I don't see it as evil. Paint the horn a danger colour to indicate it's poisoned and if anyone is fucking stupid enough to consume it, then they get what they deserve. No different than if they decided to imbibe any other poisonous plant or animal. As for the poison, I'm sure there are numerous options given that a horn is just keratin.
This is China, home of counterfeit products, up to and including counterfeit medicine, baby formula, oil and every thing else. I am quite certain that nobody will give a damn if it's real or not providing they can fool the next person up the supply chain. And in this case, it's not like using the counterfeit would have the slightest difference from the real thing since they're both placebos.
So yeah, let them flood the market with the phony item. Personally I don't think it would work though. It would be more effective for China to stop promoting this bullshit and for countries around the world to crack down on Chinese medicine in general.
A single engine sounds great until a few years down the line and you realise the browser you've been using all this time is broken as fuck, filled with bugs, quirks, and other undocumented behaviour. And there is so much code relying on those things that THERE IS LITTLE YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Which is why some companies are still hamstrung by code which only works on IE6/7.
It is far better to specify the standard and code against the standard. If there are problems with a particular browser they can be discretely worked around.
It's okay to hope neither side wins. May they spend many years in litigation fighting over the right to sell overpriced bullshit like cables and headphones.
It's more the fact that people are buying fire sticks to use as cheap XBMC players with no intention of using Amazon's services in any way shape or form. That's the bottom line.
Ooh 100 devices. Wow that's a huge enterprise! And even if it were IOW, that.0000005% of apps I was talking about...
/. mangled my response at a greater than symbol, so again...
Ooh 100 devices. Wow that's a huge enterprise! And even if it were greater than 100, it's still a huge intrusion and hassle. My own company writes a safety checklist app for industrial plants and factories. The amount of extra bullshit required to make that app (which is written in cordova) work on Apple thanks to provisioning, submission, approval + dedicated development hardware is a significant waste of time and money.
Despite the old FOSS adage the "software wants to be free", it isn't really the same as with humans or animals. So, that's simply a non-sequitur. Next!
It is not a non sequitur because it is self evident from the people who jail break their phones, install firmware and all the rest.
Apple's distribution model allows for distribution to up to 100 devices, and Apple has programs to allow bigger organizations to distribute in-house apps to more devices than that, without involving the App Store or it's Approval Process. Next!
Ooh 100 devices. Wow that's a huge enterprise! And even if it were IOW, that.0000005% of apps I was talking about...
No. Amazon's store is very popular as are many other app stores / downloaders. e.g. Humble Bundle sells games for android and distributes them through its own software.
I'm not sure what you mean by Vertical Applications; there are a ZILLION Vertical Apps in the App Store.
Maybe you look up what a vertical application is then. They are very specialised applications, may cost a lot of money to make, may cost a lot of money to buy, might have specialised revenue streams which don't work within the rules of the app store and the vendor (and customers) might strongly resent Apple / Google stealing a 30% cut of everything.
As far as Open Source Apps, I don't think Apple has any restrictions on you offering the Source to your App through another website. They are only interested in assuring that the Apps in the App Store are SAFE. Next!
Don't be ridiculous. Lots of open source apps are prevented from listing on Apple's stores. Anything related to shells, scripting, su, compilation, proxies / filters, emulation, file transfer stands little chance. Even Google has some limitations and would probably respond to takedown notices whether fair or no. But that isn't a worry since there are stores such as F-droid where open source apps are available from.
Frankly your excuses are pathetic. The reality is that being able to install APKs from external sources is a strong benefit of android and many people legitimately use it. Freedom doesn't mean common sense, but it not should be taken away because some people lack common sense.
It's not a useless comparison because most games wouldn't use native APIs for the reasons I said. Writing code against raw OpenGL ES is a horribly, horribly painful experience. Maybe a few learners or indies might hit the raw APIs (I've done it myself), but it's not for the faint hearted and it's a problem already solved by various open and closed solutions.
Go through the top free / paid game list on the Apple / Android store and there are very few exclusive to one platform because they are all written with middleware of one kind or another.
And yet, if you ask in these pages, all you get is praise that that so-called "freedom".
Yes because freedom is a good thing. I'm sure if I was locked up in a walled compound all day that my chances of being hit by a bus would be greatly diminished. It does not mean that I should be denied to leave my compound if I so wish, even if it's generally a nice place.
There are lots of extremely good reasons someone may wish to install an APK which is not listed on Google's store - enterprise or in-house apps, rival stores such as Amazon's, vertical applications, open source apps, apps that violate Google store policies for whatever reason (emulators. etc.) and so on.
If someone is stupid enough to frequent a warez site to avoid paying a few euros for a game then they get what they deserve. Should we take away everyone else's freedom for that?
It's still an important comparison. And most games are written over middleware for various reasons - Cross platform is just one of them, but others would include time to market, tools, learning curve, code quality etc. Even if iOS is the only target, it still makes sense to use middleware of some kind and Unity happens to be very popular middleware.
Cyanogenmod lets you control app permissions, e.g. to deny or be asked for access by apps that want to send an SMS, get location etc.
Personally I think vanilla Android's upfront permissions model is a disaster though and it's not reasonable to expect people to install custom firmware to fix it. That said, Google do police their store, and can remote kill them, and they could (if they so wished) minimize harm by downranking apps that ask for too many permissions. Probably the biggest risk to users if they get their apps from a warez site where they are basically asking for trouble.
Most developers will pick Apple over Android. Then you have to rewrite the code for Android. Apple will get first release on a lot of apps, just what they prefer.
Most developers will pick neither, if neither offers the functionality they need to deliver cross platform applications.
That no-install version of Java is just a JRE and lots of apps bundle up a copy. It just took Mojang / Microsoft an inordinately long time to get around to doing it themselves.
A large part of a language's value is the API and framework it works against. It's no good just throwing out a compiler and a barebones set of APIs and thinking it's going to catch on. Unless Swift comes with a set of high level APIs that allow people to build applications / apps on non-Apple platforms then I don't see what the attraction to it will be.
So I don't buy issues in Fallout being so much a problem with the hardware as with the game running on top. GTA V managed an open sandbox game on top of the same hardware and arguably had a far more dynamic and demanding world than any Fallout / Elder Scrolls game.
That said, I don't see much reason to support the PS3 or 360 since both platforms are in their twilight. I doubt sales would justify the effort of making the games run acceptably or the compromises that come to the game design from doing so.
Thanks, but I understand the "very basics" and I've "learned the language". And no my criticisms don't "quickly disappear". Javascript sucks. The only reason we're talking about it is because it is the lingua franca of web browsers, not because it is any good.
It's a scripting language! Scripting languages are not really intended to be object oriented
And yet Python, Perl, Ruby, Groovy, Scala and countless other scripting languages manage a better job than Javascript.
Being a "scripting language" is not an excuse. Nor should there be a hard distinction between "scripting language" and "programming language" these days at all.
Classes are an incredibly powerful way to encapsulate functionality. Javascript has never had the proper concept of a class (let alone inheritance) so we have half assed equivalents such as prototypes, bind methods, or function constructors which attach functions to raw object classes. Aside from being half assed, they're inefficient in different ways. Even understanding how the "this" keyword works is a nightmare because unlike sane OO languages, "this" can point at the object, nothing, or something else such as a toplevel window object depending on where it's used from. So it's not uncommon to see code where someone assigns "that" to "this" to work around some issue. Add in other esoteric issues like scoping rules for var and it's just a nightmare.
And of course no JS IDE is remotely as forgiving or useful as it might be because there is no way at compile time to figure out what an object *is* beyond some simple inferences.
This is the reason the likes of Typescript, GWT and other JS generators exist at all. Javascript is treated as the problem to solve. e.g. Typescript extends JS with modules, classes, interfaces, typechecking and so on. The compiler can use those to catch errors at compile time instead of runtime and it can emit functionally equivalent JS. Stuff that allows an IDE to construct an AST and offer refactoring, method signatures and other useful functionality they've enjoyed for years in other languages. It even a specialised function where "this" behaves in a sane way. On the whole, programming Typescript is a lot more pleasant than JS but it's still a thin veneer.
I doubt many people used the things they're deprecating and in some cases it is easy to get the same functionality back. DVD playback - use VLC, and many PCs come preinstalled with a Cyber / Power DVD. Media centre - XBMC. Desktop widgets - metro tiles replace those. Games & essentials - appstore.
Of course it's wrong - from everyone else's viewpoint. A backdoor sounds like a wonderful idea if you're the head of the FBI tasked with catching bad guys and faced with the cost and frustration of extracting useful info from an encrypted device.
I've been developing Android since 1.x and there is a pie chart in the dev console which shows market share. The majority platform always lags behind the cutting edge but it changes over time. New versions of Android start as tiny slices and then grow to be the majority until the next version takes over. It's hardly surprising if a version from a year or so back is dominant. It's always like that.
I don't see it being a big deal though since the general rule of thumb of developing on Android is you choose the API level which supports what you want to do in your app. Most apps don't need proximity payment services or fingerprint reading APIs so they'll use a lower API level and they'll work across any device that supports that level.
There are obvious advantages to what Apple does, but it is a monoculture and there are disadvantages to that too. The biggest one for handset owners is once you're cast into the darkness by Apple you're pretty much screwed. Android devices might not get so many firmware updates but they tend to still get the latest apps from Google and updates for other apps that already work on their platform.
1) Because Anonymous Coward is a moniker on Slashdot that anybody can use 2) this moniker is mine and has been mine for the ~14 years I've used it here. Real name or not, I still have a history of posts that are distinct from other people's posts, a consistency to comments and a reputation to uphold.
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I don't see it as evil. Paint the horn a danger colour to indicate it's poisoned and if anyone is fucking stupid enough to consume it, then they get what they deserve. No different than if they decided to imbibe any other poisonous plant or animal. As for the poison, I'm sure there are numerous options given that a horn is just keratin.
So yeah, let them flood the market with the phony item. Personally I don't think it would work though. It would be more effective for China to stop promoting this bullshit and for countries around the world to crack down on Chinese medicine in general.
It is far better to specify the standard and code against the standard. If there are problems with a particular browser they can be discretely worked around.
It's okay to hope neither side wins. May they spend many years in litigation fighting over the right to sell overpriced bullshit like cables and headphones.
It's more the fact that people are buying fire sticks to use as cheap XBMC players with no intention of using Amazon's services in any way shape or form. That's the bottom line.
Ooh 100 devices. Wow that's a huge enterprise! And even if it were IOW, that .0000005% of apps I was talking about...
/. mangled my response at a greater than symbol, so again...
Ooh 100 devices. Wow that's a huge enterprise! And even if it were greater than 100, it's still a huge intrusion and hassle. My own company writes a safety checklist app for industrial plants and factories. The amount of extra bullshit required to make that app (which is written in cordova) work on Apple thanks to provisioning, submission, approval + dedicated development hardware is a significant waste of time and money.
Despite the old FOSS adage the "software wants to be free", it isn't really the same as with humans or animals. So, that's simply a non-sequitur. Next!
It is not a non sequitur because it is self evident from the people who jail break their phones, install firmware and all the rest.
Apple's distribution model allows for distribution to up to 100 devices, and Apple has programs to allow bigger organizations to distribute in-house apps to more devices than that, without involving the App Store or it's Approval Process. Next!
Ooh 100 devices. Wow that's a huge enterprise! And even if it were IOW, that .0000005% of apps I was talking about...
No. Amazon's store is very popular as are many other app stores / downloaders. e.g. Humble Bundle sells games for android and distributes them through its own software.
I'm not sure what you mean by Vertical Applications; there are a ZILLION Vertical Apps in the App Store.
Maybe you look up what a vertical application is then. They are very specialised applications, may cost a lot of money to make, may cost a lot of money to buy, might have specialised revenue streams which don't work within the rules of the app store and the vendor (and customers) might strongly resent Apple / Google stealing a 30% cut of everything.
As far as Open Source Apps, I don't think Apple has any restrictions on you offering the Source to your App through another website. They are only interested in assuring that the Apps in the App Store are SAFE. Next!
Don't be ridiculous. Lots of open source apps are prevented from listing on Apple's stores. Anything related to shells, scripting, su, compilation, proxies / filters, emulation, file transfer stands little chance. Even Google has some limitations and would probably respond to takedown notices whether fair or no. But that isn't a worry since there are stores such as F-droid where open source apps are available from. Frankly your excuses are pathetic. The reality is that being able to install APKs from external sources is a strong benefit of android and many people legitimately use it. Freedom doesn't mean common sense, but it not should be taken away because some people lack common sense.
It's not a useless comparison because most games wouldn't use native APIs for the reasons I said. Writing code against raw OpenGL ES is a horribly, horribly painful experience. Maybe a few learners or indies might hit the raw APIs (I've done it myself), but it's not for the faint hearted and it's a problem already solved by various open and closed solutions. Go through the top free / paid game list on the Apple / Android store and there are very few exclusive to one platform because they are all written with middleware of one kind or another.
And yet, if you ask in these pages, all you get is praise that that so-called "freedom".
Yes because freedom is a good thing. I'm sure if I was locked up in a walled compound all day that my chances of being hit by a bus would be greatly diminished. It does not mean that I should be denied to leave my compound if I so wish, even if it's generally a nice place.
There are lots of extremely good reasons someone may wish to install an APK which is not listed on Google's store - enterprise or in-house apps, rival stores such as Amazon's, vertical applications, open source apps, apps that violate Google store policies for whatever reason (emulators. etc.) and so on.
If someone is stupid enough to frequent a warez site to avoid paying a few euros for a game then they get what they deserve. Should we take away everyone else's freedom for that?
It's still an important comparison. And most games are written over middleware for various reasons - Cross platform is just one of them, but others would include time to market, tools, learning curve, code quality etc. Even if iOS is the only target, it still makes sense to use middleware of some kind and Unity happens to be very popular middleware.
Personally I think vanilla Android's upfront permissions model is a disaster though and it's not reasonable to expect people to install custom firmware to fix it. That said, Google do police their store, and can remote kill them, and they could (if they so wished) minimize harm by downranking apps that ask for too many permissions. Probably the biggest risk to users if they get their apps from a warez site where they are basically asking for trouble.
Most developers will pick Apple over Android. Then you have to rewrite the code for Android. Apple will get first release on a lot of apps, just what they prefer.
Most developers will pick neither, if neither offers the functionality they need to deliver cross platform applications.
They'd cooperate because any initiative which cuts down on criminal incidents is probably fine by them.
They just waited 3 days to be absolutely certain before announcing it.
That no-install version of Java is just a JRE and lots of apps bundle up a copy. It just took Mojang / Microsoft an inordinately long time to get around to doing it themselves.
A large part of a language's value is the API and framework it works against. It's no good just throwing out a compiler and a barebones set of APIs and thinking it's going to catch on. Unless Swift comes with a set of high level APIs that allow people to build applications / apps on non-Apple platforms then I don't see what the attraction to it will be.
That said, I don't see much reason to support the PS3 or 360 since both platforms are in their twilight. I doubt sales would justify the effort of making the games run acceptably or the compromises that come to the game design from doing so.
Thanks, but I understand the "very basics" and I've "learned the language". And no my criticisms don't "quickly disappear". Javascript sucks. The only reason we're talking about it is because it is the lingua franca of web browsers, not because it is any good.
It's a scripting language! Scripting languages are not really intended to be object oriented
And yet Python, Perl, Ruby, Groovy, Scala and countless other scripting languages manage a better job than Javascript.
Being a "scripting language" is not an excuse. Nor should there be a hard distinction between "scripting language" and "programming language" these days at all.
And of course no JS IDE is remotely as forgiving or useful as it might be because there is no way at compile time to figure out what an object *is* beyond some simple inferences.
This is the reason the likes of Typescript, GWT and other JS generators exist at all. Javascript is treated as the problem to solve. e.g. Typescript extends JS with modules, classes, interfaces, typechecking and so on. The compiler can use those to catch errors at compile time instead of runtime and it can emit functionally equivalent JS. Stuff that allows an IDE to construct an AST and offer refactoring, method signatures and other useful functionality they've enjoyed for years in other languages. It even a specialised function where "this" behaves in a sane way. On the whole, programming Typescript is a lot more pleasant than JS but it's still a thin veneer.
I doubt many people used the things they're deprecating and in some cases it is easy to get the same functionality back. DVD playback - use VLC, and many PCs come preinstalled with a Cyber / Power DVD. Media centre - XBMC. Desktop widgets - metro tiles replace those. Games & essentials - appstore.
Of course it's wrong - from everyone else's viewpoint. A backdoor sounds like a wonderful idea if you're the head of the FBI tasked with catching bad guys and faced with the cost and frustration of extracting useful info from an encrypted device.
I don't see it being a big deal though since the general rule of thumb of developing on Android is you choose the API level which supports what you want to do in your app. Most apps don't need proximity payment services or fingerprint reading APIs so they'll use a lower API level and they'll work across any device that supports that level.
There are obvious advantages to what Apple does, but it is a monoculture and there are disadvantages to that too. The biggest one for handset owners is once you're cast into the darkness by Apple you're pretty much screwed. Android devices might not get so many firmware updates but they tend to still get the latest apps from Google and updates for other apps that already work on their platform.
1) Because Anonymous Coward is a moniker on Slashdot that anybody can use 2) this moniker is mine and has been mine for the ~14 years I've used it here. Real name or not, I still have a history of posts that are distinct from other people's posts, a consistency to comments and a reputation to uphold.
I'm not "glossing over" anything. It's a hard problem. It doesn't make the mindless drivel of an AC correct however.