More irrational Microsoft hatred from the peanut gallery. Interesting accomplishment from Microsoft Research (a group which has produced all kinds of useful advances in computing and software development, and which has very little to do with shipped products like Outlook, IE6, etc.); Average/. luser interpretation? LOL SHILL ARTICLE FROM TEH MICRO$OFT FAGGORTZ YOU SUCK LOL.
Good to see that a nerd site is inundated with droves of empty-headed group-think religious fanatics!
When you're done masturbating to your imaginary universe, maybe you'd like to sit down with the likes of Simon Peyton-Jones and discuss some of the finer points of the terrible work he and his peers have been doing.
I grew up on Slashdot. I remember sitting in my freshman dorm room over a decade ago, cackling in agreement with all the MICRO$OFT hate. Yearning for the Linux desktop. I was a part of that culture. I believed in it. We were real nerds, and we understood real technology, and we were going to win eventually.
Well I have some news for you guys. Microsoft is not the piece of shit company it once was. The article is spot on with its analysis of Ballmer's failure to lead MS into the forefront of relatively new markets, yes. But I cannot comprehend all of the continued and abundant dislike for this company among nerds (and even more staggering is the compulsive fawning over Apple, a company that is for all intents and purposes exactly what MS was in the hay day of their uncoolness). Just about every mainstream product MS has released in the past 3-4 years has been incredible. Namely though, Windows 7, Windows phone, and all of their developer tools are just absolutely top notch pieces of software.
If you're a real nerd and you're really paying attention and you're really using your brain and you're really thinking for yourself, you might see that they deserve a lot more credit than what they are getting here. Of course I can't speak for Ballmer. I don't think his leadership necessarily has any bearing on the quality of the company's work within their existing markets.
Disclaimer: Not an MS shill, just a modern-day sympathizer.
The point of this approach is that machines can make pretty good decisions ~90% of the time, but when a more refined judgment call needs to be made, a human can be provided with an abstract rendition of the data and any relevant context, and can inadvertently perform a useful classification for the solver.
Its purpose is to solve precisely the kinds of problems that arise when you simply train an ML algorithm with known inputs and outputs, and then encounter an input that appears at least partially ambiguous to said trained machine.
I can't blame him; he's right. My mistake is similar to when a person says they "could care less" when the intended meaning is that they "couldn't care less."
A bit late, but I feel some response to the replies is in order.
Note that I am not suggesting that C isn't a useful language. The fact that it is used for lower-level software and services is, however, somewhat irrelevant when discussing the most widely used languages.
Mind you, a language is more widely used if there are more extant lines of production code written in it -- not if the programs represented by those lines of code are more widely deployed.
Obviously, the Linux kernel (as one example) is very widely deployed and is written in C and C++.
Finally, my "C#, Ruby, and Python" choices were regarding the "best" languages according to a collection of my own chosen, subjective language qualities such as library support (including robust FFI), multi-paradigm expressiveness, and maintainability.
I spent the better part of a decade writing production C++ code; anything that can be done in the higher-level languages obviously can be accomplished with pure C++ code. That does not imply that it should be, for any number of reasons that depend on the task at hand.
It is unclear to me how 9 out of the top 10 languages in the list are not "general purpose" languages.
I'll give you PHP, but nobody likes PHP anyway; do they?
As an addendum, I should note that specifically it's built on top of Mono 2, and currently supports C# 3.0 and lower. This means you get LINQ and other niceties of 3.0, but you don't get the latest and greatest language features like dynamic types or co/contravariance.
Unity3D is a game engine and authoring tool. It's pretty awesome, and a lot of people (including my company) use it commercially. Its approach to modeling a game world is sensible enough to be easy for an amateur game developer to pick up on the new and relevant concepts without being overwhelmed by technical details. At the same time the framework is robust enough that an expert developer can take it very far.
The vast majority of its features are available in the free (as in beer) version (unity3d.com). The pro license ($1500) nets a few additional features, including the ability to build something for commercial deployment not branded by Unity Technologies.
It sounds like you have plenty of C# experience; this is great. Unity is built on top of a customized Mono implementation and all development can be done in the C# language. The authoring tool can generate standalone Windows and OS X executables, as well as web players (using a widely available Unity browser plugin), Flash, iOS, Android, and (some day) HTML5.
I can't stress enough how highly I recommend Unity as a starting point. You can ease your way into understanding all of the technical nuances of game development. While the documentation is a little lacking in quality (that's not to say it's terrible either), there is a great open community built around Unity, and of course there's always #unity3d on Freenode.
Sorry if this reads like an advertisement, but I am a very happy user who prior to Unity did all of my game development in C++ on engines built from scratch. It's a great free tool, great for learning, and great for (eventual) low-cost commercial development if you ever go down that route. Cheers and good luck!
One idea that keeps coming back to me and which was inspired by all this OWS yammering:
Capitalism as a game with a randomized, finite duration. At the end of the game, the score is reset to zero - we redistribute all generated wealth over the ~75-~150 years over which the round was played.
After another ~75 years of a new game, we start rollng the d100 again, once per month. When it lands on a 1, we hit the reset button.
In fact, rather than evenly redistributing the wealth, we could make it even more interesting by distributing the wealth randomly with a reasonable but feasible lower bound.
I agree with the general sentiment that things are amiss in the U.S. both economically and socially, but there are specific issues that could be addressed through demonstration. Instead, it just feels like a bunch of angry people who don't know exactly why they are angry but they want someone to do something about it.
I thought maybe it was just media portrayal, but then I started reading blogs and forums. If there is a clear and intelligent voice of OWS, I sure as hell haven't heard it yet. This is disappointing, because it's impossible for me to stand behind a movement with such a lack of cohesion.
Nothing's going to happen, except some people will probably end up getting killed, we'll have riots all over the country, and then who knows what hell will break loose after that.
I've done some stuff with WebGL and there is some great potential here.
As was mentioned above, sound is one issue that needs some serious attention in the browser environment.
The other is input.
Say what you want about Microsoft (or Micro$oft, my bad). C# is a pretty nice language for anyone in the C/C++/Java world. By pretty nice I mean it's easily nicer than those other three.
It's a shame.NET isn't more open.
In my experience, it depends on the hardware to some extent.
For example, consider that newer laptop GPU setups (using NVIDIA Optimus and whatever ATI calls their equivalent) use "switchable graphics." Essentially the output device is always a cheap integrated device, but when real GPU power is needed the OS will seamlessly switch over to a separate, bona fide GPU and have its framebuffers forwarded to the integrated chip.
This requires kernel-level support for the switchable graphics systems -- support that does not exist in the Linux kernel.
Because of this, the GPUs in these systems constantly operate at full power despite never actually producing rendered framebuffers. This eats laptop batteries alive.
It would be grossly inefficient to describe large, complex systems with a visual grammar like this. If programming is done visually in the future, it will be because we have much broader abstractions built in to the grammar, and detailed control flow structures and micro-operations (such as drawing an arc from angle to angle with a given line width) will be well beneath the expressive range of the language (much in the same way that, as a general rule, the C++ programmer is not interested in writing to hardware registers but instead prefers complete machine abstraction).
Until the artifacts of language-oriented software development are eliminated, this is just regular old programming with a "user-friendly" feel that will allow unskilled workers to accomplish simple things, and impede skilled workers from doing anything useful. This is not ground-breaking, it's certainly not new (systems like this have existed for decades), and I can confirm that "this is how all programming will be done in the future" is a false statement.
You haven't actually presented any objective rationale for your assumption that violent games are intrinsically not neutral. You state your opinion repeatedly, and then you assert that you "don't think" anyone can disagree with you. You make broad sweeping generalizations without paying a modicum of attention to the very real complexities of psychological development.
"Moral compass" derives from a number of factors. To lend some shred of credence to your assertions, I will posit that if a child plays Grand Theft Auto for hundreds of hours and has no other source of perspective on the material encountered therein, the video game could certainly have a substantial (and potentially negative) impact on the child's understanding of the world. However, video games do not exist in a vacuum. Video game experience does not preclude parental influence. I'm fairly certain that bad social behavior derives most profoundly from parental influence, far, far above any other factors.
Slashdot Mirror
More irrational Microsoft hatred from the peanut gallery. Interesting accomplishment from Microsoft Research (a group which has produced all kinds of useful advances in computing and software development, and which has very little to do with shipped products like Outlook, IE6, etc.); Average /. luser interpretation? LOL SHILL ARTICLE FROM TEH MICRO$OFT FAGGORTZ YOU SUCK LOL.
Good to see that a nerd site is inundated with droves of empty-headed group-think religious fanatics!
When you're done masturbating to your imaginary universe, maybe you'd like to sit down with the likes of Simon Peyton-Jones and discuss some of the finer points of the terrible work he and his peers have been doing.
Baa-hahahaha. Right.
I grew up on Slashdot. I remember sitting in my freshman dorm room over a decade ago, cackling in agreement with all the MICRO$OFT hate. Yearning for the Linux desktop. I was a part of that culture. I believed in it. We were real nerds, and we understood real technology, and we were going to win eventually.
Well I have some news for you guys. Microsoft is not the piece of shit company it once was. The article is spot on with its analysis of Ballmer's failure to lead MS into the forefront of relatively new markets, yes. But I cannot comprehend all of the continued and abundant dislike for this company among nerds (and even more staggering is the compulsive fawning over Apple, a company that is for all intents and purposes exactly what MS was in the hay day of their uncoolness). Just about every mainstream product MS has released in the past 3-4 years has been incredible. Namely though, Windows 7, Windows phone, and all of their developer tools are just absolutely top notch pieces of software.
If you're a real nerd and you're really paying attention and you're really using your brain and you're really thinking for yourself, you might see that they deserve a lot more credit than what they are getting here. Of course I can't speak for Ballmer. I don't think his leadership necessarily has any bearing on the quality of the company's work within their existing markets.
Disclaimer: Not an MS shill, just a modern-day sympathizer.
The point of this approach is that machines can make pretty good decisions ~90% of the time, but when a more refined judgment call needs to be made, a human can be provided with an abstract rendition of the data and any relevant context, and can inadvertently perform a useful classification for the solver.
Its purpose is to solve precisely the kinds of problems that arise when you simply train an ML algorithm with known inputs and outputs, and then encounter an input that appears at least partially ambiguous to said trained machine.
I can't blame him; he's right. My mistake is similar to when a person says they "could care less" when the intended meaning is that they "couldn't care less."
Sometimes I herp, and sometimes I derp.
A bit late, but I feel some response to the replies is in order.
Note that I am not suggesting that C isn't a useful language. The fact that it is used for lower-level software and services is, however, somewhat irrelevant when discussing the most widely used languages.
Mind you, a language is more widely used if there are more extant lines of production code written in it -- not if the programs represented by those lines of code are more widely deployed.
Obviously, the Linux kernel (as one example) is very widely deployed and is written in C and C++.
Finally, my "C#, Ruby, and Python" choices were regarding the "best" languages according to a collection of my own chosen, subjective language qualities such as library support (including robust FFI), multi-paradigm expressiveness, and maintainability.
I spent the better part of a decade writing production C++ code; anything that can be done in the higher-level languages obviously can be accomplished with pure C++ code. That does not imply that it should be, for any number of reasons that depend on the task at hand.
It is unclear to me how 9 out of the top 10 languages in the list are not "general purpose" languages. I'll give you PHP, but nobody likes PHP anyway; do they?
Addendum: Every engineer worth his weight in salt should be able to write Lisp/Scheme code as well.
Of this list, C#, Ruby, and Python are clearly the best languages as far as I'm concerned.
;)
The C++ longevity is expected. Every engineer worth his weight in salt should be able to write C++ code. (get off my lawn etc.)
I am curious abobut where the C growth is coming from. Embedded stuff? Native libraries for the increasing volume other higher level languages?
As an addendum, I should note that specifically it's built on top of Mono 2, and currently supports C# 3.0 and lower. This means you get LINQ and other niceties of 3.0, but you don't get the latest and greatest language features like dynamic types or co/contravariance.
Unity3D is a game engine and authoring tool. It's pretty awesome, and a lot of people (including my company) use it commercially. Its approach to modeling a game world is sensible enough to be easy for an amateur game developer to pick up on the new and relevant concepts without being overwhelmed by technical details. At the same time the framework is robust enough that an expert developer can take it very far.
The vast majority of its features are available in the free (as in beer) version (unity3d.com). The pro license ($1500) nets a few additional features, including the ability to build something for commercial deployment not branded by Unity Technologies.
It sounds like you have plenty of C# experience; this is great. Unity is built on top of a customized Mono implementation and all development can be done in the C# language. The authoring tool can generate standalone Windows and OS X executables, as well as web players (using a widely available Unity browser plugin), Flash, iOS, Android, and (some day) HTML5.
I can't stress enough how highly I recommend Unity as a starting point. You can ease your way into understanding all of the technical nuances of game development. While the documentation is a little lacking in quality (that's not to say it's terrible either), there is a great open community built around Unity, and of course there's always #unity3d on Freenode.
Sorry if this reads like an advertisement, but I am a very happy user who prior to Unity did all of my game development in C++ on engines built from scratch. It's a great free tool, great for learning, and great for (eventual) low-cost commercial development if you ever go down that route. Cheers and good luck!
I've been reading Slashdot for over 12 years now, and I still don't understand the obsession with Linux being on the desktop.
I think it's sad that so many people on SLASHDOT (of all places) have never heard of nginx .
This is me, shaking my head.
Seriously. Apache has been dead to me for two years now.
One idea that keeps coming back to me and which was inspired by all this OWS yammering:
Capitalism as a game with a randomized, finite duration. At the end of the game, the score is reset to zero - we redistribute all generated wealth over the ~75-~150 years over which the round was played.
After another ~75 years of a new game, we start rollng the d100 again, once per month. When it lands on a 1, we hit the reset button.
In fact, rather than evenly redistributing the wealth, we could make it even more interesting by distributing the wealth randomly with a reasonable but feasible lower bound.
I agree with the general sentiment that things are amiss in the U.S. both economically and socially, but there are specific issues that could be addressed through demonstration. Instead, it just feels like a bunch of angry people who don't know exactly why they are angry but they want someone to do something about it. I thought maybe it was just media portrayal, but then I started reading blogs and forums. If there is a clear and intelligent voice of OWS, I sure as hell haven't heard it yet. This is disappointing, because it's impossible for me to stand behind a movement with such a lack of cohesion. Nothing's going to happen, except some people will probably end up getting killed, we'll have riots all over the country, and then who knows what hell will break loose after that.
I've done some stuff with WebGL and there is some great potential here. As was mentioned above, sound is one issue that needs some serious attention in the browser environment. The other is input.
Say what you want about Microsoft (or Micro$oft, my bad). C# is a pretty nice language for anyone in the C/C++/Java world. By pretty nice I mean it's easily nicer than those other three. It's a shame .NET isn't more open.
Juuuust posting to say that tau is better than pi. Suck it, haters.
In my experience, it depends on the hardware to some extent.
For example, consider that newer laptop GPU setups (using NVIDIA Optimus and whatever ATI calls their equivalent) use "switchable graphics." Essentially the output device is always a cheap integrated device, but when real GPU power is needed the OS will seamlessly switch over to a separate, bona fide GPU and have its framebuffers forwarded to the integrated chip.
This requires kernel-level support for the switchable graphics systems -- support that does not exist in the Linux kernel.
Because of this, the GPUs in these systems constantly operate at full power despite never actually producing rendered framebuffers. This eats laptop batteries alive.
In five years, hip trendy douche guy ["I'm a PC! ;-)"] stands next to square dull office guy ["I'm a Mac :-/"].
Last part of summary segfaults my internal parser.
is not knowing when to use process and when to throw it away.
N/T
It would be grossly inefficient to describe large, complex systems with a visual grammar like this. If programming is done visually in the future, it will be because we have much broader abstractions built in to the grammar, and detailed control flow structures and micro-operations (such as drawing an arc from angle to angle with a given line width) will be well beneath the expressive range of the language (much in the same way that, as a general rule, the C++ programmer is not interested in writing to hardware registers but instead prefers complete machine abstraction).
Until the artifacts of language-oriented software development are eliminated, this is just regular old programming with a "user-friendly" feel that will allow unskilled workers to accomplish simple things, and impede skilled workers from doing anything useful. This is not ground-breaking, it's certainly not new (systems like this have existed for decades), and I can confirm that "this is how all programming will be done in the future" is a false statement.
Allen Ginsberg is a dead beat.
You haven't actually presented any objective rationale for your assumption that violent games are intrinsically not neutral. You state your opinion repeatedly, and then you assert that you "don't think" anyone can disagree with you. You make broad sweeping generalizations without paying a modicum of attention to the very real complexities of psychological development.
"Moral compass" derives from a number of factors. To lend some shred of credence to your assertions, I will posit that if a child plays Grand Theft Auto for hundreds of hours and has no other source of perspective on the material encountered therein, the video game could certainly have a substantial (and potentially negative) impact on the child's understanding of the world. However, video games do not exist in a vacuum. Video game experience does not preclude parental influence. I'm fairly certain that bad social behavior derives most profoundly from parental influence, far, far above any other factors.
Your moral crusade, I do not want it.