Consoles provide high-end graphics (at the time of their design) at much cheaper prices.
More importantly, the games utilizing these graphics can optimize the hardware to 100% output (especially in later generations of game releases), since all the consoles have identical specs. Not so with PCs, which generally have wasted development time catering to different power levels, and can't fully optimize hardware. This has alleviated somewhat with the smaller numbers of 3D card manufacturers and the semi-standardization of APIs.
Sure, if you're a billionaire, buy a new computer each month.
IF anything, although we may have another 1000x of performance coming our way, some sort of end may be near.
If that's the case, eventually we'll come around to having to code with efficiency in mind rather than speed of development.
And processors will have to be more efficient, since there won't be extra GHZ to pump out to get Wal-Mart patrons to buy your processors.
Although it has been a while since any killer software application has really stressed processor performance outside of scientific computation, unless you consider MPEG4 compression...hmmm, maybe I'm wrong there.
Wow, #4 is a real killer point!
I had my reservations about Freenet because I was concerned that the content that got distributed could be bad stuff that I wouldn't want on my drive regardless of encryption or the legal nature of the network, like say child porn (ugh).
But if Freenet was used for IP addresses and maybe file indexes (not the content) only, that is a fantastic idea.
Many laughed, but enough didn't that you still know about them.
Unfortunately, science is polluted with callous egotism inherent to humanity, probably because it is funded by money and those that control it. However, in the end, these ideas were respected due to their validity.
You appear to confuse skepticism with blind dismissal. Skepticism filters out cold/bubble fusion, infinite energy cranks, anti-gravity, etc. If the ideas are valid, they will overcome skepticism.
If the grand conclusion is that we can't figure out all of the universe's behavior using our logical thinking processes, equation-based or automation-based, well, duh, that has been known for a long time. Assuming the quite likely case that the human brain is a form of a turing machine, it has been proven that those machines can't solve all problems.
I also cast my stone in with the skeptics of the "lone genius". Folks, the world of science is so complex, specialized, and developed these days that the days of Newton and Einstein holing up and shattering the universe with individually conceived theories are increasingly unlikely. Much like David Brin's essay on heroism versus democracy, significant science is advanced by collective effort, not by the singular mad genius. It is only our predilection to anoint kings and heroes which discredits those that lay the groundwork and trumpets the attention seekers, and gets them tenure and research grants.
30+ years? EXCUSE ME?
People that work 30+ years can't say no to credit cards. Do you really need a fucking SUV? Or an 8-bedroom house? Does your chick really need breast implants? Do you really need that extra 10% of MHz?
Its called saving and rational investment. If you really want to cut this short, don't have kids, and don't get divorced, or married.
Want to be prostate to the man for 30 years? have fun.
I'll be retired by age 35 in a modest and peaceful life.
Once code is separated amongst multiple files, classes, function liibraries, etc, it will become difficult to follow.
My personal experience has shown that explanatory paragraphs and high-level steps should be in comments, and an explanatory logging statement per 1-3 lines of code with variable states will handle the rest. The best thing about the logging statements is the ability for someone to track a program's execution flow and truly see what is going on. Any decent logging framework will be able to optimize the code for debug vs. production execution as well.
Inheritance is overrated
on
Bitter Java
·
· Score: 1
I would argue the single most overused aspect of OOP is inheritence. I think it is well used if intelligently used in API sets such as Java, but the code that results from 5-deep levels of inheritance can be practically unreadable. Functions can be defined in any of five different levels, plus !OOPS! it happened to be overrided at level #3, changing its behavior.
It seems that designing an heirarchical inheritance structure that accomodates all future uses of the objects is next to impossible on the first run, and probably on the second (look how much java has played with its structures).
In java, I'm a one-trick pony with interfaces. I define interfaces for behavior, and leave inheritance to the dogs and java API developers. Helps out a lot with simple extensibility of systems. Class.forName() - manna from heaven!
But maybe that's just me.
I fail to see why SOAP exists except to bypass firewalls, since firewalls exist to restrict what calls/ports/protocols can be made in TCPIP. What will happen in two years will be a "firewall" system for SOAP calls, followed two years later by a new protocol to bypass that security layer, billed in an exciting acronym.
Repeat ad infinitum.
On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you could inform us about free software projects *established* in public bodies which have already been abandoned in favour of proprietary software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.
Granted this is on the heels of the bubble fusion article
But this is superlatively revolutionary. Take the two possible big-hit applications: massive energy efficiencies coupled with a 20-30% increase in photovotalic efficiency (read: reduced cost) and this is a big step toward alternative energy.
Imagine a mass-produced fuel cells and increased efficiency photovotalics with lighting generated by these things. Who needs a power company?
Apple lend a hand in this? Yeah, RIGHT.
Apple cowers before the shadow of MicroSoft. It won't lift an official finger to something that would hint at angering MS, like supporting a threat to the two pillars of MS's existence: OS and Office. Writing a cross-platform powerful office suite would only encourage the use of other open source software. Like Linux.
I finally downloaded Mozilla after all the hype.
Holy shit is it fast. It is noticeably quicker than IE.
I used to give a passing nod to people that said that IE is the best browser, back when it had Netscrape to deal with. No more.
They should get working on a PDA version. That space is ripe given MS's crappy CE browser, and don't get me started on AvantGo...
I think the #1 thing the Electrical Engineers out there are missing is the impact of data compression algorithms. I'll grant them for now that its less efficient (how about some numbers as to how inefficient it is), but with proper compression/decompression algorithms, the same signals today should be ten times smaller, or, the same frequency can broadcast 10 stations more than it used to.
That opens up a lot of space if the "property rights" aspects of transmission were shattered. If a concept like spread is used which fundamentally is less efficient but destroys the monopolies is implemented, I think data compression can bypass any inefficiencies.
This generation has been particularily bad. What does PS2/XBOX offer besides upgraded graphics? So far we have GTA 6, FF 25, Tony Hawk 8, and zero new ideas. XBOX has Oddworld 5 and clones of Gran Turismo and a FPS shooter.
The Nintendo-Super Nintendo jump was big solely because of the sheer beauty of the 16bit graphics. SNES->PSX was equally big due to the Polygon rendering. But the PS2 and XBOX are not that impressive, especially given the blatant rehashing of games.
And the entire business is just too blatantly corporate and hollywood at this point. People line up to buy platforms just to own one, software be damned. Everything is a sponsored hype machine.
I'll wait for the emulators.
"But there are hidden costs to Linux, Microsoft argues. "I think a lot of customers are lured by the apparent low price of Linux," said Doug Miller, director of competitive strategy for Microsoft's Windows division. "They don't have a real issue with Linux, but it ends up costing them in the long run."
Oh yes:
1. Linux as a core OS is EXTREMELY buggy and thus will require an expensive, disruptive OS upgrade when the next version comes around...or...not...
2. Linux doesn't adhere to open standards and thus in the long term its propietary standards require expensive custom integration products and a higher cost of systems integration...uhhmmmm....
3. With Linux you have to disruptively upgrade to the next version when it comes out since the previous version will be rendered useless by the office software that runs on top of it....hmmm...nope...
4. With Linux, your systems will gradually become useless since linux system upgrades will demand hardware upgrades with each release, especially since the existing software is so buggy and the newer, fixed versions are only available for the new version. So your IT hardware budget increases...well...
5. With Linux, each OS upgrade the speed decreases or stays the same while the size bloats beyond recognition and useless features are lumped in that decrease stability and you have no choice but to include them....I thought I read that somewhere...
Honestly, as a point of argument, can someone offer *SOME* rational devil's argument for this FUD comment?
The only evidence against linux desktop I saw was a bad spellchecker. Frankly, given the rapid rise in usability of Linux software, if the little things are the best that the author can criticize, then MS is in deep trouble. It may be winning individual software battles today, but it is still losing the war.
I think this article reflects a classic problem with one person analyzing a huge, multiheaded monster like Linux development as a whole. There are already HUGE amounts of people devoted to server development. Taking all the people on desktop and throwing them at the server side is not going to add all that much. Instead, Linux is battling a multifront guerilla war, and I think it is doing well. This guy falls into the "lets fight one front at a time" mental trap.
Who cares if there aren't a bazillion Linux companies out there? We only need one or two decent ones anyway. And that's more or less what the market has settled on.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't use IE. All these spyware manufacturers are aimed sqaurely at intentionally insecure IE and its ActiveX controls. Use Mozilla or Opera.
Consoles provide high-end graphics (at the time of their design) at much cheaper prices. More importantly, the games utilizing these graphics can optimize the hardware to 100% output (especially in later generations of game releases), since all the consoles have identical specs. Not so with PCs, which generally have wasted development time catering to different power levels, and can't fully optimize hardware. This has alleviated somewhat with the smaller numbers of 3D card manufacturers and the semi-standardization of APIs. Sure, if you're a billionaire, buy a new computer each month.
IF anything, although we may have another 1000x of performance coming our way, some sort of end may be near.
If that's the case, eventually we'll come around to having to code with efficiency in mind rather than speed of development.
And processors will have to be more efficient, since there won't be extra GHZ to pump out to get Wal-Mart patrons to buy your processors.
Although it has been a while since any killer software application has really stressed processor performance outside of scientific computation, unless you consider MPEG4 compression...hmmm, maybe I'm wrong there.
If they thought that was a tough nut to crack, wait till they try the other flavor of gnut.
Wow, #4 is a real killer point! I had my reservations about Freenet because I was concerned that the content that got distributed could be bad stuff that I wouldn't want on my drive regardless of encryption or the legal nature of the network, like say child porn (ugh). But if Freenet was used for IP addresses and maybe file indexes (not the content) only, that is a fantastic idea.
Many laughed, but enough didn't that you still know about them.
Unfortunately, science is polluted with callous egotism inherent to humanity, probably because it is funded by money and those that control it. However, in the end, these ideas were respected due to their validity.
You appear to confuse skepticism with blind dismissal. Skepticism filters out cold/bubble fusion, infinite energy cranks, anti-gravity, etc. If the ideas are valid, they will overcome skepticism.
If the grand conclusion is that we can't figure out all of the universe's behavior using our logical thinking processes, equation-based or automation-based, well, duh, that has been known for a long time. Assuming the quite likely case that the human brain is a form of a turing machine, it has been proven that those machines can't solve all problems.
I also cast my stone in with the skeptics of the "lone genius". Folks, the world of science is so complex, specialized, and developed these days that the days of Newton and Einstein holing up and shattering the universe with individually conceived theories are increasingly unlikely. Much like David Brin's essay on heroism versus democracy, significant science is advanced by collective effort, not by the singular mad genius. It is only our predilection to anoint kings and heroes which discredits those that lay the groundwork and trumpets the attention seekers, and gets them tenure and research grants.
30+ years? EXCUSE ME? People that work 30+ years can't say no to credit cards. Do you really need a fucking SUV? Or an 8-bedroom house? Does your chick really need breast implants? Do you really need that extra 10% of MHz? Its called saving and rational investment. If you really want to cut this short, don't have kids, and don't get divorced, or married. Want to be prostate to the man for 30 years? have fun. I'll be retired by age 35 in a modest and peaceful life.
Once code is separated amongst multiple files, classes, function liibraries, etc, it will become difficult to follow.
My personal experience has shown that explanatory paragraphs and high-level steps should be in comments, and an explanatory logging statement per 1-3 lines of code with variable states will handle the rest. The best thing about the logging statements is the ability for someone to track a program's execution flow and truly see what is going on. Any decent logging framework will be able to optimize the code for debug vs. production execution as well.
I would argue the single most overused aspect of OOP is inheritence. I think it is well used if intelligently used in API sets such as Java, but the code that results from 5-deep levels of inheritance can be practically unreadable. Functions can be defined in any of five different levels, plus !OOPS! it happened to be overrided at level #3, changing its behavior. It seems that designing an heirarchical inheritance structure that accomodates all future uses of the objects is next to impossible on the first run, and probably on the second (look how much java has played with its structures). In java, I'm a one-trick pony with interfaces. I define interfaces for behavior, and leave inheritance to the dogs and java API developers. Helps out a lot with simple extensibility of systems. Class.forName() - manna from heaven! But maybe that's just me.
I fail to see why SOAP exists except to bypass firewalls, since firewalls exist to restrict what calls/ports/protocols can be made in TCPIP. What will happen in two years will be a "firewall" system for SOAP calls, followed two years later by a new protocol to bypass that security layer, billed in an exciting acronym. Repeat ad infinitum.
On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you could inform us about free software projects *established* in public bodies which have already been abandoned in favour of proprietary software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.
Granted this is on the heels of the bubble fusion article
But this is superlatively revolutionary. Take the two possible big-hit applications: massive energy efficiencies coupled with a 20-30% increase in photovotalic efficiency (read: reduced cost) and this is a big step toward alternative energy.
Imagine a mass-produced fuel cells and increased efficiency photovotalics with lighting generated by these things. Who needs a power company?
After all, its open, out there, and not going anywhere.
Apple lend a hand in this? Yeah, RIGHT. Apple cowers before the shadow of MicroSoft. It won't lift an official finger to something that would hint at angering MS, like supporting a threat to the two pillars of MS's existence: OS and Office. Writing a cross-platform powerful office suite would only encourage the use of other open source software. Like Linux.
Don't they do 1600x1200 or whatever appropriate scale? Its a lot bigger and about the same cost, give or take 600 bucks.
I finally downloaded Mozilla after all the hype. Holy shit is it fast. It is noticeably quicker than IE. I used to give a passing nod to people that said that IE is the best browser, back when it had Netscrape to deal with. No more. They should get working on a PDA version. That space is ripe given MS's crappy CE browser, and don't get me started on AvantGo...
I think the #1 thing the Electrical Engineers out there are missing is the impact of data compression algorithms. I'll grant them for now that its less efficient (how about some numbers as to how inefficient it is), but with proper compression/decompression algorithms, the same signals today should be ten times smaller, or, the same frequency can broadcast 10 stations more than it used to. That opens up a lot of space if the "property rights" aspects of transmission were shattered. If a concept like spread is used which fundamentally is less efficient but destroys the monopolies is implemented, I think data compression can bypass any inefficiencies.
This generation has been particularily bad. What does PS2/XBOX offer besides upgraded graphics? So far we have GTA 6, FF 25, Tony Hawk 8, and zero new ideas. XBOX has Oddworld 5 and clones of Gran Turismo and a FPS shooter. The Nintendo-Super Nintendo jump was big solely because of the sheer beauty of the 16bit graphics. SNES->PSX was equally big due to the Polygon rendering. But the PS2 and XBOX are not that impressive, especially given the blatant rehashing of games. And the entire business is just too blatantly corporate and hollywood at this point. People line up to buy platforms just to own one, software be damned. Everything is a sponsored hype machine. I'll wait for the emulators.
Exceptions don't prove the rules. This dude's right on. All I have to say is.... ACCLAIM
"But there are hidden costs to Linux, Microsoft argues. "I think a lot of customers are lured by the apparent low price of Linux," said Doug Miller, director of competitive strategy for Microsoft's Windows division. "They don't have a real issue with Linux, but it ends up costing them in the long run." Oh yes: 1. Linux as a core OS is EXTREMELY buggy and thus will require an expensive, disruptive OS upgrade when the next version comes around...or...not... 2. Linux doesn't adhere to open standards and thus in the long term its propietary standards require expensive custom integration products and a higher cost of systems integration...uhhmmmm.... 3. With Linux you have to disruptively upgrade to the next version when it comes out since the previous version will be rendered useless by the office software that runs on top of it....hmmm...nope... 4. With Linux, your systems will gradually become useless since linux system upgrades will demand hardware upgrades with each release, especially since the existing software is so buggy and the newer, fixed versions are only available for the new version. So your IT hardware budget increases...well... 5. With Linux, each OS upgrade the speed decreases or stays the same while the size bloats beyond recognition and useless features are lumped in that decrease stability and you have no choice but to include them....I thought I read that somewhere... Honestly, as a point of argument, can someone offer *SOME* rational devil's argument for this FUD comment?
The only evidence against linux desktop I saw was a bad spellchecker. Frankly, given the rapid rise in usability of Linux software, if the little things are the best that the author can criticize, then MS is in deep trouble. It may be winning individual software battles today, but it is still losing the war. I think this article reflects a classic problem with one person analyzing a huge, multiheaded monster like Linux development as a whole. There are already HUGE amounts of people devoted to server development. Taking all the people on desktop and throwing them at the server side is not going to add all that much. Instead, Linux is battling a multifront guerilla war, and I think it is doing well. This guy falls into the "lets fight one front at a time" mental trap. Who cares if there aren't a bazillion Linux companies out there? We only need one or two decent ones anyway. And that's more or less what the market has settled on.