It's nice that ISP's could provide 100x faster service, but they're already capping the bandwidth they DO provide. I think this technology is solving a problem that simply doesn't exist in the cable ISP game.
That's not to say this tech doesn't have other, awesome applications. But I don't think cable companies are exactly going to be lining up to roll this out.:-)
Yes. Knocking on Heaven's Door is that good. I've seen it a few times and it's easily one of the best anime movies I've ever seen. In a nutshell, all the things that make the series great (animation, style, humor, great sense of kinetic motion, Ed, etc) are abundant in the movie.
This isn't to imply that it's just a 30-minute TV episode stretched out to 120 minutes, though... there's excellent pacing, and no filler. Awesome movie!
Yeah, really sucks. I've heard the english Dilandau sounds more whiny than psychotic.
I've been an anime fan for roughly 10 years or so; Dilandu's English voice is possibly the worst acting job I've ever heard.
He ("he"... hahahah) steals most of the scenes he's in the Japanese version because he's so damn cool and psychotic... when he makes an appearance in the English version, I wanted to hurl bricks through my new $1000 TV and stab myself in the ears.
I don't know about that assumption that the media/news outlets never do retractions. If you do read an actual physical newspaper, you'll see that usually on the editor's page they do print retractions and corrections.
Yeah... newspapers totally bury the corrections, though. Slashdot puts them on the front page. Give them some credit!
Because video games based on licenses are ALWAYS GOOD!
Re:Not a huge anime fan, but...
on
NY Times on Anime
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Also, by watching a fair amount of Japanese movies/tv you'll begin to pick up on certain bits of the language anyway,
Very true. A good example of this are the honorifics added to character's names... -chan, -sama, -san, -kun, -senpai, etc. These can often sum up the relationship between two characters in a word, and are an important part of Japanese.
There's no direct translation for them into English though, so they're usually just left out of the dub/sub job. This is a good example of something you're missing even when watching a well-done translation job.
In my experience, whether or not you like subtitles often (not always, but usually) comes down to how fast you can read. I read really quickly; therefore I don't feel like reading subtitles takes away from my enjoyment of the animation.
It also depends on how much you're interested in Japanese culture and sticking close to the original script, rather than just seeing robots and people exploding. It also depends on whether or not you sit down to watch a movie, or just have them on in the background while you're doing something else...
Why not release a $150 card or even $300 one that you stick and your PC and tada you can play Xbox games on your nice non blury monitor?
Same with PS2 etc.
Or, Microsoft could just make a $30 VGA adapter. I don't know why they don't - there's one for the PS2, one for the Dreamcast, and probably one for the Gamecube...
Actually, I was ready to flame you out the wazoo for your idea, but then I checked and discovered to my suprise that Microsoft doesn't make a VGA-adapter.
Puzzling! And interesting... there must be some reason... it's almost like they don't want the XBox encroaching on the PC's territory. And yet, their future plans seem to revolve around the idea of XBox/HomeStation/etc encroaching on the PC's territory. It's not like they're afraid of losing money on making this adapter- I'm sure 3-rd party companies would gladly pay for a license to make it, no financial risk to Microsoft there...
Sony has their fingers in many more pots than Microsoft, but they don't have a monopoly in any one market like Microsoft does with PC operating systems. That's the big difference! You're really comparing apples to oranges.
Sure, Sony likes to be all proprietary whenever possible with their memory sticks, etc, etc, but they're not in a monopoly position so in my mind it's okay, because you can choose to avoid them (or at least those sony products which embrace proprietary standards).
every decently written VB app has a billion GOTOs.
Oh my god, this paints you as beyond clueless about VB. Well-written VB code (if there is such a thing;-P) looks like this...
Function Foo
On Error Goto EH
[useful code]
Exit Function
EH:
[do some error handling]
[Resume Next or Exit Function]
End Function
If your VB code has GOTO's all over the place, it's poorly-written. You would not be hired by my company if you wrote code like that. VB.Net will support this old style of error-handling for backwards compatibility's sake. So, well-written code doesn't have many GOTO's. But even if it did, this style of error-handling would still work in VB.NET, from everything I've read.
Looking at this guide, it's only archaic crap that won't work in VB.Net. Computed gotos, gosub, that sort of crap. So I guess if your application is written like shit, with GOSUBS all over the place, it's going to be hard to upgrade. Mine won't be.
From what I've read, while there's a lot of new functionality (try/catch error handling, for example) you can use in VB.Net compared to VB6, it's not hard to change VB6 code to work with VB.Net. Here's an article on it... the changes really do not look that major.
Arrays are 0-based now... well, I never made any other kind anyway. Variants are replaced by the Object type, but I never used Variants anyway. The try/catch error-handling is now, but the old VB style of error-handling will work even though it is deprecated.
There are other minor syntax changes, such as removal of the Set/Let keywords, some minor variable-scope changes, etc... but the compiler is going to easily catch these... I mean, read the article, they're trivial.
Maybe we have different definitions of "extensive". I guess a pretty high number of lines of code will need to be touched to go from VB6->VB.Net, so I suppose you could call that "extensive". However, most of the changes are so simple to the point of being no-brainers... most of them could probably be done with Search-and-Replace and to me it looks like nearly 100% of the changes will be caught by the compiler, anyway, making them easy to catch. It doesn't look like there's any of those insidious errors that will compile but behave slightly differently... those are bitches.;-)
Anyway, so when I say "not extensive" I mean very little thought/effort looks to be required to upgrade.
That's only because VB sucks. If VB was good enough you would have written the entire thing in it
VB doesn't "suck"... it sucks at a great many things, to be sure, but it's also good at others. It's a good language for the middle tier(s) in a n-tier system. These are the tiers where the business logic resides. The "heavy lifting" is done by the database tier... all that resides in the VB tier is business logic, which a simple, rapid language like VB is a nice tool for.
Nobody's claiming a language like VB should be used to write the next Quake engine or web server. It's a matter of matching the tool to the task. Your statement of "If VB was good enough you would have written the entire thing in it" belies a lack of real-world project experiences on your part.
There's a time for high-level languages, and a time for low-level languages. Ideally, yeah, you'd write everything low-level for maximum speed/efficiency. But in the real world, you're pressed for time, and need to make decisions... use low-level stuff where speed and multi-tasking is of the essense, and use a simple language like VB (or Perl or Python or whatever) where it's going to speed up development time and not hurt performance.
When people ask "why do you write some components in VB and not C, since C is faster and less bloated?" I always ask them "well why do you write in C and not assembler, since assembler is faster and not bloated?" Then they usually see my point. It's a matter of trade-offs.
It's not like you will be able to just compile your existing C++ or VB code and run them under.net anyways. Your entire application will have to be re-written.
Another sign you have no idea what you're talking about. Some changes need to be made, not it's not an "entire rewrite" either. The changes to go from VB6-->VB.Net are quite minor.
Do onto others what has been done to you
I guess somebody's been feeding you a lot of bullshit for you to make a post like this, then.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster and a support nightmare to me. Who in their right mind would decide that an application should be written in 5 different languages?
My company is doing this now, and it works quite well. We have a multithreaded server app written in C/C++, since it's a fast, powerful language that's well-suited for multithreading. The server app then decrypts and sends the data to a COM component written in (gasp!) Visual Basic, where the business logic and database interaction reside.
This works quite well- use a low-level, multithreading-capable language like C where it's needed, and then we use a rapid development tool like VB to handle the business logic. There's no "right" language... gotta match the language to the task at hand. If everything's black-boxed, no reason why this arrangement is a "support nightmare".... we have the C++ dude handling the I/O and the VB guy handling the business logic. No reason why one needs intimate knowledge of what's going on "under the hood" in the other guy's code...
IMHO, they deserved everything they got for their part in the demise of Looking Glass Studios.
Here's the way I understood the situation, correct me if I'm wrong. Eidos was the publisher of both Looking Glass and Ion Storm. Due to the fact that LGS games were critically-acclaimed but were never huge sellers, and the fact that Eidos thought Ion Storm was going to make a bunch of big sellers, they decided to give their money to Ion Storm instead.
I wish LGS was still around instead of Ion, but it's kind of silly to blame Ion. Blame Eidos instead-- for throwing money at Ion Storm instead of Looking Glass. Or blame the public for not buying enough LGS games. I don't think it makes sense to blame Ion Storm. What were they supposed to do, fund LGS themselves? It's not their job to look out for other developers.
Dead on. The story is laughable, and sad. Supposedly he's defending Ion Storm against the critics, but all his defenses amount to are saying "oh, yes, it was like that, but it was cool!"
He's not saying they were right; he freely admits to the mistaks they made. However, that's not the point. He's saying they were a bunch of people who genuinely had their hearts in the right place who were trying to create something special, a really great game that pushed the boundaries.
They failed of course, and he readily admits that too, but the point is that the public beating they took was way out of line with what they are. I mean, the public tore into them with a wrath usually reserved for child molesters and genocidal dictators. He makes some interesting points about how the public and media like to build people up only to destroy them, and notes the ways in which Ion Storm fueled the media frenzy (the "make you his bitch" ads, marketing outpacing development, etc).
Think about it, lots of companies make shitty games, outlandish advertising promises ("this game will kick your ass", etc) and have lots of petty infighting. The question is: why was this such a big deal with Ion Storm? The difference lies mostly in the public's opinions, expectations and attitudes, rather than any actual fault of Romero or Ion Storm's own.
I met John Romero at E3 '98. He was very friendly and was eager to show us the cool new robot-infested levels they'd made for Daikatana... and they did look pretty cool, I admit (for the time). He was a nice guy and although Daikatana wound up sucking (although it probably would have been cool if it wasn't late), he didn't really deserve the public beating he took.
Also, note that during all the public sniping, John never took the oppurtunity to trash anyone or fire back (to my knowledge). You have to give him credit for that. Most people, probably myself included, would have been hard-pressed to take the high road in that situation like he did.
Re:that small change comes in handy when you're br
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
That's a pretty smart idea, 10 out of 10 points for ingenuity, to be sure. On the other hand, I'm going to say, negative several million points for the smack use, if you're talking about heroin and you're not kidding, which is entirely possible.
Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.
It looks like you're talking about Super Smash Brothers Melee, which is perhaps the greatest 4-player action game ever created. This game is a blast to play, as I can personally attest, and has gotten universally excellent reviews.
A good game is a good game, period, whether you wrap the gameplay in Mario Brothers graphics or ultra-realistic motion-capped characters with digitized skin. Apparently you prefer style (realistic images!) over actual gameplay to the point where you'll overlook a true gem of a games!
I'll agree with you that the N64's library was pathetic compared to the other systems. However, I had to take you to task for overlooking a true gem of a game just becase of cartoony graphics.
Also, consider this: N64 developers were hampered by having to use rom-based catridges when everyone else was using optical storage. Now, they don't have that restriction. It's too early to tell who's going to have the best games, but don't count Nintendo out yet.
In my career, I have interviewed about 12 times and received 5 offers, for a hit rate of about 42%
I don't have a degree either and I've gotten offers from 4 of 4 interviews... although three of them were doing the tech boom when even a monkey could get hired.;-)
A lot of people are jumping over my original post, apparently thinking I meant that you had to have a degere to get management positions. I'm just saying that it can help, that's all. In stodgy old institutions (government, banking, etc) it can be very helpful. There's zillions of people (ex: Gates!) in the tech world who are running shit without ever earning a college degree.
It's funny how you guys are quick to jump all over the assertion that "degrees are the universal answer". Looking over the other posts, nobody has even come close to suggesting that, although maybe I missed a post or something. In fact, looking over my entire life, I'm pretty sure I've never heard that suggested either. I think some people are so proud (and they should be proud) that they've moved on up in the world without a degree that they like to spout off about it at every oppurtunity.
PS: Congrats on moving on up in the career world, sounds like it's going well.:-P
That's awesome that you've been able to go far without a degree. I totally agree that a degree is pretty meaningless next to real skill and knowledge, it's just that there's a lot of people out there don't share that perception.
Maybe things are different in tech companies than non-tech companies, where attitudes to that sort of thing have grown relaxed. However, probably the majority of tech workers work in non-tech companies (banks, stores, hospitals, whatever) where a lot of this old-school "wisdom" persists.
And of course, as you already know, in this field a degree is nice, but it's hardly essential. An impressive resume is much more important than a degree...
If you want to move beyond a programming position, and into some sort of management position, having a degree becomes much more important- largely because of the perception by venture capitalists and other suits that you need a degree to manage.
Part of this perception is based on stodgy "conventional wisdom", and part of it is based on the reality that people with basic and advanced degrees can sometimes feel a little resentful when having to report to someone with no degree at all. I'm all in favor of a full meritocracy myself, but I'm just saying how it is for better or worse.
I agree, "Digital Cable(TM)" is nothing more than an MPEG-2 (DVD quality) encoded stream of the existing channels that run on the same copper.
One MPEG-2 stream is not equal to another. The digital cable I've seen is of FAR less quality than DVD. I had digital cable for a year and it looked like ass. Not horrible, but maybe halfway between the average VCD and the average DVD.
But by buying retail version you are saying directly to the developers, publishers and retailers that you use their software and like it enough to buy a copy
You make a lot of good points, and what you're saying has merit, but I think you need to think about this point. When you buy a boxed version of Mandrake (for example) for $60, Mandrake only sees a tiny portion of that money. Lots of it goes to the retailer and the distributors and the publisher. I'd be suprised if Mandrake saw more than $10 out of the $60, if even that (can someone more knowledgeable about the biz give an accurate figure?). So, Mandrake would make a lot more money if you just PayPal'ed them the $60 and downloaded the ISO, which is essentially pure profit for them (aside from a few cents' worth of bandwidth).
Then again, you did make some other good points for boxed retail versions. Additionally, seeing Linux software taking up retail space legitimizes it in many people's minds... I just wanted to point out how little of the retail cost of a piece of software actually goes to the developer!
Thank you, Captain Obvious.:) But seriously though, for any programmer with full use of his limbs, typing speed is not the bottleneck in prgramming speed, I can assure you.
Slashdot Mirror
It's nice that ISP's could provide 100x faster service, but they're already capping the bandwidth they DO provide. I think this technology is solving a problem that simply doesn't exist in the cable ISP game.
:-)
That's not to say this tech doesn't have other, awesome applications. But I don't think cable companies are exactly going to be lining up to roll this out.
Yes. Knocking on Heaven's Door is that good. I've seen it a few times and it's easily one of the best anime movies I've ever seen. In a nutshell, all the things that make the series great (animation, style, humor, great sense of kinetic motion, Ed, etc) are abundant in the movie.
This isn't to imply that it's just a 30-minute TV episode stretched out to 120 minutes, though... there's excellent pacing, and no filler. Awesome movie!
Yeah, really sucks. I've heard the english Dilandau sounds more whiny than psychotic.
I've been an anime fan for roughly 10 years or so; Dilandu's English voice is possibly the worst acting job I've ever heard.
He ("he"... hahahah) steals most of the scenes he's in the Japanese version because he's so damn cool and psychotic... when he makes an appearance in the English version, I wanted to hurl bricks through my new $1000 TV and stab myself in the ears.
I don't know about that assumption that the media/news outlets never do retractions. If you do read an actual physical newspaper, you'll see that usually on the editor's page they do print retractions and corrections.
Yeah... newspapers totally bury the corrections, though. Slashdot puts them on the front page. Give them some credit!
...to go and mod down all the unfunny mock-movie-titles modded up as "funny"!
How about "Indiana Jones and the Search For Humor On This Thread" ?
Because video games based on licenses are ALWAYS GOOD!
Also, by watching a fair amount of Japanese movies/tv you'll begin to pick up on certain bits of the language anyway,
Very true. A good example of this are the honorifics added to character's names... -chan, -sama, -san, -kun, -senpai, etc. These can often sum up the relationship between two characters in a word, and are an important part of Japanese.
There's no direct translation for them into English though, so they're usually just left out of the dub/sub job. This is a good example of something you're missing even when watching a well-done translation job.
In my experience, whether or not you like subtitles often (not always, but usually) comes down to how fast you can read. I read really quickly; therefore I don't feel like reading subtitles takes away from my enjoyment of the animation.
It also depends on how much you're interested in Japanese culture and sticking close to the original script, rather than just seeing robots and people exploding. It also depends on whether or not you sit down to watch a movie, or just have them on in the background while you're doing something else...
I'll be the first to admit it, but so is documentation, getting up from your desk to go pee
Your company lets you get up from your desk to go pee? Wow, I want your job!
Why not release a $150 card or even $300 one that you stick and your PC and tada you can play Xbox games on your nice non blury monitor? Same with PS2 etc.
Or, Microsoft could just make a $30 VGA adapter. I don't know why they don't - there's one for the PS2, one for the Dreamcast, and probably one for the Gamecube...
Actually, I was ready to flame you out the wazoo for your idea, but then I checked and discovered to my suprise that Microsoft doesn't make a VGA-adapter.
Puzzling! And interesting... there must be some reason... it's almost like they don't want the XBox encroaching on the PC's territory. And yet, their future plans seem to revolve around the idea of XBox/HomeStation/etc encroaching on the PC's territory. It's not like they're afraid of losing money on making this adapter- I'm sure 3-rd party companies would gladly pay for a license to make it, no financial risk to Microsoft there...
Sony has their fingers in many more pots than Microsoft, but they don't have a monopoly in any one market like Microsoft does with PC operating systems. That's the big difference! You're really comparing apples to oranges.
Sure, Sony likes to be all proprietary whenever possible with their memory sticks, etc, etc, but they're not in a monopoly position so in my mind it's okay, because you can choose to avoid them (or at least those sony products which embrace proprietary standards).
Oh my god, this paints you as beyond clueless about VB. Well-written VB code (if there is such a thing
If your VB code has GOTO's all over the place, it's poorly-written. You would not be hired by my company if you wrote code like that. VB.Net will support this old style of error-handling for backwards compatibility's sake. So, well-written code doesn't have many GOTO's. But even if it did, this style of error-handling would still work in VB.NET, from everything I've read.
Looking at this guide, it's only archaic crap that won't work in VB.Net. Computed gotos, gosub, that sort of crap. So I guess if your application is written like shit, with GOSUBS all over the place, it's going to be hard to upgrade. Mine won't be.
From what I've read, while there's a lot of new functionality (try/catch error handling, for example) you can use in VB.Net compared to VB6, it's not hard to change VB6 code to work with VB.Net. Here's an article on it... the changes really do not look that major.
;-)
Arrays are 0-based now... well, I never made any other kind anyway. Variants are replaced by the Object type, but I never used Variants anyway. The try/catch error-handling is now, but the old VB style of error-handling will work even though it is deprecated.
There are other minor syntax changes, such as removal of the Set/Let keywords, some minor variable-scope changes, etc... but the compiler is going to easily catch these... I mean, read the article, they're trivial.
Maybe we have different definitions of "extensive". I guess a pretty high number of lines of code will need to be touched to go from VB6->VB.Net, so I suppose you could call that "extensive". However, most of the changes are so simple to the point of being no-brainers... most of them could probably be done with Search-and-Replace and to me it looks like nearly 100% of the changes will be caught by the compiler, anyway, making them easy to catch. It doesn't look like there's any of those insidious errors that will compile but behave slightly differently... those are bitches.
Anyway, so when I say "not extensive" I mean very little thought/effort looks to be required to upgrade.
That's only because VB sucks. If VB was good enough you would have written the entire thing in it
.net anyways. Your entire application will have to be re-written.
VB doesn't "suck"... it sucks at a great many things, to be sure, but it's also good at others. It's a good language for the middle tier(s) in a n-tier system. These are the tiers where the business logic resides. The "heavy lifting" is done by the database tier... all that resides in the VB tier is business logic, which a simple, rapid language like VB is a nice tool for.
Nobody's claiming a language like VB should be used to write the next Quake engine or web server. It's a matter of matching the tool to the task. Your statement of "If VB was good enough you would have written the entire thing in it" belies a lack of real-world project experiences on your part.
There's a time for high-level languages, and a time for low-level languages. Ideally, yeah, you'd write everything low-level for maximum speed/efficiency. But in the real world, you're pressed for time, and need to make decisions... use low-level stuff where speed and multi-tasking is of the essense, and use a simple language like VB (or Perl or Python or whatever) where it's going to speed up development time and not hurt performance.
When people ask "why do you write some components in VB and not C, since C is faster and less bloated?" I always ask them "well why do you write in C and not assembler, since assembler is faster and not bloated?" Then they usually see my point. It's a matter of trade-offs.
It's not like you will be able to just compile your existing C++ or VB code and run them under
Another sign you have no idea what you're talking about. Some changes need to be made, not it's not an "entire rewrite" either. The changes to go from VB6-->VB.Net are quite minor.
Do onto others what has been done to you
I guess somebody's been feeding you a lot of bullshit for you to make a post like this, then.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster and a support nightmare to me. Who in their right mind would decide that an application should be written in 5 different languages?
My company is doing this now, and it works quite well. We have a multithreaded server app written in C/C++, since it's a fast, powerful language that's well-suited for multithreading. The server app then decrypts and sends the data to a COM component written in (gasp!) Visual Basic, where the business logic and database interaction reside.
This works quite well- use a low-level, multithreading-capable language like C where it's needed, and then we use a rapid development tool like VB to handle the business logic. There's no "right" language... gotta match the language to the task at hand. If everything's black-boxed, no reason why this arrangement is a "support nightmare".... we have the C++ dude handling the I/O and the VB guy handling the business logic. No reason why one needs intimate knowledge of what's going on "under the hood" in the other guy's code...
IMHO, they deserved everything they got for their part in the demise of Looking Glass Studios.
Here's the way I understood the situation, correct me if I'm wrong. Eidos was the publisher of both Looking Glass and Ion Storm. Due to the fact that LGS games were critically-acclaimed but were never huge sellers, and the fact that Eidos thought Ion Storm was going to make a bunch of big sellers, they decided to give their money to Ion Storm instead.
I wish LGS was still around instead of Ion, but it's kind of silly to blame Ion. Blame Eidos instead-- for throwing money at Ion Storm instead of Looking Glass. Or blame the public for not buying enough LGS games. I don't think it makes sense to blame Ion Storm. What were they supposed to do, fund LGS themselves? It's not their job to look out for other developers.
Dead on. The story is laughable, and sad. Supposedly he's defending Ion Storm against the critics, but all his defenses amount to are saying "oh, yes, it was like that, but it was cool!"
He's not saying they were right; he freely admits to the mistaks they made. However, that's not the point. He's saying they were a bunch of people who genuinely had their hearts in the right place who were trying to create something special, a really great game that pushed the boundaries.
They failed of course, and he readily admits that too, but the point is that the public beating they took was way out of line with what they are. I mean, the public tore into them with a wrath usually reserved for child molesters and genocidal dictators. He makes some interesting points about how the public and media like to build people up only to destroy them, and notes the ways in which Ion Storm fueled the media frenzy (the "make you his bitch" ads, marketing outpacing development, etc).
Think about it, lots of companies make shitty games, outlandish advertising promises ("this game will kick your ass", etc) and have lots of petty infighting. The question is: why was this such a big deal with Ion Storm? The difference lies mostly in the public's opinions, expectations and attitudes, rather than any actual fault of Romero or Ion Storm's own.
I met John Romero at E3 '98. He was very friendly and was eager to show us the cool new robot-infested levels they'd made for Daikatana... and they did look pretty cool, I admit (for the time). He was a nice guy and although Daikatana wound up sucking (although it probably would have been cool if it wasn't late), he didn't really deserve the public beating he took.
Also, note that during all the public sniping, John never took the oppurtunity to trash anyone or fire back (to my knowledge). You have to give him credit for that. Most people, probably myself included, would have been hard-pressed to take the high road in that situation like he did.
That's a pretty smart idea, 10 out of 10 points for ingenuity, to be sure. On the other hand, I'm going to say, negative several million points for the smack use, if you're talking about heroin and you're not kidding, which is entirely possible.
Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.
It looks like you're talking about Super Smash Brothers Melee, which is perhaps the greatest 4-player action game ever created. This game is a blast to play, as I can personally attest, and has gotten universally excellent reviews.
A good game is a good game, period, whether you wrap the gameplay in Mario Brothers graphics or ultra-realistic motion-capped characters with digitized skin. Apparently you prefer style (realistic images!) over actual gameplay to the point where you'll overlook a true gem of a games!
I'll agree with you that the N64's library was pathetic compared to the other systems. However, I had to take you to task for overlooking a true gem of a game just becase of cartoony graphics.
Also, consider this: N64 developers were hampered by having to use rom-based catridges when everyone else was using optical storage. Now, they don't have that restriction. It's too early to tell who's going to have the best games, but don't count Nintendo out yet.
In my career, I have interviewed about 12 times and received 5 offers, for a hit rate of about 42%
;-)
:-P
I don't have a degree either and I've gotten offers from 4 of 4 interviews... although three of them were doing the tech boom when even a monkey could get hired.
A lot of people are jumping over my original post, apparently thinking I meant that you had to have a degere to get management positions. I'm just saying that it can help, that's all. In stodgy old institutions (government, banking, etc) it can be very helpful. There's zillions of people (ex: Gates!) in the tech world who are running shit without ever earning a college degree.
It's funny how you guys are quick to jump all over the assertion that "degrees are the universal answer". Looking over the other posts, nobody has even come close to suggesting that, although maybe I missed a post or something. In fact, looking over my entire life, I'm pretty sure I've never heard that suggested either. I think some people are so proud (and they should be proud) that they've moved on up in the world without a degree that they like to spout off about it at every oppurtunity.
PS: Congrats on moving on up in the career world, sounds like it's going well.
That's awesome that you've been able to go far without a degree. I totally agree that a degree is pretty meaningless next to real skill and knowledge, it's just that there's a lot of people out there don't share that perception.
Maybe things are different in tech companies than non-tech companies, where attitudes to that sort of thing have grown relaxed. However, probably the majority of tech workers work in non-tech companies (banks, stores, hospitals, whatever) where a lot of this old-school "wisdom" persists.
And of course, as you already know, in this field a degree is nice, but it's hardly essential. An impressive resume is much more important than a degree...
If you want to move beyond a programming position, and into some sort of management position, having a degree becomes much more important- largely because of the perception by venture capitalists and other suits that you need a degree to manage.
Part of this perception is based on stodgy "conventional wisdom", and part of it is based on the reality that people with basic and advanced degrees can sometimes feel a little resentful when having to report to someone with no degree at all. I'm all in favor of a full meritocracy myself, but I'm just saying how it is for better or worse.
I agree, "Digital Cable(TM)" is nothing more than an MPEG-2 (DVD quality) encoded stream of the existing channels that run on the same copper.
One MPEG-2 stream is not equal to another. The digital cable I've seen is of FAR less quality than DVD. I had digital cable for a year and it looked like ass. Not horrible, but maybe halfway between the average VCD and the average DVD.
Sorry. The 'boxed set' people are the parasites in this community.
But sometimes box sets have those cool unreleased tracks.
But by buying retail version you are saying directly to the developers, publishers and retailers that you use their software and like it enough to buy a copy
You make a lot of good points, and what you're saying has merit, but I think you need to think about this point. When you buy a boxed version of Mandrake (for example) for $60, Mandrake only sees a tiny portion of that money. Lots of it goes to the retailer and the distributors and the publisher. I'd be suprised if Mandrake saw more than $10 out of the $60, if even that (can someone more knowledgeable about the biz give an accurate figure?). So, Mandrake would make a lot more money if you just PayPal'ed them the $60 and downloaded the ISO, which is essentially pure profit for them (aside from a few cents' worth of bandwidth).
Then again, you did make some other good points for boxed retail versions. Additionally, seeing Linux software taking up retail space legitimizes it in many people's minds... I just wanted to point out how little of the retail cost of a piece of software actually goes to the developer!
Thank you, Captain Obvious. :) But seriously though, for any programmer with full use of his limbs, typing speed is not the bottleneck in prgramming speed, I can assure you.