Which precicely nobody I've ever met cares about. When people talk about games on Windows, they're talking about Steam, battle.net, possibly origin, or some standalone like LOL. What they don't talk about is Microsoft, Windows store yadda yadda.
If anything, a heavy handed app-store approach would only speed the vast exodus from native platform apps (at least from MS platforms anyways).
I've included some notes from my own experience to help those (not necessarily parent poster) avoid similar failures.
- don't get locked in to single-vendor technology that might disappear on a moment's notice. Realistically, evaluate if said technologies can survive company collapse or not. Languages / Technologies with heavy internal investment like C# are a lot more coupled to their companies than say PHP, Ruby, etc. That said, maybe the Mono/Apache/etc.. type groups out there could keep the lang alive if MS pulled the rug. Java could be better off if Oracle killed it to open up the ecosystem pieces they've kept ransom. HTML/Javascript are completely open (though standards keep things semi-coherent) but realistically 3-4 vendors control the narrative and if 2 decided to go in a different direction, you'll have a lot of chaos to keep things working.
- hide API's inside your own classes. That makes ripping them out and replacing them with something else so much easier. Well, the general mantra of layering access to things certainly mitigates unnecessary coupling which is a good thing. This should be applied everywhere though, not just inner class scoping.
- stick to standards. Yep, and invent some of your own if there's a lack of good standardization where there should be.
- invest in regular modernisation. Do it when reasonably can, not when you absolutely must. A tricky proposition, but one that should certainly be striven for. Admittedly, saying lets drop all this stuff that produces more revenue to work on X which may eventually help us maximize revenue in the future is certainly not as clear cut, but in the ideal world, the code is always getting improved, polished, simplified, etc.. Writing (CS101 here) low coupled, high cohesion code will vastly simplify future improvements. Just make sure that you always consider 3rd party libraries / platform libraries / language quirks included into external dependencies that may evolve over time.
- refactor whatever stinks. Whenever I try refacting crap (core piece of functionality), I write a TON of extra tests for before/after comparison because no matter how perfect your re-implementation, there will always be those bazaar corner cases that worked (possibly through fluke/magic) in the original spahgetti that violates the implied or explicit contracts in the future. Refactor for sure, but don't ripshod, or your eventual replacement will be refacting/fixing your POC for much the same reason you refactored.
- keep your own skills up to date. Apply as needed. This is never bad advice, but just remember that just because you learn a new technique / technology, don't go running out to refactor everything to use it. Generally if it was popular 10-15 years ago, its probably stood the test of time and passed, while newer tech should be looked at carefully and evaluated for specific cases where appropriate.
"If Uber succeeds in getting laws changed in order to deprecate the existing taxi licensing system, we all win"
Its all fair and great to lobby for laws to be relaxed / reformed to allow for a new and efficient competition. Its great that people want to update outdated regulations.
Its not great when they 'getting laws changed' is code word for doing whatever they like and stand behind the impunity of... what exactly? Do you defend Irish/Lux tax evasion by companies as well? The difference being at least those corporations are at least 100% legally operating in the countries they're bilking money out of.
Worse, the sad truth is there's a ton fo ride sharing software, and only Uber's getting the (bad) attention which is actually helping their valuations / buzz like mad. Take away: Break laws, get press, profit, cash out before company implodes, 'retire somewhere warm' if you did something really bad and didn't greese the right palms.
Do we have horses and buggies to this day? Yes. Are they used for transportation? yes. Are they in any way relevant to modern day communiting and transportation needs? No.
Are these robot taxis going to pick up people's baggage from the curb and put it in the trunk? No, hire a limo or a 'real driver' for double / triple the cost for that honor. Why not, since you're flying your private jet around exclusively for your needs as well. Hell, just load a car on that jet and you're done!
Will they be able to walk into a building to pick up a package to be delivered? Nope, I doubt its a common request, but you'll have to hire a freight courier or in-city courier, or a bike courier, or...
Will they be able to resolve a dispute between two riders? Nope, but depending on the dispute and the regulations, there may be a fixed reservation lock for multiple potential pick-ups and a call-for-help button in case of real life emergencies (like many modern citys' public transit does already).
Is it legal for an unattended child to ride in a vehicle with no adults in it? Who knows (when autonomous vehicles are legalized), but I know for a fact fear mongering won't answer that question any better (PS: Since when do people leave their child unattended in a cab, even with a real driver? Its just a bad question in so many ways).
If said company was in such a hurry for a hot specialized skill, why not hire a temp contractor for it (or contract into hire if necessary) and spend the months during the contract to run up the skills of the remaining members to fill in as necessary? If the specialization is temporal to your business needs then don't pay for it perpetually. Instead, use a temporary worker for a temporary job. If it is necessary for your ongoing business needs, make a new position for their specialized needs and hire for that (and consider that resource specialized while 'filling in' while said specialization isn't 100% utilization).
In a word, tribalism. We're still living it. It kept our species alive and strong long before the advent of 'modern society' and it'll probably take a few dozen more generations before we actually have a handle on it. Well, it depends significantly on inter-breeding visual indicators into a larger kaleidoscope of sub-races (making visual racism harder to pin down), but time will tell I suppose.
Users don't see the risk regardless of seeing how drilled into their heads it is, and if thery are caught out on it, the nebulous punishment for violation is generally so watered down that they'll just risk it anyways. Your options are: Clear / filter electronics at a security checkpoint, much much harsher and very well known punishments ranging from termination to termination, or radio blocking to kill wireless electronics.
Well, one would argue that a country suffering from rapid currency devaluation would continue (and even accelerate devaluation) if people were able to trade in other countries' currencies easily (I don't think your universal panacea of BC trade happens anywhere, but lets just play along). What you're really saying is the savy locals get by on working/bartering in USD, Euro, raw BitCoin (more stable currencies), while everyone else at home can suffer with savings being eroded further by your selfishness. Seems about right for the BitCoin crowds.
"driving to/from job site is a good one" Mind you I'm in Canada, but this is specifically NOT in the rules for allowable travel if to/from work sites if part of regular routine. Plus here, you have to log all hours travelled if you're expensing against a 'company car'. Travel as far as I have determined only applies between multiple job sites in the performance of said job (like plummer from one job to the next, but not to/from home. Maybe if your home is also your official office... get a lawyer!). That said, most people I've known who expense their cars do literally no business with them, keep no log books, and have never been audited. Just beware that the law may come down hard on you if you're unlucky enough to be called on it.
I've been a contactor a long time and its great because my job category is richly paid and in demand. Now imagine -everyone- is forced to become contractors to get a job (why not if the 'distinction' is removed). The prospect for them is a lot less rosy. There are good reasons why we have employee laws. There are many contracts that do honor the loose distinction between the two, so I suggest finding those.
Universal apps: I've never seen one, so I can't say I'm crying over that. What's the point over them? Simplified deployment? Are they a new extension vs. exe to make it clear you're running a universal binary? If so, what happens if the native parts of the universal binary aren't supported by my architecture?
OneDrive: I could honestly care less about Microsoft's platform (though I apparently have something like 500gb gifted to me) but if I wanted to backup to OneDrive, One can use many tools to do the same job. I use Duplicati to backup and it works quite well for my uses and its free. Or are you implying that all your personal info is automatically being backed up? That's a brand new can of worms if that's the case.
I don't know about background services, but there was a right-click option in the start menu to turn cortana off (or at least get it off the bar).
I'm also not impressed, but the big f-you is not being able to edit the theme directly (like fonts / colors like I could do in previous windows). For some boneheaded reason, tweaking windows to the way I like it caused the 'highlight' color to be the same as the taskbar color, so everything highlight reactive in the start menu (basically everything but launchers) becomes invisible until you hover...
Its an oligopoly. You throw enough money in a pile and jump thorugh a millions hoops, and you too can start a bank! So why not be less crack-pot and more enterprising and start a bank today!
The largest payment cards by far are Visa and Mastercard, and they are quite active in Europe as they are everywhere else. But assuming you mean bank or nation congomerate systems, that may be the case (I don't know about the EU merchant wiring services personally).
The banks were fine-ish. Its the nation that spent themselves into the grave. The banks are just doing what they can to prevent complete economic collapse.
Facebook's alive and well. Hell, tghey make more money than ever, mostly because: 1. Users have no control over the narrative (to anything outside their social group) 2. Everyone and their dog (but not me) uses it 3. You can send each other useless (fb monetized) links to crap nobody cares about 4. Its an amazing diversion for people with no lives (don't forget pinterest / buzzfeed / instagram) 5. Its an amazing way to post how cool you are by posting all the amazing things you do, and like the amazing spread on the toast you just bought in Paris or something
Yes, because you know, rampent speculation is much more interesting than just hearing it from sources. The sad thing is, the Internet has manifested MOB justice just like we had hundreds of years before from uninformed emotion driven people. How many corpses will the internet leave in its wake before people can act sensibly? Oh well, good luck with -whatever new site- you depend on to spring up and be your nmew sounding board. But hell, it'll go the same way as this one beacuse people too busy tearing down others for a living rarely make enough money to pay the bills..
Anything to do with Uber (which is 99.999% about 'business freedom') attracts the libertarians who are far more active on slashdot than I've ever seen in the real world. Whenever you have libertarians espousing dogma, it turns into a holy flame war and only the victors are the ones who skimmed past the story (damn it!).
Yes yes, your libratarian rhetoric is nothing new, and your singular bile won't be winning any minds. But hell here's one.
You piss your neighbors off so much that they decide to deficate their pets in front of your house (lets say just outside of your property, another 'government established' boundary I may add) multiple times a day, why not. Your options are: assault/kill them, you could attempt reconsiliation, you could call the police to enforce laws and structure that you have no belief in, or you can put up with the reems of crap flowing over your lawn.
1. That is Europe, the home of angry mobs that get shit done, unlike the US where protestors wimper in the corner and accomplish essentially nothing (blame / support your political systems for reenforcing said outcomes) 2. They were protesting the lack of enforcing a law on the books, so its hard to complain about their reasoning.
If you want to complain about banning uber or supporting them, then for fuck sakes do it.
Its nice to see that there is some social progression being made in a country that has had such rocky times lately. Good luck to all the gay couples that can now be 'equals under the law'.
That's a little disengenuous. There's just fewer faculty worrying about that pesky 'teaching thing' and they can worry about what's really important, like Academic research, or not.
Frankly, I paid maybe $1000 / semester (+1k for books) at my state sponsered school and got a great job. 15 years later, I look back on the pathetic state of 'educational inflation' with outright distain.
As a professional java developer who's 'led a number or fairly large scale Java projects', you never realized the JDK includes a fully functional JRE without ad-crap installed? Color me suspicious.
It's not hard to figure at all. People with shitty family lives in school underperform regardless of their innate abilities. Black and Latino groups are some of the poorest racial groups, so it follows that on average, they'd test worse on enterance testing (given with a grain of salt).
Grand scheme though, 10,000 is a pretty small number given the millions of people currently in the field. Obviously the end number of individuals who make it to the professional world will be far less, but I'm glad to see there are some programs in place to help those that need the hand.
For myself, I started out with a lower-middle family, but my Dad was lucky enough to be in a union job where they contributed to childhood post-secondary savings programs enough so that when I ended up going to post-secondary, most of my bills were covered by the program, and a few scholarships/bursaries offered through the schools / donors. If I didn't have the small amount of savings my dad had saved for me, I'd very likely be doing a quite different job (and a far worse path) than I am now.
To be honest, I haven't had to touch the registry since begrudgedly getting Windows 7 for gaming. Even using it for pretty much day to day tasks, there isn't much reason to dig into the registry unless you can't find off the shelf util's to do it for you. Ex. I WOULD use it to make windows look like Windows 2000, but thankfully all of those lovely settings (and lots new code) exposed through Windows Classic Shell. In order to make my ideal desktop functional without haivng to dig around in obscure systems file settings, I get an out of box experience which is straightforward and expressive enough. Looking waaay back, Windows Power tools would've been a similar example.
Does this have more to do with 'evil chinese hacker swarms' or more to do with poorly secured networks being abused by parties unknown? Seriously, I'm no hacker but I'd have enough brains to never launch attacks directly from my loc when there are perfectly weak targets to channel attacks through. And lets forget entirely about TOR because systems attacks through TOR could never be a thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Which precicely nobody I've ever met cares about. When people talk about games on Windows, they're talking about Steam, battle.net, possibly origin, or some standalone like LOL. What they don't talk about is Microsoft, Windows store yadda yadda.
If anything, a heavy handed app-store approach would only speed the vast exodus from native platform apps (at least from MS platforms anyways).
I've included some notes from my own experience to help those (not necessarily parent poster) avoid similar failures.
- don't get locked in to single-vendor technology that might disappear on a moment's notice.
Realistically, evaluate if said technologies can survive company collapse or not. Languages / Technologies with heavy internal investment like C# are a lot more coupled to their companies than say PHP, Ruby, etc. That said, maybe the Mono/Apache/etc.. type groups out there could keep the lang alive if MS pulled the rug. Java could be better off if Oracle killed it to open up the ecosystem pieces they've kept ransom. HTML/Javascript are completely open (though standards keep things semi-coherent) but realistically 3-4 vendors control the narrative and if 2 decided to go in a different direction, you'll have a lot of chaos to keep things working.
- hide API's inside your own classes. That makes ripping them out and replacing them with something else so much easier.
Well, the general mantra of layering access to things certainly mitigates unnecessary coupling which is a good thing. This should be applied everywhere though, not just inner class scoping.
- stick to standards.
Yep, and invent some of your own if there's a lack of good standardization where there should be.
- invest in regular modernisation. Do it when reasonably can, not when you absolutely must.
A tricky proposition, but one that should certainly be striven for. Admittedly, saying lets drop all this stuff that produces more revenue to work on X which may eventually help us maximize revenue in the future is certainly not as clear cut, but in the ideal world, the code is always getting improved, polished, simplified, etc.. Writing (CS101 here) low coupled, high cohesion code will vastly simplify future improvements. Just make sure that you always consider 3rd party libraries / platform libraries / language quirks included into external dependencies that may evolve over time.
- refactor whatever stinks.
Whenever I try refacting crap (core piece of functionality), I write a TON of extra tests for before/after comparison because no matter how perfect your re-implementation, there will always be those bazaar corner cases that worked (possibly through fluke/magic) in the original spahgetti that violates the implied or explicit contracts in the future. Refactor for sure, but don't ripshod, or your eventual replacement will be refacting/fixing your POC for much the same reason you refactored.
- keep your own skills up to date. Apply as needed.
This is never bad advice, but just remember that just because you learn a new technique / technology, don't go running out to refactor everything to use it. Generally if it was popular 10-15 years ago, its probably stood the test of time and passed, while newer tech should be looked at carefully and evaluated for specific cases where appropriate.
"If Uber succeeds in getting laws changed in order to deprecate the existing taxi licensing system, we all win"
Its all fair and great to lobby for laws to be relaxed / reformed to allow for a new and efficient competition. Its great that people want to update outdated regulations.
Its not great when they 'getting laws changed' is code word for doing whatever they like and stand behind the impunity of... what exactly? Do you defend Irish/Lux tax evasion by companies as well? The difference being at least those corporations are at least 100% legally operating in the countries they're bilking money out of.
Worse, the sad truth is there's a ton fo ride sharing software, and only Uber's getting the (bad) attention which is actually helping their valuations / buzz like mad. Take away: Break laws, get press, profit, cash out before company implodes, 'retire somewhere warm' if you did something really bad and didn't greese the right palms.
Do we have horses and buggies to this day? Yes. Are they used for transportation? yes. Are they in any way relevant to modern day communiting and transportation needs? No.
Are these robot taxis going to pick up people's baggage from the curb and put it in the trunk?
No, hire a limo or a 'real driver' for double / triple the cost for that honor. Why not, since you're flying your private jet around exclusively for your needs as well. Hell, just load a car on that jet and you're done!
Will they be able to walk into a building to pick up a package to be delivered?
Nope, I doubt its a common request, but you'll have to hire a freight courier or in-city courier, or a bike courier, or...
Will they be able to resolve a dispute between two riders?
Nope, but depending on the dispute and the regulations, there may be a fixed reservation lock for multiple potential pick-ups and a call-for-help button in case of real life emergencies (like many modern citys' public transit does already).
Is it legal for an unattended child to ride in a vehicle with no adults in it?
Who knows (when autonomous vehicles are legalized), but I know for a fact fear mongering won't answer that question any better (PS: Since when do people leave their child unattended in a cab, even with a real driver? Its just a bad question in so many ways).
If said company was in such a hurry for a hot specialized skill, why not hire a temp contractor for it (or contract into hire if necessary) and spend the months during the contract to run up the skills of the remaining members to fill in as necessary? If the specialization is temporal to your business needs then don't pay for it perpetually. Instead, use a temporary worker for a temporary job. If it is necessary for your ongoing business needs, make a new position for their specialized needs and hire for that (and consider that resource specialized while 'filling in' while said specialization isn't 100% utilization).
In a word, tribalism. We're still living it. It kept our species alive and strong long before the advent of 'modern society' and it'll probably take a few dozen more generations before we actually have a handle on it. Well, it depends significantly on inter-breeding visual indicators into a larger kaleidoscope of sub-races (making visual racism harder to pin down), but time will tell I suppose.
Users don't see the risk regardless of seeing how drilled into their heads it is, and if thery are caught out on it, the nebulous punishment for violation is generally so watered down that they'll just risk it anyways. Your options are: Clear / filter electronics at a security checkpoint, much much harsher and very well known punishments ranging from termination to termination, or radio blocking to kill wireless electronics.
Well, one would argue that a country suffering from rapid currency devaluation would continue (and even accelerate devaluation) if people were able to trade in other countries' currencies easily (I don't think your universal panacea of BC trade happens anywhere, but lets just play along). What you're really saying is the savy locals get by on working/bartering in USD, Euro, raw BitCoin (more stable currencies), while everyone else at home can suffer with savings being eroded further by your selfishness. Seems about right for the BitCoin crowds.
"driving to/from job site is a good one" ... get a lawyer!). That said, most people I've known who expense their cars do literally no business with them, keep no log books, and have never been audited. Just beware that the law may come down hard on you if you're unlucky enough to be called on it.
Mind you I'm in Canada, but this is specifically NOT in the rules for allowable travel if to/from work sites if part of regular routine. Plus here, you have to log all hours travelled if you're expensing against a 'company car'. Travel as far as I have determined only applies between multiple job sites in the performance of said job (like plummer from one job to the next, but not to/from home. Maybe if your home is also your official office
I've been a contactor a long time and its great because my job category is richly paid and in demand. Now imagine -everyone- is forced to become contractors to get a job (why not if the 'distinction' is removed). The prospect for them is a lot less rosy. There are good reasons why we have employee laws. There are many contracts that do honor the loose distinction between the two, so I suggest finding those.
Universal apps: I've never seen one, so I can't say I'm crying over that. What's the point over them? Simplified deployment? Are they a new extension vs. exe to make it clear you're running a universal binary? If so, what happens if the native parts of the universal binary aren't supported by my architecture?
OneDrive: I could honestly care less about Microsoft's platform (though I apparently have something like 500gb gifted to me) but if I wanted to backup to OneDrive, One can use many tools to do the same job. I use Duplicati to backup and it works quite well for my uses and its free. Or are you implying that all your personal info is automatically being backed up? That's a brand new can of worms if that's the case.
I don't know about background services, but there was a right-click option in the start menu to turn cortana off (or at least get it off the bar).
I'm also not impressed, but the big f-you is not being able to edit the theme directly (like fonts / colors like I could do in previous windows). For some boneheaded reason, tweaking windows to the way I like it caused the 'highlight' color to be the same as the taskbar color, so everything highlight reactive in the start menu (basically everything but launchers) becomes invisible until you hover...
Its an oligopoly. You throw enough money in a pile and jump thorugh a millions hoops, and you too can start a bank! So why not be less crack-pot and more enterprising and start a bank today!
The largest payment cards by far are Visa and Mastercard, and they are quite active in Europe as they are everywhere else. But assuming you mean bank or nation congomerate systems, that may be the case (I don't know about the EU merchant wiring services personally).
The banks were fine-ish. Its the nation that spent themselves into the grave. The banks are just doing what they can to prevent complete economic collapse.
Facebook's alive and well. Hell, tghey make more money than ever, mostly because:
1. Users have no control over the narrative (to anything outside their social group)
2. Everyone and their dog (but not me) uses it
3. You can send each other useless (fb monetized) links to crap nobody cares about
4. Its an amazing diversion for people with no lives (don't forget pinterest / buzzfeed / instagram)
5. Its an amazing way to post how cool you are by posting all the amazing things you do, and like the amazing spread on the toast you just bought in Paris or something
Yes, because you know, rampent speculation is much more interesting than just hearing it from sources. The sad thing is, the Internet has manifested MOB justice just like we had hundreds of years before from uninformed emotion driven people. How many corpses will the internet leave in its wake before people can act sensibly? Oh well, good luck with -whatever new site- you depend on to spring up and be your nmew sounding board. But hell, it'll go the same way as this one beacuse people too busy tearing down others for a living rarely make enough money to pay the bills..
Anything to do with Uber (which is 99.999% about 'business freedom') attracts the libertarians who are far more active on slashdot than I've ever seen in the real world. Whenever you have libertarians espousing dogma, it turns into a holy flame war and only the victors are the ones who skimmed past the story (damn it!).
Yes yes, your libratarian rhetoric is nothing new, and your singular bile won't be winning any minds. But hell here's one.
You piss your neighbors off so much that they decide to deficate their pets in front of your house (lets say just outside of your property, another 'government established' boundary I may add) multiple times a day, why not. Your options are: assault/kill them, you could attempt reconsiliation, you could call the police to enforce laws and structure that you have no belief in, or you can put up with the reems of crap flowing over your lawn.
1. That is Europe, the home of angry mobs that get shit done, unlike the US where protestors wimper in the corner and accomplish essentially nothing (blame / support your political systems for reenforcing said outcomes)
2. They were protesting the lack of enforcing a law on the books, so its hard to complain about their reasoning.
If you want to complain about banning uber or supporting them, then for fuck sakes do it.
Its nice to see that there is some social progression being made in a country that has had such rocky times lately. Good luck to all the gay couples that can now be 'equals under the law'.
That's a little disengenuous. There's just fewer faculty worrying about that pesky 'teaching thing' and they can worry about what's really important, like Academic research, or not.
Frankly, I paid maybe $1000 / semester (+1k for books) at my state sponsered school and got a great job. 15 years later, I look back on the pathetic state of 'educational inflation' with outright distain.
As a professional java developer who's 'led a number or fairly large scale Java projects', you never realized the JDK includes a fully functional JRE without ad-crap installed? Color me suspicious.
It's not hard to figure at all. People with shitty family lives in school underperform regardless of their innate abilities. Black and Latino groups are some of the poorest racial groups, so it follows that on average, they'd test worse on enterance testing (given with a grain of salt).
Grand scheme though, 10,000 is a pretty small number given the millions of people currently in the field. Obviously the end number of individuals who make it to the professional world will be far less, but I'm glad to see there are some programs in place to help those that need the hand.
For myself, I started out with a lower-middle family, but my Dad was lucky enough to be in a union job where they contributed to childhood post-secondary savings programs enough so that when I ended up going to post-secondary, most of my bills were covered by the program, and a few scholarships/bursaries offered through the schools / donors. If I didn't have the small amount of savings my dad had saved for me, I'd very likely be doing a quite different job (and a far worse path) than I am now.
To be honest, I haven't had to touch the registry since begrudgedly getting Windows 7 for gaming. Even using it for pretty much day to day tasks, there isn't much reason to dig into the registry unless you can't find off the shelf util's to do it for you. Ex. I WOULD use it to make windows look like Windows 2000, but thankfully all of those lovely settings (and lots new code) exposed through Windows Classic Shell. In order to make my ideal desktop functional without haivng to dig around in obscure systems file settings, I get an out of box experience which is straightforward and expressive enough. Looking waaay back, Windows Power tools would've been a similar example.
Does this have more to do with 'evil chinese hacker swarms' or more to do with poorly secured networks being abused by parties unknown? Seriously, I'm no hacker but I'd have enough brains to never launch attacks directly from my loc when there are perfectly weak targets to channel attacks through. And lets forget entirely about TOR because systems attacks through TOR could never be a thing.