SWT is an interesting "under the covers" bit of information, but its not important to the way you're using the application. Eclipse (unlike most branded IDEs) doesn't have, in addition to its main features, this hidden motive to get you to use their vendor-lock-in widgets and toolsets.
If you want to use SWT, fine, its interesting, but don't get the idea that using Eclipse somehow leads you to SWT.
I'd use Eclipse if they decided to write it in cobol, so long as it works the way it does. CVS integration, and so many things that "just work the way you'd want them to", and good linux support. I don't have a lot of things left on my wish list, really.
-Zipwow
What will the availability of new games be?
on
Games on Demand
·
· Score: 1
I would suspect that you won't be able to play the latest and greatest from this service, perhaps again the 'occasional gamer' market.
I suppose that wouldn't change a great deal for me, since I refuse to give over $45 for a game, I end up waiting a month or two anyhow.
mbbac wrote: "There isn't any sandboxing with Java applications. Only the applets that run in an applet viewer (like a browser). "
This isn't technically correct. The SecurityManager in Java can be configured to allow or disallow many actions, not all of which are even enabled by the defaults you get with a standalone Java application.
Granted, for applications, you specify the security manager at JVM startup, but still, if you're not writing a networked app, your script can tell the JVM not to allow those kinds of actions. This is a key thing to do if you're accessing code from elsewhere (like allowing people to drop objects on you in RMI with their codebase elsewhere).
The original poster's point was that this is exactly the thing that client-side Java applets were delivering several years ago, before the big MS/Netscape breakdown.
Its this same ability, in its more robust form, that scared MS so much as to prompt its actions against MS/Sun. (along with Scott McNealy's taunting, of course. Shame on him to believe that he could hide behind the protection of the law...)
As a side note, how fully-featured is Flash? Can I do encryption? Query databases? Communicate to remote objects? Manipulate large datasets? Is it OO? I'm not insinuating that the answers to these are false, I'm asking because I don't know.
This is the most lenient copyright on the whole market, more specific and probably more broad than any other.
Do you think you'd get away with quoting 500 sentences (I know, sentence != verse, but its close) out of the latest Grisham novel?
And its not like they're gouging you for a copy of the NRSV, you can pick one up for a few bucks.
And heck, even the site you linked to as "proof" of their policies has a free, online copy of the thing, although I prefer the following link, its a bit better organized:
I play UO, not EQ, but the same system exists there.
As I understand it, there are two sources for this money, the first is plain buying it. The people who run the site know the "exchange rate" on their different servers, and simple offer a lesser amount to sell to them directly, and/or watch eBay auctions for profitable trades.
The other source, and an interesting side benefit, is cross-server transactions. If you have 20 plat on Ballhae, and want to move it to your character on Yahona, then you contact them. Based on the different economies of the shards (in UO, older shards have more inflation), they give you an exchange rate, and charge 10% of the transaction. So your 20 plat on Ballhae turns into 18 plat after the transaction, which (if the exchange rate is 1:1) is given to your Yahona character.
The fee they collect from that is then directly offered for sale.
Other variations on this theme (large item brokering, etc) can help people with money and trust (and time) make more money.
The only thing its really missing is investing, but there aren't enough consequences to make this really viable. Skipping out on character-to-character in-game money loans doesn't involve hiding from the virtual authorities, it just involves taking the money and saying "stfu!".
Granted, if you had a huge guild or something, you could possibly enforce this with some kind of 'blacklist', but I haven't heard of it working.
Okay, so if its an individual, clearly things will be figured out early on.
However, what if its a competing business? If someone calls up XYZ company and says, "I saw your ad, I'd like to buy some of your things.." I'm sure the business in question will be more than happy to oblige them. Is there anything else that could be done to demonstrate that they didn't put the signs up in the first place?
I suppose its the same question in the US without a phone number. Say you print a bunch of stickers with your competition's name on them, then put them in places that are obviously vandalizing, like car windshields. Does the business get in trouble?
Maybe I'm just spoiled, but rather than fetching the giant re-installer, is there some way that mozilla can upgrade itself? For all the complaining that web developers do about people out there still running Mosaic v0.9b, it amazes me this isn't a primary feature.
Not that I'm saying you should quit doing this, but they do know its not a cellphone.
As another poster described (and I am repeating), phone numbers are portioned by interchanges, the three digits after the area code and before the four-digit part.
Cellphone carriers sign up in a particular area code, and are given a set of interchanges, from which they apportion their numbers. Its this interchange number that allows them to get calls into and out of the standard phone networks.
That's how I understand it anyway. Presumably the telemarketers are able to get a listing of interchanges from the phone company that are owned by cellphones...
The point the article was making is that they select people at random within a demographic, and give them *different* prices. They call this scientific pricing because they maintain other people as the 'control', then gauge how you, the experimental group react to the new prices.
Since the selection is random I don't see an obvious way to exploit it, with the possible exception of re-loading to see if the price changes. Presumably Amazon has some system for preventing that (like requiring you to log in).
One of the interesting conclusions from many of the retailers interviewed in the article was that discounts should be smaller, but sooner. That sounds good to me, since in general I'm too lazy and impatient to wait around for the 'big sale', and end up paying higher prices. Maybe that same sentiment is why it works?
Every time you issue a 'change command', it first makes the change in memory, then records just that command to disk, very much like a journaling file system as I understand it.
Then, presumably, you also change your object in memory to match. If the whole system comes down, then when you start again, it loads its 'starting point', probably from yesterday, and then executes those recorded commands.
Furthermore, future 'reads' on that data aren't blocked by the disk i/o. They wait for the object in memory to change (quick) and pretty much ignore the disk write.
Where I think you're getting confused is that periodically, it goes through the system and makes a new 'starting point', presumably during a period of low utilization (like at night).
I don't know what your comment about never joining tables would mean, this wouldn't have 'tables', but would have objects as you've designed them. Presumably you've designed your objects so that they're accessible in some natural and convenient way. If you haven't, you ought to fix that...
"The earths's RF output is raidly becoming indistinguishable from white noise, and from any reasonable distance will be swamped by the much bigger white noise generator nearby (the Sun)."
I've always found it amusing to imagine that many of the stronger sources of white noise outside our solar system are not the stellar objects we believe them to be, but encrypted communications devices for the multitudinous ETs we've been looking so hard to find.
Maybe that's what keeps me up at night. That and this foil hat...
You may already know this, but when you said, "... Say you know a select should return x number of values..." it reminded me this bit of wisdom:
If you have mock database connections, don't let the name fool you. They're not database connections, and you shouldn't implement any kind of whole 'layer' in a mock database connection.
Which means, if you can hand your code that is under test a mock connection, don't have one "mock connection" for the whole system. Make a "mockMyThingConnection" that (if it can) stores off the requests in order, and returns a predetermined set of results. Then check the requests to be sure they're what you expected.
The simplest case of this is where you have something that makes one simple query, like looking up a country. Your unit test can make a simple mockConnection (heck, it could be anonymous , even) that will check that the request it gets fits some sanity values (asks for the country table and includes the code passed in, for example) and then returns the result you expect the real data layer to give you.
This mockCountryConnection is *only* for this test case, and is trivial to write.
You're right that you won't catch any problems with the data layer for this kind of unit test, but then again, you're not testing the data layer. Presumably, you have other unit tests for the data layer, then integration tests (perhaps monkey-based*) for the interaction between them.
I tell myself every day, "MockObjects do not have to do anything resembling the full contract of the objects they replace".
-Zipwow
* Monkey-Based Integration Tests: This is our current approach where I work. It involves one or more non-automated semi-intelligent button-pushers who follow a rigorous training program before going bannanas on the application.
Unfortunately, we're non-optimal in our implementation of this because we have extra-intelligent humanoids doing the heavily scripted (but not automated) button-pushing. This is non-optimal because their talents of interface evaluation, and non-obvious error detection aren't being fully utilized.
Why would you throw away 65 billion years (or however many years life has been evolving on this old rock) to start from square one on another planet?
Because terraforming Mars would risk only the population of Mars (currently zero). Terraforming Earth would risk the population of Earth. The consequences of the latter are rather larger than the former.
Let's deal with where we are right now, instead of looking to far off places when there are problems in front of us.
Why can't we do both? There's no reason to trash this planet, but having another rock to go to if something goes horribly wrong seems like a wise thing to do.
But the original poster is making the point that the appropriate time for licenses is at the time that you're transferring the money, or making agreements to pay. After that, as you point out, you've given up your right of ownership.
Similarly with the software, the store (or producer) should present you the license when you're giving them the money (at the store), and after that, they've given up all their rights to it, with the exception of the standard copyrights, etc.
When everything is fixed in version 1.3.1, it does get called 1.3.2. You call it 1.4 when you add features. Refusing to release a 1.3.2 is the same as refusing to fix bugs.
True enough, but my understanding was that the approach to fixing some of the 1.3.1 fixes was to dramatically change the approach to the problem, hence the 'fix' is no longer backwards compatible, and called 1.4. I think this is, very often, a reasonable approach.
Haven't you noticed that most Java 1.1 programs won't compile under Java 1.4 without massive deprecation warnings? Most of these programs were 100% legal java programs when written, following Sun's documentation to the letter.
I think the original poster meant in minor versions, like between 1.4.0 and 1.4.1. Even then, the big sin would be dropping classes, as adding new ones (to fix a bug, for example) wouldn't break backwards compatibility. Unless you were depending on the problem, of course.
[the java executable] has to reserve 26Mb of memory (and the classloader takes forever)
I think this is the biggest point to be made in the memo, and your best point. Why must classloading take so long?
If they're arguing that "your credit history indicates your responsibility as an employee" you should be able to argue that the credit history of your direct supervisor's credit history, and the credit history of every manager up to the CEO will have an impact on the stability of the company you're joining.
Basically, I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
A similar argument would hold for drug testing, I would think.
I wish I'd have thought of this when I was recently required to do this. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to say no. Sadder still, I actually like the company with very few reservations.
Instead Philips developed the standard themselves with Sony's help and both licensed it to everyone, up front, with clear and open terms. And, Philips is rather adamant about defending the standard as well. All of these "copy protected" audio discs aren't allowed to use the "Compact Disc" logo, you'll notice. Philips won't let them.
Wow, I didn't know that. Has Phillips done any awful things in the meantime, or can I actually like an electronics company for once?
I'd think that this is one of those classic situations where you tell Visa that the product did not meet its advertised specifications, that you're not going to pay for it, and would be happy to return it.
Slashdot Mirror
SWT is an interesting "under the covers" bit of information, but its not important to the way you're using the application. Eclipse (unlike most branded IDEs) doesn't have, in addition to its main features, this hidden motive to get you to use their vendor-lock-in widgets and toolsets.
If you want to use SWT, fine, its interesting, but don't get the idea that using Eclipse somehow leads you to SWT.
I'd use Eclipse if they decided to write it in cobol, so long as it works the way it does. CVS integration, and so many things that "just work the way you'd want them to", and good linux support. I don't have a lot of things left on my wish list, really.
-Zipwow
I would suspect that you won't be able to play the latest and greatest from this service, perhaps again the 'occasional gamer' market.
I suppose that wouldn't change a great deal for me, since I refuse to give over $45 for a game, I end up waiting a month or two anyhow.
-Zipwow
mbbac wrote: "There isn't any sandboxing with Java applications. Only the applets that run in an applet viewer (like a browser). "
This isn't technically correct. The SecurityManager in Java can be configured to allow or disallow many actions, not all of which are even enabled by the defaults you get with a standalone Java application.
Granted, for applications, you specify the security manager at JVM startup, but still, if you're not writing a networked app, your script can tell the JVM not to allow those kinds of actions. This is a key thing to do if you're accessing code from elsewhere (like allowing people to drop objects on you in RMI with their codebase elsewhere).
-Zipwow
The original poster's point was that this is exactly the thing that client-side Java applets were delivering several years ago, before the big MS/Netscape breakdown.
Its this same ability, in its more robust form, that scared MS so much as to prompt its actions against MS/Sun. (along with Scott McNealy's taunting, of course. Shame on him to believe that he could hide behind the protection of the law...)
As a side note, how fully-featured is Flash? Can I do encryption? Query databases? Communicate to remote objects? Manipulate large datasets? Is it OO? I'm not insinuating that the answers to these are false, I'm asking because I don't know.
-Zipwow
This is the most lenient copyright on the whole market, more specific and probably more broad than any other.
Do you think you'd get away with quoting 500 sentences (I know, sentence != verse, but its close) out of the latest Grisham novel?
And its not like they're gouging you for a copy of the NRSV, you can pick one up for a few bucks.
And heck, even the site you linked to as "proof" of their policies has a free, online copy of the thing, although I prefer the following link, its a bit better organized:
http://www.devotions.net/bible/00bible.htm
-Zipwow
I play UO, not EQ, but the same system exists there.
As I understand it, there are two sources for this money, the first is plain buying it. The people who run the site know the "exchange rate" on their different servers, and simple offer a lesser amount to sell to them directly, and/or watch eBay auctions for profitable trades.
The other source, and an interesting side benefit, is cross-server transactions. If you have 20 plat on Ballhae, and want to move it to your character on Yahona, then you contact them. Based on the different economies of the shards (in UO, older shards have more inflation), they give you an exchange rate, and charge 10% of the transaction. So your 20 plat on Ballhae turns into 18 plat after the transaction, which (if the exchange rate is 1:1) is given to your Yahona character.
The fee they collect from that is then directly offered for sale.
Other variations on this theme (large item brokering, etc) can help people with money and trust (and time) make more money.
The only thing its really missing is investing, but there aren't enough consequences to make this really viable. Skipping out on character-to-character in-game money loans doesn't involve hiding from the virtual authorities, it just involves taking the money and saying "stfu!".
Granted, if you had a huge guild or something, you could possibly enforce this with some kind of 'blacklist', but I haven't heard of it working.
-Zipwow
Okay, so if its an individual, clearly things will be figured out early on.
However, what if its a competing business? If someone calls up XYZ company and says, "I saw your ad, I'd like to buy some of your things.." I'm sure the business in question will be more than happy to oblige them. Is there anything else that could be done to demonstrate that they didn't put the signs up in the first place?
I suppose its the same question in the US without a phone number. Say you print a bunch of stickers with your competition's name on them, then put them in places that are obviously vandalizing, like car windshields. Does the business get in trouble?
-Zipwow
Maybe I'm just spoiled, but rather than fetching the giant re-installer, is there some way that mozilla can upgrade itself? For all the complaining that web developers do about people out there still running Mosaic v0.9b, it amazes me this isn't a primary feature.
-Zipwow
That's the part I was forgetting. The torus==doughnut was getting me confused, and I forgot that inner 'circumference' == outer 'circumference'.
If it isn't obvious already, my understanding of the torus is tenuous at best.
Thanks again,
Zipwow
Not that I'm saying you should quit doing this, but they do know its not a cellphone.
As another poster described (and I am repeating), phone numbers are portioned by interchanges, the three digits after the area code and before the four-digit part.
Cellphone carriers sign up in a particular area code, and are given a set of interchanges, from which they apportion their numbers. Its this interchange number that allows them to get calls into and out of the standard phone networks.
That's how I understand it anyway. Presumably the telemarketers are able to get a listing of interchanges from the phone company that are owned by cellphones...
-Zipwow
How does this 'torus getting larger' (I'm eschewing the 'donut') idea relate to the space in the middle of the torus?
-Zipwow
Yes, and we also have *always* been at war with Oceana. :P
-Zipwow
The point the article was making is that they select people at random within a demographic, and give them *different* prices. They call this scientific pricing because they maintain other people as the 'control', then gauge how you, the experimental group react to the new prices.
Since the selection is random I don't see an obvious way to exploit it, with the possible exception of re-loading to see if the price changes. Presumably Amazon has some system for preventing that (like requiring you to log in).
One of the interesting conclusions from many of the retailers interviewed in the article was that discounts should be smaller, but sooner. That sounds good to me, since in general I'm too lazy and impatient to wait around for the 'big sale', and end up paying higher prices. Maybe that same sentiment is why it works?
-Zipwow
I think you misread the article.
Every time you issue a 'change command', it first makes the change in memory, then records just that command to disk, very much like a journaling file system as I understand it.
Then, presumably, you also change your object in memory to match. If the whole system comes down, then when you start again, it loads its 'starting point', probably from yesterday, and then executes those recorded commands.
Furthermore, future 'reads' on that data aren't blocked by the disk i/o. They wait for the object in memory to change (quick) and pretty much ignore the disk write.
Where I think you're getting confused is that periodically, it goes through the system and makes a new 'starting point', presumably during a period of low utilization (like at night).
I don't know what your comment about never joining tables would mean, this wouldn't have 'tables', but would have objects as you've designed them. Presumably you've designed your objects so that they're accessible in some natural and convenient way. If you haven't, you ought to fix that...
-Zipwow
"The earths's RF output is raidly becoming indistinguishable from white noise, and from any reasonable distance will be swamped by the much bigger white noise generator nearby (the Sun)."
I've always found it amusing to imagine that many of the stronger sources of white noise outside our solar system are not the stellar objects we believe them to be, but encrypted communications devices for the multitudinous ETs we've been looking so hard to find.
Maybe that's what keeps me up at night. That and this foil hat...
-Zipwow
Shouldn't that be:
New President *W* is elected and drops the suit. (Open Source world watches history repeat itself)
-Zipwow
You may already know this, but when you said, "... Say you know a select should return x number of values..." it reminded me this bit of wisdom:
If you have mock database connections, don't let the name fool you. They're not database connections, and you shouldn't implement any kind of whole 'layer' in a mock database connection.
Which means, if you can hand your code that is under test a mock connection, don't have one "mock connection" for the whole system. Make a "mockMyThingConnection" that (if it can) stores off the requests in order, and returns a predetermined set of results. Then check the requests to be sure they're what you expected.
The simplest case of this is where you have something that makes one simple query, like looking up a country. Your unit test can make a simple mockConnection (heck, it could be anonymous , even) that will check that the request it gets fits some sanity values (asks for the country table and includes the code passed in, for example) and then returns the result you expect the real data layer to give you.
This mockCountryConnection is *only* for this test case, and is trivial to write.
You're right that you won't catch any problems with the data layer for this kind of unit test, but then again, you're not testing the data layer. Presumably, you have other unit tests for the data layer, then integration tests (perhaps monkey-based*) for the interaction between them.
I tell myself every day, "MockObjects do not have to do anything resembling the full contract of the objects they replace".
-Zipwow
* Monkey-Based Integration Tests: This is our current approach where I work. It involves one or more non-automated semi-intelligent button-pushers who follow a rigorous training program before going bannanas on the application.
Unfortunately, we're non-optimal in our implementation of this because we have extra-intelligent humanoids doing the heavily scripted (but not automated) button-pushing. This is non-optimal because their talents of interface evaluation, and non-obvious error detection aren't being fully utilized.
Because terraforming Mars would risk only the population of Mars (currently zero). Terraforming Earth would risk the population of Earth. The consequences of the latter are rather larger than the former.
Why can't we do both? There's no reason to trash this planet, but having another rock to go to if something goes horribly wrong seems like a wise thing to do.
$.02
-Zipwow
The game is not about *egyptology* its about *egypt*. As in, you're an egyptian trying to figure out how to build stuff.
And, as the very clueful developers will point out, just because there's no combat doesn't mean that there's no conflict
I'm looking forward to trying it out.
-Zipwow
I agree completely. Why should passwords even be readable by the support reps? One-way hash is the way to go.
-Zipwow
But the original poster is making the point that the appropriate time for licenses is at the time that you're transferring the money, or making agreements to pay. After that, as you point out, you've given up your right of ownership.
Similarly with the software, the store (or producer) should present you the license when you're giving them the money (at the store), and after that, they've given up all their rights to it, with the exception of the standard copyrights, etc.
-Zipwow
True enough, but my understanding was that the approach to fixing some of the 1.3.1 fixes was to dramatically change the approach to the problem, hence the 'fix' is no longer backwards compatible, and called 1.4. I think this is, very often, a reasonable approach.
I think the original poster meant in minor versions, like between 1.4.0 and 1.4.1. Even then, the big sin would be dropping classes, as adding new ones (to fix a bug, for example) wouldn't break backwards compatibility. Unless you were depending on the problem, of course.
I think this is the biggest point to be made in the memo, and your best point. Why must classloading take so long?
-Zipwow
If they're arguing that "your credit history indicates your responsibility as an employee" you should be able to argue that the credit history of your direct supervisor's credit history, and the credit history of every manager up to the CEO will have an impact on the stability of the company you're joining.
Basically, I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
A similar argument would hold for drug testing, I would think.
I wish I'd have thought of this when I was recently required to do this. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to say no. Sadder still, I actually like the company with very few reservations.
-Zipwow
Wow, I didn't know that. Has Phillips done any awful things in the meantime, or can I actually like an electronics company for once?
-Zipwow
I'd think that this is one of those classic situations where you tell Visa that the product did not meet its advertised specifications, that you're not going to pay for it, and would be happy to return it.
-Zipwow