Passion is buzzwordish and an overstatement. However the better programmers that I have known over the decades have been those who have a genuine inherent interest in programming. They will read about software development, learn new languages and write some program on their own for nothing more than their own amusement or curiosity. Those who have never written any code outside of work or school tend not to be the better programmers.
Writing code for your own amusement without any purpose in mind is not a very logical way to spend your time. In many cases being a logical person that doesn't go off on unproductive tangents is a huge boon to writing good code. Only considering programmers that code in their free time is a little like only considering car mechanics that cruise the strip in their free time. Engaging in related activities in an unproductive way is hardly something you want your employees to be doing on the job.
No one said anything about people who devote all their spare time to programming. Only those who have never devoted any spare time to programing were mentioned. I'm just stating a correlation that I observed over decades that those who were the better programmers also tended to be those who read about software development and did a little coding on the side when they had the spare time, when they were at a point in life where they had some spare time. Some of these very same programmers who did a little hobbyist coding on the side are also people I have been scuba diving, camping, rafting, etc with. Others had various indoor hobbies that they also indulged in. But occasionally they all did a little reading or coding too.
Did you think that those personality surveys pushed by MBA's for gas station attendants wouldn't reach Engineering?
We did those at work and school and the programmers did fit into a couple of predictable buckets. It was fun to watch one manager say this test is wrong, my observations would put you into a different bucket.
This is not to say a person must be in one of the predictably buckets to do well at a particular job, just that there is something to these tests. Some people with certain dispositions find some jobs more attractive than others.
The problem is, being passionate about code, doesn't have anything to do with being able to code. Just how much you enjoy your profession (Without the added benefit of pay).
Passion is buzzwordish and an overstatement. However the better programmers that I have known over the decades have been those who have a genuine inherent interest in programming. They will read about software development, learn new languages and write some program on their own for nothing more than their own amusement or curiosity. Those who have never written any code outside of work or school tend not to be the better programmers. When someone uses "passionate" I interpret it as distinguishing the former from the later. Granted there may be time periods where those interested in programming may not have the free time to do so, like when they have a new child. However when free time and circumstances permit I've seen a little reading and coding creep back in.
That said, my first job out of college was to take a custom designed board for an embedded system that the hardware guys just got working and to write its firmware: a kernel, its drivers and software that would load and host a C-based application. I don't know if "passionate" would apply but as someone who likes assembly language and low level programming I was pretty damn excited and really enjoyed my day to day work an awful lot. I suppose a buzzword compliant manager could have described me as "passionate" although I would have sued different words.
..there isn't much holding me back from dumping Windows all together so seeing that Linux as a viable gaming platform is on the rise it shouldn't be too much longer before I can dump it all together and go full Linux. Sure Linux has Wine support but I would prefer to have native support instead.
This is a very common opinion. However the problem is that switching from Windows to Linux does not really help the developer. The developer replaced a Windows sale with a Linux sale. Basically Linux will largely cannibalize Windows sales. So the justification to the developer for doing a Linux version has to go beyond simply the number of Linux sales.
For a small and not-well-known developer this benefit may be greater exposure and word of mouth. For the large established developer the benefits for a Linux version are a bit iffier. Assuming of course the large developer does not have a software distribution platform to promote.
> undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting
The LLVM model for attracting funding doesn't scale, and it defeats itself in the long term.
LLVM is a University of Illinois project and was funded and active before Apple got involved. With respect to contributors LLVM seems very much like the Linux kernel, mostly corporate sponsored developers. Last I heard volunteers accounted for only 16% of Linux contributors, the rest coming from Red Hat, Intel, IBM, etc. Your theory of long term defeat due to corporate sponsorship makes no sense. Not one line of contributed code will disappear if corporate sponsorship disappears. The volunteers and academics involved, be they LLVM or Linux, can continue on unimpeded. Their project merely no longer receiving "external" acceleration.
LLVM are only getting funding because Apple wants to undermine GCC.
Apple does not want to undermine gcc. Apple merely wants a compiler that will allow for signed apps. Gpl v2 allowed this, gpl v3 does not. Apple had three choices. Continue with the gpl v2 fork of gcc, switch to gcc gpl v3 and abandon their signed app requirement, or find another compiler. Finding another compiler and getting away from the political drama of the FSF seems the best move. Especially given promising alternatives like LLVM.
Your argument is further undermined by all the interest within the Linux community of getting things to work on the LLVM toolchain.
Not having a CLI and forcing developers to either limit their applications to what could be pointed at and clicked, or implementing their own application-specific CLI is one of the reasons why the Macintosh ended up being a niche platform,...
Someone seriously misinformed you. I did Apple II, Mac and PC DOS and Windows development back in the day. The PC beat the Mac on price, there was no preference for CLI over GUI. When PC users had a chance to ditch CLI for a half decent GUI they jumped at it, MS Windows 3 (1 and 2 didn't qualify a half decent GUIs).
Some apps reimplemented command lines, and a lot of apps went to the super-limited interface, of course... but most stepped into the relatively new paradigms of the GUI (Apple not being the first, but popularizing it)
Some friends and I were Apple II developers back then. We therefore had automatic acceptance into the Mac developer program. So we signed up and bought a Mac as soon as possible.
Months before the Mac shipped, Apple sent the Inside Macintosh manuals (a set of three ring binders). So we had docs but no computer, Apple found a way to get developers to read the manual.
While reading Inside Macintosh they introduced us to the new GUI paradigm and offered a convincing argument to go with the GUI and not just implement a terminal/console user interface.
We couldn't afford a Lisa for development so we got 68,000 coprocessor boards for our Apple II's, cross assembled 68K assembly, and downloaded the binary to see it run. Took me days to get an application menu going, it was very frustrating, then I learned that the A5 registers was not for general purpose use.:-)
But LLVM still gets the resources to make free software as a result. Does it matter if there's corporate support or the code is programmed by altruistic (and either poor or overworked) individuals whose souls are not so incumbered by finances?
Linux is essentially developed by corporate sponsored developers, not the individual hobbyists of old. Last I heard the volunteers accounted for about 16% of Linux contributions, the rest coming from employees of one company or another (Red Hat, Intel, IBM, etc). With this sponsorship comes a degree of control, direction. There really is little difference between corporate supported GPL-based projects and corporate supported BSD-based projects. Corporation provide direction to both, the source code is available in both.
Sort of undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting the community. There are supporters and there are leachers, both on the individual and the corporate side.
It suits their agenda, and their goal isn't to give a long and fruitful life to free software.
Nor is it their goal to destroy free software. They have supported many free software projects for many years. Yes those projects benefit them, so what? All that matters is if they contribute or if they leach. They seem to contribute.
Here lately, more mainstream companies are coming out in favor of accepting it. Casinos in Vegas was the last one I recall... maybe this thing has legs. Can it be that our fiat monetary systems are so flawed that this is a reasonable alternative for some folks?
The casino and various other companies are accepting bitcoins as payment but they do not hold any bitcoins. For the casino your bill is computed in $US, they compute the current bitcoin equivalent when you are ready to pay, accept payment and immediately have the bitcoins converted to $US. The casino avoids the bank/credit card transaction fees and surcharges. The bitcoin payment processor used has no transaction fees, just a flat monthly fee.
It seems that bitcoins are more of a replacement for credit cards, in other words a transaction system rather than a replacement monetary system.
I'm pretty sure that "it shouldn't work and should be easily hackable" were not in the spec. This is just another example of the quality of work you get when governments contract out to private companies.
Spec? What spec? They were making changes two weeks before launch. From the congressional testimony, http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/...:
"In the first detailed account of what happened, officials of four contractors involved in the website creation described a convoluted system of multiple companies operating separately under the oversight of CMS, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Each said their individual components generally performed as planned after internal testing, but all conceded that CMS failed to conduct sufficient "end-to-end" testing of the entire system before the launch... an end-to-end test conducted within two weeks of the launch caused the system to crash. She said it was up to CMS to decide on proceeding with the rollout."
"... blamed a decision by CMS within two weeks of the launch to require users to fully register in order to browse for health insurance products, instead of being able to get information anonymously, as originally planned."
The preceding should not be interpreted to mean that the contractor did good work. They may have been a problem as well. My point is that government officials were basically sabotaging their project through mismanagement. Inadequate integration testing, last minute changes, launching despite testing showing they were not ready... It appears that politicians were in control.
I think this has been covered elsewhere and basically if the users are part of the same legal entity that modified the source then the users don't have to be given access to the source. The legal entity modifying and using the code is the company, not its employees.
don't know the details in this ares, but I doubt they would e setting up this kind of metered service tiers if they had and competition.
Sure they would. They might fight over the 5GB / month @ $25 customers but they are not going to fight over the 100 GB / month @ $300 customers. Neither company probably wants the later very much. They would probably prefer 20 people at 5GB paying $5/GB than 1 person at 100GB paying $3/GB.
According to zdnet.com it is not open source. However, due to "safety concerns", COS is not an open source system, revealed a 21cbh.com report. If so then they are likely in non complience with the licenses involved.
There may be no compliance problem. COS may be like Android, effectively its own operating system with its own API, just using Linux as a host environment.
Its free in a very practical sense, as in no extra money leaves my pocket. The monthly bill is the same whether I keep using the old phone or upgrade to a new phone. I really don't care if my cellular provider's accounting is showing a portion of my bill as "payment for phone subsidy" or "extra profits after subsidy pay off".
My 2008 Macbook only recently became unable to run the current version of the Xcode development environment, its the last of the non-64 bit machines not supported by Mountain Lion or Mavericks.
The last MacBook that was non-64-bit stopped shipping in November 2006.
It was the last of the plastic MacBooks, self identifies as "Early 2008". The CPU is a Core Duo and is 64-bit capable but Apple did not write 64-bit drivers (or something like that) for this system. It is not compatible with the 64-bit versions of Mac OS X. That makes it a non-64 bit machine regardless of what the CPU is capable of.
Your post certainly does not seem like the kind of troll that we see around here from people pretending to own Apple gear, but it sure seems confused... (Perhaps your MacBook is 64-bit, but one of the ones that doesn't have the GPU support that Apple requires for Mountain Lion?)
In other words I am confused or I am correct? That's an odd opinion.:-)
hahahaha. It is not free. You are paying the carrier for it, in the form of a long term contract renewal. Your cost (plus some) is amortized over the length of your contract. And if you don't upgrade your device, your carrier keeps your bill at the same price--even when the contract expires--and makes a massive profit on you.
Of course the cost of the phone is built into the monthly fee. The point is that this fee remains the same regardless of whether you keep using the old phone or get an upgrade. That is why the upgrade is effectively free.
In contrast every two years I can get an iPhone upgrade for free with a two year contract, sure its not the latest generation hardware but its a free hardware upgrade. Or I can splurge and spend $200 every two years and get the latest generation hardware.
Why do Americans insist that they get phones for free? If I apply the same thinking, I can get a FREE Apple iPhone 5s with a two year contract for ~29€/month + 1 to 50€/month. (If you hadn't guessed, the first part is down payment for the phone).
I tend to prefer to pay upfront for my phones, so I don't get stuck with a operator for 2 years.
Its considered free since the monthly fee remains the same whether you keep the old phone or upgrade to a new phone. Sure the price of the phone is built into the monthly fee but until there is a discount for keeping the old phone the current pattern will hold.
I believe the author was drawing comparisons to Software or the OS's. Not hardware..
That 5+ year old PC I mentioned just had Windows 8.1 installed on it. It runs just fine. Admittedly the video card was upgraded only a few months before the Windows upgrade.
Also FWIW I recall reading somewhere that by age 2 years PCs don't really change their software much.
PCs have a longer lifespan, they are way overpowered for what most people use them for. I have a five year old 3GHz 64-bit AMD box. It is still quite usable, I upgraded the video card recently, about $150, and it is still quite usable for gaming. I have no compelling reason to replace this five year old PC.
Firstly; by "PC"s you should understand "laptops". Desktops are already quite rare in most companies outside call centres. Even workers who sit in the same place every day are expected to be able to move to a conference room with their computer and show a presentation.
I'm sure that happens but I'm not seeing much of that. Of course I work in software development, not a whole lot of powerpoint presentations being created. Conference rooms tend to have a PC in them if needed. YMMV.
Still, good point in mentioning laptops. However my laptops tend to last four or more years too. As I mentioned above I have a desktop PC that I use for gaming. Occasionally upgrading the video card and less frequently upgrading the motherboard (5+ years on the current one).
Secondly, you should understand that, for most users the system they use is Windows or OS X. They are "forced" to upgrade by their system becoming obsolete.
Just installed Windows 8.1 on that 5+ year old PC. My 2008 Macbook only recently became unable to run the current version of the Xcode development environment, its the last of the non-64 bit machines not supported by Mountain Lion or Mavericks. And most users are not doing Mac OS or iOS development where they are tied to applications that are quite aggressive about needing the latest OS. I really don't see many people being forced to get new systems, even laptops. YMMV.
With these criteria there is always something horribly wrong with the PC. The screens are almost always lower resolution, which turns out to be a limitation after a year or two.
If the laptop is a desktop replace then it would probably be plugged into an external monitor at one's desk.
The power supplies are plugged in in a way that means that one simple mistake and your computer falls on the ground and breaks. MacBooks use a magnetic power supply that makes it rarer.
Again in that desktop replacement environment that doesn't seem to happen too often. Admittedly in school I developed good freeze reflexes when I felt a little snag on my legs or feet.:-)
Then we come to plasticky badly designed cases, which crack after a year or two. Admittedly that has got better, but I still think a new Mac is going to survive drops better than most PC laptops. This all adds up to the likelyhood that you, or someone you know, will be using your PC after five years is less than the chance for a Mac.
My 2005 Dell Latitude with a crappy plastic case and all survived three years of school with all its tripping hazards, hard use from constantly moving around, etc. It eventually retired to a desktop where it still gets occasional use for Windows XP compatibility testing. YMMV. Admittedly the state of its batteries pretty much confines it to a desktop. It was replaced by that 2008 Macbook that only recently becomes trouble to use due to a lack of upgradability.
One problem may be with the heavily subsidized phones that we have in the U.S. Getting a new phone every two years costs nothing to about what a video card upgrade for the old PC costs. Now if the phone companies somehow give people a discount for keeping the same phone once they are eligible for a full subsidy that might change things.
PCs have a longer lifespan, they are way overpowered for what most people use them for. I have a five year old 3GHz 64-bit AMD box. It is still quite usable, I upgraded the video card recently, about $150, and it is still quite usable for gaming. I have no compelling reason to replace this five year old PC.
In contrast every two years I can get an iPhone upgrade for free with a two year contract, sure its not the latest generation hardware but its a free hardware upgrade. Or I can splurge and spend $200 every two years and get the latest generation hardware.
You can't directly compare PC vs phone sales if PCs are on a 6+ year purchase cycle and phones are on a 2 year purchase cycle. Keep in mind that these are not competing devices, they are complementary devices. Most people are going to own and use both PCs and phones.
Tablets muddy the waters a little but they are still mostly complementary devices. Not many PC users can switch completely to tablets.
3. They try to make this as transparant as possible, such as the 'auto-purchasing' of 'X points' via real money if you don't have enough. It might no longer be possible to do this without the app store independently confirming every purchase, but in the old days?
I am an app developer. I implemented in-app purchases soon after they were added to iOS.
The app only controls the offering of the in-app purchase. The user interface and code for this offer is implemented by the app, it could conceivable present things in a confusing way. However it can't go too far in doing so since in-app purchases have to be submitted and reviewed by Apple before they go live. If the user interface was too deceptive presumably it would not pass review.
All an app can do is create a purchase request and submit this request to the iOS In-App Purchase API. iOS will then invoke Apple App Store app code to authenticate and communicate with the iTunes App Store. The user interface and code is all Apple's, nothing from the app. The app is eventually notified if the purchase request was completed or not.
I have a calculator app that offers scientific, statistics, business, hex and bill/tip functionality in a single app, Perpenso Calc. There are two versions. A fully paid version and an upgradable lite version.
The fully paid version includes everything, there are no in-app purchases and there are no ads. It is offered at a bundled price point so that it is less expensive to purchase the fully paid version than to buy all the in-app purchases separately.
The upgradable lite version only includes the scientific functionality. However this scientific mode does include fractions, complex numbers and other things not found in the built-in calculator. Statistics, business, hex and bill/tip functionality are each available through separate in-app purchases. You may tailor the app's functionality to your specific needs. Again, note that at some point it may be cheaper to purchase the fully paid app given its bundled pricing.
This lite version also displays ads. There is an upgrade to full mode via an in-app purchase that removes ads, enable RPN entry and some other features.
Personally I like this two app strategy. A fully paid app at a bundled price point and an upgradable lite app. The upgradable lite app's built-in scientific mode serving as a trial for those considering the fully paid app if they are unsure.
I plan on continuing to use the two app strategy in the future. I would be very eager to hear any criticisms of this approach or any alternatives?
Like a game where you op[en chests, but every once in a while one of the chest would cost money and the user would get a message like 'The will cost 399 star points, do you want it?" Bang, yo are dinged for 3.99 in an email 2 days later.
No, the game can only offer you the purchase. For the actual sale to take place the game has to create a purchase request and turn this request over to the built-in Apple App Store app. The Apple App Store app will then independently confirm the purchase showing you the item and the price in your local currency. Only the Apple App Store app can make a purchase. The game can not hide the fact that an actual purchase is going to take place.
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Passion is buzzwordish and an overstatement. However the better programmers that I have known over the decades have been those who have a genuine inherent interest in programming. They will read about software development, learn new languages and write some program on their own for nothing more than their own amusement or curiosity. Those who have never written any code outside of work or school tend not to be the better programmers.
Writing code for your own amusement without any purpose in mind is not a very logical way to spend your time. In many cases being a logical person that doesn't go off on unproductive tangents is a huge boon to writing good code. Only considering programmers that code in their free time is a little like only considering car mechanics that cruise the strip in their free time. Engaging in related activities in an unproductive way is hardly something you want your employees to be doing on the job.
No one said anything about people who devote all their spare time to programming. Only those who have never devoted any spare time to programing were mentioned. I'm just stating a correlation that I observed over decades that those who were the better programmers also tended to be those who read about software development and did a little coding on the side when they had the spare time, when they were at a point in life where they had some spare time. Some of these very same programmers who did a little hobbyist coding on the side are also people I have been scuba diving, camping, rafting, etc with. Others had various indoor hobbies that they also indulged in. But occasionally they all did a little reading or coding too.
Did you think that those personality surveys pushed by MBA's for gas station attendants wouldn't reach Engineering?
We did those at work and school and the programmers did fit into a couple of predictable buckets. It was fun to watch one manager say this test is wrong, my observations would put you into a different bucket.
This is not to say a person must be in one of the predictably buckets to do well at a particular job, just that there is something to these tests. Some people with certain dispositions find some jobs more attractive than others.
The problem is, being passionate about code, doesn't have anything to do with being able to code. Just how much you enjoy your profession (Without the added benefit of pay).
Passion is buzzwordish and an overstatement. However the better programmers that I have known over the decades have been those who have a genuine inherent interest in programming. They will read about software development, learn new languages and write some program on their own for nothing more than their own amusement or curiosity. Those who have never written any code outside of work or school tend not to be the better programmers. When someone uses "passionate" I interpret it as distinguishing the former from the later. Granted there may be time periods where those interested in programming may not have the free time to do so, like when they have a new child. However when free time and circumstances permit I've seen a little reading and coding creep back in.
That said, my first job out of college was to take a custom designed board for an embedded system that the hardware guys just got working and to write its firmware: a kernel, its drivers and software that would load and host a C-based application. I don't know if "passionate" would apply but as someone who likes assembly language and low level programming I was pretty damn excited and really enjoyed my day to day work an awful lot. I suppose a buzzword compliant manager could have described me as "passionate" although I would have sued different words.
..there isn't much holding me back from dumping Windows all together so seeing that Linux as a viable gaming platform is on the rise it shouldn't be too much longer before I can dump it all together and go full Linux. Sure Linux has Wine support but I would prefer to have native support instead.
This is a very common opinion. However the problem is that switching from Windows to Linux does not really help the developer. The developer replaced a Windows sale with a Linux sale. Basically Linux will largely cannibalize Windows sales. So the justification to the developer for doing a Linux version has to go beyond simply the number of Linux sales.
For a small and not-well-known developer this benefit may be greater exposure and word of mouth. For the large established developer the benefits for a Linux version are a bit iffier. Assuming of course the large developer does not have a software distribution platform to promote.
> undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting
The LLVM model for attracting funding doesn't scale, and it defeats itself in the long term.
LLVM is a University of Illinois project and was funded and active before Apple got involved. With respect to contributors LLVM seems very much like the Linux kernel, mostly corporate sponsored developers. Last I heard volunteers accounted for only 16% of Linux contributors, the rest coming from Red Hat, Intel, IBM, etc. Your theory of long term defeat due to corporate sponsorship makes no sense. Not one line of contributed code will disappear if corporate sponsorship disappears. The volunteers and academics involved, be they LLVM or Linux, can continue on unimpeded. Their project merely no longer receiving "external" acceleration.
LLVM are only getting funding because Apple wants to undermine GCC.
Apple does not want to undermine gcc. Apple merely wants a compiler that will allow for signed apps. Gpl v2 allowed this, gpl v3 does not. Apple had three choices. Continue with the gpl v2 fork of gcc, switch to gcc gpl v3 and abandon their signed app requirement, or find another compiler. Finding another compiler and getting away from the political drama of the FSF seems the best move. Especially given promising alternatives like LLVM.
Your argument is further undermined by all the interest within the Linux community of getting things to work on the LLVM toolchain.
Not having a CLI and forcing developers to either limit their applications to what could be pointed at and clicked, or implementing their own application-specific CLI is one of the reasons why the Macintosh ended up being a niche platform, ...
Someone seriously misinformed you. I did Apple II, Mac and PC DOS and Windows development back in the day. The PC beat the Mac on price, there was no preference for CLI over GUI. When PC users had a chance to ditch CLI for a half decent GUI they jumped at it, MS Windows 3 (1 and 2 didn't qualify a half decent GUIs).
Some apps reimplemented command lines, and a lot of apps went to the super-limited interface, of course... but most stepped into the relatively new paradigms of the GUI (Apple not being the first, but popularizing it)
Some friends and I were Apple II developers back then. We therefore had automatic acceptance into the Mac developer program. So we signed up and bought a Mac as soon as possible.
:-)
Months before the Mac shipped, Apple sent the Inside Macintosh manuals (a set of three ring binders). So we had docs but no computer, Apple found a way to get developers to read the manual.
While reading Inside Macintosh they introduced us to the new GUI paradigm and offered a convincing argument to go with the GUI and not just implement a terminal/console user interface.
We couldn't afford a Lisa for development so we got 68,000 coprocessor boards for our Apple II's, cross assembled 68K assembly, and downloaded the binary to see it run. Took me days to get an application menu going, it was very frustrating, then I learned that the A5 registers was not for general purpose use.
But LLVM still gets the resources to make free software as a result. Does it matter if there's corporate support or the code is programmed by altruistic (and either poor or overworked) individuals whose souls are not so incumbered by finances?
Linux is essentially developed by corporate sponsored developers, not the individual hobbyists of old. Last I heard the volunteers accounted for about 16% of Linux contributions, the rest coming from employees of one company or another (Red Hat, Intel, IBM, etc). With this sponsorship comes a degree of control, direction. There really is little difference between corporate supported GPL-based projects and corporate supported BSD-based projects. Corporation provide direction to both, the source code is available in both.
Except that Apple is funding LLVM.
Sort of undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting the community. There are supporters and there are leachers, both on the individual and the corporate side.
It suits their agenda, and their goal isn't to give a long and fruitful life to free software.
Nor is it their goal to destroy free software. They have supported many free software projects for many years. Yes those projects benefit them, so what? All that matters is if they contribute or if they leach. They seem to contribute.
Here lately, more mainstream companies are coming out in favor of accepting it. Casinos in Vegas was the last one I recall... maybe this thing has legs. Can it be that our fiat monetary systems are so flawed that this is a reasonable alternative for some folks?
The casino and various other companies are accepting bitcoins as payment but they do not hold any bitcoins. For the casino your bill is computed in $US, they compute the current bitcoin equivalent when you are ready to pay, accept payment and immediately have the bitcoins converted to $US. The casino avoids the bank/credit card transaction fees and surcharges. The bitcoin payment processor used has no transaction fees, just a flat monthly fee.
It seems that bitcoins are more of a replacement for credit cards, in other words a transaction system rather than a replacement monetary system.
I'm pretty sure that "it shouldn't work and should be easily hackable" were not in the spec. This is just another example of the quality of work you get when governments contract out to private companies.
Spec? What spec? They were making changes two weeks before launch. From the congressional testimony, http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/...:
... an end-to-end test conducted within two weeks of the launch caused the system to crash. She said it was up to CMS to decide on proceeding with the rollout."
... It appears that politicians were in control.
"In the first detailed account of what happened, officials of four contractors involved in the website creation described a convoluted system of multiple companies operating separately under the oversight of CMS, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Each said their individual components generally performed as planned after internal testing, but all conceded that CMS failed to conduct sufficient "end-to-end" testing of the entire system before the launch
"... blamed a decision by CMS within two weeks of the launch to require users to fully register in order to browse for health insurance products, instead of being able to get information anonymously, as originally planned."
The preceding should not be interpreted to mean that the contractor did good work. They may have been a problem as well. My point is that government officials were basically sabotaging their project through mismanagement. Inadequate integration testing, last minute changes, launching despite testing showing they were not ready
I think this has been covered elsewhere and basically if the users are part of the same legal entity that modified the source then the users don't have to be given access to the source. The legal entity modifying and using the code is the company, not its employees.
don't know the details in this ares, but I doubt they would e setting up this kind of metered service tiers if they had and competition.
Sure they would. They might fight over the 5GB / month @ $25 customers but they are not going to fight over the 100 GB / month @ $300 customers. Neither company probably wants the later very much. They would probably prefer 20 people at 5GB paying $5/GB than 1 person at 100GB paying $3/GB.
According to zdnet.com it is not open source. However, due to "safety concerns", COS is not an open source system, revealed a 21cbh.com report. If so then they are likely in non complience with the licenses involved.
There may be no compliance problem. COS may be like Android, effectively its own operating system with its own API, just using Linux as a host environment.
I work for AT&T and we have plans that give you 15$ off once your phone is out of contract.
I would have to give up my legacy unlimited data plan. Plus as a developer I need newer devices for testing anyway.
Its free in a very practical sense, as in no extra money leaves my pocket. The monthly bill is the same whether I keep using the old phone or upgrade to a new phone. I really don't care if my cellular provider's accounting is showing a portion of my bill as "payment for phone subsidy" or "extra profits after subsidy pay off".
My 2008 Macbook only recently became unable to run the current version of the Xcode development environment, its the last of the non-64 bit machines not supported by Mountain Lion or Mavericks.
The last MacBook that was non-64-bit stopped shipping in November 2006.
It was the last of the plastic MacBooks, self identifies as "Early 2008". The CPU is a Core Duo and is 64-bit capable but Apple did not write 64-bit drivers (or something like that) for this system. It is not compatible with the 64-bit versions of Mac OS X. That makes it a non-64 bit machine regardless of what the CPU is capable of.
Your post certainly does not seem like the kind of troll that we see around here from people pretending to own Apple gear, but it sure seems confused... (Perhaps your MacBook is 64-bit, but one of the ones that doesn't have the GPU support that Apple requires for Mountain Lion?)
In other words I am confused or I am correct? That's an odd opinion. :-)
but its a free hardware upgrade
hahahaha. It is not free. You are paying the carrier for it, in the form of a long term contract renewal. Your cost (plus some) is amortized over the length of your contract. And if you don't upgrade your device, your carrier keeps your bill at the same price--even when the contract expires--and makes a massive profit on you.
Of course the cost of the phone is built into the monthly fee. The point is that this fee remains the same regardless of whether you keep using the old phone or get an upgrade. That is why the upgrade is effectively free.
In contrast every two years I can get an iPhone upgrade for free with a two year contract, sure its not the latest generation hardware but its a free hardware upgrade. Or I can splurge and spend $200 every two years and get the latest generation hardware.
Why do Americans insist that they get phones for free? If I apply the same thinking, I can get a FREE Apple iPhone 5s with a two year contract for ~29€/month + 1 to 50€/month. (If you hadn't guessed, the first part is down payment for the phone).
I tend to prefer to pay upfront for my phones, so I don't get stuck with a operator for 2 years.
Its considered free since the monthly fee remains the same whether you keep the old phone or upgrade to a new phone. Sure the price of the phone is built into the monthly fee but until there is a discount for keeping the old phone the current pattern will hold.
I believe the author was drawing comparisons to Software or the OS's. Not hardware..
That 5+ year old PC I mentioned just had Windows 8.1 installed on it. It runs just fine. Admittedly the video card was upgraded only a few months before the Windows upgrade.
Also FWIW I recall reading somewhere that by age 2 years PCs don't really change their software much.
PCs have a longer lifespan, they are way overpowered for what most people use them for. I have a five year old 3GHz 64-bit AMD box. It is still quite usable, I upgraded the video card recently, about $150, and it is still quite usable for gaming. I have no compelling reason to replace this five year old PC.
Firstly; by "PC"s you should understand "laptops". Desktops are already quite rare in most companies outside call centres. Even workers who sit in the same place every day are expected to be able to move to a conference room with their computer and show a presentation.
I'm sure that happens but I'm not seeing much of that. Of course I work in software development, not a whole lot of powerpoint presentations being created. Conference rooms tend to have a PC in them if needed. YMMV.
Still, good point in mentioning laptops. However my laptops tend to last four or more years too. As I mentioned above I have a desktop PC that I use for gaming. Occasionally upgrading the video card and less frequently upgrading the motherboard (5+ years on the current one).
Secondly, you should understand that, for most users the system they use is Windows or OS X. They are "forced" to upgrade by their system becoming obsolete.
Just installed Windows 8.1 on that 5+ year old PC. My 2008 Macbook only recently became unable to run the current version of the Xcode development environment, its the last of the non-64 bit machines not supported by Mountain Lion or Mavericks. And most users are not doing Mac OS or iOS development where they are tied to applications that are quite aggressive about needing the latest OS. I really don't see many people being forced to get new systems, even laptops. YMMV.
With these criteria there is always something horribly wrong with the PC. The screens are almost always lower resolution, which turns out to be a limitation after a year or two.
If the laptop is a desktop replace then it would probably be plugged into an external monitor at one's desk.
The power supplies are plugged in in a way that means that one simple mistake and your computer falls on the ground and breaks. MacBooks use a magnetic power supply that makes it rarer.
Again in that desktop replacement environment that doesn't seem to happen too often. Admittedly in school I developed good freeze reflexes when I felt a little snag on my legs or feet. :-)
Then we come to plasticky badly designed cases, which crack after a year or two. Admittedly that has got better, but I still think a new Mac is going to survive drops better than most PC laptops. This all adds up to the likelyhood that you, or someone you know, will be using your PC after five years is less than the chance for a Mac.
My 2005 Dell Latitude with a crappy plastic case and all survived three years of school with all its tripping hazards, hard use from constantly moving around, etc. It eventually retired to a desktop where it still gets occasional use for Windows XP compatibility testing. YMMV. Admittedly the state of its batteries pretty much confines it to a desktop. It was replaced by that 2008 Macbook that only recently becomes trouble to use due to a lack of upgradability.
One problem may be with the heavily subsidized phones that we have in the U.S. Getting a new phone every two years costs nothing to about what a video card upgrade for the old PC costs. Now if the phone companies somehow give people a discount for keeping the same phone once they are eligible for a full subsidy that might change things.
PCs have a longer lifespan, they are way overpowered for what most people use them for. I have a five year old 3GHz 64-bit AMD box. It is still quite usable, I upgraded the video card recently, about $150, and it is still quite usable for gaming. I have no compelling reason to replace this five year old PC.
In contrast every two years I can get an iPhone upgrade for free with a two year contract, sure its not the latest generation hardware but its a free hardware upgrade. Or I can splurge and spend $200 every two years and get the latest generation hardware.
You can't directly compare PC vs phone sales if PCs are on a 6+ year purchase cycle and phones are on a 2 year purchase cycle. Keep in mind that these are not competing devices, they are complementary devices. Most people are going to own and use both PCs and phones.
Tablets muddy the waters a little but they are still mostly complementary devices. Not many PC users can switch completely to tablets.
3. They try to make this as transparant as possible, such as the 'auto-purchasing' of 'X points' via real money if you don't have enough. It might no longer be possible to do this without the app store independently confirming every purchase, but in the old days?
I am an app developer. I implemented in-app purchases soon after they were added to iOS.
The app only controls the offering of the in-app purchase. The user interface and code for this offer is implemented by the app, it could conceivable present things in a confusing way. However it can't go too far in doing so since in-app purchases have to be submitted and reviewed by Apple before they go live. If the user interface was too deceptive presumably it would not pass review.
All an app can do is create a purchase request and submit this request to the iOS In-App Purchase API. iOS will then invoke Apple App Store app code to authenticate and communicate with the iTunes App Store. The user interface and code is all Apple's, nothing from the app. The app is eventually notified if the purchase request was completed or not.
Give me examples of good in app purchases!
I have a calculator app that offers scientific, statistics, business, hex and bill/tip functionality in a single app, Perpenso Calc. There are two versions. A fully paid version and an upgradable lite version.
The fully paid version includes everything, there are no in-app purchases and there are no ads. It is offered at a bundled price point so that it is less expensive to purchase the fully paid version than to buy all the in-app purchases separately.
The upgradable lite version only includes the scientific functionality. However this scientific mode does include fractions, complex numbers and other things not found in the built-in calculator. Statistics, business, hex and bill/tip functionality are each available through separate in-app purchases. You may tailor the app's functionality to your specific needs. Again, note that at some point it may be cheaper to purchase the fully paid app given its bundled pricing.
This lite version also displays ads. There is an upgrade to full mode via an in-app purchase that removes ads, enable RPN entry and some other features.
Personally I like this two app strategy. A fully paid app at a bundled price point and an upgradable lite app. The upgradable lite app's built-in scientific mode serving as a trial for those considering the fully paid app if they are unsure.
I plan on continuing to use the two app strategy in the future. I would be very eager to hear any criticisms of this approach or any alternatives?
Like a game where you op[en chests, but every once in a while one of the chest would cost money and the user would get a message like 'The will cost 399 star points, do you want it?" Bang, yo are dinged for 3.99 in an email 2 days later.
No, the game can only offer you the purchase. For the actual sale to take place the game has to create a purchase request and turn this request over to the built-in Apple App Store app. The Apple App Store app will then independently confirm the purchase showing you the item and the price in your local currency. Only the Apple App Store app can make a purchase. The game can not hide the fact that an actual purchase is going to take place.