The federal government really needs to start regulating these "universities"
They do. Go learn about how accreditation works.
While I have you, what would possess you to select the least-respected yet most expensive distance program around? Plenty of traditional brick-and-mortar colleges offer distance programs, many at a much lower price.
Don't be silly, anyone can understand OOP -- it's just that it doesn't make sense to us OOP most of the time.
OOP was over-hyped, and failed to deliver on even the most modest promises. Further, the problems it caused lead to even more ridiculous "solutions" (I'm looking at you, GoF) -- which harm readability and maintainability and (worse) would be completely unnecessary had OOP simply been avoided in the first place.
Everyone knows what a mess OOP made of modern languages, we're even moving toward multi-paradigm languages to help deal with the problems! Everyone just wants to avoid saying anything bad about OOP. (Your colleagues will just call you 'stupid' or say 'you don't understand it' or 'you're just using it wrong' if you dare to criticize the holy OOP.) It's like some weird cult-mentality has taken over and we refuse to go back to sensible programming practices.
Don't get me wrong, objects are okay, though they're just one of many ways to achieve modularity -- occasionally, it's even the best way, but certainly not always, nor even a small majority of the time. Though useless "pure OO" languages would have you believe otherwise.
Additionally, OOP can reasonably be blamed for the plague of slow and bloated software that we've seen since the rise of OOP.
For years, people have ignored the performance and memory penalty you pay for using OOP while shouting ridiculous aphorisms like "RAM is cheap" and "computers get faster every year". Well, now we're in a new age where portable computers and smartphones are on the rise -- we desperately need more efficient software. OOP is the antithesis of performance. We all knew that we were trading efficiency for 'ease of use' when OOP was a rising star, but it turns out that the 'easy of use' promise was just another lie from marketing. Now we pretend that we never made the trade.
OOP isn't difficult, but it's rarely (never?) done right and causes many more problems than it solves (did it ever really solve any?). In my book, that makes it a problem, not a solution. It's no wonder AS programmers had difficulty making the transition -- they inherited (pun) too many problems!
Really. The first step is always to try copying the disk (over and over) using multiple drives. Chances are, if the sector isn't completely unreadable, you'll get a good copy out of one of them.
For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps.
You're still 100% wrong. There IS NO FEE to register as a developer. Anyone can download the SDK and start developing applications at NO COST.
From your source "to submit an application to App World costs $200" (In case you're terminally incompetent, you don't need AppWorld to write or distribute your application. This isn't Apple.)
Get over yourself and STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION.
As I've repeatedly pointed out, there has never been a developer fee.
I did mention the code-signing fee in my first reply to you, but I guess that was too hard for you to understand. If you weren't using secure API's it was and still is completely free.
I'll except that your one of those rare people who actually type faster with a touchscreen keyboard. Still, every other aspect of working with text is still tedious and frustrating. Moving the cursor, for example, is a game of trial and error on a touchscreen-only interface. Selecting text is less horrid, but still slow and tedious.
Let's get this out of the way now. A touchscreen is good for a few things, but miserable and frustrating for many other things.
This is why we're *finally* seeing phones like the XPRT and Droid Pro which are slowly, and poorly, imitating RIM. When it comes to productivity, the touchscreen only phone is not the best way, or even good way, to interact with your device.
But look at the garbage that other people were selling at the time. It's not at all surprising that people would opt for a good phone with limited functionality than a crap phone.
Well, that's the point, isn't it? As a phone, it was a huge joke. Ridiculously short battery life, lacking basic features common to even the cheapest dumbphone of the time. Its best feature was the browser. As a mobile browser, it was best-in-class. As a phone, well, it was a pile of garbage.
It changed the market, sure, I'm at a total loss, however, to explain why outside of the massive hype that drove it forward.
That's still not a developer fee -- you ONLY paid that (and not that much for YEARS) if you needed to sign your app to make use of secure API features.
That was the point. There is, and has never been, a developer fee.
And the people (and businesses) have voted with their dollars. They voted no (even the ones that already have a BES), so I guess that's not what they wanted.
Either that, or what I suspect, tablets aren't terribly useful for business.
The Playbook is the only tablet on the market certified for US Governemnet use. They must have done something right. Oh, security. That's what RIM did right.
The lack of native email got them lots of bad press, which hurt them pretty bad. Still, it was a very sensible decision, as I've already pointed out. Had the press thought for half-a-minute about why there was no native email instead of screaming "zomg! a black-burry without teh emails" the tablet may have sold much better.
I'd be curious to see how it compares to Android, actually.
In my wife's case, the difference was night and day. For her needs, the Android device was practically useless, where the BB did everything she needed and more seamlessly and painlessly.
Before her new job, her Android phone was great for her -- it was terrible for messaging, but the other features kept her very satisfied and happy. For what it's worth, she absolutely hated my BB's before her needs changed, now she can't live without it.
It's astonishing how much the trackpad and keyboard improve productivity. The software makes full use of that, and makes messaging and PIM functions obvious, intuitive, and (above all else) incredibly fast.
I could see something like the Droid Pro with Honeycomb, a better keyboard, and a trackpad coming close. Though it'll be a few years before Android can really match RIM in terms of business productivity. I doubt iOS will ever even try.
RIM's problem is they're 3rd place with no new ideas and they're inferior to the competition.
Inferior? In what way? Right now, neither iOS nor any android phone can do what my blackberry does even half as well. (In terms of messaging, notifications, schedueling, etc.)
They went from first to third really quickly, nov 2010 they slid to #2, and March/April 2011 they hit #3 -- I know the new Bold 9900 is selling really well (it's an amazing device, with nothing like it on the market), and their new QNX phones are slated for early next year.
Put QNX beside iOS and, well, Apple starts to look like RIM from your perspective, doesn't it?
Apple was so wildly successful that they forced the rest of the industry to reinvent itself. Can we admit to that?
You do realize that Apple was behind RIM until this year, right? Their "wild success" was more hype than anything else. They have never been the #1 smartphone -- they're only recently #2.
Their sucess, oddly enough, is heavily dependent on the false perception that they were #1 for so many years. The real truth, of course, is they've never been in the top spot in terms of market share.
They're successful, sure. But much of that success depended on the illusion of success that they had. Look at the iPhone 1 -- a miserable pile of garbage that couldn't even handle MMS. It's beyond me how such a thing sold at all.
The hardware on the phones aren't bad, but almost everything else about them is. The interface-- well, can we just admit that Apple came along and ate everyone else's lunch in the cell phone industry? Can we just start by admitting that?
Admit that? Really? Have you USED an iPhone? It's a usability nightmare! The touchscreen only UI is practically useless for doing anything related to text, anything requiring precision, well, anything other than scrolling a list or pinching to zoom is an exercise in futility.
Best UI to wow spectators, perhaps, but certainly not to actually use. Try typing an email on an iPhone and then on a Blackberry. Guess which one will get done faster, and with less frustration?
The same goes for scheduling -- at a glace on BB, a fumbling process on the iPhone and similar touchscreen only nightmares.
You may find the BB interface "clunky" but as far as usability and productivity are concerned, even the older models are unmatched by any "modern" alternatives.
t was because they insisted on tethering it to a Blackberry for basic functions like e-mail to work. They tried for lock-in, and they failed
Lock-in? Um, no. You're way off there. Go read my above post about WHY the playbook lacked native email and why it was a VERY good thing for business users.
. They couldn't figure out that people might want email on a pad device
Please. Only the tech press and someone who hasn't spent half-a-minute of time thinking about it can't figure out WHY the playbook lacked native email.
The Playbook was designed to work with your blackberry. This way, you need only manage one device -- the device you're already managing. Lose a playbook? Big deal, all the data is safe on the phone, and no longer on the tablet.
Want to share a tablet between users? Perhaps a sales staff where only part of the force is out on any given day? Just give them one of the playbooks from the stack -- they've got all their data, email, presentations, etc. on their phone, and through bridge, now instantly on the tablet. All with virtually zero effort on their part, just a quick and simple pairing process.
It was absolutely brilliant from a business users perspective. You could deploy the tablet tomorrow without worrying about a thing. IT wouldn't need to manage them, and replacing a tablet was as simple as buying a new one.
They've lost the hardware wars. Time to go with their strengths.
All is not lost there -- remember, until 2011, they were ahead of Apple. Until late 2010, they were ahead of everyone else.
Their strengths lay in more than just their messaging platform, but in the hardware/software that makes managing messages and PIM data so easy. It makes a boring phone to play with, but one that really encourages you to make use of their best-in-class PIM functions.
Their strength is in communication and information management. It's what makes even their older models better than newer iOS and Android phones at being business tools. The phone stays out of the way, and let's you get your work done quickly. You don't need to spend a lot of time fumbling around with applications. Just about everything you need is a single keystroke away.
Their hardware keyboard is fantastic, coupled with their optical trackpad, manipulating text is beyond painless. Big surprise, dealing with text is most of what you'll be doing with a business tool! Neither iOS nor Android have a product that can compete on that front. Nor do they have one with as sophisticated notifications system or can compete on managing PIM data.
We're starting to see Android wake-up and recognize this, with the droid pro -- unfortunately, it's a poor Blackberry clone. No optical trackpad, second-rate keyboard, etc. The touchscreen only UI is pretty bad as far as productivity goes. We're finally seeing the market wake-up to that.
The Bold 9900, for example, is selling very well. Had RIM released this instead of the Torch last year, we may not be having this discussion.
Developing for BlackBerry is a horrible experience
I see that you've never developed for Blackberry. I know some idiot who couldn't handle simple registration instructions wrote that article last year, but it wasn't true then, and it certainly isn't true today.
Compared to developing for Android, for example, writing apps for Blackberry is beyond easy. With the new tools they've developed, it's even easier.
iOS is a huge PITA -- and they make you pay for it! Buy a Mac and pay your fees. Oh, and if Apple doesn't like your app, it's all for nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
The federal government really needs to start regulating these "universities"
They do. Go learn about how accreditation works.
While I have you, what would possess you to select the least-respected yet most expensive distance program around? Plenty of traditional brick-and-mortar colleges offer distance programs, many at a much lower price.
There's PhoneGap, among many others...
and not everyone can make sense of OOP
Don't be silly, anyone can understand OOP -- it's just that it doesn't make sense to us OOP most of the time.
OOP was over-hyped, and failed to deliver on even the most modest promises. Further, the problems it caused lead to even more ridiculous "solutions" (I'm looking at you, GoF) -- which harm readability and maintainability and (worse) would be completely unnecessary had OOP simply been avoided in the first place.
Everyone knows what a mess OOP made of modern languages, we're even moving toward multi-paradigm languages to help deal with the problems! Everyone just wants to avoid saying anything bad about OOP. (Your colleagues will just call you 'stupid' or say 'you don't understand it' or 'you're just using it wrong' if you dare to criticize the holy OOP.) It's like some weird cult-mentality has taken over and we refuse to go back to sensible programming practices.
Don't get me wrong, objects are okay, though they're just one of many ways to achieve modularity -- occasionally, it's even the best way, but certainly not always, nor even a small majority of the time. Though useless "pure OO" languages would have you believe otherwise.
Additionally, OOP can reasonably be blamed for the plague of slow and bloated software that we've seen since the rise of OOP.
For years, people have ignored the performance and memory penalty you pay for using OOP while shouting ridiculous aphorisms like "RAM is cheap" and "computers get faster every year". Well, now we're in a new age where portable computers and smartphones are on the rise -- we desperately need more efficient software. OOP is the antithesis of performance. We all knew that we were trading efficiency for 'ease of use' when OOP was a rising star, but it turns out that the 'easy of use' promise was just another lie from marketing. Now we pretend that we never made the trade.
OOP isn't difficult, but it's rarely (never?) done right and causes many more problems than it solves (did it ever really solve any?). In my book, that makes it a problem, not a solution. It's no wonder AS programmers had difficulty making the transition -- they inherited (pun) too many problems!
Really. The first step is always to try copying the disk (over and over) using multiple drives. Chances are, if the sector isn't completely unreadable, you'll get a good copy out of one of them.
Big Yawn
You wrote
For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps.
You're still 100% wrong. There IS NO FEE to register as a developer. Anyone can download the SDK and start developing applications at NO COST.
From your source "to submit an application to App World costs $200" (In case you're terminally incompetent, you don't need AppWorld to write or distribute your application. This isn't Apple.)
Get over yourself and STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION.
Sorry, how is this a fee to register as a developer?
Oh, that's right -- it's not. I can, as I always have, download the SDK, write my app, and distribute it for free.
See, unlike Apple, I don't need RIMs blessing to write code for a device I own.
As I've repeatedly pointed out, there has never been a developer fee.
I did mention the code-signing fee in my first reply to you, but I guess that was too hard for you to understand. If you weren't using secure API's it was and still is completely free.
I'll except that your one of those rare people who actually type faster with a touchscreen keyboard. Still, every other aspect of working with text is still tedious and frustrating. Moving the cursor, for example, is a game of trial and error on a touchscreen-only interface. Selecting text is less horrid, but still slow and tedious.
Let's get this out of the way now. A touchscreen is good for a few things, but miserable and frustrating for many other things.
This is why we're *finally* seeing phones like the XPRT and Droid Pro which are slowly, and poorly, imitating RIM. When it comes to productivity, the touchscreen only phone is not the best way, or even good way, to interact with your device.
But look at the garbage that other people were selling at the time. It's not at all surprising that people would opt for a good phone with limited functionality than a crap phone.
Well, that's the point, isn't it? As a phone, it was a huge joke. Ridiculously short battery life, lacking basic features common to even the cheapest dumbphone of the time. Its best feature was the browser. As a mobile browser, it was best-in-class. As a phone, well, it was a pile of garbage.
It changed the market, sure, I'm at a total loss, however, to explain why outside of the massive hype that drove it forward.
That's still not a developer fee -- you ONLY paid that (and not that much for YEARS) if you needed to sign your app to make use of secure API features.
That was the point. There is, and has never been, a developer fee.
And the people (and businesses) have voted with their dollars. They voted no (even the ones that already have a BES), so I guess that's not what they wanted.
Either that, or what I suspect, tablets aren't terribly useful for business.
The Playbook is the only tablet on the market certified for US Governemnet use. They must have done something right. Oh, security. That's what RIM did right.
The lack of native email got them lots of bad press, which hurt them pretty bad. Still, it was a very sensible decision, as I've already pointed out. Had the press thought for half-a-minute about why there was no native email instead of screaming "zomg! a black-burry without teh emails" the tablet may have sold much better.
I'd be curious to see how it compares to Android, actually.
In my wife's case, the difference was night and day. For her needs, the Android device was practically useless, where the BB did everything she needed and more seamlessly and painlessly.
Before her new job, her Android phone was great for her -- it was terrible for messaging, but the other features kept her very satisfied and happy. For what it's worth, she absolutely hated my BB's before her needs changed, now she can't live without it.
It's astonishing how much the trackpad and keyboard improve productivity. The software makes full use of that, and makes messaging and PIM functions obvious, intuitive, and (above all else) incredibly fast.
I could see something like the Droid Pro with Honeycomb, a better keyboard, and a trackpad coming close. Though it'll be a few years before Android can really match RIM in terms of business productivity. I doubt iOS will ever even try.
Wait until you actually use that Android device.
If you're a serious user, you'll be back. The 9900 is absolutely amazing -- and nothing on the market now even comes close to it.
I'm sorry to hear you had a bad run with the hardware, but your experience is so far from typical as to be almost unbelievable.
This is total Bullshit. Go check your facts, troll.
Was that a one time fee or is it yearly?
It was a non-existant fee. nloop is just making stuff up.
Let me repeat that before this bullshit spreads any further: There was no $200 developer fee.
Please, this a complete and total lie.
There was no such $200 fee. Where do you get your "facts"?
For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer
What are talking about? The only "fee" was $20 for a certificate to sign your code.
You're thinking of Apple, with their absurd developer fees.
The only viable option for RIM is probably to adopt Android
This is the quickest way for them to become irrelevant. What a stupid idea.
RIM's problem is they're 3rd place with no new ideas and they're inferior to the competition.
Inferior? In what way? Right now, neither iOS nor any android phone can do what my blackberry does even half as well. (In terms of messaging, notifications, schedueling, etc.)
They went from first to third really quickly, nov 2010 they slid to #2, and March/April 2011 they hit #3 -- I know the new Bold 9900 is selling really well (it's an amazing device, with nothing like it on the market), and their new QNX phones are slated for early next year.
Put QNX beside iOS and, well, Apple starts to look like RIM from your perspective, doesn't it?
Apple was so wildly successful that they forced the rest of the industry to reinvent itself. Can we admit to that?
You do realize that Apple was behind RIM until this year, right? Their "wild success" was more hype than anything else. They have never been the #1 smartphone -- they're only recently #2.
Their sucess, oddly enough, is heavily dependent on the false perception that they were #1 for so many years. The real truth, of course, is they've never been in the top spot in terms of market share.
They're successful, sure. But much of that success depended on the illusion of success that they had. Look at the iPhone 1 -- a miserable pile of garbage that couldn't even handle MMS. It's beyond me how such a thing sold at all.
The hardware on the phones aren't bad, but almost everything else about them is. The interface-- well, can we just admit that Apple came along and ate everyone else's lunch in the cell phone industry? Can we just start by admitting that?
Admit that? Really? Have you USED an iPhone? It's a usability nightmare! The touchscreen only UI is practically useless for doing anything related to text, anything requiring precision, well, anything other than scrolling a list or pinching to zoom is an exercise in futility.
Best UI to wow spectators, perhaps, but certainly not to actually use. Try typing an email on an iPhone and then on a Blackberry. Guess which one will get done faster, and with less frustration?
The same goes for scheduling -- at a glace on BB, a fumbling process on the iPhone and similar touchscreen only nightmares.
You may find the BB interface "clunky" but as far as usability and productivity are concerned, even the older models are unmatched by any "modern" alternatives.
t was because they insisted on tethering it to a Blackberry for basic functions like e-mail to work. They tried for lock-in, and they failed
Lock-in? Um, no. You're way off there. Go read my above post about WHY the playbook lacked native email and why it was a VERY good thing for business users.
. They couldn't figure out that people might want email on a pad device
Please. Only the tech press and someone who hasn't spent half-a-minute of time thinking about it can't figure out WHY the playbook lacked native email.
The Playbook was designed to work with your blackberry. This way, you need only manage one device -- the device you're already managing. Lose a playbook? Big deal, all the data is safe on the phone, and no longer on the tablet.
Want to share a tablet between users? Perhaps a sales staff where only part of the force is out on any given day? Just give them one of the playbooks from the stack -- they've got all their data, email, presentations, etc. on their phone, and through bridge, now instantly on the tablet. All with virtually zero effort on their part, just a quick and simple pairing process.
It was absolutely brilliant from a business users perspective. You could deploy the tablet tomorrow without worrying about a thing. IT wouldn't need to manage them, and replacing a tablet was as simple as buying a new one.
It seems like a smart move to me!
They've lost the hardware wars. Time to go with their strengths.
All is not lost there -- remember, until 2011, they were ahead of Apple. Until late 2010, they were ahead of everyone else.
Their strengths lay in more than just their messaging platform, but in the hardware/software that makes managing messages and PIM data so easy. It makes a boring phone to play with, but one that really encourages you to make use of their best-in-class PIM functions.
Their strength is in communication and information management. It's what makes even their older models better than newer iOS and Android phones at being business tools. The phone stays out of the way, and let's you get your work done quickly. You don't need to spend a lot of time fumbling around with applications. Just about everything you need is a single keystroke away.
Their hardware keyboard is fantastic, coupled with their optical trackpad, manipulating text is beyond painless. Big surprise, dealing with text is most of what you'll be doing with a business tool! Neither iOS nor Android have a product that can compete on that front. Nor do they have one with as sophisticated notifications system or can compete on managing PIM data.
We're starting to see Android wake-up and recognize this, with the droid pro -- unfortunately, it's a poor Blackberry clone. No optical trackpad, second-rate keyboard, etc. The touchscreen only UI is pretty bad as far as productivity goes. We're finally seeing the market wake-up to that.
The Bold 9900, for example, is selling very well. Had RIM released this instead of the Torch last year, we may not be having this discussion.
Developing for BlackBerry is a horrible experience
I see that you've never developed for Blackberry. I know some idiot who couldn't handle simple registration instructions wrote that article last year, but it wasn't true then, and it certainly isn't true today.
Compared to developing for Android, for example, writing apps for Blackberry is beyond easy. With the new tools they've developed, it's even easier.
iOS is a huge PITA -- and they make you pay for it! Buy a Mac and pay your fees. Oh, and if Apple doesn't like your app, it's all for nothing.