Coding is not rocket science. Yes, geeks like it and become good at it. The fact is that anyone with an average IQ can learn to code in a few hours...it's really a question of how badly you WANT to be able to code. Just because you've been doing it since you were a kid, doesn't mean that people who are new to it are not going to be able to do it.
If you were talking about a highly skilled position, like that of a brain surgeon, (or other medical doctor) or an animal psychology specialist, or even a mining engineer or actuarial specialist, then I'd say yes - you're right. The average Zulu tribe member is no threat. But coding ? Unless you're talking about extremely low-level stuff (read: assembly), then you're really fooling yourself.
Even a medium-level language like C isn't a big deal to learn. I'm not Zulu, but I am from South Africa and know several natives. One of them went to college with me, we graduated in '98. He took a computer course as a minor - he only got his first PC in '98. In '99 he got a position as a Java developer.
It took him about a month to learn Java and start working on their internal management system writing JSP and servelets.
It's ridiculous to say that you don't have to worry about non-Americans programming. Sort of like saying: "I have been making tables and chairs since I was a kid, and you know what? I'm not worried about some Zulu being able to make tables and chairs - they'll never get ahead of me." Sure, maybe they won't be as good as you at coding (some of them undoubtedly will, though...don't fool yourself...there are 6 billion people on this planet, and you aren't smarter than all of them...sorry buddy...)...but then, there'd be so much competition on the market, it'd definitely drive the value of skillset down and introduce higher quality of code from those who wished to remain competitive. I'm not a professional developer, but I haven't had any problems picking up C, Python or Perl...and I'm also a Sun certified Java developer. Trust me, teaching the majority of people to program would not be a big deal. Whether they'd be interested in or is a different story, but their ability to do it isn't even in question, at least as far as 80% of the (global) population goes.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
The problem is that the space training will take up a lot of time for the Russian space program administrators to implement. It might not seem like much, especially since the guy is a billionaire and will be paying, but in the short term, it WILL damage their programme plans.
Not to mention the fact that the guy is a South African. The Russian/South African rivalry is well known - especially in the diamond arena. Siberian diamonds vs Kimberely diamonds almost caused an internation incident in the mid 60s.
for the humour impaired: just kidding
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
You might want to check out XOSL (Extended Operating System Loader). It pretty much rules over GRUB and LILO. It's GPLd, has a graphical interface that reminds one of Norton System Commander, yet the menu-driven options reveal features that System Commander didn't have.
It's a breeze to use and allows all the regular stuff - password protection, multiple partitions, as many OS's as you want, different OS labels, plus, there's no need to reboot or restart (ie lilo -s) to add new OS entries. You can do it all from the system menu and it will take effect immediately. A very good system.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
Also, GSM isn't really a world standard (at least not yet). It's a European standard. You're being very Eurocentric in assuming that EU standards equate to world standards. In fact, in most cases where there are differing standards in the US and Europe (e.g. television and electricity), the US standard predated the European one. So it's rather disingenuous to claim that the US doesn't follow European standards.
Just wanted to correct you on that GSM thingy. It is actually just about a world standard. South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Europe and most of Asia use it. Of course, I wouldn't call it a world standard until it's used the world over (including North America), but its use certainly isn't restricted to Europe.
Besides that, your post was pretty much on target.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
What you have to remember is that the exchange in the local area of the DSL provider puts in a multiplexer to add digital information to the lines for DSL subscribers....now, while it's true that this equipment is wonderful, it's not bulletproof - if the equipment is overloaded (yes, it's possible that they're running an ATM switch at 100% utilization and it's not functioning 100% anymore, or that their multiplexer is under too much load to function 100%). So, yes, in the case of DSL, it's 100% possible that in some areas and at some telcos, the QOS (quality of service) isn't always 100%.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
All industries go through tough times now and then. The software industry had a lot of lay-offs (I think that's the American term for rentrenchment, isn't it?) in the late 80s, but bounced back in the 90s. Economics is a complicated subject and the fact is that markets do jitter from time to time.
Think about this - from here, there is nowhere else to go. Businesses can only go one way from here - computerization and technological improvements. Whether anyone likes it or not, technology must go forward. In the 1800s factory workers and mechanical workers working on the new technology that was coming out undoubtedly went through similar experiences when the initial industrial rush was over and companies and goverments had to decide what the best way to continue the industrial revolution was.
The fact is that the economy will always find new markets based on new technologies, and bounce back. In the short term, you might find that in a few weeks the NASDAQ goes up by 2% and that leads to the FTSE going up by 1 1/2%, and suddenly I.T companies get more investment and need people desperately again. In the longer term, you might even find yourself laid off again, only to get a head start in another technology industry and earn MORE than you were.
I was working at a medium-sized company until a few months ago, when I got a stellar offer from another company. It's one of the largest network companies in SA (South Africa), yet when I got there, I couldn't believe the incompetence of most of the people. Of the 20 or so MCSEs (or would-be MCSEs) there, only 2 "knew DOS"!!! There is one good routing guy there, the rest are trained monkeys. The Unix and Novell departments are slightly better, but even there, there are only 2 or 3 guys out of tens that have any real competence. The Technical Director asked me very seriously "What a FreeBSD" is, and "What a DIN connector" is. He is supposedly a network expert, yet doesn't understand the fact that a gateway must be on the same subnet. The management of the company is pathetic. I won't mention the company, but I am leaving it very soon. Am I pissed off that they made me an offer when I was at a perfectly good company (albeit smaller and less well-paying) only to discover that it was a circus and that it was impossible to work effectively there? Yes, I am. The fact is that there are tons of "qualified" people that are morons out there, no more than trained monkeys. If you know what you are doing, (which I suspect you do, but I can't be sure, after all, "Lead Production Engineer" doesn't sound as good as "Technical Director", and we know what a moron that guy is, despite having a CCNP and CCDA, and an MCT, MCSD and MCSE) then you will certainly find a job again.
Good luck to you...remember one thing, though: Don't panic. Your post sounds panicky. Panic is not allowed. It will not help your situation. Be persistent and keep in mind what I have posted here. You probably won't be without a job for much longer. It's probably your own attitude holding you back, not external factors.
Mozilla is currently the most standards-compliant browser. In its 0.9.1 reincarnation, I have found it to be fast, reliable and easy to use. I tried the GNU/Linux and Win32 versions.
My Win32 test included a end-to-end test against the hyped IE 5.X browsers.
The test was performed on a standard 700Mhz Duron with 128MB of RAM running Windows 98SE.
My conclusive results are as follows:
Loading
Mozilla 0.9.1 loaded 17% faster than IE 5.01 and 21% faster than IE 5.5 using the -turbo option (C:\mozilla\mozilla - turbo)
IE 5.01 and 5.5 loaded 31% faster than Mozilla 0.9.1 when Mozilla was loaded without the -turbo option. This is not a good measure of true performance though - IE loads itself into memory. A better test would be to use Mozilla -turbo vs IE (see above).
Sites
90% of sites viewed with Mozilla loaded 100% correctly the first time they were loaded.
5% of the sites test with Mozilla loaded 80% or better when loaded for the first time with Mozilla. 96.2% of sites loaded 100% correctly when refreshed multiple times under Mozilla.
96% of sites viewed with IE 5.5 loaded correctly the first time. 98% of the sites loaded correctly after multiple refreshes.
89% of sites viewed with IE 5.01 loaded correctly the first time. 7% of sites tested did not load properly due to a 128-bit encryption SSL bug in IE 5.01
Reliability
IE 5.01 crashed the system a total of 2 times. 50% of the time, IE 5.01 took down the system with it, claiming something to the effect of: "Illegal operation: Iexplore.exe", followed promptly by: "There was an internal error in Explorer.exe". The Task manager and Start Bar dissappeared and the system froze.
IE 5.5 crashed a total of 1 time, claiming: "Illegal operation: Iexplore.exe". The system stayed up and IE 5.5 was able to restart.
Mozilla did not crash during this test.
Conclusions
IE seems slightly more compatible with most sites, but Mozilla seems faster and more stable at most tasks. Undoubtedly future versions of IE and Mozilla will improve and re-testing will be neccessary.
Zero-Knowledge is a reference to advanced interactive cryptographic protocols that protect information from disclosure
Yep, except that you still have to go through someone else's servers to get this anonymity. I know that they claim that it's totally secure and not even they can read it, but we're all missing a more obvious way of ensuring anonymity. Nemesis is a brilliant product that allows packet injection. It can be automated using scripting. Wouldn't it make more sense to create an internet gateway package based on something like this to allow you to automatically change the packet headers of every packet that goes through ? Just a thought.
The open source community doesn't put up with sh**. If something like this is important enough, there'll be an OpenZeroKnowledge from the OpenBSD project soon enough (since it is security related software, sorta). OpenSSL is a brilliant product. OpenSSH is a brilliant product. IPSec support is there. There's no reason why OpenZeroKnowledge couldn't be created. ZeroKnowledge are digging their own graves by this silly move. Anyone remember the SSH commercial/non-commercial fiasco ?
I had the same problem with the Fat Agnus in my A500. All you need to do is pick the whole case up and bang it down on the desk a few times. The erratic behaviour you are talking about is probably a green screen, black screen, and a constantly flashing red light on the case. Don't worry about it. Just bang it a few times and it will come right (without filesystem errors like "modern" OSes like GNU/Linux and Windoze).
Several major companies, including Disney, still use Amigas regularly to create effects. Almost every TV station in the world uses Amigas. Some of the top serials on TV use Amigas to produce their work. NASA has been known to use Amigas and claim that Amigas are (still) the most versatile machines around. Modern languages such as Python and E have been ported. AmiNet has the largest collection of free software on the internet. Nope, even if the Amiga was a horsey it would be alive and running.
This guy didn't do it on his own. IBM is using this as a publicity stunt to push their Linux campaign. They want to be viewed as a company whose employees are passionate about Linux
why I might even be so brazen as to call your obsession redundent
That's one example. There are others. Illegal operations and GPFs are common. I doubt that even the most diehard MS fan would claim otherwise.
Why if I were to use YOUR logic, because a verson of LILO doesn't work with hard drives beyond UDMA 33, linux must suck
I don't use LILO, I use XOSL.
The people have spoken
No, Microsoft has decided to speak to the OEMs and let them decide what's best for the people. Now thanks to the OEM lockin, people have little choice whether or not OEMs are a factor because of the application barrier. A few years ago this could've been prevented, but MS marketing proved too powerful.
Lemme leave off with VB. Hell it's not even programming. It's like painting, or legos. It's ridiculous, and sometimes that's more than enough, it's cool.
This is pure equine exhaust. Python is easier than VB.
Oh and another thing. Microsoft has been pushing a crappy OS in the consol market for a while now, and yeah my Dreamcast does crash from time to time, coincidence? Ce/Me/NT. Yeah, and Evian is just naive spelled backwards...oh wait. M$ sux! Now I'm sure to get karma from heaven.
Doesn't look like I'm the one with the substance abuse problem. Oh, and the rest of your post was mostly comprised of pure equine exhaust.
People are getting tired of Microsoft's instability. Windows 2000 was a ruse. Die MS fans still claim that it's been up on their box for 3 years (the Beta version no less) etc etc....but it is being proven false.
Every new MS release is the same. Windows 95 promised to be the "end" of MS-DOS instability. So the die-hards claimed it was, until a year later when they realized that the millions of people claiming otherwise were looking at them strangely. So they started blaming driver manufacturers, ISVs, etc. Repeat cycle for Windows NT and Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and bet your bottom dollar that Windows XP and X-box OS will have fans with similar sentiments.
So... Now Microsoft wants to push its crap onto the console market. And console users are expected to sit their and accept it when their game causes an illegal operation or produces a hex dump/exception error. Two words: They won't. This IS one market that Microsoft can't bully, brag or FUD their way into. They can spend as much on advertising and marketing as they want, if the thing is not stable (and history proves that it won't be), people will look to other options, and in this case, those alternatives are already well established.
A lot of people will buy the box to play the first version of the Matrix(tm)The game(tm), but a few months after that, at the most a year after that, X-box will be in a worse position than Dreamcast. The best thing for them to do would be to stop wasting time with their WinBox OS and port FreeBSD to the machine, then at least their will be some chance of stability.
What if the Civilization world becomes so realistic that you can't tell it apart from the real world?
Open source vs Closed Source vs Shared Source
on
Mundie Responds
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· Score: 2
Microsoft is finally realizing something that I've known for a long time (and a lot of people have probably realized or thought about): ISVs won't support them if they don't reveal the source code to their OSes.
For a company like Microsoft, Closed Source makes the most sense because they can develop their OS, develop their apps, and because they have the source to both, their apps and their OS will work better than a company developing an app with only the source to the app, not the OS as well.
A lot of ISVs are starting to get pissed off with this attitude and will start developing on an Open Source (Free Source, whatever) OS because in that case, it's truly a case of "best app wins", there are no unfair advantages to leverage, such as being the sole company with the source code to the OS.
Game companies and specialized app companies will probably be the first to make the shift to Free/Open OSes if the Shared Source concept doesn't take off and become widely successful. Other ISVs will probably develop on MS and Open platforms concurrently.
Yes, Perl's compiler could be written in Perl. It would be stupid and slow, but it could be. Why would you want to do that, though? aside from proving that it can be done? Just because Java has a lot of modules for graphics, encryption,etc etc, doesn't make it "more low level" than Perl. If Perl had equivalent packages for doing the stuff in Java, then it could do that stuff too. Let's calm down with the language bigotry, please!
According to the philosophies of Richard Stallman, software should not be written as a closed system that does not allow the users freedom - freedom to change, modify, and hack the underlying source code.
If you really want to design games, do it for the benefit of the GNU project. This will involve ensuring that all of your games and projects run smoothly on GNU/Linux systems and other free platforms. It will also involve named all of your games with a "G","GN"or"GNU" For example, if you wanted to create a GNU-project-compliant Halflife clone, you would name it GNarflife. For a GNU-project-compliant version of Unreal Tournament - "GUNreal Tournament."
Thanks for reading and let's stop evil propreitry licenses from dominating the destiny of humankind's technology advancement
Slashdot Mirror
It's the perfect middle ground between C and Assembly. Check it out.
These graphics really do look superb
Coding is not rocket science. Yes, geeks like it and become good at it. The fact is that anyone with an average IQ can learn to code in a few hours...it's really a question of how badly you WANT to be able to code. Just because you've been doing it since you were a kid, doesn't mean that people who are new to it are not going to be able to do it.
If you were talking about a highly skilled position, like that of a brain surgeon, (or other medical doctor) or an animal psychology specialist, or even a mining engineer or actuarial specialist, then I'd say yes - you're right. The average Zulu tribe member is no threat. But coding ? Unless you're talking about extremely low-level stuff (read: assembly), then you're really fooling yourself.Even a medium-level language like C isn't a big deal to learn. I'm not Zulu, but I am from South Africa and know several natives. One of them went to college with me, we graduated in '98. He took a computer course as a minor - he only got his first PC in '98. In '99 he got a position as a Java developer.
It took him about a month to learn Java and start working on their internal management system writing JSP and servelets.It's ridiculous to say that you don't have to worry about non-Americans programming. Sort of like saying: "I have been making tables and chairs since I was a kid, and you know what? I'm not worried about some Zulu being able to make tables and chairs - they'll never get ahead of me." Sure, maybe they won't be as good as you at coding (some of them undoubtedly will, though...don't fool yourself...there are 6 billion people on this planet, and you aren't smarter than all of them...sorry buddy...)...but then, there'd be so much competition on the market, it'd definitely drive the value of skillset down and introduce higher quality of code from those who wished to remain competitive. I'm not a professional developer, but I haven't had any problems picking up C, Python or Perl...and I'm also a Sun certified Java developer. Trust me, teaching the majority of people to program would not be a big deal. Whether they'd be interested in or is a different story, but their ability to do it isn't even in question, at least as far as 80% of the (global) population goes.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
1. Shuttleworth is a good name for someone going into space. Ha ha ha!!!
2. Africans should concentrate on more important things, like food and education.
3. It's important for the Russians to get funding SOME WAY - and if this is it, then by Joe, it's a good thing.
4. This isn't news for nerds!!
5. This is old news - it should be called Olds for Nerds.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
The problem is that the space training will take up a lot of time for the Russian space program administrators to implement. It might not seem like much, especially since the guy is a billionaire and will be paying, but in the short term, it WILL damage their programme plans.
Not to mention the fact that the guy is a South African. The Russian/South African rivalry is well known - especially in the diamond arena. Siberian diamonds vs Kimberely diamonds almost caused an internation incident in the mid 60s.for the humour impaired: just kidding
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
You might want to check out XOSL (Extended Operating System Loader). It pretty much rules over GRUB and LILO. It's GPLd, has a graphical interface that reminds one of Norton System Commander, yet the menu-driven options reveal features that System Commander didn't have.
It's a breeze to use and allows all the regular stuff - password protection, multiple partitions, as many OS's as you want, different OS labels, plus, there's no need to reboot or restart (ie lilo -s) to add new OS entries. You can do it all from the system menu and it will take effect immediately. A very good system.Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
Just wanted to correct you on that GSM thingy. It is actually just about a world standard. South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Europe and most of Asia use it. Of course, I wouldn't call it a world standard until it's used the world over (including North America), but its use certainly isn't restricted to Europe.
Besides that, your post was pretty much on target.Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
What you have to remember is that the exchange in the local area of the DSL provider puts in a multiplexer to add digital information to the lines for DSL subscribers....now, while it's true that this equipment is wonderful, it's not bulletproof - if the equipment is overloaded (yes, it's possible that they're running an ATM switch at 100% utilization and it's not functioning 100% anymore, or that their multiplexer is under too much load to function 100%). So, yes, in the case of DSL, it's 100% possible that in some areas and at some telcos, the QOS (quality of service) isn't always 100%.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
All industries go through tough times now and then. The software industry had a lot of lay-offs (I think that's the American term for rentrenchment, isn't it?) in the late 80s, but bounced back in the 90s. Economics is a complicated subject and the fact is that markets do jitter from time to time.
Think about this - from here, there is nowhere else to go. Businesses can only go one way from here - computerization and technological improvements. Whether anyone likes it or not, technology must go forward. In the 1800s factory workers and mechanical workers working on the new technology that was coming out undoubtedly went through similar experiences when the initial industrial rush was over and companies and goverments had to decide what the best way to continue the industrial revolution was.The fact is that the economy will always find new markets based on new technologies, and bounce back. In the short term, you might find that in a few weeks the NASDAQ goes up by 2% and that leads to the FTSE going up by 1 1/2%, and suddenly I.T companies get more investment and need people desperately again. In the longer term, you might even find yourself laid off again, only to get a head start in another technology industry and earn MORE than you were.
I was working at a medium-sized company until a few months ago, when I got a stellar offer from another company. It's one of the largest network companies in SA (South Africa), yet when I got there, I couldn't believe the incompetence of most of the people. Of the 20 or so MCSEs (or would-be MCSEs) there, only 2 "knew DOS"!!! There is one good routing guy there, the rest are trained monkeys. The Unix and Novell departments are slightly better, but even there, there are only 2 or 3 guys out of tens that have any real competence. The Technical Director asked me very seriously "What a FreeBSD" is, and "What a DIN connector" is. He is supposedly a network expert, yet doesn't understand the fact that a gateway must be on the same subnet. The management of the company is pathetic. I won't mention the company, but I am leaving it very soon. Am I pissed off that they made me an offer when I was at a perfectly good company (albeit smaller and less well-paying) only to discover that it was a circus and that it was impossible to work effectively there? Yes, I am. The fact is that there are tons of "qualified" people that are morons out there, no more than trained monkeys. If you know what you are doing, (which I suspect you do, but I can't be sure, after all, "Lead Production Engineer" doesn't sound as good as "Technical Director", and we know what a moron that guy is, despite having a CCNP and CCDA, and an MCT, MCSD and MCSE) then you will certainly find a job again.Good luck to you...remember one thing, though: Don't panic. Your post sounds panicky. Panic is not allowed. It will not help your situation. Be persistent and keep in mind what I have posted here. You probably won't be without a job for much longer. It's probably your own attitude holding you back, not external factors.
My Win32 test included a end-to-end test against the hyped IE 5.X browsers.
The test was performed on a standard 700Mhz Duron with 128MB of RAM running Windows 98SE.My conclusive results are as follows:
LoadingMozilla 0.9.1 loaded 17% faster than IE 5.01 and 21% faster than IE 5.5 using the -turbo option (C:\mozilla\mozilla - turbo)
IE 5.01 and 5.5 loaded 31% faster than Mozilla 0.9.1 when Mozilla was loaded without the -turbo option. This is not a good measure of true performance though - IE loads itself into memory. A better test would be to use Mozilla -turbo vs IE (see above).
Sites90% of sites viewed with Mozilla loaded 100% correctly the first time they were loaded. 5% of the sites test with Mozilla loaded 80% or better when loaded for the first time with Mozilla. 96.2% of sites loaded 100% correctly when refreshed multiple times under Mozilla.
96% of sites viewed with IE 5.5 loaded correctly the first time. 98% of the sites loaded correctly after multiple refreshes.
89% of sites viewed with IE 5.01 loaded correctly the first time. 7% of sites tested did not load properly due to a 128-bit encryption SSL bug in IE 5.01
ReliabilityIE 5.01 crashed the system a total of 2 times. 50% of the time, IE 5.01 took down the system with it, claiming something to the effect of: "Illegal operation: Iexplore.exe", followed promptly by: "There was an internal error in Explorer.exe". The Task manager and Start Bar dissappeared and the system froze.
IE 5.5 crashed a total of 1 time, claiming: "Illegal operation: Iexplore.exe". The system stayed up and IE 5.5 was able to restart.
Mozilla did not crash during this test.
ConclusionsIE seems slightly more compatible with most sites, but Mozilla seems faster and more stable at most tasks. Undoubtedly future versions of IE and Mozilla will improve and re-testing will be neccessary.
Yep, except that you still have to go through someone else's servers to get this anonymity. I know that they claim that it's totally secure and not even they can read it, but we're all missing a more obvious way of ensuring anonymity. Nemesis is a brilliant product that allows packet injection. It can be automated using scripting. Wouldn't it make more sense to create an internet gateway package based on something like this to allow you to automatically change the packet headers of every packet that goes through ? Just a thought.
The open source community doesn't put up with sh**. If something like this is important enough, there'll be an OpenZeroKnowledge from the OpenBSD project soon enough (since it is security related software, sorta). OpenSSL is a brilliant product. OpenSSH is a brilliant product. IPSec support is there. There's no reason why OpenZeroKnowledge couldn't be created. ZeroKnowledge are digging their own graves by this silly move. Anyone remember the SSH commercial/non-commercial fiasco ?
I had the same problem with the Fat Agnus in my A500. All you need to do is pick the whole case up and bang it down on the desk a few times. The erratic behaviour you are talking about is probably a green screen, black screen, and a constantly flashing red light on the case. Don't worry about it. Just bang it a few times and it will come right (without filesystem errors like "modern" OSes like GNU/Linux and Windoze).
Several major companies, including Disney, still use Amigas regularly to create effects. Almost every TV station in the world uses Amigas. Some of the top serials on TV use Amigas to produce their work. NASA has been known to use Amigas and claim that Amigas are (still) the most versatile machines around. Modern languages such as Python and E have been ported. AmiNet has the largest collection of free software on the internet. Nope, even if the Amiga was a horsey it would be alive and running.
Interesting that the POP3 protocol stands for "Post Office Protocol" isn't it ??
Sort of like comparing Photoshop on Mac to Photoshop on Windows...This is just giving Apple a taste of its own medicine.
WINE runs 80% of Win32 apps. Check it out WineHQ
This guy didn't do it on his own. IBM is using this as a publicity stunt to push their Linux campaign. They want to be viewed as a company whose employees are passionate about Linux
That's one example. There are others. Illegal operations and GPFs are common. I doubt that even the most diehard MS fan would claim otherwise.
Why if I were to use YOUR logic, because a verson of LILO doesn't work with hard drives beyond UDMA 33, linux must suckI don't use LILO, I use XOSL.
The people have spokenNo, Microsoft has decided to speak to the OEMs and let them decide what's best for the people. Now thanks to the OEM lockin, people have little choice whether or not OEMs are a factor because of the application barrier. A few years ago this could've been prevented, but MS marketing proved too powerful.
Lemme leave off with VB. Hell it's not even programming. It's like painting, or legos. It's ridiculous, and sometimes that's more than enough, it's cool.This is pure equine exhaust. Python is easier than VB.
And you are in violation of speaking the biggest load of equine exhaust I've ever heard.
First of all, much of windows instability is caused by third party developersIE 5.x has been known to crash and take down the whole system. I suppose that this is due to faulty web pages, though.
again this is due, at least in part, to some choices made by microsoft in the design of their OSThat pretty much sums it up, yeah.
That said the 'programming' practices of many companies aren't what one might hope for, much of the available software contain memory leaks.Like IE 5.x?
So crashes are to a degree inevitableNo software is perfect on any platform, but Microsoft products take the cake on instability.
(I'm starting to like VB much simpler and faster than MFC)You should give Python a try. www.python.org
Oh and another thing. Microsoft has been pushing a crappy OS in the consol market for a while now, and yeah my Dreamcast does crash from time to time, coincidence? Ce/Me/NT. Yeah, and Evian is just naive spelled backwards...oh wait. M$ sux! Now I'm sure to get karma from heaven.Doesn't look like I'm the one with the substance abuse problem. Oh, and the rest of your post was mostly comprised of pure equine exhaust.
Every new MS release is the same. Windows 95 promised to be the "end" of MS-DOS instability. So the die-hards claimed it was, until a year later when they realized that the millions of people claiming otherwise were looking at them strangely. So they started blaming driver manufacturers, ISVs, etc. Repeat cycle for Windows NT and Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and bet your bottom dollar that Windows XP and X-box OS will have fans with similar sentiments.
SoA lot of people will buy the box to play the first version of the Matrix(tm)The game(tm), but a few months after that, at the most a year after that, X-box will be in a worse position than Dreamcast. The best thing for them to do would be to stop wasting time with their WinBox OS and port FreeBSD to the machine, then at least their will be some chance of stability.
Uncomfortable silence...
What if the Civilization world becomes so realistic that you can't tell it apart from the real world?Microsoft is finally realizing something that I've known for a long time (and a lot of people have probably realized or thought about): ISVs won't support them if they don't reveal the source code to their OSes.
For a company like Microsoft, Closed Source makes the most sense because they can develop their OS, develop their apps, and because they have the source to both, their apps and their OS will work better than a company developing an app with only the source to the app, not the OS as well.A lot of ISVs are starting to get pissed off with this attitude and will start developing on an Open Source (Free Source, whatever) OS because in that case, it's truly a case of "best app wins", there are no unfair advantages to leverage, such as being the sole company with the source code to the OS.
Game companies and specialized app companies will probably be the first to make the shift to Free/Open OSes if the Shared Source concept doesn't take off and become widely successful. Other ISVs will probably develop on MS and Open platforms concurrently.Yes, Perl's compiler could be written in Perl. It would be stupid and slow, but it could be. Why would you want to do that, though? aside from proving that it can be done? Just because Java has a lot of modules for graphics, encryption,etc etc, doesn't make it "more low level" than Perl. If Perl had equivalent packages for doing the stuff in Java, then it could do that stuff too. Let's calm down with the language bigotry, please!
According to the philosophies of Richard Stallman, software should not be written as a closed system that does not allow the users freedom - freedom to change, modify, and hack the underlying source code.
If you really want to design games, do it for the benefit of the GNU project. This will involve ensuring that all of your games and projects run smoothly on GNU/Linux systems and other free platforms. It will also involve named all of your games with a "G","GN"or"GNU" For example, if you wanted to create a GNU-project-compliant Halflife clone, you would name it GNarflife. For a GNU-project-compliant version of Unreal Tournament - "GUNreal Tournament."Thanks for reading and let's stop evil propreitry licenses from dominating the destiny of humankind's technology advancement