Be honest... how many companies right now are really contenders for consumer and corporate desktop operating systems? They crushed non-MS DOS, they crushed OS/2, and now they're funding SCO's attack on Linux.
Actually, it would be like if Ford bought or destroyed Chevy, Honda, Volkswagon, Mercedes, etc, etc, etc, until they were the only company that made cars, and then were asked to pay 10% for independant custom car builders.
that's the kind of game only an American would like
As long as they're tossing out generalities, what about games featuring animated rape and incest? There isn't much of a market for those over on this side of the pond.
Productivity versus lines of code
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
There's an obvious corollation between lines of code produced and productivity, but it's hardly an absolute.
Who's the more productive? A programmer who writes a 2000-line program, or a programmer who writes a 1000-line program that does the same thing? Often times, pumping out extra lines of code is a sign of inexperience. Someone who's been at it for a long time has a better understanding of how things work, and is a lot more likely to write tighter (and hence less buggy and more maintainable) code.
I think one problem is a lack of understanding of this on the part of non-coder management. With managers trying to save money, it's tempting to hire cheaper coders who produce lower-quality code, but that code then costs you money when it's time to fix and upgrade it. Unfortunately, the only solid figure the managers ever get is that the young guy costs the company 40k less than the old guy.
Compaines aren't going to be quick to hire old techies unless they're run by old techies.
If so, you might want to consider having them put together a simple game. The important thing is not to be overly ambitious (puzzle games or simple 2d shooters fit this well). The non-programmers can work on art, design, and music.
Ever tried to work a library that does something very similar to what you need it to do, but not exactly? You end up writing more code to get it to work with your program than you would have written just implementing it from scratch. That code tends to be bulky, difficult to maintain, and prone to bugs. Sometimes it's better just to start with a clean slate.
I don't think the OpenGL API allows easy arbitrary distortions.
Sure it does.
The way to do it is use the original as a texture, and then draw a grid of square polygons, each with a corresponding of that texture. Allow the user to distort those squares (while leaving the texture the same) and you can distort the image. To really make this look good, you'll need to use fairly fine-grained squares, but you're not concerned with frame-rate here.
...that your best bet would be to take a picture of a piece of graph paper, and then figure out exactly how to stretch it so that the lines are straight again. That said, I'm not entirely certain if there are any programs out there that would do this, but I think it'd be reasonably easy to write an OpenGL program that allows you to apply arbitrary distortions to an image, and then saves those distortions to apply to other images.
My friends and I loved it, although we're all writers and roleplayers, and we enjoy that sort of character drama. If you're the sort of person that plays these games for the gameplay and not the story, then FF8 doesn't have a whole lot to offer. It's sad, really. The story is great, and the game itself has a style and atmosphere that hasn't been matched before or since. Unfortunately, though, it's marred by an annoying, poorly-balanced battle system.
One other complaint that people like to make (but I've never really gotten myself) is that Squall is a boring character who doesn't care about anyone. Now, I can't really call Squall subtle and nuanced, but obviously he was too subtle for a lot of people, who apparently failed to pick up on the fact that he did care about people, a lot. He just didn't want to, because he had lost everyone he was ever close to.
And FF9? Well, it was an interesting little nostalgia trip, and certainly a solid game in its own right... but the story was fairly bland. It lacked the guts and ambition to break the mold like FF8 did. It followed the old FF games a bit too vigorously to really be captivating. FF8, on the other hand, is like a strong, complicated beer. You probably won't like it.:)
Please note that FindBugs is alpha-quality software. You may find bugs in it, and the features and source code may change significantly in future releases.
Obviously, they have to be claiming that some of the code within Linux wasn't originally GPLed. Which code is that? Are their complaints legitimate? In other words, can they point out the code that was lifted from them, and then provide documentation to support their claims? If so, then they're actually in the right, whether or not everyone happens to think they're a bunch of goatse's.
A joystick is shaped the way it is presumably because it's an easy way to control a game. My guess (although I admit I'm not certain of this) is that the idea of a joystick is just borrowed from the flight stick in an airplane.
That said, the only control device I've ever seen that's shaped like a female reproductive organ is the "clit mouse" that used to (and maybe still does) come with IBM Thinkpads -- that little red eraser thing in the middle of the keyboard. Those things are, quite frankly, almost worthless as a control device, their only redeeming value being that they are very small. Even then, most people prefer touch pads on laptops.
Well, that's all very true, but I'm afraid it doesn't address the point of my argument. Mplayer, as it stands right now, is still sorely lacking in some areas. If, as the author of the article suggested, people would unify and work on one project instead of making a ton of different ones, the one movie player could already be feature-complete.
explain to be how mplayer isn't a "decent" movie player? I haven't had a single problem with it and it plays all the stuff I have thrown at it.
Okay, here goes:
It doesn't preserve the aspect ratio when you resize the window. I'm sure you're about to go on and say that that's a feature and not a bug, but most of us want to be able to resize our player window without stretching everything out in weird directions. If it's a feature, then why the hell can't we turn it off?
Where's the playlist? It's themeable, but yet there's no playlist. Priorities, people.
If you're like me and you've got your movie files set up to run when you double-click them, and you happen to run a second movie while the first is still playing, you get an error window that you can't close, and you have to manually kill mplayer from the command prompt. This happens to me all the time.
You have to read a whole bunch of documentation and then compile it if you want it to work. Not everyone has the time or skill to do that kind of thing.
New codecs have to be added at compile time. As far as I can tell, there's no way just to scan for the damn things, so if you happen to compile it once and then you want to add a codec, you have to compile it again.
All that being said, mplayer has the very pleasant property of being able to play pretty much anything and everything that's out there, and that alone makes it a lot more pleasant for me to use than any alternative available on either Linux or Windows. But on the other hand, it has a lot of annoying bugs that need to be worked out before it can be considered truly useable by most people. Everything I listed there is fixable.
The font that you're talking about is light grey, easy to overlook. Also, it took me a moment to notice the difference between the numbers and the bullets. If I'd just been clicking on a link, I wouldn't have paid much attention to it.
Google, on the other hand, puts its ads on a different section of the page and sets them off with a colored box, to make it absolutely clear that they're ads.
Funny you should mention that. I searched for "Linux" at search.msn.com just for kicks, and the first three results went like this:
# Amazon.com Buy Linux software at the Amazon.com software store.
# Introducing Linux (at tech.msn.com) Find the latest news and information on this operating system.
# Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (at microsoft.com) Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products.
The three after it are all sponsor links. They're marked as such, but not clearly. After that, it continues with some more links, which are of somewhat better quality. In contrast, Google's top three results are linux.org, linux.com, and redhat.com.
Until MS separates out the advertising a bit better and stops skewing the top links quite so much to suit its own opinion, people aren't going to use their search site. Oh, and they need to lose the advertising image and simplify their page.
Bored with my musical endeavors, I thought it was time to watch some movies. I put in an older DVD movie, Spaceballs. It was all down hill from there. Anyone familiar with the movie will remember the opening sequence where the large spacecraft moves across the screen. The video playback was quite stuttered, though the audio did not seem to suffer. As the movie went on, the stutter wasn't as obvious but was still there....
First they release an AOL Computer that can't access AOL, and now they're making a Media Computer that can't play media.
Just because they're pissing off Microsoft doesn't make them a good company.
Shouldn't the survey have been sent out to 400 randomly chosen developers? Aren't you biasing the results already by choosing developers more likely to have some involvement with linux?
The claim that is being made given these survey results is that out of all developers who develop for Linux, the majority of those switched over from Windows, rather than Unix. It is not claiming that more developers on the whole are developing for Windows. It's just saying that Windows is losing more developers to Linux than Unix is. If they haven't switched to Linux, then they aren't relevant to the claim, because neither obviously Windows or Unix lost them to Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Be honest... how many companies right now are really contenders for consumer and corporate desktop operating systems? They crushed non-MS DOS, they crushed OS/2, and now they're funding SCO's attack on Linux.
Actually, it would be like if Ford bought or destroyed Chevy, Honda, Volkswagon, Mercedes, etc, etc, etc, until they were the only company that made cars, and then were asked to pay 10% for independant custom car builders.
that's the kind of game only an American would like
As long as they're tossing out generalities, what about games featuring animated rape and incest? There isn't much of a market for those over on this side of the pond.
There's an obvious corollation between lines of code produced and productivity, but it's hardly an absolute.
Who's the more productive? A programmer who writes a 2000-line program, or a programmer who writes a 1000-line program that does the same thing? Often times, pumping out extra lines of code is a sign of inexperience. Someone who's been at it for a long time has a better understanding of how things work, and is a lot more likely to write tighter (and hence less buggy and more maintainable) code.
I think one problem is a lack of understanding of this on the part of non-coder management. With managers trying to save money, it's tempting to hire cheaper coders who produce lower-quality code, but that code then costs you money when it's time to fix and upgrade it. Unfortunately, the only solid figure the managers ever get is that the young guy costs the company 40k less than the old guy.
Compaines aren't going to be quick to hire old techies unless they're run by old techies.
If so, you might want to consider having them put together a simple game. The important thing is not to be overly ambitious (puzzle games or simple 2d shooters fit this well). The non-programmers can work on art, design, and music.
That Site (c) is an Eyesore (c). I wonder if these Dipshits (c) realize that all those "(c)" marks make their Site (c) Difficult (c) to Read (c).
Ever tried to work a library that does something very similar to what you need it to do, but not exactly? You end up writing more code to get it to work with your program than you would have written just implementing it from scratch. That code tends to be bulky, difficult to maintain, and prone to bugs. Sometimes it's better just to start with a clean slate.
Maybe Japanese arcades have games that let you keep playing if you're good, rather than charging you two dollars for half a minute of crappy racing.
It's a sad day when consumers have to run to Republicans for protection.
I don't think the OpenGL API allows easy arbitrary distortions.
Sure it does.
The way to do it is use the original as a texture, and then draw a grid of square polygons, each with a corresponding of that texture. Allow the user to distort those squares (while leaving the texture the same) and you can distort the image. To really make this look good, you'll need to use fairly fine-grained squares, but you're not concerned with frame-rate here.
...that your best bet would be to take a picture of a piece of graph paper, and then figure out exactly how to stretch it so that the lines are straight again. That said, I'm not entirely certain if there are any programs out there that would do this, but I think it'd be reasonably easy to write an OpenGL program that allows you to apply arbitrary distortions to an image, and then saves those distortions to apply to other images.
Have fun with your government and don't cry foul - after all: you get what you vote for.
Not in the United States, you don't.
My friends and I loved it, although we're all writers and roleplayers, and we enjoy that sort of character drama. If you're the sort of person that plays these games for the gameplay and not the story, then FF8 doesn't have a whole lot to offer. It's sad, really. The story is great, and the game itself has a style and atmosphere that hasn't been matched before or since. Unfortunately, though, it's marred by an annoying, poorly-balanced battle system.
:)
One other complaint that people like to make (but I've never really gotten myself) is that Squall is a boring character who doesn't care about anyone. Now, I can't really call Squall subtle and nuanced, but obviously he was too subtle for a lot of people, who apparently failed to pick up on the fact that he did care about people, a lot. He just didn't want to, because he had lost everyone he was ever close to.
And FF9? Well, it was an interesting little nostalgia trip, and certainly a solid game in its own right... but the story was fairly bland. It lacked the guts and ambition to break the mold like FF8 did. It followed the old FF games a bit too vigorously to really be captivating. FF8, on the other hand, is like a strong, complicated beer. You probably won't like it.
On the last level, it looks like a cakewalk, until you open that last door and the big blue dude's right there.
When that bastard yelled "GUTEN TAG!!!" I must have jumped three feet in the air. Never been startled so much by a computer game before or since.
Please note that FindBugs is alpha-quality software. You may find bugs in it, and the features and source code may change significantly in future releases.
...is to run it on itself.
Obviously, they have to be claiming that some of the code within Linux wasn't originally GPLed. Which code is that? Are their complaints legitimate? In other words, can they point out the code that was lifted from them, and then provide documentation to support their claims? If so, then they're actually in the right, whether or not everyone happens to think they're a bunch of goatse's.
A joystick is shaped the way it is presumably because it's an easy way to control a game. My guess (although I admit I'm not certain of this) is that the idea of a joystick is just borrowed from the flight stick in an airplane.
That said, the only control device I've ever seen that's shaped like a female reproductive organ is the "clit mouse" that used to (and maybe still does) come with IBM Thinkpads -- that little red eraser thing in the middle of the keyboard. Those things are, quite frankly, almost worthless as a control device, their only redeeming value being that they are very small. Even then, most people prefer touch pads on laptops.
Well, that's all very true, but I'm afraid it doesn't address the point of my argument. Mplayer, as it stands right now, is still sorely lacking in some areas. If, as the author of the article suggested, people would unify and work on one project instead of making a ton of different ones, the one movie player could already be feature-complete.
Better hope you've never donated to Greenpeace.
Okay, here goes:
All that being said, mplayer has the very pleasant property of being able to play pretty much anything and everything that's out there, and that alone makes it a lot more pleasant for me to use than any alternative available on either Linux or Windows. But on the other hand, it has a lot of annoying bugs that need to be worked out before it can be considered truly useable by most people. Everything I listed there is fixable.
The font that you're talking about is light grey, easy to overlook. Also, it took me a moment to notice the difference between the numbers and the bullets. If I'd just been clicking on a link, I wouldn't have paid much attention to it.
Google, on the other hand, puts its ads on a different section of the page and sets them off with a colored box, to make it absolutely clear that they're ads.
Funny you should mention that. I searched for "Linux" at search.msn.com just for kicks, and the first three results went like this:
# Amazon.com
Buy Linux software at the Amazon.com software store.
# Introducing Linux (at tech.msn.com)
Find the latest news and information on this operating system.
# Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (at microsoft.com)
Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products.
The three after it are all sponsor links. They're marked as such, but not clearly. After that, it continues with some more links, which are of somewhat better quality. In contrast, Google's top three results are linux.org, linux.com, and redhat.com.
Until MS separates out the advertising a bit better and stops skewing the top links quite so much to suit its own opinion, people aren't going to use their search site. Oh, and they need to lose the advertising image and simplify their page.
Interesting stuff...
Here's a question, though. When you dream, do the images that you're dreaming go through the thalamus as well?
Bored with my musical endeavors, I thought it was time to watch some movies. I put in an older DVD movie, Spaceballs. It was all down hill from there. Anyone familiar with the movie will remember the opening sequence where the large spacecraft moves across the screen. The video playback was quite stuttered, though the audio did not seem to suffer. As the movie went on, the stutter wasn't as obvious but was still there. ...
First they release an AOL Computer that can't access AOL, and now they're making a Media Computer that can't play media.
Just because they're pissing off Microsoft doesn't make them a good company.
Shouldn't the survey have been sent out to 400 randomly chosen developers? Aren't you biasing the results already by choosing developers more likely to have some involvement with linux?
The claim that is being made given these survey results is that out of all developers who develop for Linux, the majority of those switched over from Windows, rather than Unix. It is not claiming that more developers on the whole are developing for Windows. It's just saying that Windows is losing more developers to Linux than Unix is. If they haven't switched to Linux, then they aren't relevant to the claim, because neither obviously Windows or Unix lost them to Linux.