Kudos to Cliff for not just taking the anti-MS-at-all-costs FUD from the questioner as gospel. DirectX improves a LOT with each release. DX3, or even 5, was a nightmare, but DX8 is pretty easy to use.
The more significant reason is driver quality (from the hardware company), and the 3D-graphic card industry is so cutt-throat that even a momentary falter into, admittedly, a non-mainstream-for-games OS like Linux can be fatal. Of course, they COULD release enough specs to allow OS drivers... but there are trade-secret issues there (with actual hardware, that don't apply, in my mind, to software).
Doesn't this approach add a lot of overhead/code bloat/etc. for what seems (to my semi-inexperienced eyes) to be a problem with the SDK developers' design methods?
Then again, SDL is out right now, so you have to deal with that, or you can just say f*** everyone who's using it now... But I don't think that this kind of function abstraction in C++ to provide something relatively esoteric (consistent signatures) is worthwhile in the long term.
This has been expressed on Slashdot before, but it bears repeating.
The thing about coding that really floats my boat is breaking down a seemingly very complex problem into simple parts with simple solutions. Being able to come up with an elegant solution, not just some hack. There are two ways to code, if you're smart: so other people say "whoa, that's tough, you must be smart", or "hey, that's such a simple solution, you must be smart." =)
Another part of it relates to my math-geekiness - as I take more and more math courses in a variety of specialties (geometry, linear algebra, diffeq, etc) it's fascinating to see how interrelated this disciplines are - seeing simple solutions and relationships (and identities) behind a complex exterior... I'm really a geometric analysis geek, and near-everything can be broken down that way. =)
Ultimately, financial independence so I can do free projects/other, non-cs projects.
(i know, not good to reply to yourself, but you can't edit messages here)
I have long felt identically to the article's author
This message is ENTIRELY about the portion of the article relating about GNU/RMS. I actually agree w/ESR on a lot of things, and Meyer lost me when he started going off on guns. As many people here have noted, he violates his own statements about morality. But the second half does not invalidate the first.;)
Forgive me if this is redundant, but even if this thought has been previously expressed, it bears repeating, if for no other reason than to show that many people feel this way.
I love the free software movement. I love the idea, but I do not demonize the commercial software vendors merely for being commercial. What Microsoft has done with Kerberos and other free standards is completely unrelated to being commercial - unlike what the FUD from GNU would have you think, one does not follow the other.
I gladly donate my time to develop/bug hunt/etc. on projects for free because I believe in the free propogation of knowledge because I choose to, but I do not relish the thought of another person forcing it on me.
I have long felt identically to the article's author. The best way I describe my feelings about RMS/the GNU website is this analogy - I am basically conservative, but Pat Buchannan gives me the willies. =)
I think an important and overlooked part of the "new" IT economy is the customized solutions provider. It doesn't really change on the surface - for only competitors would care about these mundane (but important systems).
These things get designed Closed Source... let me give you an example. Some government agency had a bunch of SMART II apps that were obviously going to go BOOM on 1/1/00. They hire us to recode them using some Y2k-compl. technology that also fits their current systems. Usually they require a particular language - for example, the agency might have a few Visual FoxPro (shudder) people on staff, enough to maintain but not to take away from regular tasks for this "new" development. So we come in, assign Powerbuilder developers to the project, and get it done, with well-documented code to boot. Realize that there are actually 5-10 apps under this contract.
So we are a "service provider", but we don't just support installations and whatnot.
I've seen this bandied about a whole bunch, just wanted to post it here so everyone can see.
Privacy laws apply only to individuals. No wonder your clever analogies seem so true, they are - when you start comparing Mattel, etc. to you. You and I, as individuals, have privacy rights. No group or corporation does. (I'm speaking of the US only here)
Companies have a lot of other laws (patent/copyright/etc, etc.) they can work with, but not privacy, per se.
So please, enough with the "well, if I don't burglar-proof my house and someone spies on me, then I guess that's fine! See, me clever!". It's specious at best.
I read the Wall Street Journal every day (or at least as much of it as I have time for). The news, except for the little tidbits on the second column of the front page, aren't intended to be breaking news. They're intended to be an in-depth exploration of events affecting the business world. Not all of it is interesting to me, but it doesn't have to be.
The Wall Street Journal generally offers a quality of writing not generally found on the net, and I appreciate that. It's especially obvious to me on a daily basis, as my local paper is the Harrisburg Patriot, widely regarded as the WORST paper for a state capitol in the nation. Imagine U.S.A. Today, but much worse.
The WSJ has been around for a long time, but they fill a very different role than the average local paper. To a lesser degree, so do papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post. If anything, the local papers will go the way of the dodo in favor of the web (I know I get all my breaking news from AP/Reuters feeds).
I just installed Mandrake 6.1. I'm running an ATI All-in-Wonder128 AGP and a Sony Trinitron 17" monitor (CPD 200ES - one of the ones in the Xconfigurator list, no less!!!). Now, by reading docs and following directions (installing the RPM for the Rage128 server and a new version of Xconfigurator from Mandrake's current/apps - the new Xconfig made NO difference that I could see) it works to a degree - I'm able to get X at all, which says that it absolutely is working (nothing else, not SVGA, VGA, anything will work on Rage128 except the Rage128 server from SuSe, at least that's free). My problem is that it won't go past 800x600. I know my monitor specs (from my manual), and I've tried xf86setup, kvideogen, xconfigurator, the lot of them. They all come up with sets of modelines, they work for 640x480 and 800x600, but NO 1024x768!!!! ARRGGHHH!!!!! (it just gives me an "Out of scan range" on my monitor). Obviously Windows works just fine at that res, up to 85hz. I'm wondering if this is a problem with the current version of the XFCom_Rage128 server. Has anyone else personally ran that server at 1024x768 (or higher, those don't work either)? Email me/post here. Thanks a lot in advance!
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Kudos to Cliff for not just taking the anti-MS-at-all-costs FUD from the questioner as gospel. DirectX improves a LOT with each release. DX3, or even 5, was a nightmare, but DX8 is pretty easy to use.
The more significant reason is driver quality (from the hardware company), and the 3D-graphic card industry is so cutt-throat that even a momentary falter into, admittedly, a non-mainstream-for-games OS like Linux can be fatal. Of course, they COULD release enough specs to allow OS drivers... but there are trade-secret issues there (with actual hardware, that don't apply, in my mind, to software).
Doesn't this approach add a lot of overhead/code bloat/etc. for what seems (to my semi-inexperienced eyes) to be a problem with the SDK developers' design methods?
Then again, SDL is out right now, so you have to deal with that, or you can just say f*** everyone who's using it now... But I don't think that this kind of function abstraction in C++ to provide something relatively esoteric (consistent signatures) is worthwhile in the long term.
How am I wrong?
This has been expressed on Slashdot before, but it bears repeating.
The thing about coding that really floats my boat is breaking down a seemingly very complex problem into simple parts with simple solutions. Being able to come up with an elegant solution, not just some hack. There are two ways to code, if you're smart: so other people say "whoa, that's tough, you must be smart", or "hey, that's such a simple solution, you must be smart." =)
Another part of it relates to my math-geekiness - as I take more and more math courses in a variety of specialties (geometry, linear algebra, diffeq, etc) it's fascinating to see how interrelated this disciplines are - seeing simple solutions and relationships (and identities) behind a complex exterior... I'm really a geometric analysis geek, and near-everything can be broken down that way. =)
Ultimately, financial independence so I can do free projects/other, non-cs projects.
(i know, not good to reply to yourself, but you can't edit messages here)
I have long felt identically to the article's author
;)
This message is ENTIRELY about the portion of the article relating about GNU/RMS. I actually agree w/ESR on a lot of things, and Meyer lost me when he started going off on guns. As many people here have noted, he violates his own statements about morality. But the second half does not invalidate the first.
Forgive me if this is redundant, but even if this thought has been previously expressed, it bears repeating, if for no other reason than to show that many people feel this way.
I love the free software movement. I love the idea, but I do not demonize the commercial software vendors merely for being commercial. What Microsoft has done with Kerberos and other free standards is completely unrelated to being commercial - unlike what the FUD from GNU would have you think, one does not follow the other.
I gladly donate my time to develop/bug hunt/etc. on projects for free because I believe in the free propogation of knowledge because I choose to, but I do not relish the thought of another person forcing it on me.
I have long felt identically to the article's author. The best way I describe my feelings about RMS/the GNU website is this analogy - I am basically conservative, but Pat Buchannan gives me the willies. =)
Thank you!
I think an important and overlooked part of the "new" IT economy is the customized solutions provider. It doesn't really change on the surface - for only competitors would care about these mundane (but important systems).
These things get designed Closed Source... let me give you an example. Some government agency had a bunch of SMART II apps that were obviously going to go BOOM on 1/1/00. They hire us to recode them using some Y2k-compl. technology that also fits their current systems. Usually they require a particular language - for example, the agency might have a few Visual FoxPro (shudder) people on staff, enough to maintain but not to take away from regular tasks for this "new" development. So we come in, assign Powerbuilder developers to the project, and get it done, with well-documented code to boot. Realize that there are actually 5-10 apps under this contract.
So we are a "service provider", but we don't just support installations and whatnot.
I've seen this bandied about a whole bunch, just wanted to post it here so everyone can see.
Privacy laws apply only to individuals. No wonder your clever analogies seem so true, they are - when you start comparing Mattel, etc. to you. You and I, as individuals, have privacy rights. No group or corporation does. (I'm speaking of the US only here)
Companies have a lot of other laws (patent/copyright/etc, etc.) they can work with, but not privacy, per se.
So please, enough with the "well, if I don't burglar-proof my house and someone spies on me, then I guess that's fine! See, me clever!". It's specious at best.
I read the Wall Street Journal every day (or at least as much of it as I have time for). The news, except for the little tidbits on the second column of the front page, aren't intended to be breaking news. They're intended to be an in-depth exploration of events affecting the business world. Not all of it is interesting to me, but it doesn't have to be.
The Wall Street Journal generally offers a quality of writing not generally found on the net, and I appreciate that. It's especially obvious to me on a daily basis, as my local paper is the Harrisburg Patriot, widely regarded as the WORST paper for a state capitol in the nation. Imagine U.S.A. Today, but much worse.
The WSJ has been around for a long time, but they fill a very different role than the average local paper. To a lesser degree, so do papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post. If anything, the local papers will go the way of the dodo in favor of the web (I know I get all my breaking news from AP/Reuters feeds).
That's my opinion, at least.
Are you referring to the XFCom drivers available from SuSe? What program did you use to configure it (SaX, Xconfigurator, etc)???
What resolution are you running at?
Thanks for your time.
I just installed Mandrake 6.1. I'm running an ATI All-in-Wonder128 AGP and a Sony Trinitron 17" monitor (CPD 200ES - one of the ones in the Xconfigurator list, no less!!!). Now, by reading docs and following directions (installing the RPM for the Rage128 server and a new version of Xconfigurator from Mandrake's current/apps - the new Xconfig made NO difference that I could see) it works to a degree - I'm able to get X at all, which says that it absolutely is working (nothing else, not SVGA, VGA, anything will work on Rage128 except the Rage128 server from SuSe, at least that's free). My problem is that it won't go past 800x600. I know my monitor specs (from my manual), and I've tried xf86setup, kvideogen, xconfigurator, the lot of them. They all come up with sets of modelines, they work for 640x480 and 800x600, but NO 1024x768!!!! ARRGGHHH!!!!! (it just gives me an "Out of scan range" on my monitor). Obviously Windows works just fine at that res, up to 85hz. I'm wondering if this is a problem with the current version of the XFCom_Rage128 server. Has anyone else personally ran that server at 1024x768 (or higher, those don't work either)? Email me/post here. Thanks a lot in advance!