I'm not making any argument against Mongrel technically. I was trying to soft play it, but here's the hard version: Do you really want a piece of code in your software stack from a guy that is a loose cannon like that? Now that the cannon has gone off, do you want to be pulling updates from this guy's svn server into your software stack? A project is both about the people and the code. This is why, contrary to this guy's opinion, Rails is good (and more so on the people than the code, actually).
I can longer consider using Mongrel unless there is independent review and/or this guy's committer access is revoked. Permanently. Since the only person who can revoke it is him, for Mongrel to be useful, someone needs to fork it right now from a 'last known good' version, into an independently controlled repository.
Failing that, my message to other people using Rails is that there is alternatives to Mongrel, so don't let not wanting to use Mongrel dissuade you using Rails.
Actually, I was just making stuff up per my 'crackpot theory' line as proof that anyone can come up with some kind of theory that sounds interesting, but doesn't have any actual evidence or scientific backing.
Interestingly, the Rails community had started to 'normalize' on a framework of Apache + Mongrel in the last year or so. Some of this may have had to do with comments by the author of this article and Mongrel that lighttpd sucked (apparently because the lighttpd developers were not keeping modproxy up to date enough for him, which may or not be true - remember that Mongrel only works well to the extent that the web server proxy implementation works well as well).
Prior to this, lighttpd and fastcgi had been favored. With that guy's attitude, I suspect that Mongrel is quickly going to fall out of favor. Hell, with that outburst, I think people should be rightly concerned about using and updating Mongrel as a matter of due diligence.
The major point here is that alternatives exist and we of the lighttpd and fastcgi persuasion would like more fellows to build brain share. We promise not to swear at you quite as much.
Psychology Today is like the Glamour of psychology. If you want real scientific studies, consider the many journals of the APA (there are two of them, one psychology, one psychiatry). The only thing worse would be to read some crackpot theory on Slashdot.
On that note, this all sounds like fancy semantic correlations of the word 'dream'. Since anyone can have a theory, I propose that dreams are merely the replay of the day's events or the 'echo firing' of thoughts you have had that day. My (admittedly small) reading suggests that the conscious portions f the brain actually act more as a filter and control of a vast number of underlying random neural events rather than a generator.
It would make sense then that the conscious portions of the brain, needing to sleep at some point, shuts down the body with 'sleep paralysis' (this is state in which your motor functions are intentionally impaired and you cannot move your extremities even if you try - sometimes you can become conscious in this state briefly) and basically lets the unconscious portions of the brain have at it, which starts with the cohesive patterns the conscious brain had recently established and then, as the randomness takes hold without a controller, eventually corrupts into odd dreams. When the conscious brain starts taking control again at different times in the sleep cycles or upon awakening, this is connected to memory again and some of it bleeds over into conscious memory while the conscious portions of the brain are still establishing control.
It wouldn't hurt if all of you sitting in front of your notebooks, computers, and cellular phones with integrated cameras turned off could be bothered to wave at us once in awhile.
>The church he attends has a penchant for springing preaching duties on him at the last minute. Instead of carrying a folder full of old sermon notes, he simply carries the ASUS now
This is not a Slashdot approved use. Please confiscate it immediately. Your service to the Party is appreciated.
I'd like to see some statistics backing up this claim with code samples. I have never seen a performance problem in Ruby or any other language that was not fixed within an hour by generally simple code improvements. The developer is the cause of 99% of performance problems in any mainstream language today.
You must be a troll or never used Ruby. In all languages today, Ruby, or Python, etc., performance is a problem with the developer, not the language. Also, languages are not by themselves slow, the virtual machines or interpreters are, so saying a language is slow is nonsensical.
"Why? You seem to have some personal grudge against the guy, but you clearly have no idea the development requirements that an A-list game has."
I don't even know him and it's hard to have a personal grudge against someone you don't know. I'm saying this in a non-personal way. My overriding point is that people waste your time when they go on about vapor ware for the purpose of generating hype.
With Spore, the technical difficulties of the procedural generation that he was demoing, in the context of making an enjoyable game instead of a good demo or perhaps possible education-ware are very large and apparent to someone with a technical background in related areas. The problem sets to be solved will not be solved by junior designers an developers, and perhaps not even crack designers and developers. What I saw was him taking his focus away from the serious problems and focusing it on hyping Spore at conferences, thereby creating expectations that would be very hard to fulfill instead of tackling the difficult problems and releasing on an unsuspecting world that would then get really excited about it.
Now, if he was doing this to keep getting funding from EA, my question as an investor would be that his procedural generation demo is very impressive, but where's the game, by which I mean the game, not the technical, mechanic that is really compelling? I would view the hype as being damaging to the ultimate financial success of the game as it was creating unrealistic expectations and would tell him to stop attending conferences and work with his team to get the game mechanic worked out and game done. Also, if it is true that this project started in 2000, I would end it immediately and cut my losses because any software project that takes more than a few years to a workable 1.0 is simply out of control and unlikely to ever succeed.
> One company that tries really hard to do that is Apple, and they're constantly getting bashed from many directions due to their obsession with secrecy.
Apple has more cash on hand than all but a few companies in the world and a loyal if difficult fan base. I would submit this means you can run a business responsibly in this fashion. If consumers want, they can create their own rumors for entertainment.
Anytime someone is out going on about something that is not working through distribution channels already, it is almost certainly effectively vapor. The more vigorous their demonstration, the more probable the vapor.
It would be helpful if everyone operated under the rule of do not even tell me about it unless I can have it drop shipped today. Take away their audience, and these charlatans would go away quickly.
I said a long time ago that the guy making spore should work on his game instead of attending conferences. Guess he should read Slashdot more... oh wait.
Have you heard of XP Tablet Edition? It works fine on a tablet PC and provides everything you mentioned. There are apparently some handwriting improvements in Vista for the input panel, but nothing major. Has anyone tested to see if the tabtip.exe on Vista can be copied and run on XP as that would essentially provide all the Vista Tablet PC improvements?
If you read the rest of the comment, he then buys the same from an eBook merchant and discards the DRM files. That may be legally dubious, but I have a hard time finding an ethical fault in it except possibly for the loss of interest on those monies between the free download and payment. From a publisher perspective, not only did they get his money, but he also took up resources of someone providing it for free.
It does get a little more complicated in that there is some time spent in laying out an ebook, even if no more than connecting links and converting it into the ereader formats. It is possible in this case that the person who did this work is not rewarded by the purchase if the free version is in a different format or from a different publisher than the one he actually buys from Amazon. However, if this is properly tracked to determine who to buy from, the only ethical problems seems to be the float problem and a simultaneous free download and DRM purchase would obviate even that.
This post is to retract previous positive comments I made concerning the Nokia N810, which is on some gift lists these holidays, in the role of a Web browser and eReader. After using one for a few days, I found the Web browsing experience too slow, the resolution high, but the screen too small to read text comfortably at that resolution (zooming in essentially makes your logical viewport tiny so that text is legible, but very little of it is on screen), and had considerable difficulty in finding and installing applications on it. No multi-touch really hurts in terms of ergonomics on a screen this small.
Expectations should be more of a Linux general purpose PDA (with all the head aches that entails), not a general purpose computer, despite the marketing that makes it sound like a full PC, at least for the browsing experience. Note that it does not come with PDA software on it.
Essentially, it is not an ergonomomic or capable Web tablet, but it is an interesting "Web PDA gadget". If you are really looking for a Web tablet for around the house browsing and reading, you should probably consider a UMPC with specs matching that of at least low end general purpose notebooks and with a physical screen size in the seven to eight inch range, minimum resolution of 800x600.
While you might levy other criticisms against Rails, performance is not one that sticks. Scaling a Rails app is like scaling any other Web app framework. I'm consistently amazed that people go on with the Rails is not scalable mantra, yet they have never tried to scale a Rails app, or probably any Web app for that matter. Scalability problems generally occur at the database level anyway, which affects all Web frameworks equally.
Bottom line is trying to replicate Rails in Perl instead of figuring out how to scale Rails for your particular app smacks of not invented here syndrome, general cluelessness, and going around a horse's ass to get to its nose.
Nokia N810
The iPhone putatively requires carrier contract, has lower resolution, and isn't a full blown browser, but the N810 is. Plus the N810 is Linux and open. Whether it is Project Gutenberg, Google Books, or whatever, the N810 is perfectly positioned as a book reader and oh-by-they-way a fully functioning computer as well.
No affiliation with Nokia, just been following the latest in this area.
1. Performance. 2. Security. 3. Anything that early technical adopters care about.
It it is an epic disaster because of:
1. Lack of backward compatibility (software and hardware). 2. Non-technical people being aware of (1).
Therefore, testing whether files copy 2% faster is like exhaustively examining a bolt in a tanker that has run aground and split in half.
Re:Python is part of the answer
on
Open Source Math
·
· Score: 1
Second that on Ruby. I think Ruby is where the brain share and community is going, nothing against Python per se.
You have to be careful with Python and Ruby though. For example, I wrote a symbolic math interpreter for simplifying algebraic equations in Ruby. I then realized that I had reinvented LISP.
I do not actually program LISP, but in the end, LISP rules all as a programming language, especially when pure math is considered.
1. Insurance companies should not deny people coverage based on a genetic assessment. 2. Insurance companies should not charge a different premium based on genetic assessment.
That is not based on political correctness? Note that, if you get life insurance, they already take blood and urine tests prior to determining your premium.
People in past discussions mentioned this, but the ability to compare genes with family members may shock more than a few people who do not share as many genetic characteristics with their father and siblings as they thought. Apparently, estimates of conceptive infidelity place the natural rate at a much higher percentage than actually known to the conceived children.
Yep. Also, what we aren't hearing about is how much money AT&T lost Apple. By this, I mean those people who bought or will buy another device instead of the iPhone (or iTouch) because of having to go with AT&T or putting up with the hassle of unlocking, plus those who cared about no SDK. I had the iTouch tentatively scheduled for the Christmas list, but dumped it in favor of the Nokia tablet upcoming. If Apple hadn't gone exclusive with AT&T, I'd have an iPhone instead. How many others were there who didn't get an iPhone at all because of the AT&T relationship?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not making any argument against Mongrel technically. I was trying to soft play it, but here's the hard version: Do you really want a piece of code in your software stack from a guy that is a loose cannon like that? Now that the cannon has gone off, do you want to be pulling updates from this guy's svn server into your software stack? A project is both about the people and the code. This is why, contrary to this guy's opinion, Rails is good (and more so on the people than the code, actually).
I can longer consider using Mongrel unless there is independent review and/or this guy's committer access is revoked. Permanently. Since the only person who can revoke it is him, for Mongrel to be useful, someone needs to fork it right now from a 'last known good' version, into an independently controlled repository.
Failing that, my message to other people using Rails is that there is alternatives to Mongrel, so don't let not wanting to use Mongrel dissuade you using Rails.
Actually, I was just making stuff up per my 'crackpot theory' line as proof that anyone can come up with some kind of theory that sounds interesting, but doesn't have any actual evidence or scientific backing.
Interestingly, the Rails community had started to 'normalize' on a framework of Apache + Mongrel in the last year or so. Some of this may have had to do with comments by the author of this article and Mongrel that lighttpd sucked (apparently because the lighttpd developers were not keeping modproxy up to date enough for him, which may or not be true - remember that Mongrel only works well to the extent that the web server proxy implementation works well as well).
Prior to this, lighttpd and fastcgi had been favored. With that guy's attitude, I suspect that Mongrel is quickly going to fall out of favor. Hell, with that outburst, I think people should be rightly concerned about using and updating Mongrel as a matter of due diligence.
The major point here is that alternatives exist and we of the lighttpd and fastcgi persuasion would like more fellows to build brain share. We promise not to swear at you quite as much.
Psychology Today is like the Glamour of psychology. If you want real scientific studies, consider the many journals of the APA (there are two of them, one psychology, one psychiatry). The only thing worse would be to read some crackpot theory on Slashdot.
On that note, this all sounds like fancy semantic correlations of the word 'dream'. Since anyone can have a theory, I propose that dreams are merely the replay of the day's events or the 'echo firing' of thoughts you have had that day. My (admittedly small) reading suggests that the conscious portions f the brain actually act more as a filter and control of a vast number of underlying random neural events rather than a generator.
It would make sense then that the conscious portions of the brain, needing to sleep at some point, shuts down the body with 'sleep paralysis' (this is state in which your motor functions are intentionally impaired and you cannot move your extremities even if you try - sometimes you can become conscious in this state briefly) and basically lets the unconscious portions of the brain have at it, which starts with the cohesive patterns the conscious brain had recently established and then, as the randomness takes hold without a controller, eventually corrupts into odd dreams. When the conscious brain starts taking control again at different times in the sleep cycles or upon awakening, this is connected to memory again and some of it bleeds over into conscious memory while the conscious portions of the brain are still establishing control.
That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
Market share of what?
I didn't change my mind, I just rewrote my past comments.
It wouldn't hurt if all of you sitting in front of your notebooks, computers, and cellular phones with integrated cameras turned off could be bothered to wave at us once in awhile.
>The church he attends has a penchant for springing preaching duties on him at the last minute. Instead of carrying a folder full of old sermon notes, he simply carries the ASUS now
This is not a Slashdot approved use. Please confiscate it immediately. Your service to the Party is appreciated.
I'd like to see some statistics backing up this claim with code samples. I have never seen a performance problem in Ruby or any other language that was not fixed within an hour by generally simple code improvements. The developer is the cause of 99% of performance problems in any mainstream language today.
You must be a troll or never used Ruby. In all languages today, Ruby, or Python, etc., performance is a problem with the developer, not the language. Also, languages are not by themselves slow, the virtual machines or interpreters are, so saying a language is slow is nonsensical.
"Why? You seem to have some personal grudge against the guy, but you clearly have no idea the development requirements that an A-list game has."
I don't even know him and it's hard to have a personal grudge against someone you don't know. I'm saying this in a non-personal way. My overriding point is that people waste your time when they go on about vapor ware for the purpose of generating hype.
With Spore, the technical difficulties of the procedural generation that he was demoing, in the context of making an enjoyable game instead of a good demo or perhaps possible education-ware are very large and apparent to someone with a technical background in related areas. The problem sets to be solved will not be solved by junior designers an developers, and perhaps not even crack designers and developers. What I saw was him taking his focus away from the serious problems and focusing it on hyping Spore at conferences, thereby creating expectations that would be very hard to fulfill instead of tackling the difficult problems and releasing on an unsuspecting world that would then get really excited about it.
Now, if he was doing this to keep getting funding from EA, my question as an investor would be that his procedural generation demo is very impressive, but where's the game, by which I mean the game, not the technical, mechanic that is really compelling? I would view the hype as being damaging to the ultimate financial success of the game as it was creating unrealistic expectations and would tell him to stop attending conferences and work with his team to get the game mechanic worked out and game done. Also, if it is true that this project started in 2000, I would end it immediately and cut my losses because any software project that takes more than a few years to a workable 1.0 is simply out of control and unlikely to ever succeed.
> One company that tries really hard to do that is Apple, and they're constantly getting bashed from many directions due to their obsession with secrecy.
Apple has more cash on hand than all but a few companies in the world and a loyal if difficult fan base. I would submit this means you can run a business responsibly in this fashion. If consumers want, they can create their own rumors for entertainment.
Anytime someone is out going on about something that is not working through distribution channels already, it is almost certainly effectively vapor. The more vigorous their demonstration, the more probable the vapor.
It would be helpful if everyone operated under the rule of do not even tell me about it unless I can have it drop shipped today. Take away their audience, and these charlatans would go away quickly.
I said a long time ago that the guy making spore should work on his game instead of attending conferences. Guess he should read Slashdot more... oh wait.
Have you heard of XP Tablet Edition? It works fine on a tablet PC and provides everything you mentioned. There are apparently some handwriting improvements in Vista for the input panel, but nothing major. Has anyone tested to see if the tabtip.exe on Vista can be copied and run on XP as that would essentially provide all the Vista Tablet PC improvements?
If you read the rest of the comment, he then buys the same from an eBook merchant and discards the DRM files. That may be legally dubious, but I have a hard time finding an ethical fault in it except possibly for the loss of interest on those monies between the free download and payment. From a publisher perspective, not only did they get his money, but he also took up resources of someone providing it for free.
It does get a little more complicated in that there is some time spent in laying out an ebook, even if no more than connecting links and converting it into the ereader formats. It is possible in this case that the person who did this work is not rewarded by the purchase if the free version is in a different format or from a different publisher than the one he actually buys from Amazon. However, if this is properly tracked to determine who to buy from, the only ethical problems seems to be the float problem and a simultaneous free download and DRM purchase would obviate even that.
This post is to retract previous positive comments I made concerning the Nokia N810, which is on some gift lists these holidays, in the role of a Web browser and eReader. After using one for a few days, I found the Web browsing experience too slow, the resolution high, but the screen too small to read text comfortably at that resolution (zooming in essentially makes your logical viewport tiny so that text is legible, but very little of it is on screen), and had considerable difficulty in finding and installing applications on it. No multi-touch really hurts in terms of ergonomics on a screen this small.
Expectations should be more of a Linux general purpose PDA (with all the head aches that entails), not a general purpose computer, despite the marketing that makes it sound like a full PC, at least for the browsing experience. Note that it does not come with PDA software on it.
Essentially, it is not an ergonomomic or capable Web tablet, but it is an interesting "Web PDA gadget". If you are really looking for a Web tablet for around the house browsing and reading, you should probably consider a UMPC with specs matching that of at least low end general purpose notebooks and with a physical screen size in the seven to eight inch range, minimum resolution of 800x600.
That brings up an interesting question: What *is* his method?
While you might levy other criticisms against Rails, performance is not one that sticks. Scaling a Rails app is like scaling any other Web app framework. I'm consistently amazed that people go on with the Rails is not scalable mantra, yet they have never tried to scale a Rails app, or probably any Web app for that matter. Scalability problems generally occur at the database level anyway, which affects all Web frameworks equally.
Bottom line is trying to replicate Rails in Perl instead of figuring out how to scale Rails for your particular app smacks of not invented here syndrome, general cluelessness, and going around a horse's ass to get to its nose.
It is not huge compared to the iPhone and will comfortably fit in a pocket. Size Comparsion
Did I mention it has a removable battery so you can swap in and out on long trips (like those trans ocean flights) without having to recharge it?
Nokia N810 The iPhone putatively requires carrier contract, has lower resolution, and isn't a full blown browser, but the N810 is. Plus the N810 is Linux and open. Whether it is Project Gutenberg, Google Books, or whatever, the N810 is perfectly positioned as a book reader and oh-by-they-way a fully functioning computer as well. No affiliation with Nokia, just been following the latest in this area.
Vista is a not an epic disaster because of:
1. Performance.
2. Security.
3. Anything that early technical adopters care about.
It it is an epic disaster because of:
1. Lack of backward compatibility (software and hardware).
2. Non-technical people being aware of (1).
Therefore, testing whether files copy 2% faster is like exhaustively examining a bolt in a tanker that has run aground and split in half.
Second that on Ruby. I think Ruby is where the brain share and community is going, nothing against Python per se.
You have to be careful with Python and Ruby though. For example, I wrote a symbolic math interpreter for simplifying algebraic equations in Ruby. I then realized that I had reinvented LISP.
I do not actually program LISP, but in the end, LISP rules all as a programming language, especially when pure math is considered.
Can anyone give me an good argument as to why:
1. Insurance companies should not deny people coverage based on a genetic assessment.
2. Insurance companies should not charge a different premium based on genetic assessment.
That is not based on political correctness? Note that, if you get life insurance, they already take blood and urine tests prior to determining your premium.
People in past discussions mentioned this, but the ability to compare genes with family members may shock more than a few people who do not share as many genetic characteristics with their father and siblings as they thought. Apparently, estimates of conceptive infidelity place the natural rate at a much higher percentage than actually known to the conceived children.
Yep. Also, what we aren't hearing about is how much money AT&T lost Apple. By this, I mean those people who bought or will buy another device instead of the iPhone (or iTouch) because of having to go with AT&T or putting up with the hassle of unlocking, plus those who cared about no SDK. I had the iTouch tentatively scheduled for the Christmas list, but dumped it in favor of the Nokia tablet upcoming. If Apple hadn't gone exclusive with AT&T, I'd have an iPhone instead. How many others were there who didn't get an iPhone at all because of the AT&T relationship?