We can't be satisfied with the "everything's been invented already" approach. That would be admitting we've invented technology we can't manage.
Oh, I agree, I'm just saying that it's become harder to invent new things (in software). It was much easier in 1979 (which is, coincidentally, the first year I started writing code).
That only emphasizes my other question. What was the last new (not a remake, not an iteration, not FOSS, not a game) piece of Visicalc-caliber commercial software developed from scratch on any platform?
I can't find one post-1997. In fact, ironically enough, Macromedia Flash was probably the crowning achievement of the 1990s software-wise.
I'm not sure that's a fair question. Early on, software developers had lots of low hanging fruit to pick, and even though it was low hanging, much of it was world-changing.
There are now much fewer opportunities to create world-changing software and it's harder to develop modern software due to higher expectations from users.
So if the market is demanding "sophisticated" software, nobody is providing it, which only serves to emphasize my first question: where are the tools?
Do you see how the "post-PC world" is up its own ass?
As much as I love my iPad, I do entirely agree with you here.
iOS and Android should ship with development tools capable of writing first class software for the platform. It would be a huge competitive advantage, open up software development to a huge number of people, and result in users having a lot more great software in general.
It was written by two hard-working geniuses who busted ass for months and months to get it to work. Visicalc changed the world.
The biggest difference between then and now is that users now demand software that is much more featured and sophisticated. One or two guys could write software that changed the world in 1979 because back then software was so much more simple.
The reason they were able to write this software is because the Apple II had the tools to do so. If you had an Apple II, you had everything you needed to develop new software for it.
I consider this a very sad state of affairs for iOS and Android. I'll consider them "grown up" when you can write first class software for them using the devices themselves.
Same goes for the PC.
This is both true and not true... Windows does not ship by default with the development tools necessary to write first class software. You have to put in some nontrivial work locating, researching, downloading, installing, and learning different development tools before you can write something useful.
Which is another phrase for "The language is so chock-full with phrasal idioms and low on signal/noise ratio that we both CAN and HAVE TO automate its editing"...?
Nope, not at all.
I think Java found a pretty good balance in terms of brevity vs. verbosity. Most software development is maintenance, so what you really want is readability. Brevity vs. verbosity is a foolish debate that misses the point.
But it's all subjective, to each his own. Unfortunately, many people want to turn it into some kind of religious debate and hate hate hate the infidels and love love love the true believers.
People won't need millions of Java coders anymore, but they'll need older expert types to go untangle messes.
The good news is that Java code is relatively easy to untangle. Thanks to the design of the Java language, it's very easy to navigate and refactor code using modern IDEs like NetBeans, Eclipse, and IDEA.
Republicans in the House passed a resolution to keep funding NIH research ( into things like childrens cancer ), but a party line vote in the Senate killed it.
You should be happy the Democrats aren't willing to negotiate with the terrorists (Republicans). The Republicans are trying to do an end-run around democracy itself. That the Republicans are willing to do this should scare the hell out of everyone, no matter what your opinion of Obamacare is.
That's what security is up against: people who want to put all their information in "the cloud"
I don't think that's quite accurate. People want simplicity, ease of use, worry free backups, automatic sync between devices, etc.
Give them thick client, encrypted solutions that give them those things with minimal or no effort, and a great many would probably convert.
The success of the cloud is largely because thick client solutions have largely failed the average user test. Us technical folks don't recognize or ignore this fact far too often.
I think this skips over an earlier question we could ask: Is this move by Valve meant primarily to take on the consoles or to be an evolution for PC gaming so they can't be boxed in by Microsoft (or both, or something else entirely)?
Soon most Windows software will be sold and downloaded from Microsoft's app store. That includes games.
Steam has little choice but to compete on a non-Windows platform, imo...
I hope the main page autorefresh has been removed (or an option to turn it off)
I hate Slashdot's auto refresh with the red hot burning passion of a million stars. I often browse Slashdot and then leave my computer for a few hours and then come back and it's not where I left off. God damn I hate that feature.
If any Slashdot devs are reading, please, please, please make it possible to disable auto refresh.
yep, this is the way of Linux. You throw many different things at a wall and see which one sticks best. Then you standardise on that thing.
In the FOSS world the "standardize on one thing" often doesn't happen, you end up with all kinds of incompatible competitors, no single one with a great deal of popularity.
The last time people stopped "voting for these fucking politicians", Nader stole enough votes from Gore that we ended up with George W. Bush, who damn near destroyed us with his tax cuts for the wealthy and trillion dollar wars.
Sure, Obama and the democrats in the senate and house are proving they're also in the pockets of the wealthy (not a single bank or banker held accountable for the 2008 economic meltdown), but the alternative is horrific (republicans that want to utterly decimate the economy and make the U.S. a Christian theocracy).
Oh please. I'm in agreement with him. I've found a lot of gamers (also known as addicts) will become aggressively defensive if someone points out negative attributes of the activity. You can still enjoy them while understanding that they're unhealthy and zap time from other pursuits which can still be as fun, but also benefit in more tangible and socially acceptable ways.
I play maybe 2-3 video games per year. i.e., Not much. Yet, I don't feel the need to get on the Internet and start preaching to other people how they should spend their time. It's stupid, pointless, condescending, obnoxious, and off-topic for this story.
Maybe you should take your own advice rather than act like a condescending jerk. For all you know, the person you responded to spends plenty of time outside already. We're talking about video games and hardware here. If you don't want to contribute to that discussion in a meaningful way, you should just go away.
If you care about software freedom, why doesn't your organization promote copyleft type licenses like the GPL?
Sadly, the apache license doesn't require others to release the code, and helps proprietary projects.
The software company I work for can't use code licensed under the GPL. Thankfully, Apache projects are not GPL'd, so we can contribute back to them.
I do a fair bit of programming in Python and curly-bracket languages (C, C++, JavaScript, PHP, etc.) and interestingly, a forgotten/misplaced curly bracket in any of those various curly-bracket languages seem to break my code vastly more often than indentation issues do.
Your IDE/editor should have an auto-format feature: use it. If your IDE/editor doesn't have that feature, use better tools. This will result in code formatted correctly for virtually no effort (a key press or two).
I reckon the XBox is relatively isolated from the Windows aura, as it's almost a brand in its own right (you never hear the term "Microsoft XBox").
Don't worry, Microsoft is working hard to give the Xbox a bad reputation, too.
Unreliable hardware; forced advertisements; you can't use IE or Netflix on Xbox without paying the Xbox Gold Live tax; not to mention all their missteps with Xbone (despite their frantic backpedaling).
The reputation of the Xbox is slowly but surely moving in the same direction that Vista and Windows 8 took.
Slashdot Mirror
We can't be satisfied with the "everything's been invented already" approach. That would be admitting we've invented technology we can't manage.
Oh, I agree, I'm just saying that it's become harder to invent new things (in software). It was much easier in 1979 (which is, coincidentally, the first year I started writing code).
That only emphasizes my other question. What was the last new (not a remake, not an iteration, not FOSS, not a game) piece of Visicalc-caliber commercial software developed from scratch on any platform?
I can't find one post-1997. In fact, ironically enough, Macromedia Flash was probably the crowning achievement of the 1990s software-wise.
I'm not sure that's a fair question. Early on, software developers had lots of low hanging fruit to pick, and even though it was low hanging, much of it was world-changing.
There are now much fewer opportunities to create world-changing software and it's harder to develop modern software due to higher expectations from users.
So if the market is demanding "sophisticated" software, nobody is providing it, which only serves to emphasize my first question: where are the tools?
Do you see how the "post-PC world" is up its own ass?
As much as I love my iPad, I do entirely agree with you here.
iOS and Android should ship with development tools capable of writing first class software for the platform. It would be a huge competitive advantage, open up software development to a huge number of people, and result in users having a lot more great software in general.
Visicalc was invented in 1979.
It was written by two hard-working geniuses who busted ass for months and months to get it to work. Visicalc changed the world.
The biggest difference between then and now is that users now demand software that is much more featured and sophisticated. One or two guys could write software that changed the world in 1979 because back then software was so much more simple.
The reason they were able to write this software is because the Apple II had the tools to do so. If you had an Apple II, you had everything you needed to develop new software for it.
I consider this a very sad state of affairs for iOS and Android. I'll consider them "grown up" when you can write first class software for them using the devices themselves.
Same goes for the PC.
This is both true and not true... Windows does not ship by default with the development tools necessary to write first class software. You have to put in some nontrivial work locating, researching, downloading, installing, and learning different development tools before you can write something useful.
Which is another phrase for "The language is so chock-full with phrasal idioms and low on signal/noise ratio that we both CAN and HAVE TO automate its editing"...?
Nope, not at all.
I think Java found a pretty good balance in terms of brevity vs. verbosity. Most software development is maintenance, so what you really want is readability. Brevity vs. verbosity is a foolish debate that misses the point.
But it's all subjective, to each his own. Unfortunately, many people want to turn it into some kind of religious debate and hate hate hate the infidels and love love love the true believers.
Whatever.
I mean, Android is cute, but some of us actually need our computers to work.
Ha, that's what the mainframe generation used to say about those upstart IBM PCs.
People won't need millions of Java coders anymore, but they'll need older expert types to go untangle messes.
The good news is that Java code is relatively easy to untangle. Thanks to the design of the Java language, it's very easy to navigate and refactor code using modern IDEs like NetBeans, Eclipse, and IDEA.
Republicans in the House passed a resolution to keep funding NIH research ( into things like childrens cancer ), but a party line vote in the Senate killed it.
You should be happy the Democrats aren't willing to negotiate with the terrorists (Republicans). The Republicans are trying to do an end-run around democracy itself. That the Republicans are willing to do this should scare the hell out of everyone, no matter what your opinion of Obamacare is.
That's what security is up against: people who want to put all their information in "the cloud"
I don't think that's quite accurate. People want simplicity, ease of use, worry free backups, automatic sync between devices, etc.
Give them thick client, encrypted solutions that give them those things with minimal or no effort, and a great many would probably convert.
The success of the cloud is largely because thick client solutions have largely failed the average user test. Us technical folks don't recognize or ignore this fact far too often.
I think this skips over an earlier question we could ask: Is this move by Valve meant primarily to take on the consoles or to be an evolution for PC gaming so they can't be boxed in by Microsoft (or both, or something else entirely)?
Soon most Windows software will be sold and downloaded from Microsoft's app store. That includes games.
Steam has little choice but to compete on a non-Windows platform, imo...
I hope the main page autorefresh has been removed (or an option to turn it off)
I hate Slashdot's auto refresh with the red hot burning passion of a million stars. I often browse Slashdot and then leave my computer for a few hours and then come back and it's not where I left off. God damn I hate that feature.
If any Slashdot devs are reading, please, please, please make it possible to disable auto refresh.
On the other hand, how come a $2000, 27-inch iMac, or a $1000, 30-inch monitor doesn't have more pixels than a $400 tablet?
It's because of viewing distance and lack of demand in the marketplace.
How is it that a Surface with RT
...which has lousy performance, a confused UI, and thus a poor user experience...
and remote desktop
Available for a few bucks for iOS.
a full blown USB port
This and/or micro SD would be really nice on iPad.
desktop copies of Office
Stripped down, performs like crap, and for non-commercial use only.
a keyboard
Bluetooth keyboards are available for iPad.
full version of Outlook
Not quite...
a command line etc is more of a toy than the ipad?
The iPad actually has a wealth of apps to meet every need, polished apps at reasonable prices. Can RT boast the same?
yep, this is the way of Linux. You throw many different things at a wall and see which one sticks best. Then you standardise on that thing.
In the FOSS world the "standardize on one thing" often doesn't happen, you end up with all kinds of incompatible competitors, no single one with a great deal of popularity.
Stop voting for these fucking politicians.
Please understand that it's simply not that easy.
The last time people stopped "voting for these fucking politicians", Nader stole enough votes from Gore that we ended up with George W. Bush, who damn near destroyed us with his tax cuts for the wealthy and trillion dollar wars.
Sure, Obama and the democrats in the senate and house are proving they're also in the pockets of the wealthy (not a single bank or banker held accountable for the 2008 economic meltdown), but the alternative is horrific (republicans that want to utterly decimate the economy and make the U.S. a Christian theocracy).
We're fucked no matter what we do.
They should make a kickstand with five positions!
Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades
Oh please. I'm in agreement with him. I've found a lot of gamers (also known as addicts) will become aggressively defensive if someone points out negative attributes of the activity. You can still enjoy them while understanding that they're unhealthy and zap time from other pursuits which can still be as fun, but also benefit in more tangible and socially acceptable ways.
I play maybe 2-3 video games per year. i.e., Not much. Yet, I don't feel the need to get on the Internet and start preaching to other people how they should spend their time. It's stupid, pointless, condescending, obnoxious, and off-topic for this story.
Now that you play video games less, it seems it also affords you the time to be a condescending jerk to people on the Internet!
Congratulations!
Go outside and play.
That's the better alternative.
Maybe you should take your own advice rather than act like a condescending jerk. For all you know, the person you responded to spends plenty of time outside already. We're talking about video games and hardware here. If you don't want to contribute to that discussion in a meaningful way, you should just go away.
I haven't seen MS distributing rootkits with its hardware products. So definitely less hostile.
I haven't seen Sony charging me extra to stream Netflix or browse the web. So definitely less hostile.
If you care about software freedom, why doesn't your organization promote copyleft type licenses like the GPL?
Sadly, the apache license doesn't require others to release the code, and helps proprietary projects.
The software company I work for can't use code licensed under the GPL. Thankfully, Apache projects are not GPL'd, so we can contribute back to them.
Think about that for a minute.
Are there any plans to ever revive the Apache Harmony project (Open Source Java Platform), or is it dead forever?
I do a fair bit of programming in Python and curly-bracket languages (C, C++, JavaScript, PHP, etc.) and interestingly, a forgotten/misplaced curly bracket in any of those various curly-bracket languages seem to break my code vastly more often than indentation issues do.
Your IDE/editor should have an auto-format feature: use it. If your IDE/editor doesn't have that feature, use better tools. This will result in code formatted correctly for virtually no effort (a key press or two).
I reckon the XBox is relatively isolated from the Windows aura, as it's almost a brand in its own right (you never hear the term "Microsoft XBox").
Don't worry, Microsoft is working hard to give the Xbox a bad reputation, too.
Unreliable hardware; forced advertisements; you can't use IE or Netflix on Xbox without paying the Xbox Gold Live tax; not to mention all their missteps with Xbone (despite their frantic backpedaling).
The reputation of the Xbox is slowly but surely moving in the same direction that Vista and Windows 8 took.
The imac had decent specs for years.
Except for graphics, unless you spent a lot more. (iMac owner here.)
Fortunately, Apple seems to be putting decent graphics into the base level iMac now, but that certainly was not the case for years.
O. M. G. This is a geek site and somehow nobody has yet mentioned "The Story about Ping"?
Here's the product page: http://www.amazon.com/Story-about-Reading-Railroad-Books/dp/0448421658
Go read the first review NOW. You're welcome!