I can see the commercials with Luke Wilson now....
iPhone Luke is eating lunch while using his iPhone to tweet. "nexus" Luke tries to steal a french fry from iPhone Luke. And iPhone Luke bats his hand away saying, "Hey, why don't you buy some for yourself !". Then "nexus" Luke (sad-faced) says, "But I spent all my money on this....android....phone".
That would be true, if the service we adjusted downward when bringing an UN-subsidized phone to the party. Since we all know that to NOT be true, then there is NO win here. C'mon, use some common sense logic, that the purpose of subsidized phones is to ensure that there is a revenue stream that no only covers the initial cost of the phone ( and there's NO way you're going to tell me that any carrier pays anywhere NEAR the supposed retail price of a phone, and then can charge you an early termination fee of the sort that they charge....PUH-LEEZE. No one's THAT dumb to believe it. ) plus actual service costs, with some room for scaled profit throughout the lifetime of the person's contract with the carrier.
So please stop squawking as though Google's doing someone some public service here. They aren't. PERIOD.
Or as the commercial goes......The man said, "Ta-da !"
Build more towers. Increase capacity. Uncle Sam has doled out a lot of money over the last couple decades to build infrastructure. Build it. Cut dividend payouts a little bit, and build the infrastructure up. Maybe cut executive and management pay a little bit. DUHH. And, while you're at it, maybe you can get that "last mile" built so that all Americans can get online. Tiered pricing isn't the solution. Demand is going to increase every year from now on. Get used to the idea that you need to keep adding to and improving the infrastructure. You can't take a snapshot at some arbitrary point, and say "We need this much more infrastructure, then we'll be on easy street." Invest your earnings back into the system, where it belongs - in the business.
Brotha's and Sistah's can I get an Amen in the congregation !
But seriously, it only took 5 sentences what several building-full's of MBA's can't seem to understand. And as for the squeaky investors.....hello !...this is insuring the long-term sustainability of your investment, if you were looking for "Get rich quick", infrastructure large-player data communications isn't it ! Go look at some small company like HTC and invest in them so they get better phones on the market...or better yet, Huawei (?!?) who're now starting to come out with some real competition for HTC and others.
I love statisticians ( always trying to convince people that 1 = 2 for most values of 1, that lot )...
Dude...if bicycles are a visible component of the total mass of flowing traffic...guess what..you should have to abide by the same regulations other vehicles do, if not more so. Specifically because you're operating a vehicle that doesn't have the inherent "operator safeguards" that other vehicles do. YOU are your vehicle's safeguard.
Coming from a city where 90%+ of humanity get around via their own vehicles for work, I would think if we had more folks riding their bikes to work we might encounter some of the same issues you've described.
Which makes me wonder even more where the $399 is going for the personal developer edition....unless they're offering updates and support en perpetuetum....
I could understand $99.......but $399.......what in the heck is De Icaza puffing ?
Which means what ? That the ridiculous algorithms used by the three credit reporting companies can now be considered invalid, and I can come up with my own "Credit Score" algorithm and make my own service ?
Yeah, right.
Then you're unclear as to the reasons for having scope in the first place. It's why books are divided chapters, and chapters into pages, pages into paragraphs, and so on. It's to give it some semblance of context. Geez, why even have '{' or '}' then ? There's no reason to have key characters if there's no logical demarkation of scope after all. And if we're going that far, let's get rid of the ';'s then. We're all adults, we should KNOW where a statement ends, right ?
Obviously I'm being facetious, but only half so. It's because for as many nice things there are in JS, I keep coming up with more rationales for why JS must wither. Lua is a great example of scripting done right ( or at least more coherently than JS will ever be ), but it has it's limits of utility as well.
JS was a hack when it was incepted, continues to be a hack, and will plague us into the future unless people get a grip already.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the road to RIA is not paved in JS (even if embedded away from eyesight).
"Name a single real world problem that doesn't parallelize"
Multiple orgasms. Try that one on for size, Einstein. And to the wingnut who says it's "not a real world problem". Yeah, your girlfriend called, she's says going out with Tia Tequila tonight.
Putzes. To those who say "parallelism scales just fine". Most real world problems ARE outlying cases of particular algorithms. Of COURSE, these things are going to have constraints placed upon them. Time, hardware availability, BUDGETS. There is such a thing as "not enough money". Parallelism scales if your problem is in producing "cogs". Simple, turn the crank, don't think too much processes performed ad infinitum.
"(5 years experience in a language only out for say 3.) "
This is one of those "If I had a quarter for every time I ran across this" quotes. What everyone's forgetting is the particular focus of the two authors of this article, and it's DEFINITIVE slam of the whole quagmyre state of outsourcing, and the "programmer as cog" mentality that's not only pervaded business-types, but has somehow backwashed itself into academia. It's specifically BECAUSE no matter what area of computer science interests you, there SHOULD be SOME specialized coursework ( for which there should be no substitute for ) that targets that area for an undergraduate ; regardless of what underlying theory-based course he/she receives. I remember when I was in college in the 80's ( mega-slacker that I was ), were TOLD... "go forth, yes forth, and lisp, and c, and even assembler, and multiply out unto the land...and your code shall bear much fruit" ( or something to that effect ). The point was that we weren't just encouraged to do so, it found it's way into the freaking curriculum ( Pascal programming not withstanding ).
Much HAS been lost due to the Frameworks, and the CLR's, ByteCodes, and IL's of the world ( it's all UCSD Pascal's fault, those who know, will remember ). Supposedly as much, if not more has been gained ( but not when I see some people's code, unngh ), but if that were true, why does it still feel as though it's a zero-sum equation in software engineer these days ?
Is it the outsourcing ? Is it the plethora of me-too dynamic languages ? Or the tell-me-what-not-how miasma of functionalati, pushing all manner of contrived names for programming languages, which all do "something" kind of neat, but not EVERYTHING good enough to be generally useful ?
It seems as though every new programming language today is a research project or dissertation run amok, and a novelty syndrome has taken hold of the youth of programming today.
Now I'm not saying "Hey let's go back to Cobol" ( actually, I keep a loaded spud, that's potato pellet boys and girls, shooter for just such circumstances where one might crop up ). What I am saying is that if it took the Java folks almost 10 years to come back around to recognizing that the following line of code has actual elegance, we have a serious problem everywhere else:
printf("hello %s world", cruel_string );
What I think we really need is a "Jump the Shark" measurement gauge to apply to all languages that "get full of themselves". C, and to a lesser degree C++ started out rather unpretentious. Forth just cared about making sure things were threaded together nice and presentable. Heck, even Modula and Modula-2 were just trying to make a way for themselves without being ostentatious. You could even say that Oberon ( yes, I'm talking about your progenitor C#, so listen. What ? Who didn't know C# was really a genetically modified Oberon ? You! Dunce cap for you ! ) was that smart know-it-all who actually stopped to learn some social graces with the environment around it.
I challenge someone anyone with a big enough reputation to say "Stop the stupidity", we don't need 18 ways from Sunday to compose a lambda expression just to generalize an operation, or perform some relational algebra-like expression in pseudo-sql syntax. Or as I like to call it....when is equal not equal to equal but is an equivalence. When everything was a pointer, that meant something. It meant "use your brain, silly, that's why it's bolted onto your shoulders".
Anyway, enough of waxing nostalgic. Before this post "jumps the shark" too.
I don't think so, because Singularity is meant to be a OB managed OS ( going from every eventuality the MS Res folks have spoken about publicly...look at the video for Singularity IV: The return of the UI ), where Cairo was meant as simply an OB OS ( object based OS ) where at the user level their interaction was purely on "tangible" objects ( pictures, videos, documents, etc. ).
I think where Singularity is headed as towards being the basis of a virtualized OS hosted by a "singularity" kernel that hosts all singularity client OS's. This concept is a grander extension of what Mach was in the late 80's-early 90's, and frankly, if anyone ever remembers something called "Workplace OS" from IBM, they'll say "Aha!" to themselves, and realize this is similar to where MS Res is headed towards. Nevermind that "Workplace OS" was aimed at more "concrete" OS clients ( those who were there will remember them referred to as "Personalities" ).
Ahh the great days of operating system development. What I wouldn't give to be back in the thick of that once more.
No one said they weren't powerful or useful, but your assertion that the Type Library Editor included in Delphi ( and C++ Builder for those who've used it ) has it's own issues, many of which have never been addressed by Borland. For a user of anything remotely related to IDL the Delphi tools are no better than the VC++ tools, it simply boils down to a matter of taste.
The points you make are always the defense positions taken by those proponents who have in one way or another a vested interest in their proliferation. Most of the time I see these apologetic arguments put forth, they're always those folks who're less than willing to explore better alternatives. I should know, I was once one of them.
what the h_ll are you talking about then, because JBuilder ( and it's derivatives ) are classifiable ( even Oracles' literature classified them ) as RAD environments. Clarify your statements there, eh ?
Oracle Developer was a customized build of JBuilder tailored to work specifically and singlely with Oracle 9 ( and subsequently 10 ). I know, because I used those two products.
Now as for RAD tools, there's plenty of RAD tools for Java besides those, there's Netbeans ( or for Eclipse, the Eclipse VE, Jigloo or WindowsBuilder Pro ) or IntelliJ Idea.
Sure there's a frameworks for creating scaffolding for applications within Ruby, et al., but frankly much of that is strictly useful for creating boilerplate code that can be refactored as necessary.
Personally ( and I'm COMPLETELY serious about what I'm about to say ), I keep a copy of "GUI Bloopers" on my desk. Not so much as a reference guide ( which it is ), but as something solid and blunt to BONK any usability person who comes up draconian ideas of user interface design.
Allow me to synthesize a lemma based on one of Einsteins postulates: The user interface should be as stupid as the user, but no stupider.
Good &Deity ! What rock have you crawled out from under ? Where have you been for the last half-decade ? Have you ever even HEARD of Eclipse ? Hello ? Open Source Multi-platform Java and User-interface development ( with pluggable C/C++ support out of the gate to boot ! ).
I know of several large legacy systems who're written in Smalltalk with their UI in Smalltalk as well, but no one nowadays in their right mind would actually walk up to their management and suggest any enterprise system be developed within it todat. The viable alternatives to it as simply too vast to ignore.
And as for Common Lisp, I'll buy the minimization of re-code but user interfaces in Lisp ? Dude, maybe you stop inhaling, hmm ?
What the flog are you talking about ? Near-pinnacle ? That's exactly the neanderthal response I would expect from a VB/Delphi programmer ( emphasis ON PROGRAMMER ).
As someone who's not only designed and developed highly interactive user interfaces ( http://consumer.mci.com/TheNeighborhood/res_local_ service/jsps/callmanager.jsp?subpartner=DEFAULT , just to name one ) for almost 20 years, but also developed applications in both of those languages ( and many others ), I can tell that your statements are written with the same tunnel-mindedness that came up with VB in the first place ( I'll get to Delphi, further on ). VB was a way to rapidly prototype things, yes, and it could serve it's purpose well. But it fails miserably in two key areas that are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for any good software development effort. Ready ? Ok, here we go.
1. Adaptability 2. Extensibility
For the former, VB is a nightmare at least to adapt to applications needed to operate in non-homogenous environments. If you're all M$, fine, but there, you're locked in. As for the latter, I direct the reader to just look at all the hullaballoo about the "evolution" of VB into VB.net to the point where there's near furor over the obvious attempts to get VB coders out of the last century, and into the here and now.
Now as for Delphi ( or C++ Builder for those folks who chose it as their alternative to Pascalized-OOP ), it has the unpleasant distinction of being tied to a company who has no less than an identity crisis on it's hands ( I direct the reader to look up Borland's recent announcement to spin-off "CodeGear" as the "Software Development products arm" of Borland. Who for some reason thinks that Software ALM is REALLY where the money's at. Ding ! Wrong answer. But that's a different discussion ). The user community for Delphi is just as staunch as the VB encampment, but at least they've taken more readily to moving forward. Not to mention, that at least with it's Object-Pascal roots, it has more than a ghost of a chance at having software developed with it that has some software methodology applied to it, and therefore would make it open to being made extensible.
The only reason VB could've provided a KISS "developer experience" was because of the proliferation of VBX/ACX/OCX controls ( which invariably ended up being written using MFC/VC++ ) to do the heavy lifting for them. Anyone who regularly reads slashdot doesn't have to be reminded what the proliferation of ActiveX controls has done for the user desktop experience ( hint: just ask anyone who's had their PC taken over as a zombie. Bets are it was due to an aberrant ActiveX control burrowing itself into the user's system ). Don't get me wrong, I don't hate VB, it, like so many other languages ( don't get me started on Smalltalk ) has it's place. But as a the be-all-end-all Sange Real of user interface development environements ? &Deity forbid.
I just have to quote one statement "MVC is a mess only....." to state definitively as to the amount of real understanding of OOD methodologies you must have. Don't take it as an attack ( though chances are you probably will ), take it as a suggestion that perhaps you should take a deeper look.
And to anyone who's curious as to what language/environment the desktop app I provided the link to earlier was written with/in, just ask. I'll give everyone a hint:
1. Developed using strictly spen source tools and a cross platform language.
You know what ? Well said. I salute your low user number. Considering mine is still under the first million, I have to agree with you. There has always been healthy debate, and while it certainly has gotten down to the ridiculously sublime stench level at times. I think that there's generally more good than dearth slung around.
Except when the issue is outsourcing. And please don't get me started on that, as I have personal accounts I could cite.
Wrong. Don't be ridiculous. Toddlers don't care about rebuilding them. What goal do you think everyone's talking about ? Toddler mechanics ? Get serious. The whole issue IS and IS NOTHING ELSE other than about use by the public at large. Yes. Home users.
We all know that the A$$ clown held up in his basement with a couple dozen old laptops can wring a working config with out messing with installation to just about any distro ( slack, SuSe, Mandrake/driva, Ubuntu, etc.etc.etc ). That person isn't the sort of person that's being discussed here.
We've been going round and round on this issue for over a freakin' decade. Again and again and again. Every from down and dirtiest kernel demi-god to the highest window manager/UI semi-deity needs to get it out of their brain that "people" will WANT to toy with their "contraption". No, they don't. You may not like hearing that, but it's the truth. You don't HAVE to accept it, for it to be true. Hell, you can go on thinking it isn't the truth. Go right ahead, as a matter of fact. As long as SOME people start to get a clue that in fact the more Linux progresses, the more it seems to be headed in a totally non-mainstream direction. And don't get me started on the definition of "mainstream". If you don't just "get it", you really need to go back to the beginning of the post, and try again.
No one's personally attacking anyone. My comment is made as a general critique as to the "still don't get it"-ness of most in the Linux development community. Until we figure out that no matter how many options WE give OURSELVES, that we need a UNIFIED face to put forward to the public en-masse, and that our control mechanisms need to "just work", we're going to continue to be relegated to being called "the other operating system", and not the "better alternative to Windows".
Again and again, the Uber-geeks try by techni-intimidation to quell the words of reality from reaching them by saying that any arguments other then those which they are espousing are either relevant or insightful. Wrong again, gentlemen ( and ladies ). Wrong again. Tough to face reality isn't it. Keep a stiff upper lip about you.
That statement presumes that it had street cred in the first place. Unless the street you're talking about is in some small Eastern European city or Chennai( among others ). I think most everyone here with a string of concurrently firing neurons understands "street cred" to mean some street in North America. Which after all, is the vast majority of posters here are commenting about. So..stick to the point.
Let's recap:
A) Two clowns are cat fighting about some insanely ridiculous sweatshop of a clearing house called RAC ( I will not lower myself to call it by it's given name ).
B) "Street Cred" means North American street credibility with respect to the individuals living, breathing and otherwise trying to make a living on said continent.
C) No conclusions necessary. RAC isn't a flawed concept, it's application to the marketplace, however, is completely corrupt.
not only does this story not add up, it stinks to high heaven. I smell the tale of spin doctors. The MINUTE you try to pass off some story like this as a "oh it turns out I was running a pirated version I bought off the internet". GMAB !!! There are DOZENS, if not hundreds, of online retailers ( pricewatch, anyone ) who'll sell you License Keys, NO CD's, just the license card with the key itself. What gets my goat is the audacity that he thinks people will just dismiss this as, "Oh, poor Paul, he made a mistake". Putz! What kind of a payoff did you get for covering up that there was a bug in WGA. Pirated Auth key my A$$.
"Spin Doctors", he cried, "Spin doctors most foul !"
Slashdot Mirror
People over processes......works every time.
I can see the commercials with Luke Wilson now.... iPhone Luke is eating lunch while using his iPhone to tweet. "nexus" Luke tries to steal a french fry from iPhone Luke. And iPhone Luke bats his hand away saying, "Hey, why don't you buy some for yourself !". Then "nexus" Luke (sad-faced) says, "But I spent all my money on this....android....phone".
That would be true, if the service we adjusted downward when bringing an UN-subsidized phone to the party. Since we all know that to NOT be true, then there is NO win here. C'mon, use some common sense logic, that the purpose of subsidized phones is to ensure that there is a revenue stream that no only covers the initial cost of the phone ( and there's NO way you're going to tell me that any carrier pays anywhere NEAR the supposed retail price of a phone, and then can charge you an early termination fee of the sort that they charge....PUH-LEEZE. No one's THAT dumb to believe it. ) plus actual service costs, with some room for scaled profit throughout the lifetime of the person's contract with the carrier. So please stop squawking as though Google's doing someone some public service here. They aren't. PERIOD. Or as the commercial goes......The man said, "Ta-da !"
blend. Will it blend !?! Sheesh.....you forgot to ask the REAL IMPORTANT question.
Build more towers. Increase capacity. Uncle Sam has doled out a lot of money over the last couple decades to build infrastructure. Build it. Cut dividend payouts a little bit, and build the infrastructure up. Maybe cut executive and management pay a little bit. DUHH. And, while you're at it, maybe you can get that "last mile" built so that all Americans can get online. Tiered pricing isn't the solution. Demand is going to increase every year from now on. Get used to the idea that you need to keep adding to and improving the infrastructure. You can't take a snapshot at some arbitrary point, and say "We need this much more infrastructure, then we'll be on easy street." Invest your earnings back into the system, where it belongs - in the business.
Brotha's and Sistah's can I get an Amen in the congregation ! But seriously, it only took 5 sentences what several building-full's of MBA's can't seem to understand. And as for the squeaky investors.....hello !...this is insuring the long-term sustainability of your investment, if you were looking for "Get rich quick", infrastructure large-player data communications isn't it ! Go look at some small company like HTC and invest in them so they get better phones on the market...or better yet, Huawei (?!?) who're now starting to come out with some real competition for HTC and others.
I love statisticians ( always trying to convince people that 1 = 2 for most values of 1, that lot )... Dude...if bicycles are a visible component of the total mass of flowing traffic...guess what..you should have to abide by the same regulations other vehicles do, if not more so. Specifically because you're operating a vehicle that doesn't have the inherent "operator safeguards" that other vehicles do. YOU are your vehicle's safeguard. Coming from a city where 90%+ of humanity get around via their own vehicles for work, I would think if we had more folks riding their bikes to work we might encounter some of the same issues you've described.
Funny...I found references to where a cyclist bashed in the window to a metro bus....though....this http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/07/war_between_bikes_and_cars_not.html#more seems to indicate there isn't any war going on between cyclists and drivers. Just the same....
Which makes me wonder even more where the $399 is going for the personal developer edition....unless they're offering updates and support en perpetuetum.... I could understand $99.......but $399.......what in the heck is De Icaza puffing ?
Which means what ? That the ridiculous algorithms used by the three credit reporting companies can now be considered invalid, and I can come up with my own "Credit Score" algorithm and make my own service ? Yeah, right.
Then you're unclear as to the reasons for having scope in the first place. It's why books are divided chapters, and chapters into pages, pages into paragraphs, and so on. It's to give it some semblance of context. Geez, why even have '{' or '}' then ? There's no reason to have key characters if there's no logical demarkation of scope after all. And if we're going that far, let's get rid of the ';'s then. We're all adults, we should KNOW where a statement ends, right ?
Obviously I'm being facetious, but only half so. It's because for as many nice things there are in JS, I keep coming up with more rationales for why JS must wither. Lua is a great example of scripting done right ( or at least more coherently than JS will ever be ), but it has it's limits of utility as well.
JS was a hack when it was incepted, continues to be a hack, and will plague us into the future unless people get a grip already.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the road to RIA is not paved in JS (even if embedded away from eyesight).
The act of censoring is NOT always worse than that which is being censored. Ask any victim of child pornography. Insensitive clod.
"Name a single real world problem that doesn't parallelize"
Multiple orgasms. Try that one on for size, Einstein. And to the wingnut who says it's "not a real world problem". Yeah, your girlfriend called, she's says going out with Tia Tequila tonight.
Putzes. To those who say "parallelism scales just fine". Most real world problems ARE outlying cases of particular algorithms. Of COURSE, these things are going to have constraints placed upon them. Time, hardware availability, BUDGETS. There is such a thing as "not enough money". Parallelism scales if your problem is in producing "cogs". Simple, turn the crank, don't think too much processes performed ad infinitum.
"(5 years experience in a language only out for say 3.) "
This is one of those "If I had a quarter for every time I ran across this" quotes. What everyone's forgetting is the particular focus of the two authors of this article, and it's DEFINITIVE slam of the whole quagmyre state of outsourcing, and the "programmer as cog" mentality that's not only pervaded business-types, but has somehow backwashed itself into academia. It's specifically BECAUSE no matter what area of computer science interests you, there SHOULD be SOME specialized coursework ( for which there should be no substitute for ) that targets that area for an undergraduate ; regardless of what underlying theory-based course he/she receives. I remember when I was in college in the 80's ( mega-slacker that I was ), were TOLD... "go forth, yes forth, and lisp, and c, and even assembler, and multiply out unto the land...and your code shall bear much fruit" ( or something to that effect ). The point was that we weren't just encouraged to do so, it found it's way into the freaking curriculum ( Pascal programming not withstanding ).
Much HAS been lost due to the Frameworks, and the CLR's, ByteCodes, and IL's of the world ( it's all UCSD Pascal's fault, those who know, will remember ). Supposedly as much, if not more has been gained ( but not when I see some people's code, unngh ), but if that were true, why does it still feel as though it's a zero-sum equation in software engineer these days ?
Is it the outsourcing ? Is it the plethora of me-too dynamic languages ? Or the tell-me-what-not-how miasma of functionalati, pushing all manner of contrived names for programming languages, which all do "something" kind of neat, but not EVERYTHING good enough to be generally useful ?
It seems as though every new programming language today is a research project or dissertation run amok, and a novelty syndrome has taken hold of the youth of programming today.
Now I'm not saying "Hey let's go back to Cobol" ( actually, I keep a loaded spud, that's potato pellet boys and girls, shooter for just such circumstances where one might crop up ). What I am saying is that if it took the Java folks almost 10 years to come back around to recognizing that the following line of code has actual elegance, we have a serious problem everywhere else:
printf("hello %s world", cruel_string );
What I think we really need is a "Jump the Shark" measurement gauge to apply to all languages that "get full of themselves". C, and to a lesser degree C++ started out rather unpretentious. Forth just cared about making sure things were threaded together nice and presentable. Heck, even Modula and Modula-2 were just trying to make a way for themselves without being ostentatious. You could even say that Oberon ( yes, I'm talking about your progenitor C#, so listen. What ? Who didn't know C# was really a genetically modified Oberon ? You! Dunce cap for you ! ) was that smart know-it-all who actually stopped to learn some social graces with the environment around it.
I challenge someone anyone with a big enough reputation to say "Stop the stupidity", we don't need 18 ways from Sunday to compose a lambda expression just to generalize an operation, or perform some relational algebra-like expression in pseudo-sql syntax. Or as I like to call it....when is equal not equal to equal but is an equivalence. When everything was a pointer, that meant something. It meant "use your brain, silly, that's why it's bolted onto your shoulders".
Anyway, enough of waxing nostalgic. Before this post "jumps the shark" too.
Thou shalt not take the name of l_rd Perl in vain.
Oops...I just did.
I don't think so, because Singularity is meant to be a OB managed OS ( going from every eventuality the MS Res folks have spoken about publicly ...look at the video for Singularity IV: The return of the UI ), where Cairo was meant as simply an OB OS ( object based OS ) where at the user level their interaction was purely on "tangible" objects ( pictures, videos, documents, etc. ).
I think where Singularity is headed as towards being the basis of a virtualized OS hosted by a "singularity" kernel that hosts all singularity client OS's. This concept is a grander extension of what Mach was in the late 80's-early 90's, and frankly, if anyone ever remembers something called "Workplace OS" from IBM, they'll say "Aha!" to themselves, and realize this is similar to where MS Res is headed towards. Nevermind that "Workplace OS" was aimed at more "concrete" OS clients ( those who were there will remember them referred to as "Personalities" ).
Ahh the great days of operating system development. What I wouldn't give to be back in the thick of that once more.
No one said they weren't powerful or useful, but your assertion that the Type Library Editor included in Delphi ( and C++ Builder for those who've used it ) has it's own issues, many of which have never been addressed by Borland. For a user of anything remotely related to IDL the Delphi tools are no better than the VC++ tools, it simply boils down to a matter of taste.
The points you make are always the defense positions taken by those proponents who have in one way or another a vested interest in their proliferation. Most of the time I see these apologetic arguments put forth, they're always those folks who're less than willing to explore better alternatives. I should know, I was once one of them.
what the h_ll are you talking about then, because JBuilder ( and it's derivatives ) are classifiable ( even Oracles' literature classified them ) as RAD environments. Clarify your statements there, eh ?
Oracle Developer was a customized build of JBuilder tailored to work specifically and singlely with Oracle 9 ( and subsequently 10 ). I know, because I used those two products.
Now as for RAD tools, there's plenty of RAD tools for Java besides those, there's Netbeans ( or for Eclipse, the Eclipse VE, Jigloo or WindowsBuilder Pro ) or IntelliJ Idea.
Sure there's a frameworks for creating scaffolding for applications within Ruby, et al., but frankly much of that is strictly useful for creating boilerplate code that can be refactored as necessary.
Personally ( and I'm COMPLETELY serious about what I'm about to say ), I keep a copy of "GUI Bloopers" on my desk. Not so much as a reference guide ( which it is ), but as something solid and blunt to BONK any usability person who comes up draconian ideas of user interface design. Allow me to synthesize a lemma based on one of Einsteins postulates: The user interface should be as stupid as the user, but no stupider.
Good &Deity ! What rock have you crawled out from under ? Where have you been for the last half-decade ? Have you ever even HEARD of Eclipse ? Hello ? Open Source Multi-platform Java and User-interface development ( with pluggable C/C++ support out of the gate to boot ! ). I know of several large legacy systems who're written in Smalltalk with their UI in Smalltalk as well, but no one nowadays in their right mind would actually walk up to their management and suggest any enterprise system be developed within it todat. The viable alternatives to it as simply too vast to ignore. And as for Common Lisp, I'll buy the minimization of re-code but user interfaces in Lisp ? Dude, maybe you stop inhaling, hmm ?
What the flog are you talking about ? Near-pinnacle ? That's exactly the neanderthal response I would expect from a VB/Delphi programmer ( emphasis ON PROGRAMMER ).
_ service/jsps/callmanager.jsp?subpartner=DEFAULT , just to name one ) for almost 20 years, but also developed applications in both of those languages ( and many others ), I can tell that your statements are written with the same tunnel-mindedness that came up with VB in the first place ( I'll get to Delphi, further on ). VB was a way to rapidly prototype things, yes, and it could serve it's purpose well. But it fails miserably in two key areas that are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for any good software development effort. Ready ? Ok, here we go.
As someone who's not only designed and developed highly interactive user interfaces ( http://consumer.mci.com/TheNeighborhood/res_local
1. Adaptability
2. Extensibility
For the former, VB is a nightmare at least to adapt to applications needed to operate in non-homogenous environments. If you're all M$, fine, but there, you're locked in.
As for the latter, I direct the reader to just look at all the hullaballoo about the "evolution" of VB into VB.net to the point where there's near furor over the obvious attempts to get VB coders out of the last century, and into the here and now.
Now as for Delphi ( or C++ Builder for those folks who chose it as their alternative to Pascalized-OOP ), it has the unpleasant distinction of being tied to a company who has no less than an identity crisis on it's hands ( I direct the reader to look up Borland's recent announcement to spin-off "CodeGear" as the "Software Development products arm" of Borland. Who for some reason thinks that Software ALM is REALLY where the money's at. Ding ! Wrong answer. But that's a different discussion ). The user community for Delphi is just as staunch as the VB encampment, but at least they've taken more readily to moving forward. Not to mention, that at least with it's Object-Pascal roots, it has more than a ghost of a chance at having software developed with it that has some software methodology applied to it, and therefore would make it open to being made extensible.
The only reason VB could've provided a KISS "developer experience" was because of the proliferation of VBX/ACX/OCX controls ( which invariably ended up being written using MFC/VC++ ) to do the heavy lifting for them. Anyone who regularly reads slashdot doesn't have to be reminded what the proliferation of ActiveX controls has done for the user desktop experience ( hint: just ask anyone who's had their PC taken over as a zombie. Bets are it was due to an aberrant ActiveX control burrowing itself into the user's system ). Don't get me wrong, I don't hate VB, it, like so many other languages ( don't get me started on Smalltalk ) has it's place. But as a the be-all-end-all Sange Real of user interface development environements ? &Deity forbid.
I just have to quote one statement "MVC is a mess only....." to state definitively as to the amount of real understanding of OOD methodologies you must have. Don't take it as an attack ( though chances are you probably will ), take it as a suggestion that perhaps you should take a deeper look.
And to anyone who's curious as to what language/environment the desktop app I provided the link to earlier was written with/in, just ask. I'll give everyone a hint:
1. Developed using strictly spen source tools and a cross platform language.
You know what ? Well said. I salute your low user number. Considering mine is still under the first million, I have to agree with you. There has always been healthy debate, and while it certainly has gotten down to the ridiculously sublime stench level at times. I think that there's generally more good than dearth slung around.
Except when the issue is outsourcing. And please don't get me started on that, as I have personal accounts I could cite.
Wrong. Don't be ridiculous. Toddlers don't care about rebuilding them. What goal do you think everyone's talking about ? Toddler mechanics ? Get serious. The whole issue IS and IS NOTHING ELSE other than about use by the public at large. Yes. Home users.
We all know that the A$$ clown held up in his basement with a couple dozen old laptops can wring a working config with out messing with installation to just about any distro ( slack, SuSe, Mandrake/driva, Ubuntu, etc.etc.etc ). That person isn't the sort of person that's being discussed here.
We've been going round and round on this issue for over a freakin' decade. Again and again and again. Every from down and dirtiest kernel demi-god to the highest window manager/UI semi-deity needs to get it out of their brain that "people" will WANT to toy with their "contraption". No, they don't. You may not like hearing that, but it's the truth. You don't HAVE to accept it, for it to be true. Hell, you can go on thinking it isn't the truth. Go right ahead, as a matter of fact. As long as SOME people start to get a clue that in fact the more Linux progresses, the more it seems to be headed in a totally non-mainstream direction. And don't get me started on the definition of "mainstream". If you don't just "get it", you really need to go back to the beginning of the post, and try again.
No one's personally attacking anyone. My comment is made as a general critique as to the "still don't get it"-ness of most in the Linux development community. Until we figure out that no matter how many options WE give OURSELVES, that we need a UNIFIED face to put forward to the public en-masse, and that our control mechanisms need to "just work", we're going to continue to be relegated to being called "the other operating system", and not the "better alternative to Windows".
Again and again, the Uber-geeks try by techni-intimidation to quell the words of reality from reaching them by saying that any arguments other then those which they are espousing are either relevant or insightful. Wrong again, gentlemen ( and ladies ). Wrong again. Tough to face reality isn't it. Keep a stiff upper lip about you.
That statement presumes that it had street cred in the first place. Unless the street you're talking about is in some small Eastern European city or Chennai( among others ). I think most everyone here with a string of concurrently firing neurons understands "street cred" to mean some street in North America. Which after all, is the vast majority of posters here are commenting about. So..stick to the point.
Let's recap:
A) Two clowns are cat fighting about some insanely ridiculous sweatshop of a clearing house called RAC ( I will not lower myself to call it by it's given name ).
B) "Street Cred" means North American street credibility with respect to the individuals living, breathing and otherwise trying to make a living on said continent.
C) No conclusions necessary. RAC isn't a flawed concept, it's application to the marketplace, however, is completely corrupt.
not only does this story not add up, it stinks to high heaven. I smell the tale of spin doctors. The MINUTE you try to pass off some story like this as a "oh it turns out I was running a pirated version I bought off the internet". GMAB !!! There are DOZENS, if not hundreds, of online retailers ( pricewatch, anyone ) who'll sell you License Keys, NO CD's, just the license card with the key itself. What gets my goat is the audacity that he thinks people will just dismiss this as, "Oh, poor Paul, he made a mistake". Putz! What kind of a payoff did you get for covering up that there was a bug in WGA. Pirated Auth key my A$$.
"Spin Doctors", he cried, "Spin doctors most foul !"