They don't have a clue on interface design. Or at least not enough of one to have someone with a little common sense counteract the design flaws introduced by Steve Jobs' pathological fear of buttons.
So then explain why all of the other smart phone touch-screen interfaces are essentially clones of the iPhone interface?
This is just going to be the Apple Sweat Shop. Apps that used to be $75 now for $25 and Apple taking a big chunk. Not many developers are going to survive. I'll keep buying from indie programmers and not from the App Store. I'd rather dead directly with the developer.
You might wish to learn about the difference between wholesale price and retail price. Hint: the retailer has always had the opportunity to take a large chunk of the sale price.
You don't have to use the App Store to sell software.
But if you don't, your would-have-been customers will likely buy your competitor's close substitute from the App Store instead of your software from your web site.
To extend to the larger world of professional applications, I don't expect to see a professional PCB layout tool or a VHDL simulator in any kind of app store. Professional software that costs real money will continue to be sold through the usual channels.
Users who have real work to do don't just select what's in an "app store."
Without massive piracy of Adobe's extremely expensive professional software, Adobe likely wouldn't be as successful as it is. The free copies made the pool of professional users larger, making it a must have in any design shop that does pay.
No, the features that Photoshop gives to the professional users make it a must-have in any design shop that pays. Does the casual user need color-separation generation or half-toning? (Does the casual user even know what they are?)
The low-end and free products don't offer features that people who do pre-press production actually need. Photoshop does, and does it well, which is why it's still the choice of people who use it for a living.
the professional user - a user whom it's assumed will be audited at the end of the year, and therefore can't avoid paying for the product
I've known a few freelancers who didn't buy the full product for fear of an audit - they bought the full product because they didn't want to feel like a smalltime crook every time they turned on their workstation to do some design work for a client. It's a state of mind thing: if my skills and professionalism are solid enough to land me a 5-figure design gig, I'm going to do that work using professional equipment, none of which is stolen.
EXACTLY. The professional who uses Photoshop as part of his/her workflow is creating intellectual property that is ultimately no different from Photoshop itself. "well, I used a cracked version of Photoshop to create the design that I want to sell" would just make that person a hypocrite.
Not that hypocrites don't exist -- just look at all of the record producers who on one hand complain about pirating and illegal downloads, but on the other hand they use cracked versions of DAW software and plug-ins to make the products they want to sell!
What are the practical differences between targeting an FPGA on a computing platform and targeting more ubiquitous massively-parallel programmable pipelines in modern GPUs? Also, what are the fundamental differences? Could my GPU already contain FPGAs?
The main difference is that you don't program FPGAs. You do synchronous digital logic design which is implemented in the FPGA fabric. Thinking that you can program them like you program a sequential-execution processor is a recipe for failure. And, yeah, C-to-gates tools are a joke.
FPGA development is synchronous digital logic design. Verilog and VHDL are hardware description languages; they are not programming languages. Having a software-engineering or programming background does not mean you can simply learn Verilog and start doing FPGA design.
Some kindergarten teachers might play the piano, or guitar, and provide music for the kids to sing along to. Not all of them will throw a CD on and play music through a sound system.
If the sheet music was legally purchased, then there's no reason the teacher can't play the song on the piano in the classroom. Usually, when such sheet music is purchased, the price includes such a license. I remember from grade- and high-school band that the charts we used were specifically licensed for our use (including performance).
I suspect the real issue is that the sheet music is being photocopied and handed out -- and that's the copyright violation.
...which is why I drink Scotch. Because it's made from barley while Bourbon is made from corn. It's bad ethanol for drinking too.
I see you're not from Tennessee.
Neither do I, but I love Jack Daniel's. I just don't like that they call it "whiskey", when it's bourbon.
Ugh, JD is the whiskey of choice amongst high-school and college students who have no taste. Hint: if you need a mixer for your booze (jack and coke?) then your booze is no good.
My preferred potable solvents need to be of legal age, and single.
Hardware stores of the traditional sort are precisely the places customer service can be used to make a business profitable.
Our local hardware store (Wally's Hardware, Sumter, SC) in next to a Walmart and a Lowes. Instead of being crushed, it benefits from the traffic they generate.
Better selection of hardware ("choice" matters more than bulky displays), immediate greeting by people who actually know something about what they sell, and a friendly atmosphere allow it to thrive under the footprint of bigger retailers. ++ for the stainless and other fastener selection.
I don't work there, just a satisfied customer for more than 20 years.
I realize that they're a national chain, too, but we ALWAYS go to our local Ace Hardware store first for supplies for our endless home-repair projects. We go to Lowe's or the Despot only if Ace doesn't have what we need.
Please elaborate and include alternatives at a similar price point.
EAGLE's user interface sucks. Its library manager is worthless. The schematics look like crap and generating a BOM from them is painful. Its layout editor is dismal and is really only good for two-layer toy designs, which take forever to do because of the UI.
But as for alternatives, there is no usable schematic/layout package that doesn't cost the three to five grand or so necessary to get into PADS or Altium Designer.
I suppose the hobbyists (that's how that word is spelled) flock to it because they can get a free toy version. I wouldn't spend the thousand dollars CADSOFT wants for the full-up version of EAGLE, as it just ain't worth it.
The open-source alternatives are crap, too: gEDA is a mess. KICAD crashes too much. Neither can handle any layouts that require design rules more complicated than trace width and space.
So they are suing three of the four main FPGA vendors (Altera, Actel/Microsemi and Lattice) but not the big one, Xilinx. So did Xilinx settle with IV, and if so, for how much?
Then what is their value proposition ? "1 chip is slightly cheaper" ? That wouldn't convince many people.
If people use this, it will be for the live reprogramming feature.
The main reason to glue an FPGA to a hard-core processor is that your application-specific logic can be right next to the processor, rather than in a separate device. The FPGA/Atom device, when installed in an OEM's product, will very likely NOT be user-programmable, as it's married to the underlying hardware (PCB and other external devices).
The largest I have seen has two PowerPC 440 cores. That would be the Virtex-5 FX130T and FX200T (Only different in the number of logic gates available).
None of the current V6s do, but I keep hearing about Xilinx going to ARM. It is in one of their roadmap documents but no real info on exactly where in the roadmap it is.
Unlike Intel's solution, the Xilinx units have everything on a single silicon die.
That's funny. Because I'm so tired of engineers puffing up their own egos by downing the Arduino. I'm smart enough to know that there are far more elegant, powerful solutions than an Arduino for almost every possible situation. But I'm not educated enough to use them. Arduino is easy and accessible. Don't underestimate how attractive those qualities are for someone who simply wants a challenging hobby.
I humbly submit that if the Arduino included access to the AVR's debug facilities, the hobbyists would be very happy indeed. "Why doesn't this work as I expect? I dunno, lemme fire up the debugger and step through the code as it executes and see where it fails."
My gripe, which you missed, was that a proper debug interface would be a great benefit for the newbie/hobbyist who is the likely end user of these things.
I said nothing about "doing it in an FPGA" (btw, I do FPGA design for a living, and don't get me started on embedding micros in FPGAs). I also never called you a moron:)
I like the idea of Arduino, just not its implementation.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't have a clue on interface design. Or at least not enough of one to have someone with a little common sense counteract the design flaws introduced by Steve Jobs' pathological fear of buttons.
So then explain why all of the other smart phone touch-screen interfaces are essentially clones of the iPhone interface?
This is just going to be the Apple Sweat Shop. Apps that used to be $75 now for $25 and Apple taking a big chunk. Not many developers are going to survive. I'll keep buying from indie programmers and not from the App Store. I'd rather dead directly with the developer.
You might wish to learn about the difference between wholesale price and retail price. Hint: the retailer has always had the opportunity to take a large chunk of the sale price.
"Houston, we have a situation"
Surely the must be a way to launch The Situation to the moon. Sans space suit.
You don't have to use the App Store to sell software.
But if you don't, your would-have-been customers will likely buy your competitor's close substitute from the App Store instead of your software from your web site.
To extend to the larger world of professional applications, I don't expect to see a professional PCB layout tool or a VHDL simulator in any kind of app store. Professional software that costs real money will continue to be sold through the usual channels.
Users who have real work to do don't just select what's in an "app store."
Without massive piracy of Adobe's extremely expensive professional software, Adobe likely wouldn't be as successful as it is. The free copies made the pool of professional users larger, making it a must have in any design shop that does pay.
No, the features that Photoshop gives to the professional users make it a must-have in any design shop that pays. Does the casual user need color-separation generation or half-toning? (Does the casual user even know what they are?)
The low-end and free products don't offer features that people who do pre-press production actually need. Photoshop does, and does it well, which is why it's still the choice of people who use it for a living.
the professional user - a user whom it's assumed will be audited at the end of the year, and therefore can't avoid paying for the product
I've known a few freelancers who didn't buy the full product for fear of an audit - they bought the full product because they didn't want to feel like a smalltime crook every time they turned on their workstation to do some design work for a client. It's a state of mind thing: if my skills and professionalism are solid enough to land me a 5-figure design gig, I'm going to do that work using professional equipment, none of which is stolen.
EXACTLY. The professional who uses Photoshop as part of his/her workflow is creating intellectual property that is ultimately no different from Photoshop itself. "well, I used a cracked version of Photoshop to create the design that I want to sell" would just make that person a hypocrite.
Not that hypocrites don't exist -- just look at all of the record producers who on one hand complain about pirating and illegal downloads, but on the other hand they use cracked versions of DAW software and plug-ins to make the products they want to sell!
To be Frank , when you Sheik Yerbouti I think you're just being a Disco Boy.
---
Broken hearts are for assholes.
What are the practical differences between targeting an FPGA on a computing platform and targeting more ubiquitous massively-parallel programmable pipelines in modern GPUs? Also, what are the fundamental differences? Could my GPU already contain FPGAs?
The main difference is that you don't program FPGAs. You do synchronous digital logic design which is implemented in the FPGA fabric. Thinking that you can program them like you program a sequential-execution processor is a recipe for failure. And, yeah, C-to-gates tools are a joke.
FPGAs are more difficult to program.
You don't program FPGAs.
FPGA development is synchronous digital logic design. Verilog and VHDL are hardware description languages; they are not programming languages. Having a software-engineering or programming background does not mean you can simply learn Verilog and start doing FPGA design.
Yawn. Seriously.
(says the guy who does FPGA design for a living.)
Some kindergarten teachers might play the piano, or guitar, and provide music for the kids to sing along to. Not all of them will throw a CD on and play music through a sound system.
If the sheet music was legally purchased, then there's no reason the teacher can't play the song on the piano in the classroom. Usually, when such sheet music is purchased, the price includes such a license. I remember from grade- and high-school band that the charts we used were specifically licensed for our use (including performance).
I suspect the real issue is that the sheet music is being photocopied and handed out -- and that's the copyright violation.
Well... I like to drink it pure. I think you call it "cowboy-style" or something like that.
Those of us who drink actual Scotch Whisky order it neat, meaning, no mixers or dilution.
In the meantime, I'll stick with my true passion: dark beers.
I'm into IPAs, myself. I find lagers to be basically undrinkable.
It tastes pretty good when you eat the cow/pig.
I'm sure this is where the vegans jump in and pontificate about eating animals, but thats not what this thread is about.
Actually, cows that graze on pasture/grasslands taste much better than those that are force-fed corn and other grains.
...which is why I drink Scotch. Because it's made from barley while Bourbon is made from corn. It's bad ethanol for drinking too.
I see you're not from Tennessee.
Neither do I, but I love Jack Daniel's. I just don't like that they call it "whiskey", when it's bourbon.
Ugh, JD is the whiskey of choice amongst high-school and college students who have no taste. Hint: if you need a mixer for your booze (jack and coke?) then your booze is no good.
My preferred potable solvents need to be of legal age, and single.
Control Government Spending or Face Apocalyptic Pain
The problem with that article is that Coburn is a fucking idiot.
Hardware stores of the traditional sort are precisely the places customer service can be used to make a business profitable.
Our local hardware store (Wally's Hardware, Sumter, SC) in next to a Walmart and a Lowes. Instead of being crushed, it benefits from the traffic they generate.
Better selection of hardware ("choice" matters more than bulky displays), immediate greeting by people who actually know something about what they sell, and a friendly atmosphere allow it to thrive under the footprint of bigger retailers. ++ for the stainless and other fastener selection.
I don't work there, just a satisfied customer for more than 20 years.
I realize that they're a national chain, too, but we ALWAYS go to our local Ace Hardware store first for supplies for our endless home-repair projects. We go to Lowe's or the Despot only if Ace doesn't have what we need.
Please elaborate and include alternatives at a similar price point.
EAGLE's user interface sucks. Its library manager is worthless. The schematics look like crap and generating a BOM from them is painful. Its layout editor is dismal and is really only good for two-layer toy designs, which take forever to do because of the UI.
But as for alternatives, there is no usable schematic/layout package that doesn't cost the three to five grand or so necessary to get into PADS or Altium Designer.
I suppose the hobbyists (that's how that word is spelled) flock to it because they can get a free toy version. I wouldn't spend the thousand dollars CADSOFT wants for the full-up version of EAGLE, as it just ain't worth it.
The open-source alternatives are crap, too: gEDA is a mess. KICAD crashes too much. Neither can handle any layouts that require design rules more complicated than trace width and space.
But thanks for asking.
So they are suing three of the four main FPGA vendors (Altera, Actel/Microsemi and Lattice) but not the big one, Xilinx. So did Xilinx settle with IV, and if so, for how much?
For PCB design there are a ton of choices but a popular hobbiest (sic)choice is EAGLE from CADSoft.
EAGLE is utter crap.
Some of us would prefer not to have 436 racists and anti-choice folks in our government.
EXACTLY.
Then what is their value proposition ? "1 chip is slightly cheaper" ? That wouldn't convince many people.
If people use this, it will be for the live reprogramming feature.
The main reason to glue an FPGA to a hard-core processor is that your application-specific logic can be right next to the processor, rather than in a separate device. The FPGA/Atom device, when installed in an OEM's product, will very likely NOT be user-programmable, as it's married to the underlying hardware (PCB and other external devices).
Additionally, on both Altera and Xilinx, you can implement a Cortex-M0 core right in the FPGA logic.
Actel supports Cortex-M1, too.
The largest I have seen has two PowerPC 440 cores. That would be the Virtex-5 FX130T and FX200T (Only different in the number of logic gates available).
None of the current V6s do, but I keep hearing about Xilinx going to ARM. It is in one of their roadmap documents but no real info on exactly where in the roadmap it is.
Unlike Intel's solution, the Xilinx units have everything on a single silicon die.
And my God, the tools SUCK.
That's funny. Because I'm so tired of engineers puffing up their own egos by downing the Arduino. I'm smart enough to know that there are far more elegant, powerful solutions than an Arduino for almost every possible situation. But I'm not educated enough to use them. Arduino is easy and accessible. Don't underestimate how attractive those qualities are for someone who simply wants a challenging hobby.
I humbly submit that if the Arduino included access to the AVR's debug facilities, the hobbyists would be very happy indeed. "Why doesn't this work as I expect? I dunno, lemme fire up the debugger and step through the code as it executes and see where it fails."
My gripe, which you missed, was that a proper debug interface would be a great benefit for the newbie/hobbyist who is the likely end user of these things.
I said nothing about "doing it in an FPGA" (btw, I do FPGA design for a living, and don't get me started on embedding micros in FPGAs). I also never called you a moron :)
I like the idea of Arduino, just not its implementation.