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User: CastrTroy

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  1. Re:Solving the GUI layout manager problem on NetBeans 5.0 Released · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If Java 6 will be multithreaded by default for GUI stuff, then I think it will help a lot of inexperienced programmers make a more responsive app. But making things multithreaded means there's a lot of other things to take into consideration. Just making a new thread is pretty easy in Java, and isn't what really makes GUI programming hard to do well. Doing threaded programming takes a little extra knowledge that I think not a lot of programmers have. If you click on one button and it fills a list with options, and clicking on another button sorts them, and you click on the sort before it's done filling the list, what happens? do you have to write in the code to wait until the list is filled before sorting, or does it do that automatically, or does it sort what's there, and leave all the rest of the list items unsorted?

  2. Re:Well hellOOOOOO Mr. Pedophile! on 'Used' A Dirty Word in Gaming · · Score: 1

    I was more thinking what do most girls look like who have never been on a date before? Either they're ugly or they have a really bad personality.

  3. Re:Just brainstorming here on 'Used' A Dirty Word in Gaming · · Score: 1

    I don't think i've ever bought a game based on the advertisements. I usually look at reviews. If there's a lot of good reviews, and it's in the genre I like, there's a good chance i'll buy it. I don't even remember the last time I saw a video game ad outside of a video game magazine/website. Creating a good game that people like will generate it's own advertising via reviews.

  4. Re:Dev cost skyrocketing? on 'Used' A Dirty Word in Gaming · · Score: 1

    Couldn't they just release a game where you could completely customize the player names, jerseys, and team names, and let the players make their own NFL game? If it really affects the cost of the game that much to include the official NFL logo, then why don't they remove it. Allowing players to make their own teams would allow for some extra gameplay too.

  5. Re:Dev cost skyrocketing? on 'Used' A Dirty Word in Gaming · · Score: 1

    Do they really have to have the NFL and NFLPA license? I haven't played Super Mario Strikers myself, but i've seen it get great reviews, and people calling it one of the best sports games ever made. I know that a lot of people like the official NFL games, but there's still a lot of money to be made outside of licensed sports games.

  6. Re:Just brainstorming here on 'Used' A Dirty Word in Gaming · · Score: 1

    Exactly, my favourite games are often the most simple. These include Bomberman, Super Monkey ball, mario kart, zelda, and animal crossing. I'm obviously a Nintendo fan, but what i'm pointing out, is that none of these games have flashy graphics, or cost all the much to make. I often find the ones that spend too much time making a game look good often miss out on a lot of gameplay.

  7. Used games are all I can afford on 'Used' A Dirty Word in Gaming · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I picked up Metroid Prime "Used" for $12.50 canadian. When used games are half the price or less than the new one, and offer nothing different, then I'm going to buy the used one. It's simple economics. I usually don't buy games at full prices either. I wait until they've sold a million copies, and only cost $30. I applaud the gaming industry for actually lowering prices once the initial investment has been made back, whereas with music CDs, the prices only seem to go up after the initial release.

  8. Re:Things haven't changed since 1976... on Microsoft Licensing Fee Intended To Reduce Hobbyists · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, what's he's saying is don't steal software just to write your own. Thanks to people like him, we now have many free tools and can write our own software without paying, and without stealing. If you truly think that a product is worth using, then pay what they are charging. If you don't think it's worth what they are asking, then don't use it.

  9. Re:Dynamic typing on Beyond Java · · Score: 1

    So, instead of letting the language do the work of ensuring that parameters of the right type are being passed, you have to write your own tests? That sounds kind of like a waste of time. Maybe we should make a language where you have to write your own tests to make sure the syntax is correct, instead of the compiler doing it for you.

  10. Re:People are too sensitive these days. NOT! on Activision Responds to American Indian Boycott · · Score: 1

    Then why, does Canada still have a Department of Indian and Northern Affairs? There's about 10 different names for this group of people. Aboriginals, Native Canadians, Indians, First Nations, Native Americans (America is all of North and South America, not just the US) and a few others I am forgetting.

  11. Re:Dynamic typing on Beyond Java · · Score: 1

    Class cast exception can be avoided by not trying to cast objects to types that they shouldn't be cast to. Of course you can't cast an ArrayList to a BufferedStreamReader. In the same way, you should always check that you aren't going outside the bounds of your array. The compiler can't catch an error when you're using an int to reference the array index, and your array only has 5 elements. It would be impossible for the compiler to tell what your integer would be at run time.

    The number of unit tests you have to write increases with dynamic typing. You have to write unit tests to see what happens when you pass in the wrong type. With static typing, you can ignore those tests, because your code won't compile, and spend more time writing other tests.

  12. Re:News flash! on Beyond Java · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's why we'd need a couple different languages. But do we really need as many choices as we have?

  13. Re:News flash! on Beyond Java · · Score: 1

    You are right though. You can do anything in any language. Why do we need so many? Really we should have 1 language, with different versions that are backwards compatible, adding new features along the way. We could have options for dynamic or static typing, as well as options for whether or not we would need object oriented code or just functions. We'd probably need a couple other languages for specific tasks, but there should be 1 language that can handle 95% of the development out there.

  14. Re:Dynamic typing on Beyond Java · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't you be able to use polymorphism to define a bunch of methods with the same names, that take different typed arguments and let the computer figure out which one it's supposed to call at runtime?

  15. Re:Dynamic typing on Beyond Java · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, basically dynamic typing is good if you want to whip out small projects really fast, but once your dealing with bigger projects, it helps if everything is staticly typed. Personally i've found that even for smaller projects you can save a lot of time using static typing just in debugging time. For the amount of time that i've lost to define a method twice to deal with 2 different types of objects, i've saved tons of time dealing with bugs that result from dynamic typing.

  16. Dynamic typing on Beyond Java · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't understand as a developer what dynamic typing does to help a language, and what real world advantages it offers the developer. I find that dynamic typing doesn't really open up new doors, and ends up creating bugs that would have been caught at compile time had static typing been used.

  17. Re:Sweet! on New Honda Accord Drives Itself · · Score: 1

    Most places they could probably arrest you for walking towards the car with the keys.

  18. Re:Quake 3 Please! on Upcoming FPS Titles In 2006 · · Score: 1

    I always loved quake 3. So much more than any of the other FPSs. I didn't really know why, or couldn't explain it quite like you just did there. Quake 3 was probably the best FPS. All the other ones seem so slow in comparison, and playing FPSs on consoles is 15x worse, because it takes 5x as long to turn your character around. I don't really care if the game isn't realistic. What I loved about Quake 3, was that it didn't try to be something it wasn't. It admitted that it was all about killing the other guy, and didn't try to throw in a story line. It was way more fair than the other games. The game was pretty fair, and even the extremely good players lost out sometimes. The only real unfair part was that you could memorize the maps, and learn where to pick up the energy packs, weapons, and armour.

  19. Re:Once again... on IE 7.0 Beta 2 Available to the Public · · Score: 1

    Well is there a place where I can go to get all these browser helper objects? if MS came up with this extension concept, there must be tons of extensions out there for IE. Maybe I can just install the tab helper extension, and then I won't have to complain about IE anymore. The only place i've seen tabs for IE is in things you have to install that install a bunch of other stuff you don't need for the tabs to function correctly.

  20. Re:Well, Good and Bad on Sony Takes Aim at Xbox Live · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Basically you find what most other people find. Online gaming is fun when you play against your friends and your friends are around the same skill level as you. Once you get into this giant online community, where people play 10 hours a day, it isn't fun anymore, because it's too hard, and not everyone wants to devote that kind of time to it. I think that with the power these new boxes have, you should be able to host your own server, and play multiplayer just with your own friends for free, the way it's been done for years on PCs.

  21. Re:Water cores on Putting Star Wars to the MythBusters Test · · Score: 1

    But I thought that solid water (ice) was less dense then the liquid form. Therefore, if you compress water enough, it cannot turn into a solid.

  22. Re:Once again... on IE 7.0 Beta 2 Available to the Public · · Score: 1

    They still at IE 6 don't have proper CSS support or PNG support. They don't implement all the important features quickly enough. I can get a Javascript debugger for FireFox. I want the same for IE. For any developer doing a lot of javascript in their web pages, the javascript debugger is a must have.

  23. Re:Once again... on IE 7.0 Beta 2 Available to the Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft cannot survive developing new features at its current pace. 5 years between releases for SQL server and and 3 years for most other applications is too much. We haven't had a new IE since 2001. Meanwhile, new versions of the competing open source solutions are being released every year, sometimes more often, with tons of new features. At this rate, in 10 years, MS software will have a quarter of the features of the competing open source products.

  24. Re:VB on Simple Windows Development Tools? · · Score: 1

    I'd go for anything in the .Net family. VB, or C# especially. The GUI tools for both are pretty much the same. However, the development tools can cost quite a bit. If cost is a major issue, you may want to try out Java and NetBeans, which has a greate GUI designer. At least the best I've seen from the free tools available.

  25. Re:proves the old argument on Microsoft OS Smart Phone for Developing Nations · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Also, I don't see them producing these PC capable phones for anywhere near $100. Sure you can get a free phone, but that's only due to subsidies from signing a contract. Most phones cost over $150. Now start looking a the phones that can run actual applications like word processors and spreadsheets, along with a real browser, and your looking at around $500. If they can truly make laptops for $100, I think that's the best route to go. I wouldn't assume most people in need of theses computers have TVs anyway to hook up the cell phone to. At least not ones where the resolution would be good enough to get any real work done. Plus, now the family needs 2 tvs if both kids want to use their computers. I think an all in one unit like the laptop being offered is the only way it's going to work out, if it's going to work out at all.