To a good extent, it probably is a matter of personal preference if you like to do most of your development at the command line or not. However, I love IDEs for their ability to debug in the same environment that I'm writing code in. I also prefer an IDE so I don't have to type so damn much at the command line. As if my coding doesn't kill my hands enough as it is.
The main part of my job is writing device drivers, so I really can't use the IDE to debug with anyway. In this case, it's just a matter of convenience that I use the same environment for all of my development.
Additionally, there are some very good tools for creating GUI apps which are included in CodeWarrior and MSVC. I personally suck at creating GUIs, so I can use all the help that the tools give me.
Uhm.. OS X supports (or will within the next 2 weeks) every piece of hardware that Apple ships. The thing you need to remember is that Apple has the luxury of knowing what hardware their OS is going to be installed on, and therefore Apple does not need to support everything under the sun as MS does..
uh... what about third party hardware? Apple does sell a bunch of their own stuff, but third party hardware such as scanners, printers, digital cameras, data acquisition cards, etc is in a really poor state of support right now.
Apple isn't perfect but they're working their butts off trying to get the developer community behind them.. In the last few months, I've seen almost every app I use in OS 9 ported to OS X
Why only in the past few months did this happen? The stuff we released in July 2000 works on Windows XP without any new development. I think that you're really overlooking the impact of third party hardware on Apple's success. They have overlooked supporting third party hardware for ages and it has killed them as a company. Microsoft has always supported driver developers to get a lot of different hardware working on their OS really fast. This is really one of the reasons that MS is taking over, not just their mean business practices.
Did anybody else find it funny that the final build number on Windows XP was 2600? Do you think the programmers there wanted to be cool and go along with the "hacker" ideal of 2600 magazine? When our group got the latest build, I started laughing my ass off, but nobody in the group got it.
I'm not really in a position to boycott it since I have to write software for it. From what I've seen it's not too bad, and has some new features that W2k didn't have. Overall, I'm probably going to stick with W2k on my desktop for quite a while still.
One other fairly positive thing that I have to say about MS is their support for developers. Mac came out with OS X and then tried to give support to developers. Just try and find drivers for OS X and it's already been out for months! MS lets developers know a couple of years ahead of time that they are going to have a new OS come out. They give developers a bunch of Betas to work with, a bunch of release candidates, so that by the time they have the OS released, there actually are a good amount of drivers released for the OS. Apple released an OS which was basically a beta that people had to pay money for, and then didn't really give driver developers good support. Sure Windows XP isn't going to support every piece of hardware ever made, but I bet when it's finally released it will support a lot more than OS X does.
I must agree 100%. I own a cell phone, but only because it's cheaper than a land line. I usually leave it at home, because I'd rather not be bothered to answer it. I still haven't figured out this whole PDA thing; sticky notes still work just fine for me.
I think I'll go ahead and trademark each letter of the alphabet. That way, whenever any new site comes up, I can say that they are infringing on MY trademark. AOL would in fact be infringing on three of them. Damn bastards, I'm gonna get 'em. Hmmm... Slashdot, that's 7, but you're infringing on one of them twice. Better put that trademark on numbers too, otherwise kuro5hin might get off a bit easy.
Is this book more focused towards those who already have a great deal of knowledge about biology and bioinformatics, but need to know the computer side of things? I am really interested in this area, with a great deal of computer experience, but probably lack a lot of the biology experience that is needed for the field.
Are there some good resources out there for those who are gifted at computers and algorithms, but wish to pursue bioinformatics? Would a career in this require a few classes of biology study? I imagine so, and I would be willing to do so, but what courses really apply?
go out and start graffitiing(is this a verb?) linux penguins everywhere. IBM can take the blame, but more people will think that linux is hip and cool cuz they see it sprayed somewhere in the city. What about doing this at universities? I know that linux use is more prevalent there, where students can get a free OS that doesn't crash!!
Well, gotta go get some spray paint...
This is some great history for me! The first computer that I really used was an Apple IIc. I used that thing for about 8 years, until my dad finally shelled out the money for a 386 20Mhz with 8MB of RAM!!! Funny how a 386 used to be a huge step up in the world. I remember when I tried taking a game over to my friend's, who had an apple IIE. The game wouldn't run because he only had 64K of ram. What a pour soul. Don't you guys remember the great games on those machines? I won Might and Magic I and II on that old beast of a machine. How about the birth of Ultima? These were really awesome machines for the day. I think that they really were the birth of the PC age.
Yeah, there was the commodores(god I hated those tapes); My dad ended up making a sprinkler system out of a commodore 64. I played my first moon lander game on a commodore. What ever happened to them anyway? I really wasn't very into business in the 80s.
I learned how to program basic on apple computers. Now I know how evil that GOTO statement really is. Apples were the first computers that were widely used in schools. In the schools I went to, we used Apple IIe's through 9th grade. I really can't count the number of games that I have played on an apple II. There were so many educational and entertainment games written for the apple II. I wish that I could list them all. Lode runner, snake, pirates, endless text based games, Might and Magic, ultima, EPYX Summer games, winter games, california games, and street games. Did EPYX get bought by somebody or did they just go out of business?
I really miss the antique days of PCs. Well, back to programming drivers tomorrow. I don't think I ever imagined the day where I'd be surrounded by 4 monitors in a cubicle. 1 develpment machine, 1 test machine with a regular monitor and a monochrome monitor for softICE(sorry I program windows drivers), and a monitor for watching the bus.
Random thought: how long before Trivial Pursuit comes out with an edition specializing in technology/computer/internet subjects?
This will happen when/. has a topic asking for trivial pursuit questions./. will then publish the cards to the world. Of course/. readers will have an unfair advantage, as they do in most intellectual challenges.
I think that this is yet another showing of how versatile linux really is. Linux works well in servers and in embedded products. My company, which will remain nameless, has a couple of ethernet products that work great. Gee, need TCP/IP stack, hmmm... we could spend a lot of time and do it ourselves, or hey Linux has one built in...
It's nice that linux can be ported to so many different processors, so that it can and will continue to compete with any OS that comes out. While it may lack a bit as far as "easy to setup", it's a rock-solid product when it's setup properly.
It's footprint can vary from a very small kernel with just ethernet enabled(as in the army radio), or with everything including the kitchen sink.
Windows does have it's place, since driver development in linux really does fall behind that in windows due to market demands. Plus it took linux quite a long time to get USB fully working. C'mon guys, Microsoft had USB working in windows 98, where was linux at? I know the 2.4 kernel has it, which I'm very excited about. I think I may have to start working on a driver for it, just becuase I can...
"If anybody is saying that they have definitively proved to [the] 99 percentile that Mars Polar Lander has or hasn't been found, they are overstating the situation grossly," Weiler said.
According to the/. headline, it HAS been found. Anybody else get the feeling that things around here get overstated from time to time?
I think that the current format of Junkyard wars probably isn't the best for/.ers to participate in. What we really need is a scrapyard full of broken computer bits and we have a certain amount of time to see who can do the coolest thing with it. I get kinda scared when CS guys do anything with electricity. I wouldn't want to even be close when a bunch of hackers fired up the welding torch!
I read this and a thought popped into my head. Hitler was THE authority when it came to making a decision for the German army. All decisions had to be made by him. By doing so he crippled his army by not allowing them to quickly make important decisions.
While I wouldn't go nearly to that extent with Linus' control over Linux, I certainly think there is some similarity. I know I'm going to get flamed out the wazoo for comparing Linus to Hitler, but my comparison isn't like that.
I'm just saying that Linux might advance a little more quickly if Linus delegated authority to different people over different areas of the Kernel. I don't know how these divisions would be drawn up, since I haven't done much kernel development.
I'm not sure how much a committe would really help matters. Think of a bunch of kernel hackers in a big group debating and voting on changes to the kernel, when their time could be spent better coding. I could imagine meetings lasting into the wee hours of the morning with little getting accomplished.
In the end, I think that Kernel development should be structured like a good army. Find good divisions with well-defined tasks, and give those divisions a lot of authority. Linus should act like the General to assure that all of the divisions are working well together, while still having relative autonomy to do their job. Well, that's my historical take anyway.
Even if a ton of math guys have figured out that it "secure" to vote via the web, I think that it still a problem to check people off the list when they vote. I know that when I went and voted I showed my ID so that an old fogey could check my name off the list of all of the registered voters.
Are we propopsing that there should be a separate list for internet voters and regular voters? I don't see a way in which somebody could vote online and have their name checked off the list automatically. Even the best financial websites disclaim that they have a 5 minute lag. How bad would this lag be on voting day?
I don't think that the problem lies with the internet security at all, It's just a matter of the voting system to be able to adapt to the new process properly without fraud.
We saw enough bad stuff as it was this past election. I don't want the next one thrown out because of some hack.
While the AI driven car can be "fearless", I'm kind of curious how they would go about many of the real issues that come up in an actual F1 race. What sort of algorithm would the computer use for passing an opponent? If the human opponent figured this algorithm out, could he just figure out how to block the other car from passing him? How well do these proximity sensors work to determine the place on the track if the car is surrounded by many other cars? the problem with the computer controlled car is that it is slightly clueless. I'd love to see this project take off, but I'm really skeptical as far as how long it's going to take these guys to get a decent prototype.
Slashdot Mirror
The main part of my job is writing device drivers, so I really can't use the IDE to debug with anyway. In this case, it's just a matter of convenience that I use the same environment for all of my development.
Additionally, there are some very good tools for creating GUI apps which are included in CodeWarrior and MSVC. I personally suck at creating GUIs, so I can use all the help that the tools give me.
uh... what about third party hardware? Apple does sell a bunch of their own stuff, but third party hardware such as scanners, printers, digital cameras, data acquisition cards, etc is in a really poor state of support right now.
Apple isn't perfect but they're working their butts off trying to get the developer community behind them.. In the last few months, I've seen almost every app I use in OS 9 ported to OS X
Why only in the past few months did this happen? The stuff we released in July 2000 works on Windows XP without any new development. I think that you're really overlooking the impact of third party hardware on Apple's success. They have overlooked supporting third party hardware for ages and it has killed them as a company. Microsoft has always supported driver developers to get a lot of different hardware working on their OS really fast. This is really one of the reasons that MS is taking over, not just their mean business practices.
I'm not really in a position to boycott it since I have to write software for it. From what I've seen it's not too bad, and has some new features that W2k didn't have. Overall, I'm probably going to stick with W2k on my desktop for quite a while still.
One other fairly positive thing that I have to say about MS is their support for developers. Mac came out with OS X and then tried to give support to developers. Just try and find drivers for OS X and it's already been out for months! MS lets developers know a couple of years ahead of time that they are going to have a new OS come out. They give developers a bunch of Betas to work with, a bunch of release candidates, so that by the time they have the OS released, there actually are a good amount of drivers released for the OS. Apple released an OS which was basically a beta that people had to pay money for, and then didn't really give driver developers good support. Sure Windows XP isn't going to support every piece of hardware ever made, but I bet when it's finally released it will support a lot more than OS X does.
I must agree 100%. I own a cell phone, but only because it's cheaper than a land line. I usually leave it at home, because I'd rather not be bothered to answer it. I still haven't figured out this whole PDA thing; sticky notes still work just fine for me.
I think I'll go ahead and trademark each letter of the alphabet. That way, whenever any new site comes up, I can say that they are infringing on MY trademark. AOL would in fact be infringing on three of them. Damn bastards, I'm gonna get 'em. Hmmm... Slashdot, that's 7, but you're infringing on one of them twice. Better put that trademark on numbers too, otherwise kuro5hin might get off a bit easy.
Are there some good resources out there for those who are gifted at computers and algorithms, but wish to pursue bioinformatics? Would a career in this require a few classes of biology study? I imagine so, and I would be willing to do so, but what courses really apply?
For the lack of a better sig, I'm out
go out and start graffitiing(is this a verb?) linux penguins everywhere. IBM can take the blame, but more people will think that linux is hip and cool cuz they see it sprayed somewhere in the city. What about doing this at universities? I know that linux use is more prevalent there, where students can get a free OS that doesn't crash!!
Well, gotta go get some spray paint...
Yeah, there was the commodores(god I hated those tapes); My dad ended up making a sprinkler system out of a commodore 64. I played my first moon lander game on a commodore. What ever happened to them anyway? I really wasn't very into business in the 80s.
I learned how to program basic on apple computers. Now I know how evil that GOTO statement really is. Apples were the first computers that were widely used in schools. In the schools I went to, we used Apple IIe's through 9th grade. I really can't count the number of games that I have played on an apple II. There were so many educational and entertainment games written for the apple II. I wish that I could list them all. Lode runner, snake, pirates, endless text based games, Might and Magic, ultima, EPYX Summer games, winter games, california games, and street games. Did EPYX get bought by somebody or did they just go out of business?
I really miss the antique days of PCs. Well, back to programming drivers tomorrow. I don't think I ever imagined the day where I'd be surrounded by 4 monitors in a cubicle. 1 develpment machine, 1 test machine with a regular monitor and a monochrome monitor for softICE(sorry I program windows drivers), and a monitor for watching the bus.
god I love nostalgia!
This will happen when /. has a topic asking for trivial pursuit questions. /. will then publish the cards to the world. Of course /. readers will have an unfair advantage, as they do in most intellectual challenges.
It's nice that linux can be ported to so many different processors, so that it can and will continue to compete with any OS that comes out. While it may lack a bit as far as "easy to setup", it's a rock-solid product when it's setup properly.
It's footprint can vary from a very small kernel with just ethernet enabled(as in the army radio), or with everything including the kitchen sink.
Windows does have it's place, since driver development in linux really does fall behind that in windows due to market demands. Plus it took linux quite a long time to get USB fully working. C'mon guys, Microsoft had USB working in windows 98, where was linux at? I know the 2.4 kernel has it, which I'm very excited about. I think I may have to start working on a driver for it, just becuase I can...
well, that's my 2 cents...
According to the /. headline, it HAS been found. Anybody else get the feeling that things around here get overstated from time to time?
My opinion is that if their site can get /.ed so easily, I don't want to buy a server from them.
I think that the current format of Junkyard wars probably isn't the best for /.ers to participate in. What we really need is a scrapyard full of broken computer bits and we have a certain amount of time to see who can do the coolest thing with it. I get kinda scared when CS guys do anything with electricity. I wouldn't want to even be close when a bunch of hackers fired up the welding torch!
I read this and a thought popped into my head. Hitler was THE authority when it came to making a decision for the German army. All decisions had to be made by him. By doing so he crippled his army by not allowing them to quickly make important decisions.
While I wouldn't go nearly to that extent with Linus' control over Linux, I certainly think there is some similarity. I know I'm going to get flamed out the wazoo for comparing Linus to Hitler, but my comparison isn't like that.
I'm just saying that Linux might advance a little more quickly if Linus delegated authority to different people over different areas of the Kernel. I don't know how these divisions would be drawn up, since I haven't done much kernel development.
I'm not sure how much a committe would really help matters. Think of a bunch of kernel hackers in a big group debating and voting on changes to the kernel, when their time could be spent better coding. I could imagine meetings lasting into the wee hours of the morning with little getting accomplished.
In the end, I think that Kernel development should be structured like a good army. Find good divisions with well-defined tasks, and give those divisions a lot of authority. Linus should act like the General to assure that all of the divisions are working well together, while still having relative autonomy to do their job. Well, that's my historical take anyway.
Are we propopsing that there should be a separate list for internet voters and regular voters? I don't see a way in which somebody could vote online and have their name checked off the list automatically. Even the best financial websites disclaim that they have a 5 minute lag. How bad would this lag be on voting day?
I don't think that the problem lies with the internet security at all, It's just a matter of the voting system to be able to adapt to the new process properly without fraud.
We saw enough bad stuff as it was this past election. I don't want the next one thrown out because of some hack.
cnote
While the AI driven car can be "fearless", I'm kind of curious how they would go about many of the real issues that come up in an actual F1 race. What sort of algorithm would the computer use for passing an opponent? If the human opponent figured this algorithm out, could he just figure out how to block the other car from passing him? How well do these proximity sensors work to determine the place on the track if the car is surrounded by many other cars? the problem with the computer controlled car is that it is slightly clueless. I'd love to see this project take off, but I'm really skeptical as far as how long it's going to take these guys to get a decent prototype.