a review I read showed a 400Mhz XScale performing at 50%-75% the speed of a 206MHz Strongarm chip. I would be really interested in some none OS specific tests that showed whether or not the XScale offers any performance benifit whatsoever - I know that it is supposed to scale to 1Ghz and has better battery life than the 206Mhz Arms but if it NEEDS to run at 800MHz just to perform at the same level as its older sibling then it is a waste of space.
"It's not trivial, there are a lot of interesting issues and tradeoffs that come up in designing such a class, and most books screw it up. "
I certainly dont recall being given a grounding on the issues regarding the implimentation when I learned C and thus I thought I knew what I needed to know when I learned C++. How wrong I was;) Good article to say the least.
Yes I remembered how a linked list works, yes I vaguely remembered how to implement it; but could I have implemented it well or quickly without having brushed up on it? Probably not.
Does that make me a bad programmer? Maybe. However if I HAD to implement a linked list I know enough NOT to do it "ex nihilo" - there is more than enough literature out there for me to review and do the job well rather that relying on what I thought I knew. If I didn't do the above then I would consider myself a bad programmer.
There are many ways of solving problems peeps. An exam (or interview) allows people to only solve problems using minimal resources (IQ & memory). While I'm sure that most programmers have incredible IQs, eidetic memory etc; lesser gifted individuals such as myself have to make do with curiosity, dedication, hard-work and well thumbed books. Yup - I sometimes get pounded into the ground in exam conditions (and interviews that attempt to recreate exam conditions). However in the real world people like me are the ones creating rock solid programs and systems based on tried and tested techniques because there is one thing we DO know for certain:- We dont know it all and what we do know someone might know how to do better.
BTW, here's a suggestion. Next round of interviews give people a written test to complete before the interview. Make it hard - as hard as possible. In fact get someone else to create one that even YOU cant answer. Then do your normal interview. I guarantee you'll get a better sense of a candidates strengths rather than just discovering their weakness's. Which is what many interviews (and exams) fail to achieve.
Funnily enough in the last 6 years of programming (C++) I have never ONCE had to write a linked list...mainly because I have a set of reliable containers available via the STL. In fact if I hadn't have been giving myself a refresher on C++ recently I wouldn't be able to do this myself. Waaaaaay back when I was coding in C I STILL wouldn't have been able to do it without resorting to a reference book because I had a set of libraries which implemented this. Its something I did ONCE when learning C and have NEVER had to impliment myself again.
And this is the problem with coding/programming/interviews/tests these days.
There are so many things we now will do ONCE and then never touch again because technology/jobs move on. All a test/interview shows is what a candidate may know about a narrow topic area at a given time. It shows NOTHING about their ability to solve problems in real world conditions under their own recognisance.
If youre going to judge how good candidates are based upon something that they may not have touched since graduation then I suggest you stop looking for senior developers and start hiring graduates who have more recent experience in the subject area you are testing; rather than the diverse areas which they should have.
1) Competition. Some company WILL offer uncapped access at a reasonable price. Remember the reason that most existing companies are in this mess was because of paying STUPID amounts of money in order to expand.
2) Technology. When a technology becomes widely available offering uploads/downloads at 10+ mbps ( some 5-10 years away maybe) that 5/10/20GB per month cap suddenly looks STUPID. So the cap moves to oldcap * X...and it becomes trivial again to freely fileshare.
I really cant believe that a Labour government is pushing this legislation through. And mean it - I cant believe it. Its so frikkin broad based that the local fire station could read my email. If I didnt know better I'd swear that Ken Livingstone had taken over as PM....The UK government has such a large majority that it will probably get passed and sadly we cant trust the House of Lords to vote it down.
This is just going to be abused so badly by sick power-hungry little Hitlers....best be REALLY careful not to annoy some jumped up little beaurocrat in the UK.
Definately time for the UK to become a republic AND labour to have their asses handed to them come the next election. Grrrrr!!
Re:$1 for what ? - no thanks - it's just plain dum
on
Live from Iran, Film88
·
· Score: 1
It costs me in the order of $5.50 to rent a DVD or video - $9.00 to go see a film (Im in the UK).
$1 dollar for a low quality streaming video...GREAT!!! I'll even go out and BUY DVD versions of the films I think are good so that I can get the quality.
I so wish Hollywood would WAKE UP!!
Typical slashdot moderation modin this down as a troll. He/She is 90% RIGHT!! One of the biggest problems open source development faces is mutiplication of effort towards the same goal which is one of the reasons that (and I know many will disagree ) IMO MS has a far superior desktop product.
One of the only reasons Open Source development has worked so far is that Linux supports modular development allowing some prity impressive applications to be put together; however in the case of desktop environments we are seeing the limitations of what can be accomplished with this approach. The XWindows desktop that I am using now, is NOT that much more superior to the one that I was using in 1994; Yes there are more apps, different apps and some better apps but compare 1994 XWindows desktop and a 1994 Windows desktop to a 2002 XWindows and Windows desktop.
Seriously it has been MS who have made the huge improvements whereas with XWindows you may just find yourself wondering what anyone has actually DONE in development terms over the last 8 years.
the xbox lasts 5 years then it IS actually possible that a large number of owners WILL buy those 20-30 titles. Put simply the XBoxs greatest advantage is the ability to port PC games to it quickly and easily...smaller development teams to do this means a greater ROI for those titles that have done the port. In theory this will mean cheaper titles for the XBox appearing very quickly and a distinct possibility that the number of available titles will outstrip those available for any other console.
Yup, couldnt agree more. I've actually SERIOUSLY looked at setting up a company that deals exclusivly in MS to Linux migrations and the technical issues are not major - the major hurdles are 1) Training and 2) loss in productivity of which 2 is by far the largest deterent to any company looking to make the switch. However the ROI is significant over 3 years plus due to the lower TCO.
I hope this bill gets passed. The REAL upshot of it will be that peeps outside of the US will buy equipment from Asia & the EU (that will circumvent copy protection messures) and avoid US manufacturers altogether. And many within the US will import and still keep rippin and warezin.
As it is the USA has garnered a lot of bad feeling interneationally since Bush came to power, and I for one am sick of the USA attempting to thrust its legislation down my throught. Dont get me wrong - America is a great country with many fine people - but your politics SUCK!!
Go ahead, do it - see if the rest of the world gives a shit as the US economy goes into a nose dive!!
1) It has some VERY fancy graphics tricks up its sleave. 2) 16xFSAA 3) 3 Head support for "surround gaming" which appears to be supported by the driver rather than requiring the developers to support it. 4) Support for 256mb of DDR ram.
The rumours I've head about this card are that its also FAST enough to give nvida some competition. Hopefully tom will have some benchmarks soon:)
Im obviously missing something here.How is he switching from "rouge wave" to the STL exactly? Serious question - what product do they produce?
I *think* I've been using the ROGUE wave STL for years - it was purchased by Borland and incorporated into C++ Builder. If you want a good implimentation of the STL thats the product I'd recommend. VC6 STL support stank to high heaven if I recall correctly and I'm not sure how it fairs in the latest version.
Speed isnt an issue with Builder, code bloat could be but there are ways to minimise the impact and the documentaion in relation to the STL is *excellent*.
Actually I think writting off 3rd world debt and for developed countrys ( the USA especially ) to spend a larger percentage of their GDP on third world aid would be a little more help than Jesus in this situation.
What a piece of garbage - does ANYONE seriously believe that a piece of "technology" such as SOAP would have a royalty placed on it?
Both MS and IBM are bright enough to realise that it isnt THAT good and that if they attempted such a move whichever protocol in question would just be swapped out for some other propriety protocol without the licensing fees. The high costs of commercial ORBs have been enough to keep CORBA away from being a widly used technology for years, any form of additional licensing on any protocol/standard will have exactly the same effect.
As unexpressive as you can be with out templates (fixed in the next java releas, 1.5 will have templates)
Oh no - not another damn release which is virtually unusable for those of us who actually need Javas preported cross platform compatability. I'm still targeting 1.1.8 when writting my code and its getting VERY difficult to check exactly *which* version of Java a method was introduced in. IMO the lack of true cross platform compatability is why many of us who really need it WILL switch to C# (and I cant believe I'm writting that either).
Heh I've already done this and writting a small application isnt the problem. Is the damn size of Java that hurts. Oh and startup is under 1 second on a 206Mhz Arm.
Slashdot Mirror
Typical. found it
:-
I was off in my above assessment BTW. Snippit from the French
A small video test under Pocket TV as a proof: Ipaq @ 206: 23 Fps Xscale @ 400: 19 Fps! Xscale @ 200: 14 Fps!!
a review I read showed a 400Mhz XScale performing at 50%-75% the speed of a 206MHz Strongarm chip. I would be really interested in some none OS specific tests that showed whether or not the XScale offers any performance benifit whatsoever - I know that it is supposed to scale to 1Ghz and has better battery life than the 206Mhz Arms but if it NEEDS to run at 800MHz just to perform at the same level as its older sibling then it is a waste of space.
"It's not trivial, there are a lot of interesting issues and tradeoffs that come up in designing such a class, and most books screw it up. "
;) Good article to say the least.
I certainly dont recall being given a grounding on the issues regarding the implimentation when I learned C and thus I thought I knew what I needed to know when I learned C++. How wrong I was
Ouches :)
Yes I remembered how a linked list works, yes I vaguely remembered how to implement it; but could I have implemented it well or quickly without having brushed up on it? Probably not.
Does that make me a bad programmer? Maybe. However if I HAD to implement a linked list I know enough NOT to do it "ex nihilo" - there is more than enough literature out there for me to review and do the job well rather that relying on what I thought I knew. If I didn't do the above then I would consider myself a bad programmer.
There are many ways of solving problems peeps. An exam (or interview) allows people to only solve problems using minimal resources (IQ & memory). While I'm sure that most programmers have incredible IQs, eidetic memory etc; lesser gifted individuals such as myself have to make do with curiosity, dedication, hard-work and well thumbed books. Yup - I sometimes get pounded into the ground in exam conditions (and interviews that attempt to recreate exam conditions). However in the real world people like me are the ones creating rock solid programs and systems based on tried and tested techniques because there is one thing we DO know for certain :- We dont know it all and what we do know someone might know how to do better.
BTW, here's a suggestion. Next round of interviews give people a written test to complete before the interview. Make it hard - as hard as possible. In fact get someone else to create one that even YOU cant answer. Then do your normal interview. I guarantee you'll get a better sense of a candidates strengths rather than just discovering their weakness's. Which is what many interviews (and exams) fail to achieve.
Funnily enough in the last 6 years of programming (C++) I have never ONCE had to write a linked list ...mainly because I have a set of reliable containers available via the STL. In fact if I hadn't have been giving myself a refresher on C++ recently I wouldn't be able to do this myself. Waaaaaay back when I was coding in C I STILL wouldn't have been able to do it without resorting to a reference book because I had a set of libraries which implemented this. Its something I did ONCE when learning C and have NEVER had to impliment myself again.
And this is the problem with coding/programming/interviews/tests these days.
There are so many things we now will do ONCE and then never touch again because technology/jobs move on. All a test/interview shows is what a candidate may know about a narrow topic area at a given time. It shows NOTHING about their ability to solve problems in real world conditions under their own recognisance.
If youre going to judge how good candidates are based upon something that they may not have touched since graduation then I suggest you stop looking for senior developers and start hiring graduates who have more recent experience in the subject area you are testing; rather than the diverse areas which they should have.
1) Competition. Some company WILL offer uncapped access at a reasonable price. Remember the reason that most existing companies are in this mess was because of paying STUPID amounts of money in order to expand.
2) Technology. When a technology becomes widely available offering uploads/downloads at 10+ mbps ( some 5-10 years away maybe) that 5/10/20GB per month cap suddenly looks STUPID. So the cap moves to oldcap * X...and it becomes trivial again to freely fileshare.
I really cant believe that a Labour government is pushing this legislation through. And mean it - I cant believe it. Its so frikkin broad based that the local fire station could read my email. If I didnt know better I'd swear that Ken Livingstone had taken over as PM....The UK government has such a large majority that it will probably get passed and sadly we cant trust the House of Lords to vote it down.
This is just going to be abused so badly by sick power-hungry little Hitlers....best be REALLY careful not to annoy some jumped up little beaurocrat in the UK.
Definately time for the UK to become a republic AND labour to have their asses handed to them come the next election. Grrrrr!!
It costs me in the order of $5.50 to rent a DVD or video - $9.00 to go see a film (Im in the UK). $1 dollar for a low quality streaming video...GREAT!!! I'll even go out and BUY DVD versions of the films I think are good so that I can get the quality. I so wish Hollywood would WAKE UP!!
Half way through a film as well - looks like webservers and streaming servers went down simultaniously *sob*.
I hope it reappears - this is a BRILLIANT service which I wish I could get ligitimately.
OT I know but....
Wow! Not only a coward but a moron as well.
I suggest you and the other 500 morons with PHDs just "check out" period before you do any more damage.
Typical slashdot moderation modin this down as a troll. He/She is 90% RIGHT!! One of the biggest problems open source development faces is mutiplication of effort towards the same goal which is one of the reasons that (and I know many will disagree ) IMO MS has a far superior desktop product.
One of the only reasons Open Source development has worked so far is that Linux supports modular development allowing some prity impressive applications to be put together; however in the case of desktop environments we are seeing the limitations of what can be accomplished with this approach. The XWindows desktop that I am using now, is NOT that much more superior to the one that I was using in 1994; Yes there are more apps, different apps and some better apps but compare 1994 XWindows desktop and a 1994 Windows desktop to a 2002 XWindows and Windows desktop.
Seriously it has been MS who have made the huge improvements whereas with XWindows you may just find yourself wondering what anyone has actually DONE in development terms over the last 8 years.
the xbox lasts 5 years then it IS actually possible that a large number of owners WILL buy those 20-30 titles. Put simply the XBoxs greatest advantage is the ability to port PC games to it quickly and easily...smaller development teams to do this means a greater ROI for those titles that have done the port. In theory this will mean cheaper titles for the XBox appearing very quickly and a distinct possibility that the number of available titles will outstrip those available for any other console.
Dont write MS off too quickly...
Yup, couldnt agree more. I've actually SERIOUSLY looked at setting up a company that deals exclusivly in MS to Linux migrations and the technical issues are not major - the major hurdles are 1) Training and 2) loss in productivity of which 2 is by far the largest deterent to any company looking to make the switch. However the ROI is significant over 3 years plus due to the lower TCO.
Link
Worried execs decided to announce the launch of the GeForce 5 later this year.
I kid you not!!!
I hope this bill gets passed. The REAL upshot of it will be that peeps outside of the US will buy equipment from Asia & the EU (that will circumvent copy protection messures) and avoid US manufacturers altogether. And many within the US will import and still keep rippin and warezin.
As it is the USA has garnered a lot of bad feeling interneationally since Bush came to power, and I for one am sick of the USA attempting to thrust its legislation down my throught. Dont get me wrong - America is a great country with many fine people - but your politics SUCK!!
Go ahead, do it - see if the rest of the world gives a shit as the US economy goes into a nose dive!!
The only things that I can make out are :-
:)
1) It has some VERY fancy graphics tricks up its sleave.
2) 16xFSAA
3) 3 Head support for "surround gaming" which appears to be supported by the driver rather than requiring the developers to support it.
4) Support for 256mb of DDR ram.
The rumours I've head about this card are that its also FAST enough to give nvida some competition. Hopefully tom will have some benchmarks soon
I see "Rouge Squadron" is due out this week on the Gamecube in the UK also.
For once I cant just say its thick Americans bastardising their mother tongue *sigh*.
Im obviously missing something here.How is he switching from "rouge wave" to the STL exactly? Serious question - what product do they produce?
I *think* I've been using the ROGUE wave STL for years - it was purchased by Borland and incorporated into C++ Builder. If you want a good implimentation of the STL thats the product I'd recommend. VC6 STL support stank to high heaven if I recall correctly and I'm not sure how it fairs in the latest version.
Speed isnt an issue with Builder, code bloat could be but there are ways to minimise the impact and the documentaion in relation to the STL is *excellent*.
Actually I think writting off 3rd world debt and for developed countrys ( the USA especially ) to spend a larger percentage of their GDP on third world aid would be a little more help than Jesus in this situation.
What a piece of garbage - does ANYONE seriously believe that a piece of "technology" such as SOAP would have a royalty placed on it?
Both MS and IBM are bright enough to realise that it isnt THAT good and that if they attempted such a move whichever protocol in question would just be swapped out for some other propriety protocol without the licensing fees. The high costs of commercial ORBs have been enough to keep CORBA away from being a widly used technology for years, any form of additional licensing on any protocol/standard will have exactly the same effect.
Puh-lease!!
As unexpressive as you can be with out templates (fixed in the next java releas, 1.5 will have templates)
Oh no - not another damn release which is virtually unusable for those of us who actually need Javas preported cross platform compatability. I'm still targeting 1.1.8 when writting my code and its getting VERY difficult to check exactly *which* version of Java a method was introduced in. IMO the lack of true cross platform compatability is why many of us who really need it WILL switch to C# (and I cant believe I'm writting that either).
In the UK..
And guess what? Either its broken or INCOMPATABLE with my TV...a TV which my VCR,Satalite,and other consoles all work with fine.*sigh*
My last console was a Dreamcast so if Im on form the XBox is doomed.
No mention of Jeode or links to personalJava - not ver comprehensive but handy :)
Heh I've already done this and writting a small application isnt the problem. Is the damn size of Java that hurts. Oh and startup is under 1 second on a 206Mhz Arm.