Why do you feel compelled to draw attention to the loss of your grandmother?
Um, because the person loved her, that's why. Why do you feel compelled to take issue with it?
The point of a dedication is to hallmark an intense work of labor or of love with an emblem of personal significance, and to seal that work, in a sense to elevate it, with the idea that all of the work we do is in some sense personal -- to ourselves, and, to the degree that we are influenced or driven by those important to us, to those others as well with whom we share our lives. If one can dedicate, of all things, a plaque on a park bench, then why not dedicate our work -- which is our time and therefore a fundamental material of our lives -- to someone we love? Why on Earth would "professional" mean "devoid of personal investment?" That's ridiculous and, in fact, flies in the face of the working wisdom of many successful firms who have become well known in recent years by finding ways to make work more personal, by allowing workers to bring their dogs to work, or by providing childcare or concierge services.
There's no harm in this at all and there's much to be gained if the coder, by virtue of his or her dedication, begins to take a personal investment in the maintenance of the code that's been signed in this way. Yes, I'm sure that we could think of ways that this could get out of hand or become problematic. But killjoy hand-wringing and fussy sniffing aside, I believe that coders should absolutely make a personal investment in the work that they do.
There are many comments up already saying "you can't polish a turd" and "vista is evil!" and, for what it's worth, I agree mostly. I'm writing this from an Ubuntu machine which I insist on using at work. I compute happily and sans hassle. But will pretty computers suceed? Yes.
Saying that they won't is the same thing as saying that putting a pretty model in a beer commerical won't make Budweiser (or whatever) taste better. Well, that's true, and yet sex sells beer. And cars. And a billion other things.
Okay, pretty girls aren't the same thing as pretty computers, but to some nerds they are. And in any case, anything sells better when it looks better, even crappy stuff. Just does, because we buy with our eyes first and our minds second.
Yeah, me too, because iTunes has been a flop, BitTorrent is hardly used at all, file sharing is so late-90s, and $1.99 per video is, well, really, who can afford that?
The guy's a troll. It's a blog entry, moron. How can you troll your own blog?
It's a notable comment because Greenspun's a notable commentator, but his blog entry wasn't meant to be an in-depth article. It's just interesting because his point of view is that Java is sucking hard. And from him, that's interesting.
Information overload? Spam outweighing your ham? Penis already long enough? Try Spambayes a doctor-recommended, safe and effective way to treat one symptom of too much information. Comes in Unix or Windows flavors (Outlook 2000 or XP).
Disclaimer: Spambayes is not an FDA-approved medication and is not a cure for impotence, hair-loss, depression, runny nose, or jungle fever. Pregnant women, men with hairy underarms and people in general who look like monkeys should not use.
Some people have accused mozilla.org of having an arrogant and dismissive attitude towards the Firebird database community. What is your response to these allegations?
That it's an excellent example of argumentum ad hominem.
Err... That isn't the same thing as denying that you've been arrogant and dismissive, Mr. Blizzard. Only that, if you have, it's not relevant to the argument. So... is that it? You've been arrogant and dismissive but so what, that's not the point? Your answer seems to have confirmed that allegation, if not only by its logical content, then also by its curt nature.
One last breath of vitriol. Before any/.er here posts and attempts to point out what I must have missed, that Microsoft is different because Microsoft has blah, blah, blah, frickety, blah, let me just say whatever. I'm aware the Microsoft is evil, banal, and corporate.
But my sympathy for the underdog disappears the moment it feels comfortable enough to start humping the legs of everyone else in the house, just because it's got big teeth now, and it's such a gooooood dog after all.
This is bull. If Microsoft pulled something like this, a bunch of open-source weenies would be storming Slashdot with signs, torches and pitchforks denouncing the unfriendly rule of a malevolent dictator. Because this is Mozilla though, a bunch of posts go up calling for reasonable action and logical thought, not to mention calling for the FirebirdSQL team to protest in a respectful manner. One Mozillazine poster even goes and posts that because FirebirdSQL has 0 percent market share, well, that's just tooooo bad. If anyone can't see the hypocrisy in that, well, they're blind.
Now there are similar posts here talking smack about "well who the hell knows who FirebirdSQL is anyway?" and "those immature people", all while any time a Microsoft employee farts loud enough for the guy in the next cubicle to hear it, it appears as a !!shocking post!! on Slashdot.
Also any time some remote governmental body in the furthest reaches of BFE adopts Linux to run its fileservers, its likewise heralded here so that the sheep-like masses may learn of the great advances of Unix-like OSes.
Yeah, people, I know, this is Slashdot. So let's just not even try to be even remotely even-minded, okay?
Screw the people behind this. They're twits that apparently couldn't handle the seemingly reasonable task of arriving at a name that was original (meaning that it wasn't before used by an automobile company for a popular car, or any other of a number of companies for any number of other products), creative (meaning that it didn't absolutely have to do with some kind of mythical flaming avian), and fair (meaning that they didn't decide to step on people's toes just because they finally got shoes big enough to do it). This just suggests that software developers in this space are all competing for the same pie and that ultimately it all comes down to who has the power to pull what stunt they want to pull. Mozilla's no better than Microsoft, they're just smaller.
Go ahead. Mod me down. At least I'm not baa-baa-baaing my way down the slaughterhouse chute while the rest of you are chanting the praises of the farmer.
C++ was alone for the night when Eiffel stopped by, noticing C++ was by itself, "just for a few drinks". Well, things started to get out of hand and just then Java walks in. Tense moment. Awkward silence. But to C++'s relief, Java joins in.
Well, as luck would have it, Java gets pregnant but the three of them have found they really enjoy each other's company, they balance each other out in certain areas, so they buck convention and all move in together and raise the kid under an "alternative" family, and hey, there's nothing wrong with that. They call their kid D, and while he's still young and has a lot to learn, he's got features, interfaces, delegates and assertions built in. He might just turn out all right after all.
Watch for the movie, starring Richard Gere as C++ (he's older and has a rumored past, but he'll give the rest of the case a few pointers), Catherine Zeta Jones as Java, and Renee Zellweger as Eiffel (she's hot, but underappreciated). Lil' Bow Wow will guest star as D.
Having spoken with a biker (sitting in the next room from me.;) ) he agrees that this vest is highly impractical. When you're launched from your bike, you keep your appendages close to your body and roll, similar to how paratroopers roll on landing to reduce the stress on your body. Also, they have to be able (barring physical injury) to get up and walk away, so as to prevent them from being flattened by passing cars (who tend to pay so much attention to the wreck they'd hit the broad side of a barn if it were planted in front of them).
This is obviously written by someone who has never ridden a motorcycle for any length of time and who's getting advice from someone who thinks he's a better rider than he is (which is scary). As a former editor at Motorcycle Online (http://www.motorcycle.com), I can tell you that when you're tossed off a bike at 70 miles per hour, the first thing that goes through your mind isn't, "Ah, now I'll tuck my legs and roll!" That's just ridiculous. You hit the ground so quickly (if you're lucky and don't highside which involves you being tossed through the air and is definitely the most dangerous way to wad) that about all you have time for is "OHSHIT!!", which is, interestingly, what anyone who claims otherwise is full of.
As far as the vest is concerned, well, if it works, great. Many would refuse to wear it just like many refuse to wear helmets, citing rights and freedoms and fashion and whatever. But research into this kind of technology is nice to see because, at the very least, it keeps a dialog open and fresh about motorcycle safety.
Ban foul language. After playing Halo on GameSpy for the past four months I, personally, would be just fine without having to have my fifteen-year-old sit down next to me for what should be a relatively innocent game while a box named "Cunt" comes online for a game, sporting players with names like "CumzEezy" and "KlitLickker".
Yeah, yeah, I know, "just turn the channel" blah, blah, blah, but when the vocal minority is comprised of thirteen-year-olds that think that sort of thing is phunny, heh, heh, it just starts to sap fun out of the game and then what are you left with? Eventually you have to "turn the channel" so much you might as well not play? To hell with that. So ban the morons. If you can't think of a decent, social way to express yourself then stick to high quality software like GameSpy.
I sent a flame to Marvel's PR firm and here's the result of the correspondence...
Dear Greg:
Thank you for your comments. Marvel appreciates the opinions of its fans and take all correspondences seriously. I will forward this email to the appropriate people for consideration.
On 11/13/02 5:38 PM, wrote:
> Dear Thieves, > > Thanks to the entertainment industry, of which Marvel is a part, for > screwing Stan Lee, to which you all owe your freaking jobs, out of money he > is due, by using the movie industry's notoriously fair and accurate > accounting practices. I and many other longtime fans like me all hope he > sues your asses into oblivion. Stan Lee may or may not get something from > his lawsuit, but if there's a hell, then I'm sure those responsible for this > kind of practice will end up there with Daredevil sticking his billyclub up > their asses for all eternity. > > But what I most hope is that the industry lobbyists that troll around the > Hill and convince Congress to keep from enacting stricter legislation > regulating entertainment industry accounting policies--which were adopted, > if history is correct, directly from established mob accounting > practices--will somehow fall into disfavor and then the entertainment > industry--movies, recording, TV--will get to see just how popular they're > becoming with a voting mainstream America. > > You people suck. > > --- > Outgoing mail has been checked for viruses by AVG before being sent. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.406 / Virus Database: 229 - Release Date: 10/21/2002 > >
Taken as a sole measure I would agree, LOC counts must be considered strictly in context with a number of factors: proper exception handling, feature implementation, platform constraints and requirements, chosen language... to name a few.
But all else being equal, and given equally "correct" implementations -- that is, two sample given implementations work equally well and according to requirements -- lines of code *can* be a valid statistic. Context is the key.
Fact is, if you've got one "correct" implementation -- and I'll grant that correctness could be subject to debate in this instance -- and it takes 14,000 lines of code and you've got another that takes 2,000... Well, if the implementations truly were correct and fair examples, then it's a no-brainer to state that 2,000 lines of code is a helluva lot easier to maintain than 14,000, therefore making it more reliable and, possibly, scalable.
LOC counts have been used in many, many code studies because they do represent a statistical measure of relative difficulty in implementation in certain respects.
SDL is great for Linux and has an added plus, if you believe it is a plus, that it works well on Windows, too, so your games will be cross-platform. More specifically, you can develop for Linux even if, for some mortifying reason, you don't have a Linux box at home.
In addition to being fully cross-platform, it supports events, audio, basic thread-creation, and has wrapper libraries around it for C++.
One of the best SDL tutorials I've seen (for Windows) is here, but there's great Linux stuff available too, and it also runs on BeOS, MacOS & MacOS X.
If you'd like to get up to speed on Linux (and other platforms') games programming quickly and you've got C or C++ skills, do yourself a favor and check this out!
I know this is a joke, but it's a play on a concept I think it's time to reject, at least in part.
Far too much has been made of Perl readability. Yawn. Recently I opened up some code I wrote four years ago for a rather obscure application that I hadn't looked at since. After a minute, and only about a minute, I understood it perfectly. Granted, I wrote it, but similarly I rarely have problems reading other programmers' Perl code, if it's well written or at least well written enough.
Poorly written code is hard to read in any language, but Perl isn't very difficult. Sure, there's the odd regular expression that's difficult to decipher, but overall it's how well you know the language in question.
It just frequently seems that the readability issue seems to be centered around how well the code can be read by readers not only new to the code but new to the language as well.
For that matter, far too much has been made of Python's readability. I'll grant that Python isn't difficult to read, but I've seen some pretty goofy Python code, as well as Perl. Python, or any language for that matter, can be nicely obfuscated just by naming variables poorly.
And as far as memory protection in C is concerned, well, it's no worse than assembly, and C is smokin' fast when written properly.
In short, you want to go fast, then you're going to be driving Indycar and it's going to be risky for the amateurs. You want safe? Try Java, and buy a Prius.
Assuming that you get 20,000 "liberty-minded" -- God, that sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of dogma -- people to all gel together and move to one state, then what have you got? A big, fat new constituency? Yawn. Twenty thousand people are going to repeal all the drug and gun laws? Uh, no. Other people already living in the state might have some input.
Besides, there's something oddly sinister about a small, aggresively motivated minority moving into a sparsely populated area in order to exert authoritative control -- isn't that what happened on a few airplanes a little over a year ago?
Just would like to point out that there are many of us who still believe that C++ is the C++ of our time.
Also, when I think "gorgeous" I think of Gwen Stefani in that new video where she's jumping up and down on the bed. Java never springs to mind. But if I *were* to code Gwen, she'd be "private", "friend"... and "double". But Java has no "friend" so to heck with that, man...
Steve Streeting had a similar concept in mind when he implemented his OGRE 3D Engine. He also has designed his engine so that it is written in C++, has a modular plug-in architecture that enables extensibility without recompilation (for certain portions of it, obviously), offers multiple 3D API support and builds both with MSVC++ 6 & 7 and also gcc 3+. The MS builds require STLport, an open-source replacement STL that's more compliant than Microsoft's -- ha, imagine that... -- but that's along the lines of what you're talking about.
He's got a number of interesting design ideas and, from what I understand, is fairly accessible.
Also, and let me offer this, I have no idea about your programming skill and knowledge other than what you've claimed, but please ignore whatever posts come up that try to tell you how incredibly difficult this all is and how you're just better off joining an open source project or buying a package and saving yourself the hassle. If you want to do it, can really do it, and enjoy doing it then, not meaning to quote Nike's marketing department or anything, but: Just do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you feel compelled to draw attention to the loss of your grandmother?
Um, because the person loved her, that's why. Why do you feel compelled to take issue with it?
The point of a dedication is to hallmark an intense work of labor or of love with an emblem of personal significance, and to seal that work, in a sense to elevate it, with the idea that all of the work we do is in some sense personal -- to ourselves, and, to the degree that we are influenced or driven by those important to us, to those others as well with whom we share our lives. If one can dedicate, of all things, a plaque on a park bench, then why not dedicate our work -- which is our time and therefore a fundamental material of our lives -- to someone we love? Why on Earth would "professional" mean "devoid of personal investment?" That's ridiculous and, in fact, flies in the face of the working wisdom of many successful firms who have become well known in recent years by finding ways to make work more personal, by allowing workers to bring their dogs to work, or by providing childcare or concierge services.
There's no harm in this at all and there's much to be gained if the coder, by virtue of his or her dedication, begins to take a personal investment in the maintenance of the code that's been signed in this way. Yes, I'm sure that we could think of ways that this could get out of hand or become problematic. But killjoy hand-wringing and fussy sniffing aside, I believe that coders should absolutely make a personal investment in the work that they do.
Will pretty computers make Vista more attractive?
Yes. Absolutely. Why? Because we're human.
There are many comments up already saying "you can't polish a turd" and "vista is evil!" and, for what it's worth, I agree mostly. I'm writing this from an Ubuntu machine which I insist on using at work. I compute happily and sans hassle. But will pretty computers suceed? Yes.
Saying that they won't is the same thing as saying that putting a pretty model in a beer commerical won't make Budweiser (or whatever) taste better. Well, that's true, and yet sex sells beer. And cars. And a billion other things.
Okay, pretty girls aren't the same thing as pretty computers, but to some nerds they are. And in any case, anything sells better when it looks better, even crappy stuff. Just does, because we buy with our eyes first and our minds second.
Judging by your spelling of the words 'definitely' and 'any day', I think you could stand to be watching less TV. Dude, read a book.
Yeah, me too, because iTunes has been a flop, BitTorrent is hardly used at all, file sharing is so late-90s, and $1.99 per video is, well, really, who can afford that?
The guy's a troll. It's a blog entry, moron. How can you troll your own blog?
It's a notable comment because Greenspun's a notable commentator, but his blog entry wasn't meant to be an in-depth article. It's just interesting because his point of view is that Java is sucking hard. And from him, that's interesting.
Mozilla.
Firebird.
Information overload? Spam outweighing your ham? Penis already long enough? Try Spambayes a doctor-recommended, safe and effective way to treat one symptom of too much information. Comes in Unix or Windows flavors (Outlook 2000 or XP).
Disclaimer: Spambayes is not an FDA-approved medication and is not a cure for impotence, hair-loss, depression, runny nose, or jungle fever. Pregnant women, men with hairy underarms and people in general who look like monkeys should not use.
Some people have accused mozilla.org of having an arrogant and dismissive attitude towards the Firebird database community. What is your response to these allegations?
That it's an excellent example of argumentum ad hominem.
Err ... That isn't the same thing as denying that you've been arrogant and dismissive, Mr. Blizzard. Only that, if you have, it's not relevant to the argument. So ... is that it? You've been arrogant and dismissive but so what, that's not the point? Your answer seems to have confirmed that allegation, if not only by its logical content, then also by its curt nature.
Another Slashdot story detailing how Microsoft can't possibly be actually good at anything, it can only *copy* good things. Or steal. Or bully. Yawn.
When individuals mock other groups in a social setting they're called insecure and intimidated.
Same here. Everyone here is a Microphobe. My suspicion is that everyone goes home, hides in their closet, and plays with their WinCE handhelds.
One last breath of vitriol. Before any /.er here posts and attempts to point out what I must have missed, that Microsoft is different because Microsoft has blah, blah, blah, frickety, blah, let me just say whatever. I'm aware the Microsoft is evil, banal, and corporate.
But my sympathy for the underdog disappears the moment it feels comfortable enough to start humping the legs of everyone else in the house, just because it's got big teeth now, and it's such a gooooood dog after all.
Smack it with a newspaper.
This is bull. If Microsoft pulled something like this, a bunch of open-source weenies would be storming Slashdot with signs, torches and pitchforks denouncing the unfriendly rule of a malevolent dictator. Because this is Mozilla though, a bunch of posts go up calling for reasonable action and logical thought, not to mention calling for the FirebirdSQL team to protest in a respectful manner. One Mozillazine poster even goes and posts that because FirebirdSQL has 0 percent market share, well, that's just tooooo bad. If anyone can't see the hypocrisy in that, well, they're blind.
Now there are similar posts here talking smack about "well who the hell knows who FirebirdSQL is anyway?" and "those immature people", all while any time a Microsoft employee farts loud enough for the guy in the next cubicle to hear it, it appears as a !!shocking post!! on Slashdot.
Also any time some remote governmental body in the furthest reaches of BFE adopts Linux to run its fileservers, its likewise heralded here so that the sheep-like masses may learn of the great advances of Unix-like OSes.
Yeah, people, I know, this is Slashdot. So let's just not even try to be even remotely even-minded, okay?
Screw the people behind this. They're twits that apparently couldn't handle the seemingly reasonable task of arriving at a name that was original (meaning that it wasn't before used by an automobile company for a popular car, or any other of a number of companies for any number of other products), creative (meaning that it didn't absolutely have to do with some kind of mythical flaming avian), and fair (meaning that they didn't decide to step on people's toes just because they finally got shoes big enough to do it). This just suggests that software developers in this space are all competing for the same pie and that ultimately it all comes down to who has the power to pull what stunt they want to pull. Mozilla's no better than Microsoft, they're just smaller.
Go ahead. Mod me down. At least I'm not baa-baa-baaing my way down the slaughterhouse chute while the rest of you are chanting the praises of the farmer.
No.
Eh. The way I see "D" is this:
C++ was alone for the night when Eiffel stopped by, noticing C++ was by itself, "just for a few drinks". Well, things started to get out of hand and just then Java walks in. Tense moment. Awkward silence. But to C++'s relief, Java joins in.
Well, as luck would have it, Java gets pregnant but the three of them have found they really enjoy each other's company, they balance each other out in certain areas, so they buck convention and all move in together and raise the kid under an "alternative" family, and hey, there's nothing wrong with that. They call their kid D, and while he's still young and has a lot to learn, he's got features, interfaces, delegates and assertions built in. He might just turn out all right after all.
Watch for the movie, starring Richard Gere as C++ (he's older and has a rumored past, but he'll give the rest of the case a few pointers), Catherine Zeta Jones as Java, and Renee Zellweger as Eiffel (she's hot, but underappreciated). Lil' Bow Wow will guest star as D.
Having spoken with a biker (sitting in the next room from me. ;) ) he agrees that this vest is highly impractical. When you're launched from your bike, you keep your appendages close to your body and roll, similar to how paratroopers roll on landing to reduce the stress on your body. Also, they have to be able (barring physical injury) to get up and walk away, so as to prevent them from being flattened by passing cars (who tend to pay so much attention to the wreck they'd hit the broad side of a barn if it were planted in front of them).
This is obviously written by someone who has never ridden a motorcycle for any length of time and who's getting advice from someone who thinks he's a better rider than he is (which is scary). As a former editor at Motorcycle Online (http://www.motorcycle.com),
I can tell you that when you're tossed off a bike at 70 miles per hour, the first thing that goes through your mind isn't, "Ah, now I'll tuck my legs and roll!" That's just ridiculous. You hit the ground so quickly (if you're lucky and don't highside which involves you being tossed through the air and is definitely the most dangerous way to wad) that about all you have time for is "OHSHIT!!", which is, interestingly, what anyone who claims otherwise is full of.
As far as the vest is concerned, well, if it works, great. Many would refuse to wear it just like many refuse to wear helmets, citing rights and freedoms and fashion and whatever. But research into this kind of technology is nice to see because, at the very least, it keeps a dialog open and fresh about motorcycle safety.
For $25,000,000 for the fourth movie he should go from "Mad Max" to "Old, Rich, Happy Max".
Ban foul language. After playing Halo on GameSpy for the past four months I, personally, would be just fine without having to have my fifteen-year-old sit down next to me for what should be a relatively innocent game while a box named "Cunt" comes online for a game, sporting players with names like "CumzEezy" and "KlitLickker".
Yeah, yeah, I know, "just turn the channel" blah, blah, blah, but when the vocal minority is comprised of thirteen-year-olds that think that sort of thing is phunny, heh, heh, it just starts to sap fun out of the game and then what are you left with? Eventually you have to "turn the channel" so much you might as well not play? To hell with that. So ban the morons. If you can't think of a decent, social way to express yourself then stick to high quality software like GameSpy.
I sent a flame to Marvel's PR firm and here's the result of the correspondence ...
Dear Greg:
Thank you for your comments. Marvel appreciates the opinions of its fans and
take all correspondences seriously. I will forward this email to the
appropriate people for consideration.
On 11/13/02 5:38 PM, wrote:
> Dear Thieves,
>
> Thanks to the entertainment industry, of which Marvel is a part, for
> screwing Stan Lee, to which you all owe your freaking jobs, out of money he
> is due, by using the movie industry's notoriously fair and accurate
> accounting practices. I and many other longtime fans like me all hope he
> sues your asses into oblivion. Stan Lee may or may not get something from
> his lawsuit, but if there's a hell, then I'm sure those responsible for this
> kind of practice will end up there with Daredevil sticking his billyclub up
> their asses for all eternity.
>
> But what I most hope is that the industry lobbyists that troll around the
> Hill and convince Congress to keep from enacting stricter legislation
> regulating entertainment industry accounting policies--which were adopted,
> if history is correct, directly from established mob accounting
> practices--will somehow fall into disfavor and then the entertainment
> industry--movies, recording, TV--will get to see just how popular they're
> becoming with a voting mainstream America.
>
> You people suck.
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail has been checked for viruses by AVG before being sent.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.406 / Virus Database: 229 - Release Date: 10/21/2002
>
>
--
Adam Fenton
Well ... that's not *entirely* true, no.
... to name a few.
... Well, if the implementations truly were correct and fair examples, then it's a no-brainer to state that 2,000 lines of code is a helluva lot easier to maintain than 14,000, therefore making it more reliable and, possibly, scalable.
Taken as a sole measure I would agree, LOC counts must be considered strictly in context with a number of factors: proper exception handling, feature implementation, platform constraints and requirements, chosen language
But all else being equal, and given equally "correct" implementations -- that is, two sample given implementations work equally well and according to requirements -- lines of code *can* be a valid statistic. Context is the key.
Fact is, if you've got one "correct" implementation -- and I'll grant that correctness could be subject to debate in this instance -- and it takes 14,000 lines of code and you've got another that takes 2,000
LOC counts have been used in many, many code studies because they do represent a statistical measure of relative difficulty in implementation in certain respects.
Aaeennnnnggghhhh, sorry, wrong answer, thanks for playing.
.NET.
...
The report states the exact opposite, 14,004 for J2EE, 2,096
The linked rebuttal raises some valid questions about the accuracy and importance of that stat, so take it for what it's worth
SDL is great for Linux and has an added plus, if you believe it is a plus, that it works well on Windows, too, so your games will be cross-platform. More specifically, you can develop for Linux even if, for some mortifying reason, you don't have a Linux box at home.
In addition to being fully cross-platform, it supports events, audio, basic thread-creation, and has wrapper libraries around it for C++.
One of the best SDL tutorials I've seen (for Windows) is here, but there's great Linux stuff available too, and it also runs on BeOS, MacOS & MacOS X.
If you'd like to get up to speed on Linux (and other platforms') games programming quickly and you've got C or C++ skills, do yourself a favor and check this out!
I know this is a joke, but it's a play on a concept I think it's time to reject, at least in part.
Far too much has been made of Perl readability. Yawn. Recently I opened up some code I wrote four years ago for a rather obscure application that I hadn't looked at since. After a minute, and only about a minute, I understood it perfectly. Granted, I wrote it, but similarly I rarely have problems reading other programmers' Perl code, if it's well written or at least well written enough.
Poorly written code is hard to read in any language, but Perl isn't very difficult. Sure, there's the odd regular expression that's difficult to decipher, but overall it's how well you know the language in question.
It just frequently seems that the readability issue seems to be centered around how well the code can be read by readers not only new to the code but new to the language as well.
For that matter, far too much has been made of Python's readability. I'll grant that Python isn't difficult to read, but I've seen some pretty goofy Python code, as well as Perl. Python, or any language for that matter, can be nicely obfuscated just by naming variables poorly.
And as far as memory protection in C is concerned, well, it's no worse than assembly, and C is smokin' fast when written properly.
In short, you want to go fast, then you're going to be driving Indycar and it's going to be risky for the amateurs. You want safe? Try Java, and buy a Prius.
Assuming that you get 20,000 "liberty-minded" -- God, that sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of dogma -- people to all gel together and move to one state, then what have you got? A big, fat new constituency? Yawn. Twenty thousand people are going to repeal all the drug and gun laws? Uh, no. Other people already living in the state might have some input.
Besides, there's something oddly sinister about a small, aggresively motivated minority moving into a sparsely populated area in order to exert authoritative control -- isn't that what happened on a few airplanes a little over a year ago?
This is the most brilliant marketing scheme I've ever seen.
... ... embrace and extend it.
Standardize your own technology, try to get people to buy into the standard, and then
Microsoft should try and patent the process by which it re-proprietizes it's proprietary products.
Just would like to point out that there are many of us who still believe that C++ is the C++ of our time.
... and "double". But Java has no "friend" so to heck with that, man ...
Also, when I think "gorgeous" I think of Gwen Stefani in that new video where she's jumping up and down on the bed. Java never springs to mind. But if I *were* to code Gwen, she'd be "private", "friend"
Steve Streeting had a similar concept in mind when he implemented his OGRE 3D Engine. He also has designed his engine so that it is written in C++, has a modular plug-in architecture that enables extensibility without recompilation (for certain portions of it, obviously), offers multiple 3D API support and builds both with MSVC++ 6 & 7 and also gcc 3+. The MS builds require STLport, an open-source replacement STL that's more compliant than Microsoft's -- ha, imagine that ... -- but that's along the lines of what you're talking about.
He's got a number of interesting design ideas and, from what I understand, is fairly accessible.
Also, and let me offer this, I have no idea about your programming skill and knowledge other than what you've claimed, but please ignore whatever posts come up that try to tell you how incredibly difficult this all is and how you're just better off joining an open source project or buying a package and saving yourself the hassle. If you want to do it, can really do it, and enjoy doing it then, not meaning to quote Nike's marketing department or anything, but: Just do it.