Today a lot of work that used to be custom programming is now done by software packages that require consultants to configure the tool instead of programmers. All the system analyst work is still required, but not nearly as many programmers (you still need some to configure the tool to do stuff it can not do out of the box). In total these tools require less people to perform the same job, but the result is never really customized specifically to the client (you need to adapt many of the requirements to the tool).
Since most companies want the cheapest possible "good-enough" solution this is actually a lot better than custom programming an application that would be rushed into production.
Hey I want to drop by and thank you for your comment, it says everything I am going through right now, developing boring business apps and all that. I am in the process of going back to college to get a PhD working with AR and VR (maybe with the Unreal Engine) and hope I have the same experiences you had.
Boilerplate sometimes take the appearance of real code, for example Javascript has a.reduce function for Arrays while Java does not have the same for Lists. This actually happened to me while I was doing some UI vs Backend stuff, I had to find the smallest value in an array of objects in Javascript (and the analogue List of Maps in Java) Sure I could roll my own reduce function or find a generic library to provide it for me but I would probably only use it once, so my Javacript ended up using [].reduce while my Java used for(a : b). Plus the anonymous inner class that any List reduce function would pobably need in Java ( = 7).
The language that has the least boilerplate for your problem is usually the most pleasant to work with, which in turn increases productivity and quality, although this expressibility usually comes at the cost of performance and sometimes at the cost of correctness which can lead in reduced quality. Javascript literal objects and literal arrays for example makes it a joy to program compared to Java when you have to pass those Map>> around. 90% of the cases you need an anonymous inner class in Java could be handled just as well with less boilerplate code with a simple anonymous function in Javascript.
Lobbying is not corruption in the legal sense, lobbying is corruption in the sense that people/corporations can push money down a politician throat to get the result they want.
In the Matrix back-story the war with the machines started because they were just way more competent than humans, they produced goods and services at almost zero cost, displacing pretty much all of the world workers. Their very existence threatened the economic balance of the nations, that big of a change happened way too fast for society to adapt. I believe that outcome is far more likely than the classic "computers are going to nuke everything!".
Also in the matrix the humans are the ones who nuked the planet (well actually nano-cloud robots to block the sun)
In the old days CS was associated with Math and Physics which still have high (relatively) female enrollments, now it is associated with Engineering which I believe never had enrollment of females. I believe that this is the major reason for the declining.
disclaimer: I have no evidences whatsoever about what I am claiming.
Just to be fair microsoft did build MSDOS on top of QDOS, but it was not a simple rebrand. $50k was probably cheap, but it is not like they did not spend months improving it.
I was planing on doing some development with the Unity/Unreal engine and unfortunately it does not support Linux (for development). Since I don't want to replace my (powerful) pc and I would kill myself if I had to develop in windows, I have considered installing a hackintosh. My top priority is getting the video card and wifi supported without any problems.
Also I have never used Mac OSX for more than 5 minutes, the main feature I can not live without is customizability of shortcuts (specially the shortcut to change from one virtual desktop to another), is that possible in Max OSX?
Besides that I have a few Linux visual programs that I like (gnome pie, gnome do, guake, wine/play on linux), any chance I can get those working on Max OSX? I can live without them if there are good alternatives though (guake will be sorely missed though).
Yes, they are chasing the new and the better and trying to push that down the users throat just like they still do for desktop, yet people are not upgrading their desktops and laptops as often as they used to do, the same thing is beginning to happen in the smartphone/tablet market.
It took two decades for the personal computer to reach a point where the average rig performance was "good enough" for everyone but gamers, it took 7 years for the same thing to happen to smartphones. Which is good for the users, not so much for the big companies.
The big companies are probably going to jump to the next bandwagon soon, what remains to be seen is what that will be. VR headsets, AR headsets, smartwatches or something completely different.
> a variable that suddenly has global scope because you missed declaring it in a var in a function "use strict"? Also I believe that node.js defines scopes by files, not for the whole application.
Javascript is a great language but with several minor annoyances. Much like C++ there are some stuff you should not do and some features that if used incorrectly can bite you in the ass. CoffeeScript fixes a lot (but not all) of the problems with Javascript. Node.js on the server is nothing like doing browser javascript.
The real problem is the DOM/CSS/HTML and using Javascript to manipulate it, this mishmash of technologies is the result of years of gradual evolution without a clear pattern (first there was HTML then CSS and Javascript were invented to manipulate it).
I keep hearing about this "colony on Mars" stuff, but we don't need to go out of earth because there is not enough space for all the people, there is plenty of space to build more cities available. We need to do it because we need more natural resources, do Mars has arable fields and water for them? Oil? Gold, silver, iron, aluminum? Rare earth minerals?
The problem is that the companies and engineers that work on medical devices are completely lost about security, much like when the web first came to be. It will take years for these people to get the proper know how unless they make it their top priority and hire people with expertise in the area (which probably will not happen).
I have used Filezilla, it is better than nemo for SSHing files around, but I don't have to do that often so nemo is good enough for me. I have used pcmanfm a long time ago, it is pretty good too.
Anyway Nautilus is the poster child for the GNOME philosophy, dumb-down everything until your current userbase hates you.
Anyway, it sucks beyond belief now, use the Nemo fork of the old Nautilus. It supports SSH, FTP and such (I really hate using scp through the command line).
Slashdot Mirror
Today a lot of work that used to be custom programming is now done by software packages that require consultants to configure the tool instead of programmers. All the system analyst work is still required, but not nearly as many programmers (you still need some to configure the tool to do stuff it can not do out of the box). In total these tools require less people to perform the same job, but the result is never really customized specifically to the client (you need to adapt many of the requirements to the tool).
Since most companies want the cheapest possible "good-enough" solution this is actually a lot better than custom programming an application that would be rushed into production.
Hey I want to drop by and thank you for your comment, it says everything I am going through right now, developing boring business apps and all that. I am in the process of going back to college to get a PhD working with AR and VR (maybe with the Unreal Engine) and hope I have the same experiences you had.
Have you ever used Maven?
Also I hate all OSs I ever used as well...
Selling a Big Mac to an American? I don't get the joke.
Boilerplate sometimes take the appearance of real code, for example Javascript has a .reduce function for Arrays while Java does not have the same for Lists. This actually happened to me while I was doing some UI vs Backend stuff, I had to find the smallest value in an array of objects in Javascript (and the analogue List of Maps in Java) Sure I could roll my own reduce function or find a generic library to provide it for me but I would probably only use it once, so my Javacript ended up using [].reduce while my Java used for(a : b). Plus the anonymous inner class that any List reduce function would pobably need in Java ( = 7).
Boilerplate
The language that has the least boilerplate for your problem is usually the most pleasant to work with, which in turn increases productivity and quality, although this expressibility usually comes at the cost of performance and sometimes at the cost of correctness which can lead in reduced quality. Javascript literal objects and literal arrays for example makes it a joy to program compared to Java when you have to pass those Map>> around. 90% of the cases you need an anonymous inner class in Java could be handled just as well with less boilerplate code with a simple anonymous function in Javascript.
Lobbying is not corruption in the legal sense, lobbying is corruption in the sense that people/corporations can push money down a politician throat to get the result they want.
I don't known about you but I don't buy ubisoft and EA anymore precisely because of DRM and I am ok with non-intrusive DRM.
The fact that lobbying is talked about so openly disgust me, at least in my country the politicians try to hide their corruption.
In the Matrix back-story the war with the machines started because they were just way more competent than humans, they produced goods and services at almost zero cost, displacing pretty much all of the world workers. Their very existence threatened the economic balance of the nations, that big of a change happened way too fast for society to adapt. I believe that outcome is far more likely than the classic "computers are going to nuke everything!".
Also in the matrix the humans are the ones who nuked the planet (well actually nano-cloud robots to block the sun)
In the old days CS was associated with Math and Physics which still have high (relatively) female enrollments, now it is associated with Engineering which I believe never had enrollment of females. I believe that this is the major reason for the declining.
disclaimer: I have no evidences whatsoever about what I am claiming.
Do they keep patches in sync with the Windows version? How long before I can no longer play with my Windows mates?
Just to be fair microsoft did build MSDOS on top of QDOS, but it was not a simple rebrand. $50k was probably cheap, but it is not like they did not spend months improving it.
I was planing on doing some development with the Unity/Unreal engine and unfortunately it does not support Linux (for development). Since I don't want to replace my (powerful) pc and I would kill myself if I had to develop in windows, I have considered installing a hackintosh. My top priority is getting the video card and wifi supported without any problems.
Also I have never used Mac OSX for more than 5 minutes, the main feature I can not live without is customizability of shortcuts (specially the shortcut to change from one virtual desktop to another), is that possible in Max OSX?
Besides that I have a few Linux visual programs that I like (gnome pie, gnome do, guake, wine/play on linux), any chance I can get those working on Max OSX? I can live without them if there are good alternatives though (guake will be sorely missed though).
Anyone has hackintosh experience to share?
Yes, they are chasing the new and the better and trying to push that down the users throat just like they still do for desktop, yet people are not upgrading their desktops and laptops as often as they used to do, the same thing is beginning to happen in the smartphone/tablet market.
It took two decades for the personal computer to reach a point where the average rig performance was "good enough" for everyone but gamers, it took 7 years for the same thing to happen to smartphones. Which is good for the users, not so much for the big companies.
The big companies are probably going to jump to the next bandwagon soon, what remains to be seen is what that will be. VR headsets, AR headsets, smartwatches or something completely different.
> a variable that suddenly has global scope because you missed declaring it in a var in a function
"use strict"? Also I believe that node.js defines scopes by files, not for the whole application.
Javascript is a great language but with several minor annoyances. Much like C++ there are some stuff you should not do and some features that if used incorrectly can bite you in the ass. CoffeeScript fixes a lot (but not all) of the problems with Javascript. Node.js on the server is nothing like doing browser javascript.
The real problem is the DOM/CSS/HTML and using Javascript to manipulate it, this mishmash of technologies is the result of years of gradual evolution without a clear pattern (first there was HTML then CSS and Javascript were invented to manipulate it).
It is more of an assembly language written in javascript, you are not supposed to write it by hand, you compile your C/C++ code into it.
How did breaking compatibility worked out for python 3?
I keep hearing about this "colony on Mars" stuff, but we don't need to go out of earth because there is not enough space for all the people, there is plenty of space to build more cities available. We need to do it because we need more natural resources, do Mars has arable fields and water for them? Oil? Gold, silver, iron, aluminum? Rare earth minerals?
To me asteroid mining seems far more interesting.
The problem is that the companies and engineers that work on medical devices are completely lost about security, much like when the web first came to be. It will take years for these people to get the proper know how unless they make it their top priority and hire people with expertise in the area (which probably will not happen).
I have used Filezilla, it is better than nemo for SSHing files around, but I don't have to do that often so nemo is good enough for me. I have used pcmanfm a long time ago, it is pretty good too.
Anyway Nautilus is the poster child for the GNOME philosophy, dumb-down everything until your current userbase hates you.
You just need to mine a lot of stuff beforehand
Nautilus? Isn't it called Files now?
Anyway, it sucks beyond belief now, use the Nemo fork of the old Nautilus. It supports SSH, FTP and such (I really hate using scp through the command line).