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Hey, I'm new to Slashdot and I am having trouble figuring things out like how I can just relpy to you directly.

Can't do it. But you can feel free to email me.

A very general response--airships rarely have serious stability problems. They tend to have a very long moment arm between the center of lift (in the middle of the gas bag) and the center of mass, because fuel, payload, and a lot of structural weight tends to be down on the bottom.

But the stability is a direct result of the weight suspension. If we're talking a carrier, the weight distribution would have to be different to allow for a takeoff and landing deck. If it were suspended beneath a lift structure it would tend to swing and would create a narrow approach vector for planes. Another point is that the side suspension idea would allow the craft to use thrust in all directions instead of just forward and rudder. Rudders are a poorly suited control mechanism to such a slow craft. Assuming a thrust force like tilting rotors, the airship could be made to quickly slide, yaw, and adjust altitdude.

BTW, I ran across a "history" of the Iron Vulture here. It's such an interesting read that it's easy to believe that such development really happened! :-)

What's wrong with showing an email address on Slashdot Mr. gaccm@techie.com?

...he's exactly the type I would hire. He seems to at least attempt to understand what he's talking about, and isn't afraid to speak his mind. Now his immaturaty is showing through, but at least I can work with that. I'd take a dozen of guys like this over a couple hundred programmers with no drive. You must have one hellva time finding programmers. Oh, and to jsse himself, if you read this feel free to email me your resume. I would be more than happy to discuss Java employment with you. And no, I'm not a recruiter or a manager. But I am the lead programmer for my company and do make the recommendations for who gets hired and who doesn't.

No real analog to const. The "final" keyword only prevents assignment. It does not prevent modification of the object referenced. I consider "const" correctness an important part of good program design, as it helps you catch many errors at compile time, and also acts as documentation for your code.

Why is this a problem? If you absolutely need a static class, use a static class. I have done many a servers/programs in Java and have never had a problem. As for docs, that's why there is that wonderful thing called JavaDocs that half the C++ industry has been trying to emulate.

In a similar vein, no notion of a "const" method. In fact, you can have a "final" method, but its meaning bears absolutely no relation to the use of "final" when applied to variables.

<sigh> This is because you misunderstand the final keyword. In general, final means that the item cannot be overridden by an extending class. It produces a similar function with variables.

No reliable destructors, so you cannot use the "resource acquisition is a constructor and resource release is a destructor" idiom that is so useful in C++. This idiom is useful because it allows you to remove opportunities for error from your program (you can't forget to release a resource).

Really? Guess I'll just throw this code away:

public class openfile
{
InputStream in = null;

public openfile(File myfile) throws IOException
{
in = new FileInputStream(myfile);
}

... //Accessor code goes here

protected void finalize() throws Throwable
{
in.close();
}
}

Damn! That looks like the resource will be closed just before the class is garbage collected!

Java is a "police state" language, meaning that its designers have decided that they are smarter than everyone else, so they will dictate the programming style everyone has to use. For example, all functions must be class members, all exceptions that may be thrown (except for RuntimeException and Error) have to be declared with a throws clause, etc. There are good arguments against many of these decisions, in at least some circumstances

And? I happen to use Java because I agree with them.

The designers of C++, on the other hand, were a bit more humble. They left the language amenable to a variety of programming styles. This has allowed people to experiment to find out what really works, rather than being forced to accept some doctrine handed down from on high.

Wait a minute. Doctorine on high... Hmmm... Isn't that what you're dishing out? Oh, wait. I'm sorry. My 12+ years of programming experience in everything from COBOL to C to Java doesn't count. Darn.

The reference semantics combined with "by-value" syntax for objects cause a lot of confusion for beginners. The fact that you *only* have reference semantics for objects causes design problems. For example, there is a real conceptual and design difference between a container of objects and a container of references to objects, but Java mixes the two ideas together. This results in situations where code outside of an associative container class (like a set) can screw up the associative container by modifying the state of objects contained in that container.

True enough. But on the other hand they need to understand primitives and pointers anyway in order to program C/C++, so they might as well learn them in Java too.

The reference semantics combined with "by-value" syntax for objects cause a lot of confusion for beginners. The fact that you *only* have reference semantics for objects causes design problems. For example, there is a real conceptual and design difference between a container of objects and a container of references to objects, but Java mixes the two ideas together. This results in situations where code outside of an associative container class (like a set) can screw up the associative container by modifying the state of objects contained in that container.

Huh? If you've got the object, you've got the object. You are free to modify it. I can cause the same havoc in an Object container just by keeping a pointer to it. You aren't protecting yourself from didly.

The lack of templates means that one loses some of the power of typechecking, and one has to resort to some pretty clumsy and awkward means of dealing with container classes. For example, in C++, I can have an associative array mapping keys of type K to values of type V, for any types K and V, through the use of templates. The analog in Java is a container that maps Object to Object. The problem here is that I have to do widening conversions that weaken typing. Strong typing is important because it is an extremely useful tool for catching errors very early -- at compile time

You don't seem to realize that this is a double edged sword. If you enforce a type at all times, you can have no genericity. The choice was made toward genericity in Java, and I have never had any problems with type. In fact, I have had far more problems with an enforced type checking that our current appserver does with its internal Data Language. I don't like it and far prefer Java's approach. Especially when I can easily do:

if(x instanceof Integer) {...}


Personally, I'd rather go outside and shoot myself than have to go back to templating classes.

Anyway, I have work to get done. If you want to argue it out, I can be reached here.

Homeworld has no way to combat this in multiplayer sessions except display "cheat detect" at the top of the screen. I, personally, beefed up my attack two points for most ships. It has no noticable effect on gameplay...(drones on some more)...

Are there any other games like this??

http://yotty.freeservers.com

I recently ran across a form of desktop software that allows a group to play on the net with a table top using maps, figures, chat, voice and dice roller all in one. I have not used it yet but it sounds like the same idea many want out of this open source system. And thank god WOTC decided to do what should have been done years ago by simplifying the math in D&D hahaha. if you want to email me it is scorpiodragonk@techie.com

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