Well, I don't know why, but everyone seems to forget that Xen will be a huge factor in virtualization soon. As far as I can remember, Xen, will be providing support for running unmodified kernels pretyy soon (actually somewhere around the middle of summer (northern hemisphere)) after intel provides a new set of cpus with some kind of support for it (sorry, forgot the details.) Is there something wrong with this info? I thought that it would be one of the greates issues ever, but no one seems to care, or worse there is a serios amount of vaporware in this. For me, running xp in linux, with a performance loss of say, 5-10% is a dream come true. Won't it happen? When it happens, would not it create a huge impact in virtualization market?
Really, i mean it. At the moment, it's hard to find good developers who can leverage the advantages of java. What advantages i'm talking about? Let me explain. I am managing a team of developers (senior & junior) developing a large piece of software. Basicly it's a j2ee app, but with a simple desing, avoiding entity beans, using hibernate etc.. what we have done for all the project has been following the specs. we did not do any tricks for windows or any other os. We did not do any tricks for any app server. And now, our solution is able to work on three major os's that we have targeted in the beginning, without even recompiling. we really wrote once, and we're running wherever we need. Against the more productive avarage.net developer, the cost of a longer development schedule is a hard thing to defend againgst the management. Please don't start the usual, java is more productive if you know how to do this or that. We usually can't find guys good enough for that. If you can, then it's good for you. Generally our developers are not much experienced or skilled, and this is again related to our budget. We have a certain amount of money, and we are unable to hire the super developers that can use java in a very productive way. this is our reality, and under these circumstances, the only way we can win against the ms shops doing the same job, is to use our platform independence. we can come up with zero licence versions of our software for small customers, using linux, jboss and postgresql, and it just works. the eliminated licence cost gives us many advantages, and this is how we are going to win. Other than that, there are many problems in real life, like customers falling in love with.net windows forms, ms office integration requests etc. agains the advantages of.net, we have the huge advantage of depending on specs, and providing better cost alternatives. so, go ahead, make java open source, and starting from the one man utility developer to IBM, let everyone change anything since they believe it is a better method of doing x,y,z... So 3 years from now, working on the new major version, my software will no longer be easily portable to other configs. It will be possible, but it will cost me much more than today. That cost my friends, will make us go down in the not so long run. Having a technology based on strict rules, has it's own advantages. in case of java, i believe these advantages far outweight the cons, but that's just me. However, i don't think my argument will be nonsense for many enterprise development projects.
Ok, this is no way meant to be a provocative question, i'd really like to hear your opinions. As an enterprise developer, i'd love to have a.net implementation that's cross platform. Without going into another debate, i just want to say that.net is way more productive in many ways, compared to java. But i HAVE TO use java, since it's cross platform. Not only the language, but for everything that j2ee specs point out, i can find a cross platform implementation. so, for an n tier enterpise app, the underlying os is no problem, and this is a real requirement for me. If i was not forced to present a solution that can work on any major os, with all necessary features like n tier design and such, i'd go with.net. no matter how i like the idea, i just can't see the support and large user base for mono appearing in a near future. what can i use for an application server ? what kind of development tools will i have? anything that can match eclipse or one of the commercial development tools.? without these, i can't go with mono. sorry but these are my requirements. if i was writing software for my own pleasure, i'd take the burdens if i wanted to, but i'm writing for other people,and i can't provide what they want with mono.
or maybe it's time you should accept the fact that your favorite browser is not used by necessary number of users, and therefore is not considered worth working on by google. if you don't have a very special connection to your browser(and i can't imagine what would that be), i suggest you to check out firefox. you may have to wait for a loooooong time...
You can be a nice guy, even if you have millions of dollars. Although there are some posts which discusses the significance of this release, years after the game went out, i feel like i should remind you guys: this is not a donation to poor software houses so that they can come up with a new hit. This is about letting some other (even if they are in the software industry or not) guys learn something from what you have done. Carmack has been one of the legends of the genre, and even if his usual habit (create the best visual environment possible, and go on) has started to loose it's success (half life vs doom 3) there is no doubt that he is very very good programmer. For a lot of other programmers, it's a good oppurtunity to see what kind of tricks he's been doing. The release is late, but this makes it fair for the companies who paid to licence the engine. If you can't make money from a source code in 4 years after you've bought it, than you have much more serious problems than this release. It's kinda sad to see all those complaints, since Carmack has no obligation to release code, and he gets complaints instead of thanks when he does it. I'll possibly never compile the thing since i don't have time for that as an "enterprise developer" (oh god, why did i fail so badly?), but it'll feel good to have source code of quake 3 somewhere around my hard drive. Whatever, good work Mr. Carmack, thanks..
When i used to work with MS guys for some of the projects i've done, always the same thing was worth noting: most of the time, the sales people, and sometimes tech guys (consultants mostly) don't know much about alternative technologies. When discussing something with these guys, they usually come up with an applied pattern, built on MS technology. In this case, try to talk about an alternative, Linux, java whatever.. You'll see that most of the time any remark you make will be answered with : "is it so ?". Some of the guys were my friends and i told them, look i know there are things you are obliged to do as a MS employee, but how can you sell something successfully, if you can't compare it to alternatives, from different aspects ? Just learn about the things, and you'll know the cases where MS is good (i'm sorry but there are cases like this), and you'll know when to shut up, so that you don't look like a pure marketing idiot, and instead give the impression of a pro working for MS. Now MS is doing this. It's really interesting to see that they have waited for so long. Most of the linux guys will know about what sucks about a particular subject in MS world. The same must work for MS too, or they can't fight with some memorized words (total cost of ownership, open source not secure, bla bla).
Please explain to me why should i choose Mono for cross platform development instead of Java ? Ok, you may say, another alternative is always good, the freedom to choose bla bla.. but when i compare the most important factors for me, i can't find any reason to use Mono. First of all, Java has many years of cross platform usage, not only the language and platform is cross platform, great development tools like netbeans and eclipse are also cross platform. Believe me, this is important. If you are making a living by writing software, you know that "it is possible to do it" and "it's done easily" are not the same things. Yes, somehow someone can come up with a development environment for mono, but why should i bother to switch to that environment and lose time to learn it, when i have eclipse and netbeans ? Also, swing may be a pain in the a*s to use, but when used, does it job pretty well, and enables cross platform gui development also. I have to do gui work a lot, and java provides that too, in a consistent enough way (there are minor issues in swing, but nothing that'll create a big problem) There are tons of documentation and already written open source code in Java.
Ok, now that I've mentioned the user interface development, and development tools issues, let's come to the enterprise development part..NET uses COM+ for application server related jobs. And com+ is , ummm, well COM in an application server !! What will mono guys do, to give me application server functionality ? Do i need to mention i have free and pretty well options in Java ? (Again also cross platform)
And about the future of Java, i have no doubt that it will be strong in future. Any other big player than MS is supporting it. IBM, SUN, ORACLE. Eclipse and netbeans are constantly under development with MUCH larger developer and user bases. And why should i choose MONO ? with it's compatibility issues with.NET ? Has anyone bothered to take a look at.NET framework 2.0 beta ? Avalon, Indigo ? These are huge leaps forward for.NET, and please convince me that MONO team has the resources to keep up with MS team.
IF you are talking about a new toy to play around, experiment in your spare time, MONO is ok. But i really, can't imagine myself trying to use it for production of software that i'll be paid for. It may become an alternative after some time, but i don't believe it will come close to Java in terms of scope of available tools and development environments.
A bootleg is barely close to one you can see at the theatre as an entertainment experience. The sounds definitely suck, colors suck (until you're the depressive kind that likes to see the world dull), and heads swinging to left and right at the bottom of the screen most definitely suck. This is not a comment about the IPR or laws, but i think when considering bootlegs, it's not fair to say that this is an illegal copy of the movie, since it's very inferior in terms of quality. If anyone buys this stuff, knowing how horrible it's compared to the one at the theater, this means he does not value the movie as high as the ticket price. This is a kind of price discrimination. I wonder what would happen if the producers sold a bootleg version over Internet ? Come on, buy the crappy version from us, at least this comes from the owner of movie...
Sure, most of the time this is true, but this time, DRM and other "phone home" features will make computers impossible to use for people. Not all the countries in the world has citizens with enough income to buy copyrighted material. Don't think that those bioes will be only in computers sold in USA, think of asia , and rest of the world with less income In most of the cases, people choose illegal use of software, and most home users or even businesses don't get caught. But it's completely different thing to be unable to listen the mp3 they've downloaded from emule or [insert your favorite P2P app here] The divx movie of the film which will come to your country 4 months later (and will have a DVD price which is 10% of your monthly income) will not work in these trusted computers. Believe me, this is a totally different story than usual case. People can act like sheep but when they notice that all the stuff that makes them buy a computer doesn't work on some brands, they'll switch to one that can satisfy them I don't want to argue about software prices or i don't want to look like i'm supporting illegal software, but this is a fact. Moving the functionality of applying/enforcing laws from legal institutions to computers is a huge step, and it will have much more stronger consequences, even for the sheep.
birth of new companies, or rise of small ones. Why ? because i will certainly prefer a bios with no crap built in, and many others like me, will create the demand for such computers. Even if most players in hardware scene prefer to sell "secured" products, there will be a huge demand for clean bioses and computers. Remember what happened when overclocking became something that most guys at least wanted to try ? One by one, all motherboard manufacturers (except Intel of course) began to produce models that allowed better support for overclocking. Now it's easy to modify bus speed by a precision of 1 mhz or something if i'm not wrong. No jumper mess or other weird tricks are necessary ( i remember taping of some parts on my celeron 300 to have 2.4 volts) So, MS or whomever supports this kind of movements will create a huge push for migration to more open systems. It's not hard to guess that all major apps will suddenly refuse to work on "untrusted" computers. So, that will create another great oppurtunity for open source software, for it'll possibly be the only option to work on "clean" computers. So there is a strong possibilty forusers migrating to "open" alternatives, which may create a nice **ck y*u effect to MS and supporters of such "trusted" environments
The quality,and performance is great, but i for commercial apps, the licencing fees are too high. On the other hand, using Netbeans / Eclipse and java, i get cross platform for free (as in beer) . IF you have the money, QT is really nice..
To be honest, i am surprised that it can "actually" provide what it promises. I've always worked with MS stuff, so it should be no surprise, that i'm surprised:) Of course there are minor problems, but compared to C++, it feels like heaven.
Please don't. Yes C++ as a language has compilers for many platforms which are pretty much compatible, but the degree of compatibility of these compilers don't mean much since the compatibility of an application is a totally different story. An application written in C++ will be using some kind of library, for DB access, for GUI, for network operations etc... Most of the times, these libraries are not cross platform. Or they have to be extended with platform spesific code. It has been discussed in/. many times, check it out yourself. Cross platform GUI, cross platform libraries, and there is almost always a catch in all the solutions. The story may change if you are writing C++ code that can stay in some kind of boundy, without using much library code, but unfortunately, i did not have that chance. IMHO, java is really successfull in cross platform software development, without much work i can make java software work on another platform. If C# had the same future, i'd be really glad, since i like it too, but as Microsoft works harder and harder on.NET i just don't believe MONO guys can keep up with it. C# 2.0 and longhorn will be a huge step forward for.NET technologies, and i don't thinkk MONO team can find resources to keep up with MS. Don't get me wrong, i loved the work they've done, but the result will be a platform inferior to java 1.5 and.NET. So i'll be using C++ for platform spesific, high performance apps, C# for windows apps that require rapid development, and JAVA for cross platform. That's my 2 cents...
Ok, you may switch to IT, just be carefull while choosing the thing you'll be doing. For your situation, stay away from software development "as a developer". There are much better roles for you. I am currently working in a software company, and our expertise is on medical sector. We provide many solutions, and currently i am working in a health provision system as a developer. We have 3 or 4 doctors in our firm. This number changes from time to time, as we hire some doctors as consultants.The doctors are very important for us, since as developers, we can build the system, but we have very little information about the processes and data the system must use. When our software must offer a medicine instead of another, the logic that's used is very, very complex.(international medicine indexes, and many sector spesific info..) And the doctors are the only guys we can consult about these kind of stuff. Try to design a user interface for a doctor, and you'll have a hard time to figure out what should be on the screen for results of say a surgery. If you are skilled in programming, or want to be so, work on it, that's fine. But instead of trying to be a programmer, try to be the guy who interacts with customers and the technical guys in the company. Believe me, you'll be important for them.. This way, you can use your domain spesific information, and you'll be more secure against the cycles in the industry. It's much harder to find a doctor with IT information, than to find a programmer without sector spesific info.Developers come and go, but you'll have a better chance of staying where you are.
Not much complicated, they want the server side. But how do you get the server side, when there are tons of written code, running on a stable Os(think about your favorite non-MS os here) ? For MS, what they can provide is much cheaper and developer friendly solutions(vs.net, sql server compared to oracle, sun and ibm stuff) and most important, INTEROPERABILITY. Just as it happened in the desktop development with VB, some developers and companies will find out that they can do easier development on MS servers using vs.net and say C#, and also be able to expose it to other running apps using Web services. There are even papers in MSDN giving detailed info on Web services interop posibilites with java. Ms has to provide an attractive choice to it's potential customers in server side and without interop. with existing code, this is only a dream. So they'll be supporting this till they decide it's time to break interoperability.
The old argument that no one likes reading on a computer has pretty much eroded.....
Why ? Maybe for some lucky guys with a laptop, and a fine LCD screen, this is true, but for me, especially when reading non-technical material, like a good science fiction book or my favorite magazine, holding paper, while reading is much more better than sitting in front of a monitor. Even if with a fine LCD screen, paper gives the feeling of reading like no other medium can.
I've been thinking about this lately. If there was a mechanism, that'd allow us to record the drivers info, like some kind of smart card a medium simillar to that.And even it's not easy, let's assume, we've made it mandatory for all cars, like safety belts. The car could write and read info to this medium about the driver, and any mistake the driver does can be recorded. (maybe by a central mechanism using gps, or by the cops, whatever...). When you're out of your traffic credits, car's would refuse you as a driver. Like everything this can be cheated of course: "hey pal, would you stick your traffic credit card to my card ? i've just run out of mine, bla bla".The cops can check if the driver has sticked his own card, just like checking his licence.. Why i'd want something like this ? Couse there are thousands of bastards around who forget they are risking not only their lives, but also many others by being a jerk in the drivers seat. You can take away the drivers licence, but you can't stop the bastard. He may use a car anyway. This way, he'll have a hard time trying to find a car he can use.I know there are flaws in the idea, but if someone could make it work, i think it would save lives.
Sun deserves all that will happen
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Preview of Java 1.5
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Ok, let's all try to see how Sun can be incredibly stupid. You have a company that has a strong position in the Enterprise, and you have a technology that is pretty much accepted. Meanwhile your opponent is busy with conquering the desktop since it can't provide solutions strong and stable enough for the enterprise. What in god's name did you think MS was going to do? Was Bill Gates supposed to turn the others in the room and say "hey this was fun, let's do it again!" after MS has owned the complete desktop ? OF COURSE they'll try to dominate the Enterprise too!!.NET was announced almost 3-3.5 years ago. Sun saw it coming and did nothing. Bitching about how MS products sucks is not the solution. You should have used your advantage and experience in the Enterprise instead of letting MS slowly steal it from you. If Sun could have cared for what the industry has been complaning about in their technology, and implemented the necessary changes, by the time.NET is out, it would be just a ripoff. But look what we have here now: Sun, is trying to catch up with MS in the field where it had for years. You have a huge user base, you have a mature technology, why do you wait for opponents to catch up ? Java is not dead yet, but it's not hard to see why it'll be dead at the end, when you look at what Sun is doing..
This means there is not much left
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LOTR The Musical!
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· Score: 3, Funny
for us to see the porno version. Sauron will "really" make the middle earth suffer...
I really don't care much about the gameplay of Doom III. Why ? Because Carmack's greatest contribution to gaming is not the games he creates for the last few years, his real contribution is the technology he gives to many talented others for implementing their ideas in a more stunning way. What if gameplay of Doom III sucks ? What if it does not make it to the hype ? Nothing..No problem at all: as we've both seen before someone with a good idea will licence the technology and will give us a new game that'll rock our world. And considering Carmack's huge affords to make his technology easy to modify, we'll probably see much cooler mods too. Half life, was built on quake 2 engine, quake 3 engine was the base for medal of honor, and the list goes on. Carmack is not only coding a game, he's creating the technical foundation for next generation of games, and even just for that he deserves respect and all his Ferraris. Still i can guess how many will be bitching about "how Doom III sucks" when the game is out. Just try to see how much the guy alone has done for gaming. And for god's sake please stop that "what a wasted talent" bullshit, we have enough of scientists, and genius elsewhere, let the man do what he likes with his own brain .
Well, there has been a big change in the avarage gamers profile for the last 4-5 years with the improvement of graphics and sound. It has been very interesting to see gaming transform from the 'geek fun' decription to mainstream entertainment. Tv channels with people playing games and programs on games ?? This has been really interesting for me since i was pretty used to hearing "oh, stop spending hours in front of that stupid computer, let's go out.. bla bla" Now most of the persons who talked this way, are addicted to Medal of Honour, Counter Strike, Sims, etc.. They don't have the same taste as most of the older gamers. They want pretty graphics, celebrity voices, and as much as eyecandy as possible. And since they pay money, their opinions create a driving force for gaming industry. As gaming becomes more and more part of mainstream entertainment, we'll see more attempts to attract the players who have met with computers in Nvidia age (hope you know what i mean) I think the mods are the way out for guys like me. So they will be more and more important, and game companies will keep supporting mods since it makes the game reach to alternative customers who would not originally buy the game. Get ready to see more Hollywood style in games, since this is what the customers want..
Well, as far as i'm concerned there is always a limit for pushing your lifestyle to others. The others mean your lover, your familiy, or your friends. People who really care about you understand your obsession about some things, but they also expect respect from you, about their life style. I have a wonderfull girlfriend right now, and even though she's not as much as enthusiastic about 1's and 0's as much as me, she understands that reading compiler specs is my way of having fun. But i also know that a night outside with a good dinner and wine is much more fun for her. So, you should decide about the tradeoffs, as i said there is always a limit. If you think that you can go as far as you wish, and install hardware even in bedroom:), i don't think any self respecting girl friend "who is not a geek like you" can accept it. So i make my choice on these grounds, and i think living with a non-geek is something good, since she reminds you of that other life, and helps you get along with it, so that you can still be able to communicate with other people.
as always, the discussion is going to be about which card is better for this game, and how we poor users can hack the settings for a few extra fps when it hits the shelves. forget it, graphics mean nothing !! the most entertaining games i've played ever were another world in amiga, and half life in pc. There are a zillion games on the market with very good graphics, but when you begin to play, it's the same shit all the time. Run, get a new gun, find a door, find a key... For me, games have mostly become a tech hobie. I just take a look at the graphs, and try to see a new trick in graphics or AI, but there is nothing new in these games. Only medal of honor had the excitement that made me play the game, instead of examining it for the past year. Maybe i'm just getting old, and it's harder and harder for these guys to find something to surprise me. For example , the AI of my avatar in Black & White was something that made me play the game, we just need better ideas, we have much more better graphics than we need.
Any other country other than US can be the second third, or whatever biggest producer in the world. Or someday you may see that most of the software is being produced in a country other than US. ( this may seem like the extreme case, but think of hardware, the cheap labor is the key here )
I really admit the way India focuses on software, and i wish my country could "see" the same facts about the trend in the world as India has done.
But have you realized that most of what is being done out of US is just bringing peaces together ? Sure, rest of the world can use OO paradigm, C++, java, and other tools but it's US who produces the goods. how many of you heard of any Indian or non-US work on a new programming language or methodology ?
I believe being the leader means producing the base tecnology, and no other country other than US currently seems to be working hard on new software technology.Trying to produce the tools is the real investment for the future of a country, but i don't see much candidates around.Everybody seems to be busy making money...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I don't know why, but everyone seems to forget that Xen will be a huge factor in virtualization soon. As far as I can remember, Xen, will be providing support for running unmodified kernels pretyy soon (actually somewhere around the middle of summer (northern hemisphere)) after intel provides a new set of cpus with some kind of support for it (sorry, forgot the details.)
Is there something wrong with this info? I thought that it would be one of the greates issues ever, but no one seems to care, or worse there is a serios amount of vaporware in this.
For me, running xp in linux, with a performance loss of say, 5-10% is a dream come true. Won't it happen? When it happens, would not it create a huge impact in virtualization market?
Really, i mean it. At the moment, it's hard to find good developers who can leverage the advantages of java. What advantages i'm talking about? Let me explain. I am managing a team of developers (senior & junior) developing a large piece of software. Basicly it's a j2ee app, but with a simple desing, avoiding entity beans, using hibernate etc.. .net developer, the cost of a longer development schedule is a hard thing to defend againgst the management. Please don't start the usual, java is more productive if you know how to do this or that. We usually can't find guys good enough for that. If you can, then it's good for you. Generally our developers are not much experienced or skilled, and this is again related to our budget. We have a certain amount of money, and we are unable to hire the super developers that can use java in a very productive way. .net windows forms, ms office integration requests etc. agains the advantages of .net, we have the huge advantage of depending on specs, and providing better cost alternatives.
what we have done for all the project has been following the specs. we did not do any tricks for windows or any other os. We did not do any tricks for any app server. And now, our solution is able to work on three major os's that we have targeted in the beginning, without even recompiling. we really wrote once, and we're running wherever we need.
Against the more productive avarage
this is our reality, and under these circumstances, the only way we can win against the ms shops doing the same job, is to use our platform independence. we can come up with zero licence versions of our software for small customers, using linux, jboss and postgresql, and it just works. the eliminated licence cost gives us many advantages, and this is how we are going to win. Other than that, there are many problems in real life, like customers falling in love with
so, go ahead, make java open source, and starting from the one man utility developer to IBM, let everyone change anything since they believe it is a better method of doing x,y,z... So 3 years from now, working on the new major version, my software will no longer be easily portable to other configs. It will be possible, but it will cost me much more than today. That cost my friends, will make us go down in the not so long run.
Having a technology based on strict rules, has it's own advantages. in case of java, i believe these advantages far outweight the cons, but that's just me. However, i don't think my argument will be nonsense for many enterprise development projects.
Ok, this is no way meant to be a provocative question, i'd really like to hear your opinions. As an enterprise developer, i'd love to have a .net implementation that's cross platform. Without going into another debate, i just want to say that .net is way more productive in many ways, compared to java. But i HAVE TO use java, since it's cross platform. Not only the language, but for everything that j2ee specs point out, i can find a cross platform implementation. so, for an n tier enterpise app, the underlying os is no problem, and this is a real requirement for me. If i was not forced to present a solution that can work on any major os, with all necessary features like n tier design and such, i'd go with .net.
no matter how i like the idea, i just can't see the support and large user base for mono appearing in a near future. what can i use for an application server ? what kind of development tools will i have? anything that can match eclipse or one of the commercial development tools.?
without these, i can't go with mono. sorry but these are my requirements. if i was writing software for my own pleasure, i'd take the burdens if i wanted to, but i'm writing for other people,and i can't provide what they want with mono.
or maybe it's time you should accept the fact that your favorite browser is not used by necessary number of users, and therefore is not considered worth working on by google. ...
if you don't have a very special connection to your browser(and i can't imagine what would that be), i suggest you to check out firefox.
you may have to wait for a loooooong time
You can be a nice guy, even if you have millions of dollars. Although there are some posts which discusses the significance of this release, years after the game went out, i feel like i should remind you guys: this is not a donation to poor software houses so that they can come up with a new hit.
This is about letting some other (even if they are in the software industry or not) guys learn something from what you have done.
Carmack has been one of the legends of the genre, and even if his usual habit (create the best visual environment possible, and go on) has started to loose it's success (half life vs doom 3) there is no doubt that he is very very good programmer. For a lot of other programmers, it's a good oppurtunity to see what kind of tricks he's been doing.
The release is late, but this makes it fair for the companies who paid to licence the engine. If you can't make money from a source code in 4 years after you've bought it, than you have much more serious problems than this release. It's kinda sad to see all those complaints, since Carmack has no obligation to release code, and he gets complaints instead of thanks when he does it.
I'll possibly never compile the thing since i don't have time for that as an "enterprise developer" (oh god, why did i fail so badly?), but it'll feel good to have source code of quake 3 somewhere around my hard drive.
Whatever, good work Mr. Carmack, thanks..
When i used to work with MS guys for some of the projects i've done, always the same thing was worth noting: most of the time, the sales people, and sometimes tech guys (consultants mostly) don't know much about alternative technologies. When discussing something with these guys, they usually come up with an applied pattern, built on MS technology. In this case, try to talk about an alternative, Linux, java whatever.. You'll see that most of the time any remark you make will be answered with : "is it so ?". Some of the guys were my friends and i told them, look i know there are things you are obliged to do as a MS employee, but how can you sell something successfully, if you can't compare it to alternatives, from different aspects ? Just learn about the things, and you'll know the cases where MS is good (i'm sorry but there are cases like this), and you'll know when to shut up, so that you don't look like a pure marketing idiot, and instead give the impression of a pro working for MS .
Now MS is doing this. It's really interesting to see that they have waited for so long. Most of the linux guys will know about what sucks about a particular subject in MS world. The same must work for MS too, or they can't fight with some memorized words (total cost of ownership, open source not secure, bla bla).
Please explain to me why should i choose Mono for cross platform development instead of Java ? Ok, you may say, another alternative is always good, the freedom to choose bla bla.. but when i compare the most important factors for me, i can't find any reason to use Mono. First of all, Java has many years of cross platform usage, not only the language and platform is cross platform, great development tools like netbeans and eclipse are also cross platform. Believe me, this is important. If you are making a living by writing software, you know that "it is possible to do it" and "it's done easily" are not the same things. Yes, somehow someone can come up with a development environment for mono, but why should i bother to switch to that environment and lose time to learn it, when i have eclipse and netbeans ? Also, swing may be a pain in the a*s to use, but when used, does it job pretty well, and enables cross platform gui development also. I have to do gui work a lot, and java provides that too, in a consistent enough way (there are minor issues in swing, but nothing that'll create a big problem)
.NET uses COM+ for application server related jobs. And com+ is , ummm, well COM in an application server !! What will mono guys do, to give me application server functionality ? Do i need to mention i have free and pretty well options in Java ? (Again also cross platform)
.NET ? Has anyone bothered to take a look at .NET framework 2.0 beta ? Avalon, Indigo ? These are huge leaps forward for .NET, and please convince me that MONO team has the resources to keep up with MS team.
There are tons of documentation and already written open source code in Java.
Ok, now that I've mentioned the user interface development, and development tools issues, let's come to the enterprise development part.
And about the future of Java, i have no doubt that it will be strong in future. Any other big player than MS is supporting it. IBM, SUN, ORACLE. Eclipse and netbeans are constantly under development with MUCH larger developer and user bases. And why should i choose MONO ? with it's compatibility issues with
IF you are talking about a new toy to play around, experiment in your spare time, MONO is ok. But i really, can't imagine myself trying to use it for production of software that i'll be paid for. It may become an alternative after some time, but i don't believe it will come close to Java in terms of scope of available tools and development environments.
A bootleg is barely close to one you can see at the theatre as an entertainment experience. The sounds definitely suck, colors suck (until you're the depressive kind that likes to see the world dull), and heads swinging to left and right at the bottom of the screen most definitely suck. This is not a comment about the IPR or laws, but i think when considering bootlegs, it's not fair to say that this is an illegal copy of the movie, since it's very inferior in terms of quality. If anyone buys this stuff, knowing how horrible it's compared to the one at the theater, this means he does not value the movie as high as the ticket price. This is a kind of price discrimination. I wonder what would happen if the producers sold a bootleg version over Internet ? Come on, buy the crappy version from us, at least this comes from the owner of movie...
Sure, most of the time this is true, but this time, DRM and other "phone home" features will make computers impossible to use for people. Not all the countries in the world has citizens with enough income to buy copyrighted material. Don't think that those bioes will be only in computers sold in USA, think of asia , and rest of the world with less income
In most of the cases, people choose illegal use of software, and most home users or even businesses don't get caught.
But it's completely different thing to be unable to listen the mp3 they've downloaded from emule or [insert your favorite P2P app here]
The divx movie of the film which will come to your country 4 months later (and will have a DVD price which is 10% of your monthly income) will not work in these trusted computers.
Believe me, this is a totally different story than usual case. People can act like sheep but when they notice that all the stuff that makes them buy a computer doesn't work on some brands, they'll switch to one that can satisfy them
I don't want to argue about software prices or i don't want to look like i'm supporting illegal software, but this is a fact. Moving the functionality of applying/enforcing laws from legal institutions to computers is a huge step, and it will have much more stronger consequences, even for the sheep.
birth of new companies, or rise of small ones. Why ? because i will certainly prefer a bios with no crap built in, and many others like me, will create the demand for such computers. Even if most players in hardware scene prefer to sell "secured" products, there will be a huge demand for clean bioses and computers.
Remember what happened when overclocking became something that most guys at least wanted to try ? One by one, all motherboard manufacturers (except Intel of course) began to produce models that allowed better support for overclocking. Now it's easy to modify bus speed by a precision of 1 mhz or something if i'm not wrong. No jumper mess or other weird tricks are necessary ( i remember taping of some parts on my celeron 300 to have 2.4 volts)
So, MS or whomever supports this kind of movements will create a huge push for migration to more open systems. It's not hard to guess that all major apps will suddenly refuse to work on "untrusted" computers. So, that will create another great oppurtunity for open source software, for it'll possibly be the only option to work on "clean" computers.
So there is a strong possibilty forusers migrating to "open" alternatives, which may create a nice **ck y*u effect to MS and supporters of such "trusted" environments
The quality,and performance is great, but i for commercial apps, the licencing fees are too high. On the other hand, using Netbeans / Eclipse and java, i get cross platform for free (as in beer) . IF you have the money, QT is really nice..
To be honest, i am surprised that it can "actually" provide what it promises. I've always worked with MS stuff, so it should be no surprise, that i'm surprised :)
Of course there are minor problems, but compared to C++, it feels like heaven.
Please don't. Yes C++ as a language has compilers for many platforms which are pretty much compatible, but the degree of compatibility of these compilers don't mean much since the compatibility of an application is a totally different story. An application written in C++ will be using some kind of library, for DB access, for GUI, for network operations etc... Most of the times, these libraries are not cross platform. Or they have to be extended with platform spesific code. It has been discussed in /. many times, check it out yourself. Cross platform GUI, cross platform libraries, and there is almost always a catch in all the solutions. .NET i just don't believe MONO guys can keep up with it. C# 2.0 and longhorn will be a huge step forward for .NET technologies, and i don't thinkk MONO team can find resources to keep up with MS. .NET.
The story may change if you are writing C++ code that can stay in some kind of boundy, without using much library code, but unfortunately, i did not have that chance.
IMHO, java is really successfull in cross platform software development, without much work i can make java software work on another platform.
If C# had the same future, i'd be really glad, since i like it too, but as Microsoft works harder and harder on
Don't get me wrong, i loved the work they've done, but the result will be a platform inferior to java 1.5 and
So i'll be using C++ for platform spesific, high performance apps, C# for windows apps that require rapid development, and JAVA for cross platform. That's my 2 cents...
Ok, you may switch to IT, just be carefull while choosing the thing you'll be doing.
For your situation, stay away from software development "as a developer". There are much better roles for you.
I am currently working in a software company, and our expertise is on medical sector. We provide many solutions, and currently i am working in a health provision system as a developer. We have 3 or 4 doctors in our firm. This number changes from time to time, as we hire some doctors as consultants.The doctors are very important for us, since as developers, we can build the system, but we have very little information about the processes and data the system must use. When our software must offer a medicine instead of another, the logic that's used is very, very complex.(international medicine indexes, and many sector spesific info..) And the doctors are the only guys we can consult about these kind of stuff. Try to design a user interface for a doctor, and you'll have a hard time to figure out what should be on the screen for results of say a surgery.
If you are skilled in programming, or want to be so, work on it, that's fine. But instead of trying to be a programmer, try to be the guy who interacts with customers and the technical guys in the company. Believe me, you'll be important for them..
This way, you can use your domain spesific information, and you'll be more secure against the cycles in the industry. It's much harder to find a doctor with IT information, than to find a programmer without sector spesific info.Developers come and go, but you'll have a better chance of staying where you are.
it belongs to someone else, and also has already been patented.
check www.onepin.com
Not much complicated, they want the server side. But how do you get the server side, when there are tons of written code, running on a stable Os(think about your favorite non-MS os here) ? For MS, what they can provide is much cheaper and developer friendly solutions(vs.net, sql server compared to oracle, sun and ibm stuff) and most important, INTEROPERABILITY. Just as it happened in the desktop development with VB, some developers and companies will find out that they can do easier development on MS servers using vs.net and say C#, and also be able to expose it to other running apps using Web services. There are even papers in MSDN giving detailed info on Web services interop posibilites with java. Ms has to provide an attractive choice to it's potential customers in server side and without interop. with existing code, this is only a dream. So they'll be supporting this till they decide it's time to break interoperability.
The old argument that no one likes reading on a computer has pretty much eroded.....
Why ? Maybe for some lucky guys with a laptop, and a fine LCD screen, this is true, but for me, especially when reading non-technical material, like a good science fiction book or my favorite magazine, holding paper, while reading is much more better than sitting in front of a monitor. Even if with a fine LCD screen, paper gives the feeling of reading like no other medium can.
I've been thinking about this lately. If there was a mechanism, that'd allow us to record the drivers info, like some kind of smart card a medium simillar to that.And even it's not easy, let's assume, we've made it mandatory for all cars, like safety belts. The car could write and read info to this medium about the driver, and any mistake the driver does can be recorded. (maybe by a central mechanism using gps, or by the cops, whatever...). When you're out of your traffic credits, car's would refuse you as a driver. Like everything this can be cheated of course: "hey pal, would you stick your traffic credit card to my card ? i've just run out of mine, bla bla".The cops can check if the driver has sticked his own card, just like checking his licence..
Why i'd want something like this ? Couse there are thousands of bastards around who forget they are risking not only their lives, but also many others by being a jerk in the drivers seat. You can take away the drivers licence, but you can't stop the bastard. He may use a car anyway. This way, he'll have a hard time trying to find a car he can use.I know there are flaws in the idea, but if someone could make it work, i think it would save lives.
Ok, let's all try to see how Sun can be incredibly stupid. .NET was announced almost 3-3.5 years ago. Sun saw it coming and did nothing. Bitching about how MS products sucks is not the solution. You should have used your advantage and experience in the Enterprise instead of letting MS slowly steal it from you. If Sun could have cared for what the industry has been complaning about in their technology, and implemented the necessary changes, by the time .NET is out, it would be just a ripoff. But look what we have here now: Sun, is trying to catch up with MS in the field where it had for years. You have a huge user base, you have a mature technology, why do you wait for opponents to catch up ? Java is not dead yet, but it's not hard to see why it'll be dead at the end, when you look at what Sun is doing..
You have a company that has a strong position in the Enterprise, and you have a technology that is pretty much accepted. Meanwhile your opponent is busy with conquering the desktop since it can't provide solutions strong and stable enough for the enterprise. What in god's name did you think MS was going to do? Was Bill Gates supposed to turn the others in the room and say "hey this was fun, let's do it again!" after MS has owned the complete desktop ? OF COURSE they'll try to dominate the Enterprise too!!
for us to see the porno version. Sauron will "really" make the middle earth suffer...
I really don't care much about the gameplay of Doom III. Why ? Because Carmack's greatest contribution to gaming is not the games he creates for the last few years, his real contribution is the technology he gives to many talented others for implementing their ideas in a more stunning way.
What if gameplay of Doom III sucks ? What if it does not make it to the hype ? Nothing..No problem at all: as we've both seen before someone with a good idea will licence the technology and will give us a new game that'll rock our world. And considering Carmack's huge affords to make his technology easy to modify, we'll probably see much cooler mods too. Half life, was built on quake 2 engine, quake 3 engine was the base for medal of honor, and the list goes on. Carmack is not only coding a game, he's creating the technical foundation for next generation of games, and even just for that he deserves respect and all his Ferraris. Still i can guess how many will be bitching about "how Doom III sucks" when the game is out. Just try to see how much the guy alone has done for gaming. And for god's sake please stop that "what a wasted talent" bullshit, we have enough of scientists, and genius elsewhere, let the man do what he likes with his own brain .
Well, there has been a big change in the avarage gamers profile for the last 4-5 years with the improvement of graphics and sound.
It has been very interesting to see gaming transform from the 'geek fun' decription to mainstream entertainment. Tv channels with people playing games and programs on games ?? This has been really interesting for me since i was pretty used to hearing "oh, stop spending hours in front of that stupid computer, let's go out.. bla bla"
Now most of the persons who talked this way, are addicted to Medal of Honour, Counter Strike, Sims, etc..
They don't have the same taste as most of the older gamers. They want pretty graphics, celebrity voices, and as much as eyecandy as possible. And since they pay money, their opinions create a driving force for gaming industry. As gaming becomes more and more part of mainstream entertainment, we'll see more attempts to attract the players who have met with computers in Nvidia age (hope you know what i mean)
I think the mods are the way out for guys like me. So they will be more and more important, and game companies will keep supporting mods since it makes the game reach to alternative customers who would not originally buy the game. Get ready to see more Hollywood style in games, since this is what the customers want..
Well, as far as i'm concerned there is always a limit for pushing your lifestyle to others. :), i don't think any self respecting girl friend "who is not a geek like you" can accept it.
The others mean your lover, your familiy, or your friends. People who really care about you understand your obsession about some things, but they also expect respect from you, about their life style.
I have a wonderfull girlfriend right now, and even though she's not as much as enthusiastic about 1's and 0's as much as me, she understands that reading compiler specs is my way of having fun. But i also know that a night outside with a good dinner and wine is much more fun for her. So, you should decide about the tradeoffs, as i said there is always a limit. If you think that you can go as far as you wish, and install hardware even in bedroom
So i make my choice on these grounds, and i think living with a non-geek is something good, since she reminds you of that other life, and helps you get along with it, so that you can still be able to communicate with other people.
as always, the discussion is going to be about which card is better for this game, and how we poor users can hack the settings for a few extra fps when it hits the shelves.
forget it, graphics mean nothing !! the most entertaining games i've played ever were another world in amiga, and half life in pc. There are a zillion games on the market with very good graphics, but when you begin to play, it's the same shit all the time. Run, get a new gun, find a door, find a key...
For me, games have mostly become a tech hobie. I just take a look at the graphs, and try to see a new trick in graphics or AI, but there is nothing new in these games. Only medal of honor had the excitement that made me play the game, instead of examining it for the past year. Maybe i'm just getting old, and it's harder and harder for these guys to find something to surprise me. For example , the AI of my avatar in Black & White was something that made me play the game, we just need better ideas, we have much more better graphics than we need.
Any other country other than US can be the second third, or whatever biggest producer in the world. Or someday you may see that most of the software is being produced in a country other than US. ( this may seem like the extreme case, but think of hardware, the cheap labor is the key here )
I really admit the way India focuses on software, and i wish my country could "see" the same facts about the trend in the world as India has done.
But have you realized that most of what is being done out of US is just bringing peaces together ? Sure, rest of the world can use OO paradigm, C++, java, and other tools but it's US who produces the goods. how many of you heard of any Indian or non-US work on a new programming language or methodology ?
I believe being the leader means producing the base tecnology, and no other country other than US currently seems to be working hard on new software technology.Trying to produce the tools is the real investment for the future of a country, but i don't see much candidates around.Everybody seems to be busy making money...