Programming is usually team work and as such kind of hard to measure compared to salesman who just pulls for himself. Another thing is that coders aren't usually that good at expressing themself, so it may not be obvious who is being more productive than others.
And how do you measure that productivity? Is it the amount of code you write? What if its bad code.. Is it the quality of code? What if that shows up as less productive.. No one notices unless you make it visible and show your boss or developer that you're the man.
But being awesome coder and making upper level see it won't get you 10x salary. It might get you a better salary, but at that point you should probably aim for developer position or boss level, because that will happen eventually.
I know a person who used to run a application company. There was a coder who worked as such for some years, but he also took more important stuff to handle in the company. His boss always told how good coder he is and definitely noticed him over the others working there. Later he became the boss running that company, when the old one stepped down and only owned the company anymore.
But want to just work as an average coder? Expect average salary.
Please come back when you can explain how you can have an input/output system not be molested with agendas without restriction of some sort. Know that I am with you on this (and it seems they are too), except for they seem to be right at the moment.
the data they provide is in an open format (for the most part... video is kind of tricky)
Not just tricky, but over time YouTube has tried to employ several tricks to hide the actual video url in the code so it's harder for people to get it, and they don't provide download option for videos (maybe with an option for people to activate/disable it). That's quite far from providing data in open format.
They obviously can do that, and keep some of their main services that benefit them closed. They should just cut the bullshit about "lets make an open and free world with innovation and competition", while their actual goals as a gigantic corporate are totally different. But every company is there to make money, and it's better if you have a good public image. They just have been destroying it themself lately.
He does acknowledge that Google stops short of open sourcing everything. But then, as Google so often does, he rationalizes the fact that the company has no intention of open sourcing the two things - its search and ad platforms - that have turned Google into something very close to an internet gatekeeper.
I think that's really the case too. Some of the url's also contain affiliate field, but they vary and some don't. So it's not done by a single person, nor is it done by Target.
Just old links that rank well because of Target's and linking sites PR.
There are things you can't really measure with technical tests, it's just the feel of it. UI responses instantly and feels fast, unlike FF or IE. Also other thing to consider is how fast the browser can start drawing the page, even while its loading. In Opera you can set this to happen instantly as the data starts coming in. It really brings down the "Geez, this server sure is slow," effect, especially if you're loading large and complicated pages like slashdot.
But like said, these are things you just feel. Nevertheless it makes a huge difference.
It's a lot faster than bookmarks, hence the "speed" dial. I use it for things I frequent, like slashdot, weather and tv calendar. Yes, I could have them open with all the other tabs too, but whats the point when you don't use them so often and it's fast to open them with speed dial.
I use bookmarks for things I want to remember and have around, but very seldomly need.
Carakan Carakan is our new JavaScript engine. It’s fast, more than 7x faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10 with Futhark on Windows (Mac optimization is not as far along). You can read more gritty details regarding register-based bytecode, automatic object classification and native code generation in the Opera Core blog.
Presto 2.5 We are now using Presto 2.5, which contains a huge numbers of improvements. It also includes support for CSS3 transitions and transforms, and more HTML5 features like persistent storage.
Vega Vega is our new graphics library. It’s currently software based and displays everything you see on-screen. Vega can be hardware accelerated, but as you can see from the complex graphics benchmark in Peacekeeper, we don’t seem to need it yet. (Note that Futuremarks Peacekeeper test does no include the results of their complex graphics tests in the overall score. We believe this is wrong in 2009 and will simply be silly if not changed in 2010.)
Outside - Platform integration On Windows 7/Vista, you will notice a lot of visual changes and use of APIs which allow the UI to display the Aero Glass effect. For Windows 7, we also added Aero Peek and Jump List support to easily access your Speed Dials, Tabs, etc. from the Taskbar. For Mac, a complete rewrite in Cocoa brings an Unified Toolbar, native buttons and scrollbars, multi-touch gestures (try 3-Finger Swipe Left/Right or Pinch to zoom) and a bunch of other small details. We also added Growl notification support.
“Private tab” and “Private window” You can open a new Private tab or Private window that forgets everything that happened on it once closed.
Non-modal dialogs Dialog boxes (JavaScript alerts, HTTP authentication, etc.) are now non-modal and are displayed as a page overlay. This allows you to switch tabs or windows while the dialog is still displayed. Similarly, the Password Manager dialog is now anchored at the top of the page won’t block any content as it loads a new page.
Address field and Search field improvements Both fields have been upgraded in looks and functionality. They can now remember searches, support removing items from history and show results in a better layout.
Opera just keeps getting better and better. It was in some Opera 10 beta that they improved the JS engine a lot, and now they've improved it over 7x again, along with the on-screen drawing. That's what I've always loved about Opera; UI responsivess and the smoothness of browsing (scrolling, mouse gestures) beats every other browser and everything is thighly packed in, so no need for clumsy addons which quality and speed differ a lot.
However, the preview images seem to have the Windows 7 like layout. I really hope this is just to show it off and it can be switched to normal - I like having my menubars easily accessible.
Theres lots of places that don't really use DNS tho, for example game servers or other servers run by individuals. In some games you even have to manually type in the address if you want to connect to your friends server. Maybe we see a major increase in those FreeDNS type of services.
But at least one pain in the ass there is; if you need to transfer the address on paper or otherwise manually (setting up or fixing networking etc)
XML is pain in the ass anyway, and I hate every time I have to use it. The format is way too complex to do little things and its processing takes way too much resources compared to the usual binary formats.
And 4-player coop games like Left4Dead and Borderlands with RPG elements too, and as a recent example Modern Warfare 2 with it's multiplayer leveling and perks and choices on what kind of character you play with.
There is lots of room for innovation in FPS's and recently game developers have started to do exactly that, which is great.
In the meantime, a company which was issued a patent in 1998 for the idea of maintaining a document's format in a separate file, has been awarded $200 million to a Toronto-based collaborative software firm, whose engineers claim they had the idea first. The case made by i4i Limited Partnership in its March 2007 suit essentially boiled down to the allegation that the entire move toward XML by Microsoft was a willfully executed strategy against i4i.
In 1994, just as HTML was first being investigated elsewhere as a vehicle for networked hypertext, i4i Ltd. applied for its US patent. For the time, its concept was novel as any notion of XML would be years away, and the applications for which XML would be used had yet to be envisioned.
"Electronic documents retain the key idea of binding the structure of the material with its content through the use of formatting information," reads the 1994 patent's background. "The formatting information in this case is in the form of codes inserted into the text stream. This invention addresses the ideas of structure and content in a new light to provide more flexible and efficient document storage and manipulation."
Did i4i create XML? Not specifically, though it did receive a patent for one of its principal ideas, years before the W3C began to come to the same conclusions. However, despite being what many observers at the time considered late to the game in adopting XML, it is Microsoft that ended up the loser in what some analysts are saying could be among the top five willful patent infringement awards in US history. The company has made clear it will appeal the jury's verdict.
What is their tune? There haven't really been cases where MS is patent trolling other companies. Actually they've even given some patents to neutral third party, as open patents. But they have to go by the system and patent their things to protect themself from patent trolls. Just like Google, Apple and everyone else.
Blame the (broken) system, not those who have to go by it.
This is stupid because Microsoft was moving here to open XML standards from their propriety.doc format. It's a common thing to blame MS for their locked in, own formats since Open Office and others couldn't open them.
i4i's patent is basically XML (yes it really is, read the patent claims). They're not a patent troll in that way that they did actually come up with the same system before everyone else, but afterwards W3C created what is called XML. But i4i was silent for years, everyone started using XML and to improve intercompatibility with Word documents, MS started using it too.
i4i got its big hit. But unless MS takes this to supreme court, it basically means they can sue everyone and every software that uses XML. And there's tons of them, even games and mobile phones too.
the lack of usable file tree structures (no lines anymore, needless wasted space...) really puts a damper on my development tasks (especially when you dig 14 levels into a folder of classes and version trees...)
Are you talking about file explorer? I haven't used Windows own since 95. I used to use Turbo Navigator, but it was never patched for Vista/Win7 user account changes. But xplorer2 is better anyway and comes with tabs and lots of powerful tools, pretty much everything you can want.
I'm not even going to mention how handy the old XP (2000?) classic menu was that allowed me to organize my applications by company, use and then product so I could quickly find what I needed without having to remember it's icon name to search for it. (Yes, there are tools that I might only use once in a blue moon, like packet sniffers, hex editors, etc. that have some ridiculous names.)
But hey... I'm a developer who uses tons of tools all day long. If MS doesn't want me to be productive, I know where I can go. Now, if I can get my company to agree...
I use tons of tools every day too. I think the search box in the start menu is great, you write a little bit of the software's name and can usually just press enter to launch it. It's very seldom I actually need to go the actual menu.
But I don't really get the Vista bashing in the article. It is a good OS. It had its problems at launch, but those were mostly caused by driver issues. Its also a lot better with security. I would take Vista over XP anytime.
Sure, it put some people off with the new features who weren't used to them (especially those also using unixes), but it was surely way to the correct direction that Windows needed. And now we have Win7, who no one really bitches about and says its polished. They would had if MS would had introduced the new features in it instead of Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
Programming is usually team work and as such kind of hard to measure compared to salesman who just pulls for himself. Another thing is that coders aren't usually that good at expressing themself, so it may not be obvious who is being more productive than others.
And how do you measure that productivity? Is it the amount of code you write? What if its bad code.. Is it the quality of code? What if that shows up as less productive.. No one notices unless you make it visible and show your boss or developer that you're the man.
But being awesome coder and making upper level see it won't get you 10x salary. It might get you a better salary, but at that point you should probably aim for developer position or boss level, because that will happen eventually.
I know a person who used to run a application company. There was a coder who worked as such for some years, but he also took more important stuff to handle in the company. His boss always told how good coder he is and definitely noticed him over the others working there. Later he became the boss running that company, when the old one stepped down and only owned the company anymore.
But want to just work as an average coder? Expect average salary.
Please come back when you can explain how you can have an input/output system not be molested with agendas without restriction of some sort. Know that I am with you on this (and it seems they are too), except for they seem to be right at the moment.
You mean DRM is also a good thing?
the data they provide is in an open format (for the most part... video is kind of tricky)
Not just tricky, but over time YouTube has tried to employ several tricks to hide the actual video url in the code so it's harder for people to get it, and they don't provide download option for videos (maybe with an option for people to activate/disable it). That's quite far from providing data in open format.
Yes I did. But Google isn't really opening any other services either that benefit them, like the earlier poster said (gmail, youtube and so on).
Google only opens things that benefit them to offer their services and advertising, it's not about making everything open.
And it seems "openness" is the new buzzword, after years of FOSS people saying to everyone its a great thing.
Exactly. It's even easy to opt-out from all of Google's things.
They obviously can do that, and keep some of their main services that benefit them closed. They should just cut the bullshit about "lets make an open and free world with innovation and competition", while their actual goals as a gigantic corporate are totally different. But every company is there to make money, and it's better if you have a good public image. They just have been destroying it themself lately.
They are talking about both things actually:
He does acknowledge that Google stops short of open sourcing everything. But then, as Google so often does, he rationalizes the fact that the company has no intention of open sourcing the two things - its search and ad platforms - that have turned Google into something very close to an internet gatekeeper.
I think that's really the case too. Some of the url's also contain affiliate field, but they vary and some don't. So it's not done by a single person, nor is it done by Target.
Just old links that rank well because of Target's and linking sites PR.
Correction, it's not really seo spamming, there's a good explanation further in discussion.
What's interesting is " Results 1 - 10 of about 14,800,000 from target.com for "We could not find matches for" "
So this is really huge seo spamming.
There are things you can't really measure with technical tests, it's just the feel of it. UI responses instantly and feels fast, unlike FF or IE. Also other thing to consider is how fast the browser can start drawing the page, even while its loading. In Opera you can set this to happen instantly as the data starts coming in. It really brings down the "Geez, this server sure is slow," effect, especially if you're loading large and complicated pages like slashdot.
But like said, these are things you just feel. Nevertheless it makes a huge difference.
That's why theres a dialog box when you start Opera where you can choose what kind of state you want to launch (or one of the saved states)
It's a lot faster than bookmarks, hence the "speed" dial. I use it for things I frequent, like slashdot, weather and tv calendar. Yes, I could have them open with all the other tabs too, but whats the point when you don't use them so often and it's fast to open them with speed dial.
I use bookmarks for things I want to remember and have around, but very seldomly need.
Complete What's new:
Carakan
Carakan is our new JavaScript engine. It’s fast, more than 7x faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10 with Futhark on Windows (Mac optimization is not as far along). You can read more gritty details regarding register-based bytecode, automatic object classification and native code generation in the Opera Core blog.
Presto 2.5
We are now using Presto 2.5, which contains a huge numbers of improvements. It also includes support for CSS3 transitions and transforms, and more HTML5 features like persistent storage.
Vega
Vega is our new graphics library. It’s currently software based and displays everything you see on-screen. Vega can be hardware accelerated, but as you can see from the complex graphics benchmark in Peacekeeper, we don’t seem to need it yet. (Note that Futuremarks Peacekeeper test does no include the results of their complex graphics tests in the overall score. We believe this is wrong in 2009 and will simply be silly if not changed in 2010.)
Outside - Platform integration
On Windows 7/Vista, you will notice a lot of visual changes and use of APIs which allow the UI to display the Aero Glass effect. For Windows 7, we also added Aero Peek and Jump List support to easily access your Speed Dials, Tabs, etc. from the Taskbar.
For Mac, a complete rewrite in Cocoa brings an Unified Toolbar, native buttons and scrollbars, multi-touch gestures (try 3-Finger Swipe Left/Right or Pinch to zoom) and a bunch of other small details. We also added Growl notification support.
“Private tab” and “Private window”
You can open a new Private tab or Private window that forgets everything that happened on it once closed.
Non-modal dialogs
Dialog boxes (JavaScript alerts, HTTP authentication, etc.) are now non-modal and are displayed as a page overlay. This allows you to switch tabs or windows while the dialog is still displayed. Similarly, the Password Manager dialog is now anchored at the top of the page won’t block any content as it loads a new page.
Address field and Search field improvements
Both fields have been upgraded in looks and functionality. They can now remember searches, support removing items from history and show results in a better layout.
Opera just keeps getting better and better. It was in some Opera 10 beta that they improved the JS engine a lot, and now they've improved it over 7x again, along with the on-screen drawing. That's what I've always loved about Opera; UI responsivess and the smoothness of browsing (scrolling, mouse gestures) beats every other browser and everything is thighly packed in, so no need for clumsy addons which quality and speed differ a lot.
However, the preview images seem to have the Windows 7 like layout. I really hope this is just to show it off and it can be switched to normal - I like having my menubars easily accessible.
Theres lots of places that don't really use DNS tho, for example game servers or other servers run by individuals. In some games you even have to manually type in the address if you want to connect to your friends server. Maybe we see a major increase in those FreeDNS type of services.
But at least one pain in the ass there is; if you need to transfer the address on paper or otherwise manually (setting up or fixing networking etc)
While it will be useful, I don't think widespread usage of IPv6 will start before we run out of IPv4 addresses.
I rather type in 49.1.4.22 than 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334
XML is pain in the ass anyway, and I hate every time I have to use it. The format is way too complex to do little things and its processing takes way too much resources compared to the usual binary formats.
And 4-player coop games like Left4Dead and Borderlands with RPG elements too, and as a recent example Modern Warfare 2 with it's multiplayer leveling and perks and choices on what kind of character you play with.
There is lots of room for innovation in FPS's and recently game developers have started to do exactly that, which is great.
No they are not very narrow.
In the meantime, a company which was issued a patent in 1998 for the idea of maintaining a document's format in a separate file, has been awarded $200 million to a Toronto-based collaborative software firm, whose engineers claim they had the idea first. The case made by i4i Limited Partnership in its March 2007 suit essentially boiled down to the allegation that the entire move toward XML by Microsoft was a willfully executed strategy against i4i.
In 1994, just as HTML was first being investigated elsewhere as a vehicle for networked hypertext, i4i Ltd. applied for its US patent. For the time, its concept was novel as any notion of XML would be years away, and the applications for which XML would be used had yet to be envisioned.
"Electronic documents retain the key idea of binding the structure of the material with its content through the use of formatting information," reads the 1994 patent's background. "The formatting information in this case is in the form of codes inserted into the text stream. This invention addresses the ideas of structure and content in a new light to provide more flexible and efficient document storage and manipulation."
Did i4i create XML? Not specifically, though it did receive a patent for one of its principal ideas, years before the W3C began to come to the same conclusions. However, despite being what many observers at the time considered late to the game in adopting XML, it is Microsoft that ended up the loser in what some analysts are saying could be among the top five willful patent infringement awards in US history. The company has made clear it will appeal the jury's verdict.
What is their tune? There haven't really been cases where MS is patent trolling other companies. Actually they've even given some patents to neutral third party, as open patents. But they have to go by the system and patent their things to protect themself from patent trolls. Just like Google, Apple and everyone else.
Blame the (broken) system, not those who have to go by it.
This is stupid because Microsoft was moving here to open XML standards from their propriety .doc format. It's a common thing to blame MS for their locked in, own formats since Open Office and others couldn't open them.
i4i's patent is basically XML (yes it really is, read the patent claims). They're not a patent troll in that way that they did actually come up with the same system before everyone else, but afterwards W3C created what is called XML. But i4i was silent for years, everyone started using XML and to improve intercompatibility with Word documents, MS started using it too.
i4i got its big hit. But unless MS takes this to supreme court, it basically means they can sue everyone and every software that uses XML. And there's tons of them, even games and mobile phones too.
the lack of usable file tree structures (no lines anymore, needless wasted space...) really puts a damper on my development tasks (especially when you dig 14 levels into a folder of classes and version trees...)
Are you talking about file explorer? I haven't used Windows own since 95. I used to use Turbo Navigator, but it was never patched for Vista/Win7 user account changes. But xplorer2 is better anyway and comes with tabs and lots of powerful tools, pretty much everything you can want.
I'm not even going to mention how handy the old XP (2000?) classic menu was that allowed me to organize my applications by company, use and then product so I could quickly find what I needed without having to remember it's icon name to search for it. (Yes, there are tools that I might only use once in a blue moon, like packet sniffers, hex editors, etc. that have some ridiculous names.)
But hey... I'm a developer who uses tons of tools all day long. If MS doesn't want me to be productive, I know where I can go. Now, if I can get my company to agree...
I use tons of tools every day too. I think the search box in the start menu is great, you write a little bit of the software's name and can usually just press enter to launch it. It's very seldom I actually need to go the actual menu.
Exactly, and many of them are industry veterans.
Included what in Vista? There is no DOS. The "dos window" is a command line dialog, not a real DOS.
But I don't really get the Vista bashing in the article. It is a good OS. It had its problems at launch, but those were mostly caused by driver issues. Its also a lot better with security. I would take Vista over XP anytime.
Sure, it put some people off with the new features who weren't used to them (especially those also using unixes), but it was surely way to the correct direction that Windows needed. And now we have Win7, who no one really bitches about and says its polished. They would had if MS would had introduced the new features in it instead of Vista.