Did you check the link? I fell in love with the examples. They just look so nice.
And, as that solution uses client side JS instead of server side programming, it is not a server hog. Just figure a way to print LaTeX stuff dinamically. It's easy. Students just would have to write LaTeX instead of XML, and I presume most will like it.
I'm sure It has nothing to do with features. FF has that "Fighting the system" feeling that you would lose if you go to Opera.
However, a lot of practical people like me really prefer to use the best browser ever =)
I won't write about the nice features of Opera (I already did that in the past flamewars, just browse my posts) because FF just has that "religious fanatical user" mindset.
For other people: use the best tool for your needs, don't mind political agendas.
In Opera I can press Shift-F12 and set the tab-bar anywhere I want, I mean, below the page content. I can drag & drop anything from any toolbar to any other however I want.
Now you tell me how can I put the tab-bar in FF below the page content and just over the task bar.
First, if you need multiplatform, then code for that from the start. That kind of stuff can't be done in the end of the project. Your best shot is to use the wxWidgets C++ library.
Then, some things in C++ are boring and prone to errors. So learn lisp and make C++ generators in lisp. I did it to develop some C++ core data structures and their corresponding persistent object storage mechanism.
And the payback is great!
Most errors come from refactoring, where you change one thing in one place, but forgot to change the same thing in the miriad places that should be updated. With lisp, you just change a line in your code, tell lisp to recreate your C++ files and you can be sure everything works right.
You can test and change stuff faster with this approach. Hey, I can give you my lisp files if you want to try.
Because enough hobbists can build a good enough development system to threat windows hegemony and MS.
By good enough I mean: - Good for windows applications, so they look nice, run fast, and are easy to install. - Multiplatform, so Linux and OSX versions are just a recompile at most.
That development system would make the windows platform less relevant because all software will not be windows only.
MS can not impose anything on Linux and OSX developers, so they change the way to develop apps on Windows, to ensure that those apps are not developed simultaneously for Linux and Mac.
This multiplatform development system exists for Win32 (wxWidgets, QT and others), but Windows Vista will surely try to break it.
Only hobbists can create a developing system that challenges MS, so yes, you are right, but what is good for us is not necesarily good for MS.
I like Lisp, however...
on
Beyond Java
·
· Score: 1
Lisp is a wonderful and beautiful language. Common Lisp macros are probably the most powerful language constructs we could ever have.
However, back in the day it needed more computing power than what was available. 8 whole megabytes of memory for a runtime! A complex program could need 40MB! Outrageous! I remember the first computer in school with 4MB of RAM, dawn expensive.
So lisp was abandoned, and let to just rust there. Thanks to Paul Graham, everybody turned their eyes to lisp again.
Time was pretty hard with lisp, and available Common Lisp implementations doesn't have real standards for: - Threads - GUI - C library access - Network stuff... and everything that couldn't be readily implemented in Common Lisp.
In contrast, if something is implementable directly in Common Lisp, like regular expressions, or aspect oriented programming, it tends to be even faster and more powerful than their counterparts.
It doesn't mean that there is nothing like a GUI, network libraries and threads in Lisp. The Big and Expensive CommonLisps sure have it. But is non portable between implementations, and TheBigCommonLisps(tm) sometimes ask you for a runtime license fee for every copy you sell of your software. Hey, the greed of commercial lisps is the trauma inflicted in RMS and the underlying cause of the GNU project!
And the fact that there is no hard dividing line between a DLL and a embedded piece of code in a running lisp image, means that the GPL is probably not a good idea for lisp implementations and libraries.
So? Well, lisp is good. It surely can be the most powerful language in earth. But Open Common Lisp implementations have to play a little catch up in features and libraries, just about the 15 years everybody forgot about lisp and dreamed of java.
It's ages ahead of MFC. As in easier to do complex stuff, and as much more powerful too.
There is a class to draw X/Y graphics, called wxPlot, so half of what you need is already written.
C++ with wxWidgets is so much easier and powerful compared to Java for anything GUI related. And it makes standard GUIs.
And in the end you have a nice.exe file wich requires no installer. It can't be easier to install than that. No runtimes, dlls or pain.
VisualBasic apps are a PITA to install using the provided installer, you just know it works in your computer but it can be a really complex task to make it run in different setups.
If you like Ruby, Python, perl, or several more languages; you can use wxWidgets with them too.
Louis Castle is the Vice President of Creative Development at EA Los Angeles, where he provides creative input on a number of popular franchises, including Medal of Honor, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, Lord of the Rings, and Command & Conquer, the series he helped create over a decade ago at Las Vegas-based Westwood Studios, which he co-founded in 1985.
I found PCL useful to get that "ohh this sh*t is powerful" feeling, but very confusing to learn lisp.
In contrast, this book takes your hand and teaches you in a very beginner friendly way, so you have better and long lasting foundations when you reach the end of the book:
You could try the P990 when it comes out. It will have Wi_Fi and FM stereo.
I do have a P900 and is quite good. It has bluetooth and IR. I read books in pdb format (I've read more books in it in the last year and a half that I was used to before), it has nintendo emulators, the metro app to calculate routes, a HP48 emulator, pdf, word and excel applications, and (to me) it looks better than the Treo.
Ohh and it has Opera, so you can browse XHTML+CSS pages, see hotmail, and all that stuff.
The phone funcionality is superb, you can enter SMS text with T9, with the alphabetic keyboard in P910 P990, with the stylus (it recognizes your handwriting) or, when connected to the PC, with the computer keyboard and mouse.
Downsides: it's a little overpriced and only reads MemoryStick cards.
No, no Age of something comes close to the fun. Two hours for a short game? Some Dune versions are better, but also slow compared to the fast pace of starcraft multiplayer.
There are many wannabes, but Starcraft quality pays off. They even have a new demo in the homepage, and that only means that sales are higher than any other game that old.
I mean, do you know any other RTS game that get matchs broadcasted on TV? Right now I'm downloading some Yellow's replays. What other RTS has whole websites just for replays?
I also use gmail as you use it. It's very convenient to have your email whenever you go, and that much space.
However the labels feature is not exclusive of gmail. There was first in the email client of the Opera browser. I could even say that google got the idea from there.
And economics 101 doesn't teach to plan the future but only think about the profit of this quarter?
If MS did that, as soon as the rival consoles launch, the sales of 360 will stop to almost zero because in the mind of the buyers the 360 would still be "that overpriced console that ripped us!" and they will say "we get better graphics at HALF the price!!", even if this facts are not entirely correct, they would be in their minds, and mindshare matters.
MS is trying to stop having the 20% of the market and going to a 50% or more. They are selling at loss already. If they achieve this 50%, the next generation will be owned by them. Thinking about this quarter only, will give them about 5% marketshare, after current consumers get pissed off and convince their friends to never buy a 360.
Total profit would be much lower, because consoles are a scarce resource only until competitors launch their own.
They are not worthwhile because they are pre-integrated. That's no argument.
They are worthwhile because they are in my opinion, better done.
It's the little details Opera users are really used to, like the fact that I can switch between tabs with the mouse wheel (that's a really nice one), the useful notes panel, the fact that I can program not only the keyboard, but the mouse gestures from the opera GUI.
Now tabs. I like to have my tabs in the bottom of the screen. Opera lets me do it happily. The tabs in Opera can have a close button in each of them. (I hide those buttons, though.) You can configure new tabs to open by middle click in the end of the tab bar, like FF, or just beside the current tab.
Then you close the current tab by accident. You want it back, with its entire browsing history? just hit Ctrl-Z. Hey you've even got a whole list of all the tabs you've closed!
And pop-ups open in tabs, not in unwanted windows hiding the tabs I have open. (Configurable just like everything else.)
I can duplicate a tab, with its entire browsing history, too. Or create a linked tab, and every link I click from the original tab is opened in the other tab. Hey, I can do that from the links panel too!
Now I'm browsing with... (let me count) 38 tabs opened. And all is easy and responsible.
I have a Windows panel too, and I can reorder the tabs using drag and drop, of every Opera window I have open. So let's make a window with just the online comics tabs! Easy.
If Opera is closed, and then reopened, all the tabs are back... yep you guessed right, each one with their entire browsing history.
And now the zoom. Opera zoom affects the size of everything, text, graphics, buttons, etc. So the page layout is not truly altered by the zoom. So what? Well this makes Opera the best browser for testing even extreme zoom sizes. You can even see the page as it would look in a cellphone/pda (not that I use it). That reminds me of other feature.
I friend of mine has a special software to read his scanned comic books. I've used it, and still feel that opera is better for that task. When Opera opens a page that's only a directory of files, creates a secuence of those files. So you click on the first one. And the next button goes to the second, third and so on, without needing to going back to the dir page, until you finish the slide show.
I'm downloading FF extensions as I write this. Not all of them work, so far only 9 of 16 have worked. So, no, I can't have all the features I like from Opera in FF. However, it feels much better than 1.0. Hey I like it, if just because it behaves more like... Opera. I just like Opera more, as you like FF.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you check the link?
3 19.html
I fell in love with the examples. They just look so nice.
And, as that solution uses client side JS instead of server side programming, it is not a server hog. Just figure a way to print LaTeX stuff dinamically. It's easy. Students just would have to write LaTeX instead of XML, and I presume most will like it.
Parsing XML surely can be a server hog.
I could explain it, but Joel Spolsky surely has done a better job than I can:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
I'm not telling you to drop what you have done, but having alternatives is a good thing.
It seems cool =)
Sounds like the serialization techniques I use in C++.
Yes, XML is just a buzzword, with not much technical merits in it.
I see what you mean.
= 24
Would you please post it to:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id
But don't mention the political movement.
http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/jsMath/
At least I prefer to write LaTeX than XML and find the output of jsMath so nice looking.
Yes.
C++ inline functions are more manageable than an equivalent C #define macro.
In fact, good C++ can be faster and at the same time easier to code than plain C.
Just don't buy the "everything should be a class" mentality of Java. And avoid templates.
I'm sure It has nothing to do with features. FF has that "Fighting the system" feeling that you would lose if you go to Opera.
However, a lot of practical people like me really prefer to use the best browser ever =)
I won't write about the nice features of Opera (I already did that in the past flamewars, just browse my posts) because FF just has that "religious fanatical user" mindset.
For other people: use the best tool for your needs, don't mind political agendas.
Yeah sure.
In Opera I can press Shift-F12 and set the tab-bar anywhere I want, I mean, below the page content. I can drag & drop anything from any toolbar to any other however I want.
Now you tell me how can I put the tab-bar in FF below the page content and just over the task bar.
Please. I'm listening.
I can't write multiplatform GUI code with Lisp.
Not unless I want to have my clients pay a runtime fee for every running copy of the software.
I have great hopes in the wxCL project.
The code produced is C++, which can be audited way easier than lisp and I have lots of experience in.
The end result is: I was able to code it faster and more reliable than if I had wrote the C++ by hand.
However, not everything was done with the lisp->C++ code, just the boring, repetitive parts. The rest was common C++.
Just because no one did it before this way doesn't mean it's not a good idea. The benefits were so good I would do it again a hundred times.
In fact, I wish I used a lisp->C++ generator for more sections of the program, once the repetitive parts were obvious.
First, if you need multiplatform, then code for that from the start. That kind of stuff can't be done in the end of the project. Your best shot is to use the wxWidgets C++ library.
Then, some things in C++ are boring and prone to errors. So learn lisp and make C++ generators in lisp. I did it to develop some C++ core data structures and their corresponding persistent object storage mechanism.
And the payback is great!
Most errors come from refactoring, where you change one thing in one place, but forgot to change the same thing in the miriad places that should be updated. With lisp, you just change a line in your code, tell lisp to recreate your C++ files and you can be sure everything works right.
You can test and change stuff faster with this approach. Hey, I can give you my lisp files if you want to try.
HTH, YMMV.
Just see the way starcraft cinematics were done.
They are superb, funny, and even today they look nice.
However, if you skip them, you don't lose much from the history, and the game is just as good.
...that's the reason he has to block hobbists.
Because enough hobbists can build a good enough development system to threat windows hegemony and MS.
By good enough I mean:
- Good for windows applications, so they look nice, run fast, and are easy to install.
- Multiplatform, so Linux and OSX versions are just a recompile at most.
That development system would make the windows platform less relevant because all software will not be windows only.
MS can not impose anything on Linux and OSX developers, so they change the way to develop apps on Windows, to ensure that those apps are not developed simultaneously for Linux and Mac.
This multiplatform development system exists for Win32 (wxWidgets, QT and others), but Windows Vista will surely try to break it.
Only hobbists can create a developing system that challenges MS, so yes, you are right, but what is good for us is not necesarily good for MS.
Lisp is a wonderful and beautiful language. Common Lisp macros are probably the most powerful language constructs we could ever have.
... and everything that couldn't be readily implemented in Common Lisp.
However, back in the day it needed more computing power than what was available. 8 whole megabytes of memory for a runtime! A complex program could need 40MB! Outrageous! I remember the first computer in school with 4MB of RAM, dawn expensive.
So lisp was abandoned, and let to just rust there. Thanks to Paul Graham, everybody turned their eyes to lisp again.
Time was pretty hard with lisp, and available Common Lisp implementations doesn't have real standards for:
- Threads
- GUI
- C library access
- Network stuff
In contrast, if something is implementable directly in Common Lisp, like regular expressions, or aspect oriented programming, it tends to be even faster and more powerful than their counterparts.
It doesn't mean that there is nothing like a GUI, network libraries and threads in Lisp. The Big and Expensive CommonLisps sure have it. But is non portable between implementations, and TheBigCommonLisps(tm) sometimes ask you for a runtime license fee for every copy you sell of your software. Hey, the greed of commercial lisps is the trauma inflicted in RMS and the underlying cause of the GNU project!
And the fact that there is no hard dividing line between a DLL and a embedded piece of code in a running lisp image, means that the GPL is probably not a good idea for lisp implementations and libraries.
So? Well, lisp is good. It surely can be the most powerful language in earth. But Open Common Lisp implementations have to play a little catch up in features and libraries, just about the 15 years everybody forgot about lisp and dreamed of java.
If you like C++ then try wxWidgets.
.exe file wich requires no installer. It can't be easier to install than that. No runtimes, dlls or pain.
It's ages ahead of MFC. As in easier to do complex stuff, and as much more powerful too.
There is a class to draw X/Y graphics, called wxPlot, so half of what you need is already written.
C++ with wxWidgets is so much easier and powerful compared to Java for anything GUI related. And it makes standard GUIs.
And in the end you have a nice
VisualBasic apps are a PITA to install using the provided installer, you just know it works in your computer but it can be a really complex task to make it run in different setups.
If you like Ruby, Python, perl, or several more languages; you can use wxWidgets with them too.
First paragraph:
Louis Castle is the Vice President of Creative Development at EA Los Angeles, where he provides creative input on a number of popular franchises, including Medal of Honor, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, Lord of the Rings, and Command & Conquer, the series he helped create over a decade ago at Las Vegas-based Westwood Studios, which he co-founded in 1985.
I found PCL useful to get that "ohh this sh*t is powerful" feeling, but very confusing to learn lisp.
o /Commonlisp/
In contrast, this book takes your hand and teaches you in a very beginner friendly way, so you have better and long lasting foundations when you reach the end of the book:
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/WWW/faculty/shapir
And learn Lisp.
Then design patterns become meaningless because there's no language limitations to try to overcome.
I mean, machines are faster everyday, and programmer time is more expensive. So it's better to use more powerful abstractions.
You could try the P990 when it comes out. It will have Wi_Fi and FM stereo.
I do have a P900 and is quite good. It has bluetooth and IR. I read books in pdb format (I've read more books in it in the last year and a half that I was used to before), it has nintendo emulators, the metro app to calculate routes, a HP48 emulator, pdf, word and excel applications, and (to me) it looks better than the Treo.
Ohh and it has Opera, so you can browse XHTML+CSS pages, see hotmail, and all that stuff.
The phone funcionality is superb, you can enter SMS text with T9, with the alphabetic keyboard in P910 P990, with the stylus (it recognizes your handwriting) or, when connected to the PC, with the computer keyboard and mouse.
Downsides: it's a little overpriced and only reads MemoryStick cards.
Thinking about it, you're right.
There will not be a Starcraft2 while the original is still selling.
yes we surely need one.
They really were not profitable enough. Too complex for average people. PCs had no joysticks by default.
I have high hopes for a Nintendo revolution Descent-like game with the new controller.
No, no Age of something comes close to the fun. Two hours for a short game? Some Dune versions are better, but also slow compared to the fast pace of starcraft multiplayer.
There are many wannabes, but Starcraft quality pays off. They even have a new demo in the homepage, and that only means that sales are higher than any other game that old.
I mean, do you know any other RTS game that get matchs broadcasted on TV? Right now I'm downloading some Yellow's replays. What other RTS has whole websites just for replays?
We need badly a RTS sequel to starcraft.
I also use gmail as you use it. It's very convenient to have your email whenever you go, and that much space.
However the labels feature is not exclusive of gmail. There was first in the email client of the Opera browser. I could even say that google got the idea from there.
So you know which POP client I use for gmail.
There are drivers that let you control the mouse with a joystick, and they really are more ergonomic. Very easy to use.
The only downside is the deadzone, so may be a better joystick than mine is a must for this.
And economics 101 doesn't teach to plan the future but only think about the profit of this quarter?
If MS did that, as soon as the rival consoles launch, the sales of 360 will stop to almost zero because in the mind of the buyers the 360 would still be "that overpriced console that ripped us!" and they will say "we get better graphics at HALF the price!!", even if this facts are not entirely correct, they would be in their minds, and mindshare matters.
MS is trying to stop having the 20% of the market and going to a 50% or more. They are selling at loss already. If they achieve this 50%, the next generation will be owned by them. Thinking about this quarter only, will give them about 5% marketshare, after current consumers get pissed off and convince their friends to never buy a 360.
Total profit would be much lower, because consoles are a scarce resource only until competitors launch their own.
They are not worthwhile because they are pre-integrated. That's no argument.
They are worthwhile because they are in my opinion, better done.
It's the little details Opera users are really used to, like the fact that I can switch between tabs with the mouse wheel (that's a really nice one), the useful notes panel, the fact that I can program not only the keyboard, but the mouse gestures from the opera GUI.
Now tabs. I like to have my tabs in the bottom of the screen. Opera lets me do it happily. The tabs in Opera can have a close button in each of them. (I hide those buttons, though.) You can configure new tabs to open by middle click in the end of the tab bar, like FF, or just beside the current tab.
Then you close the current tab by accident. You want it back, with its entire browsing history? just hit Ctrl-Z. Hey you've even got a whole list of all the tabs you've closed!
And pop-ups open in tabs, not in unwanted windows hiding the tabs I have open. (Configurable just like everything else.)
I can duplicate a tab, with its entire browsing history, too. Or create a linked tab, and every link I click from the original tab is opened in the other tab. Hey, I can do that from the links panel too!
Now I'm browsing with... (let me count) 38 tabs opened. And all is easy and responsible.
I have a Windows panel too, and I can reorder the tabs using drag and drop, of every Opera window I have open. So let's make a window with just the online comics tabs! Easy.
If Opera is closed, and then reopened, all the tabs are back... yep you guessed right, each one with their entire browsing history.
And now the zoom. Opera zoom affects the size of everything, text, graphics, buttons, etc. So the page layout is not truly altered by the zoom. So what? Well this makes Opera the best browser for testing even extreme zoom sizes. You can even see the page as it would look in a cellphone/pda (not that I use it). That reminds me of other feature.
I friend of mine has a special software to read his scanned comic books. I've used it, and still feel that opera is better for that task. When Opera opens a page that's only a directory of files, creates a secuence of those files. So you click on the first one. And the next button goes to the second, third and so on, without needing to going back to the dir page, until you finish the slide show.
I'm downloading FF extensions as I write this. Not all of them work, so far only 9 of 16 have worked. So, no, I can't have all the features I like from Opera in FF. However, it feels much better than 1.0. Hey I like it, if just because it behaves more like... Opera. I just like Opera more, as you like FF.