OK, I checked out Hold The Button - about 6 seconds into it I was done.
And the record? 3 Days. Did the duct tape fall off the mouse after that long? Or was there someone who held out hope that "any second, something cool is going to happen, I can feel it".
OK, the humor went right over my head. *sigh* I must be getting old.
Clarification: No, I'm not ripping Powerbooks, I was pointing out that as a laptop, with a battery, which has a limited amount of power before recharge, qualifies.
OK, I've explained in earlier posts why I think.NET sucks a steaming sweaty ass, why don't you post about why you think it's not?
As far as MFC, MFC did suck until version 3, and now at version 7.1, there are some things that it does right, still some things that it doesn't - Is it perfect? Of course not, nothing is. But, as far as toolkits go, I've seen a lot worse then MFC.
By the way - you *did* know that the source for MFC is included with the compiler, right? If you have a serious problem with MFC, fix it your damn self. I have.
OK, that was certainly true up until version 3 or so of MFC, but since 6 (and currently 7.1 in VS.NET 2003) MFC isn't nearly as bad as it once was, and some some things right - for one - message map macros. I don't want to read huge switch statements for every possible windows message that I might have to process, I'd much prefer ON_COMMAND (...,...) in a nice grouping.
CString is also pretty nice for what it is. Sure, it's not the STL string, but a lot of people, even professional developers, haven't heard of and never learned the STL. MS compilers don't exactly do the best job of cupporting the STL anyways (though with 7.1 it's gotten a lot better).
And read my above post as to why I think.NET is an abomination. There's a reason I call it.NUT - cause you've got to be NUTS to write serious applications for it. (Note: Your little VB toy app is not serious. When you're writing code to control and give an interface to massive machines, then I'll take your crappy little app more seriously.)
My beef with.NET is pretty extensive, and since you asked, I'll tell you. First, the WinForms are painfully inadequate in my opinion. I don't know if it's been fixed, but when VS.NET first came out, ScrollWindow() wasn't implemented. To use it, you had to use P/Invoke, which per Petzold, once you do that you aren't writing managed code and certainly not cross platform code. Now, keep in mind that cross platform to MS means runs on Win9x and WinNT, so that was a pretty big sticking point as well. Also, WinForm controls were pretty weak - no bitmapped menus, no docking windows, etc.. so I lurked around USENET to see if anyone else had complaints, and the (un)offical MS response was "Hey check out the.NET Magic library! It's open source!" so I did - and I looked at the source. All it consisted of was a C# wrapper to the Win32 API using P/Invoke. At that point, there's no reason to write managed code, especially with the garbage collector thread seeming to have a preference for runing at the worst possible time.
The other issue that I had was performance. It's been my experience with.NET that it's PAINFULLY slow. Slower then JVM, even. It shouldn't take a top of the line box to get me the same responsiveness as running KDE on an old 266 MHz Pentium2 box.
Also,.NET was supposed to replace COM, but it doesn't. You can still drop in COM objects (such as IWebBrowser) and run. At that point, is the code managed? No - once again - then what's the point? Security? No, because if managed code can just call P/Invoke, then nothing is stopping insecurity... Rapid Application Development, OK - maybe - but wasn't that VB's claim to fame?
I really hate to do this, but I have to give the devil his due on this one - I think Muglia's right about the Win32 API. Sure, it has it's quirks, and can get downright clunky at times, but to be honest - as far as API's go, I've seen a lot worse. But, to their credit, they could have done a lot worse, especially when they went from Win16 to Win32. Projects I had to port weren't all that bad, in fact, it was actually a pretty clean process to port Win16 to Win32, and a lot of functions are indentically named. So, they did a good job overall of making your apps port from Win16 to Win32, and since then, Win32 has added more functions (TransparentBlt()), but not typically at the expense of current ones.
And really, MFC gets a bit of a bad rap. Sure, Document/View is horrible, but other parts of MFC are pretty well done. That, and one thing MS has done pretty well is release a good IDE. It's mostly consistent, and yeah,.NET IDE is drastically different at first, but it took me about 5 minutes to get it to behave like VC 6.
Now please just don't get me started on the clusterf*ck known as COM/DCOM or the abomination that is.NET... both of which make me glad I switched to Linux 3 years ago at home.
You know what - it's really not popular, but I don't agree with the doomsday global warming scenarios either. There's a couple of reasons:
1. There's been a measured increase in Solar activity and radiation, which is *where* we get our heat from, obviously. Once the Sun gets over it's current temper tantrum, temperatures will get more moderate.
2. If Dinosaurs ruled a tropical paradise 65 million years ago, wouldn't the current trend of Global Warming just be the Earth returning to a Tropical state?
3. Isn't is just a little bit arrogant on the part of humanity to assume that we really affect the environment that much? What about bovine methane? What about a single volcanic eruption spewing more CFC's then we've ever thought about using?
I mean, even the Russians are saying Kyoto just kills economies...
The Slashdotting of his pathetic little box is probably enough, but if we want to get really nasty we can always fark him. Not that I'm advocating piling on even more pain on this astroturfing goof.. oh wait.. yes I am.
By the way, did I hallucinate it or is Slashdot now running banner ads for a human cloning service claiming testimonials from the parents of resurrected children?!?
The ads are for a movie about a human cloning service - the movie is called "Godsend" and it has Robert DeNiro, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and Greg Kinnear in it.
No, running an OS that runs everything as root is punishment enough. Lindows got some good press for their click-n-run interface stuff, but... last time I checked, Lindows still logged in everyone as root.
Last time I checked, usability had nothing to do with allowing a user created process to stomp all over memory, like DOS / Win 16 / Win 32 did (and does). Usability also had nothing to do with being able to extend Office applications with Visual Basic For Applications, giving the world Marco virii.
Usability, however, does have to do with coherent UI design: picking icons that communicate what the button does on a toolbar, grouping menus is a logical way, making sure that there are keystrokes available for commonly used features, etc.
It sounds like the Microsofties have confused usability with Feature Creep.
Now.. the more people running Linux may in fact lead to more vulnerabilities being found, since testing only proves the existence of bugs, not the absence. However, history shows that bugs are fixed much quicker in open source then in closed source, so that's a race Linux wins easily. But as far as usability, comparing the latest KDE and GNOME desktop to Windows XP just shows that as far as usability, Linux may have already surpassed Windows.
Kids (and a lot of junior high / high school youth) love the Veggie Tales videos - so why not a collection of mini-games ala Wario Ware? Maybe "Find the Hairbrush" or "Canoe with the Cebu", or "Make The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything Do Something"... I'm sure it would be a big hit.
God Bless Texas and the other states that have no state income tax.
You know, this may actually be a good thing though - if more people get upset about their high rate of taxation, maybe they'll finally put pressure on the government to curtail spending.
They have these white noise generators that help filter out noises in a cubicle farm, they work by disrupting all sound waves and getting them to cancel out. Maybe there's a way to attach something similar to a MagLev train.
Of course, if it works too well it'll sound like someone's letting the air out of every tire in the block...
There's a fatal flaw to your argument - Grandma Notech doesn't buy Operating Systems, when her computer "breaks" (85% of the time it's software) she buys a new one or gets it serviced.
Most people who buy shrinkwrapped software are at least competent enough to run an installer (even if Auto-Play is turned off).. so running through an installation (even of Gentoo) shouldn't be that difficult. Now, I'm not suggesting that they'd run the full source install of gentoo, but the binary install should be OK. If not, well, she's out a buck. Not a big risk. Also, there's still Mandrake and Fedora, both of which have very easy to use installers.
How much money do you think one of these could make if it looked like a soda machine, only the buttons said:
"Debian Linux - 6 CD's, $6.00"
"Mandrake Linux - 3 CD's, $3.00"
"Fedora Linux - 3 CD's, $3.00"
"Gentoo Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Knoppix Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Vector Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Peanut Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Microsoft Windows XP Home - 1 CD, $89"
This actually might be a good way to get novices to try Linux, especially the Knoppix (or the BitDefender Knoppix based "Linux Defender", which makes an excellent recovery disk)...
Slashdot Mirror
And the record? 3 Days. Did the duct tape fall off the mouse after that long? Or was there someone who held out hope that "any second, something cool is going to happen, I can feel it".
Clarification: No, I'm not ripping Powerbooks, I was pointing out that as a laptop, with a battery, which has a limited amount of power before recharge, qualifies.
Thanks, I'll now return to my nap.
It does if he's running a Powerbook...
As far as MFC, MFC did suck until version 3, and now at version 7.1, there are some things that it does right, still some things that it doesn't - Is it perfect? Of course not, nothing is. But, as far as toolkits go, I've seen a lot worse then MFC.
By the way - you *did* know that the source for MFC is included with the compiler, right? If you have a serious problem with MFC, fix it your damn self. I have.
CString is also pretty nice for what it is. Sure, it's not the STL string, but a lot of people, even professional developers, haven't heard of and never learned the STL. MS compilers don't exactly do the best job of cupporting the STL anyways (though with 7.1 it's gotten a lot better).
And read my above post as to why I think .NET is an abomination. There's a reason I call it .NUT - cause you've got to be NUTS to write serious applications for it. (Note: Your little VB toy app is not serious. When you're writing code to control and give an interface to massive machines, then I'll take your crappy little app more seriously.)
The other issue that I had was performance. It's been my experience with .NET that it's PAINFULLY slow. Slower then JVM, even. It shouldn't take a top of the line box to get me the same responsiveness as running KDE on an old 266 MHz Pentium2 box.
Also, .NET was supposed to replace COM, but it doesn't. You can still drop in COM objects (such as IWebBrowser) and run. At that point, is the code managed? No - once again - then what's the point? Security? No, because if managed code can just call P/Invoke, then nothing is stopping insecurity... Rapid Application Development, OK - maybe - but wasn't that VB's claim to fame?
So that's why I see .NET as an abomination..
And really, MFC gets a bit of a bad rap. Sure, Document/View is horrible, but other parts of MFC are pretty well done. That, and one thing MS has done pretty well is release a good IDE. It's mostly consistent, and yeah, .NET IDE is drastically different at first, but it took me about 5 minutes to get it to behave like VC 6.
Now please just don't get me started on the clusterf*ck known as COM/DCOM or the abomination that is .NET... both of which make me glad I switched to Linux 3 years ago at home.
1. There's been a measured increase in Solar activity and radiation, which is *where* we get our heat from, obviously. Once the Sun gets over it's current temper tantrum, temperatures will get more moderate.
2. If Dinosaurs ruled a tropical paradise 65 million years ago, wouldn't the current trend of Global Warming just be the Earth returning to a Tropical state?
3. Isn't is just a little bit arrogant on the part of humanity to assume that we really affect the environment that much? What about bovine methane? What about a single volcanic eruption spewing more CFC's then we've ever thought about using?
I mean, even the Russians are saying Kyoto just kills economies...
The Slashdotting of his pathetic little box is probably enough, but if we want to get really nasty we can always fark him. Not that I'm advocating piling on even more pain on this astroturfing goof.. oh wait.. yes I am.
Here Kitty kitty kitty...
/South Park
See this.
The ads are for a movie about a human cloning service - the movie is called "Godsend" and it has Robert DeNiro, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and Greg Kinnear in it.
YIKES!
Usability, however, does have to do with coherent UI design: picking icons that communicate what the button does on a toolbar, grouping menus is a logical way, making sure that there are keystrokes available for commonly used features, etc.
It sounds like the Microsofties have confused usability with Feature Creep.
Now.. the more people running Linux may in fact lead to more vulnerabilities being found, since testing only proves the existence of bugs, not the absence. However, history shows that bugs are fixed much quicker in open source then in closed source, so that's a race Linux wins easily. But as far as usability, comparing the latest KDE and GNOME desktop to Windows XP just shows that as far as usability, Linux may have already surpassed Windows.
Kids (and a lot of junior high / high school youth) love the Veggie Tales videos - so why not a collection of mini-games ala Wario Ware? Maybe "Find the Hairbrush" or "Canoe with the Cebu", or "Make The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything Do Something"... I'm sure it would be a big hit.
You know, this may actually be a good thing though - if more people get upset about their high rate of taxation, maybe they'll finally put pressure on the government to curtail spending.
Oh well, I can dream, can't I?
No, they're actually little white boxes that mount to the walls and sound like a librarian on steroids (sssshhhhhhhhhh!)
Of course, if it works too well it'll sound like someone's letting the air out of every tire in the block...
Even better? Pin some of it on his Microsoft puppetmasters.
Hmm.. my google found it on the first try.
Most people who buy shrinkwrapped software are at least competent enough to run an installer (even if Auto-Play is turned off).. so running through an installation (even of Gentoo) shouldn't be that difficult. Now, I'm not suggesting that they'd run the full source install of gentoo, but the binary install should be OK. If not, well, she's out a buck. Not a big risk. Also, there's still Mandrake and Fedora, both of which have very easy to use installers.
Of course, I haven't purchased an MS Operating System since then, as I discovered Linux, switched, and never looked back.
"Debian Linux - 6 CD's, $6.00"
"Mandrake Linux - 3 CD's, $3.00"
"Fedora Linux - 3 CD's, $3.00"
"Gentoo Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Knoppix Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Vector Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Peanut Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Microsoft Windows XP Home - 1 CD, $89" This actually might be a good way to get novices to try Linux, especially the Knoppix (or the BitDefender Knoppix based "Linux Defender", which makes an excellent recovery disk)...