Another good reason for the guide is to aid those of use who love to game but just are short on time. Example : I purchased the guides to the 2 Zelda games on the N64. Both games have 100+ hours of gameplay potentially, time that I just don't have to invest. By sitting down with the guide, I was able to enjoy running around the worlds completing all of the quests and finding all of the items without taking months to do it (playing a few hours a week, here).
For long, complex games a guide can be invaluable to people like me. Now for games like FPSs or RPGs, I question the usefulness unless you need maps of every level. Then again, the EQ guide was great with the maps of each city to help you get around in a foreign place...
So why not run to Wal-Mart (assuming you're in the US) and purchase a super cheap inkjet printer. I'm sure your daughter could use it for school, you could use it for work, and you can just print the FAQs at low quality to conserve ink. I would imagine after several guide prints you will begin recouping your investment.
I just logged on. Windows Update popped up and presented the DirecX flaw update, and it wasn't 11MB. I don't know the exact size, but it downloaded and installed in under a minute or two.
Quit being an idealist and live in the real world here. Linux may be born to do whatever the hell you want it to, but that doesn't change the fact that a customer needs Windows solutions. If a client comes to you asking for help with their Windows systems and you stand there and say "use OSS instead", then you're down one client probably AT LEAST 95% of the time. Maybe a small minority will want to listen to what you have to say, but more than likely they just want to roll with what they have.
This company doesn't have money for a new beefy server. So what makes anyone here think that this company has the money to:
1) Take down all of their current systems and install Linux or something similar.
2) Spend the next several months learning an operating system and related tools that the IT staff may not have experience with.
3) Spend the time and money to get rid of all of the Microsoft technologies that they use such as Exchange/Outlook, Active Directory, IIS, etc. The TCO is more than just the price of the free software. You have to make sure that you can swap out technologies without impacting your customers or your employees.
4) Spend the money to train the current staff and/or hire new expertise to administer the new systems.
The guy at the top that told the parent to basically STFU is right..NET is a real world technology that TONS of companies are moving towards. Whether you Slashbots like it or not, this is the way that many of our customers are heading. Answer this guy's question to help him out as a fellow Slashdotter or keep your religious preachings to yourself.
To close, I want someone to respond to this post that has successfully walked into a company that was strapped for cash and wanted some Windows solutions, but then suggested using OSS instead and had the company buy into it. And I'm not talking about your brother's donut shop either, I mean a REAL customer with, say, a minimum of 100 users on a Windows network using AD, Exchange, etc. I think it's only fair to hear the success stories to give some validation to this argument.
My neighbor picked up one of these and has loved it. The noise output isn't too bad, either. But one thing I'm surprised at is the lack of a review of the Sony DRU* drives. CD Freaks forum members praise this drive over and over, especially since it burns both +R[W] and -R[W] discs. The price isn't too outrageous anymore for a solid drive that burns most any type of media. We burn hundreds of DVDs each week here at the office with little or no problem on our Sony.
I am not 100% sure, but I believe the System.Xml namespace in C# uses DOM. Which is sad because an article a few months back in Windows Developer Journal cited a test where MSXML was the slowest parser around. I believe it was Xerces that ran the fastest.
As mentioned above, we use std::wstring as the storage mechanism (which isolates developers from the dreaded BSTR that MSXML uses. Ick.), but beware because that isolates your non-C++ users from the interface. We're looking at moving our business rule-enforcing parser to C# for better compatibility between.NET, COM and pure C++ applications.
What are you talking about? I asked for a blow job from a Playboy centerfold when I was 13, and I've been put on hold for the last 15 years. I think it's time for a management change.
The same Java code works on many more platforms than.NET. Despite.NET porting efforts, there are still large chunks of the Framework missing. Java has some inconsistencies, but that's all they are.
And working 8 hours a day (which is unlikely if you're a top developer -- there's always crunch mode!) then going home and working another X hours on a game or mod is better? You're still working the same number of hours (maybe more), but you're not getting paid to do what you love full-time.
Most game developers take the lower pay for the risk of nice royalties on a AAA game some day in the future. They would rather devote all of their time to a "hobby" than relegate it to a side project that gets a fraction of their attention.
Classic headers (iostream.h, string.h, etc.) were deprecated in the 1998 Standard. You've had 5 years to remove them from your code. If you still have problems because you move to the latest compiler but don't move your code to the latest standards, then you have no one to blame but yourself. Well, maybe your manager, in which case I forgive you.
Also, OT, but I agree. My wife and I saw one once that said something like, "Woman in Florida finds out husband is cheating and has access to a wood chipper." WTF? Good old Dish Network summaries!
Show me a D&D-playing college student (that's hardcore about it) with a 4.0 and I'll give you my ocean front property just outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
I'm sure there are tons of us that wish we could do some kind of class action lawsuit like the tobacco addicts. D&D killed our GPA! As did Warcraft II, Quake, MUDs, etc. I think females were in there somewhere, but I can't really remember.
I built my current house so I started off at an advantage, but here are a few ideas that I tossed around. Before the list, let me point out that running your cable while a house is in frame stage is the way to go.:^)
1. Run small PVC pipes from the gang boxes to the attic. This gets you a way to drop cables easily without the need to figure out how many layers of frame you need to bore through to get a route.
2. If your house is already done, go up in the attic and punch out the triple-expanding foam that's usually holding wires in place (at the top of a frame section for your wall, ie). Attach a piece of fish wire (or string) to the current cable; pull the cable and the fish wire through with your new cable attached. Pull the old cable and fish wire back out. This is a nice pain in the ass, but it worked for me getting a new network jack dropped in my closet (for the WAP).
3. Pop boxes are your friend. They're super cheap at your local huge-ass hardware store. Take a Dremel tool and cut the drywall shape out for the box. Pop it in. Voila! Instant gang box.
4. Air ducts can work, but you will need to punch holes in the tubes in your attic potentially (to get the cables out). There are all sorts of expanding foam options that will seal the hole around the cable.
5. If you are building the house, ask the electrician to add outlets in closets and other obscure places. This will allow you the freedom to store servers, WAPs, switches, etc. If you're building the house, you can usually just go nail a gang box where you want it, label it as needing electrical wire and they'll wire before the house is drywalled. NEVER ask the builder to add them; ours charged $80 per outlet! A 24 case of Budweiser to the subcontractors will get you as many extra outlets as you can handle.
Bingo. If an artist puts out an album full of quality songs, then they don't have to worry about people only downloading a song or two from their latest release.
On another note : singles have been available for...well, probably for the duration of the recording industry. They just weren't $.99 unless you found them on sale. Now that you can get them on the cheap, big rich rock stars don't like that.
Now, for Linkin Park, these guys have no room to bitch. They got noticed by UPLOADING SONGS IN DIGITAL FORMAT and posting on other bands' web forums asking their fans to try out their music. And now their bitching about the same-style format that got them where they are today. What a whiny bunch of prats.
One last thing for these artists : radio stations. They don't play your whole fucking album once an hour; why should I be forced to buy your whole album just because I hear the one song I like? Guys, keep biting the hand that feeds you because I already reach into my wallet less and less these days to buy music, especially from people who dictate to their customers how they should buy and listen to what they pay for.
Sure, it's more expensive to hire both testers and developers, but I'd bet that of your 30 or so developers, you could fire 10 of them and hire 15 testers for the same cost, and still have enough man power for development while increasing your code quality from rigorous testing.
Osty, you're exactly right. Sometimes we just have to make do. The few of us decent programmers hope for a day when the management gets the stones to get rid of the dead weight. My company is like many others : keeping your job is at least 50% politics, 50% performance. And sometimes the management shows complete ineptitude when evaluating either. I just keep chugging along hoping that I can help the change someday. Or the job market turns around for the better, whichever comes first!
Sometimes it's not egos that cause a lack of eyes but time. I would love to spend more time as a team collaborating on code, but I barely have enough time to get my own modules written and tested. Then there's also the problem of talent -- most of the people in my development department are VB programmers. I wouldn't want them looking and evaluating my C++ if my job depended on it. Well, maybe then, but I would at least throw a fit! Add to it that we don't really have a talent pool for reviews and you're stuck with a problem that plagues all too many companies these days : lots of coders that create crappy code.
I would think the opposite -- that there are more (talented?) eyes looking at OS projects than CS projects. Many times closed projects have several developers, but only one ever sees a particular module at any given time. At my current company, we have 30 or so developers, but the modules I write are owned by me and usually only seen by me. Peer review sessions can alleviate this, but those are generally short and cover major functionality. With OSS, you have an untold number of eyes viewing a project that can help catch problems in a more timely manner.
The theory that your best work will be done when the most eyes are watching can also apply. I think we (developers) are all guilty of shoving some nasty code in a project at some time or another under the notion that no one else will ever see it. When the whole world can look at your work, sometimes those attitudes change.
I think it has more to do with the media of a newspaper. There are op-ed columns and places designed for response from both targeted parties and the everyday citizen wishing to express an opinion. Blogs don't follow this same style and I don't think they were ever intended to do so. It's a way for a single person (usually) to voice their opinions on matters of interest. If a particular blog has a forum constructed for feedback, then that's how an offended party should respond.
Other media forms that don't require the publication of a party's response:
1. Television. Commericals bash competing products all the time yet aren't required to air a dissenting opinion. It's up to the other party to formulate and publish their own response.
2. Radio. Same as above. Even further, stations themselves (and the DJs) often trash-talk about the other stations in a broadcast market. There's nothing that says they have to give air time to the competition to respond to their heresay.
I think it's sad that lawmakers can't treat new media outlets as NEW, avoiding comparision to the old and attempting to impose laws based on unapplicable standards from a differing venue. Hopefully some key lobbyists will help right this ship and prevent it from setting a precedent that we all come to regret and loathe.
The opposite was true. These two places called Sodom and Gommorah. Unfortunately the Christian God burned them to the ground and now all we're left with is Persian Kitty and a bunch of pop-up ads.
Slashdot Mirror
Another good reason for the guide is to aid those of use who love to game but just are short on time. Example : I purchased the guides to the 2 Zelda games on the N64. Both games have 100+ hours of gameplay potentially, time that I just don't have to invest. By sitting down with the guide, I was able to enjoy running around the worlds completing all of the quests and finding all of the items without taking months to do it (playing a few hours a week, here).
For long, complex games a guide can be invaluable to people like me. Now for games like FPSs or RPGs, I question the usefulness unless you need maps of every level. Then again, the EQ guide was great with the maps of each city to help you get around in a foreign place...
So why not run to Wal-Mart (assuming you're in the US) and purchase a super cheap inkjet printer. I'm sure your daughter could use it for school, you could use it for work, and you can just print the FAQs at low quality to conserve ink. I would imagine after several guide prints you will begin recouping your investment.
Maybe then they can call the mountain Mons Pubis.
ahem.
I just logged on. Windows Update popped up and presented the DirecX flaw update, and it wasn't 11MB. I don't know the exact size, but it downloaded and installed in under a minute or two.
Let there be singing in the street! MS could be struck down! Oh happy day! May their quivering entrails be picked apart by Sun, MS, and IBM.
Uh, so you want them to pick apart their own entrails? I've heard of eating your own dog food, but I think that's pushing it a bit...
Then again, maybe that's how they have survived : getting killed then reincarnating themselves over and over to take all of the marketshare.
Quit being an idealist and live in the real world here. Linux may be born to do whatever the hell you want it to, but that doesn't change the fact that a customer needs Windows solutions. If a client comes to you asking for help with their Windows systems and you stand there and say "use OSS instead", then you're down one client probably AT LEAST 95% of the time. Maybe a small minority will want to listen to what you have to say, but more than likely they just want to roll with what they have.
:
.NET is a real world technology that TONS of companies are moving towards. Whether you Slashbots like it or not, this is the way that many of our customers are heading. Answer this guy's question to help him out as a fellow Slashdotter or keep your religious preachings to yourself.
This company doesn't have money for a new beefy server. So what makes anyone here think that this company has the money to
1) Take down all of their current systems and install Linux or something similar.
2) Spend the next several months learning an operating system and related tools that the IT staff may not have experience with.
3) Spend the time and money to get rid of all of the Microsoft technologies that they use such as Exchange/Outlook, Active Directory, IIS, etc. The TCO is more than just the price of the free software. You have to make sure that you can swap out technologies without impacting your customers or your employees.
4) Spend the money to train the current staff and/or hire new expertise to administer the new systems.
The guy at the top that told the parent to basically STFU is right.
To close, I want someone to respond to this post that has successfully walked into a company that was strapped for cash and wanted some Windows solutions, but then suggested using OSS instead and had the company buy into it. And I'm not talking about your brother's donut shop either, I mean a REAL customer with, say, a minimum of 100 users on a Windows network using AD, Exchange, etc. I think it's only fair to hear the success stories to give some validation to this argument.
My neighbor picked up one of these and has loved it. The noise output isn't too bad, either. But one thing I'm surprised at is the lack of a review of the Sony DRU* drives. CD Freaks forum members praise this drive over and over, especially since it burns both +R[W] and -R[W] discs. The price isn't too outrageous anymore for a solid drive that burns most any type of media. We burn hundreds of DVDs each week here at the office with little or no problem on our Sony.
I am not 100% sure, but I believe the System.Xml namespace in C# uses DOM. Which is sad because an article a few months back in Windows Developer Journal cited a test where MSXML was the slowest parser around. I believe it was Xerces that ran the fastest.
.NET, COM and pure C++ applications.
As mentioned above, we use std::wstring as the storage mechanism (which isolates developers from the dreaded BSTR that MSXML uses. Ick.), but beware because that isolates your non-C++ users from the interface. We're looking at moving our business rule-enforcing parser to C# for better compatibility between
What are you talking about? I asked for a blow job from a Playboy centerfold when I was 13, and I've been put on hold for the last 15 years. I think it's time for a management change.
The same Java code works on many more platforms than .NET. Despite .NET porting efforts, there are still large chunks of the Framework missing. Java has some inconsistencies, but that's all they are.
And working 8 hours a day (which is unlikely if you're a top developer -- there's always crunch mode!) then going home and working another X hours on a game or mod is better? You're still working the same number of hours (maybe more), but you're not getting paid to do what you love full-time.
Most game developers take the lower pay for the risk of nice royalties on a AAA game some day in the future. They would rather devote all of their time to a "hobby" than relegate it to a side project that gets a fraction of their attention.
Actually, we've started using a new language here at the office called Db. It's pretty much the same thing as C#.
Classic headers (iostream.h, string.h, etc.) were deprecated in the 1998 Standard. You've had 5 years to remove them from your code. If you still have problems because you move to the latest compiler but don't move your code to the latest standards, then you have no one to blame but yourself. Well, maybe your manager, in which case I forgive you.
Also, OT, but I agree. My wife and I saw one once that said something like, "Woman in Florida finds out husband is cheating and has access to a wood chipper." WTF? Good old Dish Network summaries!
Show me a D&D-playing college student (that's hardcore about it) with a 4.0 and I'll give you my ocean front property just outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
I'm sure there are tons of us that wish we could do some kind of class action lawsuit like the tobacco addicts. D&D killed our GPA! As did Warcraft II, Quake, MUDs, etc. I think females were in there somewhere, but I can't really remember.
I've even heard of a high school kid building an atomic bomb and passing it off as hamsters. Just don't, for God's sake, use 110 camera flash bulbs in the trigger mechanism.
I built my current house so I started off at an advantage, but here are a few ideas that I tossed around. Before the list, let me point out that running your cable while a house is in frame stage is the way to go. :^)
1. Run small PVC pipes from the gang boxes to the attic. This gets you a way to drop cables easily without the need to figure out how many layers of frame you need to bore through to get a route.
2. If your house is already done, go up in the attic and punch out the triple-expanding foam that's usually holding wires in place (at the top of a frame section for your wall, ie). Attach a piece of fish wire (or string) to the current cable; pull the cable and the fish wire through with your new cable attached. Pull the old cable and fish wire back out. This is a nice pain in the ass, but it worked for me getting a new network jack dropped in my closet (for the WAP).
3. Pop boxes are your friend. They're super cheap at your local huge-ass hardware store. Take a Dremel tool and cut the drywall shape out for the box. Pop it in. Voila! Instant gang box.
4. Air ducts can work, but you will need to punch holes in the tubes in your attic potentially (to get the cables out). There are all sorts of expanding foam options that will seal the hole around the cable.
5. If you are building the house, ask the electrician to add outlets in closets and other obscure places. This will allow you the freedom to store servers, WAPs, switches, etc. If you're building the house, you can usually just go nail a gang box where you want it, label it as needing electrical wire and they'll wire before the house is drywalled. NEVER ask the builder to add them; ours charged $80 per outlet! A 24 case of Budweiser to the subcontractors will get you as many extra outlets as you can handle.
Happy cabling!
Bingo. If an artist puts out an album full of quality songs, then they don't have to worry about people only downloading a song or two from their latest release.
On another note : singles have been available for...well, probably for the duration of the recording industry. They just weren't $.99 unless you found them on sale. Now that you can get them on the cheap, big rich rock stars don't like that.
Now, for Linkin Park, these guys have no room to bitch. They got noticed by UPLOADING SONGS IN DIGITAL FORMAT and posting on other bands' web forums asking their fans to try out their music. And now their bitching about the same-style format that got them where they are today. What a whiny bunch of prats.
One last thing for these artists : radio stations. They don't play your whole fucking album once an hour; why should I be forced to buy your whole album just because I hear the one song I like? Guys, keep biting the hand that feeds you because I already reach into my wallet less and less these days to buy music, especially from people who dictate to their customers how they should buy and listen to what they pay for.
Sure, it's more expensive to hire both testers and developers, but I'd bet that of your 30 or so developers, you could fire 10 of them and hire 15 testers for the same cost, and still have enough man power for development while increasing your code quality from rigorous testing.
Osty, you're exactly right. Sometimes we just have to make do. The few of us decent programmers hope for a day when the management gets the stones to get rid of the dead weight. My company is like many others : keeping your job is at least 50% politics, 50% performance. And sometimes the management shows complete ineptitude when evaluating either. I just keep chugging along hoping that I can help the change someday. Or the job market turns around for the better, whichever comes first!
Sometimes it's not egos that cause a lack of eyes but time. I would love to spend more time as a team collaborating on code, but I barely have enough time to get my own modules written and tested. Then there's also the problem of talent -- most of the people in my development department are VB programmers. I wouldn't want them looking and evaluating my C++ if my job depended on it. Well, maybe then, but I would at least throw a fit! Add to it that we don't really have a talent pool for reviews and you're stuck with a problem that plagues all too many companies these days : lots of coders that create crappy code.
I would think the opposite -- that there are more (talented?) eyes looking at OS projects than CS projects. Many times closed projects have several developers, but only one ever sees a particular module at any given time. At my current company, we have 30 or so developers, but the modules I write are owned by me and usually only seen by me. Peer review sessions can alleviate this, but those are generally short and cover major functionality. With OSS, you have an untold number of eyes viewing a project that can help catch problems in a more timely manner.
The theory that your best work will be done when the most eyes are watching can also apply. I think we (developers) are all guilty of shoving some nasty code in a project at some time or another under the notion that no one else will ever see it. When the whole world can look at your work, sometimes those attitudes change.
Nonpotable is the word I think you're looking for. Not trying to be a rude grammar nazi, just trying to help out.
Who said that? Steve Romero?
I think it has more to do with the media of a newspaper. There are op-ed columns and places designed for response from both targeted parties and the everyday citizen wishing to express an opinion. Blogs don't follow this same style and I don't think they were ever intended to do so. It's a way for a single person (usually) to voice their opinions on matters of interest. If a particular blog has a forum constructed for feedback, then that's how an offended party should respond.
:
Other media forms that don't require the publication of a party's response
1. Television. Commericals bash competing products all the time yet aren't required to air a dissenting opinion. It's up to the other party to formulate and publish their own response.
2. Radio. Same as above. Even further, stations themselves (and the DJs) often trash-talk about the other stations in a broadcast market. There's nothing that says they have to give air time to the competition to respond to their heresay.
I think it's sad that lawmakers can't treat new media outlets as NEW, avoiding comparision to the old and attempting to impose laws based on unapplicable standards from a differing venue. Hopefully some key lobbyists will help right this ship and prevent it from setting a precedent that we all come to regret and loathe.
The opposite was true. These two places called Sodom and Gommorah. Unfortunately the Christian God burned them to the ground and now all we're left with is Persian Kitty and a bunch of pop-up ads.