I agree, personalized menus were stupid and it is the first thing that is turned off by most users. However, after that one simple move, the UI was a lot more static than the Ribbon.
The contextual changes of the Ribbon does not make the number of clicks smaller when compared to toolbars, simply because toolbars did not have contextual changes. With toolbars, everything you needed was there, independently of what you clicked in the document, unlike toolbars.
The quick toolbar of the Ribbon is not large enough to hold all the commands of the old toolbars, so it cannot be used as a toolbar replacement.
The contextual menu for formatting does no contain all the commands the toolbar had and does not make the Ribbon more usable than it is. In fact, the formatting menu was conceived exactly because the Ribbon makes you do more clicks than the previous system.
The mouse wheel is not precise enough to quickly change to the required tab. It is quite often to aim for one tab and get the previous or next, because the wheel was not rolled enough or was rolled too much.
The Ribbon is very bad from a UI perspective. It does not help you find the commands easier than the previous system, it is less descriptive than menus, and memorizing commands is a lot more difficult than menus and toolbars simply because of its cryptic nature, i.e. most things are hidden behind tabs.
The people like me who complain on the Ribbon are not old geezers that cannot adjust themselves to the new way of doing things. There are legitimate reasons for complaining.
The Ribbon is actually worse than menus and toolbars because it forces the user to do more clicks than menus and toolbars. For example, if you make a piece of text bold, then you add a table, you have to click the 'home' tab in order to be able to change the font again. With toolbars, everything was on the screen all the time, you didn't have to click tabs.
Furthermore, the tabs of the Ribbon make it difficult to memorize where everything is. With toolbars, you could arrange them in such a way that you always had the same picture in front of you, which means you could memorize the interface much easier.
If aliens have the capability to travel from their home planet to Earth, then I am sure they also have the ability to hide themselves from us pretty well.
That or the Star Trek TOS television signal reached them, and they decided to skip this planet, since their females are of color green.
Perhaps they visited Earth a few thousand years ago. Even if we have visitors every, let's say, 20000 years, that is plenty of time for us to grow from the stone age to the nuclear age and then destroy ourselves. And then, the next visitors will simply find our remans.
D sucks because it is not consistent and orthogonal. It has many overlappng features and shutting off the garbage collector means half of the language does not work.
Erlang sucks because it lacks some important features like structs (Erlang records are single-linked lists), pointers, and fast native types, and its prolog-like syntax is extremely awkward.
Haskell sucks because lazy evaluation makes it extremely difficult to create code with predictable performance, and it also sucks because the more complex the problem to solve is, the more pure functional programming becomes a giant mental puzzle. When your haskell program compiles, it is great, and most propably defect-free (within reasonable limits), but getting it to compile may be extremely difficult mentally, some times.
What the world needs is a C successor: a language that is as close to the metal as possible but also modernized, i.e. to contain all the high level features that are important, as well as good syntax and a modern toolchain.
Those two requirements (being close to the metal and also high level) are not incompatible. There are already steps in this direction: c++0x, D 2.0, Rust, Closure.
It is quite surprising that, up until now, no one has thought of using a bytecode solution, that guarrantees portability and performance.
We have gone from the one extreme, i.e. an interpreted dynamic language, to the other extreme, i.e. native code. There is a sweet spot in between, that of bytecode, that offers portability and good performance on par with native code, and also better security than native code.
Is the actual drawing not part of the video driver? applications nowadays do not write to the video frame buffer directly. So why aren't Android graphics accelerated? do they lack GPU video drivers? it cannot be the lowest common denominator thing you mention, because of how modern graphics are rendered through APIs and video drivers.
Managers hate email because they have to be precise about what they want and they cannot talk about their latest car or golf game in an email.
I have seen managers insisting on video conferences when a simple email would suffice. The video conferences usually last over two hours, and then one has to keep notes, which will be cleared up, emailed to all parties and signed off. The email could have saved all that.
What NASA needs to build is an interplanetary arc; a big spaceship complete with rotating sections for gravity, nuclear propulsion, huge areas of hydroponics and onboard shuttles for visiting planets.
With such a spaceship, visiting other planets of the solar system would be much easier.
Is it a myth that it is renewable? it is not. For 4 billion years, the big star near our planet can provide plenty of energy; while technically not infinite, it can certainly provide much energy.
Is it a myth that it needs infrastructure? it is not. Old materials may be recycled and create new infrastructure. At some point in the future, the very same energy that is extracted from renewable sources will be used to recycle and reuse old infrastructure, just like with oil.
Is it a myth that it needs water? it is not. But water is plenty on our planet. 70% of it is filled with water.
So why does this article exist? what does it bring to the table? should we abandon renewable energy just because it is difficult to create it cheaply now? if we abandon it, and we don't have any more oil in a few hundred years, we will go back to the stone age.
Any law is unenforceable in a large scale. For example, if 90% of people start stealing from other people, there will be not enough policemen to stop the thieves. Laws work as long as the large majority of people is willing to obey them.
No, piracy is theft because it devalues the perceived price of a product. Each product has a perceived price that is not related to its cost or physical value (for example, an old painting).
That people that pirate stuff do not see how anyone loses is a matter of culture: our culture is egocentric and so we don't take time to sit down and think of what we are doing and its consequences. As long as we get our movie, songs and games fix, we are ok.
I am not trying to convince anyone. I am stating my opinion, backed up with arguments. If people don't agree, then so be it.
Yes, the aim of copyright is to prevent others from exploiting the works of a man or enterprise. Without copyright, there wouldn't be economic progress. Once something was out there, it would be used and enjoyed without the original creator being compensated for it.
Wealth cannot be created if something one produces is not profitable. And without copyright, it cannot be profitable.
Without copyright, neither the author nor the users of the author's works would be able to create wealth, because the material will be free to use and enjoy.
The only harm to the objectives of capitalism and free market is piracy itself.
I never said that copyright is to prevent others from making wealth. I said that it is to prevent others from exploiting others' works. If you want to make wealth on copyrighted material, you can always come into agreement with the author, negotiate a price and create as much wealth as you wish.
Copyright has not prevented copyrighted works to be displayed and enjoyed worldwide, by various distribution channels.
While I am against corporatism like RIAA and MPAA does, and I am certainly against the humongous sentences pirates have received, I cannot close my eyes and go 'lalalalalala' to what is essentially an effort by the average Joe to justify his/her illegal actions.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, personalized menus were stupid and it is the first thing that is turned off by most users. However, after that one simple move, the UI was a lot more static than the Ribbon.
The contextual changes of the Ribbon does not make the number of clicks smaller when compared to toolbars, simply because toolbars did not have contextual changes. With toolbars, everything you needed was there, independently of what you clicked in the document, unlike toolbars.
The quick toolbar of the Ribbon is not large enough to hold all the commands of the old toolbars, so it cannot be used as a toolbar replacement.
The contextual menu for formatting does no contain all the commands the toolbar had and does not make the Ribbon more usable than it is. In fact, the formatting menu was conceived exactly because the Ribbon makes you do more clicks than the previous system.
The mouse wheel is not precise enough to quickly change to the required tab. It is quite often to aim for one tab and get the previous or next, because the wheel was not rolled enough or was rolled too much.
The Ribbon is very bad from a UI perspective. It does not help you find the commands easier than the previous system, it is less descriptive than menus, and memorizing commands is a lot more difficult than menus and toolbars simply because of its cryptic nature, i.e. most things are hidden behind tabs.
The people like me who complain on the Ribbon are not old geezers that cannot adjust themselves to the new way of doing things. There are legitimate reasons for complaining.
The Ribbon is actually worse than menus and toolbars because it forces the user to do more clicks than menus and toolbars. For example, if you make a piece of text bold, then you add a table, you have to click the 'home' tab in order to be able to change the font again. With toolbars, everything was on the screen all the time, you didn't have to click tabs.
Furthermore, the tabs of the Ribbon make it difficult to memorize where everything is. With toolbars, you could arrange them in such a way that you always had the same picture in front of you, which means you could memorize the interface much easier.
I will agree with you I don't know where all the ribbon hate comes from, at least from a UI perspective.
The Ribbon requires more clicks than menus and toolbars for the same functions.
I don't see the ribbon as being much different from the old toolbar from a user perspective though.
Toolbars did not have tab pages.
If aliens have the capability to travel from their home planet to Earth, then I am sure they also have the ability to hide themselves from us pretty well.
That or the Star Trek TOS television signal reached them, and they decided to skip this planet, since their females are of color green.
Perhaps they visited Earth a few thousand years ago. Even if we have visitors every, let's say, 20000 years, that is plenty of time for us to grow from the stone age to the nuclear age and then destroy ourselves. And then, the next visitors will simply find our remans.
But there is not a web bytecode standard. And I think LLVM cannot be used for JIT.
Furthermore, neither C# or Java have an advantage over C++ regarding object-oriented code.
D sucks because it is not consistent and orthogonal. It has many overlappng features and shutting off the garbage collector means half of the language does not work.
Erlang sucks because it lacks some important features like structs (Erlang records are single-linked lists), pointers, and fast native types, and its prolog-like syntax is extremely awkward.
Haskell sucks because lazy evaluation makes it extremely difficult to create code with predictable performance, and it also sucks because the more complex the problem to solve is, the more pure functional programming becomes a giant mental puzzle. When your haskell program compiles, it is great, and most propably defect-free (within reasonable limits), but getting it to compile may be extremely difficult mentally, some times.
What the world needs is a C successor: a language that is as close to the metal as possible but also modernized, i.e. to contain all the high level features that are important, as well as good syntax and a modern toolchain.
Those two requirements (being close to the metal and also high level) are not incompatible. There are already steps in this direction: c++0x, D 2.0, Rust, Closure.
It is quite surprising that, up until now, no one has thought of using a bytecode solution, that guarrantees portability and performance.
We have gone from the one extreme, i.e. an interpreted dynamic language, to the other extreme, i.e. native code. There is a sweet spot in between, that of bytecode, that offers portability and good performance on par with native code, and also better security than native code.
I'll be waiting for Windows 9
I'll be waiting for Windows X.
Is the actual drawing not part of the video driver? applications nowadays do not write to the video frame buffer directly. So why aren't Android graphics accelerated? do they lack GPU video drivers? it cannot be the lowest common denominator thing you mention, because of how modern graphics are rendered through APIs and video drivers.
Oh, come on mods! how is it possible that the post says "Voyager leaves our GALAXY" and is modded 4, Insightful?
The difference between GALAXY and SOLAR SYSTEM is huge. No self-respecting geek doesn't know that!
How can one make such a mistake? this is Slashdot! the least amount of knowledge required is the difference between a GALAXY and a SOLAR SYSTEM!!!
> Score:4, Insightful
> is LEAVING OUR GALAXY
Today is the day Slashdot died :-(.
I want to see strange animals and their mating habits again.
According to your description of their program, they do :-).
Managers hate email because they have to be precise about what they want and they cannot talk about their latest car or golf game in an email.
I have seen managers insisting on video conferences when a simple email would suffice. The video conferences usually last over two hours, and then one has to keep notes, which will be cleared up, emailed to all parties and signed off. The email could have saved all that.
The latest German joke, very popular amongst Germans, especially politicians, is the following:
Germany will not be hurt by the Euro crisis.
Dedicated to Merkel.
What NASA needs to build is an interplanetary arc; a big spaceship complete with rotating sections for gravity, nuclear propulsion, huge areas of hydroponics and onboard shuttles for visiting planets.
With such a spaceship, visiting other planets of the solar system would be much easier.
Is it a myth that it is renewable? it is not. For 4 billion years, the big star near our planet can provide plenty of energy; while technically not infinite, it can certainly provide much energy.
Is it a myth that it needs infrastructure? it is not. Old materials may be recycled and create new infrastructure. At some point in the future, the very same energy that is extracted from renewable sources will be used to recycle and reuse old infrastructure, just like with oil.
Is it a myth that it needs water? it is not. But water is plenty on our planet. 70% of it is filled with water.
So why does this article exist? what does it bring to the table? should we abandon renewable energy just because it is difficult to create it cheaply now? if we abandon it, and we don't have any more oil in a few hundred years, we will go back to the stone age.
Building a big spaceship will be certainly cheaper in the long run. It would allow us to do tens of missions to planets, instead of those 5 missions.
5% c is a good speed for traveling into the solar system. In the meantime, we would have a good basis for testing ideas for better propulsion systems.
Since she is suggesting a policy, she is.
Easy: sandbox the app, i.e. let apps read and write only the files/folders they are allowed to.
Any law is unenforceable in a large scale. For example, if 90% of people start stealing from other people, there will be not enough policemen to stop the thieves. Laws work as long as the large majority of people is willing to obey them.
No, piracy is theft because it devalues the perceived price of a product. Each product has a perceived price that is not related to its cost or physical value (for example, an old painting).
That people that pirate stuff do not see how anyone loses is a matter of culture: our culture is egocentric and so we don't take time to sit down and think of what we are doing and its consequences. As long as we get our movie, songs and games fix, we are ok.
I am not trying to convince anyone. I am stating my opinion, backed up with arguments. If people don't agree, then so be it.
Yes, the aim of copyright is to prevent others from exploiting the works of a man or enterprise. Without copyright, there wouldn't be economic progress. Once something was out there, it would be used and enjoyed without the original creator being compensated for it.
Wealth cannot be created if something one produces is not profitable. And without copyright, it cannot be profitable.
Without copyright, neither the author nor the users of the author's works would be able to create wealth, because the material will be free to use and enjoy.
The only harm to the objectives of capitalism and free market is piracy itself.
I never said that copyright is to prevent others from making wealth. I said that it is to prevent others from exploiting others' works. If you want to make wealth on copyrighted material, you can always come into agreement with the author, negotiate a price and create as much wealth as you wish.
Copyright has not prevented copyrighted works to be displayed and enjoyed worldwide, by various distribution channels.
While I am against corporatism like RIAA and MPAA does, and I am certainly against the humongous sentences pirates have received, I cannot close my eyes and go 'lalalalalala' to what is essentially an effort by the average Joe to justify his/her illegal actions.
She is in the European Commission, so she is a politician.