Normally, yes. However, the Dreamcast still had a lot of points working against it, besides its inferior software library: - it came with the worst controller ever - it had the loudest optical media drive ever in a console - it didn't loudly announce "SEEGAAAA" when you turned it on
If you get QuickBasic 4.5, it comes with a reference book. This book kicks mucho ass. Any other book on QBasic or QuickBasic is simply redundant, because that reference book had anything and everything you ever needed or wanted to know about the language.
And it's a good read. I remember a track meet I went to in elementary school, where I spent at least half the time reading that book..
Incidentally, QuickBasic 4.5 has amazing online documentation. Anything and everything about the language is documented in there. Very useful.
If I were you, I'd go looking around for a used copy of QuickBasic 4.5, and make sure you get the ref manual with it. It's definitely a worthwhile investment, for someone who's just learning, and for anyone who wants to actually do something with QuickBasic.
For those of you who are wondering "why the heck would he choose qbasic," let me just say this in qbasic's defense. It really is still the best language out there for the average beginning programmer. QBasic's included with all the early Microsoft OSes, so it's on all the old hand-me-downs from yesterday. And it's fun.
I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for QB. I've used Borland Pascal, which was amazing, but flawed in it's graphics. (BGI was a pain in the ass; everybody wrote their own graphics lib instead.) By comparison, QB's elegant..
SCREEN 13 CIRCLE 100, 100, 50, 3..was so much closer to the metal.
Ah, QB.. *sigh*... You were the perfect language, at the time..
I'm ashamed that I never got to experience anything like this while earning my university degree. It sounds like it'd be a real gas, and you'd learn a lot from it. The closest we had was an assembler class, which barely went into detail on how memory addressing worked, much less putting actual components into our hands, or telling us how to design something in VHDL. I feel a little gypped.:)
If there is enough Demand for Beta positions, and a limited Supply due to bandwidth, then you have to limit the Demand. One excellent way is by charging a fee to join the Beta.
As an aside, when RagnarokOnline switched to a paid beta a while back, the community improved. People who had nothing to lose because they hadn't paid were pricks; they'd steal kills, and steal your loot before you could grab it. Behaviour like this decreased when they switched to a paid beta, because they now had money invested in the game.
My guess is that this is probably just a stop-gap to get us hooked on this method of rental. Then when the next DVD format comes out, they'll make sure it has a new encryption format that takes longer than 48 hours to break into on a 50GHz PC.
But that's just being deathly cynical. Honestly, there are a lot of advantages to this format: - Cheap rental - You don't have to return it within a certain amount of time; you can keep it as long as you want before you break the packaging. Think of it as a time-shifted movie rental. - Recyclable - Works in current DVD players
The only thing I'd be worried about is the packaging. I wouldn't want to accidentally get one that wasn't still "fresh." Perhaps they'll have a window on them that you can look through, to see if they're still fresh or not; that'd certainly be handy. Even better, maybe they could have a small sample of the color-changing material in said window, so that it would serve as an early-warning indicator if the package were punctured recently. (Like, say, 10-15 seconds?) That'd help while buying at the store. Or on your way home from the store, if you accidentally scraped it with your keys or dropped it or something..
(Pssst. If it wasn't patented before, and someone patents this idea now, I'm kickin' yer ass. Consider this prior art, blah blah blah.;)
Still buggy for Dreamcast
on
GCC 3.3 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's a shame that no one managed to fix bug #10392 before release. Until that one's fixed, those of us who do Dreamcast hacking are stuck using GCC 3.0.4.
Java doesn't need them, but man are they nice. It's compile-time checking, which is very useful. Plus it saves time by not requiring you to cast their types coming out of the collections.
Personally, I think this is wonderful. One of the things that annoyed me to no end whenever I first started using Java was how long of a line you had to type just to do something as simple as pulling a value out of a collection and using it. With this, it's finally at the level I'd like it to be at.
As for those of you complaining about a lack of templates, they may be speedy, but they go against the object oriented nature of Java. With Java's collections, everything compiles to just one implementation, and can be reused in its byte-code form without your compiler ever having to touch its source. With a template, you have to recompile the entire class for each type you use it with. Imo, Java has taken the more object-oriented approach.
I know some people think the trade-off in speed isn't worth it, but I disagree; having that byte-code/source one-to-one mapping can be a real blessing.
It's already been done in Britain, iirc. I remember seeing a short piece on a news program a while back about some poor couple who were living on a city block with a camera mounted on the pole outside. Because of where it was mounted, it had the freedom to turn to look through their windows. The piece was about how they were trying to get whomever had installed the camera to put limiters on it so the people operating the cam would stop peeping on them all the time.
Rez is absolutely amazing. Too few people have given it a go, imo. That last level is just... wow.. May not be my favorite level, but still wow.:) To be honest, I still haven't finished it. I guess I should probably do that today. (Just finished univ.; suddenly have lots of free time before I get a job.;)
Incidentally, I wish they'd hurry up and do their production run of the new Dreamcast BBAs. It's getting more than a little annoying; I could really use mine now..
Yeah, well, after he sold out by doing that American Pie/Episode One song, I think any credibility he had as a parody artist kinda disappeared. It's a fine line between parody artist who asks if it's okay, and looking like a corporate shill by essentially advertising a crappy movie..
Slashdot Mirror
Normally, yes. However, the Dreamcast still had a lot of points working against it, besides its inferior software library:
- it came with the worst controller ever
- it had the loudest optical media drive ever in a console
- it didn't loudly announce "SEEGAAAA" when you turned it on
These are the real reasons the Dreamcast failed.
True, but I seriously doubt you're going to see a hand-me-down computer, at this day in age, with anything less than MS-DOS 5.0 installed on it.
If you get QuickBasic 4.5, it comes with a reference book. This book kicks mucho ass. Any other book on QBasic or QuickBasic is simply redundant, because that reference book had anything and everything you ever needed or wanted to know about the language.
..was so much closer to the metal.
And it's a good read. I remember a track meet I went to in elementary school, where I spent at least half the time reading that book..
Incidentally, QuickBasic 4.5 has amazing online documentation. Anything and everything about the language is documented in there. Very useful.
If I were you, I'd go looking around for a used copy of QuickBasic 4.5, and make sure you get the ref manual with it. It's definitely a worthwhile investment, for someone who's just learning, and for anyone who wants to actually do something with QuickBasic.
For those of you who are wondering "why the heck would he choose qbasic," let me just say this in qbasic's defense. It really is still the best language out there for the average beginning programmer. QBasic's included with all the early Microsoft OSes, so it's on all the old hand-me-downs from yesterday. And it's fun.
I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for QB. I've used Borland Pascal, which was amazing, but flawed in it's graphics. (BGI was a pain in the ass; everybody wrote their own graphics lib instead.) By comparison, QB's elegant..
SCREEN 13
CIRCLE 100, 100, 50, 3
Ah, QB.. *sigh*... You were the perfect language, at the time..
I'm ashamed that I never got to experience anything like this while earning my university degree. It sounds like it'd be a real gas, and you'd learn a lot from it. The closest we had was an assembler class, which barely went into detail on how memory addressing worked, much less putting actual components into our hands, or telling us how to design something in VHDL. I feel a little gypped. :)
That has got to be the coolest CS project I have ever heard of. :) What college/university did you attend?
Anyone else immediately think of Pogo the Monkey?
I hope you guys realize that it's only an acrynom if it's pronounced as a word.
..but is it an acronym?
Ahh..
Say what you will about these guys, but I think its better they did this in a game, rather than going out and shooting up a school or something.
Welcome to Economics 101; Supply and Demand.
If there is enough Demand for Beta positions, and a limited Supply due to bandwidth, then you have to limit the Demand. One excellent way is by charging a fee to join the Beta.
As an aside, when RagnarokOnline switched to a paid beta a while back, the community improved. People who had nothing to lose because they hadn't paid were pricks; they'd steal kills, and steal your loot before you could grab it. Behaviour like this decreased when they switched to a paid beta, because they now had money invested in the game.
Class dismissed.
Yes it does.
Apparently you've never thrown apt-get into your crontab..
I hope I'm not the only one who clicked through out of curiosity. ._.;
It's interesting that, like, six sponsored site links popped up for that, though. I think that's the largest number I've ever seen..
Perhaps.
;)
My guess is that this is probably just a stop-gap to get us hooked on this method of rental. Then when the next DVD format comes out, they'll make sure it has a new encryption format that takes longer than 48 hours to break into on a 50GHz PC.
But that's just being deathly cynical. Honestly, there are a lot of advantages to this format:
- Cheap rental
- You don't have to return it within a certain amount of time; you can keep it as long as you want before you break the packaging. Think of it as a time-shifted movie rental.
- Recyclable
- Works in current DVD players
The only thing I'd be worried about is the packaging. I wouldn't want to accidentally get one that wasn't still "fresh." Perhaps they'll have a window on them that you can look through, to see if they're still fresh or not; that'd certainly be handy. Even better, maybe they could have a small sample of the color-changing material in said window, so that it would serve as an early-warning indicator if the package were punctured recently. (Like, say, 10-15 seconds?) That'd help while buying at the store. Or on your way home from the store, if you accidentally scraped it with your keys or dropped it or something..
(Pssst. If it wasn't patented before, and someone patents this idea now, I'm kickin' yer ass. Consider this prior art, blah blah blah.
Frankenrat. Wonderful.
It's a shame that no one managed to fix bug #10392 before release. Until that one's fixed, those of us who do Dreamcast hacking are stuck using GCC 3.0.4.
Java doesn't need them, but man are they nice. It's compile-time checking, which is very useful. Plus it saves time by not requiring you to cast their types coming out of the collections.
Personally, I think this is wonderful. One of the things that annoyed me to no end whenever I first started using Java was how long of a line you had to type just to do something as simple as pulling a value out of a collection and using it. With this, it's finally at the level I'd like it to be at.
As for those of you complaining about a lack of templates, they may be speedy, but they go against the object oriented nature of Java. With Java's collections, everything compiles to just one implementation, and can be reused in its byte-code form without your compiler ever having to touch its source. With a template, you have to recompile the entire class for each type you use it with. Imo, Java has taken the more object-oriented approach.
I know some people think the trade-off in speed isn't worth it, but I disagree; having that byte-code/source one-to-one mapping can be a real blessing.
It's already been done in Britain, iirc. I remember seeing a short piece on a news program a while back about some poor couple who were living on a city block with a camera mounted on the pole outside. Because of where it was mounted, it had the freedom to turn to look through their windows. The piece was about how they were trying to get whomever had installed the camera to put limiters on it so the people operating the cam would stop peeping on them all the time.
Rez is absolutely amazing. Too few people have given it a go, imo. That last level is just ... wow.. May not be my favorite level, but still wow. :) To be honest, I still haven't finished it. I guess I should probably do that today. (Just finished univ.; suddenly have lots of free time before I get a job. ;)
Incidentally, I wish they'd hurry up and do their production run of the new Dreamcast BBAs. It's getting more than a little annoying; I could really use mine now..
Maybe "Slashdot Reading List"?
But then, of course, you'd be implying that the people who work at Slashdot would be reading these books, so...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the swastika predate Nazi-ism by several thousand years?
Agreed.
Why not a pixellated version of the logo instead? That purple.. burns..
That would be here. :)
Yeah, well, after he sold out by doing that American Pie/Episode One song, I think any credibility he had as a parody artist kinda disappeared. It's a fine line between parody artist who asks if it's okay, and looking like a corporate shill by essentially advertising a crappy movie..
Now Fett's Vette, on the other hand....
Ugh, man.. do they ever need a hand model.. look at those fingernails! I mean... augh... I think I'm gonna be sick..
Actually, that'd probably kinda freak me out...