Isn't Apple pushing standard HTML5? Not every browser has adopted the standard yet, but it isn't a bunch of closed extensions like Microsoft pushed for IE years ago.
That's how non-MS devices are able to communicate with it.
And even if it were a completely closed solution that only MS phones could connect to, so what? How is it a corporation's responsibility, internally, to work with other devices? Sure, if I ran a company I'd make it as easy as possible for people to connect because I'd want to enable them to check their work email elsewhere. But if security were more of a priority, or if maintaining a simpler system were, I see a lot of merit to locking it down to a single protocol.
Sure. Plenty of times something is announced but never released or released far, far later than originally intended. The former is vaporware, the latter can be debatable. But a product that is done being designed, that has sample models produced, and that has a concrete release date in the near future doesn't meet the definition by any stretch.
The iPad hype is ridiculous, and the fact that so much media attention is directed at a product that hasn't been released is frustrating. But it certainly isn't "vaporware." It's a real product with working models that real reporters have handled. It has a release date announced, and even if it slips (I'm guessing it will, given Apple's past) there isn't any doubt that these will be out there in the wild for real people to buy.
Consistency in user interface isn't an end unto itself. Consistency is a means to making the UI easier for users to understand.
I develop software that runs on Windows. I follow Microsoft's conventions for button size and placement because the majority of our users are accustomed to those conventions. When I give them a button that looks familiar and does in my application what it does in others, I'm able to tap into previous Windows experience to make my software easier to use.
I'm at best an average user interface designer. I need things like this to cheat and make a more usable product.
Apple has UI designers that are significantly better than that. Many third party iPhone application developers are also extremely good. A good enough UI designer can come up with an interface that is both intuitive and perfectly suited to the task at hand without looking like the other UIs out there.
The fact that they aren't being consistent isn't bad if the end result is simple to use for both beginning and experienced developers.
My employer has hundreds of developers. We're growing and always looking for more. HR is challenging.
Let's say you want to hire 300 people next year. 100 of them will be software developers. You use technology that will require training; even if a new hire knows the languages you use, he doesn't know your current tools. Hiring and training are both quite expensive.
You've got some options available to you. 1. You could give every interested applicant a test to see how good a programmer he is. 2. You could require that applicants have relevant experience. 3. You could require that applicants have relevant education.
If you're hiring a small number of people, #1 sounds great. But when you get into larger pools of applicants, this becomes less workable. #2 works well if there's a lot of experience out there doing what you want. But by requiring experience, you lose anyone who could quickly learn what you need. #3 lets you find people who were, at least, able to graduate from college.
What it really comes down to is which is worse for you: false negatives or false positives. If you don't have many applicants, you don't want too harsh a filter early in the application process because you can't afford to lose good candidates from your pool. False negatives are your enemy. If, on the other hand, you get 60,000 applicants a year, you really need a way to get rid of the false positives. You probably don't like the fact that you're not even considering some people who'd do an excellent job. It's frustrating and can feel unfair. On the other hand, if you're getting enough good people to do what you need, the fact that you're losing out on some other good people is acceptable.
My employer has hundreds of developers. We're growing and always looking for more. HR is challenging.
Let's say you want to hire 300 people next year. 100 of them will be software developers. You use technology that will require training; even if a new hire knows the languages you use, he doesn't know your current tools. Hiring and training are both quite expensive.
You've got some options available to you. You could give every interested applicant a test to see
I echo the many recommendations above to just use an ID number and have a spreadsheet with the other data you need. It isn't sexy, but it gets the job done.
I'd also have a digit in the ID be a check digit (like in ISBNs). That way if someone typos a machine ID you probably won't find a line for it in the sheet (rather than finding the wrong line), and you'll know to ask again.
A lot of people do. It's the default in IE, so when users search with the browser, they get resuls through Live. I see it in the referral results for a web site I help run; we get a whole lot of hits from Live.
I agree with the general statement, but you're off on one detail. Business value stability and support over features. They want things that don't break too often and are easy to replace when they do.
And even better, you could have far more people doing it than you actually needed. By having such a distributed delivery system, you could afford to lose a large number of the things you were bringing in.
I think you hit on the iPhone issue when you say "What Steve, who you have to admit has this thing about quality...."
The key question is "would you rather do something poorly or not at all?" This is not a trivial design decision when you're making anything. No device can do everything well (especially when "be small" and "be cheap" are things you want it to do). I think it's clear from what we've seen so far about the iPhone that Apple would prefer to leave out a feature than do it poorly.
Based on the success of the iPhone and iPod, I think this strategy is working well for them.
I never really got it before, and now it totally makes sense. I'll still consider it weaseling if people talk about it as a hardship, but if it's just matter-of-fact from numbers nerds, cool.
Personally, I think this is great. The Department of Justice, if you recall, had its hands tied by good ol' W, so they're not going for a breakup or any other serious solution. Sure, we may not love AOL any more than Microsoft, but now they're willing to put their dough on the line for this cause.
Yes, they stand to get a lot of money out of this. If someone does a good thing for a selfish reason, it's still a good thing.
This looks sweet. Pentium 566, USB (for keyboard & mouse), composite & svideo (use a TV as the monitor), probably has pretty decent sound, for a computer. If the price is right, this could be a lot of fun.
I wonder what happened to make them change their minds. Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.
I really dig Farscape and think it's the best SF on tv at the moment. Why?
* It's exciting and unpredictable. You can never be sure that our heroes are going to win or, if they are, if it'll go as planned.
* There is a strong and effective story arc. The story truly does move forward; this isn't just a story about some people wandering around in space. (DS9 was good like this, but TNG, alas, was not.)
* The technology is at a good level for story purposes; it's high enough to make this clearly SF, but there's a lot of room for things to fail. The ship isn't nigh indestructible like the Enterprise D.
* The aliens really are alien, not just humans with funny noses. Even the human looking ones have key physiological differences (Sebacean heat death), and plenty of aliens are just bizarre.
* Finally, there are far more realistic levels of good and evil than you see in much commercial SF. The villians tend to be bad _individuals_, not giant evil empires. The heroes are all somewhat self interested and will do unprincipled things at time (cutting off Pilot's arm to give to NamTar in exchange for a map home). The largest and most powerful military organization in the area are, for most intents and purposes, a high-grade rent-a-cop outfit. The Peacekeepers aren't good or evil, they're lawful, and have members who can be either.
Overally, I think it's an exciting, dynamic, believable show, and I'm thrilled that the SF channel is recognizing this and giving us more of it. They'll certainly have my eyeballs for the next couple of years.
That's exactly the type of lashing out I'm talking about. If we become a villianous monster, we will have lowered ourselves to the level of the terrorists who attacked us. And if we become evil, good people will be justified in retaliating against us.
>You people who think that we are inviting more terrorism have it exactly backwards. That is how the terrorists want you to feel! The want you to feel fear, to give in to whatever demands they make.
No. They want terror. They want disruption. They want us to be so twisted by rage and fear that we can no longer function as a nation.
These are people who believe that America is an evil and terrible nation. I believe they are wrong. But if we go charging into the Middle East without a proper investigation, without being sure that we're going after the right man or group, we WILL be PROVING ourselves to be as bad as they claim.
I'm not saying we shouldn't react to this terrible offense. I'm saying we shouldn't lash out blindly at the first target to present itself.
>Consistent and reasoned responses are imperitive in civilized society. Everything else is barbarism.
I agree.
I was terribly saddened yesterday to hear the comments of former Secretary of State Eagleberger. He said that the only language terrorists like this understand is violence and so we must respond in kind. Further, he said that we may not know who has done this, but we do have a list of terrorist groups active in the world, and we should wage war on all of them, kill them, strike fear into their hearts.
And then came the really bad part. If we get some people who really aren't deserving, that's okay, it's that important.
If we sink that low, we'll be just as bad as those who attacked us.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't Apple pushing standard HTML5? Not every browser has adopted the standard yet, but it isn't a bunch of closed extensions like Microsoft pushed for IE years ago.
That's how non-MS devices are able to communicate with it.
And even if it were a completely closed solution that only MS phones could connect to, so what? How is it a corporation's responsibility, internally, to work with other devices? Sure, if I ran a company I'd make it as easy as possible for people to connect because I'd want to enable them to check their work email elsewhere. But if security were more of a priority, or if maintaining a simpler system were, I see a lot of merit to locking it down to a single protocol.
Sure. Plenty of times something is announced but never released or released far, far later than originally intended. The former is vaporware, the latter can be debatable. But a product that is done being designed, that has sample models produced, and that has a concrete release date in the near future doesn't meet the definition by any stretch.
I was with you until the last word.
The iPad hype is ridiculous, and the fact that so much media attention is directed at a product that hasn't been released is frustrating. But it certainly isn't "vaporware." It's a real product with working models that real reporters have handled. It has a release date announced, and even if it slips (I'm guessing it will, given Apple's past) there isn't any doubt that these will be out there in the wild for real people to buy.
Consistency in user interface isn't an end unto itself. Consistency is a means to making the UI easier for users to understand.
I develop software that runs on Windows. I follow Microsoft's conventions for button size and placement because the majority of our users are accustomed to those conventions. When I give them a button that looks familiar and does in my application what it does in others, I'm able to tap into previous Windows experience to make my software easier to use.
I'm at best an average user interface designer. I need things like this to cheat and make a more usable product.
Apple has UI designers that are significantly better than that. Many third party iPhone application developers are also extremely good. A good enough UI designer can come up with an interface that is both intuitive and perfectly suited to the task at hand without looking like the other UIs out there.
The fact that they aren't being consistent isn't bad if the end result is simple to use for both beginning and experienced developers.
Whoops, that was cut off.
My employer has hundreds of developers. We're growing and always looking for more. HR is challenging.
Let's say you want to hire 300 people next year. 100 of them will be software developers. You use technology that will require training; even if a new hire knows the languages you use, he doesn't know your current tools. Hiring and training are both quite expensive.
You've got some options available to you.
1. You could give every interested applicant a test to see how good a programmer he is.
2. You could require that applicants have relevant experience.
3. You could require that applicants have relevant education.
If you're hiring a small number of people, #1 sounds great. But when you get into larger pools of applicants, this becomes less workable. #2 works well if there's a lot of experience out there doing what you want. But by requiring experience, you lose anyone who could quickly learn what you need. #3 lets you find people who were, at least, able to graduate from college.
What it really comes down to is which is worse for you: false negatives or false positives. If you don't have many applicants, you don't want too harsh a filter early in the application process because you can't afford to lose good candidates from your pool. False negatives are your enemy. If, on the other hand, you get 60,000 applicants a year, you really need a way to get rid of the false positives. You probably don't like the fact that you're not even considering some people who'd do an excellent job. It's frustrating and can feel unfair. On the other hand, if you're getting enough good people to do what you need, the fact that you're losing out on some other good people is acceptable.
My employer has hundreds of developers. We're growing and always looking for more. HR is challenging.
Let's say you want to hire 300 people next year. 100 of them will be software developers. You use technology that will require training; even if a new hire knows the languages you use, he doesn't know your current tools. Hiring and training are both quite expensive.
You've got some options available to you. You could give every interested applicant a test to see
I echo the many recommendations above to just use an ID number and have a spreadsheet with the other data you need. It isn't sexy, but it gets the job done.
I'd also have a digit in the ID be a check digit (like in ISBNs). That way if someone typos a machine ID you probably won't find a line for it in the sheet (rather than finding the wrong line), and you'll know to ask again.
A lot of people do. It's the default in IE, so when users search with the browser, they get resuls through Live. I see it in the referral results for a web site I help run; we get a whole lot of hits from Live.
Yeah, it's like the drive maker's GB.
I agree with the general statement, but you're off on one detail. Business value stability and support over features. They want things that don't break too often and are easy to replace when they do.
And even better, you could have far more people doing it than you actually needed. By having such a distributed delivery system, you could afford to lose a large number of the things you were bringing in.
I think you hit on the iPhone issue when you say "What Steve, who you have to admit has this thing about quality...."
The key question is "would you rather do something poorly or not at all?" This is not a trivial design decision when you're making anything. No device can do everything well (especially when "be small" and "be cheap" are things you want it to do). I think it's clear from what we've seen so far about the iPhone that Apple would prefer to leave out a feature than do it poorly.
Based on the success of the iPhone and iPod, I think this strategy is working well for them.
That's a really good point. I hope that you're right about that.
I never really got it before, and now it totally makes sense. I'll still consider it weaseling if people talk about it as a hardship, but if it's just matter-of-fact from numbers nerds, cool.
Thank you for explaining this so well.
Personally, I think this is great. The Department of Justice, if you recall, had its hands tied by good ol' W, so they're not going for a breakup or any other serious solution. Sure, we may not love AOL any more than Microsoft, but now they're willing to put their dough on the line for this cause.
Yes, they stand to get a lot of money out of this. If someone does a good thing for a selfish reason, it's still a good thing.
This looks sweet. Pentium 566, USB (for keyboard & mouse), composite & svideo (use a TV as the monitor), probably has pretty decent sound, for a computer. If the price is right, this could be a lot of fun.
I wonder what happened to make them change their minds. Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.
Interesting.
I really dig Farscape and think it's the best SF on tv at the moment. Why?
* It's exciting and unpredictable. You can never be sure that our heroes are going to win or, if they are, if it'll go as planned.
* There is a strong and effective story arc. The story truly does move forward; this isn't just a story about some people wandering around in space. (DS9 was good like this, but TNG, alas, was not.)
* The technology is at a good level for story purposes; it's high enough to make this clearly SF, but there's a lot of room for things to fail. The ship isn't nigh indestructible like the Enterprise D.
* The aliens really are alien, not just humans with funny noses. Even the human looking ones have key physiological differences (Sebacean heat death), and plenty of aliens are just bizarre.
* Finally, there are far more realistic levels of good and evil than you see in much commercial SF. The villians tend to be bad _individuals_, not giant evil empires. The heroes are all somewhat self interested and will do unprincipled things at time (cutting off Pilot's arm to give to NamTar in exchange for a map home). The largest and most powerful military organization in the area are, for most intents and purposes, a high-grade rent-a-cop outfit. The Peacekeepers aren't good or evil, they're lawful, and have members who can be either.
Overally, I think it's an exciting, dynamic, believable show, and I'm thrilled that the SF channel is recognizing this and giving us more of it. They'll certainly have my eyeballs for the next couple of years.
-michael-
That's exactly the type of lashing out I'm talking about. If we become a villianous monster, we will have lowered ourselves to the level of the terrorists who attacked us. And if we become evil, good people will be justified in retaliating against us.
>You people who think that we are inviting more terrorism have it exactly backwards. That is how the terrorists want you to feel! The want you to feel fear, to give in to whatever demands they make.
No. They want terror. They want disruption. They want us to be so twisted by rage and fear that we can no longer function as a nation.
These are people who believe that America is an evil and terrible nation. I believe they are wrong. But if we go charging into the Middle East without a proper investigation, without being sure that we're going after the right man or group, we WILL be PROVING ourselves to be as bad as they claim.
I'm not saying we shouldn't react to this terrible offense. I'm saying we shouldn't lash out blindly at the first target to present itself.
>Consistent and reasoned responses are imperitive in civilized society. Everything else is barbarism.
I agree.
I was terribly saddened yesterday to hear the comments of former Secretary of State Eagleberger. He said that the only language terrorists like this understand is violence and so we must respond in kind. Further, he said that we may not know who has done this, but we do have a list of terrorist groups active in the world, and we should wage war on all of them, kill them, strike fear into their hearts.
And then came the really bad part. If we get some people who really aren't deserving, that's okay, it's that important.
If we sink that low, we'll be just as bad as those who attacked us.
President Bush commented that the United States was in no way involved with the attacks in Kabul.
Thank goodness.
According to Bush's statement, the US was in no way involved in this attack.
Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, has been bombed by what the CNN reporter believes to be cruise missiles.
I hope the US had nothing to do with this.