Still don't know what verb RTF could be. If you were so slow you couldn't work out it was a typo, you should probably try visiting another website, one that's less challenging.
I know this story has been posted a few times, coming up every 2-3 years since at least the 80's (that I know of), and it does the rounds in the TV and newspapers too.
It's been a "fish that swims and grows as you relax" and "an animal that evolves (from a fish to a lizard to a monkey) as you relax" this time apparently it's an insect. It's usually funded by University research grant (a waste of money IMO, especially when it's public funds) and with pumped up headlines like "games of the future to be controlled by your mind".
As you say, really simple stuff, I'm really sick of reading about this same "advancement"/"new technology" over and over. I'll probably *still* be reading "news" about it when I'm an old man.
Yep, I've got to say I'm always much more likely to pay more attention to the person that's actually putting out (what I think is) good software - and not much to people who spent more time talking about it rather than actively developing.
I really like the flexibility of dynamic typing but I really wish there there was an option to force static typing in languages like PHP and Perl (although having that sort of flexibility sounds like the sort of thing Larry Wall has been hinting may be in Perl 6, whenever it arrives).
I know I can write software that works perfectly well with dynamic typing (mostly..) and it makes development much quicker so I'd hate to not have it as an option, but on a big project with developers of varying quality it becomes a real liability and I'd gladly just do casting and sacrifice a little flexibility.
Thanks, that inspires me to create a page with a nice comparison of a simple app in a few languages with some stuff like that (Wikipedia has some good HelloWorld examples IIRC, but they are naturally very terse).
Oh yeah for sure. I should also have said they are very open about that.
Personally I think what they have done was a smart move (and I also in the things they've deliberately done slightly differently, in that I think they are improvements that aid readability). I'm all for copying things that are deemed to be good.
Compare a straightforward Java class, with try/catch (a silly example, but obviously just to provide some syntax):
public class DoStuff { protected double someNumber;
public setSomeNumber( double number ) { try { someNumber = number; } catch (Exception e) { // See e.getMessage() for error } } }
... with some PHP for the same code, which would look like this:
public class DoStuff { private someNumber;
public setSomeNumber($number) { try { $this->someNumber = $number; } catch (Exception $e) { // See $e->getMessage() for error } } }
I don't see how that's wacky syntax in the slightest. Just people people use PHP like it's Perl+Mason doesn't mean you can't use PHP for serious, scaleable, enterprise software. I know from experience that people are just as likely to write nasty Perl, Ruby or ASP as they are nasty PHP.
Personally I think Java makes it more difficult to be wacky (even though of course it can't force people to write code that's ultimately good) and that has definite benefits in an enterprise environment, but that lack of flexibility (which scripting languages like Perl and PHP have) is also why I don't tend to want to use Java.
You're not wrong. I don't get all the introspective navel gazing people seem to love doing (in place of anything more constructive).
A significant number of people seem to have nothing better to do than think up buzzwords (for things we already have names for), discuss about software / development methodologies and paradigms and generally do anything other than actually do whatever it is they seem to talk about about doing.
I am often frustrated (in and outside of work) that people would rather talk about 'what language to use', 'what framework to use', 'what revision control system to use', 'what wiki software will be use' than just pick a decent option and get on with building things. Sure, everyone wants to avoid picking a lemon, but at some point it's "good enough" - it's just important to ensure nothing too wacky / niche is being suggested. I like discussing the relative merits of different systems in and outside of work, I don't want it to become my work in and of itself though.
If people want to write software, I don't get why they don't just get on and do it. If they want to trade / publish / collect serial numbers (and I'm not suggesting they should) I don't see why they don't just go ahead and do that without a big dramatic hoo-ha.
A short message like "X was a jerk and tried to split up the group, so we kicked out a bunch of trouble makers" would cover all the drama in this case. That's really all there is to the story. Stuff like "a new graphical look for the website" and "a new forum" (and for some reason taking down the existing one first, load of sites do that for no good reason) and announcing "they are returning, stronger than ever" (or something to that effect) is all totally irrelevant to what they are actually claiming to be about, which is pretty straightforward and doesn't require a song and dance. And yet, this saga is repeated ad nauseum all over the place!
Someone thought it would be a good idea to give the kids a file share on the network to store their digital stuff (like classwork, etc.) now they are all using computers these days, and this way they wouldn't have to carry USB memory sticks around (which 8th graders are bound to lose/break/set fire to/swallow - and forget to backup).
"KDE's KHMTL passed the ACID 2 test, but not WebKit.... They are finally merging back together, and future versions of WebKit should pass ACID 2 the way that KHTML does, but not currently."
That is not true actually. Safari was the first browser to pass the Acid2 test (in April 2005). I believe this was rolled out in regular consumer version of Safari in Autumn '05.
This timeline on Wikipedia matched up with my vague recollection - with Safari being the first browser to pass the test both with development code and with an official release (with Konqueror/KHTML following very shortly after).
"If YOU lived in Westminster you'd know how good the residents parking situation WAS."
If you lived it Westminster you'd know you get a 90% discount because you are resident, most of Westminster is inside the zone. You left London because of the congestion charge my arse. So tell us, what was the real reason?
"If YOU lived in London you'd know that areas like Fitzrovia and Pimlico are now so depopulated that restaurants and corner shops are closing."
Bwahaha! I was in Charlotte Street last night, and couldn't manage to get a table in the first two restaurants I went to, and ended up in a packed Zizzi's - and that's on a rainy Tuesday evening. Keep taking the medication mate. Fitzrovia depopulated, oh that's awesome, it really is.
Oh and The Fitzrovia was my regular until about a year ago. Is that central enough for you?
"Sure, the last thing you want in a city is PEOPLE - perish the thought! "
I suggest making more space for people (at the expense of cars), and you respond with that. Classic.
No big deal?? I moved out of London because of the cost
Uh-hu. If you lived in London, you'd appreciate how expensive living here is, and that the congestion charge is inconsequential compared to the cost of a mortgage, or even renting a decent place. It's a paltry 8 quid a day and that's only if you happen to drive in to zone 1 (which is up to 20 GBP an hour for parking, and there are bugger all spaces, god knows why you'd even try) - and that's not including discounts.
It did noticeably cut congestion initially, but it's crept right back up again because the charge is so low (it costs far more if you actually want to park your car). Frankly, as Jeremy Clarkson has noted (tongue in cheek) it would need to be about 50 GBP a day to hold any hope of getting city boys to take any notice whatsoever. Even then that's going to be about the same as getting Taxi's about the place, and many will prefer the car.
I think it ought to be increased significantly (and given the narrow streets and the volume of people, closing off some of the road to traffic (or at least to buses only) would be a step in the right direction.
What about charging more to people of a given race (and so are genetically predisposed to certain illnesses), people who are idiots and hurt themselves because they are plain stupid, people who do dangerous things like oh, drive cars (much more dangerous than using pubic transport), people who sunbathe (mmm skin cancer), people who are gay (again, much more risk statistically), not forgetting people on lower incomes (they are much more likely to need expensive medical treatment after all)...
The problem is lots of people in management think that scripting languages are 'not as good as "compiled" languages' (note the quotes) by which they mean "Java, C/C++/C#".
So how are you supposed to find these expert programmers, and how can you tell a $60k developer from a $120k developer? By asking brain teasers like Microsoft and Google are reputed to do? Personally I think those are bad ideas. It tells you more about what they are like at solving brain teasers (which usually involve red-herrings or bizarre / arbitrary clauses and are abstracted away from any 'real world' scenario), it's also a poor judge because during an interview they are likely to be far more stressed than they would be in a normal office environment.
To make matter worse, most people are lousy at interpreting answers to those questions IME. I haven't really ever been asked any of those in an interview, but I've been interviews where they have been asked, and discussed that sort of thing with quite a few coworkers and managers and I've often disagreed (even appalled) at how they interpret answers.
To me it seems simpler to ask people for an example of their work, about any projects they might have contributed to and to just hire them with a 3 month short-term notice period (where if they don't work out, they can leave / you can let them go with a week's notice).
That's what we are talking about here, consoles. You can compare it with gaming on Mac or Windows if you want, but either offer a much more fragmented platform as far as online gaming and downloads are concerned and a smaller market (as evidenced by the console market outselling the Windows gaming market by so much). Windows Live! gaming service may yet change that (as Fire once looked like it was going to do) but that's still in development.
Held on high as if it were the second coming by yet another person who hasn't even tried a PS3. Yeah, maybe matchmaking is slick, but it's not $50/year better
I have tried a PS3, but I'm not getting one until they sort out their on line offering (or get a couple of killer titles, which it is far from having ATM).
The X-Box has a hell of a lot more than simple matchmaking in game, it's seeing when my friends are online, and what they are playing and how much of it they are playing, as well as meeting new people on line who I like playing with, and chatting to them and teaming up with them again in future because they are fun to play with. I wonder if YOU have actually used it.
45 GBP a year isn't much service like that AFAIC, but that might be more to you than it is to me. Hell TIVO was 120 GBP a month just for *TV listings*, on the face of it, but ultimately it's been worth it for a large number of people because of the end result.
They give their readers less than they can get for free over the Interwebs and all that keeps them in business are publishers who let them have first crack at demos. Some people like reading magazines now and again, of the ye-olde physical variety.
Kids are not protected from adult life, they are kept out of the way at daytime baby sitting centers we call schools, that are minimum security prisons by any other name. As a generalization, if your adult life isn't much more enjoyable as an adult than it was in your youth, you're doing it wrong.
My advice is not listen to people who tell you you "have it lucky" as a kid. It always sounds to me like they've screwed up their adult life and are bitter about it.
Personally I love that as an adult I have plenty of disposable income, am in control of my own time, do something I like doing (and getting paid for it - which is notably unlike school, which was mind numbing, tedious, you don't get paid a dime and you are forced to go there).
And seriously, fuck working in a shop in a mall. Now THAT'S a horrible job. Software development FTW.
EARTH TO BUNGIE! NO ONE IS IMPRESSED WITH BRIGHT LIGHTS ON SHINY METAL ANYMORE! Yeah, I noticed the Killzone textures were just flat with impressions and bumps just drawn on to the texture like older Q2 and Q3 based titles (although, even later Q3 engine games were a bit more sophisticated than that). Retro 3D FTW.
In your mentioning of the UK, it occurs to me that perhaps there is a project being undertaken by the government here to create God by means of it's omnipresent CCTV network with loudspeakers attached on high, which are used to occasionally talk down to people in a loud booming voice to chastise miscreants for their misdeeds (litter dropping, loutish behavior etc) in a very old-testament style manner.
"Oi, you! I command thee, pick up that Mars bar wrapper thou hast dropped on the pavement, or face my wrath (of a 20 GBP fixed penalty fine)."
Maybe the government are just worried about the threat of competition and want to nip it in the bud when they they young....
I'm going to have to disagree. I'm an IT Manager at a law firm and we've got mailboxes with 4GB and 5 GB of mail each. They function fine. Of course, we have to keep an eye on how big the store gets (that damn 16GB limit), but other than that, I have yet to hear complaints from users about it. Perhaps you were talking about substantially larger mailboxes? I should also note we run Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 (both Enterprise) with Office 2003. I'm thinking of two things really:
Mailboxes with a lot of messages in a single box and how well Outlook behaves when handling them, for both normal operations and for searching....and the total mail store size, and how it's handled (e.g. for replication) and what happens when it goes wrong (e.g. when it gets corrupt). The basic premise for storing mail like that is just a bad one I think, and that their are commercial tools you need to use (from third parties) to repair it when it goes wrong is really awful (and the time to repair drags on too).
Using a format like Maildir+, mbox or cyrus mailbox and directory hashing (splitting up the storage backends into clusters) you can support easily millions of users (which is what we do). Mailboxes get corrupt or need to be 'repaired' and replication is completely straightforward (if it's just to a failure site, even using rsync works fine for enterprise levels of mail).
I'm not saying Exchange it a bad choice for enterprise (overall, most of the other options suck much worse) but it's not a very good mail platform IMO (thinking of it specifically as a mail platform, compared to other software).
Slashdot Mirror
If you were able to work that out, but you just enjoy being a dick there are websites for people like you too.
I misread "dragon" as "dragonflies" (which for some reason I've been thinking about a lot lately).
I know this story has been posted a few times, coming up every 2-3 years since at least the 80's (that I know of), and it does the rounds in the TV and newspapers too.
It's been a "fish that swims and grows as you relax" and "an animal that evolves (from a fish to a lizard to a monkey) as you relax" this time apparently it's an insect. It's usually funded by University research grant (a waste of money IMO, especially when it's public funds) and with pumped up headlines like "games of the future to be controlled by your mind".
As you say, really simple stuff, I'm really sick of reading about this same "advancement"/"new technology" over and over. I'll probably *still* be reading "news" about it when I'm an old man.
Yep, I've got to say I'm always much more likely to pay more attention to the person that's actually putting out (what I think is) good software - and not much to people who spent more time talking about it rather than actively developing.
I really like the flexibility of dynamic typing but I really wish there there was an option to force static typing in languages like PHP and Perl (although having that sort of flexibility sounds like the sort of thing Larry Wall has been hinting may be in Perl 6, whenever it arrives).
I know I can write software that works perfectly well with dynamic typing (mostly..) and it makes development much quicker so I'd hate to not have it as an option, but on a big project with developers of varying quality it becomes a real liability and I'd gladly just do casting and sacrifice a little flexibility.
Thanks, that inspires me to create a page with a nice comparison of a simple app in a few languages with some stuff like that (Wikipedia has some good HelloWorld examples IIRC, but they are naturally very terse).
Oh yeah for sure. I should also have said they are very open about that.
Personally I think what they have done was a smart move (and I also in the things they've deliberately done slightly differently, in that I think they are improvements that aid readability). I'm all for copying things that are deemed to be good.
Compare a straightforward Java class, with try/catch (a silly example, but obviously just to provide some syntax):
// See e.getMessage() for error
// See $e->getMessage() for error
public class DoStuff {
protected double someNumber;
public setSomeNumber( double number ) {
try {
someNumber = number;
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}
}
... with some PHP for the same code, which would look like this:
public class DoStuff {
private someNumber;
public setSomeNumber($number) {
try {
$this->someNumber = $number;
} catch (Exception $e) {
}
}
}
I don't see how that's wacky syntax in the slightest. Just people people use PHP like it's Perl+Mason doesn't mean you can't use PHP for serious, scaleable, enterprise software. I know from experience that people are just as likely to write nasty Perl, Ruby or ASP as they are nasty PHP.
Personally I think Java makes it more difficult to be wacky (even though of course it can't force people to write code that's ultimately good) and that has definite benefits in an enterprise environment, but that lack of flexibility (which scripting languages like Perl and PHP have) is also why I don't tend to want to use Java.
You're not wrong. I don't get all the introspective navel gazing people seem to love doing (in place of anything more constructive).
A significant number of people seem to have nothing better to do than think up buzzwords (for things we already have names for), discuss about software / development methodologies and paradigms and generally do anything other than actually do whatever it is they seem to talk about about doing.
I am often frustrated (in and outside of work) that people would rather talk about 'what language to use', 'what framework to use', 'what revision control system to use', 'what wiki software will be use' than just pick a decent option and get on with building things. Sure, everyone wants to avoid picking a lemon, but at some point it's "good enough" - it's just important to ensure nothing too wacky / niche is being suggested. I like discussing the relative merits of different systems in and outside of work, I don't want it to become my work in and of itself though.
If people want to write software, I don't get why they don't just get on and do it. If they want to trade / publish / collect serial numbers (and I'm not suggesting they should) I don't see why they don't just go ahead and do that without a big dramatic hoo-ha.
A short message like "X was a jerk and tried to split up the group, so we kicked out a bunch of trouble makers" would cover all the drama in this case. That's really all there is to the story. Stuff like "a new graphical look for the website" and "a new forum" (and for some reason taking down the existing one first, load of sites do that for no good reason) and announcing "they are returning, stronger than ever" (or something to that effect) is all totally irrelevant to what they are actually claiming to be about, which is pretty straightforward and doesn't require a song and dance. And yet, this saga is repeated ad nauseum all over the place!
Someone thought it would be a good idea to give the kids a file share on the network to store their digital stuff (like classwork, etc.) now they are all using computers these days, and this way they wouldn't have to carry USB memory sticks around (which 8th graders are bound to lose/break/set fire to/swallow - and forget to backup).
THE SCUMBAGS.
"KDE's KHMTL passed the ACID 2 test, but not WebKit. ... They are finally merging back together, and future versions of WebKit should pass ACID 2 the way that KHTML does, but not currently."
That is not true actually. Safari was the first browser to pass the Acid2 test (in April 2005). I believe this was rolled out in regular consumer version of Safari in Autumn '05.
This timeline on Wikipedia matched up with my vague recollection - with Safari being the first browser to pass the test both with development code and with an official release (with Konqueror/KHTML following very shortly after).
"If YOU lived in Westminster you'd know how good the residents parking situation WAS."
If you lived it Westminster you'd know you get a 90% discount because you are resident, most of Westminster is inside the zone. You left London because of the congestion charge my arse. So tell us, what was the real reason?
"If YOU lived in London you'd know that areas like Fitzrovia and Pimlico are now so depopulated that restaurants and corner shops are closing."
Bwahaha! I was in Charlotte Street last night, and couldn't manage to get a table in the first two restaurants I went to, and ended up in a packed Zizzi's - and that's on a rainy Tuesday evening. Keep taking the medication mate. Fitzrovia depopulated, oh that's awesome, it really is.
Oh and The Fitzrovia was my regular until about a year ago. Is that central enough for you?
"Sure, the last thing you want in a city is PEOPLE - perish the thought! "
I suggest making more space for people (at the expense of cars), and you respond with that. Classic.
Hello Mr Troll,
No big deal?? I moved out of London because of the cost
Uh-hu. If you lived in London, you'd appreciate how expensive living here is, and that the congestion charge is inconsequential compared to the cost of a mortgage, or even renting a decent place. It's a paltry 8 quid a day and that's only if you happen to drive in to zone 1 (which is up to 20 GBP an hour for parking, and there are bugger all spaces, god knows why you'd even try) - and that's not including discounts.
It did noticeably cut congestion initially, but it's crept right back up again because the charge is so low (it costs far more if you actually want to park your car). Frankly, as Jeremy Clarkson has noted (tongue in cheek) it would need to be about 50 GBP a day to hold any hope of getting city boys to take any notice whatsoever. Even then that's going to be about the same as getting Taxi's about the place, and many will prefer the car.
I think it ought to be increased significantly (and given the narrow streets and the volume of people, closing off some of the road to traffic (or at least to buses only) would be a step in the right direction.
What about charging more to people of a given race (and so are genetically predisposed to certain illnesses), people who are idiots and hurt themselves because they are plain stupid, people who do dangerous things like oh, drive cars (much more dangerous than using pubic transport), people who sunbathe (mmm skin cancer), people who are gay (again, much more risk statistically), not forgetting people on lower incomes (they are much more likely to need expensive medical treatment after all)...
Mmmm Eugenics!
The problem is lots of people in management think that scripting languages are 'not as good as "compiled" languages' (note the quotes) by which they mean "Java, C/C++/C#".
To make matter worse, most people are lousy at interpreting answers to those questions IME. I haven't really ever been asked any of those in an interview, but I've been interviews where they have been asked, and discussed that sort of thing with quite a few coworkers and managers and I've often disagreed (even appalled) at how they interpret answers.
To me it seems simpler to ask people for an example of their work, about any projects they might have contributed to and to just hire them with a 3 month short-term notice period (where if they don't work out, they can leave / you can let them go with a week's notice).
Who said anything about console?
That's what we are talking about here, consoles. You can compare it with gaming on Mac or Windows if you want, but either offer a much more fragmented platform as far as online gaming and downloads are concerned and a smaller market (as evidenced by the console market outselling the Windows gaming market by so much). Windows Live! gaming service may yet change that (as Fire once looked like it was going to do) but that's still in development.
Held on high as if it were the second coming by yet another person who hasn't even tried a PS3. Yeah, maybe matchmaking is slick, but it's not $50/year better
I have tried a PS3, but I'm not getting one until they sort out their on line offering (or get a couple of killer titles, which it is far from having ATM).
The X-Box has a hell of a lot more than simple matchmaking in game, it's seeing when my friends are online, and what they are playing and how much of it they are playing, as well as meeting new people on line who I like playing with, and chatting to them and teaming up with them again in future because they are fun to play with. I wonder if YOU have actually used it.
45 GBP a year isn't much service like that AFAIC, but that might be more to you than it is to me. Hell TIVO was 120 GBP a month just for *TV listings*, on the face of it, but ultimately it's been worth it for a large number of people because of the end result.
480p - along with 576p - is often referred to as 'Enhanced Definition' (EDTV) but neither qualify as HDTV.
Name one console platform that gives you an experience like XBL for free then (HINT: it sure as hell isn't the same on the PS3, Wii or the PC).
Kids are not protected from adult life, they are kept out of the way at daytime baby sitting centers we call schools, that are minimum security prisons by any other name. As a generalization, if your adult life isn't much more enjoyable as an adult than it was in your youth, you're doing it wrong.
My advice is not listen to people who tell you you "have it lucky" as a kid. It always sounds to me like they've screwed up their adult life and are bitter about it.
Personally I love that as an adult I have plenty of disposable income, am in control of my own time, do something I like doing (and getting paid for it - which is notably unlike school, which was mind numbing, tedious, you don't get paid a dime and you are forced to go there).
And seriously, fuck working in a shop in a mall. Now THAT'S a horrible job. Software development FTW.
In your mentioning of the UK, it occurs to me that perhaps there is a project being undertaken by the government here to create God by means of it's omnipresent CCTV network with loudspeakers attached on high, which are used to occasionally talk down to people in a loud booming voice to chastise miscreants for their misdeeds (litter dropping, loutish behavior etc) in a very old-testament style manner.
...
...
"Oi, you! I command thee, pick up that Mars bar wrapper thou hast dropped on the pavement, or face my wrath (of a 20 GBP fixed penalty fine)."
Maybe the government are just worried about the threat of competition and want to nip it in the bud when they they young.
Cue 1984: s/Big Brother/God; s/The Party/Christianity
>> "Does God exist?"
> "Of course he exists. Christianity exists. God is the embodiment of Christianity."
Mailboxes with a lot of messages in a single box and how well Outlook behaves when handling them, for both normal operations and for searching.
Using a format like Maildir+, mbox or cyrus mailbox and directory hashing (splitting up the storage backends into clusters) you can support easily millions of users (which is what we do). Mailboxes get corrupt or need to be 'repaired' and replication is completely straightforward (if it's just to a failure site, even using rsync works fine for enterprise levels of mail).
I'm not saying Exchange it a bad choice for enterprise (overall, most of the other options suck much worse) but it's not a very good mail platform IMO (thinking of it specifically as a mail platform, compared to other software).