Like the poster above I didn't realise Siri sent everything to be processed server side, that is kind of a big weakness.
Speaking as an anti-Apple guy, I think that Siri is ahead of its time and that the real impressive part is the natural language recognition. Ideally all processing would be done on the device itself, but that's where it's ahead of its time. The processing requirements for the service are too much for the phone to handle right now, but in another 5 or 10 years after a few more CPU and battery revisions I would imagine that this could be done without the assistance of a server. I'm no fan of Apple, but the engineers working on the language recognition have outdone themselves.
Isn't it feasible that a legitimate app sends the GUID along with requests, for advertising and tracking purposes? Does that violate the app store terms? If not, what's to stop a developer with an existing list of valid GUIDs from selling it to someone else? Other than legal threats, I mean.
but largely dependent on the quality of your device - if the manufacturer [HTC, cough] used cheap mics, no chance
I don't know about that, the voice dialing feature works just fine on my Evo 4G without having to train it. The voice search even correctly spells foreign words (telling it to search for "Funker Vogt" finds the correct band, for example).
Who's responsible, the developer that doesn't fix a bug, or the manager that tells the developer "don't waste time working on that bug, work on *money gathering fancy feature X* instead"?
Don't worry little guy, when I say "his team" I'm talking about the managers also.
But if you must know, instead of blaming the guy who doesn't fix it, or the manager who doesn't prioritize it, I'm going to go ahead and blame the guys who designed and implemented it.
Do I have errors in my currently supported applications that were originally reported 8 years ago? No, I don't. You know what else I don't have? The resources of a $13 billion market cap, or 750 ex-programmers.
He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project.
Is he one of the people I can blame for the bugs from back then that still exist today? I kind of feel like a dick for saying it, but maybe if his team were better at their jobs then they would still have them.
On the Android market it's listed at 11.0.1.153, which is actually higher than the version I see ready to download when I go to Adobe's site on my desktop. So I guess it's not behind at all.
Everyone else replied with rational, logical arguments, so I guess I'll just respond to you. You make me feel like Superman for my ability to switch between Firefox, Chrome, and Opera without getting confused by the interface changes. If only there was some way that you or the community could change and customize the UI yourself, or even release your own version. That would be a nice feature. Maybe the Firefox team should look into the ability to customize the browser. Maybe you could suggest that to them. That way we wouldn't hear the vocal minority whining every time they release an update.
Is Firefox 3.6 the new IE6 that people refuse to upgrade from?
It's the new XP -- that is, the last version before they started "improving" the UI.
So then the answer is "yes". The "I refuse to adapt to change" crowd gets a new poster boy.
Do you think you'll still be using Firefox 3.6 in 10 years? If not, then what's stopping you from upgrading now? Would it be easier to adapt going from XP to Vista to Win7 to Win8, or from XP straight to Win8?
Re:new firefox release schedule moved me to Chrome
on
Firefox 8.0 Released
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I use Greasemonkey every day. Greasemonkey is built into chrome. Not firefox.
Not to worry. Greasemonkey might not be built-in, but at least you can search Twitter without the hassle of installing an extension or actually going to Twitter.
Just out of curiosity, if a company making Android-based tablets gets sued because they are too similar to an iPad, who stands to gain from that? Are you seriously assuming that Apple is not involved in this? Who is it, Microsoft? Only Microsoft and Apple are going to sue Android tablet makers over a design patent, and which of those two has a history of actually doing so? Microsoft has filed suits over issues in Android itself over software patents, but I can't find a single record of Microsoft filing suit against an Android device maker over a design patent. Apple loves litigating its design patents, ever since Cook took over.
Here's something else to consider: there is a single company even capable of filing a lawsuit alleging infringement of the design of the iPad. Guess which company that is.
Surely we need something a bit more substantial than this before we break out the standard pro/anti-Apple rhetoric?
Where do you think you are? Slashdot follows the legal precedent set forward in Smoke vs Fire.
But it's so costly and difficult to run that particular legal marathon, hardly anybody has ever completed the course. (Really, has anybody _ever_ actually completed it?)
Righthaven might be a good example of that, for certain definitions of "frivolous".
I agree with all of that, and still think that automated tools have no place in an interview unless you're specifically trying to judge their knowledge of those tools.
This whole attitude that computers should not be used to assist with trivial tasks reminds me of how someone who just learned arithmetic might look down on those who use calculators to do arithmetic
Again, you're missing the point. If someone wants to use autocomplete, or any other automated tools, once they have the job, then let them be as productive as they can. The interview is not about being productive, it's about demonstrating the basic skills that let them do the job in the first place. The best way for them to do that is to take away the automated tools that do their work for them.
That being said, in a production environment, I don't see any benefit beyond a time savings to using autocomplete vs. an API reference. Autocomplete makes writing code faster, but your claims about how a popup list of methods would increase your understanding of an API fall a little flat. Autocomplete is no substitute for a reference like this:
I can scan through that reference and get much, much more detail and insight into both what is available in the API, and how it works (plus links to examples, the complete class hierarchy, not to mention the actual source of the API methods) that you just don't get from a popup list of available methods. Quite frequently I scan that documentation for a class that I'm using just to see which methods, events, etc are available on it. When I find a new problem I always scan the API first to look for methods or events that are going to help solve the problem. With autocomplete I still need a link to the documentation to complete the learning. Might as well skip that step and go straight to the source.
Committing an API to memory and using auto-complete are two completely unrelated things. None of my code editors have auto-complete enabled, and anything that I have committed to memory is there because of the frequency that I use it. My point is that any competent programmer should never have to rely on auto-complete, I didn't say anything about memorizing APIs. If you don't know how to use what you need to, then look it up online. That's a better skill to have than using an editor with auto-complete. Auto-complete is a bonus, it shouldn't be a requirement for someone to be able to do their job. Force them to write everything by hand and look up whatever they don't know. If they don't know how to find the answers they're looking for, then they're useless. In my opinion, the two most important skills a programmer can have are being able to effectively troubleshoot problems, and being able to find the answers they are looking for. Anyone out of school can write code, but if you can't debug and you don't know how to do research then you're not ready for a job.
I'm pretty sure that something like code completion would be one of the things you specifically don't want them to rely on. Documentation is also available outside of any IDE, as long as they have internet access. Writing on a blackboard would be the rough equivalent of writing code in Notepad on a projector. A competent programmer should be able to do that.
Adobe Reader will read ALL PDFs that are out there, guaranteed.
Right, even the ones with malicious scripting that get delivered and opened in an iframe that doesn't even show up on the page.
I've encounter PDFs which opened up to a blank page in Foxit, whereas they worked just fine in Adobe Reader.
So why not set the default reader to an alternative, and only use Acrobat if the document can't be opened elsewhere? Having Acrobat set as the default reader with the browser plugin installed and enabled is the source of the problem.
The same people that rant on and on about attack vectors are also the same people who think Windows BSODs and gets infected with malware/viruses/trojans all the time
Pay attention to what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Windows is insecure or unstable, I'm saying that Acrobat is insecure. That's a fact, it's not just my opinion. I'm not ranting against Windows, I'm still happily using XP. IE, for it's part, is only number 4 or 5 on the attack vector list, a full 85% of attacks come through insecure plugins (like Acrobat). You can bury your head in the sand and act like it isn't true if you want, but that doesn't change anything in reality. Acrobat alone is responsible for nearly a full third of infections. Here is the study.
You realize that Acrobat is the #2 attack vector for Windows machines, right? It's right between Java and Flash. Why would you voluntarily use it when there are several other PDF readers which don't even show up on the attack vector charts? I was in a meeting today at the Maricopa County Community Colleges District office and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Foxit reader opened up whenever someone clicked a link to a PDF in IE. They use IE and still have enough sense to get Java and Acrobat off their machines.
Actually the human part has more to do with the way we're wired and with one side being more dominant than the other
Do you know why that is? I understand why my right arm is more powerful than my left, because I use it for more things. I don't understand why my left leg is more powerful than my right.
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Like the poster above I didn't realise Siri sent everything to be processed server side, that is kind of a big weakness.
Speaking as an anti-Apple guy, I think that Siri is ahead of its time and that the real impressive part is the natural language recognition. Ideally all processing would be done on the device itself, but that's where it's ahead of its time. The processing requirements for the service are too much for the phone to handle right now, but in another 5 or 10 years after a few more CPU and battery revisions I would imagine that this could be done without the assistance of a server. I'm no fan of Apple, but the engineers working on the language recognition have outdone themselves.
About the only thing I use Siri for is asking dumb questions and seeing what responses I get.
I can tell you I was disappointed that my friend's iPhone was unable to locate a source of hookers and blow in my area.
Last I checked, my Android phone didn't even include a notepad. :-/
AK Notepad is a decent notepad app for Android, if you really want one. Unless you're just trying to be snarky.
Isn't it feasible that a legitimate app sends the GUID along with requests, for advertising and tracking purposes? Does that violate the app store terms? If not, what's to stop a developer with an existing list of valid GUIDs from selling it to someone else? Other than legal threats, I mean.
but largely dependent on the quality of your device - if the manufacturer [HTC, cough] used cheap mics, no chance
I don't know about that, the voice dialing feature works just fine on my Evo 4G without having to train it. The voice search even correctly spells foreign words (telling it to search for "Funker Vogt" finds the correct band, for example).
In all honesty I've had much better luck with drivers on Linux then on Windows. Both old and newer hardware.
That makes one of us then.
Who's responsible, the developer that doesn't fix a bug, or the manager that tells the developer "don't waste time working on that bug, work on *money gathering fancy feature X* instead"?
Don't worry little guy, when I say "his team" I'm talking about the managers also.
But if you must know, instead of blaming the guy who doesn't fix it, or the manager who doesn't prioritize it, I'm going to go ahead and blame the guys who designed and implemented it.
Do you write perfect bug-free code?
Is that what I claimed?
Do I have errors in my currently supported applications that were originally reported 8 years ago? No, I don't. You know what else I don't have? The resources of a $13 billion market cap, or 750 ex-programmers.
He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project.
Is he one of the people I can blame for the bugs from back then that still exist today? I kind of feel like a dick for saying it, but maybe if his team were better at their jobs then they would still have them.
On the Android market it's listed at 11.0.1.153, which is actually higher than the version I see ready to download when I go to Adobe's site on my desktop. So I guess it's not behind at all.
Everyone else replied with rational, logical arguments, so I guess I'll just respond to you. You make me feel like Superman for my ability to switch between Firefox, Chrome, and Opera without getting confused by the interface changes. If only there was some way that you or the community could change and customize the UI yourself, or even release your own version. That would be a nice feature. Maybe the Firefox team should look into the ability to customize the browser. Maybe you could suggest that to them. That way we wouldn't hear the vocal minority whining every time they release an update.
Is Firefox 3.6 the new IE6 that people refuse to upgrade from?
It's the new XP -- that is, the last version before they started "improving" the UI.
So then the answer is "yes". The "I refuse to adapt to change" crowd gets a new poster boy.
Do you think you'll still be using Firefox 3.6 in 10 years? If not, then what's stopping you from upgrading now? Would it be easier to adapt going from XP to Vista to Win7 to Win8, or from XP straight to Win8?
I use Greasemonkey every day. Greasemonkey is built into chrome. Not firefox.
Not to worry. Greasemonkey might not be built-in, but at least you can search Twitter without the hassle of installing an extension or actually going to Twitter.
Is Firefox 3.6 the new IE6 that people refuse to upgrade from?
I think you make a good point. Therefore, I suggest we interview Jon Stewart and/or Stephen Colbert.
Just out of curiosity, if a company making Android-based tablets gets sued because they are too similar to an iPad, who stands to gain from that? Are you seriously assuming that Apple is not involved in this? Who is it, Microsoft? Only Microsoft and Apple are going to sue Android tablet makers over a design patent, and which of those two has a history of actually doing so? Microsoft has filed suits over issues in Android itself over software patents, but I can't find a single record of Microsoft filing suit against an Android device maker over a design patent. Apple loves litigating its design patents, ever since Cook took over.
Here's something else to consider: there is a single company even capable of filing a lawsuit alleging infringement of the design of the iPad. Guess which company that is.
Surely we need something a bit more substantial than this before we break out the standard pro/anti-Apple rhetoric?
Where do you think you are? Slashdot follows the legal precedent set forward in Smoke vs Fire.
But it's so costly and difficult to run that particular legal marathon, hardly anybody has ever completed the course. (Really, has anybody _ever_ actually completed it?)
Righthaven might be a good example of that, for certain definitions of "frivolous".
I agree with all of that, and still think that automated tools have no place in an interview unless you're specifically trying to judge their knowledge of those tools.
This whole attitude that computers should not be used to assist with trivial tasks reminds me of how someone who just learned arithmetic might look down on those who use calculators to do arithmetic
Again, you're missing the point. If someone wants to use autocomplete, or any other automated tools, once they have the job, then let them be as productive as they can. The interview is not about being productive, it's about demonstrating the basic skills that let them do the job in the first place. The best way for them to do that is to take away the automated tools that do their work for them.
That being said, in a production environment, I don't see any benefit beyond a time savings to using autocomplete vs. an API reference. Autocomplete makes writing code faster, but your claims about how a popup list of methods would increase your understanding of an API fall a little flat. Autocomplete is no substitute for a reference like this:
http://docs.sencha.com/ext-js/4-0/#!/api
I can scan through that reference and get much, much more detail and insight into both what is available in the API, and how it works (plus links to examples, the complete class hierarchy, not to mention the actual source of the API methods) that you just don't get from a popup list of available methods. Quite frequently I scan that documentation for a class that I'm using just to see which methods, events, etc are available on it. When I find a new problem I always scan the API first to look for methods or events that are going to help solve the problem. With autocomplete I still need a link to the documentation to complete the learning. Might as well skip that step and go straight to the source.
Committing an API to memory and using auto-complete are two completely unrelated things. None of my code editors have auto-complete enabled, and anything that I have committed to memory is there because of the frequency that I use it. My point is that any competent programmer should never have to rely on auto-complete, I didn't say anything about memorizing APIs. If you don't know how to use what you need to, then look it up online. That's a better skill to have than using an editor with auto-complete. Auto-complete is a bonus, it shouldn't be a requirement for someone to be able to do their job. Force them to write everything by hand and look up whatever they don't know. If they don't know how to find the answers they're looking for, then they're useless. In my opinion, the two most important skills a programmer can have are being able to effectively troubleshoot problems, and being able to find the answers they are looking for. Anyone out of school can write code, but if you can't debug and you don't know how to do research then you're not ready for a job.
I'm pretty sure that something like code completion would be one of the things you specifically don't want them to rely on. Documentation is also available outside of any IDE, as long as they have internet access. Writing on a blackboard would be the rough equivalent of writing code in Notepad on a projector. A competent programmer should be able to do that.
Adobe Reader will read ALL PDFs that are out there, guaranteed.
Right, even the ones with malicious scripting that get delivered and opened in an iframe that doesn't even show up on the page.
I've encounter PDFs which opened up to a blank page in Foxit, whereas they worked just fine in Adobe Reader.
So why not set the default reader to an alternative, and only use Acrobat if the document can't be opened elsewhere? Having Acrobat set as the default reader with the browser plugin installed and enabled is the source of the problem.
The same people that rant on and on about attack vectors are also the same people who think Windows BSODs and gets infected with malware/viruses/trojans all the time
Pay attention to what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Windows is insecure or unstable, I'm saying that Acrobat is insecure. That's a fact, it's not just my opinion. I'm not ranting against Windows, I'm still happily using XP. IE, for it's part, is only number 4 or 5 on the attack vector list, a full 85% of attacks come through insecure plugins (like Acrobat). You can bury your head in the sand and act like it isn't true if you want, but that doesn't change anything in reality. Acrobat alone is responsible for nearly a full third of infections. Here is the study.
Sure, PDFs are great for printing, but who prints anymore? It's 2011.
You're being serious, right? You think that companies everywhere dumped their printers in the garbage why?
You realize that Acrobat is the #2 attack vector for Windows machines, right? It's right between Java and Flash. Why would you voluntarily use it when there are several other PDF readers which don't even show up on the attack vector charts? I was in a meeting today at the Maricopa County Community Colleges District office and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Foxit reader opened up whenever someone clicked a link to a PDF in IE. They use IE and still have enough sense to get Java and Acrobat off their machines.
Actually the human part has more to do with the way we're wired and with one side being more dominant than the other
Do you know why that is? I understand why my right arm is more powerful than my left, because I use it for more things. I don't understand why my left leg is more powerful than my right.