all four players and again display that on one monitor. Smash Bros. does this.

you give an example of where you _cannot_ buy your way out of a performance problem

I took the article to mean that buying your way out is the preferred solution, and I gave a counterexample.

"but since sometimes you cannot keep things simple, you should never try to"

That is not what I meant. I meant only this: "but since sometimes you cannot keep things simple, you should never force yourself to."

There is a reason the original article was filled with predicates like "if" and "when". Giving examples outside those predicates is, in no way, applicable to the discussion within those predicates.

The problem comes when people read "if A then B", either gloss over the "if A" or forget the "if A" months later, and then blindly apply B without considering A. For example, consider Dijkstra's "Go To Statement Considered Harmful", which refers to "the unbridled use" of GOTO, but people forgot "unbridled". So if !A is a common occurrence, of course discussing how !A relates to B is on-topic.

The downside as I see it, is that you have to use Java. Does the NDK provide code interop with the Java Android libraries? It can't, not without a C++/CLI-like bastard language derivation. That means, the purpose of the NDK is not to write fully native apps, but for managed bindings to native-written function libraries.

Java is a language with no future. No one likes it. In fact, it carries more hatred than even Perl. Many programmers refuse to even associate with it on principle, for fear they will be somehow tainted by its knowledge. And it was almost, almost dead at last. And Google had to go and make it popular all over again. It's a flashback to the year 2000.

I love the Android for the simple fact it runs on Linux. But I'll be damned if I will program for the Android. I'd rather sell a kidney than to touch Java. C++ is painful, but fun, especially in its template intricacies. Java is an abomination, to the eyes, and to the mind. It's a soulless corporate manifestation, the COBOL of the present, the programming language that no one willingly chooses to learn. DIAF.

Well, then use Scala http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/scala-ide/Developing_for_Android or Clojure (tough there are significant performance penalties with clojure).

For this purpose -- vector animation -- Flash honestly is the best thing out there and I'm not sure I want to see it go (though open standard are always good). I think people are more up in arms about Flash video in particular, which is too widespread given that it's both proprietary and a resource hog.

You definitely raise an interesting point though, and I wonder if an OSS project to do what you describe exists. Googling turns up this note on the inkscape roadmap which indicates that this is in their long term plans. Apparently another project, MadSwatter also exists, but I know nothing about it.

Given the amount of time it has taken for the Gimp to become a strong competitor to Photoshop, I do however suspect that Flash's reign in the vector-animation arena is hardly over.

Essentially what I'd want would be a Task List on steroids, allowing for hierarchical subtasks, attachments, and prioritization

mylifeorganized.net - awesome windows task list app.
This app addresses your stated problem directly. I use it myself for professional and personal tasks. You can export as XML and sync with outlook too.

Clearcontext - an outlook addin
Adds many features to outlook making it much better at handling lots of shifting work. It takes a bit of learning and setting up, worth a look though.

TaskFreak! web based task manager / todo list written in PHP

www.Gtd-php.com
A surprisingly full-featured GTD system done with PHP.

Here's a list of groupware/collab/project management tools I've either used for work or had a good play around with.
Most are commercial, since I'm sure that all the OSS stuff will already be posted here. Some of them have local hosted options

COMINDWORK - my personal favourite
Central Desktop - has outlook plugin + bookmarklets etc.
Zoho Projects - v2 is very fast and responsive
activeCollab
Assembla - would appeal to the slashdot crowd IMO
Group-Office groupware - Very slick. Also has outlook plugin.
Teamwork Project Manager
Mercurial hosting — bitbucket.org

If you've ever actually run a j2me app on android, you would retract your claims. HTML based apps are far better.

HTML based app are far better? LOL

For your information, Java != Sun Java. There are lots of implementations of Java compilers, VMs etc: from very small VM's, like 220Kb only (e.g. http://jamvm.sourceforge.net/) to quite serious implementations (e.g. http://www.cacaovm.org/). And does not matters what VM Android is using in particular (they use Dalvik VM underneath their framework, so what?).

Whilst J2ME looks less powerful than what Google came up with on Android, however, there are tons of applications already done, up and running. Folks from Assembla does great job: http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/j2ab

Also for a record, JavaFX is running on Android: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sopao9Y7-GQ -- be our guest beating JavaFX features with that your "far better HTML". :-)

I moved to Assembla ( http://www.assembla.com/ ) after Google removed the MPL and I haven't looked back. It now hosts all of my projects, open and closed source and I really couldn't be happier with it. Well designed (better than Google code, which is rare) and faster than SF ever was, despite the huge strides they've made lately -- it's definitely better than 5 or 6 years ago where CVS would die twice a week :P

How about sites like http://www.assembla.com/ ?

http://assembla.com/ is pretty much what you are looking for. You can go in and see people as they work, or get an expert to build a team for you.

(Disclaimer: I have not used the site, but have worked directly with Andy Singleton)

Once "everybody" finds a site like rent-a-coder, quality drops through the floor, so I probably shouldn't be posting this.