They've done actual *scientific* tests where people have worked with a customized (by them) interface, and a standard interface. Very often, even though people FEEL that they're working faster with their personalized interface, they aren't.
Would you care to site one of these studies? The problem I have with most of the claims of these UI "gurus" is that they are usually based on studies that go something like this: 1) Make two versions of an element of a UI, 2) let 2 groups of people play with the system for 1-2 hours, 3) test the speed of the 2 groups of users. This is great if the question you want to answer is which of the 2 designs will produce faster users in 1-2 hours; not so great if the question you want to ask is which of the 2 designs will produce faster users after they use the system 40 hours a week for a month.
Somehow I doubt this is mostly the work of one person. Notice the widely varying state of advancement of certain techs, the bizarre ordering of events, and the multiple dates for the same invention.
Examples:
Materials and Electronic Devices - page 14 - Chips with clock speed of 10GHz - 2003
Processing, memory and storage - page 15 - 10GHz chips 2006
Well, which is it?
Processing, memory, and storage - page 15 - 11 terabytes credit card storage for $50
1 terabyte per cu cm storage density - 2005
Why would I want a 1 terabyte per cu cm storage solution if I could get a 11 terabyte creadit card size solution for $50? And two years earlier to boot.
Were'd this autonomic crap come from? Gee, for the last 4 years I'd thought I'd been working on autonomous robots, going to conference with autonomous robots, etc. and know I find out they were autonomic. Oh well, I guess this means no Ph.D. for me. Anyone know how to break into the fast food biz?
Java is not the answer. A language being railroaded by a single company(Sun) is not really an ideal solution. It's not even clear that Java applications can be made as fast as native applications (all that memory allocation and deallocation is not free). Besides, Java is a pretty annoying language to work in in its current form.
Which do you prefer to read?
Java:
arr1.setElement(i,arr2.getElementAt(j));
bob = (ClassIReallyWanted)arr1.getElementAt(k);
C++:
arr1[i]=arr2[j];
bob = arr1[k];
Thats an STL vector in the C++ case btw, to keep things comparable. Not that C++ is the end-all-be-all of languages, but it certainly beats Java in this case.
what non-computer expert can realistically expect to wrestle with Linux when it fails to boot, or they add new hardware, install a new application, or, heaven forbid, they want to upgrade to the latest kernel?
what non-computer expert can realistically be expected to wrestle with Linux when they install a new application by clicking on the package they want in the GUI and clicking on the install icon? Err, wait a minute, that would be easy... don't some distributions already have this? I would be easy to add at any rate.
What non-computer expert can realistically expect to wrestle with Windows when it fails to boot?
Guess what happens when a Windows machine fails to boot. Some combination of: 1) reinstall the OS, 2) take it to a computer store and have them fix it, 3) beg whatever geek you can find to fix it for you. I don't see how these options fail to apply to Linux.
What non-computer expert can realistically expect to wrestle with Windows when, heaven forbid, they want to upgrade to the latest kernel?
Oh, that's right you can't upgrade just the kernel, you have to upgrade the whole machine. Perhaps you should be comparing to upgrading a distribution which is easily within the realm of possiblity of anyone who can hit the enter key.
I do tend to agree with you on the adding new hardware bit. Anyone know any software that makes this trivial?
What the hell are talking about. Most slashdot posters actually work for MS and the rest use IE daily. Really the days of slashdot being an open source place are long gone. Nowadays
any post praising windows or badmouthing linux is guaranteed to be moderated to +5. Go check for yourself.
Oh oh, I just posted on Slashdot and I haven't used IE today. Contradiction causing tear in... space time... continium... Must contact... Captain Kirk... violate prime directive... aaaaaaaaargh
That's interesting. Intel made over $10 billion in profit last year (which FYI is more than any other tech company has ever made in one year), and had gross margins over 50% (which
is absolutely unprecedented for a company of that size). All of the profit was from selling pure hardware, and they didn't do any "value added" crap either.
Let's see, Intel took silicon and some metal and made it into reasonably fast processors. Nope, no added value there. After all, you do the same thing by throwing some wire on the ground and, err, mushing it around and, err, like stuff...
1. "Open Software is insecure."..Microsoft has one of the LEAST secure OS's (yesterday the root exploit on ALL Windows 2000/IIS 5 servers was discovered).. yet they say open
source is insecure? Patches to open software are consistantly released sooner than those to closed software.
I think they may have been thinking about insecure in the MPAA/RIAA sense of the word:)
Pointers are only really useful when you're doing hardcore systems programming - which is a small minority of the programming that gets done.
I would disagree. Pointers are only really useful when you are pushing the boundaries of what the machine can do. This is not just systems programming but also problems for which machines of appropriate power do not yet exist (and since the problem size tends to scale with the machine,...).
Getting slightly offtopic here, but have to respond to mention of my Alma Mater ('96 CompE).
My experience was that at UIUC the CompE majors take the CS courses (mostly as electives) and the CS majors take watered down versions of the CompE classes (mostly as constrained electives).
I have a Computer Engineering degree from the
University of Illinois and sastisfied all but one
of the requirements for the CS degree. At least
at this college, CS and CompE have similar amounts
of math. The main difference on the math front is
the type of math that is emphasized. Both cover
discrete math, CS tends to go into more depth here
while CompE needs to devote a fair amount of time
to continuous math. Obviously, the amount of math
will vary based on the university and the quality
of the degree.
Slashdot Mirror
They've done actual *scientific* tests where people have worked with a customized (by them) interface, and a standard interface. Very often, even though people FEEL that they're working faster with their personalized interface, they aren't.
Would you care to site one of these studies? The problem I have with most of the claims of these UI "gurus" is that they are usually based on studies that go something like this: 1) Make two versions of an element of a UI, 2) let 2 groups of people play with the system for 1-2 hours, 3) test the speed of the 2 groups of users. This is great if the question you want to answer is which of the 2 designs will produce faster users in 1-2 hours; not so great if the question you want to ask is which of the 2 designs will produce faster users after they use the system 40 hours a week for a month.
Somehow I doubt this is mostly the work of one person. Notice the widely varying state of advancement of certain techs, the bizarre ordering of events, and the multiple dates for the same invention.
Examples:
Materials and Electronic Devices - page 14 - Chips with clock speed of 10GHz - 2003
Processing, memory and storage - page 15 - 10GHz chips 2006
Well, which is it?
Processing, memory, and storage - page 15 - 11 terabytes credit card storage for $50
1 terabyte per cu cm storage density - 2005
Why would I want a 1 terabyte per cu cm storage solution if I could get a 11 terabyte creadit card size solution for $50? And two years earlier to boot.
Were'd this autonomic crap come from? Gee, for the last 4 years I'd thought I'd been working on autonomous robots, going to conference with autonomous robots, etc. and know I find out they were autonomic. Oh well, I guess this means no Ph.D. for me. Anyone know how to break into the fast food biz?
Java is not the answer. A language being railroaded by a single company(Sun) is not really an ideal solution. It's not even clear that Java applications can be made as fast as native applications (all that memory allocation and deallocation is not free). Besides, Java is a pretty annoying language to work in in its current form.
Which do you prefer to read?
Java:
arr1.setElement(i,arr2.getElementAt(j));
bob = (ClassIReallyWanted)arr1.getElementAt(k);
C++:
arr1[i]=arr2[j];
bob = arr1[k];
Thats an STL vector in the C++ case btw, to keep things comparable. Not that C++ is the end-all-be-all of languages, but it certainly beats Java in this case.
what non-computer expert can realistically expect to wrestle with Linux when it fails to boot, or they add new hardware, install a new application, or, heaven forbid, they want to upgrade to the latest kernel?
what non-computer expert can realistically be expected to wrestle with Linux when they install a new application by clicking on the package they want in the GUI and clicking on the install icon? Err, wait a minute, that would be easy... don't some distributions already have this? I would be easy to add at any rate.
What non-computer expert can realistically expect to wrestle with Windows when it fails to boot?
Guess what happens when a Windows machine fails to boot. Some combination of: 1) reinstall the OS, 2) take it to a computer store and have them fix it, 3) beg whatever geek you can find to fix it for you. I don't see how these options fail to apply to Linux.
What non-computer expert can realistically expect to wrestle with Windows when, heaven forbid, they want to upgrade to the latest kernel?
Oh, that's right you can't upgrade just the kernel, you have to upgrade the whole machine. Perhaps you should be comparing to upgrading a distribution which is easily within the realm of possiblity of anyone who can hit the enter key.
I do tend to agree with you on the adding new hardware bit. Anyone know any software that makes this trivial?
http://www.planetmirror.com/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ linux-2.4.10.tar.bz2
Found through google. Enjoy.
What the hell are talking about. Most slashdot posters actually work for MS and the rest use IE daily. Really the days of slashdot being an open source place are long gone. Nowadays any post praising windows or badmouthing linux is guaranteed to be moderated to +5. Go check for yourself.
... space time ... continium ... Must contact ... Captain Kirk ... violate prime directive ... aaaaaaaaargh
Oh oh, I just posted on Slashdot and I haven't used IE today. Contradiction causing tear in
That's interesting. Intel made over $10 billion in profit last year (which FYI is more than any other tech company has ever made in one year), and had gross margins over 50% (which is absolutely unprecedented for a company of that size). All of the profit was from selling pure hardware, and they didn't do any "value added" crap either.
Let's see, Intel took silicon and some metal and made it into reasonably fast processors. Nope, no added value there. After all, you do the same thing by throwing some wire on the ground and, err, mushing it around and, err, like stuff...
Two statements that need to be discussed:
:)
1. "Open Software is insecure."..Microsoft has one of the LEAST secure OS's (yesterday the root exploit on ALL Windows 2000/IIS 5 servers was discovered).. yet they say open source is insecure? Patches to open software are consistantly released sooner than those to closed software.
I think they may have been thinking about insecure in the MPAA/RIAA sense of the word
Pointers are only really useful when you're doing hardcore systems programming - which is a small minority of the programming that gets done.
...).
I would disagree. Pointers are only really useful when you are pushing the boundaries of what the machine can do. This is not just systems programming but also problems for which machines of appropriate power do not yet exist (and since the problem size tends to scale with the machine,
Getting slightly offtopic here, but have to respond to mention of my Alma Mater ('96 CompE).
My experience was that at UIUC the CompE majors take the CS courses (mostly as electives) and the CS majors take watered down versions of the CompE classes (mostly as constrained electives).
I have a Computer Engineering degree from the University of Illinois and sastisfied all but one of the requirements for the CS degree. At least at this college, CS and CompE have similar amounts of math. The main difference on the math front is the type of math that is emphasized. Both cover discrete math, CS tends to go into more depth here while CompE needs to devote a fair amount of time to continuous math. Obviously, the amount of math will vary based on the university and the quality of the degree.