As a side note, I've recently been informed that you can get a GTK+ dll for some PocketPC models, with which you can run the GTK+ version of Plucker. That might be a faster route to go to get a working WinCE client.
I almost fell into the same trap as you did. However, even the briefest search on the web will show you that Microsoft is indeed offering the WinCE compiler and IDE for free. Heck, even if you only read/., you could have found this out, since there was a long argument about it a few months back.
As a slightly less Anonymous-Coward-ish reply, the Plucker Client isn't actually Palm only. There's a GTK+ version for machines which can support it, and the popular Opie-Reader for Zaurus will read Plucker formatted files.
There isn't a native WinCE program that will read Plucker files, but there is a fair amount of interest in one. Sadly, the interest doesn't seem to come from people who are able to program for WinCE, and the core developers would rather not spend their time writing products for platforms they don't use. However, I've found that they are happy to help people who want to help themselves, so if you start writing a WinCE viewer, I'm sure you would get a lot of help.
Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh)
[...]
Plucker has full support for Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX operating systems, AvantGo supports.. well, one.
Be fair here, David. Those are both the same point, and it's not quite true. I was using AvantGo with my Linux box ages ago, with a utility called malsync. I suspect that it would work just fine on any Unix, including OSX, so AvantGo works on the same number of platforms as Plucker.
And AvantGo does do things that Plucker doesn't, such as nicer table handling, and form submission.
Having said all that, I switched from AvantGo to Plucker because its advantages far outweigh its shortcomings, which are growing fewer by the day. I remember just a short while ago, when there was no Plucker Desktop, and things had to be done by hand. I also look to the future, and see two separate groups working on different approaches to making tables look nicer. I would expect to see a demo of prettier tables in the next two weeks.
Uh, isn't that the correct behaviour?
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 1
Recently I found that Microsoft's VB/VBScript(ASP) round function has problems (for example, 'round(82.845)' returns '82.84' instead of '82.85').
I'll be the first person to admit that I don't know VB/VBScript, but I seem to remember from my high school math class that a number which is equidistant from two other numbers should always round to the even one. So 2.5 rounds to 2, and 3.5 rounds to 4. Extending this analogy, shouldn't 82.845 round to 82.84, just like it is?
With only one click of your thumb you can now press 3 keys at the same time
Ah, but that's the beauty of it. I've been told that the OS will, when you hit three keys at the same time, figure out which one you actually meant to hit, and only insert that one.
Or you could do what I do, just shove that anger and frustration deep down inside, and if you ever feel like it's going to overflow, just slam a cork on it, and shove more in...
Yeah, but that's the problem. The compiler will never pick out logic errors, just like spellcheckers can't tell you when you've used the wrong form of "too" (or was that "two"?)
With a little more time between compiles, and perhaps a quick syntax-checker, you would be more likely to check for logic errors, instead of just assuming the compiler will catch them...
When I see people talking about needing dual Athlons to get their gcc compile times down to the single digit minutes, then I'm appalled. With Delphi you're at *zero*. That's liberating beyond belief.
From Gerald M. Weinberg's classic, "The Psycology Of Computer Programming":
... if the programmer has invested very little waiting time in a run, he may tend to value that run less... For initial work, however, when the programmer is just getting syntax and keying errors out of his code, terminal access would seem to be desirable. However, people in shops where four runs per day are assured are apparently not as troubled about these "trivial" errors as are programmers in less well run shops.
Now granted, he was writing about timesharing systems vs. batch systems, but I think the theory still applies. If my project takes an hour to compile, I'm going to be a lot more careful about making changes, than if it takes a couple of seconds. And I'll try and fix more of the compiler errors from one pass. Restricted, perhaps, but I claim that it leads to better code sooner. And in the hour that it's compiling, I can check through the code for logic errors, too.
Later,
Blake.
I'm betting that you, my friend, have never gone on a two week trip to northern Sasketchewan to visit your in-laws. All I can say is "Thank god my Palm lasted all the way through the 'vacation'.". And it got far more than 15 hours actual usage. Think 13 days, minimum 4 hours a day, and you'll come closer to the usage it actually got.
I agree that Palm seems to really be dropping the ball, but the PocketPCs aren't quite there yet. Next year I'll probably be whistling a different tune, but as long as I can't sync the PocketPCs with my Linux box at home, I'm not going to buy one.
Thank you for reminding me why I read comments at 4.
Don't you think that not drinking the beer you've been drinking for years just because it suddenly became trendy is just as bad as starting to drink a new beer just because it suddenly became trendy? The original poster did mention that they'd been drinking it "for many years now". How did you form the conclusion that they were a "sophisticed beer drinker", who was only drinking it because it "is the most trendy beer right now"?
Later,
Blake.
P.S. As many people care what they drink as what you think. And at least their post was funny.
--
I'm sure this is flamebait, and should probably be moderated down...
And that, I think, is the reason that I'll do my best to never use python - I don't like people telling me how to do things. One of the fundamentals of python is that it enforces Guido's coding style as much as possible.
Remind me never to work with you. And I'ld also like to hear how much you opinions on this topic change after you've spent a year or so maintaining someone else's code.
If you're working for an employer, you have a responsibility to make your code as easy to read as possible, which means following their coding standards. And if you don't like them, you can quit. If you're working on an open source project, you have a responsibility to make your code as easy to read as possible, which means making it look just like the other code in the project. And if you don't like it, you can quit. The place I'm currently working doesn't have a coding standard, which is one of the reasons I'm quitting. Every time I need to modify a class or method that I didn't write, it takes me twice as long as it should, because nothing is consistant in the project. And it's because of people like you, who value programming freedom more than ease of maintenance. Or, in other words, freedom to create more than freedom to modify.
When all I did was create code, I used Perl. Now that I've grown up (only a little, or I wouldn't bother to reply to this post), I find myself using other people's code more, and thus I greatly appreciate a language that doesn't go out of its way to be hard to read.
One of the best arguments for using Perl I've ever heard was "Perl forces you to program with good style, Python merely doesn't allow you to program with bad style." Or, it would be an argument for using Perl if I thought that people didn't suck. Since they do, it's an argument for using Python.
That's just not a friendly environment. Who wants to trust an interpreter which doesn't trust them?
I do. Because if my interpreter doesn't trust me, then it also doesn't trust the idiot beside me. And that seems to me to be the ultimate in friendly environments. (Down the other road lies Visual Basic.)
And which WMA codec did they test against? I've heard some stuff encoded with a not-yet-released version, and for the songs I heard, there wasn't any pre-echo that was detectable by my admittedly poor ears.
I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD
TRANSLATION: He went back to the site and placed an order for a pair of NIKE's that said something else.
Alternate Translation: He has decided to order the shoes with a different iD. He has not yet done so. Note that he did not say "I have ordered the shoes with a different iD", but instead "I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD". What that different iD might be will be speculated on later...
, but I would like to make one small request.
TRANSLATION: He says he also wants something else.
Alternate Translation: He says he also wants something else.;)
Could you please send me a color snapshot of the 10-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes?
TRANSLATION: He doesn't actually want something else. He just wants to make a smart-assed remark to show how much better he is than the sweatshop owner he is buying his shoes from.
Alternate Translation: He doesn't actually want the shoes. The iD he wants to put on them is the picture of the little girl who made them. He knows that Nike will not let that order go through, just as surely as they blocked his prior order (and for the same reason).
Fucking hypocrite.
How could you possibly be profane while so completely missing the point of the letter? Weren't you even a little curious as to what his other pair of shoes said? Did you not consider that the two sentences, so carefully juxtaposed, might contain an unstated relationship between them? Or did you think that you could only have words as iDs, despite the many letters where Nike claims that they can't use pictures of athletes (thus implying that they can use pictures of other things)?
And finally, I fail to see how he's being a hypocrite. He's not doing something that he rails against. At least not in this set of correspondences.
Apart from that, it was a reasonable rant. I give it a 3/5, marked down to a 1/5 for technical errors.
I fear WinAMP and RealPlayer will be the next targets with Windows Media Player 7/8.
Next?!? They've been the targets of WMP for at least a year. Probably more like two or three. My big fear (sorry, Kate) is that WMP will become the standard, and all the portable mp3 players will switch over to use a format that I can't. I've already seen a portable WMP player. (Pretty small, stored a couple of hours worth of music, decent quality.)
RealPlayer is, of course, already dead. Streaming mp3s killed it a long time ago.
One way to implement such things would be to write a replacement for xterm and define a new terminal type. Just as xterm has escape codes to set the foreground and background colors, the new terminal could have additional escape codes to create or update certain display widgets
C'mon... Let's get away from escape codes, since you'ld need replacements for all the standard tools anyways, you might as well have the new tools output XML, which can the be sent to whatever graphical components the new xterm wants to create. Or read out. Or neither.
See the XMLTerm project or LinuXML for more ideas along these lines... Then volunteer your time to help make them work. Or else!;)
I would totally agree with you, except that my company is trying desperately to hire Java programmers for decidedly non-DB-front-end work.
Obviously, I can't say what we are doing, but I can say that it has nothing to do with the InterWeeb, and I've already finished all the DB-related code.
C++ has a high barrier to entry, but programming is difficult
Programming is only difficult because the tools and languages we use make it so. With better tools, and easier languages, programming becomes far easier. There's a reason more people program in VB than in all other languages combined.
And Perl's TMTOWTDI is only considered a strength by those who don't have to read (other people's) Perl.
The biggest problem with most users is, that they only tell you, at first contact: "It doesn't work!"
So provide a form with the information you need, and refuse to submit it if it's not filled out.
They have that at a client's site, and it seemed like most of the people used it, but then called if they didn't get an answer back within 10-15 minutes. So unless you're really committed, or put an "Average Wait Time" up on the page, you'll probably still get most of the calls.
Slashdot Mirror
As a side note, I've recently been informed that you can get a GTK+ dll for some PocketPC models, with which you can run the GTK+ version of Plucker. That might be a faster route to go to get a working WinCE client.
What kind of content? You could start here. (If you do, please help catagorize the links.)
I almost fell into the same trap as you did. However, even the briefest search on the web will show you that Microsoft is indeed offering the WinCE compiler and IDE for free. Heck, even if you only read /., you could have found this out, since there was a long argument about it a few months back.
As a slightly less Anonymous-Coward-ish reply, the Plucker Client isn't actually Palm only. There's a GTK+ version for machines which can support it, and the popular Opie-Reader for Zaurus will read Plucker formatted files.
There isn't a native WinCE program that will read Plucker files, but there is a fair amount of interest in one. Sadly, the interest doesn't seem to come from people who are able to program for WinCE, and the core developers would rather not spend their time writing products for platforms they don't use. However, I've found that they are happy to help people who want to help themselves, so if you start writing a WinCE viewer, I'm sure you would get a lot of help.
And AvantGo does do things that Plucker doesn't, such as nicer table handling, and form submission.
Having said all that, I switched from AvantGo to Plucker because its advantages far outweigh its shortcomings, which are growing fewer by the day. I remember just a short while ago, when there was no Plucker Desktop, and things had to be done by hand. I also look to the future, and see two separate groups working on different approaches to making tables look nicer. I would expect to see a demo of prettier tables in the next two weeks.
I'll be the first person to admit that I don't know VB/VBScript, but I seem to remember from my high school math class that a number which is equidistant from two other numbers should always round to the even one. So 2.5 rounds to 2, and 3.5 rounds to 4. Extending this analogy, shouldn't 82.845 round to 82.84, just like it is?
Later,
Blake.
With only one click of your thumb you can now press 3 keys at the same time
Ah, but that's the beauty of it. I've been told that the OS will, when you hit three keys at the same time, figure out which one you actually meant to hit, and only insert that one.
Later,
Blake.
Things you could have done:
Or you could do what I do, just shove that anger and frustration deep down inside, and if you ever feel like it's going to overflow, just slam a cork on it, and shove more in...
Later,
Blake.
--
"Tick, tick, tick..."
Yeah, but that's the problem. The compiler will never pick out logic errors, just like spellcheckers can't tell you when you've used the wrong form of "too" (or was that "two"?)
With a little more time between compiles, and perhaps a quick syntax-checker, you would be more likely to check for logic errors, instead of just assuming the compiler will catch them...
Later,
Blake.
Which Transmeta laptop do you own? I just found a link to Fujitsu's P-Series but they don't ship until late November.
I think I'll be getting one.
Later,
Blake.
I'm betting that you, my friend, have never gone on a two week trip to northern Sasketchewan to visit your in-laws. All I can say is "Thank god my Palm lasted all the way through the 'vacation'.". And it got far more than 15 hours actual usage. Think 13 days, minimum 4 hours a day, and you'll come closer to the usage it actually got.
I agree that Palm seems to really be dropping the ball, but the PocketPCs aren't quite there yet. Next year I'll probably be whistling a different tune, but as long as I can't sync the PocketPCs with my Linux box at home, I'm not going to buy one.
Later,
Blake.
Thank you for reminding me why I read comments at 4.
Don't you think that not drinking the beer you've been drinking for years just because it suddenly became trendy is just as bad as starting to drink a new beer just because it suddenly became trendy? The original poster did mention that they'd been drinking it "for many years now". How did you form the conclusion that they were a "sophisticed beer drinker", who was only drinking it because it "is the most trendy beer right now"?
Later,
Blake.
P.S. As many people care what they drink as what you think. And at least their post was funny.
--
I'm sure this is flamebait, and should probably be moderated down...
The Killer Bean 2.
For style, and improvement over The Killer Bean.
In fact, a comparison between the two would be keen...
Warriors Of The Net.
For an example of how to convey the general idea behind technology in an easy to comprehend format.
And finally, 405.
As an example of how computers don't have to produce things that look like they were produced on computers.
Later,
Blake.
Remind me never to work with you. And I'ld also like to hear how much you opinions on this topic change after you've spent a year or so maintaining someone else's code.
If you're working for an employer, you have a responsibility to make your code as easy to read as possible, which means following their coding standards. And if you don't like them, you can quit. If you're working on an open source project, you have a responsibility to make your code as easy to read as possible, which means making it look just like the other code in the project. And if you don't like it, you can quit. The place I'm currently working doesn't have a coding standard, which is one of the reasons I'm quitting. Every time I need to modify a class or method that I didn't write, it takes me twice as long as it should, because nothing is consistant in the project. And it's because of people like you, who value programming freedom more than ease of maintenance. Or, in other words, freedom to create more than freedom to modify.
When all I did was create code, I used Perl. Now that I've grown up (only a little, or I wouldn't bother to reply to this post), I find myself using other people's code more, and thus I greatly appreciate a language that doesn't go out of its way to be hard to read.
One of the best arguments for using Perl I've ever heard was "Perl forces you to program with good style, Python merely doesn't allow you to program with bad style." Or, it would be an argument for using Perl if I thought that people didn't suck. Since they do, it's an argument for using Python.
I do. Because if my interpreter doesn't trust me, then it also doesn't trust the idiot beside me. And that seems to me to be the ultimate in friendly environments. (Down the other road lies Visual Basic.)
Later,
Blake.
Uh, I don't think I need to say more than that.
And which WMA codec did they test against? I've heard some stuff encoded with a not-yet-released version, and for the songs I heard, there wasn't any pre-echo that was detectable by my admittedly poor ears.
Later,
Blake.
Alternate Translation: He has decided to order the shoes with a different iD. He has not yet done so. Note that he did not say "I have ordered the shoes with a different iD", but instead "I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD". What that different iD might be will be speculated on later...
Alternate Translation: He says he also wants something else.
Alternate Translation: He doesn't actually want the shoes. The iD he wants to put on them is the picture of the little girl who made them. He knows that Nike will not let that order go through, just as surely as they blocked his prior order (and for the same reason).
How could you possibly be profane while so completely missing the point of the letter? Weren't you even a little curious as to what his other pair of shoes said? Did you not consider that the two sentences, so carefully juxtaposed, might contain an unstated relationship between them? Or did you think that you could only have words as iDs, despite the many letters where Nike claims that they can't use pictures of athletes (thus implying that they can use pictures of other things)?
And finally, I fail to see how he's being a hypocrite. He's not doing something that he rails against. At least not in this set of correspondences.
Apart from that, it was a reasonable rant. I give it a 3/5, marked down to a 1/5 for technical errors.
Later,
Blake.
Next?!? They've been the targets of WMP for at least a year. Probably more like two or three. My big fear (sorry, Kate) is that WMP will become the standard, and all the portable mp3 players will switch over to use a format that I can't. I've already seen a portable WMP player. (Pretty small, stored a couple of hours worth of music, decent quality.)
RealPlayer is, of course, already dead. Streaming mp3s killed it a long time ago.
Later,
Blake.
--
Isn't this off-topic?
C'mon... Let's get away from escape codes, since you'ld need replacements for all the standard tools anyways, you might as well have the new tools output XML, which can the be sent to whatever graphical components the new xterm wants to create. Or read out. Or neither.
See the XMLTerm project or LinuXML for more ideas along these lines... Then volunteer your time to help make them work. Or else!
Later,
Blake.
And that Alan Smithee guy, man does he ever make crappy movies! I'm amazed that people continue to hire him!
Later,
Blake.
I would totally agree with you, except that my company is trying desperately to hire Java programmers for decidedly non-DB-front-end work.
Obviously, I can't say what we are doing, but I can say that it has nothing to do with the InterWeeb, and I've already finished all the DB-related code.
Later,
Blake.
And yet another voice adds to the babble.
TANJ. TANJ Ain't No Java.
Later,
Blake.
C++ has a high barrier to entry, but programming is difficult
Programming is only difficult because the tools and languages we use make it so. With better tools, and easier languages, programming becomes far easier. There's a reason more people program in VB than in all other languages combined.
And Perl's TMTOWTDI is only considered a strength by those who don't have to read (other people's) Perl.
Later,
Blake.
The biggest problem with most users is, that they only tell you, at first contact: "It doesn't work!"
So provide a form with the information you need, and refuse to submit it if it's not filled out.
They have that at a client's site, and it seemed like most of the people used it, but then called if they didn't get an answer back within 10-15 minutes. So unless you're really committed, or put an "Average Wait Time" up on the page, you'll probably still get most of the calls.
Later,
Blake.
"There is no good or evil, there is only fun and boring." - The "Bad" guy in Hackers.
Later,
Blake.