And you are aware most job offerings tend to take the kitchensink approach? "Lets include every word we ever read and then demand 4 years experience with it. iPAd, senior engineer!".
Also (java) matches javascript.
I know you are blowing smoke because PHP is not listed. Oversight or some other reason?
Oh and wouldn't your query also match "Need highly skilled X developer who knows enough Java to migrate us away from the steaming pile of crap?".
Or indicate that there are no good Java developers to be found?
What about companies that offer you a nice cup of java every morning?
I know that a job count for PHP has to discount those companies with.php in their url.
In fact, does posting a few queries to Monsterboard not tell you anything more then that you have to much time on your hand?
You don't know women very well. Your method only verifys she was clean several days ago, when she was all hot and bothered and you turned her down.
This is like going to your bank, walk into the vault, check your money is there and then be happy your money is safe... lets see who is clever enough to spot the problem.
Lovely anecdote. It may very well be true. No way to verify.
Of course my personal experience is that for the price of Solaris, AIX and HP-UX I can afford top-class hardware and more important top-class admin and have no problems at all with ordinary linux, not even RHEL but plain Ubuntu.
So, what does this prove? That you are a lousy admin who can't make linux work when others can, or that anecdotes are meaningless personal experiences?
Your choice.
I personally think that proper unixes have their place, if you can afford them, but many can't. But maybe I got good news for your boss. If he fires you, he can use the savings to buy Solaris and have it then run unattended with no problems. Because if your anecdote is true, then you were not needed. The few hours you put in could have been outsourced. Right?
You don't understand the mind of a MS apologist. Bill Gates does not need a reality distortion field like Steve Jobs has. Each MS apologists comes with one pre-installed. No reality can enter their world.
The guy you are responding hasn't read the article because he can't. He sees nothing. It is not even a void. A void is an absence, to him there is not even nothing to not exist.
They pretend Bing is going to kick googles ass, then just a few months later when MS itself says they lost, they ignore it. They ignore everything that doesn't suit them because it doesn't fit into how their world works.
And really, you got to feel sorry for them. At least Jobs fanboys get Apple goodies. What do MS apologists get? The zune. Whee! But don't worry, version X+1 will fix it all. Like windows mobile 7. No multi-tasking (unlike promised) and no copy&past. But don't worry, this is not actually a problem. A true MS apologists can smoothly go from claiming that WM7 is superior because it has multi-tasking to how it is superior because it doesn't.
You got to admire an apologists who can claim in a story were MS is trying to chance favoring opensource and claim they are not worried about it in the same post. Amazing. I for one applaud him. Or pity. Or ridicule. My English is not that good, which is the one where you point and go "HAHA"?
I worked with drug addicts. There is no will power. Will you lick the sidewalk were someone spilled a morsel of cheeseburger? Eat a cheeseburger covered in human blood? Eat a burger made of ground glass?
I think the whole article is silly. You want to see real addiction? Air. Go ahead. Quit it. See how long you can go cold turkey. Hello scientists, fatty food is what we evolved to eat. It allows us to fuel our brain. And we got a huge brain because we don't eat vegetables but tasty juicy animals.
Bob failed for a lot of reasons, and they are all briefly addressed in the article which is after all not a book.
To demanding on hardware. And while they later claim that modern hardware WOULD be able to run bob, they forget that Bob would need a facelift. Bob will always need game like hardware because in essence, that is what it is. And who has game hardware? Right, people who know computers. Animated interfaces are beyond the "newbie" market.
It was not funny. If you look at the art work, it is dismal. The writing sucks and as said, it is clear it was not made by entertainers but by programmers. We all know what they think is funny. "cat/tin/can cat: cannot open/tin/can" snort. Now that is funny!
It is condecening. If you dare treat a 7 year old as a 6 year old, you will have made an enemy for life. For adults, only women could possibly want their hand hold like this. Men would punch your face in. They don't ask for assitence. Ever.
It was a closed environment. It wasn't compatible with anything, even MS own software.
But ultimately, it just wasn't needed. People who really don't get computers, just don't do it. And those who do, will just either ask for real human help or muddle through. Microsoft Bob fullfils the need of nobody.
Some might LIKE the idea, for their mom. But very few like it for themselves and then only because they are not actually using it. The proof? Nobody is using it. Go ahead, install it and try to find a market for it.
If you happen to live in Holland a are PHP developer, then contact me.
But I have some advice to anyone coming to a job interview with me. I am the senior developer and will be the one asking technical questions. And I expect you to know the basics of web development.
That is, you know what a join is and can explain it. You know some techinques that help with loading sites quicker. You can tell me how you debug your code and what tools you use for it. You can tell me the REAL reason to use OO. No, code re-use is not the answer.
What I have noticed is that a lot of web developers seem to lack what I think is basic knowledge, yet ask high salaries. Sorry, no thanks.
For me a junior should show a grasp of the basic skills you need as a web developer (or whatever your field happens to be). You do not need to know everything, but if you can't handle even the basics of SQL, well then just what did you learn in school?
Also, bring a sample of your work and make sure it is CLEAN. Errors you can learn to fix, but if you are a sloppy insecure coder, then I am not sure I am going to bother training you.
What I want to know from an interviewee is that you have potential to grow, that you can be productive for the right price (if you take twice as long to do something as me, but earn 2/3 the salary, then you are a LOT more expensive), and that I won't constantly be correcting the same mistakes.
So far it is proving very hard to find people who qualify. In Holland there is a real shortage of developers who can do more then just throw a site together. But that doesn't help a guy working in the US:/
Google makes it money with ads. Search is one of their means to display said ads. Kill their search, kill their ads, kill their income, kill them putting more and more of productivity on the web, stop them killing MS products.
MS is not directly intrested in seach, but they are intrested in keeping control over where applications run. The more they can control that, the more they can keep selling their products.
Take gmail. Nobody who wants to be taken serious uses hotmail anymore, but that is not the point. With gmail for businesses, how many companies have lifted themselves OUT of the need for exchange? And with that windows on the server AND with that windows on the client for Outlook?
Gee, all of the sudden you can use a Mac or Linux machine without paying MS a dime. It is being used more and more, and it is not just that lost revenue that MS fears. The more people do NOT uses the latest word/outlook to generate their office documents, the more you as a MS shop cannot do it, because nobody can read your documents.
And that could be the beginning of the end for MS. Not because nobody uses Word anymore to create doc files, but because they use the old version they have, with the format everyone can read.
The biggest enemy of MS is NOT people to stop using their product, but not buying the latest version.
Software after all does not run out. If XP works, you can use it for years to come. Decades even.
Googles Search is not the enemy, it is the income Google has that allows it to launch other products.
If you want to know why PC gaming died, then look no further then Id and Blizzard (With WoW). They killed PC gaming.
Gone are the adventures, the strategy titles (and I am talking here about more then the build-que RTS), the flight sims, the RPG's etc. 99% of what Microprose once produced is no longer made.
First game the FPS and every game had to go in that direction and then came the MMO that showed you could make it really big.
In a way, I find most PC games to be almost the same as each other. Maybe that is just me getting old but there used to be more variety. Where is the Ufo: Enemy Unknown (X-com for uncivilized people)?
yes, you see some tiny independent studios coming back with titles that try to be different, but to be honest Sam & Max was NEVER the best adventure for me. A funny one, but endless episodes of them is NOT the revival of the adventure genre.
I could blame piracy perhaps, except I haven't pirated a game in a long time... simply because there is so little out there. I used to buy 2-3 games a month. Now, maybe 2-3 per year.
And consoles hold little appeal for me. Yes I do think they are holding back gaming. if you look at Red dead redemption, that looks somewhat intresting, but you can also very clearly see the limitations that are brought to the game by 512mb of total memory.
But this has happened before. Consoles have always had this cycle. During development of the console console-fans shout about how powerful their systems are going to be, then as they get near launch the PC has passed them by (how powerful was your PC when the x-box launched) and continues to get more powerful all the time. Really, who of you had a graphics card with 512mb at least when the 360/PS3 launched? And how much main memory? How much faster was your HD? You can see how true this is with cross-over games where the PC version always uses higher rez textures. Gosh, I wonder how that is possible.
But this has happened before and it didn't kill PC gaming. What killed PC gaming is more and more titles becoming carbon copies of each other with little room for "being different".
And you can't blame consoles for the dead of flightsims because the flightsims didn't migrate, nor did the market die. just companies didn't want to make them anymore. They rather pushed out another FPS.
I think some developers keep looking for the holy grail. Some magical solution that will turn development from punching in code, to Star Trek: "Computer do my job for me please".
Template languages, 4GL, NoSQL, Ruby on Rails... it is all part of an attempt to take the nasty out of development and they all... well... they all just don't really happen.
Because deep down, with all the frameworks and generators, if you want your code to do what you want it to do, you are still writing out if statements a lot.
And yes, OO and such also belong to this. Not the concept themselves, but the way most people talk about. OO means code re-use right?
If you said yes, then you are a manager, go put on your tie, you will never be any good at coding.
You can re-use all code. And it has been done for a long time.
What, did you think that people who wrote basic for the C64 went "Oh I wrote this bit of code for printing, now I need the same functionality, I am going to write it all over again!"
OO does make code re-use a bit easier BUT that is NOT the claim that people often make. Trust me, I ask this in interviews and it is always the same answer. Apparently you can't re-use functions. No way, no how. NEXT!
I see two kind of developers. Those who hate their job and those who don't. The former want to be managers, get away from writing code as fast as possible. And they will leap on anything that seems to make their jobs easier. Meanwhile the rest of us go on with actually producing stuff.
Just check, how many times do you get one of those managers wannabe introducing something they read in a magazine because it promises that you don't need to write another line of code ever!
What are you babbling about. IT IS A BROWSER. Other browsers can support standards on XP, so why can't they? Opera/Firefox/Chome do it on various OS'es at the same time. So why can't MS?
Low level video functions... what do they have to do with STANDARDS?
Stop gulping down the koolaid and LOOK at what you are writing here. You are saying that MS can not produce a standard compliant browser for XP because it can't access low level video functions on its own OS.
MS still makes money from XP, so why not simply release a browser for it that is build for it? Or do you really believe a BROWSER needs such specific access to video systems to run fast unlike COUNTLESS games?
And how come all the other browser makers don't need this access?
Come back when you have taken Ballmer's cock out of your mouth.
The 1024 thing is perhaps unfortunate, but it exists.
Trying to change it is the domain of people who want to get rid of the pound weight in Holland (500 grams), the sea mile, the horse power, AM/PM. There are valid reasons to get rid of all of them, and it hasn't worked has it? Anyone remember swatch time? Supposed to get around the problems on the internet with timezones? No? Well that is my point.
What about Esperanto? Yeah, the language for everyone. Anyone here speak it? Didn't think so.
It would be very hard to argue with the usefulness of everyone speaking the same language, and yet, it has not happened. We can't even get the English speaking nations to use the same spelling.
But ultimately, the problem the people behind this are trying to solve, just doesn't exist. People are not horribly confused by modern cars having their power measured in the unit of an animal they never used. They don't need to know the exact power because it is never needed. Really, when has anyone who is not an engineer ever REALLY needed to know the power of a car? Yeah, you need to know to make up for your small penis, but really, you don't need to know for traveling along smooth highways.
And the same with sea-miles. So it is different. And? Do I really care if I get the speed of a ship wrong because I have no idea what knots are? If it matters, someone will have done the conversion and most times all I need to know is that 10 knots is faster then 9, so I can be really impressed if you do 11.
And there has never been a problem with kb. Only when HD makers realized they could fake the size of their product by switching to a different measurement did ONE segment of the industry change the naming. Nobody else did. MS, the largest maker of OS for dummies, has seen no need to change its display. So why does Ubuntu? So it can be extra confusing for people switching between OS'es? Between versions of Ubuntu? And will Ubuntu adapt every program in its entire packaging system to reflect this?
I am afraid this excersise is that of someone fighting windmills. No doubt in their mind it is a essential quest, in the eyes of the world you are just a loonie.
In the real world, you just got to accept that somethings are the way they are and that is it. It is the realm of politicians who no longer talk to voters to start changing things that don't need changing. Lawyers, art majors and other wastes of society deciding that technical education isn't producing suitably rounded children, then wondering why no one can fix the plumbing anymore and drop out rates are skyrocketing.
If you make a change, you should always justify it. And the justification for this change seems to be "because scamming HD companies and grammar nazi's want it" and that ain't good enough.
One quick test you can do yourself: Would HD makers have changed to the "correct" measurements if it had made their HD's appear smaller?
Gosh, I don't think so. Do you? Then everyone who tries to claim that HD makers did it for the love of science should shut the fuck up. HD makers are scamming their buyers. And you know, most of the normalization attempts are fueled by the idea to STOP scams. Not enable them.
You are trolling but you are not aware of it because you got a blind spot. Remember those banks that collapsed and took the whole economy with them? Private industry and filled with excessive salaries and people who get golden parachutes when they are "let go".
About the only way to fix this is to cut management down. But what manager is going to say, "we don't need all these managers". I seen these kind of projects, they are pretty common. And it is always a case of management going out of control. You could produce a system like this with half a dozen skilled people. But in reality what you get is hundreds, and most of them having nothing to do with the system at all anymore.
And that happens everywhere. Just why do you think MS employs so many people, and for what? If you took a shotgun and shot everyone with a management title at MS, it would affect their productivity at all. In fact, I am willing to bet it goes up. But nobody is going to do that, because the job you might cut, is your own.
Call me a suspicious paranoid old bugger, but if you been buggered by someone decades, you tend to grow a bit cautious.
The more I read about IE9, the more I wonder "what's the catch". Because MS finally getting it and playing nice just doesn't seem to be an option.
And low and behold. No IE9 for XP, despite it still being sold by MS and still being widely used. The excuse: "we can't because we are only a multi-billion dollar company and can't afford to hire the very best and just make it work".
An MS apologists commented on the last article that it was impossible to run IE9 under XP because of the hardware rendering... clearly he doesn't know that A: DirectX entire point was to abstract hardware to the point it also (used to) support it purely running in software mode" and B: That all the other browsers have no such problem.
No, I see MS making the same mistake they made countless time before. Not killing of their old crap. Learn to clean up after yourself. You dumped IE6-7-8 on the world, now get rid of them.
It would be doable for MS, and they are not. Why? Because they are still the same old "can't do" company. MS apologists and the naive jumped in Windows Mobile 7 to, and then finally it was announced, no multi-tasking and no copy&past... so it was just like all the releases before, fundemental things that WERE PROMISED, not making it into the release.
So, I am going to see what MS finally delivers. Their promises have no value.
We had people who wanted to create a super-human race. No thanks.
I am seriously near-sighted. It is who I am.
Now take a look at yourself, are you a blond arian god? Then someone thinks you are not perfect enough.
If you think there is no moral problem, then you have no problem with genetic screening and having your mate chosen for you on the best match and any offspring that doesn't meet standard, terminated.
8 pounds a month, a lot less isn't it? But I think it is the 1 pound per day that people will indeed choke on.
I don't really read news sites myself, I read stories that I found links to. But I don't really go to a newspaper site and just read all the stories. So it would be NOT 1 pound per day, but 1 pound per article. So I just wouldn't.
And because I follow links to several sites, it is also not 1 buck per day, but maybe 20 bucks for all the different sites. And that does hurt, even if you take a monthly subscription.
That is the biggest reason I think this will fail.
People use the net different then a newspaper. When you take a newspaper subscription, you read it like a book. But when you browse the net, you go here you go there. Take in a page here, an article there. The problem isn't paying 1 subscription fee, it is paying dozens.
Lets see, 1 euro for slashdot, 1 for tweakers, 1 for comics.com, 1 for penny-arcade, 1 for the bbc, 1 for the times, 1 for the new york times, etc etc. That is going to hurt pretty fast.
True micro-payments would help, but the amounts would have to be truly tiny. As in a tenth of a cent for an article and that is never going to work.
And anyway, I don't have a credit card and the only Americans who have ever heard of Global Collect are Sony (SOE is the only MMO company in the world to support iDeal (dutch banks) and other countries payment systems (this might have changed in recent years)). So how am I going to pay even if I wanted to. (Oh and for irony, supporting iDeal is cheaper per transaction then credit card payments).
What they are saying is: "We know who pays our re-election campaigns to get the voter with an attention span of a 3 seconds and who will vote for us anyway as long as we shout TAX-CUTS right before the election."
Because if Stallman is ever admitted to being right, then the world of the MS followers will collapse.
Stallman is indeed like Jezus. He upsets people with what he says, destroys the comfortable little cocoon they spinned around themselves.
Just as most Christians are not followed of Jezus teachings, a lot of people in IT are aware of the risks of closer source and single vendor, but survive day to day by pretending MS somehow doesn't qualify.
Icaza drank the koolaid, and now that he is twitching on the ground, it is slowly beginning to dawn on him that perhaps he make the wrong choice.
To deal with MS has always been to make a deal with the devil. Not so much because they are evil, but because they canabalize their partners if they get the chance. MS serves itself. Always. If you want to deal with them, then always ask yourself: How can I benefit AFTER MS has benefitted first.
It is like going to a casino. Sure you can win big. But you better realize that the casino will winner bigger. Always. It is how the world works.
Slashdot Mirror
And you are aware most job offerings tend to take the kitchensink approach? "Lets include every word we ever read and then demand 4 years experience with it. iPAd, senior engineer!".
Also (java) matches javascript.
I know you are blowing smoke because PHP is not listed. Oversight or some other reason?
Oh and wouldn't your query also match "Need highly skilled X developer who knows enough Java to migrate us away from the steaming pile of crap?".
Or indicate that there are no good Java developers to be found?
What about companies that offer you a nice cup of java every morning?
I know that a job count for PHP has to discount those companies with .php in their url.
In fact, does posting a few queries to Monsterboard not tell you anything more then that you have to much time on your hand?
I am on my Windows machine you insensitive clod.
Various criminals:Yeah, we too!
Windows, where do you want banking credentials to be sent to today?
Speaking as one who regularly succumbs to propositions from strange attractive sexually promiscuous women...
Yes, they would have to be pretty strange, wouldn't they. ;)
Come on, I couldn't let that one pass.
And I apologize for calling your mom strange.
Bam, two for one.
You don't know women very well. Your method only verifys she was clean several days ago, when she was all hot and bothered and you turned her down.
This is like going to your bank, walk into the vault, check your money is there and then be happy your money is safe... lets see who is clever enough to spot the problem.
Lovely anecdote. It may very well be true. No way to verify.
Of course my personal experience is that for the price of Solaris, AIX and HP-UX I can afford top-class hardware and more important top-class admin and have no problems at all with ordinary linux, not even RHEL but plain Ubuntu.
So, what does this prove? That you are a lousy admin who can't make linux work when others can, or that anecdotes are meaningless personal experiences?
Your choice.
I personally think that proper unixes have their place, if you can afford them, but many can't. But maybe I got good news for your boss. If he fires you, he can use the savings to buy Solaris and have it then run unattended with no problems. Because if your anecdote is true, then you were not needed. The few hours you put in could have been outsourced. Right?
That is the idea.
Kind regards,
The USA.
PS, read up on lebensraum, or the trek west. Different direction, same result and tactics.
You don't understand the mind of a MS apologist. Bill Gates does not need a reality distortion field like Steve Jobs has. Each MS apologists comes with one pre-installed. No reality can enter their world.
The guy you are responding hasn't read the article because he can't. He sees nothing. It is not even a void. A void is an absence, to him there is not even nothing to not exist.
They pretend Bing is going to kick googles ass, then just a few months later when MS itself says they lost, they ignore it. They ignore everything that doesn't suit them because it doesn't fit into how their world works.
And really, you got to feel sorry for them. At least Jobs fanboys get Apple goodies. What do MS apologists get? The zune. Whee! But don't worry, version X+1 will fix it all. Like windows mobile 7. No multi-tasking (unlike promised) and no copy&past. But don't worry, this is not actually a problem. A true MS apologists can smoothly go from claiming that WM7 is superior because it has multi-tasking to how it is superior because it doesn't.
You got to admire an apologists who can claim in a story were MS is trying to chance favoring opensource and claim they are not worried about it in the same post. Amazing. I for one applaud him. Or pity. Or ridicule. My English is not that good, which is the one where you point and go "HAHA"?
I got some premium stuff. Chocolate. From belgium. I swear it is pure!
Butter, I got that, almost no margarine in it. Cheap for you, you know who loves you.
I worked with drug addicts. There is no will power. Will you lick the sidewalk were someone spilled a morsel of cheeseburger? Eat a cheeseburger covered in human blood? Eat a burger made of ground glass?
I think the whole article is silly. You want to see real addiction? Air. Go ahead. Quit it. See how long you can go cold turkey. Hello scientists, fatty food is what we evolved to eat. It allows us to fuel our brain. And we got a huge brain because we don't eat vegetables but tasty juicy animals.
Bob failed for a lot of reasons, and they are all briefly addressed in the article which is after all not a book.
But ultimately, it just wasn't needed. People who really don't get computers, just don't do it. And those who do, will just either ask for real human help or muddle through. Microsoft Bob fullfils the need of nobody.
Some might LIKE the idea, for their mom. But very few like it for themselves and then only because they are not actually using it. The proof? Nobody is using it. Go ahead, install it and try to find a market for it.
Who do you think gave them these documents eh? Right... nobody... nobody sees the Ninja!
If you happen to live in Holland a are PHP developer, then contact me.
But I have some advice to anyone coming to a job interview with me. I am the senior developer and will be the one asking technical questions. And I expect you to know the basics of web development.
That is, you know what a join is and can explain it. You know some techinques that help with loading sites quicker. You can tell me how you debug your code and what tools you use for it. You can tell me the REAL reason to use OO. No, code re-use is not the answer.
What I have noticed is that a lot of web developers seem to lack what I think is basic knowledge, yet ask high salaries. Sorry, no thanks.
For me a junior should show a grasp of the basic skills you need as a web developer (or whatever your field happens to be). You do not need to know everything, but if you can't handle even the basics of SQL, well then just what did you learn in school?
Also, bring a sample of your work and make sure it is CLEAN. Errors you can learn to fix, but if you are a sloppy insecure coder, then I am not sure I am going to bother training you.
What I want to know from an interviewee is that you have potential to grow, that you can be productive for the right price (if you take twice as long to do something as me, but earn 2/3 the salary, then you are a LOT more expensive), and that I won't constantly be correcting the same mistakes.
So far it is proving very hard to find people who qualify. In Holland there is a real shortage of developers who can do more then just throw a site together. But that doesn't help a guy working in the US :/
Google makes it money with ads. Search is one of their means to display said ads. Kill their search, kill their ads, kill their income, kill them putting more and more of productivity on the web, stop them killing MS products.
MS is not directly intrested in seach, but they are intrested in keeping control over where applications run. The more they can control that, the more they can keep selling their products.
Take gmail. Nobody who wants to be taken serious uses hotmail anymore, but that is not the point. With gmail for businesses, how many companies have lifted themselves OUT of the need for exchange? And with that windows on the server AND with that windows on the client for Outlook?
Gee, all of the sudden you can use a Mac or Linux machine without paying MS a dime. It is being used more and more, and it is not just that lost revenue that MS fears. The more people do NOT uses the latest word/outlook to generate their office documents, the more you as a MS shop cannot do it, because nobody can read your documents.
And that could be the beginning of the end for MS. Not because nobody uses Word anymore to create doc files, but because they use the old version they have, with the format everyone can read.
The biggest enemy of MS is NOT people to stop using their product, but not buying the latest version.
Software after all does not run out. If XP works, you can use it for years to come. Decades even.
Googles Search is not the enemy, it is the income Google has that allows it to launch other products.
If you want to know why PC gaming died, then look no further then Id and Blizzard (With WoW). They killed PC gaming.
Gone are the adventures, the strategy titles (and I am talking here about more then the build-que RTS), the flight sims, the RPG's etc. 99% of what Microprose once produced is no longer made.
First game the FPS and every game had to go in that direction and then came the MMO that showed you could make it really big.
In a way, I find most PC games to be almost the same as each other. Maybe that is just me getting old but there used to be more variety. Where is the Ufo: Enemy Unknown (X-com for uncivilized people)?
yes, you see some tiny independent studios coming back with titles that try to be different, but to be honest Sam & Max was NEVER the best adventure for me. A funny one, but endless episodes of them is NOT the revival of the adventure genre.
I could blame piracy perhaps, except I haven't pirated a game in a long time... simply because there is so little out there. I used to buy 2-3 games a month. Now, maybe 2-3 per year.
And consoles hold little appeal for me. Yes I do think they are holding back gaming. if you look at Red dead redemption, that looks somewhat intresting, but you can also very clearly see the limitations that are brought to the game by 512mb of total memory.
But this has happened before. Consoles have always had this cycle. During development of the console console-fans shout about how powerful their systems are going to be, then as they get near launch the PC has passed them by (how powerful was your PC when the x-box launched) and continues to get more powerful all the time. Really, who of you had a graphics card with 512mb at least when the 360/PS3 launched? And how much main memory? How much faster was your HD? You can see how true this is with cross-over games where the PC version always uses higher rez textures. Gosh, I wonder how that is possible.
But this has happened before and it didn't kill PC gaming. What killed PC gaming is more and more titles becoming carbon copies of each other with little room for "being different".
And you can't blame consoles for the dead of flightsims because the flightsims didn't migrate, nor did the market die. just companies didn't want to make them anymore. They rather pushed out another FPS.
I think some developers keep looking for the holy grail. Some magical solution that will turn development from punching in code, to Star Trek: "Computer do my job for me please".
Template languages, 4GL, NoSQL, Ruby on Rails... it is all part of an attempt to take the nasty out of development and they all... well... they all just don't really happen.
Because deep down, with all the frameworks and generators, if you want your code to do what you want it to do, you are still writing out if statements a lot.
And yes, OO and such also belong to this. Not the concept themselves, but the way most people talk about. OO means code re-use right?
If you said yes, then you are a manager, go put on your tie, you will never be any good at coding.
You can re-use all code. And it has been done for a long time.
What, did you think that people who wrote basic for the C64 went "Oh I wrote this bit of code for printing, now I need the same functionality, I am going to write it all over again!"
OO does make code re-use a bit easier BUT that is NOT the claim that people often make. Trust me, I ask this in interviews and it is always the same answer. Apparently you can't re-use functions. No way, no how. NEXT!
I see two kind of developers. Those who hate their job and those who don't. The former want to be managers, get away from writing code as fast as possible. And they will leap on anything that seems to make their jobs easier. Meanwhile the rest of us go on with actually producing stuff.
Just check, how many times do you get one of those managers wannabe introducing something they read in a magazine because it promises that you don't need to write another line of code ever!
What are you babbling about. IT IS A BROWSER. Other browsers can support standards on XP, so why can't they? Opera/Firefox/Chome do it on various OS'es at the same time. So why can't MS?
Low level video functions... what do they have to do with STANDARDS?
Stop gulping down the koolaid and LOOK at what you are writing here. You are saying that MS can not produce a standard compliant browser for XP because it can't access low level video functions on its own OS.
MS still makes money from XP, so why not simply release a browser for it that is build for it? Or do you really believe a BROWSER needs such specific access to video systems to run fast unlike COUNTLESS games?
And how come all the other browser makers don't need this access?
Come back when you have taken Ballmer's cock out of your mouth.
The 1024 thing is perhaps unfortunate, but it exists.
Trying to change it is the domain of people who want to get rid of the pound weight in Holland (500 grams), the sea mile, the horse power, AM/PM. There are valid reasons to get rid of all of them, and it hasn't worked has it? Anyone remember swatch time? Supposed to get around the problems on the internet with timezones? No? Well that is my point.
What about Esperanto? Yeah, the language for everyone. Anyone here speak it? Didn't think so.
It would be very hard to argue with the usefulness of everyone speaking the same language, and yet, it has not happened. We can't even get the English speaking nations to use the same spelling.
But ultimately, the problem the people behind this are trying to solve, just doesn't exist. People are not horribly confused by modern cars having their power measured in the unit of an animal they never used. They don't need to know the exact power because it is never needed. Really, when has anyone who is not an engineer ever REALLY needed to know the power of a car? Yeah, you need to know to make up for your small penis, but really, you don't need to know for traveling along smooth highways.
And the same with sea-miles. So it is different. And? Do I really care if I get the speed of a ship wrong because I have no idea what knots are? If it matters, someone will have done the conversion and most times all I need to know is that 10 knots is faster then 9, so I can be really impressed if you do 11.
And there has never been a problem with kb. Only when HD makers realized they could fake the size of their product by switching to a different measurement did ONE segment of the industry change the naming. Nobody else did. MS, the largest maker of OS for dummies, has seen no need to change its display. So why does Ubuntu? So it can be extra confusing for people switching between OS'es? Between versions of Ubuntu? And will Ubuntu adapt every program in its entire packaging system to reflect this?
I am afraid this excersise is that of someone fighting windmills. No doubt in their mind it is a essential quest, in the eyes of the world you are just a loonie.
In the real world, you just got to accept that somethings are the way they are and that is it. It is the realm of politicians who no longer talk to voters to start changing things that don't need changing. Lawyers, art majors and other wastes of society deciding that technical education isn't producing suitably rounded children, then wondering why no one can fix the plumbing anymore and drop out rates are skyrocketing.
If you make a change, you should always justify it. And the justification for this change seems to be "because scamming HD companies and grammar nazi's want it" and that ain't good enough.
One quick test you can do yourself: Would HD makers have changed to the "correct" measurements if it had made their HD's appear smaller?
Gosh, I don't think so. Do you? Then everyone who tries to claim that HD makers did it for the love of science should shut the fuck up. HD makers are scamming their buyers. And you know, most of the normalization attempts are fueled by the idea to STOP scams. Not enable them.
You are trolling but you are not aware of it because you got a blind spot. Remember those banks that collapsed and took the whole economy with them? Private industry and filled with excessive salaries and people who get golden parachutes when they are "let go".
About the only way to fix this is to cut management down. But what manager is going to say, "we don't need all these managers". I seen these kind of projects, they are pretty common. And it is always a case of management going out of control. You could produce a system like this with half a dozen skilled people. But in reality what you get is hundreds, and most of them having nothing to do with the system at all anymore.
And that happens everywhere. Just why do you think MS employs so many people, and for what? If you took a shotgun and shot everyone with a management title at MS, it would affect their productivity at all. In fact, I am willing to bet it goes up. But nobody is going to do that, because the job you might cut, is your own.
Call me a suspicious paranoid old bugger, but if you been buggered by someone decades, you tend to grow a bit cautious.
The more I read about IE9, the more I wonder "what's the catch". Because MS finally getting it and playing nice just doesn't seem to be an option.
And low and behold. No IE9 for XP, despite it still being sold by MS and still being widely used. The excuse: "we can't because we are only a multi-billion dollar company and can't afford to hire the very best and just make it work".
An MS apologists commented on the last article that it was impossible to run IE9 under XP because of the hardware rendering... clearly he doesn't know that A: DirectX entire point was to abstract hardware to the point it also (used to) support it purely running in software mode" and B: That all the other browsers have no such problem.
No, I see MS making the same mistake they made countless time before. Not killing of their old crap. Learn to clean up after yourself. You dumped IE6-7-8 on the world, now get rid of them.
It would be doable for MS, and they are not. Why? Because they are still the same old "can't do" company. MS apologists and the naive jumped in Windows Mobile 7 to, and then finally it was announced, no multi-tasking and no copy&past... so it was just like all the releases before, fundemental things that WERE PROMISED, not making it into the release.
So, I am going to see what MS finally delivers. Their promises have no value.
Are you performing at the normal level? No, then you must be fixed.
If you paid some attention to history, you would have seen the results of this desire to have everyone be "normal".
So you are gay, that can be fixed.
So you are a redhead, that can be fixed.
So you are black, that can be fixed.
We had people who wanted to create a super-human race. No thanks.
I am seriously near-sighted. It is who I am.
Now take a look at yourself, are you a blond arian god? Then someone thinks you are not perfect enough.
If you think there is no moral problem, then you have no problem with genetic screening and having your mate chosen for you on the best match and any offspring that doesn't meet standard, terminated.
That is the moral question. It ain't hard.
8 pounds a month, a lot less isn't it? But I think it is the 1 pound per day that people will indeed choke on.
I don't really read news sites myself, I read stories that I found links to. But I don't really go to a newspaper site and just read all the stories. So it would be NOT 1 pound per day, but 1 pound per article. So I just wouldn't.
And because I follow links to several sites, it is also not 1 buck per day, but maybe 20 bucks for all the different sites. And that does hurt, even if you take a monthly subscription.
That is the biggest reason I think this will fail.
People use the net different then a newspaper. When you take a newspaper subscription, you read it like a book. But when you browse the net, you go here you go there. Take in a page here, an article there. The problem isn't paying 1 subscription fee, it is paying dozens.
Lets see, 1 euro for slashdot, 1 for tweakers, 1 for comics.com, 1 for penny-arcade, 1 for the bbc, 1 for the times, 1 for the new york times, etc etc. That is going to hurt pretty fast.
True micro-payments would help, but the amounts would have to be truly tiny. As in a tenth of a cent for an article and that is never going to work.
And anyway, I don't have a credit card and the only Americans who have ever heard of Global Collect are Sony (SOE is the only MMO company in the world to support iDeal (dutch banks) and other countries payment systems (this might have changed in recent years)). So how am I going to pay even if I wanted to. (Oh and for irony, supporting iDeal is cheaper per transaction then credit card payments).
What they are saying is: "We know who pays our re-election campaigns to get the voter with an attention span of a 3 seconds and who will vote for us anyway as long as we shout TAX-CUTS right before the election."
And it says an awful lot about your own personality that this is what you think.
We judge people by our own nature.
Because if Stallman is ever admitted to being right, then the world of the MS followers will collapse.
Stallman is indeed like Jezus. He upsets people with what he says, destroys the comfortable little cocoon they spinned around themselves.
Just as most Christians are not followed of Jezus teachings, a lot of people in IT are aware of the risks of closer source and single vendor, but survive day to day by pretending MS somehow doesn't qualify.
Icaza drank the koolaid, and now that he is twitching on the ground, it is slowly beginning to dawn on him that perhaps he make the wrong choice.
To deal with MS has always been to make a deal with the devil. Not so much because they are evil, but because they canabalize their partners if they get the chance. MS serves itself. Always. If you want to deal with them, then always ask yourself: How can I benefit AFTER MS has benefitted first.
It is like going to a casino. Sure you can win big. But you better realize that the casino will winner bigger. Always. It is how the world works.