The rest is griping: a combination of a lack of social skill, lack of understanding of their place in the world, and fantasies about being the IT hero and changing the world.
This is like rating computer games, or art, or anything else for that matter. It's subjective, and one person giving a considered score 9/10 doesn't mean another person trying to be equally fair doesn't give it 7/10.
Another thing: The evaluation often has to do with what you're using the software for. What would you rate better? A saw or a hammer? Depends on the situation right?
You can drive screws with a hammer if you want to.
How about you stop trying to screw me for a start by making out that my arguements aren't well thought out when you refuse to "get into it". What the hell does the special olympics have to do with anything?
You've looked at the idea of design patterns and tried to fit them to a problem that you were attempting to solve without analysing that problem, right here in your post.
Why is it that extreme fans of concepts and paradigms tend to attack those who point out the flaws in those approaches, instead of counter-arguing the legitimate points raised? I think my analysis was both through and accurate and I challenge you to shoot down the argument instead of brushing me off as not having thought things through.
Someone asked whether design patterns are worthwhile and why people would "swear by them". What I've given, based on my own experience, is a summary of how design patterns are used and abused. I believe I have a good grasp of how to use them and what they're good for. I also see how they're actually used. Given the abuse the concept gets they can be harmful.
The most important thing the concept give us as software professionals is a common vocabulary
If that's so it's a confused vocabulary. For a start it's not descriptive of the abstract structures developers code, but is tied to the intent of the solution (sometimes to the point that a single solution could ambiguously be described as two or three of the classic patterns). What's more, as you say it's not complete. You cannot assume that anything beyond the patterns listed in the classic GoF book are well known. It's like having a dictionary with a set of about 20 words, two of which are "dog" and "canine".
What encourages bad analysis is the shortcut mentality, which is present regardless of the information available beforehand.
There's a fine line between a paradigm and a specific "shortcut mentality".
I've worked with a couple of folks who swore by this book, but I never really heard much from them about why. Is it about good algorithms? Or larger design issues (such as)?
Design patterns are recurring algorithms in software design. Take the "Singleton" pattern, which is usually regarded as the simplest. You use a private class variable, and a public getter (and either a setter or lazy initialize on the first get). What you're trying to do is make sure there's one and only one instance of a variable on the whole system.
The other classic pattern is the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern. Separate classes for the model, the view and a controller to perform the logic. Model and View can then change independantly with the Controller tying the two together.
Note that the following is not a popular view. Design patterns are all the rage at the moment, so much so that you're less employable if you've had no exposure to them. But in all honesty I couldn't care less about fashion in the computer industry. Fashion is for sheep. Can't care less if it's mistaken for flamebait either because it's not.
Well I've had a good look at patterns and I tend to swear at them. The idea isn't bad in itself but the approach is. I'd definitely recommend you learn about them so you can talk the talk but here's my problem with them.
Patterns try to take a cookie cutter approach to a problem. They encourage bad analysis. They encourage the "oh I've seen this before" mentality, when in fact the problem may be different to what you expect if you're trying to force it into one of the patterns you know.
In other words patterns encourage you to jump to conclusions about what is going to be the best solution without necessarily fully analysing the problem. Now if the problem is exactly what the pattern is designed to tackle, there probably isn't a better solution. But if it only looks like it's the same problem, you end up solving the wrong problem.
Unfortunately unlike a standard cookie cutter people will over-engineer and layer 100 patterns into a problem. They throw the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle out the window and try to see how flexibly they can design a system by putting in as many patterns as possible.
What you end up with is something 100 times more complex than it should be, that's hard to maintain and has no advantage over a simpler system because application code is rarely extended in a foreseeable way. Coping with 100 different possible extensions makes the code ugly and cumbersome. (For starters you better hope everyone on the project understands patterns). You're better off putting in the complexity when it's requested.
In my opinion Design Patterns have a place when used in moderation and sensibly. That place is in frameworks. When you're building something that needs to be reused in many places, this is when you want all those patterns put to good use.
Another problem is that they're not the most intuitive idea, and you WILL work with other developers that don't understand them. If you can't downshift and stop talking patterns you'll have trouble communicating. (Some of these patterns do very obvious things that you probably already know but don't know the name of the pattern for - singleton for example)
Is it good reading for an amatuer programmer, or more as an advanced topic?
It's advanced but if you're interested in being a good software professional it's pretty much required reading these days.
So here's what I think you should do. Buy, borrow or steal the design patterns book. Go through the examples of each pattern. Understand what it's trying to do. Have it there in the background. If you genuinely have a problem that falls into the category or if you're working on a framework ask yourself where the patterns should be used. Use them sparingly. Knowing this stuff is good. Using it everywhere is as silly as using any other tool everywhere.
When you're reading, always focus on the "Intent" of the pattern.
Remember there are no silver bullets! Don't start using them everywhere.
Heh. Some people complain that we use a less than 1 version number. Others complain that we "proclaim it as stable." Will you please argue it out between you, first?:)
Okay first how are these two things mutually exclusive? I think both are reasonable requests though you'd have to assess whether or not you have time for a stable and unstable build. As for complaining about it being proclaimed stable but not being stable when you try it out how is that an unreasonable complaint? Whether or not you said it was stable the way you worded it you implied the product was ready for public consumption.
I'm not interested in this sort of stuff. I'm convinced that being honest and open is the best marketing strategy anyway.
That's why I don't think your product's going to take off. It may not be fun to you but it is necessary to manage the people side too when you're delivering a product. (A hell of a lot of Linux developers don't understand this or choose to ignore it then wonder why Linux hasn't taken off). I didn't say you had to be dishonest in any of my posts - just tactful. It is actually a lot harder to build a product honestly (but personally I think that's worth it).
As I said at least you used a below 1.0 product number and posted to a technical board, but man get your act together and work on your people skills and you'll be much happier and more successful.
So? Are you proposing to hold off releases until all bugs are fixed? And not only our bugs but also bugs in the libs we use (and these bugs are a very significant share of the total)? This will never happen.
I'm proposing you don't proclaim this as a stable release unless it's rock solid so you don't lose your users.
I doubt that. People rarely bother to complain. If something does not work, they shrug and forget it
If it doesn't work and they do bother to complain and you treat them with suspiscion until its repeatable (which is what you implied in an earlier post), you can bet they'll just toss the software.
Look, honestly I'm not trying to put you down here. I'm trying to help you understand that you need to not come across as abrassive or indifferent to user complaints if you truely want your product to succeed.
You seem to be an intelligent guy, and dealing with people is not easy nor is it a natural skill to everyone (otherwise we wouldn't have marketting and customer relations departments). Be very careful what you say and how you say it and you and your product have a healthy future. Ignore this point and plough through with only the technical side and I guarantee no matter what the technical merits of the product it will remain a fringe product and you won't find many people getting excited about it.
You can take what I say on board or you can consider it flamebait and ignore me. That's up to you.
Known bug on Windows, we even have a patch for it but that patch must go into Freetype, so it's not there yet.
See you've lost the average end user right there. They couldn't care less about the technical details of which module needs updating and how. They just know there's been a problem using the software and that there are likely to be more problems. If they consider the problem serious enough or inconvenient enough they'll avoid the software all together. If they don't they'll still curse every time it happens.
Here's an analogy: Do you care why the seats are uncomfortable on a plane? That the seat designer had a budget or a set of physical specifications. No, you just hate uncomfortable seats on planes. Now if the problem was more serious, say in the engine, well we're talking life and death so you'd be a lot less likely to fly on it.
People just want stuff to work. Even the act of reporting the bug is a pain to them. The average end user will take the stance that it shouldn't have happened in the first place (even if they pay nothing for the software). Harsh and unfair. Yes. But that's life and that's what you'll need to deal with if you want the program to see wider use (which you do seem to want).
If I do that, and if the crash is real, I'll keep getting more and more reports on it from different people.
At that point it's too late. If you've fobbed off a few people, they'll tell their friends, put it up in message boards etc. and you'll lose more than just those few people.
Look, I admire what you're doing and I don't want to be a pain in your behind. I wouldn't post this long just to hassle you or if I didn't think what you were doing was good. But you and every other Linux developer with these attitudes need to either stop complaining that Linux hasn't taken off or address these issues and realities instead of brushing them off.
Personally I'll be looking at your product again in the very near future. I don't have a use for it just now so it's not worth my effort dealing with bugs, but it's good to know that it's around and will get better.
Serious question for you. How hard would it be to adapt the product to deal with Visio style drawings? There are Visio clones out there but none are very good (although I don't know what patent issues there would be in creating a better one). I'd look at the code for myself but my speciality is Java enterprise apps and frankly I don't have the time to invest in this to be of much benefit to anyone.
Hmm the text tool is less than intuitive and hangs the screen for a little while (application not responding) the first time it initializes. I realize you're still pre version 1.0 here, and I'm willing to cut you a lot of slack. This certainly has potential of being a great product when it matures, and I can't argue with the cost.
But illusive and hard to reproduce bugs are not something to brush off. They drive the users insane just as much as they annoy developers. However a user with no time or effort invested in the product is just going to move on if there's no quick fix or if you brush it off and say it works on your machine and you've only got 2 bugs you can even partially reproduce. You've provided them with something for free but they don't owe you anything and they don't have to use it.
Hmmm. I downloaded it and put nice pretty shapes into a blank document. But every time I select the Text tool and click on the page the application freezes and does not respond. (I'm on Windows XP SP2 here by the way).
I hope this is an unimplemented feature. Given that I can't add text to the document I'll skip this until it matures.
I can understand your other issues, but how does that have ANYTHING to do with Windows XP?
Nothing except to highlight that I had reason to suspect the operating system before suspecting the actual hardware. After all the mouse had worked like a champion for 3 years, whereas I'd had hell with the OS.
That's called good luck not good planning. Be THANKFUL it worked for you and don't throw it in anyone else's face because you might not always be so lucky.
Just last night I ran windows update on a laptop and was dumb enough to let it upgrade my Netgear wireless network pcmcia card driver. The new driver would not connect to my WPA enabled wireless network no matter what I did.
Fortunately I had just spent last weekend putting together fresh install disks for all my PCs, so finding the old drivers wasn't too painful. I did however make the mistake of not writing down which one I was using previously, so I had to try each of the updated drivers I've downloaded. (Only one of them seems to work with WPA. Older drivers don't have the option and newer ones seem to have a bug that recognises WPA as WEP).
So anyway I had to set up my wired network card, then copy and try 3 drivers to get my wireless card back.
Honestly I'm sick of it being this way. Don't damn well tell me your favourite Linux install doesn't have these problems either because I've always had problems like this in any environment, and I'm no idiot about how I organise my machines.
It's gotten to the point where I never upgrade hardware or software unless I have a show-stopper type problem I need fixed, and even then I have to cross my fingers and hope it works.
List of recent problems on XP (last 3 months):
1) Graphics card upgrade to 6600GT on desktop machine. Tried many drivers before getting it to work. Had to mess with AGP settings via driver hacks (Rivatuner) to stop it from freezing
2) USB hard disk suddenly giving the infamous write delay failed problems. Tried many things but eventually found VIA 4in1 drivers fixed this one.
3) USB still hangs from time to time with devices not being recognised if you try to plug them in or replug them. Could be a bad camera memory card reader or one of my cheap USB hubs.
4) Faulty mouse. This one was just wear and tear but took me about 15 minutes to work out it was the mouse and not my KVM switch.
So your stance is "Life is sacred"..."Shoot to kill". You remind me of that Star Trek sendup "We come in peace, shoot to kill".
Do you even understand how bad random bag checks are at finding explosives?
Police enforcing an unjust law does mean the criminals win. Plain clothes police shooting someone dead because he runs away when they haven't identified themselves is absolutely horrific and such rubbish should be denounced.
How would you like it if a police officier could walk into your home without a warrant? How about we make it legal for them to video tape you in your own home and in your bedroom at all times to prevent child molestation? Where on earth do you draw the line at your privacy being voilated?
Firewalls are not the same as baggage checks. For starters you can still hide something that goes through a firewall (encryption)
Stop talking inconsistent rubbish. I hope people like you are never allowed to make the law, because whether you think you're right or not you and your ill thought out ideas are dangerous and are part of the problem.
The moment you make a life worth nothing, all life is worth nothing.
The moment you make violating a person's rights acceptable, it will be abused.
Occassionally stopping a handful of suicide bombers isn't worth throwing away your freedom. Just as it's not worth banning all cars isn't an acceptable way to bring down the number killed on the road each year.
It's not the terrorists fault if we change how we live due to their dirty tactics. They absolutely do win, and the problem is that too few people understand or care about that.
Tomorrow, cameras checking your every move, and RFID tags at birth.
Soon it'll be fascism the Orwellian way.
You've just handed the terrorists what they want. There's nothing left for them to bomb because everyone may as well be in prison.
I don't want to live like you do in Israel where I'm more likely to be bombed, or shot by the police, all while living in a place where my personal possessions aren't private. And does it stop the suicide bombers? No. Thanks for pointing that out.
You want to turn the US, UK and other countries into Israel just because you have to live through that? Thanks very much, you can keep your way of life.
Are you completely indifferent that more than 50 people died because the police didn't stop any suspicious looking people?
I'm not. I think it's awful.
Now I have to ask you...
1) Are you completely indifferent that our own goverments are using these terrorists against us to implement draconian surveillance such random bag searches, and gunning down our own people?
2) Are you completely indifferent to the fact that you're averaging between 20-50 civilian deaths in Iraq EACH MONTH since the US went in? So all of a sudden we have an incident in Britain and it's okay to gun people down because they're behaving suspiciously.
Get some perspective, and stop using violence to justify more violence before we decend into hell. Do you really want where you live to become a police state, a war zone, or worse?
When did France try to kill the web? Gross exaggeration, oui?
Your coin analogy just doesn't fly. There are coins today that can't be used as valid currency, but still collected.
Those coins aren't illegal, and although some are scarce there are plenty of coins that are common enough and affordable enough that anyone can start in this hobby.
Perhaps steam engines are outdated, but millions enjoy locomotive hobbies today.
Where? In Soviet Russia. Because in Australia there are a handful of locomotives left. The rest of the world shouldn't be too far behind on that one.
Meanwhile, it seems you want to implement the very restrictions you rail against starting with preventing OSS developers from posting their own code for others to used for their 'own' purpose, not for production.
Calm down. I want people to be more judicious about jumping in and starting their own little project instead of collaborating with others and making good software. The effort at the moment in Open Source, with a very few exceptions is extremely fragmented. When did I mention banning coders from posting their own code? I want people to think before they build. I want the code out there to improve in quality, and most of all I'm not advocating this be done through draconian restrictions. Read into what I said whatever you want though.
Sorry for seeming like a troll, but it just seems you're just pissed because you tried to find something once and because someone didn't write to your specific needs, you blame the open-ness of it.
No I'm annoyed that there are at least 30 different utilities to do everything - from the mundane like keyboard remapping to the necessary like firewalls and anti-virus, to the sublime. Some variety is good an necessary, otherwise you get stagnation, complacency and a lack of will to improve or fix bugs. Everyone doing their own thing (and most of the time not very well) leads to chaos.
Fact is, most technology is advanced _because_ of hobbyists
No argument here. I don't think I'm the person you want to be arguing with.
Slashdot Mirror
The rest is griping: a combination of a lack of social skill, lack of understanding of their place in the world, and fantasies about being the IT hero and changing the world.
So if you have 6 different web browsers geared to different types of users (elite/developer vs mom and pop say) which one is better?
This is like rating computer games, or art, or anything else for that matter. It's subjective, and one person giving a considered score 9/10 doesn't mean another person trying to be equally fair doesn't give it 7/10.
Another thing: The evaluation often has to do with what you're using the software for. What would you rate better? A saw or a hammer? Depends on the situation right?
You can drive screws with a hammer if you want to.
How about you stop trying to screw me for a start by making out that my arguements aren't well thought out when you refuse to "get into it". What the hell does the special olympics have to do with anything?
Do everyone a favour and take a deep breath.
Apple is not screwing anyone over, they are just continuing what they have done for the past 21 years
You just contradicted yourself.
Fortunately, most courts still discriminate between intentionally and accidentally doing something.
Such faith grasshopper. You must be young!
You've looked at the idea of design patterns and tried to fit them to a problem that you were attempting to solve without analysing that problem, right here in your post.
Why is it that extreme fans of concepts and paradigms tend to attack those who point out the flaws in those approaches, instead of counter-arguing the legitimate points raised? I think my analysis was both through and accurate and I challenge you to shoot down the argument instead of brushing me off as not having thought things through.
Someone asked whether design patterns are worthwhile and why people would "swear by them". What I've given, based on my own experience, is a summary of how design patterns are used and abused. I believe I have a good grasp of how to use them and what they're good for. I also see how they're actually used. Given the abuse the concept gets they can be harmful.
The most important thing the concept give us as software professionals is a common vocabulary
If that's so it's a confused vocabulary. For a start it's not descriptive of the abstract structures developers code, but is tied to the intent of the solution (sometimes to the point that a single solution could ambiguously be described as two or three of the classic patterns). What's more, as you say it's not complete. You cannot assume that anything beyond the patterns listed in the classic GoF book are well known. It's like having a dictionary with a set of about 20 words, two of which are "dog" and "canine".
What encourages bad analysis is the shortcut mentality, which is present regardless of the information available beforehand.
There's a fine line between a paradigm and a specific "shortcut mentality".
This must've been the guy who wrote the dialogue for Max Payne!!!
I've worked with a couple of folks who swore by this book, but I never really heard much from them about why. Is it about good algorithms? Or larger design issues (such as)?
Design patterns are recurring algorithms in software design. Take the "Singleton" pattern, which is usually regarded as the simplest. You use a private class variable, and a public getter (and either a setter or lazy initialize on the first get). What you're trying to do is make sure there's one and only one instance of a variable on the whole system.
The other classic pattern is the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern. Separate classes for the model, the view and a controller to perform the logic. Model and View can then change independantly with the Controller tying the two together.
Note that the following is not a popular view. Design patterns are all the rage at the moment, so much so that you're less employable if you've had no exposure to them. But in all honesty I couldn't care less about fashion in the computer industry. Fashion is for sheep. Can't care less if it's mistaken for flamebait either because it's not.
Well I've had a good look at patterns and I tend to swear at them. The idea isn't bad in itself but the approach is. I'd definitely recommend you learn about them so you can talk the talk but here's my problem with them.
Patterns try to take a cookie cutter approach to a problem. They encourage bad analysis. They encourage the "oh I've seen this before" mentality, when in fact the problem may be different to what you expect if you're trying to force it into one of the patterns you know.
In other words patterns encourage you to jump to conclusions about what is going to be the best solution without necessarily fully analysing the problem. Now if the problem is exactly what the pattern is designed to tackle, there probably isn't a better solution. But if it only looks like it's the same problem, you end up solving the wrong problem.
Unfortunately unlike a standard cookie cutter people will over-engineer and layer 100 patterns into a problem. They throw the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle out the window and try to see how flexibly they can design a system by putting in as many patterns as possible.
What you end up with is something 100 times more complex than it should be, that's hard to maintain and has no advantage over a simpler system because application code is rarely extended in a foreseeable way. Coping with 100 different possible extensions makes the code ugly and cumbersome. (For starters you better hope everyone on the project understands patterns). You're better off putting in the complexity when it's requested.
In my opinion Design Patterns have a place when used in moderation and sensibly. That place is in frameworks. When you're building something that needs to be reused in many places, this is when you want all those patterns put to good use.
Another problem is that they're not the most intuitive idea, and you WILL work with other developers that don't understand them. If you can't downshift and stop talking patterns you'll have trouble communicating. (Some of these patterns do very obvious things that you probably already know but don't know the name of the pattern for - singleton for example)
Is it good reading for an amatuer programmer, or more as an advanced topic?
It's advanced but if you're interested in being a good software professional it's pretty much required reading these days.
So here's what I think you should do. Buy, borrow or steal the design patterns book. Go through the examples of each pattern. Understand what it's trying to do. Have it there in the background. If you genuinely have a problem that falls into the category or if you're working on a framework ask yourself where the patterns should be used. Use them sparingly. Knowing this stuff is good. Using it everywhere is as silly as using any other tool everywhere.
When you're reading, always focus on the "Intent" of the pattern.
Remember there are no silver bullets! Don't start using them everywhere.
Heh. Some people complain that we use a less than 1 version number. Others complain that we "proclaim it as stable." Will you please argue it out between you, first? :)
Okay first how are these two things mutually exclusive? I think both are reasonable requests though you'd have to assess whether or not you have time for a stable and unstable build. As for complaining about it being proclaimed stable but not being stable when you try it out how is that an unreasonable complaint? Whether or not you said it was stable the way you worded it you implied the product was ready for public consumption.
I'm not interested in this sort of stuff. I'm convinced that being honest and open is the best marketing strategy anyway.
That's why I don't think your product's going to take off. It may not be fun to you but it is necessary to manage the people side too when you're delivering a product. (A hell of a lot of Linux developers don't understand this or choose to ignore it then wonder why Linux hasn't taken off). I didn't say you had to be dishonest in any of my posts - just tactful. It is actually a lot harder to build a product honestly (but personally I think that's worth it).
As I said at least you used a below 1.0 product number and posted to a technical board, but man get your act together and work on your people skills and you'll be much happier and more successful.
... ...
http://www.realdolls.com/
RIAA and other record associations' member have been putting out female androids that vaguely mimick singing and dancing for decades now.
So? Are you proposing to hold off releases until all bugs are fixed? And not only our bugs but also bugs in the libs we use (and these bugs are a very significant share of the total)? This will never happen.
I'm proposing you don't proclaim this as a stable release unless it's rock solid so you don't lose your users.
I doubt that. People rarely bother to complain. If something does not work, they shrug and forget it
If it doesn't work and they do bother to complain and you treat them with suspiscion until its repeatable (which is what you implied in an earlier post), you can bet they'll just toss the software.
Look, honestly I'm not trying to put you down here. I'm trying to help you understand that you need to not come across as abrassive or indifferent to user complaints if you truely want your product to succeed.
You seem to be an intelligent guy, and dealing with people is not easy nor is it a natural skill to everyone (otherwise we wouldn't have marketting and customer relations departments). Be very careful what you say and how you say it and you and your product have a healthy future. Ignore this point and plough through with only the technical side and I guarantee no matter what the technical merits of the product it will remain a fringe product and you won't find many people getting excited about it.
You can take what I say on board or you can consider it flamebait and ignore me. That's up to you.
Known bug on Windows, we even have a patch for it but that patch must go into Freetype, so it's not there yet.
See you've lost the average end user right there. They couldn't care less about the technical details of which module needs updating and how. They just know there's been a problem using the software and that there are likely to be more problems. If they consider the problem serious enough or inconvenient enough they'll avoid the software all together. If they don't they'll still curse every time it happens.
Here's an analogy: Do you care why the seats are uncomfortable on a plane? That the seat designer had a budget or a set of physical specifications. No, you just hate uncomfortable seats on planes. Now if the problem was more serious, say in the engine, well we're talking life and death so you'd be a lot less likely to fly on it.
People just want stuff to work. Even the act of reporting the bug is a pain to them. The average end user will take the stance that it shouldn't have happened in the first place (even if they pay nothing for the software). Harsh and unfair. Yes. But that's life and that's what you'll need to deal with if you want the program to see wider use (which you do seem to want).
If I do that, and if the crash is real, I'll keep getting more and more reports on it from different people.
At that point it's too late. If you've fobbed off a few people, they'll tell their friends, put it up in message boards etc. and you'll lose more than just those few people.
Look, I admire what you're doing and I don't want to be a pain in your behind. I wouldn't post this long just to hassle you or if I didn't think what you were doing was good. But you and every other Linux developer with these attitudes need to either stop complaining that Linux hasn't taken off or address these issues and realities instead of brushing them off.
Personally I'll be looking at your product again in the very near future. I don't have a use for it just now so it's not worth my effort dealing with bugs, but it's good to know that it's around and will get better.
Serious question for you. How hard would it be to adapt the product to deal with Visio style drawings? There are Visio clones out there but none are very good (although I don't know what patent issues there would be in creating a better one). I'd look at the code for myself but my speciality is Java enterprise apps and frankly I don't have the time to invest in this to be of much benefit to anyone.
Hmm the text tool is less than intuitive and hangs the screen for a little while (application not responding) the first time it initializes. I realize you're still pre version 1.0 here, and I'm willing to cut you a lot of slack. This certainly has potential of being a great product when it matures, and I can't argue with the cost.
But illusive and hard to reproduce bugs are not something to brush off. They drive the users insane just as much as they annoy developers. However a user with no time or effort invested in the product is just going to move on if there's no quick fix or if you brush it off and say it works on your machine and you've only got 2 bugs you can even partially reproduce. You've provided them with something for free but they don't owe you anything and they don't have to use it.
Hmmm. I downloaded it and put nice pretty shapes into a blank document. But every time I select the Text tool and click on the page the application freezes and does not respond. (I'm on Windows XP SP2 here by the way).
I hope this is an unimplemented feature. Given that I can't add text to the document I'll skip this until it matures.
I can understand your other issues, but how does that have ANYTHING to do with Windows XP?
Nothing except to highlight that I had reason to suspect the operating system before suspecting the actual hardware. After all the mouse had worked like a champion for 3 years, whereas I'd had hell with the OS.
the updates have always worked for me
That's called good luck not good planning. Be THANKFUL it worked for you and don't throw it in anyone else's face because you might not always be so lucky.
Just last night I ran windows update on a laptop and was dumb enough to let it upgrade my Netgear wireless network pcmcia card driver. The new driver would not connect to my WPA enabled wireless network no matter what I did.
Fortunately I had just spent last weekend putting together fresh install disks for all my PCs, so finding the old drivers wasn't too painful. I did however make the mistake of not writing down which one I was using previously, so I had to try each of the updated drivers I've downloaded. (Only one of them seems to work with WPA. Older drivers don't have the option and newer ones seem to have a bug that recognises WPA as WEP).
So anyway I had to set up my wired network card, then copy and try 3 drivers to get my wireless card back.
Honestly I'm sick of it being this way. Don't damn well tell me your favourite Linux install doesn't have these problems either because I've always had problems like this in any environment, and I'm no idiot about how I organise my machines.
It's gotten to the point where I never upgrade hardware or software unless I have a show-stopper type problem I need fixed, and even then I have to cross my fingers and hope it works.
List of recent problems on XP (last 3 months):
1) Graphics card upgrade to 6600GT on desktop machine. Tried many drivers before getting it to work. Had to mess with AGP settings via driver hacks (Rivatuner) to stop it from freezing
2) USB hard disk suddenly giving the infamous write delay failed problems. Tried many things but eventually found VIA 4in1 drivers fixed this one.
3) USB still hangs from time to time with devices not being recognised if you try to plug them in or replug them. Could be a bad camera memory card reader or one of my cheap USB hubs.
4) Faulty mouse. This one was just wear and tear but took me about 15 minutes to work out it was the mouse and not my KVM switch.
5) Network card issue above.
We have all bags checked on entry to every public place, and it does work
Last I heard there were plenty of suicide bombings in Israel. I don't call that working.
I'm glad you didn't want me outright executed for my views
Look, I'm not the one advocating execution and random bag searches.
Go find someone else to waste time with.
So your stance is "Life is sacred"..."Shoot to kill". You remind me of that Star Trek sendup "We come in peace, shoot to kill".
Do you even understand how bad random bag checks are at finding explosives?
Police enforcing an unjust law does mean the criminals win. Plain clothes police shooting someone dead because he runs away when they haven't identified themselves is absolutely horrific and such rubbish should be denounced.
How would you like it if a police officier could walk into your home without a warrant? How about we make it legal for them to video tape you in your own home and in your bedroom at all times to prevent child molestation? Where on earth do you draw the line at your privacy being voilated?
Firewalls are not the same as baggage checks. For starters you can still hide something that goes through a firewall (encryption)
Stop talking inconsistent rubbish. I hope people like you are never allowed to make the law, because whether you think you're right or not you and your ill thought out ideas are dangerous and are part of the problem.
I don't have it all wrong.
The moment you make a life worth nothing, all life is worth nothing.
The moment you make violating a person's rights acceptable, it will be abused.
Occassionally stopping a handful of suicide bombers isn't worth throwing away your freedom. Just as it's not worth banning all cars isn't an acceptable way to bring down the number killed on the road each year.
It's not the terrorists fault if we change how we live due to their dirty tactics. They absolutely do win, and the problem is that too few people understand or care about that.
Today bag checks are a necessity.
Tomorrow, cameras checking your every move, and RFID tags at birth.
Soon it'll be fascism the Orwellian way.
You've just handed the terrorists what they want. There's nothing left for them to bomb because everyone may as well be in prison.
I don't want to live like you do in Israel where I'm more likely to be bombed, or shot by the police, all while living in a place where my personal possessions aren't private. And does it stop the suicide bombers? No. Thanks for pointing that out.
You want to turn the US, UK and other countries into Israel just because you have to live through that? Thanks very much, you can keep your way of life.
Get a clue.
Are you completely indifferent that more than 50 people died because the police didn't stop any suspicious looking people?
I'm not. I think it's awful.
Now I have to ask you...
1) Are you completely indifferent that our own goverments are using these terrorists against us to implement draconian surveillance such random bag searches, and gunning down our own people?
2) Are you completely indifferent to the fact that you're averaging between 20-50 civilian deaths in Iraq EACH MONTH since the US went in? So all of a sudden we have an incident in Britain and it's okay to gun people down because they're behaving suspiciously.
Get some perspective, and stop using violence to justify more violence before we decend into hell. Do you really want where you live to become a police state, a war zone, or worse?
Go figure.
Try "Go Elsewhere".
I think France tried this recently
When did France try to kill the web? Gross exaggeration, oui?
Your coin analogy just doesn't fly. There are coins today that can't be used as valid currency, but still collected.
Those coins aren't illegal, and although some are scarce there are plenty of coins that are common enough and affordable enough that anyone can start in this hobby.
Perhaps steam engines are outdated, but millions enjoy locomotive hobbies today.
Where? In Soviet Russia. Because in Australia there are a handful of locomotives left. The rest of the world shouldn't be too far behind on that one.
Meanwhile, it seems you want to implement the very restrictions you rail against starting with preventing OSS developers from posting their own code for others to used for their 'own' purpose, not for production.
Calm down. I want people to be more judicious about jumping in and starting their own little project instead of collaborating with others and making good software. The effort at the moment in Open Source, with a very few exceptions is extremely fragmented. When did I mention banning coders from posting their own code? I want people to think before they build. I want the code out there to improve in quality, and most of all I'm not advocating this be done through draconian restrictions. Read into what I said whatever you want though.
Sorry for seeming like a troll, but it just seems you're just pissed because you tried to find something once and because someone didn't write to your specific needs, you blame the open-ness of it.
No I'm annoyed that there are at least 30 different utilities to do everything - from the mundane like keyboard remapping to the necessary like firewalls and anti-virus, to the sublime. Some variety is good an necessary, otherwise you get stagnation, complacency and a lack of will to improve or fix bugs. Everyone doing their own thing (and most of the time not very well) leads to chaos.
Fact is, most technology is advanced _because_ of hobbyists
No argument here. I don't think I'm the person you want to be arguing with.