imagine... imagine. Let me explain in clear terms. I worked in the game industry for 6 years, during the 3dO times, for example.
There is NO DOUBT. The industry thinks that desktops are not the true consumer device and suspect they never will be! The true consumer general purpose computer is expected to be a console, it has to look right for the Stereo/VCR rack, it probably can't have a keyboard shipped with it because people fear the keyboard, but it will probably have to have a way to sneak one on (USB, etc).
This is strongly believed and the only question is When, and What Price Point Wins. 3DO was an early bet, proven too early.
Anyway, there is NO doubt (in my mind at least), that the Xbox is a specific attempt to use the Wintel platform to fill that imagined role as the ubiquitous "general" computer. It's also an attempt to own this platform, which so far they have just taken part in (a major, but not controlling, part), that is to de-commodotize it.
Further, it's the smartest thing about the Xbox. Having to enter through the gaming industry is rough, however, very rough. It might have been easier to just sell the Xbox as a cheap PC to begin with...?
proof please. High profit can coexist with failure.
Maybe you don't care about the failure if you've profitted, but what does does that mean to Failure.
Sports players can get high $ contracts and fail on the field.... is that failure or success. I don't care JUST what the account says to that.
With software engineering there are a lot of software engineering based "failures" that are totally orthogonal to if they were specifically financial failure.
Your's is perhaps a tunnel vision that can only think of one meaning for success.
It's marketing. The idea that you don't have to know what you are doing. Computer engineering is logic, system logic and a fair amount of important abstractions that are used as tools. That logis underlied all languages, script, VM based, compiled, etc.
If you make it easy to set something up, that's good, but if you extend that to mean you don't have to understand the logic you have just deployed, that's wrong. The benefit has to be just that it saves time in setting up the system, not that it frees you from understanding what you have just done.
Microsoft markets to the idea that it's easy AND that means you don't have to know what you are doing, but you do.
Also, a Microsoft patch is a risky thing... much more risky than the redhat patches I've been applying blindly.
why are they in competition? The education budget of California could also have saved them! Why on earth do you think precisely these two budgets are opposed?!
Guess what there isn't any of when you look at earth from space? Borders.
the costs are insignificant... more is spent advertising candy. Manned space flight from now until forever. Manned mars mission, manned jupiter missions, man in space.
software engineering is a very young craft. It's controversial, the methods are controversial, question all assumptions, especially the one's your proffessors implied you didn't have to question (what... I don't need lisp?)
Still, I like your definition. Too bad there is one way to accomplish it, although the CMM give good directions to the promised land.
but at that point the industry is there... so the question may be "What Local Workers?"
What you describe is the temporary savings of this process, eventually it returns to it's higher cost level, with the difference that the industry is no longer located in America, and you HAVE to go overseas.
there is a narrative implicite in any team sport, as you mind tracks the play of other players. Their streaks, the fact they repeatedly cheated, or which one is slow, and the patterns of their play are all abstracted.
When the game is over, you can tell how it unfolded, that part left over after the game besides the score and the sore muscles... is the narrative.
btw: I worked in the game industry and often we would shop for AI with some of the AI researchers that have great (expensive) systems to sell... I never saw anything as good as what the game industry already had, for one thing, the game industry understand the practical situation, the researchers do not.
I'll be shocked if this is particularly special, that is, that it's the solution and not just another interesting attempt at the solution.
Although the marketers don't know it... among the developer community there are a thousand old gamers that want narrative, many table top RPGers that are quite aware what computers have failed to capture regarding gameplay.
And you can see for yourself how every game evolves toward RPG. e.g. Football games where you don't just play football, you manage teams, there are famous announcers, cut scenes and replays.
According to Eddie Izzard there is a good UK space faring effort based in Swindon (sp?), consisting of a guy up a ladder, "uh, control, I'm getting closer".
(1) I can't wait until you guys find jobs in other industries... I love logic, and am quite fond of computing devices.
(2) Oh shoot, your are right, a lot of jobs are like that in IT, and you best find something else to do because we are going to automate that stuff away.
BS... honestly how people think, but still just youth-culture justifications...
>Not only that, but the ability for most people to learn complexity later in life is greatly diminished so what effectively happens is that in 30 years, the 30 years of that time will have skills that are far more advanced than the typical 60 year old.
like 30 year old scientists are always have more advanced understandings than 60 year old ones?
>the time required off from work to tend to illness is an impediment to finishing projects under budget and on time.
maybe in your imagination, but not in reality. Hitting time and budget constraints is about avoiding mistakes made in the past, which the 60 year old has more access to -- it's called experience and it does relate in this field. I'm educated in logic, that's thousands of years old, if it's new-fangled to you or other managers and you Choose to believe it's actually just voodoo that only the kids get... that's your error, though it may screw up someone elses life as well as your worthless project.
But thinking this way is running with the herd, so it will probably pay off in terms of your own job security (since your management will like the sound of stabbing the older workers in the back in the name of profit... "cool!"), which is why this sounds bitter...:)
When I started programming as a kid, I learned Apple Basic... it was great, the greatest, you could do "anything" in it. The feeling of power is great, the knowledge that you can do something with it, far better than the feeling of confusion one feels in a new product (well, I enjoy that feeling now, but in general it's only because I know down the road is the warm feeling of comfort...)
Then, six months later I learned 6502, realized Basic sucked, never wrote in it again. Now I realize that most tools have their special advantage.
Most computer engineering bigotry (and evangalism) is based on a lack of total perspective, unrealistic ideas, misplaced trust, and egotism.
I like java servelets, not too fond of many java stand alone clients... but I think that Java applets for browser might see their day still, for the reasons you mention, and also because in that context they are small applications, which Java seems to do well enough. The large stand-alone apps are much more difficult to make responsive GUIs with Swing. Though I admit I've seen it done.
Slashdot Mirror
imagine... imagine. Let me explain in clear terms. I worked in the game industry for 6 years, during the 3dO times, for example.
There is NO DOUBT. The industry thinks that desktops are not the true consumer device and suspect they never will be! The true consumer general purpose computer is expected to be a console, it has to look right for the Stereo/VCR rack, it probably can't have a keyboard shipped with it because people fear the keyboard, but it will probably have to have a way to sneak one on (USB, etc).
This is strongly believed and the only question is When, and What Price Point Wins. 3DO was an early bet, proven too early.
Anyway, there is NO doubt (in my mind at least), that the Xbox is a specific attempt to use the Wintel platform to fill that imagined role as the ubiquitous "general" computer. It's also an attempt to own this platform, which so far they have just taken part in (a major, but not controlling, part), that is to de-commodotize it.
Further, it's the smartest thing about the Xbox. Having to enter through the gaming industry is rough, however, very rough. It might have been easier to just sell the Xbox as a cheap PC to begin with...?
> High Profit != failure.
proof please. High profit can coexist with failure.
Maybe you don't care about the failure if you've profitted, but what does does that mean to Failure.
Sports players can get high $ contracts and fail on the field.... is that failure or success. I don't care JUST what the account says to that.
With software engineering there are a lot of software engineering based "failures" that are totally orthogonal to if they were specifically financial failure.
Your's is perhaps a tunnel vision that can only think of one meaning for success.
it's not at "true" standard until there is more than one implimentation for the standard.
Is there?
It's marketing. The idea that you don't have to know what you are doing. Computer engineering is logic, system logic and a fair amount of important abstractions that are used as tools. That logis underlied all languages, script, VM based, compiled, etc.
If you make it easy to set something up, that's good, but if you extend that to mean you don't have to understand the logic you have just deployed, that's wrong. The benefit has to be just that it saves time in setting up the system, not that it frees you from understanding what you have just done.
Microsoft markets to the idea that it's easy AND that means you don't have to know what you are doing, but you do.
Also, a Microsoft patch is a risky thing... much more risky than the redhat patches I've been applying blindly.
why are they in competition? The education budget of California could also have saved them! Why on earth do you think precisely these two budgets are opposed?!
Guess what there isn't any of when you look at earth from space? Borders.
the costs are insignificant... more is spent advertising candy. Manned space flight from now until forever. Manned mars mission, manned jupiter missions, man in space.
To the stars.
don't believe your textbook so much.
software engineering is a very young craft. It's controversial, the methods are controversial, question all assumptions, especially the one's your proffessors implied you didn't have to question (what... I don't need lisp?)
Still, I like your definition. Too bad there is one way to accomplish it, although the CMM give good directions to the promised land.
but at that point the industry is there... so the question may be "What Local Workers?"
What you describe is the temporary savings of this process, eventually it returns to it's higher cost level, with the difference that the industry is no longer located in America, and you HAVE to go overseas.
... coincidence? I think not. They are teleporting them to civilian hospitals!
there is a narrative implicite in any team sport, as you mind tracks the play of other players. Their streaks, the fact they repeatedly cheated, or which one is slow, and the patterns of their play are all abstracted.
When the game is over, you can tell how it unfolded, that part left over after the game besides the score and the sore muscles... is the narrative.
btw: I worked in the game industry and often we would shop for AI with some of the AI researchers that have great (expensive) systems to sell... I never saw anything as good as what the game industry already had, for one thing, the game industry understand the practical situation, the researchers do not.
I'll be shocked if this is particularly special, that is, that it's the solution and not just another interesting attempt at the solution.
Although the marketers don't know it... among the developer community there are a thousand old gamers that want narrative, many table top RPGers that are quite aware what computers have failed to capture regarding gameplay.
And you can see for yourself how every game evolves toward RPG. e.g. Football games where you don't just play football, you manage teams, there are famous announcers, cut scenes and replays.
TLA - Three Letter Acronymn.
offtopic!!!??
no, this is the best way.
waterfalls... yuck!
in old soviet russia, 8086 programs YOU!
According to Eddie Izzard there is a good UK space faring effort based in Swindon (sp?), consisting of a guy up a ladder, "uh, control, I'm getting closer".
they practically all have 401Ks unless they are too small to qualify as a client for the companies that run 401Ks. (in the US, YMMV)
(1) I can't wait until you guys find jobs in other industries... I love logic, and am quite fond of computing devices.
(2) Oh shoot, your are right, a lot of jobs are like that in IT, and you best find something else to do because we are going to automate that stuff away.
BS... honestly how people think, but still just youth-culture justifications...
:)
>Not only that, but the ability for most people to learn complexity later in life is greatly diminished so what effectively happens is that in 30 years, the 30 years of that time will have skills that are far more advanced than the typical 60 year old.
like 30 year old scientists are always have more advanced understandings than 60 year old ones?
>the time required off from work to tend to illness is an impediment to finishing projects under budget and on time.
maybe in your imagination, but not in reality. Hitting time and budget constraints is about avoiding mistakes made in the past, which the 60 year old has more access to -- it's called experience and it does relate in this field. I'm educated in logic, that's thousands of years old, if it's new-fangled to you or other managers and you Choose to believe it's actually just voodoo that only the kids get... that's your error, though it may screw up someone elses life as well as your worthless project.
But thinking this way is running with the herd, so it will probably pay off in terms of your own job security (since your management will like the sound of stabbing the older workers in the back in the name of profit... "cool!"), which is why this sounds bitter...
the bigotry comes from a lack of knowledge.
When I started programming as a kid, I learned Apple Basic... it was great, the greatest, you could do "anything" in it. The feeling of power is great, the knowledge that you can do something with it, far better than the feeling of confusion one feels in a new product (well, I enjoy that feeling now, but in general it's only because I know down the road is the warm feeling of comfort...)
Then, six months later I learned 6502, realized Basic sucked, never wrote in it again. Now I realize that most tools have their special advantage.
Most computer engineering bigotry (and evangalism) is based on a lack of total perspective, unrealistic ideas, misplaced trust, and egotism.
hmmm, maybe they should be that big then... maybe they shouldn't try to control every market if they are "too" big...
Time for volluntary divestiture... send your advice today!
Ah, that explains it.
I like java servelets, not too fond of many java stand alone clients... but I think that Java applets for browser might see their day still, for the reasons you mention, and also because in that context they are small applications, which Java seems to do well enough. The large stand-alone apps are much more difficult to make responsive GUIs with Swing. Though I admit I've seen it done.
what do you mean by "the only way"
wow, the spelling there is nice, but the word checking is bad even for me...
:( Oh yeah, I stole it, I killed someone elses joke! (Steve Martin).
"I will think" and "I will express"
gee, I killed my joke.
Ok, this is terrible and we all need to remember we don't want to be conformists so it's time for the non-conformist oath. Please say aloud:
. I am an individual
. I have my own ideas
. I with think what I want to think
. I well express myself freely
. I will not repeat things other people say.
Repeat five times. Thank you. (stolen and paraphrased...)
why are you even reading this thread?
I believe it is far more interesting and justifiable to watch your own machine as the wave hits than it is to read about it in a slashdot thread...
I mean... he's actually experiencing it! You're living vicariously through his geekiness!!! So it's clear you actually are more pathetic.
Now I was sad when my logs didn't show anything... where does that put me on the scale. I should be playing Sim City 4 with my daughter.