The J2ME market destroyed itself. Confusing, locked down, artificially and arbitrarily limited. It was projected and implemented to meet carriers expectations and manufacturer's interest, not costumers'.
If Android didn't came in, another one would did it. Hell, perhaps even Windows Mobile Phone would be a good thing. =)
Microsoft's problem was that they contaminated the API with proprietary extensions and still claimed it to be JAVA Standard compatible. Nothing more, nothing less.
Google gone another way. They re-implemented the whole thing (see Dalvik).
Oracle is pursuing a new way of litigating probably because Motorola's acquisition by Google armed them with a fearsome portfolio of patents - almost a insurance of mutual destruction.
Are hardware controls really going to sell $40 games?
YES. At least, I'm going to.
I'm a Nexus One user for almost a year now. My little Android companion serves me in every need on field - EXCEPT GAMING. I just can't play games on that thing (exception made for Angry Birds and similar gaming), and I spent a good 30 bucks on a lot of games trying to find one that I could play using virtual buttons.
I just gave up and brought a PSP. Ok, the games are 40 to 60 bucks each (new). But I can resell them or exchange by second handed games that I'm going to play,
Using the Nexus One's wifi hotspot, I can even use PSN on field.
Problem is... How the other 99% of PC users can use PCs without that 1% of PC users that use PCs like me?
If I can develop software cheaper, faster and better with anything but Windows, the only possible incentive to develop on Windows is a considerable monetary incentive or - in plain english - charging the end user a lot more.
The Android market is a mess, but I'm making money on it without a lot of costs. Things are not perfect, but everything WORKS.
The iPhone market is well organized, but the extra costs on development are crunching my profits so I must charge more to worth the pain.
The Nokia market is trying to catch up, and the extra costs on development (not to mention the Windows' idiosyncrasies that waste my time - I'm serious, the emulators are slower and buggier on Windows than on MacOSX in a lesser machine!) leads me to charge premium to develop a product that aggregates far less value than iPhone or Android.
I don't see why this status quo will be different on desktop development.
I'm moving myself from Windows (as user and as developer) for a good 18 months by now.
If i'm going to deal with User Activations and constant authorizations to play games, I would (and I did) just move on to PS3 gaming. Cheaper and with a more user friendly (pun not intended) activation and run authorization mechanism.
If I'm going to develop to mobile, cloud, whatever, anything is better than Windows. Even a plain linux box.
I'm one step from creating my VMs on/usr/tmp anyway, I literally throw it away when a project is delivered - it's easir and safer to have a "standard, plain" image and use ir to recreate the VM that fits exactly the project that demands it.
(Common, who will activate every single Virtual Machine installation to an one run test suit?)
You can have the better OS in the world - but if no one feels comfortable to develop on it, it will fails sooner or later.
#webOS anyone?
There's two years since I developed my last Windows application. There's 18 months since I HAD to use Windows to develop anything.
And I don't miss it!
p.s.: Nokia, can you care enough to support Linux on your tools? Or you really thinks that imposing Windows or MacOS to me will incentive me to develop for Nokia instead for Android?
... using fewer applications on a given time, disable the virtual memory.
As the currenlty available UMPC (like the newest eeepc) has 1 or even 2 Gigabytes of RAM, one can choose to sacrifice some addressing space in exchange to avoiding swapping memory to SSD.
It works, I tried it on a eeepc from a friend, and the little thing started to fly. However, it was unable to open as many webpages as before.
It's an exchange. You trade (virtual) memory size for speed.
Because the ship may be sinking, but is not sunk yet.
Everybody is trying to squish any left juice they can, and spending any money in any other thing, now, will lower the management's christmas bonus for this year.
They're just managing as they always did: as there is no tomorrow.
Let me tell you a little "third world" history.
I used to live in Manaus, Amazon, Brazil (where a Free Tax Zone was, one day, promoted by the Military Goverment). That Free Tax Zone gived a lot of power to some goverment officials and, guess what, corruption prospered there.
Man, you had to bribe someone for everything to be able to manufacture something there. The situation gone to a point where, even by being 100% legally, you still had to pay a bribe to import your materials - or the official would hold forever your cargo for "further investigations".
Well, a friend of mine works in one american company settled there (that one that created ETHERNET and the GUI), and told me this little history:
Someday, one official demanded a bribe to allow a cargo full of supriments to be delivered. The company refused. The official holded EVERY single cargo for months, but the company didn't submit itself.
The situation deteriorated to a point where higher goverment officials feared a major break on (legal) tax incoming - a company that doesn't have its materials it's a company that don't pay employees and don't sells nothing for no one. Even more, a lot of lateral industries threatened to just send their business to another place, as they aren't making any money.
Kiss a lot of taxes byebye.
What happened? The corrupted officials just don't mess with this company's cargo anymore. Doesn't worth the trouble.
Pay a single bribe to a officer, and you will pay bribes for the rest of your life.
It's easy to forget that most of Africa's problems stem from the fact that the culture places very little value on human life.
I think the problem is worst than that.
I my opinion, the africans really endorses human rights. The main question is WHO is to be considered "Human", and who is just cattle.
Every single african that raises power "promotes" himself to Human. Everybody else is cattle.
So simply promoting "revolutions" will not solve this paradox: revolutions around there just shifts the "Human" and "cattle" tags. And the new "Humans" will just harvest the "cattle" as the previous ones did.
Slashdot Mirror
I beg your pardon, but...
The J2ME market destroyed itself. Confusing, locked down, artificially and arbitrarily limited. It was projected and implemented to meet carriers expectations and manufacturer's interest, not costumers'.
If Android didn't came in, another one would did it. Hell, perhaps even Windows Mobile Phone would be a good thing. =)
FUD.
Microsoft's problem was that they contaminated the API with proprietary extensions and still claimed it to be JAVA Standard compatible. Nothing more, nothing less.
Google gone another way. They re-implemented the whole thing (see Dalvik).
Oracle is pursuing a new way of litigating probably because Motorola's acquisition by Google armed them with a fearsome portfolio of patents - almost a insurance of mutual destruction.
Are hardware controls really going to sell $40 games?
YES. At least, I'm going to.
I'm a Nexus One user for almost a year now. My little Android companion serves me in every need on field - EXCEPT GAMING. I just can't play games on that thing (exception made for Angry Birds and similar gaming), and I spent a good 30 bucks on a lot of games trying to find one that I could play using virtual buttons.
I just gave up and brought a PSP. Ok, the games are 40 to 60 bucks each (new). But I can resell them or exchange by second handed games that I'm going to play,
Using the Nexus One's wifi hotspot, I can even use PSN on field.
It's not impossible that this happens.
But, seriously, I wouldn't hold my breath neither.
On the other news, maybe a meteor hits Earth in 2012, saving the Tech Industry from fulfilling his foresights...
The era of the PC is not ending...
But stopped growing. What makes profits harder as you have to compete with your own past.
Point taken.
Problem is... How the other 99% of PC users can use PCs without that 1% of PC users that use PCs like me?
If I can develop software cheaper, faster and better with anything but Windows, the only possible incentive to develop on Windows is a considerable monetary incentive or - in plain english - charging the end user a lot more.
The Android market is a mess, but I'm making money on it without a lot of costs. Things are not perfect, but everything WORKS.
The iPhone market is well organized, but the extra costs on development are crunching my profits so I must charge more to worth the pain.
The Nokia market is trying to catch up, and the extra costs on development (not to mention the Windows' idiosyncrasies that waste my time - I'm serious, the emulators are slower and buggier on Windows than on MacOSX in a lesser machine!) leads me to charge premium to develop a product that aggregates far less value than iPhone or Android.
I don't see why this status quo will be different on desktop development.
One can not said it better.
I'm moving myself from Windows (as user and as developer) for a good 18 months by now.
If i'm going to deal with User Activations and constant authorizations to play games, I would (and I did) just move on to PS3 gaming. Cheaper and with a more user friendly (pun not intended) activation and run authorization mechanism.
If I'm going to develop to mobile, cloud, whatever, anything is better than Windows. Even a plain linux box.
I'm one step from creating my VMs on /usr/tmp anyway, I literally throw it away when a project is delivered - it's easir and safer to have a "standard, plain" image and use ir to recreate the VM that fits exactly the project that demands it.
(Common, who will activate every single Virtual Machine installation to an one run test suit?)
You can have the better OS in the world - but if no one feels comfortable to develop on it, it will fails sooner or later.
#webOS anyone?
There's two years since I developed my last Windows application. There's 18 months since I HAD to use Windows to develop anything.
And I don't miss it!
p.s.: Nokia, can you care enough to support Linux on your tools? Or you really thinks that imposing Windows or MacOS to me will incentive me to develop for Nokia instead for Android?
everyone knows that if you're hardcore enough your clothes never get laundered.
I fixed that for you.
When all you have is a Hammer, every screw is a nail.
The money is never coming.
Maybe. But this doesn't means that we should made it easy for them.
By the way, you are not locked down.
It's really that important to you? Checkout the source code and fork the thing.
Does not worth it? Well, this is another problem!!
Freedom to choose does not implies in any guarantees that your choices will be profitable. Or even right.
I need some more sleep. X-(
Where I wrote I'm just explaining because, please read I'm just explaining WHY .
I`m not excusing Mozilla for nothing.
I'm just explaining because their users don't give a damn about it. Or about your plugins.
They are just milking the old cow before the barbecue.
How much of your money did you spent on Mozilla?
How many of your software runs only on Mozila?
(Do you see what I mean, don't you?)
Palocci?
É você?(It's you?)
Pray.
And keep reading that 400pp manual of yours.
Nice translation.
Except that the original quote is portuguese (sounds like brazilian), not spanish. :-)
... using fewer applications on a given time, disable the virtual memory.
As the currenlty available UMPC (like the newest eeepc) has 1 or even 2 Gigabytes of RAM, one can choose to sacrifice some addressing space in exchange to avoiding swapping memory to SSD.
It works, I tried it on a eeepc from a friend, and the little thing started to fly. However, it was unable to open as many webpages as before.
It's an exchange. You trade (virtual) memory size for speed.
a. Tell me the best thing you ever did, why you think it was the better thing you did, and what you learnt from it.
b. Tell me the worst mistake you ever did, why you think it was the worst thing you did, and what you learnt from it.
Why stick with Centuries?
The Aquarius Era wil be the Era of the Linux on whatever computing device would be used at that time...
Because the ship may be sinking, but is not sunk yet. Everybody is trying to squish any left juice they can, and spending any money in any other thing, now, will lower the management's christmas bonus for this year. They're just managing as they always did: as there is no tomorrow.
Let me tell you a little "third world" history. I used to live in Manaus, Amazon, Brazil (where a Free Tax Zone was, one day, promoted by the Military Goverment). That Free Tax Zone gived a lot of power to some goverment officials and, guess what, corruption prospered there. Man, you had to bribe someone for everything to be able to manufacture something there. The situation gone to a point where, even by being 100% legally, you still had to pay a bribe to import your materials - or the official would hold forever your cargo for "further investigations". Well, a friend of mine works in one american company settled there (that one that created ETHERNET and the GUI), and told me this little history: Someday, one official demanded a bribe to allow a cargo full of supriments to be delivered. The company refused. The official holded EVERY single cargo for months, but the company didn't submit itself. The situation deteriorated to a point where higher goverment officials feared a major break on (legal) tax incoming - a company that doesn't have its materials it's a company that don't pay employees and don't sells nothing for no one. Even more, a lot of lateral industries threatened to just send their business to another place, as they aren't making any money. Kiss a lot of taxes byebye. What happened? The corrupted officials just don't mess with this company's cargo anymore. Doesn't worth the trouble. Pay a single bribe to a officer, and you will pay bribes for the rest of your life.
It's easy to forget that most of Africa's problems stem from the fact that the culture places very little value on human life.
I think the problem is worst than that.
I my opinion, the africans really endorses human rights. The main question is WHO is to be considered "Human", and who is just cattle.
Every single african that raises power "promotes" himself to Human. Everybody else is cattle.
So simply promoting "revolutions" will not solve this paradox: revolutions around there just shifts the "Human" and "cattle" tags. And the new "Humans" will just harvest the "cattle" as the previous ones did.
Maybe nowadays. Not on that days. Europe was the main Siemens Mobile market on that time.