The nunchuk accessory will come with the Wii, so you use a standard analog stick to move the player while the remote works like a souped-up light gun. It's very similar to a keyboard and mouse setup, but I think the light gun-style of shooting will make it even better.
Stable doesn't just mean "doesn't crash". Most importantly, are Windows updates stable? (will they break anything? Need exhaustive testing?)
I know far too many sysadmins who have had horrible experiences stabilizing software after installing service packs or patches from Microsoft. I've seen critical patches languish on testing servers for many days or even weeks while admins tried to figure out why it broke Oracle or whatever other software was installed.
To me, knowing that the entire life cycle of an OS version is going to be stable within itself when patches are released is extremely important. This is the kind of stability that you need on servers, but which Windows doesn't provide.
HTML should not ever be in your logic code, but you can have some logic in your PHP.
For that to work you need a genuine logic layer. Using an MVC pattern can help a lot, but all you really need is to use something like the Smarty template engine (http://smarty.php.net/). Smarty will give you a simple templating language, then in your logic layer you assign the needed values for the template to use.
In my current project I assign mostly arrays (like a DB resultset from ADODB's GetArray function), but there are a handful of objects and quite a few string or int variables. All of these variable assignments are done in the controller so they're not mixed throughout the site. So the controller invokes the classes that do the work (and pass in the parameters the classes need to work), then the controller takes the result data and assigns it to a template. You can do whatever you like to get the data, but just remember you don't ever need to use echo or print().
In the view layer (Smarty) the template will be HTML and simply drop variables where they're supposed to be. Eg: {$page_title}. The only logic in the template is the view logic such as iterating over an array or using a Smarty {if}..{else} statement to decide which piece of HTML to output.
$400 up front would never work. I'd be happy paying a monthly fee for a game if the game was free because at least then it'd be a low barrier to entry to try the game. I would have tried all the MMOs by now if the game itself was free.
Ubuntu's predictable release cycle and newer software repositories might benefit a lot of businesses. For instance, PHP 5 is not available in Debian stable, but is in Ubuntu Breezy and Dapper. Sure, you can use one of several PHP 5 packages available for Debian stable or use the version from the unstable repository, but then you're compromising a lot of what makes Debian so great... package stability and quality.
I would argue that Debian stable packages are better than Ubuntu packages, but not always once you get outside of the stable repositories. Ubuntu can stabilize newer packages faster.
Non-Debian users will think you're joking, but the truth is that Debian packages are several orders of magnitude better than any other distro's. Slackware may come closest. I think the difference is that Debian packages feel like they've been made by people who love Debian and love the software they're packaging for Debian. There are no bad packages in Debian stable and packages don't do anything they're not supposed to do, like break compatibility.
Debian is the only OS I use in which I feel confident upgrading a production server without extensive testing. 100 packages might need upgrading, but I know it will work and won't break anything.
"Magic Carpet was the perfect combination of everything - graphics, sound, gameplay, fun factor! (I *so* wish someone would buy the rights to it and release a more modern version.)"
And what would the modern version have over the old version? Better graphics. See, even you can fall prey to the "graphics are king" fallacy:)
Even adjusting for inflation, look at the relative price of the most popular systems: NES, SNES, PSX, N64, PS2, Gamecube and Xbox are all under $400. The failures are mostly all higher priced systems: Neo-Geo, CD-i, 3DO and Saturn. XBox 360 is bucking that trend so far, but it was also able to take advantage of a year of being the only "next gen" system on the market. If it and a $300 PS3 had come out at the same time you can bet that the 360 would not have been very popular.
The PSX controller didn't have analog sticks and when they added the sticks they put them on in a very unobtrusive way because they were not the primary method of control. The PS dual shock controller is the only one that still puts the old D-pad in the top-left location, which is the easiest place to reach. If Sony just swapped the locations of the D-pad and left stick that would be fine, but they've decided that analog sticks should be a secondary feature while game developers want to use them as the primary control devices.
Sony also could have used something like the Gamecube controller's excellent analog shoulder buttons. It's not as if they're against stealing ideas, so they may as well steal all the good ideas Nintendo has.
The real question is whether or not Google is knowingly allowing ads for sites with child pornography. Obviously if they knew about these sites they should have been removed.
I somehow doubt any company would do that since it is a sure way to get in trouble and lose lots of customers. I imagine a few ads may have slipped under the Google radar that looks for this sort of abuse, but if Google has a system in place where people can notify them of these ads and if they take immediate action to remove the ads, then I don't see them as being 'evil'.
"I wonder at what point we're polluting more by plugging an electric sports car in and sucking energy from the power plant than we are just filling up our reasonably fuel efficient gasoline vehicles?"
Automobiles aren't very fuel efficient at all. Car engines waste in excess of 30% of the energy from gasoline (http://staff.science.nus.edu.sg/~parwani/htw/c2/n ode43.html). Power plants are wasteful, but generally more efficient. When you consider that it looks like we're on the verge of building a lot of new Nuclear power plants, whose waste is easier to contain, I think plugging in your car is a decent choice. Parking lots can be like old drive-ins with the radio wire, but with electrical outlets instead.
The Canadian system is pretty good. I can get a doctor's appointment within 2 days of calling if it's not an emergency and I can see my dentist within a week. If it's an emergency I can just walk in to a hospital or my doctors or dentists office and they will see me right away. Hospital emergency room waits might be long for a minor issue if they're busy, but if you're bleeding to death you will see a doctor within seconds of arriving.
There are some areas that are underserviced, usually because not enough doctors or dentists live in the area, but the government can't force people where to live.
The real difference with the Canadian system vs. the US system is that you get the same good service no matter how much money you make. The rich can get better service through doctors that take fewer patients, but charge those patients a premium to see them.
That's not the desired definition of "revolution". Going 360 degrees means you're back where you started. The definition they want (and what Nintendo meant by their wii codename) was "A sudden or momentous change in a situation", which has nothing to do with the number 360. In fact, going 360 degrees is the exact opposite of a gaming revolution. So I guess in that case the name Xbox 360 does make sense seeing as the system is just a rehash of the same old games that have been around since 1994.
The last console to have a great name was Genesis. NES, SMS, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox and Xbox 360 are all stupid names.
Playstation was an ok name, but Playstation 2 is the most unoriginal name ever. Xbox 360 not only doesn't sound fun, but it doesn't even make sense (why 360? What does that number signify?). At least Nintendo is trying to communicate its system's goal: wii means "we" as in we all play this system. Jokes about urinating are stupid. When you say "we went to see a movie last night" I don't giggle "he he, he said 'we'" like Beavis and Butthead do. What sound do kids make when they swing? "Weeeeee!" sounds like what I want to be screaming when I'm playing a fun game.
Saying "wii" is also a lot easier for more languages. Revolution might be great in English, but they'd definitely have to change their name for other languages, which hurts global branding.
If the system is any good nobody will remember that they hated the name.
Nintendo's controller doesn't prevent lazy-player games from being made. Not only can it be used in some games without waving your hand around, but you can always connect a Gamecube controller to the system and play it like any other console.
Nintendo is broadening the types of games that will be played on Revolution, not restricting them.
I sort of agree with you, but if I were Oracle I'd be much more interested in OpenBSD, wouldn't you? The license is much better for a company that wants to take the code and wrap it around a big proprietary product.
For now you're right, but it's plainly obvious that the next round of video and audio media will have strong DRM capabilities. Sure, they will be cracked, but Linux will need a way to play legit media.
Putting DRM right in the kernel is probably not necessary. A small userland daemon can watch for DRMed content and decode when necessary. It could also be shut off when not wanted.
His point was that they will both be out at the same time, but the torrent will be a high-quality HDTV rip while ABC will likely only have a lower quality streaming version.
ABC had the chance to be better than the pirates and they blew it. If all they did was make it available in DVD-R format at the same time the show was aired, people could begin downloading it that night and have it ready to watch later or the next day at their leisure. It would effectively kill P2P versions of those shows since you could get the official version sooner.
Isn't ESX an OS? I am under the impression that it runs directly on the hardware, which would explain the great performance.
I'm leaning towards using GSX for a trial on our web network. It's working great in the dev environment. When our web site grows by about 40x in the next two years due to massive corporate expansion, I'll look to switch to ESX.
First, scaffolding helps getting started because the programmer can work on code rather than building forms that connect to the database. The trick there is to use the 'generate' script to create the scaffolding in real code rather than use the run-time scaffolding. The generated code is pretty clean and does the bare minimum required, which is a great platform for building on.
Second, with ActiveRecord the code feels very close to the data. When working within Rails' naming conventions it's very simple to do stuff like track back and forth in a data record and figure out what belongs to it (foreign keys referring to your data) and what it belongs to (foreign keys in your data referring to other data). Honestly, it seems heavy, but it works so well you forget about that. There have been a few times where I needed some data and found it already in my model object because the database relationship was there. This stuff has been made even better in Rails 1.1 because it stretches the relationship even more (relationships through other tables).
Everything also gets done with a lot less code both because Rails makes things easy and because Ruby is designed really well.
I wouldn't say the Rails MVC model speeds things up that drastically, but it sure does make sure your app will be maintainable. That's what MVC is all about anyway.
Java is faster, but Ruby is easier on system resources. Ruby on Rails scales far easier than Java and saves mountains of developer time both while initially programming the app and maintaining it later.
My conclusion is that Rails apps are easier to program, easier to scale to multiple servers, easier to deploy, and they run slower than Java apps in some circumstances.
I'm coding a large-scale site in RoR right now. It'll be deployed across three Lighttpd servers with two MySQL servers. I'm about three weeks into the site and I've probably saved a month of work already over how long it'd take me to do the same work in Java or PHP.
Rails' efficiency won't continue to be that high as I get more into the business logic and smaller details, but for the data layers that I'm doing now Rails blows away anything else. I'll still be at least 50% ahead of where I'd be using Java and PHP when it's finished. The code will be way cleaner because Ruby is a better designed language than either Java or PHP. It'll be a snap to add features later, which is the problem we're currently having with our site and its 20,000+ lines of PHP code.
I've coded and managed Java and PHP sites. PHP is easier to work with than Java for most small to medium sites and Java can be easier on large sites. Neither of them are better than Rails for any size site.
I predict that Ruby on Rails will become the big third competitor in the market for building web apps. Java will still be bigger on the very high end because of EJBs and the need to interface with legacy systems and PHP will still be bigger on the low end because it's easier to learn since you don't need to know OOP to get started. Ruby on Rails will be the language/framework that finally fits into that middle market where most medium to large businesses are. PHP's code is too messy to work there without a lot of coder discipline and either a custom or well-done Open Source framework and Java is just too complicated.
Same way KDE's wallet or the Gnome keyring work: ask the user once for each session in which it was used. Maybe read-only access to the bookmarks should be allowed without the password.
I just remember that so many apps would drop their own bookmark files into IE's bookmark folder. Every forum was filled with questions like "How do I get rid of the ICQ bookmark? It keeps coming back after I delete it."
Slashdot Mirror
The nunchuk accessory will come with the Wii, so you use a standard analog stick to move the player while the remote works like a souped-up light gun. It's very similar to a keyboard and mouse setup, but I think the light gun-style of shooting will make it even better.
Stable doesn't just mean "doesn't crash". Most importantly, are Windows updates stable? (will they break anything? Need exhaustive testing?)
I know far too many sysadmins who have had horrible experiences stabilizing software after installing service packs or patches from Microsoft. I've seen critical patches languish on testing servers for many days or even weeks while admins tried to figure out why it broke Oracle or whatever other software was installed.
To me, knowing that the entire life cycle of an OS version is going to be stable within itself when patches are released is extremely important. This is the kind of stability that you need on servers, but which Windows doesn't provide.
HTML should not ever be in your logic code, but you can have some logic in your PHP.
For that to work you need a genuine logic layer. Using an MVC pattern can help a lot, but all you really need is to use something like the Smarty template engine (http://smarty.php.net/). Smarty will give you a simple templating language, then in your logic layer you assign the needed values for the template to use.
In my current project I assign mostly arrays (like a DB resultset from ADODB's GetArray function), but there are a handful of objects and quite a few string or int variables. All of these variable assignments are done in the controller so they're not mixed throughout the site. So the controller invokes the classes that do the work (and pass in the parameters the classes need to work), then the controller takes the result data and assigns it to a template. You can do whatever you like to get the data, but just remember you don't ever need to use echo or print().
In the view layer (Smarty) the template will be HTML and simply drop variables where they're supposed to be. Eg: {$page_title}. The only logic in the template is the view logic such as iterating over an array or using a Smarty {if}..{else} statement to decide which piece of HTML to output.
$400 up front would never work. I'd be happy paying a monthly fee for a game if the game was free because at least then it'd be a low barrier to entry to try the game. I would have tried all the MMOs by now if the game itself was free.
Ubuntu's predictable release cycle and newer software repositories might benefit a lot of businesses. For instance, PHP 5 is not available in Debian stable, but is in Ubuntu Breezy and Dapper. Sure, you can use one of several PHP 5 packages available for Debian stable or use the version from the unstable repository, but then you're compromising a lot of what makes Debian so great... package stability and quality.
I would argue that Debian stable packages are better than Ubuntu packages, but not always once you get outside of the stable repositories. Ubuntu can stabilize newer packages faster.
Non-Debian users will think you're joking, but the truth is that Debian packages are several orders of magnitude better than any other distro's. Slackware may come closest. I think the difference is that Debian packages feel like they've been made by people who love Debian and love the software they're packaging for Debian. There are no bad packages in Debian stable and packages don't do anything they're not supposed to do, like break compatibility.
Debian is the only OS I use in which I feel confident upgrading a production server without extensive testing. 100 packages might need upgrading, but I know it will work and won't break anything.
"Magic Carpet was the perfect combination of everything - graphics, sound, gameplay, fun factor! (I *so* wish someone would buy the rights to it and release a more modern version.)"
:)
And what would the modern version have over the old version? Better graphics. See, even you can fall prey to the "graphics are king" fallacy
Even adjusting for inflation, look at the relative price of the most popular systems: NES, SNES, PSX, N64, PS2, Gamecube and Xbox are all under $400. The failures are mostly all higher priced systems: Neo-Geo, CD-i, 3DO and Saturn. XBox 360 is bucking that trend so far, but it was also able to take advantage of a year of being the only "next gen" system on the market. If it and a $300 PS3 had come out at the same time you can bet that the 360 would not have been very popular.
The PSX controller didn't have analog sticks and when they added the sticks they put them on in a very unobtrusive way because they were not the primary method of control. The PS dual shock controller is the only one that still puts the old D-pad in the top-left location, which is the easiest place to reach. If Sony just swapped the locations of the D-pad and left stick that would be fine, but they've decided that analog sticks should be a secondary feature while game developers want to use them as the primary control devices.
Sony also could have used something like the Gamecube controller's excellent analog shoulder buttons. It's not as if they're against stealing ideas, so they may as well steal all the good ideas Nintendo has.
The real question is whether or not Google is knowingly allowing ads for sites with child pornography. Obviously if they knew about these sites they should have been removed.
I somehow doubt any company would do that since it is a sure way to get in trouble and lose lots of customers. I imagine a few ads may have slipped under the Google radar that looks for this sort of abuse, but if Google has a system in place where people can notify them of these ads and if they take immediate action to remove the ads, then I don't see them as being 'evil'.
"I wonder at what point we're polluting more by plugging an electric sports car in and sucking energy from the power plant than we are just filling up our reasonably fuel efficient gasoline vehicles?"
n ode43.html). Power plants are wasteful, but generally more efficient. When you consider that it looks like we're on the verge of building a lot of new Nuclear power plants, whose waste is easier to contain, I think plugging in your car is a decent choice. Parking lots can be like old drive-ins with the radio wire, but with electrical outlets instead.
Automobiles aren't very fuel efficient at all. Car engines waste in excess of 30% of the energy from gasoline (http://staff.science.nus.edu.sg/~parwani/htw/c2/
The Canadian system is pretty good. I can get a doctor's appointment within 2 days of calling if it's not an emergency and I can see my dentist within a week. If it's an emergency I can just walk in to a hospital or my doctors or dentists office and they will see me right away. Hospital emergency room waits might be long for a minor issue if they're busy, but if you're bleeding to death you will see a doctor within seconds of arriving.
There are some areas that are underserviced, usually because not enough doctors or dentists live in the area, but the government can't force people where to live.
The real difference with the Canadian system vs. the US system is that you get the same good service no matter how much money you make. The rich can get better service through doctors that take fewer patients, but charge those patients a premium to see them.
"360 degrees = a revolution"
That's not the desired definition of "revolution". Going 360 degrees means you're back where you started. The definition they want (and what Nintendo meant by their wii codename) was "A sudden or momentous change in a situation", which has nothing to do with the number 360. In fact, going 360 degrees is the exact opposite of a gaming revolution. So I guess in that case the name Xbox 360 does make sense seeing as the system is just a rehash of the same old games that have been around since 1994.
The last console to have a great name was Genesis. NES, SMS, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox and Xbox 360 are all stupid names.
Playstation was an ok name, but Playstation 2 is the most unoriginal name ever. Xbox 360 not only doesn't sound fun, but it doesn't even make sense (why 360? What does that number signify?). At least Nintendo is trying to communicate its system's goal: wii means "we" as in we all play this system. Jokes about urinating are stupid. When you say "we went to see a movie last night" I don't giggle "he he, he said 'we'" like Beavis and Butthead do. What sound do kids make when they swing? "Weeeeee!" sounds like what I want to be screaming when I'm playing a fun game.
Saying "wii" is also a lot easier for more languages. Revolution might be great in English, but they'd definitely have to change their name for other languages, which hurts global branding.
If the system is any good nobody will remember that they hated the name.
Nintendo's controller doesn't prevent lazy-player games from being made. Not only can it be used in some games without waving your hand around, but you can always connect a Gamecube controller to the system and play it like any other console.
Nintendo is broadening the types of games that will be played on Revolution, not restricting them.
I sort of agree with you, but if I were Oracle I'd be much more interested in OpenBSD, wouldn't you? The license is much better for a company that wants to take the code and wrap it around a big proprietary product.
Inheritable genetic mutations drive evolution.
For now you're right, but it's plainly obvious that the next round of video and audio media will have strong DRM capabilities. Sure, they will be cracked, but Linux will need a way to play legit media.
Putting DRM right in the kernel is probably not necessary. A small userland daemon can watch for DRMed content and decode when necessary. It could also be shut off when not wanted.
His point was that they will both be out at the same time, but the torrent will be a high-quality HDTV rip while ABC will likely only have a lower quality streaming version.
ABC had the chance to be better than the pirates and they blew it. If all they did was make it available in DVD-R format at the same time the show was aired, people could begin downloading it that night and have it ready to watch later or the next day at their leisure. It would effectively kill P2P versions of those shows since you could get the official version sooner.
Isn't ESX an OS? I am under the impression that it runs directly on the hardware, which would explain the great performance.
I'm leaning towards using GSX for a trial on our web network. It's working great in the dev environment. When our web site grows by about 40x in the next two years due to massive corporate expansion, I'll look to switch to ESX.
First, scaffolding helps getting started because the programmer can work on code rather than building forms that connect to the database. The trick there is to use the 'generate' script to create the scaffolding in real code rather than use the run-time scaffolding. The generated code is pretty clean and does the bare minimum required, which is a great platform for building on.
Second, with ActiveRecord the code feels very close to the data. When working within Rails' naming conventions it's very simple to do stuff like track back and forth in a data record and figure out what belongs to it (foreign keys referring to your data) and what it belongs to (foreign keys in your data referring to other data). Honestly, it seems heavy, but it works so well you forget about that. There have been a few times where I needed some data and found it already in my model object because the database relationship was there. This stuff has been made even better in Rails 1.1 because it stretches the relationship even more (relationships through other tables).
Everything also gets done with a lot less code both because Rails makes things easy and because Ruby is designed really well.
I wouldn't say the Rails MVC model speeds things up that drastically, but it sure does make sure your app will be maintainable. That's what MVC is all about anyway.
Java is faster, but Ruby is easier on system resources. Ruby on Rails scales far easier than Java and saves mountains of developer time both while initially programming the app and maintaining it later.
My conclusion is that Rails apps are easier to program, easier to scale to multiple servers, easier to deploy, and they run slower than Java apps in some circumstances.
I'm coding a large-scale site in RoR right now. It'll be deployed across three Lighttpd servers with two MySQL servers. I'm about three weeks into the site and I've probably saved a month of work already over how long it'd take me to do the same work in Java or PHP.
Rails' efficiency won't continue to be that high as I get more into the business logic and smaller details, but for the data layers that I'm doing now Rails blows away anything else. I'll still be at least 50% ahead of where I'd be using Java and PHP when it's finished. The code will be way cleaner because Ruby is a better designed language than either Java or PHP. It'll be a snap to add features later, which is the problem we're currently having with our site and its 20,000+ lines of PHP code.
I've coded and managed Java and PHP sites. PHP is easier to work with than Java for most small to medium sites and Java can be easier on large sites. Neither of them are better than Rails for any size site.
I predict that Ruby on Rails will become the big third competitor in the market for building web apps. Java will still be bigger on the very high end because of EJBs and the need to interface with legacy systems and PHP will still be bigger on the low end because it's easier to learn since you don't need to know OOP to get started. Ruby on Rails will be the language/framework that finally fits into that middle market where most medium to large businesses are. PHP's code is too messy to work there without a lot of coder discipline and either a custom or well-done Open Source framework and Java is just too complicated.
Same way KDE's wallet or the Gnome keyring work: ask the user once for each session in which it was used. Maybe read-only access to the bookmarks should be allowed without the password.
I just remember that so many apps would drop their own bookmark files into IE's bookmark folder. Every forum was filled with questions like "How do I get rid of the ICQ bookmark? It keeps coming back after I delete it."