The java byte code is platform independant (unless you use platform specific stuff), but the JRE needed to run it is not.
JREs exist for all the major platforms. What OS and hardware combination is it that you want to run as a server (presumably with better support than googling for HOWTOs) that doesn't have a JRE available?
Java is comparatively heavy, forces you into an object-oriented paradigm, has static typing, and doesn't lend itself well for rapid prototyping and development.
Leaving asside the arguments about OO and static typing, you're going to have to explain what you mean by that last assertion, as I could've sworn that I've been doing just that for the last 5.5 years.
All things in moderation. In my experience, if you concentrate too much on the design, then you end up with something that's inflexible and hard to change when (generally not if) the requirements change.
On the other hand, I've seen a lot of complete messes that happened when programmers just leapt straight in and started coding without doing any design work at all. Talk about spaghetti.
So a better argument might be OSS, given it's open, any potential patent infringement will be digged out before it goes far.
Interesting theory; perhaps you're right. But tell me, how many patents do you know well enough to vet OSS applications for?
Perhaps someone had better start organising this properly, if your idea is to really have merit, because otherwise, your theory is just that - a theory.
The problems you are complaining about -- online registration/key release -- are problematic with most online experiences nowadays. MMORPG will EXPIRE YOUR ACCOUNT if you don't pay a monthly fee.
MMORPGs aren't "most online experiences" though. Almost all FPSs have an online multiplayer mode, yet none (that I'm aware of) are MMORPGs and/or require a monthly fee. The vast majority just require that someone, somewhere is running a server.
That said, apart from some small qualms about the activation aspect, I think Steam is a damn good idea. It remains to be seen quite how it pans out.
To each their own, I guess - I completed Dungeon Siege, but not NWN. I dop really like the seamlessness of DS; the whole "no loading delays, *ever*" thing is to me *really* cool. There are no loading delays in real life, after all.
*If* you crash, this thing will tell the insurance company, police, etc how fast you were going and give them a profile of your driving (hard acceleration/braking, sharp manoeuvres, etc), right?
So, don't speed, drave safely, and you have nothing to worry about then, right? It *can't* track you and report on where you are/where you're going, it can only record how you've been driving. If that really is a problem, then you shouldn't be driving like that anyway.
Do you deny that tobacco has detrimental effects on the human body? Or are you smoking that joint pure? (Even then, I'd be inclined to believe that pure cannabis has a detrimental effect on at least the lungs)
Don't get me wrong, I'm an ex toker, and only really stopped because I fell out of the habit. I just don't think people should delude themselves into thinking that it's 100% safe - very little we ingest or inhale is. It's a question of acceptable risk is all.
I would personally love to see less pornography on the Internet at large, as I know firsthand the destruction to self-control and personal relationships that it can bring.
A friend of mine flunked his degree because he spent too much time in internet chat rooms, and not enough time studying. Ban internet chat rooms?
There is much anecdotal evidence of people's relationships suffering because they spend too much time playing games. Ban games?
Ditto working on their cars. Ban working on cars? Or just ban cars outright?
My point is that there are a great many things that can start out as a passing interest, develop into something of a hobby, then an obsession, harming the person's realtionships and even themselves (if they're particularly physically gruelling, or expensive, etc). I don't see the need to single out internet porn (or porn of any kind) while ignoring everything else, yet you can't ban everything.
In this, I think you (and others on your side of the debate) are letting your personal morality cloud your judgement. That's not a criticism - it's very hard not to - but I don't believe that there's evidence that porn does enough harm to enough people to justify a ban or tighter controls. But then, perhaps I'm allowing my morality to cloud my judgement.
Well, personally, I'm a programmer; the only time I touch Excel is when someone else sends me a spreadsheet (that would often have been just as useful as a text document) or a csv file of data. Even then, I'm almost always looking, rather than manipulating it.
So no, I'd never heard of pivot tables either. I'm not particularly anti- or pro-anything, though; the right tool for the job, I think.
I suppose this is another example of Microsoft getting credit for company's innovations?
No, it's a review of a book about a feature of Excel. I see nothing that states or implies that MS invented them, other than a note that the equivalent functionality in OpenOffice isn't as advanced or comprehensive.
True, it says that OO "mimics" many of the features of Office, but it's a fair point - it's often described as a (potential) Office killer...
Who knows if they actually would, but what would they have to lose?
Them? Nothing - but they may not own the rights at that point. They may simply be unable to do it, leagally-speaking. It wouldn't be the first time a publisher has done something to upset fans of a game or franchise...
I don't really see the wait as a big problem. Sure, I can imagine it's frustrating, but like you say, go do something else while you wait.
The real problem is the lack of future proofing. I can slap in HL1 today, fire it up and be playing without any hassles. Same for Quake, and other games of that era.
But what about HL2? Will I still be able to play that in 5 or 10 years time? Or will the authentication servers no longer be there?
No, it won't stop me buying the game (pay-day is a week away yet), but it is a concern. Nothing lasts forever, but this potentially unecessarily shortens the life of something that could last a lot longer.
Patent law, like copyright law, is essentially international in nature. You can be granted patents in any number of different countries; it's possible that MS holds patents in the relevant countries, not just in the US.
Besides which, a significant number of the projects that may be targetted are developed in the States, and thus fall under US patent laws. They may not have a case overseas, but that won't matter much if they cut the legs out from under the project. Sure, with open source you can take over development yourself, but most people simply won't want or be able to.
What were you doing that required you to prove your identity to the police?
Having lived in the UK for a few years, I couldn't help but get the impression that the point in this discussion is that "I have the right to hide who I am from anyone"
I think you've got that the wrong way round. I've lived in the UK all my life, and I think the main objection is not that we have the right to remain anonymous, but that other people do not have the right to demand that we identify ourselves. That's a subtle difference, but an important one, I think.
There's also the question of usage - if it's to be of any practical use in crime fighting (as it's supposed to be), then it becomes mandatory to produce it when challenged. That effectively means that it's mandatory to carry it with you. That means that you're suddenly not only forced to carry a card with you at all times, you're also somewhat restricted in what you can wear - no pockets or bag to put it in? Better hope you're not challenged... Okay, so that's verging on the ridiculous, but what if you lose it, or you're mugged and it's stolen? Suddenly you're forced to prove that you have a legitimate reason for not carrying it.
There's also the question of need. I'm 30 years old, and have *never* had *any* trouble proving my identity. What does the card gain me? I know what it costs me - potentially some small freedoms, definitely some money, but what does it *gain* me?
The government and its agencies are not a privately owned supermarket who doesn't need to know who I am to accept me as a customer...
That's another part of the problem - why doesn't my government trust me? I have it on excellent authority that the majority of people in this country are law-abiding (or, as he put it with a wry smile, "at least haven't been caught yet"). Why does the government feel that it cannot trust me? It has no reason not to - I've been stopped by the police three times in my life. Once for riding at night without lights on my bike when I was a teenager, once while at uni when a friend I was with decided to run off with a bollard from some traffic works, and once as part of a random stop and search anti-terrorism measure. I've never had a speeding ticket, parking ticket, or anything. How long do I have to be law abiding for to earn my government's trust?
Finally, there's the inevitable question of scope creep. We've already seen this attempted with the RIP Act. A couple of years ago, the number of government agencies that could demand information under the Act was going to be extended. This extension would have meant that local councils could have invoked powers under the Act. I can see the same sort of things happening here - at first they're mandatory to have but not to carry, then they're practically mandatory to carry as not being able to produce one when challenged is deemed suspicious. Finally, they're mandatory to carry and failure to produce one earns you a caution and/or (small) on the spot fine.
I can already prove who I am. The police have no need or right to know my identity as long as I don't draw attention to myself in some way (legally speaking - breaking the law, looking as though I'm going to, etc). What do I get for my money?
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The java byte code is platform independant (unless you use platform specific stuff), but the JRE needed to run it is not.
JREs exist for all the major platforms. What OS and hardware combination is it that you want to run as a server (presumably with better support than googling for HOWTOs) that doesn't have a JRE available?
Java is comparatively heavy, forces you into an object-oriented paradigm, has static typing, and doesn't lend itself well for rapid prototyping and development.
Leaving asside the arguments about OO and static typing, you're going to have to explain what you mean by that last assertion, as I could've sworn that I've been doing just that for the last 5.5 years.
Well, I write web-based applications in J2EE for a living, and we have no problems with it being an "inherently slow platform".
there is no way I can afford a week doing a clean install of XP and all my apps, drivers, development gear and patches.
A week? What are you doing, redownloading everything?
I can go from bare hard drive to everything I need in under a day (and yes, I am a developer). What is it that takes you so long?
1) Tens of millions of people were killed in WWII. The sheer number of deaths depersonalizes the victims.
"The death of one is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic."
All things in moderation. In my experience, if you concentrate too much on the design, then you end up with something that's inflexible and hard to change when (generally not if) the requirements change.
On the other hand, I've seen a lot of complete messes that happened when programmers just leapt straight in and started coding without doing any design work at all. Talk about spaghetti.
So a better argument might be OSS, given it's open, any potential patent infringement will be digged out before it goes far.
Interesting theory; perhaps you're right. But tell me, how many patents do you know well enough to vet OSS applications for?
Perhaps someone had better start organising this properly, if your idea is to really have merit, because otherwise, your theory is just that - a theory.
Well, if that's FUD, then so are upwards of 70% of anti-Windows comments here.
The problems you are complaining about -- online registration/key release -- are problematic with most online experiences nowadays. MMORPG will EXPIRE YOUR ACCOUNT if you don't pay a monthly fee.
MMORPGs aren't "most online experiences" though. Almost all FPSs have an online multiplayer mode, yet none (that I'm aware of) are MMORPGs and/or require a monthly fee. The vast majority just require that someone, somewhere is running a server.
That said, apart from some small qualms about the activation aspect, I think Steam is a damn good idea. It remains to be seen quite how it pans out.
Ripostes:
1) Bully for them. In what way does Blizzard's behaviour predict Valve's?
2) Until you need to reinstall for some reason, say a hard drive upgrade/crash.
3) Would they? How do you know that would happen? Yes, it seems likely, but it's by no means guaranteed.
I have better things to do than rationalize every single possibility out there and instead deal with what actually IS
Indeed; and yet that's exactly what you're doing, especially in point 3.
To each their own, I guess - I completed Dungeon Siege, but not NWN. I dop really like the seamlessness of DS; the whole "no loading delays, *ever*" thing is to me *really* cool. There are no loading delays in real life, after all.
So, it being free (as in beer) excuses the presence of bugs? I thought it was being open source that meant it had fewer bugs?
*If* you crash, this thing will tell the insurance company, police, etc how fast you were going and give them a profile of your driving (hard acceleration/braking, sharp manoeuvres, etc), right?
So, don't speed, drave safely, and you have nothing to worry about then, right? It *can't* track you and report on where you are/where you're going, it can only record how you've been driving. If that really is a problem, then you shouldn't be driving like that anyway.
More's the pity...
Do you deny that tobacco has detrimental effects on the human body? Or are you smoking that joint pure? (Even then, I'd be inclined to believe that pure cannabis has a detrimental effect on at least the lungs)
Don't get me wrong, I'm an ex toker, and only really stopped because I fell out of the habit. I just don't think people should delude themselves into thinking that it's 100% safe - very little we ingest or inhale is. It's a question of acceptable risk is all.
I would personally love to see less pornography on the Internet at large, as I know firsthand the destruction to self-control and personal relationships that it can bring.
A friend of mine flunked his degree because he spent too much time in internet chat rooms, and not enough time studying. Ban internet chat rooms?
There is much anecdotal evidence of people's relationships suffering because they spend too much time playing games. Ban games?
Ditto working on their cars. Ban working on cars? Or just ban cars outright?
My point is that there are a great many things that can start out as a passing interest, develop into something of a hobby, then an obsession, harming the person's realtionships and even themselves (if they're particularly physically gruelling, or expensive, etc). I don't see the need to single out internet porn (or porn of any kind) while ignoring everything else, yet you can't ban everything.
In this, I think you (and others on your side of the debate) are letting your personal morality cloud your judgement. That's not a criticism - it's very hard not to - but I don't believe that there's evidence that porn does enough harm to enough people to justify a ban or tighter controls. But then, perhaps I'm allowing my morality to cloud my judgement.
Well, personally, I'm a programmer; the only time I touch Excel is when someone else sends me a spreadsheet (that would often have been just as useful as a text document) or a csv file of data. Even then, I'm almost always looking, rather than manipulating it.
So no, I'd never heard of pivot tables either. I'm not particularly anti- or pro-anything, though; the right tool for the job, I think.
I suppose this is another example of Microsoft getting credit for company's innovations?
No, it's a review of a book about a feature of Excel. I see nothing that states or implies that MS invented them, other than a note that the equivalent functionality in OpenOffice isn't as advanced or comprehensive.
True, it says that OO "mimics" many of the features of Office, but it's a fair point - it's often described as a (potential) Office killer...
Ah yes; it's not illegal so it must be okay.
If this is offtopic, then so is the parent. Stupid mods; you're not supposed to mod down just because you disagree with what's being said...
Who knows if they actually would, but what would they have to lose?
Them? Nothing - but they may not own the rights at that point. They may simply be unable to do it, leagally-speaking. It wouldn't be the first time a publisher has done something to upset fans of a game or franchise...
I don't really see the wait as a big problem. Sure, I can imagine it's frustrating, but like you say, go do something else while you wait.
The real problem is the lack of future proofing. I can slap in HL1 today, fire it up and be playing without any hassles. Same for Quake, and other games of that era.
But what about HL2? Will I still be able to play that in 5 or 10 years time? Or will the authentication servers no longer be there?
No, it won't stop me buying the game (pay-day is a week away yet), but it is a concern. Nothing lasts forever, but this potentially unecessarily shortens the life of something that could last a lot longer.
I understand the US is pretty agnostic to location
Hardly - they support Japan as the site. They may not be trying to bring much pressure to bear, but they're far from location-agnostic.
Patent law, like copyright law, is essentially international in nature. You can be granted patents in any number of different countries; it's possible that MS holds patents in the relevant countries, not just in the US.
Besides which, a significant number of the projects that may be targetted are developed in the States, and thus fall under US patent laws. They may not have a case overseas, but that won't matter much if they cut the legs out from under the project. Sure, with open source you can take over development yourself, but most people simply won't want or be able to.
I show it to the police to prove who I am
What were you doing that required you to prove your identity to the police?
Having lived in the UK for a few years, I couldn't help but get the impression that the point in this discussion is that "I have the right to hide who I am from anyone"
I think you've got that the wrong way round. I've lived in the UK all my life, and I think the main objection is not that we have the right to remain anonymous, but that other people do not have the right to demand that we identify ourselves. That's a subtle difference, but an important one, I think.
There's also the question of usage - if it's to be of any practical use in crime fighting (as it's supposed to be), then it becomes mandatory to produce it when challenged. That effectively means that it's mandatory to carry it with you. That means that you're suddenly not only forced to carry a card with you at all times, you're also somewhat restricted in what you can wear - no pockets or bag to put it in? Better hope you're not challenged... Okay, so that's verging on the ridiculous, but what if you lose it, or you're mugged and it's stolen? Suddenly you're forced to prove that you have a legitimate reason for not carrying it.
There's also the question of need. I'm 30 years old, and have *never* had *any* trouble proving my identity. What does the card gain me? I know what it costs me - potentially some small freedoms, definitely some money, but what does it *gain* me?
The government and its agencies are not a privately owned supermarket who doesn't need to know who I am to accept me as a customer...
That's another part of the problem - why doesn't my government trust me? I have it on excellent authority that the majority of people in this country are law-abiding (or, as he put it with a wry smile, "at least haven't been caught yet"). Why does the government feel that it cannot trust me? It has no reason not to - I've been stopped by the police three times in my life. Once for riding at night without lights on my bike when I was a teenager, once while at uni when a friend I was with decided to run off with a bollard from some traffic works, and once as part of a random stop and search anti-terrorism measure. I've never had a speeding ticket, parking ticket, or anything. How long do I have to be law abiding for to earn my government's trust?
Finally, there's the inevitable question of scope creep. We've already seen this attempted with the RIP Act. A couple of years ago, the number of government agencies that could demand information under the Act was going to be extended. This extension would have meant that local councils could have invoked powers under the Act. I can see the same sort of things happening here - at first they're mandatory to have but not to carry, then they're practically mandatory to carry as not being able to produce one when challenged is deemed suspicious. Finally, they're mandatory to carry and failure to produce one earns you a caution and/or (small) on the spot fine.
I can already prove who I am. The police have no need or right to know my identity as long as I don't draw attention to myself in some way (legally speaking - breaking the law, looking as though I'm going to, etc). What do I get for my money?