Go figure. At work, an office of around 15 people, I know *three* people who own one. One is a hardcode Mac fanboi. The other is an older guy who just likes the thing. And the third is a technophile who loves toys and finds the iPad interesting.
So, voila, my three useless anecdotes trump yours. I win! Woo!
They actually fill the niche - a portable device capable of showing websites, running apps
Yeah! I mean, why didn't Apple build an iPad that could, like, show websites and run apps, for god sakes! What were they thinking??
And so I find the logic of the story here a little unfathomable.
But on this, I couldn't agree more. If the netbook fills a need that the iPad doesn't, the market will do fine. If the netbook market fails, and the iPad is responsible, all that tells me is that the nerds around here have no actual clue a) who buys netbooks, and b) what they want them for.
It must suck to have Steve Jobs destroy the market for netbooks
Uh, if there is a market for netbooks, it will exist. Last I checked, Mr. Jobs wasn't running around threatening people at gunpoint so they don't buy a netbook in lieu of their, according to Slashdotters, inferior iPad product.
Funny, I would've said the precise opposite. As an insider working at Sun, the technical and cultural background material was quite interesting. But his analysis of the patents was precisely what I'd expect from an OSS developer without an education in patent law: shallow, uninformed, and *heavily* biased.
If he needs to program on Windows, he should do it on Windows.
That said, a VM would work perfectly fine. Or even better, a completely separate dev machine (VS works a heck of a lot better when you dedicate a machine to it).
The Republicans aren't that united anymore. After the Sarah Palin fiasco and with Micheal Steele being an idiot things started changing.
I disagree (in part).
While in many ways the Republican party is fracturing, all that's really happening is they're swinging even *further* right (who knew *that* was possible). So when it comes to the current administration, they still stand very much united as a barrier to any and all policies put forth by Obama or the Democrats, while the Democrats couldn't build a unified front if their political lives depended upon it (which they very much do).
Actually the big problem with the Democrats is they try to be bi-partisan to show they are better than the Republicans instead of steamrolling them like Bush did with the Democrats.
It's actually a hell of a lot more complicated than that, unfortunately.
The real issue is that while both parties are fairly big tents, the Republicans manage to keep their members in line and on message. The Democrats, OTOH, are ultimately hamstrung by moderate and Blue Dog Democrats, who end up bucking the party line on the big issues (like healthcare). The result is that, when it matters, they can't gather the unified will to get things done.
First of all, they don't use DirectShow. They use Cairo with a Direct2D backend that can be used by any application that uses Cairo on Windows. On other platforms, you'd simply use a Cairo backend that utilizes a platform-specific API. Thus, this is an platform-specific optimization in the library, not the browser.
Let me introduce you to a magical technology called "gstreamer".
In the country, as a matter of fact, you can magically materialize water and food out of the air. It is called rain/well water, hunting and a garden.
Yeah, I challenge you to take 10 "rural" people and find 1, just 1, that doesn't rely on outside resources for their clothing, groceries, drinking water, or other supplies. And it's *far* more expensive to get those supplies out to those lovely country bumpkins than it is to ship it all to a central location with a high-density population.
Tokyo, Moscow, Shanghai, brown air.
Yeah, genius, let's pick the worst of the worst, and put them up as the average! The strategy of liars and con artists the world over.
It's been shown time and time again that urban dwellers have a (significantly) higher carbon footprint because it takes more energy to maintain that way of life.
Are you fucking nuts? NYC is one of the most densely populated cities in the US, and it's also the most energy efficient. Why? Because it's *far* cheaper to jam people together in high density areas, where resources can be concentrated in one place, than it is to spread those resources out over a wider area.
Seriously, do you just make this shit up on the spot?
When talking abut the "video out", the fact that it can't do HD to a big-screen TV counts against it.
Huh? Who the heck buys an iPad as a video output device? Isn't that what a media PC or, like, a laptop is for? TBH, I'm a little surprised they offer that functionality in the first place, as it seems rather out of place...
The iPad is a niche device, beaten by several smartphones (which are also a lot more portable).
You'd have a point if your average smartphone had an 11" touchscreen.
Maybe they don't want to write specific code for each platform when the libraries
Go read the original post. Then maybe you'll see how this point has already been invalidated by their own actions (I'll give you a hint: DirectShow and OpenGL).
Seriously, how can I strip out HTML5 content that I hate?
Uhh... the exact same way Flashblock works today, only instead of blocking object tags, you block video tags. It's, literally, the exact same mechanism.
Seriously, how do people not get this? Do you just have no fucking clue how flash and Flashblock work today, or how HTML5 will work in the future?
These are NOT HD images. While it will "support" up to 1280x720p, it downscales it to 1024x576i. All your widescreen movies are downrezed to 1024x576i - barely better than an old-style vcr.
Yeah, but, come on... on a screen the size of the iPad, and given the viewing conditions it'd typically used in, *who really gives a fuck*? If the compromise is between somewhat higher resolution and additional hours of battery life, it seems like a no-brainer to me.
BTW, I don't have an iPad, nor any other Apple gear, and I don't plan to buy one any time soon, either. But come on, if you're fishing for reasons not to like the device, I'd suggest throwing this one back, it's too small.
The customer thought he wanted a thingamajig, and you made a perfect thingamajig (as was clearly stated in the requirements document), but it turns out that the thingamajig is confusing to users and he really wants a whatchamacallit instead.
That's not testing. It has absolutely nothing to do with quality assurance, and simply highlights a failure in requirements gathering and/or project management.
where the whole point is to see how humans deal with your software and make sure it's easy for humans to use.
Also not testing. While this is often referred to as "usability testing", it's not QA in the traditional sense of the term, as it has nothing to do with catching bugs or improving code quality.
you need to get out of the USA and go somewhere where the Coke is produced with cane sugar, not HFCS.
The sugar has absolutely zero, nadda, nothing to do with the taste of Coke today. Canadian Coke is made with HFCS, yet tastes far superior to the American equivalent. Why? Because Coke changed the American formulation upon reintroduction as "Coca-Cola Classic", changing the actual flavour profile (not just the sweetness), thus producing the taste it has today.
I just wish some basic software supported IPv6. I'd be very happy if I could finally migrate my home network off IPv4 completely (right now it's running dual-stack, with connectivity provided by Hurricane Electric). But software like mysql *still* doesn't support v6. Fortunately, that list is getting smaller and smaller, but glaring omissions like this one make migration challenging, to say the least.
And then there's the broken routers. I went and picked up an 802.11n-capable D-Link router (don't recall the model off the top of my head). The network is set up so that the wireless connection is basically a bridge to my internal network (yes, I'm running WPA-2, and yes, the password is very strong). So what does this POS do? It starts broadcasting router advertisement messages... with it's fucking *loopback* as the gateway. And this is with IPv6 ostensibly disabled on the device, and *the WAN port disconnected*. Result: suddenly Google times out over v6 because my laptop decided to route v6 traffic through the broken WAP instead of my firewall.To fix this I was forced to install ddwrt. Pathetic. And this is on a "modern" device. And we wonder why Google is being very selective about who they're willing to broadcast AAAA records to...
The requirements are vague, such as "difficulty of problems presented to the user must increase gradually over the course of the session," where difficulty isn't defined rigorously.
Uh, you define the requirement. If you've written code, you've *already* done that, you've just made the requirement inaccessible as its now encoded in a programming language. Write it down first and everyone will be happier.
The application's specification includes a physical simulation with random, pseudorandom, chaotic, or otherwise nonlinear behavior
That's not unit testing. Most code in a simulation is *not* random, it's fed inputs from other parts of the code, which ultimately result in the behaviour you describe.
Automating system test for something like this is interesting. First, you *must* design the code to be testable. That means being able to, for example, define random number seeds and so forth, so that a run can be reproduced.
Second, the implicit assumption is that there is *some* way to determine, based on inputs, if the outputs of your software are correct. If you can't do that, you have far bigger problems. Of course, those tests might be fuzzy ("value should be between X and Y", "value should be greater than zero", etc), but they're still tests.
Third, realize automated testing isn't the end-all and be-all of testing. For some systems, you will be forced to have some amount of manual testing (for example, integration testing large, complex software systems can be difficult to do in an automated fashion). That said, I'm willing to bet, for *most* systems, you can automate most if not all of the testing.
You know your automated test suite's coverage isn't 100%, and you're doing non-automated testing to find things that your automated test suite is missing.
Beg the question much? If your test suite is missing things, fill in the gaps. If you can't fill in the gaps, ask yourself why.
But you should be writing the test as you write the code
It's a good idea, in theory. But I find, typically, when I'm writing a module, I have a tendency to flesh out the design in my head, and then complete it in a single pass while its fresh in my mind. As a general rule, I *hate* multitasking, and interleaving the development of tests with the development of a module means my attention is interrupted.
But, in the end, it's a personal thing, I think. The important thing is that the tests exists, not when you write them.
Slashdot Mirror
I've yet to meet anyone with one
Go figure. At work, an office of around 15 people, I know *three* people who own one. One is a hardcode Mac fanboi. The other is an older guy who just likes the thing. And the third is a technophile who loves toys and finds the iPad interesting.
So, voila, my three useless anecdotes trump yours. I win! Woo!
They actually fill the niche - a portable device capable of showing websites, running apps
Yeah! I mean, why didn't Apple build an iPad that could, like, show websites and run apps, for god sakes! What were they thinking??
And so I find the logic of the story here a little unfathomable.
But on this, I couldn't agree more. If the netbook fills a need that the iPad doesn't, the market will do fine. If the netbook market fails, and the iPad is responsible, all that tells me is that the nerds around here have no actual clue a) who buys netbooks, and b) what they want them for.
It must suck to have Steve Jobs destroy the market for netbooks
Uh, if there is a market for netbooks, it will exist. Last I checked, Mr. Jobs wasn't running around threatening people at gunpoint so they don't buy a netbook in lieu of their, according to Slashdotters, inferior iPad product.
profiteering from war is bad?
Except for all those nice upstanding defense contractors and other related service companys we give billions to....
Damm... now i'm confused.
What's confusing? Did that person criticize these games while professing a love for military contractors? No.
TBH, I think the most confusing thing is that your idiotic post was modded up.
Funny, I would've said the precise opposite. As an insider working at Sun, the technical and cultural background material was quite interesting. But his analysis of the patents was precisely what I'd expect from an OSS developer without an education in patent law: shallow, uninformed, and *heavily* biased.
If he needs to program on Windows, he should do it on Windows.
That said, a VM would work perfectly fine. Or even better, a completely separate dev machine (VS works a heck of a lot better when you dedicate a machine to it).
The Republicans aren't that united anymore. After the Sarah Palin fiasco and with Micheal Steele being an idiot things started changing.
I disagree (in part).
While in many ways the Republican party is fracturing, all that's really happening is they're swinging even *further* right (who knew *that* was possible). So when it comes to the current administration, they still stand very much united as a barrier to any and all policies put forth by Obama or the Democrats, while the Democrats couldn't build a unified front if their political lives depended upon it (which they very much do).
Actually the big problem with the Democrats is they try to be bi-partisan to show they are better than the Republicans instead of steamrolling them like Bush did with the Democrats.
It's actually a hell of a lot more complicated than that, unfortunately.
The real issue is that while both parties are fairly big tents, the Republicans manage to keep their members in line and on message. The Democrats, OTOH, are ultimately hamstrung by moderate and Blue Dog Democrats, who end up bucking the party line on the big issues (like healthcare). The result is that, when it matters, they can't gather the unified will to get things done.
you're just saying that because you saw that guy say that on "The Daily Show"
Well, that and, you know, the fucking *Pulitzer nomination they got*.
First of all, they don't use DirectShow. They use Cairo with a Direct2D backend that can be used by any application that uses Cairo on Windows. On other platforms, you'd simply use a Cairo backend that utilizes a platform-specific API. Thus, this is an platform-specific optimization in the library, not the browser.
Let me introduce you to a magical technology called "gstreamer".
In the country, as a matter of fact, you can magically materialize water and food out of the air. It is called rain/well water, hunting and a garden.
Yeah, I challenge you to take 10 "rural" people and find 1, just 1, that doesn't rely on outside resources for their clothing, groceries, drinking water, or other supplies. And it's *far* more expensive to get those supplies out to those lovely country bumpkins than it is to ship it all to a central location with a high-density population.
Tokyo, Moscow, Shanghai, brown air.
Yeah, genius, let's pick the worst of the worst, and put them up as the average! The strategy of liars and con artists the world over.
Moreso than you, apparently.
ROFL, err, less so. Less! *sigh* :)
Do you?
Moreso than you, apparently.
In a city, every raw material must be imported. Food, Water, fuel
Yes, and I suppose in rural areas everyone is off the grid and all their needs just magically materialize where they are?
Please.
and in some cases it is getting to the point where the local air isn't breathable
Ahhh, I see, you're just an irrational city-bigot. Sorry, my bad.
That is just one reason there is zero chance I would pick a train over a car.
And therefore high-speed rail is pointless. QED.
It's been shown time and time again that urban dwellers have a (significantly) higher carbon footprint because it takes more energy to maintain that way of life.
Are you fucking nuts? NYC is one of the most densely populated cities in the US, and it's also the most energy efficient. Why? Because it's *far* cheaper to jam people together in high density areas, where resources can be concentrated in one place, than it is to spread those resources out over a wider area.
Seriously, do you just make this shit up on the spot?
When talking abut the "video out", the fact that it can't do HD to a big-screen TV counts against it.
Huh? Who the heck buys an iPad as a video output device? Isn't that what a media PC or, like, a laptop is for? TBH, I'm a little surprised they offer that functionality in the first place, as it seems rather out of place...
The iPad is a niche device, beaten by several smartphones (which are also a lot more portable).
You'd have a point if your average smartphone had an 11" touchscreen.
Maybe they don't want to write specific code for each platform when the libraries
Go read the original post. Then maybe you'll see how this point has already been invalidated by their own actions (I'll give you a hint: DirectShow and OpenGL).
Seriously, how can I strip out HTML5 content that I hate?
Uhh... the exact same way Flashblock works today, only instead of blocking object tags, you block video tags. It's, literally, the exact same mechanism.
Seriously, how do people not get this? Do you just have no fucking clue how flash and Flashblock work today, or how HTML5 will work in the future?
These are NOT HD images. While it will "support" up to 1280x720p, it downscales it to 1024x576i. All your widescreen movies are downrezed to 1024x576i - barely better than an old-style vcr.
Yeah, but, come on... on a screen the size of the iPad, and given the viewing conditions it'd typically used in, *who really gives a fuck*? If the compromise is between somewhat higher resolution and additional hours of battery life, it seems like a no-brainer to me.
BTW, I don't have an iPad, nor any other Apple gear, and I don't plan to buy one any time soon, either. But come on, if you're fishing for reasons not to like the device, I'd suggest throwing this one back, it's too small.
If they use platform specific APIs to accelerate stuff, WHY THE HELL don't they use platform specific APIs for rendering video?
Because they're ideological blowhards who are more interested in pushing an agenda than doing what the users actually want.
Not only that, but Mozilla can't afford [osnews.com] to license h264.
Err, why the hell would they? Tie into a generic video backend and move the fuck on, already!
The customer thought he wanted a thingamajig, and you made a perfect thingamajig (as was clearly stated in the requirements document), but it turns out that the thingamajig is confusing to users and he really wants a whatchamacallit instead.
That's not testing. It has absolutely nothing to do with quality assurance, and simply highlights a failure in requirements gathering and/or project management.
where the whole point is to see how humans deal with your software and make sure it's easy for humans to use.
Also not testing. While this is often referred to as "usability testing", it's not QA in the traditional sense of the term, as it has nothing to do with catching bugs or improving code quality.
you need to get out of the USA and go somewhere where the Coke is produced with cane sugar, not HFCS.
The sugar has absolutely zero, nadda, nothing to do with the taste of Coke today. Canadian Coke is made with HFCS, yet tastes far superior to the American equivalent. Why? Because Coke changed the American formulation upon reintroduction as "Coca-Cola Classic", changing the actual flavour profile (not just the sweetness), thus producing the taste it has today.
I just wish some basic software supported IPv6. I'd be very happy if I could finally migrate my home network off IPv4 completely (right now it's running dual-stack, with connectivity provided by Hurricane Electric). But software like mysql *still* doesn't support v6. Fortunately, that list is getting smaller and smaller, but glaring omissions like this one make migration challenging, to say the least.
And then there's the broken routers. I went and picked up an 802.11n-capable D-Link router (don't recall the model off the top of my head). The network is set up so that the wireless connection is basically a bridge to my internal network (yes, I'm running WPA-2, and yes, the password is very strong). So what does this POS do? It starts broadcasting router advertisement messages... with it's fucking *loopback* as the gateway. And this is with IPv6 ostensibly disabled on the device, and *the WAN port disconnected*. Result: suddenly Google times out over v6 because my laptop decided to route v6 traffic through the broken WAP instead of my firewall.To fix this I was forced to install ddwrt. Pathetic. And this is on a "modern" device. And we wonder why Google is being very selective about who they're willing to broadcast AAAA records to...
The requirements are vague, such as "difficulty of problems presented to the user must increase gradually over the course of the session," where difficulty isn't defined rigorously.
Uh, you define the requirement. If you've written code, you've *already* done that, you've just made the requirement inaccessible as its now encoded in a programming language. Write it down first and everyone will be happier.
The application's specification includes a physical simulation with random, pseudorandom, chaotic, or otherwise nonlinear behavior
That's not unit testing. Most code in a simulation is *not* random, it's fed inputs from other parts of the code, which ultimately result in the behaviour you describe.
Automating system test for something like this is interesting. First, you *must* design the code to be testable. That means being able to, for example, define random number seeds and so forth, so that a run can be reproduced.
Second, the implicit assumption is that there is *some* way to determine, based on inputs, if the outputs of your software are correct. If you can't do that, you have far bigger problems. Of course, those tests might be fuzzy ("value should be between X and Y", "value should be greater than zero", etc), but they're still tests.
Third, realize automated testing isn't the end-all and be-all of testing. For some systems, you will be forced to have some amount of manual testing (for example, integration testing large, complex software systems can be difficult to do in an automated fashion). That said, I'm willing to bet, for *most* systems, you can automate most if not all of the testing.
You know your automated test suite's coverage isn't 100%, and you're doing non-automated testing to find things that your automated test suite is missing.
Beg the question much? If your test suite is missing things, fill in the gaps. If you can't fill in the gaps, ask yourself why.
But you should be writing the test as you write the code
It's a good idea, in theory. But I find, typically, when I'm writing a module, I have a tendency to flesh out the design in my head, and then complete it in a single pass while its fresh in my mind. As a general rule, I *hate* multitasking, and interleaving the development of tests with the development of a module means my attention is interrupted.
But, in the end, it's a personal thing, I think. The important thing is that the tests exists, not when you write them.