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User: Savage-Rabbit

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  1. Re:The Mac sucks for all kinds of development! on Why Mac OS X Is Unsuitable For Web Development · · Score: 2

    The Mac also has a dearth of good code editors. On Linux, I really liked nEdit. It has everything, and it is intuitive (or at least I felt that way when I was using it). For Windows, I've enjoyed using Edit Plus and Ultraedit. But for the Mac, the editors generally just suck.

    vim, emacs?? They both ship with OS X. I don't use Emacs that much but vim is really good. I try to use GUI editors but I keep going back to vim. It's just way faster and it's easier to do stuff like replacing text using complex regular expressions or for simple stuff like finding and replacing rogue spaces in python code. The same goes for subversion and a whole lot of other utilities, I keep going back to the command line. Generally, a lot of *nix development and OS administration happens on the command line. If you aren't comfortable there you are really missing out and with these two editors the command line is only ever a couple of keystrokes away.

  2. Re:Simple on Safari/MacBook First To Fall At Pwn2Own 2011 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    >>>OS X 10.6 was only $30

    That was a sale price. The previous 10.x releases (and future release) cost $130 plus $10 shipping. It really was like buying a whole new Windows OS every 1-2 years.

    Which is fine if you have the money to spend.
    I don't.

    I know people who spend more than $500 on their gaming rig at way lower intervals than 10 years. The average person will spend more than $500 on cellphones over 10 years. Never mind the premium in fuel bills alone that people pay for an SUV or even a BMW or a slightly souped-up hatchback. I can afford to upgrade OS X every two years and IMHO I get my money's worth.

  3. Re:But but but but but.... on Next Generation of Windows To Run On ARM Chip · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've been wondering the same thing. What about SDK's? Will there be a separate version of Visual Studio strictly for ARM? I know Visual Studio is mostly targeted towards .NET, but for native apps, will you be able to compile ARM code on the x86?

    Visual studio it self is a userland app and as such should run on Windows for ARM with few problems. I'm not sure what MSVS is written in, if it's a native app there will be an ARM version much as there was a PPC and x86 version of Xcode when Apple switched to x86, if MSVS is a .NET app you should get a build once run anywhere App like Eclipse is except Eclipse is truly cross platform while .Net apps are truly cross platform only on Windows flavors. If MS does a proper job porting it, the ARM toolkit for Windows should be every bit as powerful as the Windows x86 toolkit. Win 32 applications on the other hand might be a problem but then again Apple did a pretty decent jop at running PPC applications on x86 machines with Rosetta, I ran pretty heavy PPC applications under Rosetta with no major problems, so I don't see why Microsoft could not do something in a similar vein.

  4. Re:Someone help me out here. on First Pictures of Chinese Stealth Fighter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Far more likely its based on stolen US plans. This has previously happened several times in the past. The Russians are very well known for stealing US aircraft plans and making it their own. IIRC, The Bear was a literal, exact replication of a US aircraft, except for Russian tags and imperfections from inferior manufacturing capabilities.

    Given half a chance and if they think they will benefit from it everybody steals everybody else's tech... get over it. But the idea that the Soviet aircraft industry was based on stealing the plans of US aircraft and producing rivet for rivet copies is complete and utter crap only a faithful Fox News watching Glenn Beck fan would believe. This myth originates from the fact that the Soviets did produce a rivet-for-rivet copy of the B-29 and called it the Tu-4. The Tupolev Tu-95 is a very distant descendant of the Tu-4 and has nothing in common with the B-29/Tu-4 what so ever. The Russians did steal some technical documents relating to western aircraft and equipment (Concorde for example), they more commonly engaged in reverse engineering with famous examples being the R-13 missile which was a clone of the AIM-9B Sidewinder (but with a Soviet designed IR seeker) and allegedly portions of the avionics suite of the MiG-23 which reportedly benefitted from tech salvaged in Vietnam from US F-4 fighters. Mind you the Soviets are not in any way alone in this. It is often conveniently forgotten that much of the first generation of transsonic US jet fighters benefitted hugely from research data obtained by the US from nazi-german aircraft manufacturers as well as the expertise of ex-nazi engineers some of whom were war criminals. The same goes for the US space and missile program and submarine design. It's easy to point out the resemblance of aircraft like the Su-27 and MiG-29 to us designs like the F-15 but there is practically nothing common between those Russian designs and the F-15 other than a passing resemblance. The most you can argue is that the F-15 may have influenced the Sukhoi and MiG design teams in some way but that's about it, other than this they are totally different and unrelated designs.

  5. Re:typical on TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws · · Score: 1

    Is it typical in the USA to 'shoot the messenger'?

    Now that's just plain unfair. We Europeans are every bit as fond of shooting messengers as our US-American cousins.

  6. Re:Maintaining code by others are always a nightma on Programming Mistakes To Avoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There will however always be BAD code by bad programmers. I've taken over Java progress where everything was OOP'ed into hell (as in a bazillion classes more than was needed for the application) and PHP projects which should be OOP'ed but consisted of about 500 files that included each other in a huge confusing net.

    Taking over projects fitting those descriptions is never a good idea. They are nothing but pain, it's impossible to resolve the problems with the app and the code unless you opt for a complete rewrite. If, however, you go that route the remaining developers will be pissed off because they wrote the crappy code and you are basically saying that their ugly baby is ... well ... UGLY! What's worse, you are saying it out loud for everybody including the PHBs to hear. Eventually you end up being frustrated, your PHB either caves in to complaints about you and puts you in your place or you get laid off. Unless, of course, you anticipate this and quit before he gets the chance. There is no substitute for writing code properly and designing and planning your application properly no matter how insignificant the application seems to be because you will never know which piece of shit app will take off and scale into something much, much bigger. Myself, I learned this from a friendly lecture I was given by my boss after I handed in my first project on my very first job. He made me rewrite the thing entirely claiming it was better that I learned the value of things like database abstraction and MVC separation right away. He was right.

  7. Re:How compatitble on Sony Adopts Objective-C and GNUstep Frameworks · · Score: 1

    Have you ever tried to actually do something with a Swiss army knife? Or any other knife with non-fixed blades? Sure, it's possible, but a bunch of special-purpose tools beat it hands-down every time. Which, I suppose, is a pretty good metaphor for C++ :).

    I have developed in both Objective C and C++ extensively and I have to say I massively prefer Objective C to C++ and I have come to regard the latter as the programming language equivalent of a car that has been run over by a tank (mind you if I was picking a language with ease of coding in mind I wouldn't pick either of them). When you pick apart the complaints you get from C++ devs. who try to develop in Objective C they often don't boil down to Objective C being a bad language. They whine about the fact that this that or the other thing doesn't work like it does in C++ which is not surprising due to Objective C having been influenced by SmallTalk which is way different from C/C++ in many ways.

  8. Re:I don't get it on Oracle To Monetize Java VM · · Score: 1

    e could decide that Java cannot easily be made profitable or sufficiently profitable and can or sell off the whole unit.

    Oracle sell off the Java and MySQL units to somebody who knows what they are doing? Hope springs eternal...

  9. Re:I don't get it on Oracle To Monetize Java VM · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, as a manager, that's his job - to maximise the wealth of the company shareholders. If Java isn't making money (directly or indirectly), then he needs to institute change so that it *does* make money one way or another. Otherwise he wouldn't be doing his job (and then he'd be fired and replaced by the board of directors).

    I don't think Java it self is necessarily what you should look at to make money. It's products built with Java that make money. Products like Java stand and fall with a strong developer community and convincing a significat portion of the worlds developers to use a some programming language is very, very, very hard. Universities, for example, are full of people who tried and failed to create and popularize new programming languages and the same goes for all sorts of companies that had the same idea. Making all of Java available for free was the best way to assure that it was widely adopted by a strong developer base. Had Sun made any serious attempt to charge for a "premium" edition or perhaps giving away the "basic" Java package and selling "advanced" features it would have caused Java to fail. You are better off making only a "premium" edition and distributing it for free because otherwise any developer using the "regular" edition gets the feeling he/she is a second class citizen, never mind the fact that startups for example frequently need the "advanced" or "premium" features but can rarely afford to pay insanely expensive license fees to pay for them so they will typically choose something free and that adversely affects the growth of your developer community..

  10. Re:"Damaged" images. on Soviet Image Editing Tool From 1987 · · Score: 1

    Images that were "damaged," for example, by having Trotsky [wikipedia.org] in them.

    The same goes for pretty much every picture of Nixon that I have ever seen.

  11. Re:The most interesting thing about that article.. on Serious Security Bugs Found In Android Kernel · · Score: 1

    It will be soon time to upgrade. What do you think iPhone users will upgrade to? Apple just needs to stay slightly ahead of Android, Phone 7 and others, then throw-in some "wow" factor in order to keep selling millions of smartphones.

    If they really go ahead, turn the Mac into a glorified iPod and turn OS X into a Java free zone I can tell you right now that I'll be upgrading to Ubuntu on my Mac. I'll have no choice since I do a lot of java development. I won't like switching very much but Linux is a damn sight better than Windows 7. Additionally, since Linux is an iTunes free zone I'll probably upgrade to an Android cell-phone.

  12. Re:I don't think this will compete directly with i on First Chrome OS Notebooks Due This Month · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'm not sure Chrome OS will be a big success, but I think Google would have taken such connectivity issues into consideration.

    I'm not sure why they have both Android and Chrome OS -- they seem to intersect and overlap awkwardly.

    I'm sure they did take broken network connections into account, Chrome OS would be pretty useless without some sort of local persistence-layer/cache that is synced with their cloud services whenever there is a connection. I still agree with you that Chrome OS won't be a big success. It will appeal to a certain segment of the market but if I had to place bets I'd put a lot more money on Android as a Netbook/Tablet OS than I would on Chrome OS.

  13. Re:Here's to hoping on Has Christopher Nolan Turned the 3D Argument? · · Score: 1

    So basically, you've seen ONE movie where it wasn't thrown in "just because". UP and Coraline were entirely computer-generated video, and re-rendering with the "camera" in a different position is a matter of tweaking a couple of settings. They could re-make ANY all-CGI film (Ice Age, Wall-E, etc) as 3D if they still had the original files and rendering programs. And probably make money on them.

    (Note: Avatar used lots of computer-generated imagery...but not exclusively, and did a lot more with motion capture than is normal.)

    When a new technology of this kind hits the market you always get what we used to call ""shovelware" back in the day. IMHO the 3D did actually add to the experience in Avatar, I know that because I went and saw Avatar in 2D just because I wanted to compare the experiences. James Cameron and his crew really did succeed in giving one a taste of the feeling that one was looking through a window into another world which is IMHO what 3D should do. I have seen a number of other 3D movies that simply did not succed in creating this impression... in other words shovelware. Eventually, the wave of shovel ware will dissipate, and what the makers of Avatar did in terms of image capture etc. will become the norm as directors and film industry professionals become used to the technology and learn how it is most effectively used. I'm not going to judge 3D by what the movies I have seen so far which are mostly shovelware with a few notable exceptions and I am not going to judge it solely on the basis of what a few naysayer are preaching. Give it 5-10 years and then condemn 3D movies, in the long run I think 3D will dominate just like talkies exterminated silent movies.

  14. Re:Looks on VLC Developer Takes a Stand Against DRM Enforcement · · Score: 1

    Now anyone can buy a device, download some music, sync some videos, install any number a quarter of a million apps, backup their data, upgrade their OS, all without ever needing to ask the family geek for help.

    That's a feature... not a bug.

  15. Fragmentation... on Steve Jobs Lashes Out At Android · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Honestly, most of the "problems" with Android I actually consider to be strengths. Now the "fragmented" argument, yes, I can see where that can hurt in the long run, but then again, PC's are quite fragmented yet which has a larger hold after all these years, Apple or PC?

    PC fragmentation is in hardware, Android fragmentation is in Software, the OS it self. The dominant PC OS is Windows which, what ever else you can say about Microsoft, does an amazing job at providing a consistent (and IMHO crappy, but still consistent) software user experience across an amazing and bewildering array of often depressingly low quality PC hardware. Stability sometimes suffers mostly due to crappy hardware but the consistency of the user experience is the same. MS has also done a fairly decent job at backwards compatibility for software. It's not like the PC's from Lenovo ship with a different Desktop environment than the ones from Dell, Dell is dragging its feet releasing Service Pack X for their custom version of Windows with the result that you can't run half the apps you bought for use on your Lenovo computer on your new Dell and when Dell finally does release the update you are still shit out of luck because they changed the OS in some idiosyncratic way and some of the app developers don't support the Dell variant of Windows. Steve Jobs may be an arrogant prick sometimes but he has a point. Fragmentation is already happening and it will hurt Android in the long run if Google isn't very careful about keeping compatibility issues under control

  16. Re:Reminds me of XFree86 vs XOrg on Oracle Asks OpenOffice Community Members To Leave · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oracle's made a big mistake ...

    That certainly is one thing they are good at.

  17. Re:Just to point out on Mystery of the Dying Bees Solved · · Score: 1

    Even without the "monoculture" problems, farmers want to grow a lot of a particular crop in a small area. You'd hate to spend money to raise a big crop of plants and have a low fruit yield because of natural variations in the local bee population.

    He's still right. Liberal use of pesticides is a huge ecological problem.

  18. Re:eBook pricing on E-Books Are Only 6% of Printed Book Sales · · Score: 1

    Ebooks will not be able to beat out paper books until prices come down. People are cheap and don't want to spend more for an eBook than the mass market paperback version. Drop eBook prices and watch them take off.

    It's got nothing to do with being cheap although I'm pretty sure that e-book prices could easily be considerably lower than paper book prices without the publishers losing colossal amounts of money. I simply prefer paper books since I hate reading e-books off a computer screen and this despite the fact that an e-book has advantages such as being searchable, they are available over a network connection within seconds of making the online payment and you can access them from several different devices. Then there is the fact that distributers like Amazon and the likes can delete or modify my books remotely if they or the publisher so desire which they can't do if I buy a paper copy. If I ever get around to buying an iPad or some such device this may change but until then I'll stick with paper thank you very much.

  19. Re:Yeah nothing works anymore on Throwing Out Software That Works · · Score: 1

    Same is true for my 2006 Nokia E61. Impossible how i could stand having the choice between several web browsers. Totally irresponsible how Nokia does not enforce the use of the preinstalled (not so good) e-mail client but allows me to install unsigned (or signed) alternatives. Totally irresponsible that there are several instant messaging clients. This hampers with my user experience. i have to make choices what works best for me. Thinking hurts.

    The absoloutely best features of Nokia smart phones have to be that you can't set up a VPN connection without a piece of proprietary Nokia software and that the UIs of some of their the mobile mail clients will not allow you to input port numbers that are 5 or more digits long.

  20. Re:Useless review on The Coming Onslaught of iPad Competitors · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Steve can sleep at night.

    Judging by what happened to most of the iPod killers and what Microsoft is looking likely to do I'd say he'll be sleeping soundly. I'd be more worried about Android based tablets, ChromeOS on the other hand is IMHO a joke.

  21. Re:Where are "bigbrother" and "policestate" tags ? on China Pushes Real Name System For Online Games · · Score: 2

    This is definately not about "privacy" or "security". We all know what is the reason for such law, so it should be tagged appropriately.

    It's about finally finding out who the campers in counter-strike are in real life and where they live.

  22. Re:Anger. on To Ballmer, Grabbing iPad's Market Is 'Job One Urgency' · · Score: 1

    Is it possible to have an article mention Ballmer without some apple fanboi mentioning something about chairs?

    No...

  23. Re:Nights on Nuclear Energy Now More Expensive Than Solar · · Score: 1

    So yes, maybe it's cheaper, but it wont give you any power during nights.

    It's daytime consumption that's the problem no night time consumption. Solar is never going to be the magic bullet that replaces all other energy sources but it has the potential to help considerably reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

  24. Re:Wednesday on OpenGL 4.1 Specification Announced · · Score: 1

    Blizzard is also widely credited for their use of OpenGL in WoW, but again, WoW's graphics are pathetic by modern standards.

    And yet WoW isn't exactly a huge flop is it? Playability also counts for a lot in a game which proves that: Less-that-cutting-edge-graphics != lousy game. It would be nice if game developers would focus less on eye candy and a little more on playability/quality of content.

  25. Re:Ignorance on Survey Says Most iPhone Users Love AT&T · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oh no, you're not getting away so easily with that one. Here, a word from the messiah: "We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash."

    And the story with supposed impressive stability goes on for a long time (and is featured in Apple marketing - so quick to forget "Hi, I'm a

    Flash will cause Safari/Firefox to crash but it doesn't bring down OS X, at least not in my experience. I've had OS X crash on me a few times for all kinds of reasons but never because of "Adobe Flash" of all things. As of it's latest iteration even Safari doesn't even crash on you anymore because of Flash. It just throws up a dialog box informing you that Flash has had yet another one of it's familiar brian farts and gives you the option of sending a crash-report to Apple. You can wheel out some badly worded comment by Saint Steve but it doesn't change the fact that you are just plain wrong.