Sure but the article was about that there should also be more to a game than just "doing stuff".
Nope. You use metrics to analyse your freemium game to graph tedium against profit. If you make it just tedious enough, people will hopefully pay some money to avoid actually playing your game. Welcome to the modern approach to game design:/
The point you're missing is that I personally don't want a charms bar. I want the ability to display multiple windows, running multiple tasks, on my multicore desktop machine. I don't want bells. I don't want whilstles. I just want an OS.
You can access search with one click or a keyboard shortcut (win+q)
Where as in previous version, you just needed to press the windows key and start typing. I could have done that with one click too, but I'd much prefer to have a single keyboard shortcut.
Any new user of Windows 8 is instructed where this charm bar is the first time they sign on to Windows 8, so it's hardly a mystery as to where it is and how to access it.
Great and all that, but you know what? I've been using MS products since the early 90's. I don't need an OS that decides to change the layout of everything, just so it can try to treat me like an idiot. Jesus, even my 70 year old mother has had enough experience of windows to not need hand holding anymore. Who exactly have they made this for? It's not easier to use. It's not practical. It's just a crap design, and nothing more.
I'd say describing finding search in a classic desktop application as a scavenger hunt is more apt. Is it on the toolbar? help menu? file menu? edit menu? is it called search or find?
Maybe they could have just left it in the same fucking place it's been for over a decade?
A trade off? Such as the a compiler that is so bug ridden, it failed to accept things such as "#define SIZE 10"? (which has since been fixed). Or, having three different threading API's, none of which worked together, and none of which actually worked properly? (requiring that we wrote our own). Or maybe, the cost of a mis-predicted branch causing a 8000 cycle CPU stall, made worse by the fact there was no branch predictor, which meant every line of existing code had to be re-written without branches? Or the lack of any decent development tools for years after launch? That wasn't a trade off, it was a disaster!
More complicated architecture meant more optimisation which meant more performance
The more complicated archictures required more optimisation (PS3 for example), but that was only to struggle to get them close to the performance of the easier to dev for machines (eg 360). When we started in the PS2 days, the XBOX was a doddle to make work (and most of the optimisation work was getting most out of the shadersm or actually working on you know, the game code!), however the PS2 (which was a weaker machine) had sales figures that translated to a bigger profit. Sadly, the PS2 was a PITA to work with (interesting from an 'engineering challenge' point of view, but hideous from a commercial development perspective), but given the number of sold units, we didn't have much choice but to optimise the hell out of it.....
The same situation came about with the PS3, except this time the number of PS3 units sold made it very hard to justify the expense of optimising games for it, so we didn't. The early release titles were pretty terrible, and it took quite a few years before the games were approaching those of the 360. If sony make the PS4 as esoteric as the PS3, it will be the last console they ever make. I think it's fair to say that the PS4 will infact be a bog standard 0x64 PC dressed up like a console. To do anything different would kill off playstation imho.
Anyhow, it won't be long before the Sony PR machine kicks into work, and we start hearing how Saddam Hussein will be importing 2000 ps4's to build the worlds most powerful supercomputer, and the fanboys start chanting about how the PS4 will be the most powerful console ever (even though it isn't). Happens everytime, and will happen again. This time around though, I think the iPhone will win out:/
We actually call people under the age of 18 young offenders, and they are tried in juvenile courts, and sent to "young offenders instituions" if found guilty.
Well, you could selotape together 640 Sinclair ZX81's, which would give you 640 Z80 cores, AND 640Kb RAM!!!! Combine that with 640 x 64 x 48 pixel displays, and 640 cassette tape interconnects, and you'd have far more computing power than anyone could ever need!
Because if you use your 24" monitor in landscape, it allows 2 pages side by side (without wasting space), and it's the right width for a 24" monitor rotated 90 degrees in portrait.
Once again..... Try managing a large scale project of a few hundred developers, rather than 2 or 3.
You let the experts in your team write the "complicated C++ meta-template programming techniques"
No, No, and No again! What you are suggesting is nothing more than compartmentalising a team such that programmer A owns that bit of code, and programmer B owns that bit of code. It's nothing more than an artifical barrier for less experienced members of the team, designed to prevent them making small commits to address any bugs they may find. It makes it much harder to distribute the workload evenly between team members, and ensures that the senior devs spend all day programming, rather than spending time advising and guiding the junior team members.
That's the point of C++-templating: Make it easy for the users of the code.
There is a big difference between programming with templates (e.g. using a container, or templated method), and meta-template programming (e.g. using TypeLists et-al, as a form of functional programing, but with a syntax that is far harder to understand & maintain than say, haskell).
C++ templates make life easier for the users of the code, if and only if, it is 100% bug free, and 100% feature complete. If there are bugs, junior devs may be the ones who end up having to debug it. I'd rather they were able to fix the problem themselves, rather than having to utilise a senior devs time (who may be involved in more important things, which may cause a delay in getting the bug fixed). Now you may say "Ahh, well, you should be writing unit tests! Bad developer!". I'd counter that by saying that time constraints often get in the way of unit tests, and on occasion you will encounter bugs which you'd never have been able to foresee (which makes writing a unit test beforehand very difficult indeed). More often than not, this is usually the result of a new feature being added to the template, which has some subtle side effects to other aspects of it's usage, and the origal tests haven't been expanded accordingly.
Rubbish, it's still true today. I shoot film using a 36 year old Pentax KM, and in the 16 years I've owned it, it's required a single repair to fix the light meter (although it would have still worked had I not had that fixed). The thing is built like a tank, and I see no reason why it won't last another 36 years. There may be a digital SLR on the market today robust enough to last 36 years, but I imagine you'd be looking towards a Leica or a Hassleblad (neither of which are cheap options). If in 20 years time, the electronics fail in your average consumer grade DSLR, I somehow suspect it will be beyond repair.
No, you're just being obtuse. If I developed with a tab spacing of 4, and I allow a maximum page width of 120 characters, what happens other people view my code with a tab spacing to 8? Chunks of code extend beyond the maximum page width, and it simply looks like an unreadable mess. Using spaces is the only way to be absolutely certain of how your code looks when viewed by other people.
I use tabs because anyone can set the width to whatever they like (2, 4 or 8 spaces usually).
And that is why you should use spaces rather than tabs. I've worked on projects previously where we sold the code to third parties, and we always used spaces to ensure the formatting would always look correct, no matter what tab indentation you used (2 spaces to be precise). The reason it's useful, is that you can be sure your code always looks 'professional' to whomever is looking at it, whatever their indentation may be. Believe me when I say that you get far fewer support requests when third parties look over code that is always perfectly formatted, rather than code that can look 'messy' (when you apply an 8 space tab indentation). Third party users of your code tend to be more confident in its abilities when it looks like professionally cared for code, and so they hassle you less. Who really gives a f**k about what whether the developers on your team prefer 2/4/8 tab indentation? The whole team should be working together as a whole, not as a collection as single entities....
Why don't you try managing a large scale programming project with hundreds of developers, rather than 2 or 3? A large project has developers of all abilities, from recent grads, all the way up to seasoned pro's. In that enviornment, pandering to lowest common denominator is a good thing. For example, a coding convention that bans complicated C++ meta-template programming techniques, helps to extract the maximum from recent grads, by making sure they don't have to read 'Modern C++ Design' cover to cover 7 times before making their first commit (and that also applies to R&D folks who have PHd's in maths/physics, yet would struggle to write their own linked list template). Remove variation in programming style from the equation, and large projects suddenly start moving forward at a much faster pace. You can argue against that if you want, it just marks you out as a terrible team member, and a terribly inexperienced software developer. My 2 cents.....
So what you're saying is that it's worth me upgrading from my 14" CRT and windows 95? I do hope they've made clippy into a fullscreen app. I still can't fathom how to use these 'PC' things without its insightful guidance.....
Look, I grew up in the countryside, and I see the damage foxes can do to livestock, so in principle I have nothing against the killing of foxes. I don't however think that donning a red coat, drinking a glass of sherry, jumping on a horse, sounding your bugles, and letting loose a pack of dogs is the most humane way of going about it. It was pompous, outdated, and completely unnessecary.
Hush now whipper snapper! I use a netbook on my commute. Having clicky keys is very handy when you've actually learnt how to touch type. Touch screen keyboards simply do not offer any feedback whatsoever - it is simply impossible to feel your way across the keyboard at night (and since it's dark now when I leave the office, this is actually very important!). I can encrypt the hard drive (useful for the many gigs of company source code & data on it). I can easily log into the renderfarm at work via SSH/VPN. I can run the same dev environment as I use at work (CentOS & usual g++ toolset). I can use a "proper" text editor (you know, one you can set up macros, custom syntax highlighting, auto-correct, etc). In short, I can do everything on it that I ever need to do on a computer. (Oh, and it has 4Gb ram, a 750Gb hard drive, and an Nvidia ION GPU for full OpenGL 3.3 support). I have a smartphone if I need tablet functionality (which actually I don't. I need it as a phone!).
Slashdot Mirror
Sure but the article was about that there should also be more to a game than just "doing stuff".
Nope. You use metrics to analyse your freemium game to graph tedium against profit. If you make it just tedious enough, people will hopefully pay some money to avoid actually playing your game. Welcome to the modern approach to game design :/
That's ok, they're all taught to catch grenades! (although you might want to use magnetic grenades to stop them throwing it back at you....)
Here's a handy diagram that may help to explain things. Try showing restraint when your neghbourhood has been invaded, bulldozed, and then built on.
Metro apps are already "must have" if you're using a device for which touch is a primary mode of input - in other words, tablets.
If I bought an MS surface, I'd have 'need to be sectioned' higher on my list of must-haves.
You can access search with one click or a keyboard shortcut (win+q)
Where as in previous version, you just needed to press the windows key and start typing. I could have done that with one click too, but I'd much prefer to have a single keyboard shortcut.
Any new user of Windows 8 is instructed where this charm bar is the first time they sign on to Windows 8, so it's hardly a mystery as to where it is and how to access it.
Great and all that, but you know what? I've been using MS products since the early 90's. I don't need an OS that decides to change the layout of everything, just so it can try to treat me like an idiot. Jesus, even my 70 year old mother has had enough experience of windows to not need hand holding anymore. Who exactly have they made this for? It's not easier to use. It's not practical. It's just a crap design, and nothing more.
I'd say describing finding search in a classic desktop application as a scavenger hunt is more apt. Is it on the toolbar? help menu? file menu? edit menu? is it called search or find?
Maybe they could have just left it in the same fucking place it's been for over a decade?
A trade off? Such as the a compiler that is so bug ridden, it failed to accept things such as "#define SIZE 10"? (which has since been fixed). Or, having three different threading API's, none of which worked together, and none of which actually worked properly? (requiring that we wrote our own). Or maybe, the cost of a mis-predicted branch causing a 8000 cycle CPU stall, made worse by the fact there was no branch predictor, which meant every line of existing code had to be re-written without branches? Or the lack of any decent development tools for years after launch? That wasn't a trade off, it was a disaster!
More complicated architecture meant more optimisation which meant more performance
The more complicated archictures required more optimisation (PS3 for example), but that was only to struggle to get them close to the performance of the easier to dev for machines (eg 360). When we started in the PS2 days, the XBOX was a doddle to make work (and most of the optimisation work was getting most out of the shadersm or actually working on you know, the game code!), however the PS2 (which was a weaker machine) had sales figures that translated to a bigger profit. Sadly, the PS2 was a PITA to work with (interesting from an 'engineering challenge' point of view, but hideous from a commercial development perspective), but given the number of sold units, we didn't have much choice but to optimise the hell out of it.....
:/
The same situation came about with the PS3, except this time the number of PS3 units sold made it very hard to justify the expense of optimising games for it, so we didn't. The early release titles were pretty terrible, and it took quite a few years before the games were approaching those of the 360. If sony make the PS4 as esoteric as the PS3, it will be the last console they ever make. I think it's fair to say that the PS4 will infact be a bog standard 0x64 PC dressed up like a console. To do anything different would kill off playstation imho.
Anyhow, it won't be long before the Sony PR machine kicks into work, and we start hearing how Saddam Hussein will be importing 2000 ps4's to build the worlds most powerful supercomputer, and the fanboys start chanting about how the PS4 will be the most powerful console ever (even though it isn't). Happens everytime, and will happen again. This time around though, I think the iPhone will win out
We actually call people under the age of 18 young offenders, and they are tried in juvenile courts, and sent to "young offenders instituions" if found guilty.
The presence of the last 4 letters.
The only thing that could change my view of the franchise would be if Disney could breath some new life into it and make something worth watching.
Digby, the biggest dog on Tattoine..... ?
Well, you could selotape together 640 Sinclair ZX81's, which would give you 640 Z80 cores, AND 640Kb RAM!!!! Combine that with 640 x 64 x 48 pixel displays, and 640 cassette tape interconnects, and you'd have far more computing power than anyone could ever need!
Rotate a 24" 1080p monitor 90 degrees, and you'll see why it makes sense.
Because if you use your 24" monitor in landscape, it allows 2 pages side by side (without wasting space), and it's the right width for a 24" monitor rotated 90 degrees in portrait.
You let the experts in your team write the "complicated C++ meta-template programming techniques"
No, No, and No again! What you are suggesting is nothing more than compartmentalising a team such that programmer A owns that bit of code, and programmer B owns that bit of code. It's nothing more than an artifical barrier for less experienced members of the team, designed to prevent them making small commits to address any bugs they may find. It makes it much harder to distribute the workload evenly between team members, and ensures that the senior devs spend all day programming, rather than spending time advising and guiding the junior team members.
That's the point of C++-templating: Make it easy for the users of the code.
There is a big difference between programming with templates (e.g. using a container, or templated method), and meta-template programming (e.g. using TypeLists et-al, as a form of functional programing, but with a syntax that is far harder to understand & maintain than say, haskell).
C++ templates make life easier for the users of the code, if and only if, it is 100% bug free, and 100% feature complete. If there are bugs, junior devs may be the ones who end up having to debug it. I'd rather they were able to fix the problem themselves, rather than having to utilise a senior devs time (who may be involved in more important things, which may cause a delay in getting the bug fixed). Now you may say "Ahh, well, you should be writing unit tests! Bad developer!". I'd counter that by saying that time constraints often get in the way of unit tests, and on occasion you will encounter bugs which you'd never have been able to foresee (which makes writing a unit test beforehand very difficult indeed). More often than not, this is usually the result of a new feature being added to the template, which has some subtle side effects to other aspects of it's usage, and the origal tests haven't been expanded accordingly.
Rubbish, it's still true today. I shoot film using a 36 year old Pentax KM, and in the 16 years I've owned it, it's required a single repair to fix the light meter (although it would have still worked had I not had that fixed). The thing is built like a tank, and I see no reason why it won't last another 36 years. There may be a digital SLR on the market today robust enough to last 36 years, but I imagine you'd be looking towards a Leica or a Hassleblad (neither of which are cheap options). If in 20 years time, the electronics fail in your average consumer grade DSLR, I somehow suspect it will be beyond repair.
no, it only uses the electrons moving through the hardware at super quick speeds.....
No, you're just being obtuse. If I developed with a tab spacing of 4, and I allow a maximum page width of 120 characters, what happens other people view my code with a tab spacing to 8? Chunks of code extend beyond the maximum page width, and it simply looks like an unreadable mess. Using spaces is the only way to be absolutely certain of how your code looks when viewed by other people.
I use tabs because anyone can set the width to whatever they like (2, 4 or 8 spaces usually).
And that is why you should use spaces rather than tabs. I've worked on projects previously where we sold the code to third parties, and we always used spaces to ensure the formatting would always look correct, no matter what tab indentation you used (2 spaces to be precise). The reason it's useful, is that you can be sure your code always looks 'professional' to whomever is looking at it, whatever their indentation may be. Believe me when I say that you get far fewer support requests when third parties look over code that is always perfectly formatted, rather than code that can look 'messy' (when you apply an 8 space tab indentation). Third party users of your code tend to be more confident in its abilities when it looks like professionally cared for code, and so they hassle you less. Who really gives a f**k about what whether the developers on your team prefer 2/4/8 tab indentation? The whole team should be working together as a whole, not as a collection as single entities....
Why don't you try managing a large scale programming project with hundreds of developers, rather than 2 or 3? A large project has developers of all abilities, from recent grads, all the way up to seasoned pro's. In that enviornment, pandering to lowest common denominator is a good thing. For example, a coding convention that bans complicated C++ meta-template programming techniques, helps to extract the maximum from recent grads, by making sure they don't have to read 'Modern C++ Design' cover to cover 7 times before making their first commit (and that also applies to R&D folks who have PHd's in maths/physics, yet would struggle to write their own linked list template). Remove variation in programming style from the equation, and large projects suddenly start moving forward at a much faster pace. You can argue against that if you want, it just marks you out as a terrible team member, and a terribly inexperienced software developer. My 2 cents.....
So what you're saying is that it's worth me upgrading from my 14" CRT and windows 95? I do hope they've made clippy into a fullscreen app. I still can't fathom how to use these 'PC' things without its insightful guidance.....
What "livestock" are you referring to?
newborn lambs & chickens.
but what fox can get through chicken wire?
They don't go through it, they dig underneath it.
Look, I grew up in the countryside, and I see the damage foxes can do to livestock, so in principle I have nothing against the killing of foxes. I don't however think that donning a red coat, drinking a glass of sherry, jumping on a horse, sounding your bugles, and letting loose a pack of dogs is the most humane way of going about it. It was pompous, outdated, and completely unnessecary.
Or maybe he meant Solar sails?
Lets face it, slashdot has zealots on both sides of the fence here.
Hey it's perfectly fine here on the Amiga side of the fence, it's just the *other* side of the fence that's the problem!
Hush now whipper snapper! I use a netbook on my commute. Having clicky keys is very handy when you've actually learnt how to touch type. Touch screen keyboards simply do not offer any feedback whatsoever - it is simply impossible to feel your way across the keyboard at night (and since it's dark now when I leave the office, this is actually very important!). I can encrypt the hard drive (useful for the many gigs of company source code & data on it). I can easily log into the renderfarm at work via SSH/VPN. I can run the same dev environment as I use at work (CentOS & usual g++ toolset). I can use a "proper" text editor (you know, one you can set up macros, custom syntax highlighting, auto-correct, etc). In short, I can do everything on it that I ever need to do on a computer. (Oh, and it has 4Gb ram, a 750Gb hard drive, and an Nvidia ION GPU for full OpenGL 3.3 support). I have a smartphone if I need tablet functionality (which actually I don't. I need it as a phone!).