The majority of programmers would prefer to be able to write, test and debug their own code instead of working around obscure compiler and library bugs.
I doubt it. Programmers are lazy:).
The majority of programmers can't write decent implementations of common data structures or algorithms. Even though I can, I'd rather have a large library to use so I can focus on the stuff that's actually unique to the problem.
C has very few standard high level functions. It's really tedious to program complex applications unless you use extra libraries.
Just for a tiny tiny hint of the complexity of Maya (which I'm sure is another order of magnitude beyond the Linux kernel), here's one entry from Alias's history.
1983 - Development of first code starts Dave Springer supervises the project involving 300,000 lines of code written in C. This huge undertaking would require 36 man-years of programming or 18 programmers writing for two years.
Maya itself has existed since 1993 so it has 10 years of history. Now if this guy had said "something like a really crappy Caligari Truespace" or "a cool plugin for Maya", I might buy it. Even assuming he has the technical knowledge (which I doubt), one developer probably couldn't develop Maya in a lifetime. Alias had a history in the industry so they had funding to get going and I'm sure they had numerous developers and existing tools to work with.
I'm not trying to piss on this guy's enthusiasm. I certainly wish him luck on whatever project he works on. But realistically speaking, he needs to set a goal reachable by a mortal.
Do you have any doubts that the only reason digital imaging technology is being pushed so hard is that it has a greater PROFIT potential? It is nieve to think companies do anything for the good of the consumer.
I agree, but I think that the technology has also drawn people in to photography just on the pleasure side of things. I don't have or want a darkroom. I can take a digital image and manipulate and print it at as good a quality as the local quicky-prints (better, really). I don't use film anymore; it's too much of a hassle.
I've seen people say things to the effect that digital has made photography fun for them again. New gear is always fun, no? Some pros are sick of darkrooms too.
Digital also opens up some options that are difficult with film like panoramas and merging photos to get higher color range.
I want 80 columns for telnet on my 3G phone. Am I just a dreamer?
-Kevin
Re:Is Wired owned by Microsoft or something...!?
on
No More Mac Tweaking?
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· Score: 1
What's the advantage of having a monolithic kernel tacked onto a microkernel? Can you write apps that rely only on the Mach 3 kernel? (serious question)
It has a 128x60 pixel display. Video must rock on that.
3G doesn't seem useful on a tiny cell display like that. Browse the web? The most text you could
fit is 32 columns by 7 rows or so. My Palm Vx is 160x160 and I don't like reading text on that. This is even smaller.
Why would you pay 3-4 grand for a dubious quality system from TG?
It is so easy to get a custom built system with better components at a decent price.
I personally don't believe overclocking is worth the hassle, risk, or expense. Your super duper unstable overclocked box will probably be obsoleted by a normal system in a month.
Here's how to buy a computer: pick a reasonable price/performance point. Don't get screwed out of your money for that last 3% of performance. Keep the difference and replace your computer sooner than you could have if you'd wasted your money on the overpriced top end.
I really doubt your "many orders of magnitude" claim. You are overblowing the benefit of SIMD extensions. The larger difference would be in caching, pipelining, instruction reordering, etc.
For the most part, for most apps, SIMD is irrelevant. Yeah, maybe you can use it for data copying or a few other general things, but for the most part SIMD only helps with specific types of data processing until SIMD is further developed and SIMD-savvy compilers are common.
I do think MIPS can be compared due to the similarity in instruction sets.
The 8088 ran at about.3 MIPS (howstuffworks.com) and Sandra benchmarks a P4 1.6 at 3004 MIPS (theregister.com), so
estimate ~8700 MIPS for a 4.7 GHz P4. That's a little crude obviously.
=> 8700/.3 = 29000 times more MIPS, which is only 1 order of magnitude higher than the straight MHz difference. If SIMD had an order of magnitude effect (which it doesn't), that would be 2 orders of magnitude difference.
I figured you were a college kid. I can tell you don't have much experience.
Unix in general is more stable than Windows and MacOS (though Windows and MacOS have improved a lot). Solaris, which we use at work, is much more stable and capable of handling loads that Windows or MacOS simply aren't designed to deal with.
I use the definition of software quality meaning a program meets specifications. That's essentially the standard software engineering definition. A software defect, bug, means that the software does not meet part of the specification. An unstable OS has more code defects and is therefore of lower quality than a stable OS, by that definition.
Linux was never commercial. FreeBSD has been modified substantially from the original BSD lite it derived from.
I've used a lot of low quality commercial software.
Anybody who would choose an inferior free program over a superior commercial program simply because the free program is free is either a cheapskate or a fuckwit.
You're just asserting that open source is inferior (in other words making it up). What is your proof?
Open source programs are fundamentally different. I can't get the source code for most commercial programs. I can't look to see what they are doing. For me that is useful. Maybe it is not useful for you or you don't care about the open source community. What's so hard for you to understand here?
I think you are confusing your own opinions with my preferences and needs.
Slashdot Mirror
It's on the software's actual page, click on "here".
"Detailed results of the scoring process will be made available shortly."
I doubt it. Programmers are lazy :).
The majority of programmers can't write decent implementations of common data structures or algorithms. Even though I can, I'd rather have a large library to use so I can focus on the stuff that's actually unique to the problem.
C has very few standard high level functions. It's really tedious to program complex applications unless you use extra libraries.
-Kevin
Maya itself has existed since 1993 so it has 10 years of history. Now if this guy had said "something like a really crappy Caligari Truespace" or "a cool plugin for Maya", I might buy it. Even assuming he has the technical knowledge (which I doubt), one developer probably couldn't develop Maya in a lifetime. Alias had a history in the industry so they had funding to get going and I'm sure they had numerous developers and existing tools to work with.
I'm not trying to piss on this guy's enthusiasm. I certainly wish him luck on whatever project he works on. But realistically speaking, he needs to set a goal reachable by a mortal.
-Kevin
-Kevin
SNOBOL
Icon
Anyone who had the drive to complete something like this would already be coding.
Silly.
-Kevin
-Kevin
I agree, but I think that the technology has also drawn people in to photography just on the pleasure side of things. I don't have or want a darkroom. I can take a digital image and manipulate and print it at as good a quality as the local quicky-prints (better, really). I don't use film anymore; it's too much of a hassle.
I've seen people say things to the effect that digital has made photography fun for them again. New gear is always fun, no? Some pros are sick of darkrooms too.
Digital also opens up some options that are difficult with film like panoramas and merging photos to get higher color range.
-Kevin
I want 80 columns for telnet on my 3G phone. Am I just a dreamer?
-Kevin
-Kevin
No thank you!
-Kevin
3G doesn't seem useful on a tiny cell display like that. Browse the web? The most text you could fit is 32 columns by 7 rows or so. My Palm Vx is 160x160 and I don't like reading text on that. This is even smaller.
-Kevin
Looks like it was working fine to me!
I think the idea of computerized manuals is interesting (weren't CVTs going to take over the world?), but it's just more complexity and cost too.
There's something to be said for mechanical/electronic simplicity.
-Kevin
-Kevin
Apparently the human, Mr. Slushbox Fanboy.
The Car and Driver article said they beat the SMG M3 by .3 seconds in a manual M3.
There's more to a transmission than how quickly the gears change, sonny.
-Kevin
http://www.hp.com/products1/itanium/performance/ar chitecture/speccpu.html
-Kevin
-Kevin
It is so easy to get a custom built system with better components at a decent price.
I personally don't believe overclocking is worth the hassle, risk, or expense. Your super duper unstable overclocked box will probably be obsoleted by a normal system in a month.
Here's how to buy a computer: pick a reasonable price/performance point. Don't get screwed out of your money for that last 3% of performance. Keep the difference and replace your computer sooner than you could have if you'd wasted your money on the overpriced top end.
-Kevin
knock this crap off. it was stupid the other ten million times too
I was just kidding, man.
-Kevin
For the most part, for most apps, SIMD is irrelevant. Yeah, maybe you can use it for data copying or a few other general things, but for the most part SIMD only helps with specific types of data processing until SIMD is further developed and SIMD-savvy compilers are common.
I do think MIPS can be compared due to the similarity in instruction sets.
The 8088 ran at about .3 MIPS (howstuffworks.com) and Sandra benchmarks a P4 1.6 at 3004 MIPS (theregister.com), so
estimate ~8700 MIPS for a 4.7 GHz P4. That's a little crude obviously.
=> 8700/.3 = 29000 times more MIPS, which is only 1 order of magnitude higher than the straight MHz difference. If SIMD had an order of magnitude effect (which it doesn't), that would be 2 orders of magnitude difference.
-Kevin
Unix in general is more stable than Windows and MacOS (though Windows and MacOS have improved a lot). Solaris, which we use at work, is much more stable and capable of handling loads that Windows or MacOS simply aren't designed to deal with.
I use the definition of software quality meaning a program meets specifications. That's essentially the standard software engineering definition. A software defect, bug, means that the software does not meet part of the specification. An unstable OS has more code defects and is therefore of lower quality than a stable OS, by that definition.
Linux was never commercial. FreeBSD has been modified substantially from the original BSD lite it derived from.
I've used a lot of low quality commercial software.
-Kevin
You're just asserting that open source is inferior (in other words making it up). What is your proof?
Open source programs are fundamentally different. I can't get the source code for most commercial programs. I can't look to see what they are doing. For me that is useful. Maybe it is not useful for you or you don't care about the open source community. What's so hard for you to understand here?
I think you are confusing your own opinions with my preferences and needs.
-Kevin