The difference between the CS (non-engineering) degree and the EECS (engineering) degree with the software option at my school (UC Berkeley) was... 3 semesters of physics. There were a few other minor differences, but the CS curriculum was exactly the same.
Other than what one may or may not have gotten out of those three basic (though admittedly very difficult) physics classes, I don't see how that engineering degree really taught better constrained problem solving - and it certainly didn't include more instruction on the domain.
What do you mean by "see the JVM start up" ? It doesn't have an animation or anything - javac is a native stub that launches the VM and invokes the compiler. It's all within that "javac" process. Now, there is a native Java compiler: Jikes. But last I checked it was pretty outdated. Also, GJC will compile Java to native code, and it is also native, but I haven't played with it yet.
Hmm, well, no other platform that I know of asks this of their application developers... Seems like if most of them are backwards-compatible, then it's the users who lose with this system. Ideally, Firefox would have a test suite that they could run on their extension API to ensure that it works consistently before they release a new version.
I think as the maintainers of a platform, they have an obligation to ensure some reasonable level of backwards-compatibility. I absolutely blame FireFox - they could handle compatibility at one point, versus expecting a large community of independent, unorganized developers to coordinate themselves into release updates in time for a new release.
Look at other platforms - Windows, Java, PalmOS - they DESPERATELY cling to backwards compatibility. If FireFox wants to be a serious platform for extensions and, eventually, application development, they have to stabilize their interface, or at least provide complete backwards-compatibility. Sure, if they want to phase out interfaces over a few versions - they can go for it. But between the latest version and a just-released new version, there should NEVER be broken extensions.
-If
Re:We need steenking standards!
on
Slashdot's Vastu
·
· Score: 1
I was actually thinking of something built-in that the user will see. Sort of like the banners at the top that say that a pop-up was blocked, or that there's a plug-in required for this page... Have one with a warning exclamation point icon that says this site contains broken HTML. You want something that's not really annoying to users, but looks REALLY unprofessional.
It would have to be built-in and turned on by default, and companies would have to care enough about Firefox for it to matter - so maybe we aren't there yet...
Well, even though spaces are not technically legal in a URL, there's no actual reason to encode them in a URL, because space has no special meaning when parsing a URL, unlike [:/?&=%#+]
Also, URLs are not the only things inside HTML attributes. What about alt tags for images? Those often have spaces.
HTML was designed to be loose to encourage adoption... which worked! But now we are stuck with a good deal of broken HTML and browsers that have to do a lot of guesswork, which leads to MORE platform incompatibilities. The more regular and consistent a language is, the less errors you are going to have. Period. Things like missing quotes can be detected by the parser and are easy to fix.
I think Firefox needs to start popping up warning dialogs for bad HTML.
Now, I completely disagree that a web designer - a visual/interaction designer - should have to know all the ins and outs of all the standards. That's why you have web production people. They are two completely separate disciplines (well, three, visual and interaction design are quite different from each other).
I'm not too interested in hearing from homeschool fathers justifying their decision. I'd rather hear from homeschooled children that have had a chance to grow up and reflect a bit. Also, any actual references would be great. I admit my hypothesis has not been tested rigorously and is mostly based on personal anecdotal data.
It deprives them of important social interaction with their peers and helps build independence from their parents. I think it totally makes sense to take your child's education into your own hands, but that's not really why you should send them to school.
Well, it's all about context - housing as manufacturing jargon is not my default interpretation of the word "housing." Since I had no idea what GC meant, nor was the proper preposition used, it was difficult to figure out what was going on at all. And I don't see it as a common technical term, but industry jargon - as a programmer I don't encounter it much in that context.
Even after the update, this is an extremely confusing headline. How about not abbreviating Game Cube to GC? And I believe the corrent preposition would be "in" or "inside" not "on". "Housing?" Are we talking about Habitat for Humanity? Just because the article uses it doesn't mean we have to. How about "Case?" "Shell" would be better, too.
Normally I don't care about this stuff, but this one annoyed the hell out of me for some reason.
Douglas Adams was who I first heard of putting the milk in the teacup before adding the tea, but until I had High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC, I didn't realize how much it made a difference.
Now, unless under some extenuating circumstances, I always make loose-leaf tea in a pot and then pout into a cup with milk and sugar.
The ideal tea situation I've found thus far is to have: a) a nice, large ceramic tea pot with a good spout b) a garbage disposal c) a hot tap from a bottled water machine or something similar d) a strainer that can be placed over a cup
Glass tea pots are a waste of time - metal and glass just bleed the heat out. Something thermal would be ideal, but I've found ceramic does a good job without being hard to clean.
The garbage disposal makes loose-leaf cleanup much MUCH easier.
The hot tap means no waiting for boiling water, and you want your water to be closer to 180 degrees Fahrenheit for black tea anyway.
The strainer means you can just toss the loose leaves into your pot and give them lots of freedom to release their particles into the water.
Also, don't let your tea steep too long. Nothing is worse than bitter tea. Except maybe getting shot or something.
Finally, get high-quality leaves. I've found that Twinings loose-leaf Lady Grey is the best I can get at the local supermarket. But I'm lucky to live somewhat close to a Teavana, which is the best pan-cultural resource for tea drinkers that I've come across, though it is on the trendy/expensive side. At least you can buy a cup of tea made to spec before you decide you want to buy leaves.
Sometimes you have to compromise - at work I don't have a garbage disposal, but I do have a hot tap - Also I'm using a french press instead of a real teapot, which loses heat fast and is a big pain to clean but has the added advantage of being able to cut the leaves off when it's time. At home I have to use an electric kettle, but I can just wash the leaves down the drain...
Interestingly, orange pekoe is not a flavor, but is a classification of quality of tea - OP being the lowest. Alton Brown goes over it thoroughly in the tea episode of Good Eats.
Of course, if you are using some kind of crazy cold-brew technology you probably aren't that concerned with real tea quality. Which is totally fine, but personally I can't even use bags anymore.
Well, I think that's the traditional view, but we are starting to see real Gameplay innovations in controller hardware like the Eye-Toy and Guitar Hero. I've been playing the hell out of GH and, yes, the guitar seems sort of gimmicky at first, but without it the game would not be the immersive experience that it is. GH is a game that is nearly entirely driven by gameplay - there is nothing exciting about the technology or the graphics - the use of audio is innovative, but the audio itself isn't technically innovative.
I have less experience with the eye-toy but it seems like a platform where a lot of new ideas can come out of. Just adding a Stylus to the Game Boy had some interesting consequences like Trauma Center.
It remains to be seen whether the Revolution really provides opportunity for an enjoyable new experience, or it is just hype. The hype is so absurd at this point that it better be pretty damn significant or there will be Daikatana-like consumer backlash.
This isn't a dire enough issue for a boycott to even enter the vicinity of reality. A game company would have to be harming children or supporting international terrorism to incite an "effective boycott." Boycotting in general is just not an effective means of making change. Lawsuits, on the other hand, are highly effective... I'm all for alternatives to litigation, but let's look at new methods of protest that might work and let's avoid looking back at methods that have historically failed. Repeatedly.
In the rest of the world, "Producer" is called a "Project Manager." The term Producer comes from the game industry's sad, misguided desire to be the movie industry. Project Managers are people with the responsibility to get a project completed on-time, but with no techinical skills or authority to do anything about it.
I just have to say that static methods inside a class is "Procedural Java" and not object-oriented in any way. Applying OO analysis to this particular problem is not the best use of anyone's time, mind you...
If only OpenRPG didn't crash so much when you run it on macs...
Ok, I have to plug Gametable. http://gametable.galactanet.com/ It's somewhat more stripped-down than something like OpenRPG and many others. But, I think it's got a low cost to learn and is pretty stable on Mac/PC. Of course, I'm one of the devs on it, so don't listen to me - just try it out.
Yes. I agree, it sucks. But, the phrasing of that particular jibe just didn't really make sense as it stood. I really didn't know if he was trying to make a point, or was just using the wrong word.
The article talks about how this email exchange will help her career and such... but there's no actual evidence yet either way! From the article:
As for Ms. Abdala, she says a mea culpa "will never happen." She's living on funds provided by her father and has rented office space for her own practice. "I've never been the type to work under someone," she says.
And, sure, she's getting some free press, but the article focuses on Abdala's situation and then provides no actual resolution. She's living off of her daddy's money until she gets started. Let's check back in a few months and see what her finances look like.
I had tried this out a while ago, but it wasn't really in good enough shape to play - now it seems to be pretty decent! The mixture of retro and conteporary graphics is sort of amusing. Thanks for pointing me at this again, I'm sure to spend a bunch of time on it instead of working...:P
Fallout was great. It's one of those games that a lot of people love to hate, but I loved every bit of it. Especially since it came out at a time when tactical American-style RPGs were as dead as Adventure Games are now. The only thing we had at the time was Diablo, which was a poor substitute for a REAL RPG by any standards. Diablo entertained me for about 20 minutes - the other 10 hours were spent compulsively trying to recoup some value from the cost of the game.
Privateer was also great. I played the hell out of WC1 and WC2, and this was better than either of them. I would love to play this again, but Origin never included any kind of speed governing in their games, so it's essentially unplayable now. In this vein, Star Control II, and Starflight were also really good. In fact, I think SC2 is possibly my favorite game of all time. I love genre-busting fusion games.
Going further back, I played a lot of Might and Magic I and II. I found them superior to Wizardry's offerings, but I'm also not a masochist. M&M had the exact right balance of hardcore difficulty and good UI and player survivability for me. The automap in 2 was amazing (at the time)! Now I can't play games without an automap.
I played the hell out of Roadwar Europa as well. I actually like Roadwar 2000 better - it's not as crazy hard. But when I was a kid I didn't have it, I just had the sequel. It makes me want to check out Auto Assault, but somehow I don't think it'll be the same.
Slashdot Mirror
The jerk store called, they're running out of YOU!
-If
The difference between the CS (non-engineering) degree and the EECS (engineering) degree with the software option at my school (UC Berkeley) was... 3 semesters of physics. There were a few other minor differences, but the CS curriculum was exactly the same.
Other than what one may or may not have gotten out of those three basic (though admittedly very difficult) physics classes, I don't see how that engineering degree really taught better constrained problem solving - and it certainly didn't include more instruction on the domain.
-If
What do you mean by "see the JVM start up" ? It doesn't have an animation or anything - javac is a native stub that launches the VM and invokes the compiler. It's all within that "javac" process. Now, there is a native Java compiler: Jikes. But last I checked it was pretty outdated. Also, GJC will compile Java to native code, and it is also native, but I haven't played with it yet.
-If
Hmm, well, no other platform that I know of asks this of their application developers... Seems like if most of them are backwards-compatible, then it's the users who lose with this system. Ideally, Firefox would have a test suite that they could run on their extension API to ensure that it works consistently before they release a new version.
-If
I think as the maintainers of a platform, they have an obligation to ensure some reasonable level of backwards-compatibility. I absolutely blame FireFox - they could handle compatibility at one point, versus expecting a large community of independent, unorganized developers to coordinate themselves into release updates in time for a new release.
Look at other platforms - Windows, Java, PalmOS - they DESPERATELY cling to backwards compatibility. If FireFox wants to be a serious platform for extensions and, eventually, application development, they have to stabilize their interface, or at least provide complete backwards-compatibility. Sure, if they want to phase out interfaces over a few versions - they can go for it. But between the latest version and a just-released new version, there should NEVER be broken extensions.
-If
I was actually thinking of something built-in that the user will see. Sort of like the banners at the top that say that a pop-up was blocked, or that there's a plug-in required for this page... Have one with a warning exclamation point icon that says this site contains broken HTML. You want something that's not really annoying to users, but looks REALLY unprofessional.
It would have to be built-in and turned on by default, and companies would have to care enough about Firefox for it to matter - so maybe we aren't there yet...
-If
Well, even though spaces are not technically legal in a URL, there's no actual reason to encode them in a URL, because space has no special meaning when parsing a URL, unlike [:/?&=%#+]
Also, URLs are not the only things inside HTML attributes. What about alt tags for images? Those often have spaces.
HTML was designed to be loose to encourage adoption... which worked! But now we are stuck with a good deal of broken HTML and browsers that have to do a lot of guesswork, which leads to MORE platform incompatibilities. The more regular and consistent a language is, the less errors you are going to have. Period. Things like missing quotes can be detected by the parser and are easy to fix.
I think Firefox needs to start popping up warning dialogs for bad HTML.
Now, I completely disagree that a web designer - a visual/interaction designer - should have to know all the ins and outs of all the standards. That's why you have web production people. They are two completely separate disciplines (well, three, visual and interaction design are quite different from each other).
-If
I'm not too interested in hearing from homeschool fathers justifying their decision. I'd rather hear from homeschooled children that have had a chance to grow up and reflect a bit. Also, any actual references would be great. I admit my hypothesis has not been tested rigorously and is mostly based on personal anecdotal data.
-DG
It deprives them of important social interaction with their peers and helps build independence from their parents. I think it totally makes sense to take your child's education into your own hands, but that's not really why you should send them to school.
-If
Well, it's all about context - housing as manufacturing jargon is not my default interpretation of the word "housing." Since I had no idea what GC meant, nor was the proper preposition used, it was difficult to figure out what was going on at all. And I don't see it as a common technical term, but industry jargon - as a programmer I don't encounter it much in that context.
-If
Even after the update, this is an extremely confusing headline. How about not abbreviating Game Cube to GC? And I believe the corrent preposition would be "in" or "inside" not "on". "Housing?" Are we talking about Habitat for Humanity? Just because the article uses it doesn't mean we have to. How about "Case?" "Shell" would be better, too.
Normally I don't care about this stuff, but this one annoyed the hell out of me for some reason.
-If
Douglas Adams was who I first heard of putting the milk in the teacup before adding the tea, but until I had High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC, I didn't realize how much it made a difference.
Now, unless under some extenuating circumstances, I always make loose-leaf tea in a pot and then pout into a cup with milk and sugar.
The ideal tea situation I've found thus far is to have:
a) a nice, large ceramic tea pot with a good spout
b) a garbage disposal
c) a hot tap from a bottled water machine or something similar
d) a strainer that can be placed over a cup
Glass tea pots are a waste of time - metal and glass just bleed the heat out. Something thermal would be ideal, but I've found ceramic does a good job without being hard to clean.
The garbage disposal makes loose-leaf cleanup much MUCH easier.
The hot tap means no waiting for boiling water, and you want your water to be closer to 180 degrees Fahrenheit for black tea anyway.
The strainer means you can just toss the loose leaves into your pot and give them lots of freedom to release their particles into the water.
Also, don't let your tea steep too long. Nothing is worse than bitter tea. Except maybe getting shot or something.
Finally, get high-quality leaves. I've found that Twinings loose-leaf Lady Grey is the best I can get at the local supermarket. But I'm lucky to live somewhat close to a Teavana, which is the best pan-cultural resource for tea drinkers that I've come across, though it is on the trendy/expensive side. At least you can buy a cup of tea made to spec before you decide you want to buy leaves.
Sometimes you have to compromise - at work I don't have a garbage disposal, but I do have a hot tap - Also I'm using a french press instead of a real teapot, which loses heat fast and is a big pain to clean but has the added advantage of being able to cut the leaves off when it's time. At home I have to use an electric kettle, but I can just wash the leaves down the drain...
-If
Interestingly, orange pekoe is not a flavor, but is a classification of quality of tea - OP being the lowest. Alton Brown goes over it thoroughly in the tea episode of Good Eats.
Of course, if you are using some kind of crazy cold-brew technology you probably aren't that concerned with real tea quality. Which is totally fine, but personally I can't even use bags anymore.
-If
Well, I think that's the traditional view, but we are starting to see real Gameplay innovations in controller hardware like the Eye-Toy and Guitar Hero. I've been playing the hell out of GH and, yes, the guitar seems sort of gimmicky at first, but without it the game would not be the immersive experience that it is. GH is a game that is nearly entirely driven by gameplay - there is nothing exciting about the technology or the graphics - the use of audio is innovative, but the audio itself isn't technically innovative.
I have less experience with the eye-toy but it seems like a platform where a lot of new ideas can come out of. Just adding a Stylus to the Game Boy had some interesting consequences like Trauma Center.
It remains to be seen whether the Revolution really provides opportunity for an enjoyable new experience, or it is just hype. The hype is so absurd at this point that it better be pretty damn significant or there will be Daikatana-like consumer backlash.
-If
This isn't a dire enough issue for a boycott to even enter the vicinity of reality. A game company would have to be harming children or supporting international terrorism to incite an "effective boycott." Boycotting in general is just not an effective means of making change. Lawsuits, on the other hand, are highly effective... I'm all for alternatives to litigation, but let's look at new methods of protest that might work and let's avoid looking back at methods that have historically failed. Repeatedly.
-If
In the rest of the world, "Producer" is called a "Project Manager." The term Producer comes from the game industry's sad, misguided desire to be the movie industry. Project Managers are people with the responsibility to get a project completed on-time, but with no techinical skills or authority to do anything about it.
That isn't to say they can't be valuable...
-If
I just have to say that static methods inside a class is "Procedural Java" and not object-oriented in any way. Applying OO analysis to this particular problem is not the best use of anyone's time, mind you...
-If
Ahem. *coudon't forget gametablegh*
-If
-If
Yes. I agree, it sucks. But, the phrasing of that particular jibe just didn't really make sense as it stood. I really didn't know if he was trying to make a point, or was just using the wrong word.
-If
-If
-If
-If
I had tried this out a while ago, but it wasn't really in good enough shape to play - now it seems to be pretty decent! The mixture of retro and conteporary graphics is sort of amusing. Thanks for pointing me at this again, I'm sure to spend a bunch of time on it instead of working... :P
-If
Fallout was great. It's one of those games that a lot of people love to hate, but I loved every bit of it. Especially since it came out at a time when tactical American-style RPGs were as dead as Adventure Games are now. The only thing we had at the time was Diablo, which was a poor substitute for a REAL RPG by any standards. Diablo entertained me for about 20 minutes - the other 10 hours were spent compulsively trying to recoup some value from the cost of the game.
Privateer was also great. I played the hell out of WC1 and WC2, and this was better than either of them. I would love to play this again, but Origin never included any kind of speed governing in their games, so it's essentially unplayable now. In this vein, Star Control II, and Starflight were also really good. In fact, I think SC2 is possibly my favorite game of all time. I love genre-busting fusion games.
Going further back, I played a lot of Might and Magic I and II. I found them superior to Wizardry's offerings, but I'm also not a masochist. M&M had the exact right balance of hardcore difficulty and good UI and player survivability for me. The automap in 2 was amazing (at the time)! Now I can't play games without an automap.
I played the hell out of Roadwar Europa as well. I actually like Roadwar 2000 better - it's not as crazy hard. But when I was a kid I didn't have it, I just had the sequel. It makes me want to check out Auto Assault, but somehow I don't think it'll be the same.
-If