Heh. I've been "practicing" for over ten years now and it's not improving. Mostly because I can't see the pixels and different environments also have a tendency to define the active areas around icons differently. It even varies by application sometimes. There's one application here at work that we run on Windows and unless you actually click on a pixel of the icon itself and not the grey area around it, you won't get a response. I think that's brain dead programming. But those are only minor factors compared to being able to see exactly what you're clicking on. I suppose one other aspect of it is age. I started having trouble seeing things that are close-up when I hit 34-35. So when I was in my teens and 20s, it's also possible that I could see the pixels a little more clearly. All I know is that if I have a bigger monitor that allows me to use a high resolution and still see the pixels themselves, I am more productive due to a combination of accuracy and more desktop real estate.
Hey thanks! I've always wondered about that. And back then there was no separate video RAM. I remember doing memory tests on my old Atari ST and seeing these lines scroll down the screen when a certain point in system RAM was read/written through and tested.
I can definitely account for the productivity difference when you consider the interaction of pixel size with the accuracy of where the mouse pointer's hot spot lands on an object. Back in the days of REAL computers like the Amiga and the Atari ST, many of us would use the lower resolutions on our desktops. 320x200 and 640x400 (don't know why it wasn't 480) were pretty normal. And, of course at that resolution you could see the pixels even on the smaller monitors. Same with the original all-in-one-box Macintosh. What this did is make the mouse hotspot fairly large compared to the objects and the desktop space. You could actually SEE and FEEL that the hotspot was definitely on the object you wanted and your clicks were VERY accurate. For those of you who used the old Macs, Amigas and Ataris, think back... how often did you have to click a second time to select the right object? How often did you have to double click again to launch an app or open a file? How often did you have to click a second time because the wrong menu object was selected? In my recollections this was pretty much never. I didn't start noticing this sort of interaction with GUI objects until we broke the 800x600 barrier and many of us were still using 12" or 15" monitors. Then when we broke 1024x768 and 1280x1024, things REALLY got out of hand until you got at LEAST a 17" monitor and I went with a 21" just to be able to use those resolutions and still have some accuracy.
Don't believe me? Try a simple test (if you can pull this off with your OS or hardware):
Linux: If you're running X Window System and it's properly configured for multiple screen resolutions, press Ctrl-Alt-Num KeyPad + and cycle through to your lowest viewport. Your desktop size won't change, but the number of pixels displayed on the screen will, giving you a low resolution window to your high resolution desktop. Try moving around pointing and clicking on objects now that you can see their pixels a little better. See if you make a miss WITHOUT trying to make a miss. I'll bet you can't.
Alternatively you can change the actual resolution of your desktop to whatever is available in your config by typing:
xrandx
This will list what resolutions are available that should look a little somethin' like this:
SZ: Pixels Physical Refresh *0 1024 x 768 ( 321mm x 241mm ) *70 60 43
1 800 x 600 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 70 60 56
2 640 x 480 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
3 640 x 400 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
4 400 x 300 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
5 320 x 240 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
6 320 x 200 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
To select one of those, do this (example for 640x400):
xrandr -s 3
Of course if you're a KDE or Gnome Jock, just use the GUI utility to select a resolution. Boring.;P
Windows:
If your driver allows, you should be able to select at least 640x480. You can either go to Start | Control Panels | Display or right click on the desktop and select Properties. Then in the dialog go to the Display properties. Once there, select the lowest resolution you can. If your driver provides some alternative display control tool that you're already familiar with, use that.
Sure, going down to a low resolution like that makes your available desktop area much smaller which is also a hinderance to getting much done. But, right now we're focusing the accuracy of selecting objects on the screen. If you do this for a minute or two, you'll notice that your accuracy is very likely higher than usual. Unless your drunk or have problems with your mouse skills... Now, imagine having this kind of accuracy AND a nice large desktop! That's WHY a 30" monitor can increase productivity. The obvious: you get more desktop real estate to work with. The less obvious: your interaction accuracy increases. I know someone else tried before, but I think that only other way to work
Well considering how much fun it is to play devil's advocate for the most repugnant things online for many of us, that's certainly a wake up call. Damn fools. First they took prank phone calls away from us with caller ID and now this. How's a guy supposed to get his work out to the people?
Oh well... I guess people won't be buying these much as anyone with a Windows XP PC expects to play DVDs. Especially Windows XP Media Center Edition which is pretty much the standard at all the big box shops these days. I challenege anyone to go to Best Buy and NOT get a name brand PC with Windows XP MCE on it.
I predict that by 2025, the United States will have people who are so overweight, that the current obesity epidemic will look like an Ana convention of twig girls. Add to that the fact that the Segway having failed to really do much of anything will be moving into the realm of "mobility augmentation" and people who can no longer carry their weight on their own legs but still want to smash four buckets of KFC into their gobs will opt for having those useless appendages removed and replaced with the Segway 5000 mobility enhancment. This will be covered by both health and auto insurance since the size of the average American will be approaching that of a mid-sized four door sedan. And why do I predict this? Because people have no control over their own drives and attempt to justify the results of poor diets and lack of activity rather than make some intially difficult but highly beneficial changes. I am also very certain that these molecularly engineered foods will NOT be good for you. Not because there's a problem with the technology, but because there's a problem with the businesses behind them.
As we all know, our well being takes a really far, wayyyy at the back of the bus, back seat to their profitability. So if there is some aspect of molecular food engineering that will vastly increase profits for them, but might have negative consequences for say 10% of the population... they will do it. Conversely, if there is something that could be done with molecular food engineering that would not only make the food taste good, but is also beneficial to us, however costs them something (even in the short term), it's not going to be a priority, and quite possibly may never be done at all. So the issue isn't that I think the technology is necessarily bad. It's how it will be used that I fear. Plenty of lies have been foisted on us about various food additives being safe (not taking small percentages of the population who they aren't safe for, into account) when they really aren't. And a lot of people WANT to believe because it gives them justification for eating and drinking things that are bad for them. So they bury their heads in the sand and don't accept that their medical problems are very likely related to what they eat and drink. They put their pleasure ahead of their health. To bad moves that sandwich the dietary issue and will likely NEVER be addressed because the victims don't want to make sacrifices and the perpetrators don't want to make sacrifices. Sad indeed.
Well in general you got it right. Who cares about the math? If it's on TV, then it must be true. That's the general perception of the world. We don't need people on crusades to try and enlighten the masses if the masses are too stupid to know what's true. If TV says air powered cars are feasible, then they are and the math can go take a hike. How do you think we got to where we are today? Education? Get into the 21st century groove dude!
Face it. This is the modern world where TV has more power to move people than fact. If you want something different, your time is over. The only way to change this is to dismantle the progress of the previous century. Once we hit the 21st century in 2000, the time to pine away for the old days and the old ways was all gone. I'm not going to try and disprove the math because I don't understand it, nor do I want to. I also don't think most people care. IF you want to argue about something your best bet is to argue against the entire culture of humanity since television is more powerful than any force (internets aside) that has ever impacted civilization. Or you can just join the 21st century and watch what really matters on TV...
Exactly. Most people have no clue what HDTV actually is other than a bigger wider screen. Then they wonder why they either have black bars on both sides of their picture, or everything looks fat (as in wide, and not hip and cool), or why things widen at the left and right edges of the screen while things in the middle look normal. I'll even go so far as to say that most Slashdotters don't have a clue, they only think they do. To answer the main question that this submission asks: Real hardcore gamers (the kinds who put more interest in their hardware than the game itself) will *think* they need HDTV. But as many people have pointed out, you don't really need it since there really is a point of diminishing returns on this sort of thing. I have a 1920x1080 LCD TV (In other words REAL HDTV, not that 720p crap) and there isn't a game system in the world as of yet that can feed it properly. But I didn't buy it for gaming, I bought it for something much more important: my Linux based media center PC. The gaming on it is just a side effect. (Tux Racer is a lot of fun on it though.;)
Glad to see you responded non-AC. Always the better approach. My only criticism of your view is that you assume that there AREN'T fact checkers who work for television who give things more than a cursory glance. Having worked in network television in the past, I can very easily, and with authority, tell you that you are wrong. The so-called "fact checkers" are continuity personnel. Not only are they responsible for making sure that everything in the show flows properly, but they also need to make sure that the show doesn't come off as people "talking out of their asses". They spend a good deal of time on thoroughly checking fact with experts when they can, or by doing reasonably heavy research. The reason why? To keep the know-it-all windbags in their places (Seeing that/. is the realm of the know-it-all windbags, I can see why a lot of Slashdotters would be offended by this notion). It was also my experience that when the continuity folks couldn't gain access to experts, the fact checking dropped in quality to a point where a snivveling windbag would complain, but the general population (including some knowledgable people) wouldn't. Some of us are very happy to overlook slight amounts of wrong information if it's not damaging. This is one of those case. Unless you're some kind of know-it-all windbag...;P Just kidding.
...I have to say this is great news but not wholly unexpected. If you provide a very useful service for free, then you deserve to be at the top of the heap. There's no competing with free unless you're, oh how should we put this... BETTER.
...it appears to me that BBC America is probably run by two people and an automated system. My reasoning for this? The glitches I see from time to time. Sometimes the schedule on their web site will say they are showing a certain program, when they are showing something else. Sometimes I've even seen things like a program go to commercial break and when the break is over, you're in the middle of a different program. I suspect these are automation glitches. My second reason for saying this is that I have a series of BBC America station IDs I've edited out of the regular program streams and I have an automated playlist system that can simulate a live BBC America feed just with the programs I've recorded and commercials I've produced myself. So the answer is: yes you can. The real question is, how much of your time do you want to dedicate to doing it and are you up to the challenge. I did it purely for the fun of running a virtual TV station. Would I trust it to work for a low-power TV station? Sure. But I think you'd definitely want better hardware than what I've got. Just make sure it's supported in Linux, or else it's a show stopper. (No pun intended)
I had to go through your post history a bit to see if you really are what you claim to be. It appears so. Hats off to you. But please keep in mind that no everyone programs to make money or get rich. Some of us do it for fun which also makes us qualified to point out why software sucks and in many cases is the driving factor behind writing free/open software that works the way WE want it to work. Does that help Joe Average? Maybe not. But in some cases it does. And at the end of the day, from the perspective of a person like me, I don't care if no one made money. Did they have fun? Yes? Good. Does the program work as the writer expected? Yes? Good. That's all that matters in this particular instance. As far as Joe Average, they're stuck relying on people who put financial success way ahead of actually producing a decent product. And as you stated in some of your previous posts, success in the world of commercial software is all about turn-around time. If someone is faster than you to market, you lose. That means you've got to make compromises, which generally means: ship with major bugs, "fix it in the mix", and generally put the customer second if not last. You yourself pointed out that VB sucks. But it also enables people to develop apps quickly. So, that means you're willing to accept suckage in exchange for rapid development. Some of us aren't willing to make that compromise.
Nice attempt at a troll. Practice kid. It comes in handy.
With that aside, re-read my post. I was NOT advocating OOP. I actually prefer structured programming myself. But actually being aware of OOP and how it works is NOT a bad thing. Especially if you want to say it sucks. So what have you added to the conversation?
FDR = Financial Death Ray WMD = Weapons of Mass De-monification NLBM = Non-Lubed Bitch Making (wink to John Romero) BFG1000000 = Big Financial Gun One Million FDoM = Financial De-foliation of the Masses CGB = Corporate Gang Bang
You're not Joe Average if you do any kind of hardware or OS upgrade. Joe Average buys a PC at Walmart and never adds anything to it (other than the pirated software from his brother Bob Average). He uses all the bundled crap that came with it thinking that it's the best there is and complains about how much it still sucks. Joe Average might buy an MP3 player, but it's going to be disc based so he can use his CDs on it and still wonders how come they don't sound any better since this new player is supposed to MP3 everything so it's longer.
How can I get my employer to use better software products? Or my local government? Can I leverage accessibility and usability laws in the fight against bad websites? Are those crickets I hear?
To answer the first question, unless you're in the management or IT department of your company you CAN'T get them to use better software products. To answer your second question, you have NO BUSINESS telling your local government what software works for them. (And I'm an advocate of OpenOffice over MS Office for home use as well as using it at my job, but I work in IT) And to answer your third question, you can try, but you have no guarantee of succeeding, nor should you. You didn't pay to have the websites developed, therefore you have no say. In an ideal world people would just do the right thing. But this is far from an ideal world.
It seems to me that your rant (not really much of a review at all) is misplaced against this book. You're railing on about his attack on programmers but not paying attention to the fact that end-users and not coders are the target of this book. They could give a rat's ass about DRM because other than some minor inconveniences and some extra costs, DRM is transparent to them. We have a right to be angry about DRM because it hobbles programmers from being able to actually take advantage of whiz bang new possibilities afforded by upcoming technology since DRM imposes artificial restrictions on us. Joe Average will NEVER "get" that.
I agree with you in that he focused on the wrong stuff to a degree. He got it right as far as the average user goes. But if he was really going to show them the inside of the sausage factory (which I find disturbingly phallic mind you), he would point out that most people writing software today have no business writing it. All the slick IDEs that have been unleashed on would be coders and web developers has resulted in everyone and his brother being a "programmer". There are people developing applications and web sites out there who don't even know what structured programming or OOP are. They have no concept of the basics when it comes to writing code. Most of it is pieced together crap without reusable code even factoring in. It's beyond crufty. And THAT is why software sucks today.
Photons = particles of light Atoms = particles of matter (ie. air IS matter)
Anything that can stop a photon, can stop matter and vice-vera but not always because sometimes a photon can o through things. But I'm sure you've seen that if you block light with black cardboard, it's possible to stop time on the other side.
Oh noes!!! Teh wind is slowed down by teh windmills just like putting up a curtain will slow down light!! Get real. If you live in a suitably windy environment (like most of us near lakes), there's plenty of wind to go around. The average windspeed where I live is 45 MPH. With gusts up to 80 MPH on a clear day. It's damn near impossible to walk anywhere without getting blown over at least once. All you people living in your wind starved inland locations! Feh!
And you've completely missed the point of even being alive. I'm glad you're happy fitting into your little cubby hole instead of exploring the vastness of the universe. The rest of us who've escaped would probably not benefit from interacting with your puny mind.
Slashdot Mirror
"Worst. Flaimbate. EVER" - Twirlipofthemists (c) 2001
Heh. I've been "practicing" for over ten years now and it's not improving. Mostly because I can't see the pixels and different environments also have a tendency to define the active areas around icons differently. It even varies by application sometimes. There's one application here at work that we run on Windows and unless you actually click on a pixel of the icon itself and not the grey area around it, you won't get a response. I think that's brain dead programming. But those are only minor factors compared to being able to see exactly what you're clicking on. I suppose one other aspect of it is age. I started having trouble seeing things that are close-up when I hit 34-35. So when I was in my teens and 20s, it's also possible that I could see the pixels a little more clearly. All I know is that if I have a bigger monitor that allows me to use a high resolution and still see the pixels themselves, I am more productive due to a combination of accuracy and more desktop real estate.
Hey thanks! I've always wondered about that. And back then there was no separate video RAM. I remember doing memory tests on my old Atari ST and seeing these lines scroll down the screen when a certain point in system RAM was read/written through and tested.
I can definitely account for the productivity difference when you consider the interaction of pixel size with the accuracy of where the mouse pointer's hot spot lands on an object. Back in the days of REAL computers like the Amiga and the Atari ST, many of us would use the lower resolutions on our desktops. 320x200 and 640x400 (don't know why it wasn't 480) were pretty normal. And, of course at that resolution you could see the pixels even on the smaller monitors. Same with the original all-in-one-box Macintosh. What this did is make the mouse hotspot fairly large compared to the objects and the desktop space. You could actually SEE and FEEL that the hotspot was definitely on the object you wanted and your clicks were VERY accurate. For those of you who used the old Macs, Amigas and Ataris, think back... how often did you have to click a second time to select the right object? How often did you have to double click again to launch an app or open a file? How often did you have to click a second time because the wrong menu object was selected? In my recollections this was pretty much never. I didn't start noticing this sort of interaction with GUI objects until we broke the 800x600 barrier and many of us were still using 12" or 15" monitors. Then when we broke 1024x768 and 1280x1024, things REALLY got out of hand until you got at LEAST a 17" monitor and I went with a 21" just to be able to use those resolutions and still have some accuracy.
;P
Don't believe me? Try a simple test (if you can pull this off with your OS or hardware):
Linux:
If you're running X Window System and it's properly configured for multiple screen resolutions, press Ctrl-Alt-Num KeyPad + and cycle through to your lowest viewport. Your desktop size won't change, but the number of pixels displayed on the screen will, giving you a low resolution window to your high resolution desktop. Try moving around pointing and clicking on objects now that you can see their pixels a little better. See if you make a miss WITHOUT trying to make a miss. I'll bet you can't.
Alternatively you can change the actual resolution of your desktop to whatever is available in your config by typing:
xrandx
This will list what resolutions are available that should look a little somethin' like this:
SZ: Pixels Physical Refresh
*0 1024 x 768 ( 321mm x 241mm ) *70 60 43
1 800 x 600 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 70 60 56
2 640 x 480 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
3 640 x 400 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
4 400 x 300 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
5 320 x 240 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
6 320 x 200 ( 321mm x 241mm ) 60
To select one of those, do this (example for 640x400):
xrandr -s 3
Of course if you're a KDE or Gnome Jock, just use the GUI utility to select a resolution. Boring.
Windows:
If your driver allows, you should be able to select at least 640x480. You can either go to Start | Control Panels | Display or right click on the desktop and select Properties. Then in the dialog go to the Display properties. Once there, select the lowest resolution you can. If your driver provides some alternative display control tool that you're already familiar with, use that.
Sure, going down to a low resolution like that makes your available desktop area much smaller which is also a hinderance to getting much done. But, right now we're focusing the accuracy of selecting objects on the screen. If you do this for a minute or two, you'll notice that your accuracy is very likely higher than usual. Unless your drunk or have problems with your mouse skills... Now, imagine having this kind of accuracy AND a nice large desktop! That's WHY a 30" monitor can increase productivity. The obvious: you get more desktop real estate to work with. The less obvious: your interaction accuracy increases. I know someone else tried before, but I think that only other way to work
Well considering how much fun it is to play devil's advocate for the most repugnant things online for many of us, that's certainly a wake up call. Damn fools. First they took prank phone calls away from us with caller ID and now this. How's a guy supposed to get his work out to the people?
Oh well... I guess people won't be buying these much as anyone with a Windows XP PC expects to play DVDs. Especially Windows XP Media Center Edition which is pretty much the standard at all the big box shops these days. I challenege anyone to go to Best Buy and NOT get a name brand PC with Windows XP MCE on it.
I predict that by 2025, the United States will have people who are so overweight, that the current obesity epidemic will look like an Ana convention of twig girls. Add to that the fact that the Segway having failed to really do much of anything will be moving into the realm of "mobility augmentation" and people who can no longer carry their weight on their own legs but still want to smash four buckets of KFC into their gobs will opt for having those useless appendages removed and replaced with the Segway 5000 mobility enhancment. This will be covered by both health and auto insurance since the size of the average American will be approaching that of a mid-sized four door sedan. And why do I predict this? Because people have no control over their own drives and attempt to justify the results of poor diets and lack of activity rather than make some intially difficult but highly beneficial changes. I am also very certain that these molecularly engineered foods will NOT be good for you. Not because there's a problem with the technology, but because there's a problem with the businesses behind them.
As we all know, our well being takes a really far, wayyyy at the back of the bus, back seat to their profitability. So if there is some aspect of molecular food engineering that will vastly increase profits for them, but might have negative consequences for say 10% of the population... they will do it. Conversely, if there is something that could be done with molecular food engineering that would not only make the food taste good, but is also beneficial to us, however costs them something (even in the short term), it's not going to be a priority, and quite possibly may never be done at all. So the issue isn't that I think the technology is necessarily bad. It's how it will be used that I fear. Plenty of lies have been foisted on us about various food additives being safe (not taking small percentages of the population who they aren't safe for, into account) when they really aren't. And a lot of people WANT to believe because it gives them justification for eating and drinking things that are bad for them. So they bury their heads in the sand and don't accept that their medical problems are very likely related to what they eat and drink. They put their pleasure ahead of their health. To bad moves that sandwich the dietary issue and will likely NEVER be addressed because the victims don't want to make sacrifices and the perpetrators don't want to make sacrifices. Sad indeed.
Well in general you got it right. Who cares about the math? If it's on TV, then it must be true. That's the general perception of the world. We don't need people on crusades to try and enlighten the masses if the masses are too stupid to know what's true. If TV says air powered cars are feasible, then they are and the math can go take a hike. How do you think we got to where we are today? Education? Get into the 21st century groove dude!
Face it. This is the modern world where TV has more power to move people than fact. If you want something different, your time is over. The only way to change this is to dismantle the progress of the previous century. Once we hit the 21st century in 2000, the time to pine away for the old days and the old ways was all gone. I'm not going to try and disprove the math because I don't understand it, nor do I want to. I also don't think most people care. IF you want to argue about something your best bet is to argue against the entire culture of humanity since television is more powerful than any force (internets aside) that has ever impacted civilization. Or you can just join the 21st century and watch what really matters on TV...
Exactly. Most people have no clue what HDTV actually is other than a bigger wider screen. Then they wonder why they either have black bars on both sides of their picture, or everything looks fat (as in wide, and not hip and cool), or why things widen at the left and right edges of the screen while things in the middle look normal. I'll even go so far as to say that most Slashdotters don't have a clue, they only think they do. To answer the main question that this submission asks: Real hardcore gamers (the kinds who put more interest in their hardware than the game itself) will *think* they need HDTV. But as many people have pointed out, you don't really need it since there really is a point of diminishing returns on this sort of thing. I have a 1920x1080 LCD TV (In other words REAL HDTV, not that 720p crap) and there isn't a game system in the world as of yet that can feed it properly. But I didn't buy it for gaming, I bought it for something much more important: my Linux based media center PC. The gaming on it is just a side effect. (Tux Racer is a lot of fun on it though. ;)
IQ? Are you saying your eyes are stupid? ;P
Glad to see you responded non-AC. Always the better approach. My only criticism of your view is that you assume that there AREN'T fact checkers who work for television who give things more than a cursory glance. Having worked in network television in the past, I can very easily, and with authority, tell you that you are wrong. The so-called "fact checkers" are continuity personnel. Not only are they responsible for making sure that everything in the show flows properly, but they also need to make sure that the show doesn't come off as people "talking out of their asses". They spend a good deal of time on thoroughly checking fact with experts when they can, or by doing reasonably heavy research. The reason why? To keep the know-it-all windbags in their places (Seeing that /. is the realm of the know-it-all windbags, I can see why a lot of Slashdotters would be offended by this notion). It was also my experience that when the continuity folks couldn't gain access to experts, the fact checking dropped in quality to a point where a snivveling windbag would complain, but the general population (including some knowledgable people) wouldn't. Some of us are very happy to overlook slight amounts of wrong information if it's not damaging. This is one of those case. Unless you're some kind of know-it-all windbag... ;P Just kidding.
...I have to say this is great news but not wholly unexpected. If you provide a very useful service for free, then you deserve to be at the top of the heap. There's no competing with free unless you're, oh how should we put this... BETTER.
Dammit. I WANT to work for Auntie Beeb!! Lucky !@#%^
Hey... it keeps me off the streets! In another life I used to be in radio and television. Being in IT is actually just something I lucked into.
...it appears to me that BBC America is probably run by two people and an automated system. My reasoning for this? The glitches I see from time to time. Sometimes the schedule on their web site will say they are showing a certain program, when they are showing something else. Sometimes I've even seen things like a program go to commercial break and when the break is over, you're in the middle of a different program. I suspect these are automation glitches. My second reason for saying this is that I have a series of BBC America station IDs I've edited out of the regular program streams and I have an automated playlist system that can simulate a live BBC America feed just with the programs I've recorded and commercials I've produced myself. So the answer is: yes you can. The real question is, how much of your time do you want to dedicate to doing it and are you up to the challenge. I did it purely for the fun of running a virtual TV station. Would I trust it to work for a low-power TV station? Sure. But I think you'd definitely want better hardware than what I've got. Just make sure it's supported in Linux, or else it's a show stopper. (No pun intended)
I had to go through your post history a bit to see if you really are what you claim to be. It appears so. Hats off to you. But please keep in mind that no everyone programs to make money or get rich. Some of us do it for fun which also makes us qualified to point out why software sucks and in many cases is the driving factor behind writing free/open software that works the way WE want it to work. Does that help Joe Average? Maybe not. But in some cases it does. And at the end of the day, from the perspective of a person like me, I don't care if no one made money. Did they have fun? Yes? Good. Does the program work as the writer expected? Yes? Good. That's all that matters in this particular instance. As far as Joe Average, they're stuck relying on people who put financial success way ahead of actually producing a decent product. And as you stated in some of your previous posts, success in the world of commercial software is all about turn-around time. If someone is faster than you to market, you lose. That means you've got to make compromises, which generally means: ship with major bugs, "fix it in the mix", and generally put the customer second if not last. You yourself pointed out that VB sucks. But it also enables people to develop apps quickly. So, that means you're willing to accept suckage in exchange for rapid development. Some of us aren't willing to make that compromise.
Nice attempt at a troll. Practice kid. It comes in handy.
With that aside, re-read my post. I was NOT advocating OOP. I actually prefer structured programming myself. But actually being aware of OOP and how it works is NOT a bad thing. Especially if you want to say it sucks. So what have you added to the conversation?
So sorry you've fallen for the "democracy" lie. Your "freedom" is an illusion. Wake up.
FDR = Financial Death Ray
WMD = Weapons of Mass De-monification
NLBM = Non-Lubed Bitch Making (wink to John Romero)
BFG1000000 = Big Financial Gun One Million
FDoM = Financial De-foliation of the Masses
CGB = Corporate Gang Bang
Just a few off-the-cuff ideas.
You're not Joe Average if you do any kind of hardware or OS upgrade. Joe Average buys a PC at Walmart and never adds anything to it (other than the pirated software from his brother Bob Average). He uses all the bundled crap that came with it thinking that it's the best there is and complains about how much it still sucks. Joe Average might buy an MP3 player, but it's going to be disc based so he can use his CDs on it and still wonders how come they don't sound any better since this new player is supposed to MP3 everything so it's longer.
How can I get my employer to use better software products? Or my local government? Can I leverage accessibility and usability laws in the fight against bad websites? Are those crickets I hear?
To answer the first question, unless you're in the management or IT department of your company you CAN'T get them to use better software products. To answer your second question, you have NO BUSINESS telling your local government what software works for them. (And I'm an advocate of OpenOffice over MS Office for home use as well as using it at my job, but I work in IT) And to answer your third question, you can try, but you have no guarantee of succeeding, nor should you. You didn't pay to have the websites developed, therefore you have no say. In an ideal world people would just do the right thing. But this is far from an ideal world.
It seems to me that your rant (not really much of a review at all) is misplaced against this book. You're railing on about his attack on programmers but not paying attention to the fact that end-users and not coders are the target of this book. They could give a rat's ass about DRM because other than some minor inconveniences and some extra costs, DRM is transparent to them. We have a right to be angry about DRM because it hobbles programmers from being able to actually take advantage of whiz bang new possibilities afforded by upcoming technology since DRM imposes artificial restrictions on us. Joe Average will NEVER "get" that.
I agree with you in that he focused on the wrong stuff to a degree. He got it right as far as the average user goes. But if he was really going to show them the inside of the sausage factory (which I find disturbingly phallic mind you), he would point out that most people writing software today have no business writing it. All the slick IDEs that have been unleashed on would be coders and web developers has resulted in everyone and his brother being a "programmer". There are people developing applications and web sites out there who don't even know what structured programming or OOP are. They have no concept of the basics when it comes to writing code. Most of it is pieced together crap without reusable code even factoring in. It's beyond crufty. And THAT is why software sucks today.
Photons = particles of light
Atoms = particles of matter (ie. air IS matter)
Anything that can stop a photon, can stop matter and vice-vera but not always because sometimes a photon can o through things. But I'm sure you've seen that if you block light with black cardboard, it's possible to stop time on the other side.
Oh noes!!! Teh wind is slowed down by teh windmills just like putting up a curtain will slow down light!! Get real. If you live in a suitably windy environment (like most of us near lakes), there's plenty of wind to go around. The average windspeed where I live is 45 MPH. With gusts up to 80 MPH on a clear day. It's damn near impossible to walk anywhere without getting blown over at least once. All you people living in your wind starved inland locations! Feh!
And you've completely missed the point of even being alive. I'm glad you're happy fitting into your little cubby hole instead of exploring the vastness of the universe. The rest of us who've escaped would probably not benefit from interacting with your puny mind.