Then you aren't implementing AJAX properly. You can tell when a request is launched, when its started its return, and when the information you've requested is successfully back. Albeit, this is not an easy thing to learn - but once you've got it down it makes Web Apps a whole lot easier.
When you've got a network issue - it's going to affect your Desktop App or your web app. Latency is latency - the only difference is a desktop app will wait for the network, a web app you have to tell it to wait (or you can tell it to do something else, if there is other stuff to do).
I find Web Apps easier to debug, because its running off of a single server, not the client. So "duplicating" the error is as easy as repeating the steps the user did. I do not have to make sure my environment is configured exactly like theirs.
Perhaps your dissatisfaction falls into the way things are implemented in your work environment. I get the feeling YOU didn't choose the "CSS, PHP/Python/Java and Javascript backending some database " but someone else did, and now you're stuck maintaining (meaning cleaning up) their mess.
I have never had a real issue using AJAX with an ASP.NET front end, C# or VB back end, handling an Oracle/MySQL Database. Everything within that architecture is designed with the others in mind - and it makes programming a dream.
And if your company is willing to dish out the cash for some AJAX user controls - like Telerik or something, you don't even have to deal with AJAX all that much, and most of your code is written for you.
Most developers don't realize this, but average users absolutely hate web apps. They typically aren't anywhere near as easy to use as normal desktop applications.
That may be true - but its funny how these things always work out - its the developers who decide where the platform is, not the user. Developers are loving web apps. Why? It means you don't have to worry about installing your app, you don't have to worry about different versions, updating is a snap, support is a snap, and its accessible from almost anywhere. These "Upgraded" versions make a developer's and a support staff's life easier. So thats the way the market is going to go.
As long as Google focuses only on the web, then Microsoft has absolutely nothing to worry about.
Sounds like some famous last words. Like how Newspapers won't have to worry about internet blogs.
If you're a poor peasant living in some place where they don't even have toilets, and you work your farm day in and day out - and you could take part of your earning to increase your production - wouldn't you invest?
The issues generally depend on who is in power. Not all politicians are in it for the betterment of the country, but rather themselves. Building a sewer system and anything else were a whole lot easier when Slave Labour was around, but now a third world country has to follow the first world example and abolish slavery - meaning that you can't simply feed a man and expect him to work 18 hours of the day. The Pyramids weren't built in a day. Nor a week, nor a month nor a year. Great Pharoahs basically spent their entire lives building monuments to themselves. The Colleseum took years to complete with labour in the hundreds of thousands.
So lets suppose you can get hundreds of thousands of people on board to build a sewer system across your Third world City. How are you going to pay them? Money won't do them much good if there is no food. Where's all the food going? Well you feed the top down to the bottom. Politicians first, then their secretaries, and so on and so forth. By the time it reaches the labour pool there is hardly any remaining. This wasn't an issue thousands of years ago because all the major population centers were built around sectors of lush farmlands. Egypt was the breadbasket for many years because of the Nile. You'll notice they are still doing pretty well, all things considered. They also sent large amounts of their population abroad, in armies, to use the food of other nations. Could you imagine doing that today? Like say Ethiopia forming a military, and sending it to Egypt - what kind of disbalance that would cause?
The whole "Build a sewer system" is much more complicated than people realize. Yes - you can lay the statement that Romans had running water in times that predate the common era. I can just as easily say that European Colonies did not for over a hundred years. Wheres the Aquaducts?
Screw Lasers - I want to fire the actual electrons at the guy. The target will be so staticly charge his pubic hair will shoot out of his crotch causing him to double over in physical and emotional pain, thereby rendering him neutralized but not killed, an effective non-lethal weapon.
Flying boxes and wood splinters do not make a better game.
Well - it's the little things that make the differences though. I mean, you wouldn't think that flying boxes and wood splinters don't make a game any more amazing, but those were basically THE core elements of the Force Unleashed, using the Havok engine. Not surprisingly though, Havok was strictly licensed to Lucasarts for all of 2009 - no one else could use it. It's only just recently become available. So - for most of 2009, PhysX was the best choice - not only subsidized for using it, but because its competitors weren't actually available.
There could be times when you don't have access to a power socket - or your battery charger won't work in the power sockets (say you visit another continent).
In which case, you've got your business laptop, so you can charge your batteries for your MP3 player.
It shouldn't need software though, I'll agree with that.
But honestly the though of a "regular" 9-5 existence sort of... well horrifies me (when do you normal people run errands? and rush hour, like WTF? you realize that you can belt across a city at 2pm in like 15 minutes, but at rush hour that will easily take an hour). Also added advantages: the internet (locally) is faster (the normals are asleep), no phone/email/SMS/IM/etc. interruptions(the normals are asleep) and as a result I am far more productive.
I agree that Insomnia is definately not the right word. Staying up late is by no means "having difficulty sleeping". My sister is an insomniac. She has gone weeks without a wink of sleep. I am not an insomniac, I like to stay up till 3.
Anyways, as to the quote, I found this part of your post quite humorous. I don't like the 8-5 existence I'm in as much as I would like a noon till 8 existence, but I haven't found anyone hiring for that kind of position where the pay is actually decent. Thus I go to work, like everyone else, still tired, like everyone else, disliking that I have to get up and go to work, like everyone else. Surprisingly enough, not everyone likes getting up for 8 O clock, and the night owl group is not exclusive to computer nerds and geeks. The only people who enjoy getting up that early (in my experience) have been managers. Weird.
However, to answer your question: We run errands whenever we want. Sometimes we'll do it on our lunch break, because everything is still open, or perhaps after we get home from work. Depending on your job, if you're salary you can usually duck away a bit early to avoid rush hour or if you're hourly you can sometimes stay an extra half an hour, escape rush hour, and bank some over-time. Score.
The funny part was your obvious anti-social behavior being considered beneficial to you. No phone or email interruptions? If you don't want them, don't open yourself to recieving them. You turn the phone off if you don't like distractions while writing. I would ask you this:
When do you go shopping at the Mall, when do you go out to clubs? When do you hang out with friends? - I couldn't possibly fit all 3 of those in a single day on a different sleep schedule.
The written form of Chinese is mostly the same across the country, while the spoken language differs; the symbols have nothing to do with the pronunciation, they simply express the concept.
Does this means that people that can't talk to each other can write instead? Convenient then, no need to learn multiple languages.
Yes - actually, funny anecdotal story about things like that. A friend of mine went and travelled the world and he said one of the most interesting quirks about China is that everyone knows the symbols, but not the words.
So - when you are in lets say Germany, and you are looking for a Coffee shop, and you ask the person next to you - and they speak German not English, but you don't know the German word for Coffee. You might use words like Café, and so on and so forth, speaking to the person using different words to get your meaning across.
In China, whenever someone comes across a word they don't know (and it happens quite frequently) - they hold out their hand, and use the index finger of their opposite hand to draw out the symbol of the word you are looking for. This works so well because their symbols mean the words instead of the sounds.
Clearly you've never worked in an office environment. The paper documents last forever Whereas you get lucky when that Dell from 2001 fails so you can upgrade it to a new one.
Perhaps its because (and I'm just speculating here) everyone's brain patterns for the letter A and B are relatively similar. The problem with morse code and binary is that No one except avid hobbyists use that for communication anymore. By the time I learned what morse code was, it was outdated.
Also, how do you distinguish between on & off - when no state is desired?
I worked on a Mod that allowed Multiplayer Portals - and I had ideas for much of what you described. Player A gets a fully functional gun and B gets the weapons, or Player A does blue portals, Player B does Orange. Or they both have fully functional portal guns.
Certain things crash the engine, like using the grav gun to hold an object near a portal. But thats pretty easy to restrict.
It really fell apart on level design - something I had Ideas for but never the time to get around to building. Plus I wasn't very familiar with Hammer, I use Unreal most of the time - which only frustrated me. Certain things missing, hotkeys not functioning, probably would have been better if I hadn't used Unreal before Hammer, empty your cup as a Monk might say.
If anyone wants the source code - drop me a line. I've still got it lying around (at the computer in my parents basement, haha!).
Slashdot Mirror
You think THATS bad - I got my HTC phone with Windows Mobile 6.1 Pre Installed!
OK it's comedy, but so is the real world situation in a way (except more tragic).
I guess it depends on whether you found Macbeth hilarious or not.
if only they can create a perpetual motion device
Thermodynamics fail
Then you aren't implementing AJAX properly. You can tell when a request is launched, when its started its return, and when the information you've requested is successfully back. Albeit, this is not an easy thing to learn - but once you've got it down it makes Web Apps a whole lot easier.
When you've got a network issue - it's going to affect your Desktop App or your web app. Latency is latency - the only difference is a desktop app will wait for the network, a web app you have to tell it to wait (or you can tell it to do something else, if there is other stuff to do).
I find Web Apps easier to debug, because its running off of a single server, not the client. So "duplicating" the error is as easy as repeating the steps the user did. I do not have to make sure my environment is configured exactly like theirs.
Perhaps your dissatisfaction falls into the way things are implemented in your work environment. I get the feeling YOU didn't choose the "CSS, PHP/Python/Java and Javascript backending some database " but someone else did, and now you're stuck maintaining (meaning cleaning up) their mess.
I have never had a real issue using AJAX with an ASP.NET front end, C# or VB back end, handling an Oracle/MySQL Database. Everything within that architecture is designed with the others in mind - and it makes programming a dream.
And if your company is willing to dish out the cash for some AJAX user controls - like Telerik or something, you don't even have to deal with AJAX all that much, and most of your code is written for you.
Most developers don't realize this, but average users absolutely hate web apps. They typically aren't anywhere near as easy to use as normal desktop applications.
That may be true - but its funny how these things always work out - its the developers who decide where the platform is, not the user. Developers are loving web apps. Why? It means you don't have to worry about installing your app, you don't have to worry about different versions, updating is a snap, support is a snap, and its accessible from almost anywhere. These "Upgraded" versions make a developer's and a support staff's life easier. So thats the way the market is going to go.
As long as Google focuses only on the web, then Microsoft has absolutely nothing to worry about.
Sounds like some famous last words. Like how Newspapers won't have to worry about internet blogs.
You'd be best to keep wildlife off of your field, should they eat your crops before you harvest.
Fecal matter alone does not make the best Fertilizer - combining it with certain chemicals does.
Also, crapping on a carrot doesn't mean it'll grow bigger, it means you just infested it with waste that often carries diseases.
This bag is far more than just a new Ziplock - thats why its news.
If you're a poor peasant living in some place where they don't even have toilets, and you work your farm day in and day out - and you could take part of your earning to increase your production - wouldn't you invest?
The issues generally depend on who is in power. Not all politicians are in it for the betterment of the country, but rather themselves. Building a sewer system and anything else were a whole lot easier when Slave Labour was around, but now a third world country has to follow the first world example and abolish slavery - meaning that you can't simply feed a man and expect him to work 18 hours of the day. The Pyramids weren't built in a day. Nor a week, nor a month nor a year. Great Pharoahs basically spent their entire lives building monuments to themselves. The Colleseum took years to complete with labour in the hundreds of thousands.
So lets suppose you can get hundreds of thousands of people on board to build a sewer system across your Third world City. How are you going to pay them? Money won't do them much good if there is no food. Where's all the food going? Well you feed the top down to the bottom. Politicians first, then their secretaries, and so on and so forth. By the time it reaches the labour pool there is hardly any remaining. This wasn't an issue thousands of years ago because all the major population centers were built around sectors of lush farmlands. Egypt was the breadbasket for many years because of the Nile. You'll notice they are still doing pretty well, all things considered. They also sent large amounts of their population abroad, in armies, to use the food of other nations. Could you imagine doing that today? Like say Ethiopia forming a military, and sending it to Egypt - what kind of disbalance that would cause?
The whole "Build a sewer system" is much more complicated than people realize. Yes - you can lay the statement that Romans had running water in times that predate the common era. I can just as easily say that European Colonies did not for over a hundred years. Wheres the Aquaducts?
They're making the statement that if you don't vote you probably live in poverty. Thats all.
Unless they shave all over, the effect should also take place in Arm-pits, the head, arms, legs, etc.
So this weapon is essentially useless on professional swimmers.
You'll sh*t bricks!
I was mistaken, it was the DMM from Pixelux that was licensed - which AMD is also giving out, according to the article.
Screw Lasers - I want to fire the actual electrons at the guy. The target will be so staticly charge his pubic hair will shoot out of his crotch causing him to double over in physical and emotional pain, thereby rendering him neutralized but not killed, an effective non-lethal weapon.
Appears I was mistaken, the DMM by Pixelux and the Euphoria (for AI) was strictly to Lucas Arts, Havok is and was always available. My bad.
Flying boxes and wood splinters do not make a better game.
Well - it's the little things that make the differences though. I mean, you wouldn't think that flying boxes and wood splinters don't make a game any more amazing, but those were basically THE core elements of the Force Unleashed, using the Havok engine. Not surprisingly though, Havok was strictly licensed to Lucasarts for all of 2009 - no one else could use it. It's only just recently become available. So - for most of 2009, PhysX was the best choice - not only subsidized for using it, but because its competitors weren't actually available.
There could be times when you don't have access to a power socket - or your battery charger won't work in the power sockets (say you visit another continent).
In which case, you've got your business laptop, so you can charge your batteries for your MP3 player.
It shouldn't need software though, I'll agree with that.
But honestly the though of a "regular" 9-5 existence sort of ... well horrifies me (when do you normal people run errands? and rush hour, like WTF? you realize that you can belt across a city at 2pm in like 15 minutes, but at rush hour that will easily take an hour). Also added advantages: the internet (locally) is faster (the normals are asleep), no phone/email/SMS/IM/etc. interruptions(the normals are asleep) and as a result I am far more productive.
I agree that Insomnia is definately not the right word. Staying up late is by no means "having difficulty sleeping". My sister is an insomniac. She has gone weeks without a wink of sleep. I am not an insomniac, I like to stay up till 3.
Anyways, as to the quote, I found this part of your post quite humorous. I don't like the 8-5 existence I'm in as much as I would like a noon till 8 existence, but I haven't found anyone hiring for that kind of position where the pay is actually decent. Thus I go to work, like everyone else, still tired, like everyone else, disliking that I have to get up and go to work, like everyone else. Surprisingly enough, not everyone likes getting up for 8 O clock, and the night owl group is not exclusive to computer nerds and geeks. The only people who enjoy getting up that early (in my experience) have been managers. Weird.
However, to answer your question: We run errands whenever we want. Sometimes we'll do it on our lunch break, because everything is still open, or perhaps after we get home from work. Depending on your job, if you're salary you can usually duck away a bit early to avoid rush hour or if you're hourly you can sometimes stay an extra half an hour, escape rush hour, and bank some over-time. Score.
The funny part was your obvious anti-social behavior being considered beneficial to you. No phone or email interruptions? If you don't want them, don't open yourself to recieving them. You turn the phone off if you don't like distractions while writing. I would ask you this:
When do you go shopping at the Mall, when do you go out to clubs? When do you hang out with friends? - I couldn't possibly fit all 3 of those in a single day on a different sleep schedule.
That Map pack was also purchased by Valve and shipped to the XboxLive Arcade - for you 360 owners, though you have to dish out a couple of dollars
We've got a phone number extension and the underlined letters - which means there might be more yet to come.
The written form of Chinese is mostly the same across the country, while the spoken language differs; the symbols have nothing to do with the pronunciation, they simply express the concept.
Does this means that people that can't talk to each other can write instead? Convenient then, no need to learn multiple languages.
Yes - actually, funny anecdotal story about things like that. A friend of mine went and travelled the world and he said one of the most interesting quirks about China is that everyone knows the symbols, but not the words.
So - when you are in lets say Germany, and you are looking for a Coffee shop, and you ask the person next to you - and they speak German not English, but you don't know the German word for Coffee. You might use words like Café, and so on and so forth, speaking to the person using different words to get your meaning across.
In China, whenever someone comes across a word they don't know (and it happens quite frequently) - they hold out their hand, and use the index finger of their opposite hand to draw out the symbol of the word you are looking for. This works so well because their symbols mean the words instead of the sounds.
Clearly you've never worked in an office environment. The paper documents last forever Whereas you get lucky when that Dell from 2001 fails so you can upgrade it to a new one.
Than a 4096 Bit RSA Key that is stored on a standalone computer?
Perhaps its because (and I'm just speculating here) everyone's brain patterns for the letter A and B are relatively similar. The problem with morse code and binary is that No one except avid hobbyists use that for communication anymore. By the time I learned what morse code was, it was outdated.
Also, how do you distinguish between on & off - when no state is desired?
I was having a terrible day at work - our tape drives for 1 TB Backups are failing, funny coincidence. Licensing issue though, not programmatically.
Anyways, this made my day. I'm going to tell it to all my friends, I hope you don't mind.
I worked on a Mod that allowed Multiplayer Portals - and I had ideas for much of what you described. Player A gets a fully functional gun and B gets the weapons, or Player A does blue portals, Player B does Orange. Or they both have fully functional portal guns.
Certain things crash the engine, like using the grav gun to hold an object near a portal. But thats pretty easy to restrict.
It really fell apart on level design - something I had Ideas for but never the time to get around to building. Plus I wasn't very familiar with Hammer, I use Unreal most of the time - which only frustrated me. Certain things missing, hotkeys not functioning, probably would have been better if I hadn't used Unreal before Hammer, empty your cup as a Monk might say.
If anyone wants the source code - drop me a line. I've still got it lying around (at the computer in my parents basement, haha!).