If I mail something to you unsolicited, I can't require that you pay for it, even if you actually want it and decide to keep it.
And this is... what? A reason why it should be legal to steal satellite TV?
I'll try to use smaller words this time.
If - nobody - pays - for - satellite - TV - there - will - be - no - satellite - TV.
That's all I'm saying. If stealing the signal (i.e. decoding it without paying for it) were legalized, the net result would be that satellite TV would instantly disappear. It would no longer be in anybody's interest to broadcast it. Unless you're arguing that the world would be a better place if this happened, or expounding upon a scenario in which it wouldn't happen like that, you aren't making a useful point.
People need to make money, folks. They provide a useful service, you pay 'em for it. If you don't want to pay them, you'd better not expect service. This isn't a new phenomenon.
Here we have the same concept, large corporations trying to control what consumers do with the radiation that is being beamed through the walls of private property.
I want some of what you're smoking. Hughes is beaming the signal, at their cost -- and you think it's unreasonable for them to want to get paid for it?
Launching a multi-million-dollar satellite into space isn't free, nor is keeping it running and fed with data. If they weren't paid for it, then nobody would have satellite TV.
If you want the shit to be free, you build the frickin' satellite, put it in orbit, and let everybody in North America use it for free. Otherwise, give it a rest. This "information wants to be free" crap is getting pretty old when all it really means is "I don't like paying for anything".
Mr. Connell makes the excellent point that some engineering problems -- anything from difficult bridge designs to going to the moon -- are every bit as complicated as the software we produce.
I agree.
However, it's important to consider one thing -- how many bridges are built every year? How many have as many challenges as the Clark Bridge? Not many, certainly. How much software is written in a year?
If I had, say, three years and millions of dollars to design every piece of software I write, with lots of subordinates double-checking everything I do, well then my code would be perfect as well. The fact is, however, that we write an awful lot more software every year than we build engineering feats, and that has a lot to do with the quality issue. If every program were written over a period of years by a dedicated team of engineers backed by serious budgets, there wouldn't be nearly as much crappy software. However, there's a lot more software hacked together by one guy working out of his garage -- and I daresay if we built bridges that way, a lot of them would fall down.
"So," says the critic, "we just need to design software as seriously as we design bridges."
Not really, I respond. For one thing, our need for software is *really high* right now. We need tons of it -- web browsers, and word processors, and operating systems, and filesystems, and... well, everything. None of the early stuff is quite good enough yet. Don't fool yourself into thinking Linux is the end of the road in operating systems, for example. Software is immature. We're forging ahead on every front at once, before the basic pieces are in place, and this will necessarily strain the industry. Once the infrastructure settles down, once we don't need as many projects going on, natural consolidation will lead to more people on each team and better quality.
When civil engineering was immature, a lot of bridges fell down, too, before everything was worked out. I doubt too many people stood around saying "You idiots! Every wagon we design works! Why not bridges?!?" At that time, building bridges was so difficult that it was amazing it ever worked. If it fell down, you just built it stronger and hoped for the best. We've come a long way since then.
I think we're at a similar point in software engineering. Sure, some of our stuff really sucks, but it's such a new field that it's really amazing that we get anything done at all. I frankly think it's unreasonable to expect the field to have matured overnight.
Maybe I'm just not as picky as some people, maybe the cynicism of old age is setting in. But I really don't feel that there's any need for a "Grab the torches and pitchforks! We improve software quality *now*!" movement. Things are getting better, and they will continue to as the market matures. Maybe we should just let it.
It remains to be seen how people will react to having to 'refill' their laptops. It won't take too many methanol spills on the carpeting for somebody to bail on the whole idea.
Batteries suck compared to fuel cells, certainly, but just plugging the laptop in to recharge is about the nicest possible way to deal with power. I know I'd rather carry around an AC adapter than a container of methanol. Further, I don't have to run to the store to buy more electricity when I run out; people may react badly to needing to buy refills.
I love the concept as much as the next guy, but I've been wondering if the practicalities won't end up killing it in the marketplace.
I think I'll take a lesson from your English teacher and rebut your rebuttal with a big ol' "So what?"
It is a simple fact that consoles are much, much more popular than PCs for games. No amount of argument can change the numbers.
I offered an explanation of why that might be the case. You fire back with a bunch of "Nuh-uh! PCs rulez!"
I answer: "So what?" There are obviously a lot more people that agree with me than agree with you, and in the end it's just a numbers game.
I still can't resist the temptation to counter these points, though...
#1: The reason you don't see Mario64 on the PC isn't because of the lack of controlers to support it, but rather because most PC gamers have no interest in mindless platform-jumping games any more
You damn yourself out of your own mouth. Firstly, Mario 64 was hailed as The Greatest Game of All Time by a number of publications when it was released, which I think speaks to the "mindless platform-jumping" and "no interest" bit. Secondly, if you've outgrown these sorts of games... why do you have an emulator on your system so that you can play them?
#2:...the range of genres simply isn't there [on consoles].
Bwuhhh... what? Are you seriously suggesting that PCs have broader genre support than consoles? Okie dokie. I guess I'll go up to my PC and fire up a game of Dance Dance Revolution, and after that I'll play a good old light gun shooter like House of the Dead. Then, when I get tired of that, I'll play an RPG adventure, maybe something along the lines of Shenmue. Then how about a little old school platforming action like Mario 64... or maybe the newer Super Monkey Ball. Luigi's Mansion has a great PC equivalent, too. I just have no idea what it is.
#3: So, as you say "only a few PC game companies" have huge budgets (somehow I doubt that's true).
No, I'm not 'implying' it, I'm stating it fucking outright. There are a bare handful of PC game companies which make serious money or can afford serious development. Console developing is infinitely more lucrative because the audience is bigger. Sure, I won't argue that games don't always need huge budgets to be successful, but the idea of something like Shenmue or Zelda being developed for the PC instead of a console is laughable. I like having my AAA+ titles, thank you very much, and much as I love Blizzard and Bioware I'd take Nintendo's efforts over theirs most days.
#4: blah blah blah computers are better
I don't know what market you're talking about, but most computers are four or five years old. Real people (i.e. not computer people) don't upgrade twice a year, or even once every two years. They run the old computer into the ground and then buy a new one which is already behind the times. That's just the way it goes. Most people still don't have computers which can render what the Dreamcast can, and that's two years old. Hell, I don't have a single game on my PC which looks as good as Soul Calibur, and I have a GeForce.
#5: Most people I know don't have surround sound systems. Most people I know only have a DVD player for their computer. Most people I know have
19" monitors or larger.
Wow, you must only associate with computer geeks. Every single person I hang out with has a surround sound system and DVD player, nobody but me has DVD on their computer, and fewer than half of them have 19" monitors.
blah blah blah my computer is awesome
Fine and dandy. Do you think that even remotely reflects the average person's experience? I work with computers and pull a six figure salary, and yet my computer only has stereo speakers because I don't really give a crap about it. I sunk the money into my entertainment system instead, and there are a lot more people doing that than adding surround sound to their computers.
Reason #6: Party Gaming
blah blah blah I love PCs
Fine, you're a PC gamer. I never tried to convert you -- I'm merely offering explanations for the fact that consoles are ten times as popular for gaming.
I don't give a rat's ass if you prefer PCs for gaming. Most of the rest of the world doesn't, and it sounds like you have a serious case of denial. I agree that some things about PC games are awesome -- I'm looking forward to Neverwinter Nights and Warcraft III as much as the next guy. However, 90% of the games I buy are for consoles, and that's pretty representative of typical behavior.
What the fuck are you talking about? From my message, all you know about my income is that I have:
A living room
A couch
A TV
Surround Sound
A PC
Two or more consoles
This somehow marks me as "bourgeois luxury"? For all you know, it's a 13" black and white TV, a 386, an Atari and a Colecovision kickin' back in my trailer in Oklahoma. Or it could be an 80" projection screen, an entire LAN of Pentium IVs, and every console known to man in my Beverly Hills mansion. You don't have a frickin' clue how I live, nor what I did to get here.
Great for the non-technically inclined who doesn't understand how all the components in a computer work.
That's not how I look at it at all. I program computers for a living, and I still prefer console games to PC games.
Reason #1: Controls
The main issue is the controller. PC gamepads are inferior to console controllers and very few people have them in the first place. So, PC games can all be played with the keyboard/mouse. A game like Mario 64 simply doesn't translate to the keyboard, so game manufacturers just don't make games like that for the PC -- most people wouldn't have a suitable controller.
Reason #2: Gameplay
This is a correllary to Reason #1. Console games have controllers more suited to action gaming, and therefore end up with more action games. If you like action games (as opposed to FPS games or RTS games, which are easier to control on the PC), you'll do better on a console. If you like FPSs or strategy games, stick to the PC.
Reason #3: Audience
Consoles are cheap and easy to use. PCs aren't. Because of that, there are at least ten times as many console gamers as PC gamers, and therefore console games tend to be higher budget and have higher production values. Only a few PC game companies, like Blizzard, have a large enough audience to justify multi-million-dollar budgets. Tons of console games have budgets that big.
Reason #4: Graphics
Console games look better, despite the fact that PCs are more powerful. This is due to the fact that developers know the exact capabilities of the console, and can tweak and optimize to their heart's content, while in PC gaming they have to run on everything from a PII-400 to a P4-2000, with every video card you can think of as well. You usually end up with better-looking console games as a result. Console games also tend to be smoother -- even high-end PCs stutter now and then, and anything running Windows is more infinitely more likely to crash than a console.
Reason #5: Experience
My PC is up in my office. My consoles are down in my living room, hooked up to my entertainment center. This is the case for everybody else I know, as well. Given the choice, I'd rather kick back on my couch and let the surround sound wash over me while watching the action on my TV than sit at my keyboard.
Reason #6: Party Gaming
The PC rules the online world, no question. However, many of us find multiplayer gaming a lot more fun when your friends are in the same room, because trash talking and beer passing are a lot easier. Having four people hooked up to a GameCube, all playing the same game, doesn't sound at all weird. The only PC equivalent is a LAN party, but those are a very niche gathering.
It's not just about tech savvyness, folks -- consoles have a lot of advantages over PCs.
I called all around, and not a single retailer had any idea what I was talking about. They all planned to stick to the 18th, and found it amusing that I was even asking if they would be selling early.
This seems to be the case pretty much everywhere, as I've been surfing Usenet and various message boards trying to find out where these alleged stores are. As far as I can tell, they don't exist -- not one person has posted credible information about a store selling GameCubes *anywhere*. Not one.
I have a feeling the date will get broken, but it hasn't been so far. I would love to be proven wrong -- if anybody knows of a store in the SF Bay Area which is selling GameCubes, speak up!
Oh, BTW, regarding your.sig: If information were really free, the GPL wouldn't be necessary.
Nonsense. By "information really were free" I'm referring to the notion that copyright and trademark law should be abolished, not to "you're not allowed to keep any secrets, ever". I assumed that was clear from context.
If copyright and trademark law were abolished, Microsoft could hijack the source code for any OSS product they wanted and sell it as their own, bundled in with their own proprietary software, not give credit to the authors, and not release source for any of it, and there's not a damned thing anybody could do about it, assuming they were allowed keep secrets.
The privacy advocates might have a bit to object to if nobody were allowed to keep secrets anymore...
"The Justice Department said less than one-tenth of 1 percent of federal inmates are subject to the provision that allows such monitoring. It pointed out most inmates subject to special administrative measure have no relation to the terrorism investigation, spawned by the deadly September 11 hijackings and attacks."
I'm not saying I agree with this, but at least keep in mind that this is limited in scope. Yeah, yeah, slippery slope and all that, but while you're fighting against stuff it's important to realize what you're fighting against.
This is not "let's completely throw away client-attorney privilege", it's "let's recognize that sometimes national security takes precedence". You still may disagree with this, but at least fight the correct target.
Incorrect. From http://www.sciam.com/2001/1101issue/1101scicit6.ht ml:
"They also plan to be the first people to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. (There is still controversy surrounding whether Kittinger actually broke the sound barrier, but at the time even the jumper himself said he didn't.)"
I read about this elsewhere, and that little snippit unfortunately leaves out the interesting bit.
One of the points of this journey is to become the first people to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. Their top speed will be upwards of 900MPH on the way down, due to the vastly reduced air resistance. Seriously, think about creating a sonic boom with just your own body...
Neither does one programmers's choice of application area have anything to do with a language's suitability for other things.
Of course not. I've been saying that all along. Not once have I said that Lisp is a lousy language, or even a subpar one, nor have I said one single thing regarding Lisp's suitability or unsuitability towards any particular application.
All I have been saying is that Java's libraries are much more powerful, and that quite likely has a lot to do with the fact that Java is in much broader use. Let's face it, we're discussing a language in which simple things like sockets and multithreading aren't "core" behaviors. Yes, they exist, but in the form of third-party addons which (please correct me if I'm wrong) differ significantly from vendor to vendor, and are still in such limited use that lots of people will tell you they don't exist.
Your use of the word "seem" of course makes this a statement about you and your ability to perceive, not a factual statement about the world.
The word "seem" was chosen intentionally to indicate that that was nothing more than my opinion. I don't see how this is an interesting issue.
I'm also not really sure why elitism of individual users is an issue.
Quite simply because the person I was talking to was being an elitist, and it irritated me. I've heard the "only idiots don't program Lisp" bit a number of times, and it's wearing a bit thin.
I program Java for one and only one reason -- the class library. Nothing, in any other language I have ever heard of, approaches the breadth and power of Java's core APIs. Lisp doesn't even rate on the radar, as you would have to download hundreds of third-party modules to even come close. Therefore, I program Java. It's not because I don't like Lisp, or because I do like Java -- it's because Java meshes more closely with what I'm trying to accomplish. That doesn't make Lisp users smarter than me, despite how many of them snicker at all the idiots who don't seem to "get it".
The fact that airlines save millions of dollars a year using these programs is certainly important; I'll never say otherwise. I'm just saying that "kick the world's ass" is a bit strong for an application like this.
"Point me to a documented case where Java handles these kinds of intense logistics problems, and I'll begin to give you some credibility."
So a language is only interesting if it's used for "intense logistics problems"? I guess word processing, hospital record keeping, or web page design aren't good enough. Well, I have absolutely no idea about Java logistics programs, because I am not involved in logistics. Doesn't mean it isn't used, doesn't mean it is.
"Considering your preferred example was a 3D-shooter game, I'm relatively skeptical about your opinion on world-class application development."
I listed a 3D shooter as one example out of many, and nowhere did I say it was a "world-class" application. Please stop implying I've said things that I didn't say.
"Ever try to program Word?"
Yes, actually. Not the most fun I've ever had, but Visual Basic for Applications isn't all that bad for a macro language.
"smart people don't try to compete in the same niche as MS, and Lisp is used by smart people"
So Linux, which is a direct competitor to Windows NT, is written by a bunch of idiots?
One's choice of language has nothing to do with one's intelligence. Lisp does indeed seem to have more than its fair share of elitists, however.
First, text editors and word processors are hardly the same thing. The two sorts of applications don't have a whole lot in common, any more than a rowboat is a Boeing 747 because they're both vehicles. Word processors are graphical applications which need sophisticated font support, tables, images, pagination, headers, footers, print previews, and a whole bunch of other things Emacs doesn't handle. A text editor is a relative piece o' cake to write, even one as powerful as Emacs.
Second, I am aware that Lisp has some graphical toolkits available. However, nothing that I have seen comes remotely close to Swing's power and expressiveness.
Third, anyone who calls a word processor a "relatively simple, solved problem" has clearly never written one. There's a reason why there are only a few competitive ones, and that's because they're unbelievably nasty programs to write -- far more so than they look on first blush.
Further, you'll have to do better than that to convince me that Lisp is somehow the uberlanguage. The fact that Lisp has been used to, for instance, handle airline logistics does not in any way imply that it was the best choice for that problem. Note that I'm not saying it isn't -- I'm just saying that the fact it was used in, say, a bioinformatics program doesn't say crap about whether e.g. Java couldn't have solved the problem equally easily. Assembly language was used to solve some tough problems which hadn't been solved before, too -- and that doesn't mean a damned thing as to whether or not it was a good choice.
I hardly consider airplane logistics "forging into new territory and kicking the world's ass", by the way. Yes, it's a terribly involved problem, but it's also a boring one, and I seriously doubt that it would be significantly tougher in Java.
"I kicked the world's ass today, Mom!"
"Oh, what did you do?"
"I wrote an *AIRPLANE LOGISTICS PROGRAM*!!! WHOOOOO!! I ROCK!!!"
See? Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age, but that just doesn't sound like bragging rights to me.
(Please keep in mind that I'm not insulting Lisp. I haven't used Lisp enough to have a real opinion either way. But the fact does remain that Java's libraries are much more powerful, and it is much more popular. I'm reasonably certain that those two facts are related.)
Why not sue the people who have your old telephone number, or your old address?
You owned the domain, you let it lapse, somebody else bought it. Sorry, game over. If AT&T let 1-800-CALL-ATT go, and Sprint picked it up, does AT&T get to sue Sprint over it? 'fraid not.
Lisp also has amazingly limited real-world capabilities compared to Java.
I'd like to see, for instance, a word processor written in Lisp. Seriously -- something compatible with Microsoft Word. An action game with sophisticated graphics, including transparency and particle effects? How about an MPEG decoder, or an MP3 player? What about 3D shooters? I'm certainly not saying they aren't possible, and for all I know they might even exist, but I know I can find all of those for Java inside of two minutes.
Lisp doesn't have a toolkit equivalent to Java 2D + Swing, and I seriously doubt it has anything equivalent to Java 3D, the Java Advanced Imaging API, or the Java Media Framework.
I'm not insulting Lisp the language, but the fact is that its libraries are woefully inadequate compared to Java's. Lisp programmers have had twenty-odd years to come up with decent libraries -- so where are they?
I love open source as much as the next guy, but I'm getting sick and tired of the "open source fixes all ills" crap.
Are you going to sue? Did you read your EULA (End User License Agreement)? You probably waved that right when you said "OK".
Oh, and you would have legal recourse if this had been open source software? Whom, pray tell, would you sue then? You generally can't sue the responsible party if it's closed source, and you generally can't sue the responsible party if it's open source, and from this you conclude that open source is better is this respect?
With Open Source software at least you have the ability to read the source code.
And, in case you haven't noticed, a dozen people have posted the offending code from this particular problem as well. It was a shell script, so the code was in plain sight. It was also fixed pretty damned quickly, too.
Imagine if Ford were to wave any warranty with your next Explorer.
Or better yet, imagine if your next Explorer were hacked together by hundreds of college-age geeks who had never once met one another, and if you had problems with it the response was "Well, just open up the hood and fix it. You can see how it all works".
I generally use open source in preference to closed source, but I'm getting sick of the attitude that closed source = bad and open source = good. I've used some great closed source products and some truly crappy open source products in my time.
The entire theory "ternary is most efficient" hinges on the idea that the 'best' base is the one that minimizes digits per number * possible digits.
In other words, base 1000 has 1000 different possible digits, but will require very few digits to represent numbers compared to (say) base 2.
According to the article, the 'most efficient' base according to this property is base e (2.7182818...), which they round to 3. My retort is: who cares? Why on earth would you judge a base system by digits per number * possible digits?
Digits per number is important, obviously -- base 16 requires far fewer digits than base 2 to represent most numbers. However, the complexity of building hardware which can efficiently represent 16 different digits is overwhelming, which is why no computer (to my knowledge) has ever used higher than base 10. Even the early ternary computers used a pair of bits rather than genuine trits, because they didn't have hardware capable of representing three states.
I'd argue that minimizing the number of possible digits far, far outweighs the number of bits per number, as evidenced by the fact we all seem pretty darned happy with binary. Storage is cheap, meaning bits per number just isn't a significant measure anymore, whereas designing and building every part of the computer to use ternary rather than binary is an expensive proposition.
In short: the measure they used to prove ternary 'best' was pulled from their nether regions, not based on anything in real life. As such, the basic premise of the article is flawed.
Proprietary COM/Java interfaces? As soon as COM gets involved, you're no longer programming Java -- you're using J++ or some other bastardized hybrid. Sounds like you hired idiots and got what you paid for.
"...we had reasons to believe it was the JRE and/or OS..."
I obviously have no retort to this other than to stand by my assertion that Sun's JRE is rock-solid. I have already stated that I would never use Windows in a production environment, but that's Windows' problem, not Java's. A real Java program could have been moved to any of the discussed platforms in a few minutes. I actually develop my server software on Windows and then deploy to Solaris, and in three years of doing this I've never had an issue.
"Our developers spend significant amounts of time doing actual work (it's part of the corporate culture) and very little time playing your alleged 'troll busting' game on Slashdot"
Yet, here you are posting on Slashdot, same as me. And you're implying that you guys are more efficient because... why, again? Because 'troll busting' somehow takes more time than posting 'legitimate' messages?
"That goes a long way toward explaining our unusually high productivity."
It actually wasn't your high productivity I was commenting on. After all, the net result was that you spent a few months and (presumably) tens of thousands of dollars, and in the end all you accomplished was porting from HP-UX to Linux. That's a remarkably slow and expensive porting job. The bit I was commenting on was how quickly the plans were abandoned and the guys were fired -- you said "a few months", and presumably most of that time was doing the port. How long did you give them to try to fix it? It just sounded like the new plan wasn't given a serious chance for survival, but then I wasn't there so I don't know how long they dicked around with it.
Everybody hires idiots now and then, and kudos to you guys for getting rid of them so quickly, assuming they really didn't know what they were doing. But these problems were not caused by Java, Windows, or an OODBS -- they were caused by incompetence, plain and simple.
I'm assuming from your ID that you know perfectly well how silly your comment was, but since the moderators fell for it:
JAVA RUNS ON UNIX. He just tossed out the Linux reference to get you guys to mod it up: "Ooh, Windows and Java failed! Linux worked! +1, informative!"
The decision of whether or not you use Linux has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the decision to use Java and/or OO techniques. Further, I've never seen an unstable JRE in my life -- the JRE is the single most stable Windows app I have ever used (although the instability of Windows itself still leaves it undesirable). The last time I saw a JRE crash (even once) was, I believe, three years ago using JDK 1.2 beta 4. I program Java seven days a week, and it simply does not crash.
And I'm also pretty impressed that you could hire new people, redesign a complex system, reimplement the new design in a completely different language/platform/database, realize it wasn't working, fire the new people, assign new people to the project, and transition over to yet *another* new platform in the space of a few short months. That's the quickest turnaround I've ever heard of.
(Translation: this guy's a troll. Please stop handing the frickin' trolls karma points.)
Slashdot Mirror
If I mail something to you unsolicited, I can't require that you pay for it, even if you actually want it and decide to keep it.
... what? A reason why it should be legal to steal satellite TV?
And this is
I'll try to use smaller words this time.
If - nobody - pays - for - satellite - TV - there - will - be - no - satellite - TV.
That's all I'm saying. If stealing the signal (i.e. decoding it without paying for it) were legalized, the net result would be that satellite TV would instantly disappear. It would no longer be in anybody's interest to broadcast it. Unless you're arguing that the world would be a better place if this happened, or expounding upon a scenario in which it wouldn't happen like that, you aren't making a useful point.
People need to make money, folks. They provide a useful service, you pay 'em for it. If you don't want to pay them, you'd better not expect service. This isn't a new phenomenon.
Here we have the same concept, large corporations trying to control what consumers do with the radiation that is being beamed through the walls of private property.
I want some of what you're smoking. Hughes is beaming the signal, at their cost -- and you think it's unreasonable for them to want to get paid for it?
Launching a multi-million-dollar satellite into space isn't free, nor is keeping it running and fed with data. If they weren't paid for it, then nobody would have satellite TV.
If you want the shit to be free, you build the frickin' satellite, put it in orbit, and let everybody in North America use it for free. Otherwise, give it a rest. This "information wants to be free" crap is getting pretty old when all it really means is "I don't like paying for anything".
Ahh, but you missed the "dedicated" and "engineers" part ;-).
I wasn't speaking of stuff thrown together by "rabid marketing departments".
Mr. Connell makes the excellent point that some engineering problems -- anything from difficult bridge designs to going to the moon -- are every bit as complicated as the software we produce.
... well, everything. None of the early stuff is quite good enough yet. Don't fool yourself into thinking Linux is the end of the road in operating systems, for example. Software is immature. We're forging ahead on every front at once, before the basic pieces are in place, and this will necessarily strain the industry. Once the infrastructure settles down, once we don't need as many projects going on, natural consolidation will lead to more people on each team and better quality.
I agree.
However, it's important to consider one thing -- how many bridges are built every year? How many have as many challenges as the Clark Bridge? Not many, certainly. How much software is written in a year?
If I had, say, three years and millions of dollars to design every piece of software I write, with lots of subordinates double-checking everything I do, well then my code would be perfect as well. The fact is, however, that we write an awful lot more software every year than we build engineering feats, and that has a lot to do with the quality issue. If every program were written over a period of years by a dedicated team of engineers backed by serious budgets, there wouldn't be nearly as much crappy software. However, there's a lot more software hacked together by one guy working out of his garage -- and I daresay if we built bridges that way, a lot of them would fall down.
"So," says the critic, "we just need to design software as seriously as we design bridges."
Not really, I respond. For one thing, our need for software is *really high* right now. We need tons of it -- web browsers, and word processors, and operating systems, and filesystems, and
When civil engineering was immature, a lot of bridges fell down, too, before everything was worked out. I doubt too many people stood around saying "You idiots! Every wagon we design works! Why not bridges?!?" At that time, building bridges was so difficult that it was amazing it ever worked. If it fell down, you just built it stronger and hoped for the best. We've come a long way since then.
I think we're at a similar point in software engineering. Sure, some of our stuff really sucks, but it's such a new field that it's really amazing that we get anything done at all. I frankly think it's unreasonable to expect the field to have matured overnight.
Maybe I'm just not as picky as some people, maybe the cynicism of old age is setting in. But I really don't feel that there's any need for a "Grab the torches and pitchforks! We improve software quality *now*!" movement. Things are getting better, and they will continue to as the market matures. Maybe we should just let it.
Huh? No I wasn't.
I was concerned about convenience, not cost.
It remains to be seen how people will react to having to 'refill' their laptops. It won't take too many methanol spills on the carpeting for somebody to bail on the whole idea.
Batteries suck compared to fuel cells, certainly, but just plugging the laptop in to recharge is about the nicest possible way to deal with power. I know I'd rather carry around an AC adapter than a container of methanol. Further, I don't have to run to the store to buy more electricity when I run out; people may react badly to needing to buy refills.
I love the concept as much as the next guy, but I've been wondering if the practicalities won't end up killing it in the marketplace.
INFORMATIVE??? INFORMATIVE??
The moderators are on crack. It was a joke (funny one too). Click on the damned link before moderating, people!!
I think I'll take a lesson from your English teacher and rebut your rebuttal with a big ol' "So what?"
... why do you have an emulator on your system so that you can play them?
...the range of genres simply isn't there [on consoles].
... what? Are you seriously suggesting that PCs have broader genre support than consoles? Okie dokie. I guess I'll go up to my PC and fire up a game of Dance Dance Revolution, and after that I'll play a good old light gun shooter like House of the Dead. Then, when I get tired of that, I'll play an RPG adventure, maybe something along the lines of Shenmue. Then how about a little old school platforming action like Mario 64 ... or maybe the newer Super Monkey Ball. Luigi's Mansion has a great PC equivalent, too. I just have no idea what it is.
It is a simple fact that consoles are much, much more popular than PCs for games. No amount of argument can change the numbers.
I offered an explanation of why that might be the case. You fire back with a bunch of "Nuh-uh! PCs rulez!"
I answer: "So what?" There are obviously a lot more people that agree with me than agree with you, and in the end it's just a numbers game.
I still can't resist the temptation to counter these points, though...
#1: The reason you don't see Mario64 on the PC isn't because of the lack of controlers to support it, but rather because most PC gamers have no interest in mindless platform-jumping games any more
You damn yourself out of your own mouth. Firstly, Mario 64 was hailed as The Greatest Game of All Time by a number of publications when it was released, which I think speaks to the "mindless platform-jumping" and "no interest" bit. Secondly, if you've outgrown these sorts of games
#2:
Bwuhhh
#3: So, as you say "only a few PC game companies" have huge budgets (somehow I doubt that's true).
No, I'm not 'implying' it, I'm stating it fucking outright. There are a bare handful of PC game companies which make serious money or can afford serious development. Console developing is infinitely more lucrative because the audience is bigger. Sure, I won't argue that games don't always need huge budgets to be successful, but the idea of something like Shenmue or Zelda being developed for the PC instead of a console is laughable. I like having my AAA+ titles, thank you very much, and much as I love Blizzard and Bioware I'd take Nintendo's efforts over theirs most days.
#4: blah blah blah computers are better
I don't know what market you're talking about, but most computers are four or five years old. Real people (i.e. not computer people) don't upgrade twice a year, or even once every two years. They run the old computer into the ground and then buy a new one which is already behind the times. That's just the way it goes. Most people still don't have computers which can render what the Dreamcast can, and that's two years old. Hell, I don't have a single game on my PC which looks as good as Soul Calibur, and I have a GeForce.
#5: Most people I know don't have surround sound systems. Most people I know only have a DVD player for their computer. Most people I know have
19" monitors or larger.
Wow, you must only associate with computer geeks. Every single person I hang out with has a surround sound system and DVD player, nobody but me has DVD on their computer, and fewer than half of them have 19" monitors.
blah blah blah my computer is awesome
Fine and dandy. Do you think that even remotely reflects the average person's experience? I work with computers and pull a six figure salary, and yet my computer only has stereo speakers because I don't really give a crap about it. I sunk the money into my entertainment system instead, and there are a lot more people doing that than adding surround sound to their computers.
Reason #6: Party Gaming
blah blah blah I love PCs
Fine, you're a PC gamer. I never tried to convert you -- I'm merely offering explanations for the fact that consoles are ten times as popular for gaming.
I don't give a rat's ass if you prefer PCs for gaming. Most of the rest of the world doesn't, and it sounds like you have a serious case of denial. I agree that some things about PC games are awesome -- I'm looking forward to Neverwinter Nights and Warcraft III as much as the next guy. However, 90% of the games I buy are for consoles, and that's pretty representative of typical behavior.
What the fuck are you talking about? From my message, all you know about my income is that I have:
A living room
A couch
A TV
Surround Sound
A PC
Two or more consoles
This somehow marks me as "bourgeois luxury"? For all you know, it's a 13" black and white TV, a 386, an Atari and a Colecovision kickin' back in my trailer in Oklahoma. Or it could be an 80" projection screen, an entire LAN of Pentium IVs, and every console known to man in my Beverly Hills mansion. You don't have a frickin' clue how I live, nor what I did to get here.
Great for the non-technically inclined who doesn't understand how all the components in a computer work.
That's not how I look at it at all. I program computers for a living, and I still prefer console games to PC games.
Reason #1: Controls
The main issue is the controller. PC gamepads are inferior to console controllers and very few people have them in the first place. So, PC games can all be played with the keyboard/mouse. A game like Mario 64 simply doesn't translate to the keyboard, so game manufacturers just don't make games like that for the PC -- most people wouldn't have a suitable controller.
Reason #2: Gameplay
This is a correllary to Reason #1. Console games have controllers more suited to action gaming, and therefore end up with more action games. If you like action games (as opposed to FPS games or RTS games, which are easier to control on the PC), you'll do better on a console. If you like FPSs or strategy games, stick to the PC.
Reason #3: Audience
Consoles are cheap and easy to use. PCs aren't. Because of that, there are at least ten times as many console gamers as PC gamers, and therefore console games tend to be higher budget and have higher production values. Only a few PC game companies, like Blizzard, have a large enough audience to justify multi-million-dollar budgets. Tons of console games have budgets that big.
Reason #4: Graphics
Console games look better, despite the fact that PCs are more powerful. This is due to the fact that developers know the exact capabilities of the console, and can tweak and optimize to their heart's content, while in PC gaming they have to run on everything from a PII-400 to a P4-2000, with every video card you can think of as well. You usually end up with better-looking console games as a result. Console games also tend to be smoother -- even high-end PCs stutter now and then, and anything running Windows is more infinitely more likely to crash than a console.
Reason #5: Experience
My PC is up in my office. My consoles are down in my living room, hooked up to my entertainment center. This is the case for everybody else I know, as well. Given the choice, I'd rather kick back on my couch and let the surround sound wash over me while watching the action on my TV than sit at my keyboard.
Reason #6: Party Gaming
The PC rules the online world, no question. However, many of us find multiplayer gaming a lot more fun when your friends are in the same room, because trash talking and beer passing are a lot easier. Having four people hooked up to a GameCube, all playing the same game, doesn't sound at all weird. The only PC equivalent is a LAN party, but those are a very niche gathering.
It's not just about tech savvyness, folks -- consoles have a lot of advantages over PCs.
I called all around, and not a single retailer had any idea what I was talking about. They all planned to stick to the 18th, and found it amusing that I was even asking if they would be selling early.
This seems to be the case pretty much everywhere, as I've been surfing Usenet and various message boards trying to find out where these alleged stores are. As far as I can tell, they don't exist -- not one person has posted credible information about a store selling GameCubes *anywhere*. Not one.
I have a feeling the date will get broken, but it hasn't been so far. I would love to be proven wrong -- if anybody knows of a store in the SF Bay Area which is selling GameCubes, speak up!
I find it hard to believe an optimizing emulator would run faster than native instructions (and I'm well aware of HP's optimizing run-time work).
Java's HotSpot compiler beats out traditional C/C++ code on a number of benchmarks.
Oh, BTW, regarding your .sig: If information were really free, the GPL wouldn't be necessary.
Nonsense. By "information really were free" I'm referring to the notion that copyright and trademark law should be abolished, not to "you're not allowed to keep any secrets, ever". I assumed that was clear from context.
If copyright and trademark law were abolished, Microsoft could hijack the source code for any OSS product they wanted and sell it as their own, bundled in with their own proprietary software, not give credit to the authors, and not release source for any of it, and there's not a damned thing anybody could do about it, assuming they were allowed keep secrets.
The privacy advocates might have a bit to object to if nobody were allowed to keep secrets anymore...
"The Justice Department said less than one-tenth of 1 percent of federal inmates are subject to the provision that allows such monitoring. It pointed out most inmates subject to special administrative measure have no relation to the terrorism investigation, spawned by the deadly September 11 hijackings and attacks."
I'm not saying I agree with this, but at least keep in mind that this is limited in scope. Yeah, yeah, slippery slope and all that, but while you're fighting against stuff it's important to realize what you're fighting against.
This is not "let's completely throw away client-attorney privilege", it's "let's recognize that sometimes national security takes precedence". You still may disagree with this, but at least fight the correct target.
Incorrect. From http://www.sciam.com/2001/1101issue/1101scicit6.ht ml:
"They also plan to be the first people to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. (There is still controversy surrounding whether Kittinger actually broke the sound barrier, but at the time even the jumper himself said he didn't.)"
I read about this elsewhere, and that little snippit unfortunately leaves out the interesting bit.
One of the points of this journey is to become the first people to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. Their top speed will be upwards of 900MPH on the way down, due to the vastly reduced air resistance. Seriously, think about creating a sonic boom with just your own body...
Neither does one programmers's choice of application area have anything to do with a language's suitability for other things.
Of course not. I've been saying that all along. Not once have I said that Lisp is a lousy language, or even a subpar one, nor have I said one single thing regarding Lisp's suitability or unsuitability towards any particular application.
All I have been saying is that Java's libraries are much more powerful, and that quite likely has a lot to do with the fact that Java is in much broader use. Let's face it, we're discussing a language in which simple things like sockets and multithreading aren't "core" behaviors. Yes, they exist, but in the form of third-party addons which (please correct me if I'm wrong) differ significantly from vendor to vendor, and are still in such limited use that lots of people will tell you they don't exist.
Your use of the word "seem" of course makes this a statement about you and your ability to perceive, not a factual statement about the world.
The word "seem" was chosen intentionally to indicate that that was nothing more than my opinion. I don't see how this is an interesting issue.
I'm also not really sure why elitism of individual users is an issue.
Quite simply because the person I was talking to was being an elitist, and it irritated me. I've heard the "only idiots don't program Lisp" bit a number of times, and it's wearing a bit thin.
I program Java for one and only one reason -- the class library. Nothing, in any other language I have ever heard of, approaches the breadth and power of Java's core APIs. Lisp doesn't even rate on the radar, as you would have to download hundreds of third-party modules to even come close. Therefore, I program Java. It's not because I don't like Lisp, or because I do like Java -- it's because Java meshes more closely with what I'm trying to accomplish. That doesn't make Lisp users smarter than me, despite how many of them snicker at all the idiots who don't seem to "get it".
The fact that airlines save millions of dollars a year using these programs is certainly important; I'll never say otherwise. I'm just saying that "kick the world's ass" is a bit strong for an application like this.
"Point me to a documented case where Java handles these kinds of intense logistics problems, and I'll begin to give you some credibility."
So a language is only interesting if it's used for "intense logistics problems"? I guess word processing, hospital record keeping, or web page design aren't good enough. Well, I have absolutely no idea about Java logistics programs, because I am not involved in logistics. Doesn't mean it isn't used, doesn't mean it is.
"Considering your preferred example was a 3D-shooter game, I'm relatively skeptical about your opinion on world-class application development."
I listed a 3D shooter as one example out of many, and nowhere did I say it was a "world-class" application. Please stop implying I've said things that I didn't say.
"Ever try to program Word?"
Yes, actually. Not the most fun I've ever had, but Visual Basic for Applications isn't all that bad for a macro language.
"smart people don't try to compete in the same niche as MS, and Lisp is used by smart people"
So Linux, which is a direct competitor to Windows NT, is written by a bunch of idiots?
One's choice of language has nothing to do with one's intelligence. Lisp does indeed seem to have more than its fair share of elitists, however.
First, text editors and word processors are hardly the same thing. The two sorts of applications don't have a whole lot in common, any more than a rowboat is a Boeing 747 because they're both vehicles. Word processors are graphical applications which need sophisticated font support, tables, images, pagination, headers, footers, print previews, and a whole bunch of other things Emacs doesn't handle. A text editor is a relative piece o' cake to write, even one as powerful as Emacs.
Second, I am aware that Lisp has some graphical toolkits available. However, nothing that I have seen comes remotely close to Swing's power and expressiveness.
Third, anyone who calls a word processor a "relatively simple, solved problem" has clearly never written one. There's a reason why there are only a few competitive ones, and that's because they're unbelievably nasty programs to write -- far more so than they look on first blush.
Further, you'll have to do better than that to convince me that Lisp is somehow the uberlanguage. The fact that Lisp has been used to, for instance, handle airline logistics does not in any way imply that it was the best choice for that problem. Note that I'm not saying it isn't -- I'm just saying that the fact it was used in, say, a bioinformatics program doesn't say crap about whether e.g. Java couldn't have solved the problem equally easily. Assembly language was used to solve some tough problems which hadn't been solved before, too -- and that doesn't mean a damned thing as to whether or not it was a good choice.
I hardly consider airplane logistics "forging into new territory and kicking the world's ass", by the way. Yes, it's a terribly involved problem, but it's also a boring one, and I seriously doubt that it would be significantly tougher in Java.
"I kicked the world's ass today, Mom!"
"Oh, what did you do?"
"I wrote an *AIRPLANE LOGISTICS PROGRAM*!!! WHOOOOO!! I ROCK!!!"
See? Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age, but that just doesn't sound like bragging rights to me.
(Please keep in mind that I'm not insulting Lisp. I haven't used Lisp enough to have a real opinion either way. But the fact does remain that Java's libraries are much more powerful, and it is much more popular. I'm reasonably certain that those two facts are related.)
Why not sue the people who have your old telephone number, or your old address?
You owned the domain, you let it lapse, somebody else bought it. Sorry, game over. If AT&T let 1-800-CALL-ATT go, and Sprint picked it up, does AT&T get to sue Sprint over it? 'fraid not.
Lisp also has amazingly limited real-world capabilities compared to Java.
I'd like to see, for instance, a word processor written in Lisp. Seriously -- something compatible with Microsoft Word. An action game with sophisticated graphics, including transparency and particle effects? How about an MPEG decoder, or an MP3 player? What about 3D shooters? I'm certainly not saying they aren't possible, and for all I know they might even exist, but I know I can find all of those for Java inside of two minutes.
Lisp doesn't have a toolkit equivalent to Java 2D + Swing, and I seriously doubt it has anything equivalent to Java 3D, the Java Advanced Imaging API, or the Java Media Framework.
I'm not insulting Lisp the language, but the fact is that its libraries are woefully inadequate compared to Java's. Lisp programmers have had twenty-odd years to come up with decent libraries -- so where are they?
I love open source as much as the next guy, but I'm getting sick and tired of the "open source fixes all ills" crap.
Are you going to sue? Did you read your EULA (End User License Agreement)? You probably waved that right when you said "OK".
Oh, and you would have legal recourse if this had been open source software? Whom, pray tell, would you sue then? You generally can't sue the responsible party if it's closed source, and you generally can't sue the responsible party if it's open source, and from this you conclude that open source is better is this respect?
With Open Source software at least you have the ability to read the source code.
And, in case you haven't noticed, a dozen people have posted the offending code from this particular problem as well. It was a shell script, so the code was in plain sight. It was also fixed pretty damned quickly, too.
Imagine if Ford were to wave any warranty with your next Explorer.
Or better yet, imagine if your next Explorer were hacked together by hundreds of college-age geeks who had never once met one another, and if you had problems with it the response was "Well, just open up the hood and fix it. You can see how it all works".
I generally use open source in preference to closed source, but I'm getting sick of the attitude that closed source = bad and open source = good. I've used some great closed source products and some truly crappy open source products in my time.
The entire theory "ternary is most efficient" hinges on the idea that the 'best' base is the one that minimizes digits per number * possible digits.
In other words, base 1000 has 1000 different possible digits, but will require very few digits to represent numbers compared to (say) base 2.
According to the article, the 'most efficient' base according to this property is base e (2.7182818...), which they round to 3. My retort is: who cares? Why on earth would you judge a base system by digits per number * possible digits?
Digits per number is important, obviously -- base 16 requires far fewer digits than base 2 to represent most numbers. However, the complexity of building hardware which can efficiently represent 16 different digits is overwhelming, which is why no computer (to my knowledge) has ever used higher than base 10. Even the early ternary computers used a pair of bits rather than genuine trits, because they didn't have hardware capable of representing three states.
I'd argue that minimizing the number of possible digits far, far outweighs the number of bits per number, as evidenced by the fact we all seem pretty darned happy with binary. Storage is cheap, meaning bits per number just isn't a significant measure anymore, whereas designing and building every part of the computer to use ternary rather than binary is an expensive proposition.
In short: the measure they used to prove ternary 'best' was pulled from their nether regions, not based on anything in real life. As such, the basic premise of the article is flawed.
Proprietary COM/Java interfaces? As soon as COM gets involved, you're no longer programming Java -- you're using J++ or some other bastardized hybrid. Sounds like you hired idiots and got what you paid for.
... why, again? Because 'troll busting' somehow takes more time than posting 'legitimate' messages?
"...we had reasons to believe it was the JRE and/or OS..."
I obviously have no retort to this other than to stand by my assertion that Sun's JRE is rock-solid. I have already stated that I would never use Windows in a production environment, but that's Windows' problem, not Java's. A real Java program could have been moved to any of the discussed platforms in a few minutes. I actually develop my server software on Windows and then deploy to Solaris, and in three years of doing this I've never had an issue.
"Our developers spend significant amounts of time doing actual work (it's part of the corporate culture) and very little time playing your alleged 'troll busting' game on Slashdot"
Yet, here you are posting on Slashdot, same as me. And you're implying that you guys are more efficient because
"That goes a long way toward explaining our unusually high productivity."
It actually wasn't your high productivity I was commenting on. After all, the net result was that you spent a few months and (presumably) tens of thousands of dollars, and in the end all you accomplished was porting from HP-UX to Linux. That's a remarkably slow and expensive porting job. The bit I was commenting on was how quickly the plans were abandoned and the guys were fired -- you said "a few months", and presumably most of that time was doing the port. How long did you give them to try to fix it? It just sounded like the new plan wasn't given a serious chance for survival, but then I wasn't there so I don't know how long they dicked around with it.
Everybody hires idiots now and then, and kudos to you guys for getting rid of them so quickly, assuming they really didn't know what they were doing. But these problems were not caused by Java, Windows, or an OODBS -- they were caused by incompetence, plain and simple.
I'm assuming from your ID that you know perfectly well how silly your comment was, but since the moderators fell for it:
JAVA RUNS ON UNIX. He just tossed out the Linux reference to get you guys to mod it up: "Ooh, Windows and Java failed! Linux worked! +1, informative!"
The decision of whether or not you use Linux has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the decision to use Java and/or OO techniques. Further, I've never seen an unstable JRE in my life -- the JRE is the single most stable Windows app I have ever used (although the instability of Windows itself still leaves it undesirable). The last time I saw a JRE crash (even once) was, I believe, three years ago using JDK 1.2 beta 4. I program Java seven days a week, and it simply does not crash.
And I'm also pretty impressed that you could hire new people, redesign a complex system, reimplement the new design in a completely different language/platform/database, realize it wasn't working, fire the new people, assign new people to the project, and transition over to yet *another* new platform in the space of a few short months. That's the quickest turnaround I've ever heard of.
(Translation: this guy's a troll. Please stop handing the frickin' trolls karma points.)