"I'm in the process of redesigning..." or any similar phrasing.
The web is inherently impermanent. It's a given that any web site is constantly in a state of design and development. As new information, statistics, and trends come through, most web sites are in flux. It's like your home. You generally don't have to tell your visitors you're in the process of restructuring where you keep your drinking glasses. It's your home and it can be assumed throughout your life you're going to shift things around to suit your ever-changing needs and desires.
Bloggers and other web developers constantly letting you know that they're changing things is annoying. It's especially annoying that they feel it all has to be done in one fell swoop, that they can't change their site one style at a time, or adjust their site one widget at a time. They believe it's an all or nothing game, you can't just change a font style, you have to scrap the whole lot and go back to the drawing board. It's like everytime you want to re-zone NYC, you break out bulldozers, level the city, then start paving sidewalks again.
"I'm in the process of redesigning..." is just the textual equivilant of an "Under Construction" animated gif.
"I shouldn't have to be a "decent" web designer to be able to put up a personal homepage that looks the same in all browsers."
Many web developers expect things to look the same in all browsers. That shouldn't be a goal. The goal should be to achieve a desired level of functionality, but the page's appearance need not be uniform across browsers and platforms. If you're going for a uniform look, some of the most basic assumptions are going to get you: different video cards, monitor settings, a user's custom font sizes and colors, and userscripts will all ruin your carefully laid out plans. As long as your web site is usable, the page's aesthetics are insignificant.
People frequently design web sites in the same way a movie studio develops a film. Movie theatres have fairly standardized hardware and equipment to display their project, so the studio can plan things down to the last pixel. The open and modular nature of the personal computer prevents us from having this luxury with web sites and applications. Round up 100 people, and you're unlikely to have two candidates with identical hardware, nevermind identical configurations.
I find it astounding that he was so brilliant he discovered that smoking was bad 60 some odd years before we knew it. I mean wasn't that the driving force behind some of the charges against tobacco companies? That they confused us poor consumers so we had no idea it was even bad?
As progress is made, it's important to incorporate our technological advancements in teaching the next generation. Teaching programming without an IDE is like teaching tailoring starting with a cotton gin. It's important for historical significance to understand how things were done by your predecessors, but that doesn't mean you should start out learning how to do everything the same way they did.
I've listened to many discussions about the proper point to introduce a person to IDE usage. Two major reasons people argue not to use an IDE are:
IDEs are easier and therefore the quality of learning must be inferior.
Some scenarios exist where an IDE won't be available.
I disagree with both points. On the first point, IDEs increase students learning capacity because they are not distracted by minor technical details that are not directly related to the concept at hand.
On the second point, although scenarios exist today where IDEs are unavailable, it can realistically be assumed the number of such scenarios are going to diminish as we move towards the future.
IDEs should not be treated as a gimmick or luxury. They are an integral part of many development environments. The goal of learning programming is to teach students how to solve logical problems. The usage of an IDE allows a student to focus on the logic problem, where the focus of human attention should rightfully be, instead of mulling over minor syntatic mistakes, the correction of which can be automated.
Code conventions do not follow English syntax rules or definitions. For the sake of mental consistency, don't even think of them as "words".
I don't see why you'd have a problem with camel-case code, but you voice no problem with the lack of spacing, that "r_" isn't part of English language syntax, or that the commands aren't syntatically legal English phrases anyway.
It's always been my theory that as mortals we're actually Gods pretending to be mortals. When we were omnipotent, we had the power to instantly do everything in the entirety of existence that entertained us, so we instantly got bored, and the only thing left to do was to render ourselves virtually powerless and erase all memory of our omnipotence. My current research indicates the epoch of this event was roughly 14 hours ago (when I woke up). All memory of prior existence was simply implanted by us with our omnipotent power. I was brilliant enough in my omnipotent state to foresee me figuring this out, and thus have created the threat of people who will lock me in a padded room should I announce my findings any more publicly than on a nerd message board.
I couldn't disagree more. Progress is entirely about learning how our technology can improve our processes. Making broad sweeping generalizations and banning new-fangled gadgets is not a good solution. As they say, it's a band-aid on a bullet wound.
Students need to learn how to use technology in a non-disruptive manner, how to get the most out of their equipment. It's similar to the way math teachers like banning calculators. Like someday you're going to be stuck on an island and the only way off will be to repeatedly find the 30th derivative of patterns produced by the ocean waves, and do it using rote memorization alone.
I think it's faulty logic to take such a stuttered approach when incorporating technology. We shouldn't be easing backwards, we should be charging forward. Technology tools should be at the center of our learning experiences. When a tool, like a laptop, becomes such an integral part of society, the first question you should be asking is "How can I make this a core part of the program?" or "How can the program benefit from this?" but not "keep that thing away from me, that's the devil comes through them boxes!"
"All this does is give a headsup to the botters that they have to throw a little random action in now and then..."
Your statement is roughly equivilant to saying "All this does is tell botters all they need to do is solve a computational problem which has been unsolvable throughout the history of computation."
You are grossly misinformed about the inefficiencies of Java. It is extremely easy to examine two languages and design a 20-line test that shows that one is faster than the other.
This does not make Java "an order of magnitude slower...", a real test of requires two seperate developers, with roughly equal skill in their respective languages, given a general problem and the task of implementing a solution, then comparing the resulting applications.
Given those results, the first thing you'll note is that all the specific instances you previously cooked up (your "Fool's loop test") which proves Java is slower doesn't matter, because the Java-equivilant solution to an actual problem is entirely different. Everything about the structure of the code, where and when messages are sent, right down to the type and size of objects will be entirely different between languages.
Your test uses the assumption that in order to test Java's execution speed, the only necessary step is to take a program in C++ and translate the code, line for line, into Java syntax. The difference between programming languages is not in the syntax.
Your test is like redoing a physical structure by, beam for beam, replacing it with a different material. As any architect can tell you, the placement of the load-bearing beams will need to be dramatically altered depending on the material you use. If you take the design for a timber home and instead use concrete, the whole thing will cave in. Does this mean that concrete is weaker than timber? But yet, if you take a timber plank and slam it into a concrete wall it'll splinter into pieces. Wow, what a bizarre phenomenon!! It's as if, under different circumstances, each material has varying levels of suitability.
Your test is as ridiculous as arbitrarily declaring a search engine superior based on the results of a single keyword. "I'll prove Yahoo is the best! If you search for 'chicken', Yahoo returns better results! Therefore Yahoo is superior to Google!"
After rereading a few dozen times, I think the Grand Parent post was saying Microsoft didn't pay bribes this week (i.e. bribing authors to write articles supporting Microsoft products).
Selective research? Of course they're selective about it. You make it sound like they have a goddam responsibility to spend their money to to warn you about what Sony is up to. It's THEIR money, they can spend it researching whatever the hell the want to research. If I was rich, I'd be downright offended at someone suggesting that I'm not spending enough money researching what they want me to research.
I'm fairly certain Altavista did ALL of those things, and on top of that, I distinctly recall them having their own free dial-up service (along the lines of Kmart's Blue Light, Netzero, etc.)
There was distinct period when Altavista was the primary search engine I used. Yahoo was little more than a poorly maintained directory so it wasn't very good for finding anything new (It was kind of like things got added to Yahoo, but nothing got removed, so there was about a 50% chance any given link was dead). I believe Altavista became my default search engine after Infoseek collapsed. Mostly because after Infoseek, I wasn't sure where to search anymore and Altavista was the first engine I ever used.
The search engines I used historically (in order) were
Altavista
Infoseek
Goto
MSN
Google
Currently I'm using a mix of every search engine and web directory available. MSN, Google, Ask, Yahoo... I've long since realized having any loyalties isn't doing me any favors. I don't care which one gives me the proper results for any given search, all I care about is whether or not I find what I'm looking for.
A zing against military is a short step from anti-semitism and white supremacy?
Taking a cheap shot at the lewd behavior of soldiers is not almost equivilant with a group that vows to violently murder entire races.
The military is setup as a chain of abuse. When soldiers finally get a captive or local, they feel like they have the right to abuse them, like finally they are the boss of someone. It's like the abused kid who kicks the family dog. I've yet to hear an ex-military man retell a story about kindness to locals, but they're never short on stories that involve abuse, humilation, and death.
I agree with the other responders. In that situation my kid would no longer have an X-Box, Mt. Dew, Chocolate Milk... and basic life functions are really touch-and-go at that point.
If I ever talked like that to my mom, I'm certain either my mom or dad would have killed me. Twice.
It's funny how much time the anti-microsoft crowd spends cleverly crafting slams against Microsoft. It's as if they have typed out an incredibly witty phrase ahead of time (months or years ahead of time) and they sit at their computer, poised over the keyboard, staring at Slashdot, waiting for an article to appear that clinches the moment they can click the "Submit" button, unleashing their masterful creation in a moment of pure euphoria (which triggers ejaculation).
Maybe Windows doesn't provide the environment you're comfortable using. Use something else.
In my opinion, I think that just sounds like a poor design or specification. Whether or not they want to implement a new front-end, back-end database, or some other technology should be irrelevant to the language used to build the application. You develop interfaces to your application, and your application shouldn't very well care what type of database is connected to the back-end. And on the front-end, it reads data, without concern for where the data came from. The front-end shouldn't care whether the data was read from a file, typed in, or scanned in on a hole-punched card. The person building the front-end shouldn't need to know anything about the language the module he's connecting to was built in.
Developing a front-end should be like creating a text document. If you want to make a sentence bold, it doesn't matter what language your text editor was written in, you look for the feature it provides that allows you to make it bold. If you need the code and language of the core application in order to build a new front-end, you're not working on the front-end anymore, you're working on the whole program.
I think a company standard language is a bad idea. Use the language that solves the given problem. As far as debugging, each module should be independently testable, so you shouldn't have stack traces into other interpreters until you get to integration testing. But if the modules themselves succeed in their individual tests, and they aren't coupled with another module, integration testing is little more than a formality. I've seen plenty of applications that use multiple languages very effectively.
Your job scenario sounds ideal. At a company like that, opportunities can always be created to apply your computer-science skills in more meaningful ways. You can always make suggestions or perhaps eventually head your own department that fills your desired job function. But you're also young, so you can probably afford to take more risks too. Personally, I'd rather work at a company I can make realistic, reliable contributions to than chase start-up pipe dreams. To me, a pay cut isn't a concern. I'd usually be willing to take lower pay for a better opportunity. For example, I'd rather work for cheaper at Google than for double the pay at a financial institution.
I must say, well said. I don't agree with much of it, but you make your point well. I think the failings are in Linux and OSS and not in society. People often better themselves, the problem is that time is a limited resource, and which topic they choose to better themselves with is frequently an exclusive option. Given a 4 hour time block, a typical artist might have a choice... they can dive into one of their projects, add shadows, retouch some photographs... or they can spend it learning a new application. Most people will choose to better themselves by refining their ability to do what they already do well. Maybe using the GIMP would be a marvelous idea that enables them to surpass their wildest creative dreams. But there's really no way to know that before doing it. A person is just as likely to spend hours a day for a few weeks learning a new program only to discover it doesn't offer some core functionality they already had in an existing program.
People aren't stupid. The elitests who believe the average user, and average person, is a gibbering idiot is usually just as dumb when they are confronted with tasks outside their element. A Linux guru might wonder why everyone else is just too dumb to use all the wonderful CLI tools and scripting capabilities, yet when confronted with an automechanical problem, the mechanic is chuckling to himself about how Mr. Linux Guru is too dumb to even perform basic maintenance on his own car.
Like I said, time is a limited resource. Everyone can't spend all their time being an expert at everything.
I'd say to design a crash-free program you'd want to go back to the starting line. Deciding what language to implement a feature, module, etc. in should really be a final step in designing a program. You can design virtually every aspect of the program without implementation language ever coming up.
It's much easier to understand if you step back a bit, think of programming languages as tools. Would you rush up to an architect and say "Alright, I've got this idea for a building but before we get started let me just say it must be done using only a ball-peen hammer and a flat-head screw driver."
Seperate design and implementation, decide how your program works, what it does, what it looks like... The architect does not worry about what tool the construction workers will use to accomplish each task. When you have an idea for a program, why would you worry about which language each module or component is written in? If it accomplishes your task and meets your performance and stability requirements, isn't language irrelevant?
If an architect arrives at a building site, and the structure meets his specifications, why does he care what kind of hammer the construction crew used? For all the architect should care, the construction workers could have driven the nails in with the palm of their hand.
Decoupling, design patterns, data structures, GUI, persistent object storage, Linux, portable.... you've tossed in just about every trendy technical jargon a person could say in one breath. Without a deeper understanding of the construction of software, you are paying only lip service to any of these concepts.
I completetly disagree with your sentiment. PC Gaming is an intellectual pursuit. The things we do in our spare time are just as important as those we do for work. It is in our fantasies that we develop our greatest ideas. Games, books, movies... they all serve to ignite the spark of creativity. They inspire us to create today things we could only dream of yesterday.
Although there is no direct line between game -> societal advancement, the transition is obvious for anyone who is ever inspired to do great things.
RPGs, FPSs, RTSs, they're not simply wastes of time, they're important mental exercises that allow us to expand our minds in fun ways.
Excellent example. I've noticed in writing game systems, there's numerous situations in which rounding to the nearest is just plain wrong. Physical simulations are one area that, even in a game, is a critical issue. Round the wrong way and every object in the world behaves like it has an invisible force field around it. Another situation is that in successive bounds checking, if you we continually round in the same direction (e.g. based on a previously determined value), you end up with a bounding box that grows over time. In a real time game with values being calculated 60+ times per second, within an hour characters can't get closer than 10 feet to an object.
That was pretty clever, I got a chuckle out of that warning label comment =)
I agree with you, and every technical professional knows that Intel has been steadily behind AMD for the last 5 or so years. I really wish companies would spend more time and resources on development rather than marketing. Maybe it's not feasible in our time, but in the future I hope "doing" becomes more popular than "bragging".
Einstein (physics), Kasparov (chess), and Newton (physics) didn't need to market themselves or their developments. Their works were marvelous in and of themselves, no need for an ad campaign. When what you do is great, the world knows it, you don't need to convince them.
Linux has a fair share of bugs. It is my opinion that the vocal minority of the Linux community plays the blame game so any bug you can point out, someone else should be responsible for (e.g. ATI driver issues), so they can still technically claim it's not a Linux bug. Which is funny, because when the situation concerns any app having a problem on Windows, the same crowd is like Billy the Kid with finger pointing at Microsoft.
I agree with the premise of the article. OSS in theory allows many eyes to find bugs. In practice, many OSS projects are too complex for an amateur to get involved. Even with Linux, the majority of the workload is done by those with a professional interest (i.e. People working for a distro company), not by amateurs.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm in the process of redesigning..." or any similar phrasing.
The web is inherently impermanent. It's a given that any web site is constantly in a state of design and development. As new information, statistics, and trends come through, most web sites are in flux. It's like your home. You generally don't have to tell your visitors you're in the process of restructuring where you keep your drinking glasses. It's your home and it can be assumed throughout your life you're going to shift things around to suit your ever-changing needs and desires.
Bloggers and other web developers constantly letting you know that they're changing things is annoying. It's especially annoying that they feel it all has to be done in one fell swoop, that they can't change their site one style at a time, or adjust their site one widget at a time. They believe it's an all or nothing game, you can't just change a font style, you have to scrap the whole lot and go back to the drawing board. It's like everytime you want to re-zone NYC, you break out bulldozers, level the city, then start paving sidewalks again.
"I'm in the process of redesigning..." is just the textual equivilant of an "Under Construction" animated gif.
"I shouldn't have to be a "decent" web designer to be able to put up a personal homepage that looks the same in all browsers."
Many web developers expect things to look the same in all browsers. That shouldn't be a goal. The goal should be to achieve a desired level of functionality, but the page's appearance need not be uniform across browsers and platforms. If you're going for a uniform look, some of the most basic assumptions are going to get you: different video cards, monitor settings, a user's custom font sizes and colors, and userscripts will all ruin your carefully laid out plans. As long as your web site is usable, the page's aesthetics are insignificant.
People frequently design web sites in the same way a movie studio develops a film. Movie theatres have fairly standardized hardware and equipment to display their project, so the studio can plan things down to the last pixel. The open and modular nature of the personal computer prevents us from having this luxury with web sites and applications. Round up 100 people, and you're unlikely to have two candidates with identical hardware, nevermind identical configurations.
I find it astounding that he was so brilliant he discovered that smoking was bad 60 some odd years before we knew it. I mean wasn't that the driving force behind some of the charges against tobacco companies? That they confused us poor consumers so we had no idea it was even bad?
As progress is made, it's important to incorporate our technological advancements in teaching the next generation. Teaching programming without an IDE is like teaching tailoring starting with a cotton gin. It's important for historical significance to understand how things were done by your predecessors, but that doesn't mean you should start out learning how to do everything the same way they did.
I've listened to many discussions about the proper point to introduce a person to IDE usage. Two major reasons people argue not to use an IDE are:
I disagree with both points. On the first point, IDEs increase students learning capacity because they are not distracted by minor technical details that are not directly related to the concept at hand.
On the second point, although scenarios exist today where IDEs are unavailable, it can realistically be assumed the number of such scenarios are going to diminish as we move towards the future.
IDEs should not be treated as a gimmick or luxury. They are an integral part of many development environments. The goal of learning programming is to teach students how to solve logical problems. The usage of an IDE allows a student to focus on the logic problem, where the focus of human attention should rightfully be, instead of mulling over minor syntatic mistakes, the correction of which can be automated.Code conventions do not follow English syntax rules or definitions. For the sake of mental consistency, don't even think of them as "words".
I don't see why you'd have a problem with camel-case code, but you voice no problem with the lack of spacing, that "r_" isn't part of English language syntax, or that the commands aren't syntatically legal English phrases anyway.
"His behavior is despicable."
How cute. The country that uses Buddhist monasteries as target practice for rockets thinks someone is despicable.It's always been my theory that as mortals we're actually Gods pretending to be mortals. When we were omnipotent, we had the power to instantly do everything in the entirety of existence that entertained us, so we instantly got bored, and the only thing left to do was to render ourselves virtually powerless and erase all memory of our omnipotence. My current research indicates the epoch of this event was roughly 14 hours ago (when I woke up). All memory of prior existence was simply implanted by us with our omnipotent power. I was brilliant enough in my omnipotent state to foresee me figuring this out, and thus have created the threat of people who will lock me in a padded room should I announce my findings any more publicly than on a nerd message board.
I couldn't disagree more. Progress is entirely about learning how our technology can improve our processes. Making broad sweeping generalizations and banning new-fangled gadgets is not a good solution. As they say, it's a band-aid on a bullet wound.
Students need to learn how to use technology in a non-disruptive manner, how to get the most out of their equipment. It's similar to the way math teachers like banning calculators. Like someday you're going to be stuck on an island and the only way off will be to repeatedly find the 30th derivative of patterns produced by the ocean waves, and do it using rote memorization alone.
I think it's faulty logic to take such a stuttered approach when incorporating technology. We shouldn't be easing backwards, we should be charging forward. Technology tools should be at the center of our learning experiences. When a tool, like a laptop, becomes such an integral part of society, the first question you should be asking is "How can I make this a core part of the program?" or "How can the program benefit from this?" but not "keep that thing away from me, that's the devil comes through them boxes!"
"All this does is give a headsup to the botters that they have to throw a little random action in now and then..."
Your statement is roughly equivilant to saying "All this does is tell botters all they need to do is solve a computational problem which has been unsolvable throughout the history of computation."
You are grossly misinformed about the inefficiencies of Java. It is extremely easy to examine two languages and design a 20-line test that shows that one is faster than the other.
This does not make Java "an order of magnitude slower...", a real test of requires two seperate developers, with roughly equal skill in their respective languages, given a general problem and the task of implementing a solution, then comparing the resulting applications.
Given those results, the first thing you'll note is that all the specific instances you previously cooked up (your "Fool's loop test") which proves Java is slower doesn't matter, because the Java-equivilant solution to an actual problem is entirely different. Everything about the structure of the code, where and when messages are sent, right down to the type and size of objects will be entirely different between languages.
Your test uses the assumption that in order to test Java's execution speed, the only necessary step is to take a program in C++ and translate the code, line for line, into Java syntax. The difference between programming languages is not in the syntax.
Your test is like redoing a physical structure by, beam for beam, replacing it with a different material. As any architect can tell you, the placement of the load-bearing beams will need to be dramatically altered depending on the material you use. If you take the design for a timber home and instead use concrete, the whole thing will cave in. Does this mean that concrete is weaker than timber? But yet, if you take a timber plank and slam it into a concrete wall it'll splinter into pieces. Wow, what a bizarre phenomenon!! It's as if, under different circumstances, each material has varying levels of suitability.
Your test is as ridiculous as arbitrarily declaring a search engine superior based on the results of a single keyword. "I'll prove Yahoo is the best! If you search for 'chicken', Yahoo returns better results! Therefore Yahoo is superior to Google!"
After rereading a few dozen times, I think the Grand Parent post was saying Microsoft didn't pay bribes this week (i.e. bribing authors to write articles supporting Microsoft products).
Selective research? Of course they're selective about it. You make it sound like they have a goddam responsibility to spend their money to to warn you about what Sony is up to. It's THEIR money, they can spend it researching whatever the hell the want to research. If I was rich, I'd be downright offended at someone suggesting that I'm not spending enough money researching what they want me to research.
I'm fairly certain Altavista did ALL of those things, and on top of that, I distinctly recall them having their own free dial-up service (along the lines of Kmart's Blue Light, Netzero, etc.)
There was distinct period when Altavista was the primary search engine I used. Yahoo was little more than a poorly maintained directory so it wasn't very good for finding anything new (It was kind of like things got added to Yahoo, but nothing got removed, so there was about a 50% chance any given link was dead). I believe Altavista became my default search engine after Infoseek collapsed. Mostly because after Infoseek, I wasn't sure where to search anymore and Altavista was the first engine I ever used.
Currently I'm using a mix of every search engine and web directory available. MSN, Google, Ask, Yahoo... I've long since realized having any loyalties isn't doing me any favors. I don't care which one gives me the proper results for any given search, all I care about is whether or not I find what I'm looking for.
A zing against military is a short step from anti-semitism and white supremacy? Taking a cheap shot at the lewd behavior of soldiers is not almost equivilant with a group that vows to violently murder entire races.
The military is setup as a chain of abuse. When soldiers finally get a captive or local, they feel like they have the right to abuse them, like finally they are the boss of someone. It's like the abused kid who kicks the family dog. I've yet to hear an ex-military man retell a story about kindness to locals, but they're never short on stories that involve abuse, humilation, and death.
I agree with the other responders. In that situation my kid would no longer have an X-Box, Mt. Dew, Chocolate Milk... and basic life functions are really touch-and-go at that point. If I ever talked like that to my mom, I'm certain either my mom or dad would have killed me. Twice.
It's funny how much time the anti-microsoft crowd spends cleverly crafting slams against Microsoft. It's as if they have typed out an incredibly witty phrase ahead of time (months or years ahead of time) and they sit at their computer, poised over the keyboard, staring at Slashdot, waiting for an article to appear that clinches the moment they can click the "Submit" button, unleashing their masterful creation in a moment of pure euphoria (which triggers ejaculation).
Maybe Windows doesn't provide the environment you're comfortable using. Use something else.
In my opinion, I think that just sounds like a poor design or specification. Whether or not they want to implement a new front-end, back-end database, or some other technology should be irrelevant to the language used to build the application. You develop interfaces to your application, and your application shouldn't very well care what type of database is connected to the back-end. And on the front-end, it reads data, without concern for where the data came from. The front-end shouldn't care whether the data was read from a file, typed in, or scanned in on a hole-punched card. The person building the front-end shouldn't need to know anything about the language the module he's connecting to was built in.
Developing a front-end should be like creating a text document. If you want to make a sentence bold, it doesn't matter what language your text editor was written in, you look for the feature it provides that allows you to make it bold. If you need the code and language of the core application in order to build a new front-end, you're not working on the front-end anymore, you're working on the whole program.
I think a company standard language is a bad idea. Use the language that solves the given problem. As far as debugging, each module should be independently testable, so you shouldn't have stack traces into other interpreters until you get to integration testing. But if the modules themselves succeed in their individual tests, and they aren't coupled with another module, integration testing is little more than a formality. I've seen plenty of applications that use multiple languages very effectively.
Your job scenario sounds ideal. At a company like that, opportunities can always be created to apply your computer-science skills in more meaningful ways. You can always make suggestions or perhaps eventually head your own department that fills your desired job function. But you're also young, so you can probably afford to take more risks too. Personally, I'd rather work at a company I can make realistic, reliable contributions to than chase start-up pipe dreams. To me, a pay cut isn't a concern. I'd usually be willing to take lower pay for a better opportunity. For example, I'd rather work for cheaper at Google than for double the pay at a financial institution.
I must say, well said. I don't agree with much of it, but you make your point well. I think the failings are in Linux and OSS and not in society. People often better themselves, the problem is that time is a limited resource, and which topic they choose to better themselves with is frequently an exclusive option. Given a 4 hour time block, a typical artist might have a choice... they can dive into one of their projects, add shadows, retouch some photographs... or they can spend it learning a new application. Most people will choose to better themselves by refining their ability to do what they already do well. Maybe using the GIMP would be a marvelous idea that enables them to surpass their wildest creative dreams. But there's really no way to know that before doing it. A person is just as likely to spend hours a day for a few weeks learning a new program only to discover it doesn't offer some core functionality they already had in an existing program.
People aren't stupid. The elitests who believe the average user, and average person, is a gibbering idiot is usually just as dumb when they are confronted with tasks outside their element. A Linux guru might wonder why everyone else is just too dumb to use all the wonderful CLI tools and scripting capabilities, yet when confronted with an automechanical problem, the mechanic is chuckling to himself about how Mr. Linux Guru is too dumb to even perform basic maintenance on his own car.
Like I said, time is a limited resource. Everyone can't spend all their time being an expert at everything.
I'd say to design a crash-free program you'd want to go back to the starting line. Deciding what language to implement a feature, module, etc. in should really be a final step in designing a program. You can design virtually every aspect of the program without implementation language ever coming up.
It's much easier to understand if you step back a bit, think of programming languages as tools. Would you rush up to an architect and say "Alright, I've got this idea for a building but before we get started let me just say it must be done using only a ball-peen hammer and a flat-head screw driver."
Seperate design and implementation, decide how your program works, what it does, what it looks like... The architect does not worry about what tool the construction workers will use to accomplish each task. When you have an idea for a program, why would you worry about which language each module or component is written in? If it accomplishes your task and meets your performance and stability requirements, isn't language irrelevant?
If an architect arrives at a building site, and the structure meets his specifications, why does he care what kind of hammer the construction crew used? For all the architect should care, the construction workers could have driven the nails in with the palm of their hand.
Decoupling, design patterns, data structures, GUI, persistent object storage, Linux, portable.... you've tossed in just about every trendy technical jargon a person could say in one breath. Without a deeper understanding of the construction of software, you are paying only lip service to any of these concepts.
I completetly disagree with your sentiment. PC Gaming is an intellectual pursuit. The things we do in our spare time are just as important as those we do for work. It is in our fantasies that we develop our greatest ideas. Games, books, movies... they all serve to ignite the spark of creativity. They inspire us to create today things we could only dream of yesterday.
Although there is no direct line between game -> societal advancement, the transition is obvious for anyone who is ever inspired to do great things.
RPGs, FPSs, RTSs, they're not simply wastes of time, they're important mental exercises that allow us to expand our minds in fun ways.
Excellent example. I've noticed in writing game systems, there's numerous situations in which rounding to the nearest is just plain wrong. Physical simulations are one area that, even in a game, is a critical issue. Round the wrong way and every object in the world behaves like it has an invisible force field around it. Another situation is that in successive bounds checking, if you we continually round in the same direction (e.g. based on a previously determined value), you end up with a bounding box that grows over time. In a real time game with values being calculated 60+ times per second, within an hour characters can't get closer than 10 feet to an object.
That was pretty clever, I got a chuckle out of that warning label comment =)
I agree with you, and every technical professional knows that Intel has been steadily behind AMD for the last 5 or so years. I really wish companies would spend more time and resources on development rather than marketing. Maybe it's not feasible in our time, but in the future I hope "doing" becomes more popular than "bragging". Einstein (physics), Kasparov (chess), and Newton (physics) didn't need to market themselves or their developments. Their works were marvelous in and of themselves, no need for an ad campaign. When what you do is great, the world knows it, you don't need to convince them.
Was that a joke? A 3-year old press release about Google getting to use adwords on AOL has nothing to do with Google buying 5% stake in the company.
Linux has a fair share of bugs. It is my opinion that the vocal minority of the Linux community plays the blame game so any bug you can point out, someone else should be responsible for (e.g. ATI driver issues), so they can still technically claim it's not a Linux bug. Which is funny, because when the situation concerns any app having a problem on Windows, the same crowd is like Billy the Kid with finger pointing at Microsoft.
I agree with the premise of the article. OSS in theory allows many eyes to find bugs. In practice, many OSS projects are too complex for an amateur to get involved. Even with Linux, the majority of the workload is done by those with a professional interest (i.e. People working for a distro company), not by amateurs.