I would argue needing a debugger is also a sign of language flaws. Debuggers help you find issues with your code while it runs. I've found that so much of the time those kind of issues are from stuff like Null objects - where you get an exception from a null object and then have to crawl up your code finding out where it came from. If the language was sane and threw exceptions on problems rather than returning null, there would be far less issues.
Not saying that debuggers are useless or that every problem a debugger is useful for could be solved, just that if you find yourself needing it often, maybe it's a sign something is going wrong with the language.
Did you even bother to try to understand what he said before you replied with your nonsense?
Here, let me help you: he uses the debugger and dynamic class loading as a REPL.
If you have ever written code in Python, you realise how much trivial stuff you have to do in Java which is hell without an IDE.
I'm not saying IDEs are useless, they are great and can do awesome stuff for a developer, but Java has a serious problem where it's practically unusable without a massive IDE.
And if you have ever written something nontrivial in Python, you realize how much it sucks because you cannot refactor it easily, and too many dynamic typing bugs are left for you to discover (possibly at the customer site) at run time rather than compile time.
With all due respect to the article's author, he makes baseless assertion after baseless assertion. He is just another irrational Java hater.
Pushing to make Linux a viable platform is good for everyone.
I agree, but I cannot help but think it is a long shot:
* Valve creating a Steam client for Linux is one thing, getting game makers to make games for Linux is another, especially when desktop Linux has such a tiny market share. It is a tough catch-22.
* AMD, nVidia, and Intel graphics drivers need to perform well and be taken seriously by all three companies. Right now, they are often questionably supported and of questionable quality.
* I have heard complaints about the Linux kernel folks not taking things like graphics drivers seriously enough, and changing APIs and such, making the job harder for people writing graphics drivers. I'm not sure of the accuracy of those claims, so someone may want to chime in with more information.
* For which distro(s) would the Steam client run on Linux? Can it be made generic? If not, will it only run on Ubuntu? Ubuntu is a for-profit company that sometimes makes...interesting...moves in an attempt to make desktop Ubuntu profitable. Are they trustworthy, or could we just get ourselves into another Microsoft-esque situation?
* Most PCs still come pre-loaded with Windows. Microsoft can duplicate the functionality that Steam offers, and because Windows is pre-loaded on most PCs, most people won't bother trying Linux.
I really, really would love Linux-on-the-desktop to become a more viable, more popular platform, but it seems like such a long shot...
And when you use tabs, it doesn't matter what tab size they assume. That is the point. Proper use of tabs means you use tabs to indent to the block level and spaces for further indentation, like so:
{
<-tab->a = long expression
<-tab->____continued;
}
...where underscores are spaces, because Slashdot messes with spaces, even in <code> sections.
It does matter, because some tools that are hard coded to 8 space tabs make things hard to read, like side by side diffs.
Also, I have used editors, like the AS/400 editor SEU, which displays a single inverse block character for tabs. It was pretty much impossible for me to maintain that code until I converted the project from tabs to spaces.
I use tabs because anyone can set the width to whatever they like (2, 4 or 8 spaces usually).
There still exists a lot of tools that assume tab stops are 8, without the ability to change them. Some people use those tools by choice, some people use those tools by mandate.
The problem with comparing the 32 GB Surface to the 32 GB iPad is that you also need to factor in how much space Windows 8 RT takes compared to iOS. My understanding is that iOS takes considerably less space.
Also, some of us are not interested in Office.
In addition, some of us are not interested in beta testing a 1.0 product that costs, at a minimum, $500. Waiting until at least version 2.0 seems wise.
Plus, let's wait to see how Windows 8 RT performs in the real world. iPad performance is already a known quantity.
It's too bad this happened, but perhaps it will convince some people to simply not use Facebook. Facebook's habit of raping users' privacy shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who uses a computer - they've done it many times, and it's been big news.
Facebook is evil to the core. They've had countless "oops, I did it again" moments. Zuckerberg himself considers Facebook users idiots for trusting him. They raped investors with their IPO. They continue to "oops" and it has very serious consequences on a lot of people's lives.
Current popular thinking among physicists is that the universe itself does not know the exact location and momentum of fundamental matter.
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us that the universe has a true random component. No, not pseudo-random. True random.
The many-words interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us there are obscene numbers of universes that exist, because the universe creates perfect copies of itself every time a quantum decision is made, except for the quantum decision itself being different in each copy. And those universes split, and those do, and those do...
Various tests tell us photons are waves. No, particles. No, both! And electrons too! And more!
Go read up on quantum entanglement if you have not yet believed in enough impossible things before breakfast yet.
Chuckle at the simulation argument all you want, but it's just as sane and likely as these other crazy, wild things. No, scratch that. The simulation argument is far more sane.
Physicists aren't smoking dope...they're all tripping on LSD!
Predictably, there are already lots of mentions of Libre Office.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that Google Docs (free) meets my meager needs. You can even download copies of your documents, in several different formats, to store locally.
Highly recommended unless you have advanced needs.
In theory, the Wii remote would make an excellent aiming device.
I own a Wii, an Xbox 360, and a PC, and game on them all, to varying degrees.
The Wii remote is uncomfortable to hold and point at the screen for long periods of time. Also, it is not very accurate. Or perhaps my hands just aren't as steady as other people's hands.
Of my three systems, the Wii is my least favorite, by quite a margin, but not because of the power of the machine itself, but because of the Wii remotes. They only seem good for a very narrow section of games.
I thought I would hate the Xbox 360 controllers (the Xbox 360 was a gift), but I've ended up finding them very comfortable to hold and control. The aiming is slightly sloppy (as already pointed out), but otherwise I like them a lot. I have some trouble with my forearm hurting and going slightly tingly and/or numb with the mouse, and don't experience that with the Xbox 360 controllers, so that's really nice.
I basically agree with you. But I'm not a manager. It is merely my experience that 99% of managers merely think "gets stuff done fast" == "rock star developer", without paying attention to the disaster they often leave in their wake.
Except they/we are rockstars because they get the job done
The problem with rockstar developers is they often write code that mere mortals cannot read or maintain.
Sure, they can whip out version 1.0 or impressive enhancements quickly, but if it becomes a maintenance nightmare later, isn't the cost just being shifted from up front to later? Rockstar developers are often more trouble than they're worth.
Good, solid, dependable non-rockstar developers are better, in my experience, because they're more likely to write code that their colleagues can actually maintain later.
$5.5 billion paid to developers is 70% of the total raked in, which is (5.5/70%) = $7.85 billion. 30% of that is about $2.4 billion.
Ugh, sorry about my brain fart.:-)
It's a fantastic market Apple provides for developers, no argument there. My point is only that it's a very good little business for Apple. Personally I think 30% is a bit rich--20% or 25% would be fairer. But Apple dictates the terms--developers don't exactly have a choice if they want to develop for iOS.
Do you have any links to resources that document in detail the cost of running the app store? I do agree that 30% feels a little high, but some cold, hard numbers would be nice!
Apple makes good money from their App store. Their earnings report for 2012 Q3 states they've paid (cumulatively) $5.5 billion to app developers, which means $2.4 billion in commissions to Apple--hardly chump change.
Doesn't Apple take 30% of app sales? If they paid $5.5 billion to developers, their 30% cut is $1.65 billion, right? Or am I missing some other important calculation?
Apple pays all the infrastructure costs that developers would normally have to handle, so a chunk of that 30% is money the developer would have had to spend anyway. It does not look like that bad of a deal for developers.
You mean the checkbox in plain sight that you can simply un-check, and not install Safari?
You know, I always used to look down on people the same way you are now. For years and years.
Until, one fateful day, I did not pay enough attention to an Adobe Reader update. It installed Google Chrome. I guess I missed an opt-out checkbox somewhere along the way. (Unless it was a 100% stealth install? I guess that's possible.)
Ever since that happened, I no longer look down on people the same way like that. I think an out-opt default, when we are talking about installing brand new software (not updates), is just plain wrong for companies to do. In my opinion, new software installs should always be opt-in.
Slashdot Mirror
I would argue needing a debugger is also a sign of language flaws. Debuggers help you find issues with your code while it runs. I've found that so much of the time those kind of issues are from stuff like Null objects - where you get an exception from a null object and then have to crawl up your code finding out where it came from. If the language was sane and threw exceptions on problems rather than returning null, there would be far less issues.
Not saying that debuggers are useless or that every problem a debugger is useful for could be solved, just that if you find yourself needing it often, maybe it's a sign something is going wrong with the language.
Did you even bother to try to understand what he said before you replied with your nonsense?
Here, let me help you: he uses the debugger and dynamic class loading as a REPL.
If you have ever written code in Python, you realise how much trivial stuff you have to do in Java which is hell without an IDE. I'm not saying IDEs are useless, they are great and can do awesome stuff for a developer, but Java has a serious problem where it's practically unusable without a massive IDE.
And if you have ever written something nontrivial in Python, you realize how much it sucks because you cannot refactor it easily, and too many dynamic typing bugs are left for you to discover (possibly at the customer site) at run time rather than compile time.
With all due respect to the article's author, he makes baseless assertion after baseless assertion. He is just another irrational Java hater.
Pushing to make Linux a viable platform is good for everyone.
I agree, but I cannot help but think it is a long shot:
I really, really would love Linux-on-the-desktop to become a more viable, more popular platform, but it seems like such a long shot...
And when you use tabs, it doesn't matter what tab size they assume. That is the point. Proper use of tabs means you use tabs to indent to the block level and spaces for further indentation, like so: { <-tab->a = long expression <-tab->____continued; }
It does matter, because some tools that are hard coded to 8 space tabs make things hard to read, like side by side diffs.
Also, I have used editors, like the AS/400 editor SEU, which displays a single inverse block character for tabs. It was pretty much impossible for me to maintain that code until I converted the project from tabs to spaces.
I use tabs because anyone can set the width to whatever they like (2, 4 or 8 spaces usually).
There still exists a lot of tools that assume tab stops are 8, without the ability to change them. Some people use those tools by choice, some people use those tools by mandate.
Thanks Ninjaroach! Both for the thanks and for posting with your ID and not AC.
A lot more people than just TheNinjaroach think Apache does a really great job on a lot of projects! :-)
Apache is very much appreciated!
we all moved to LibreOffice
That may be the case, but you know, competition is good, even in the free software space...
The problem with comparing the 32 GB Surface to the 32 GB iPad is that you also need to factor in how much space Windows 8 RT takes compared to iOS. My understanding is that iOS takes considerably less space.
Also, some of us are not interested in Office.
In addition, some of us are not interested in beta testing a 1.0 product that costs, at a minimum, $500. Waiting until at least version 2.0 seems wise.
Plus, let's wait to see how Windows 8 RT performs in the real world. iPad performance is already a known quantity.
Android doesn't have any binaries, just Dalvik bytecode.
This is just plain wrong. A lot of Android applications, especially games, contain some native (non-Dalvik) executable code.
It's too bad this happened, but perhaps it will convince some people to simply not use Facebook. Facebook's habit of raping users' privacy shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who uses a computer - they've done it many times, and it's been big news.
Facebook is evil to the core. They've had countless "oops, I did it again" moments. Zuckerberg himself considers Facebook users idiots for trusting him. They raped investors with their IPO. They continue to "oops" and it has very serious consequences on a lot of people's lives.
Nobody should be using Facebook.
Nobody.
They never pass the joint around :(
Ha, like any other physicists are any more sane!
Current popular thinking among physicists is that the universe itself does not know the exact location and momentum of fundamental matter.
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us that the universe has a true random component. No, not pseudo-random. True random.
The many-words interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us there are obscene numbers of universes that exist, because the universe creates perfect copies of itself every time a quantum decision is made, except for the quantum decision itself being different in each copy. And those universes split, and those do, and those do...
Various tests tell us photons are waves. No, particles. No, both! And electrons too! And more!
Go read up on quantum entanglement if you have not yet believed in enough impossible things before breakfast yet.
Chuckle at the simulation argument all you want, but it's just as sane and likely as these other crazy, wild things. No, scratch that. The simulation argument is far more sane.
Physicists aren't smoking dope...they're all tripping on LSD!
Wealthy people are biased in favor of the candidate that promises them yet more tax cuts, film at 11.
It's the most selfish act that a person can do.
That's like saying your car was selfish for breaking down while you were driving it.
People who commit suicide are broken. Their brains are broken. Give them a break.
OMG, Ubuntu is going ad supported???
WE ARE THE PRODUCT!!!
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Like being able to work offline?
You can work offline with the new Google Docs/Google Drive.
Predictably, there are already lots of mentions of Libre Office.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that Google Docs (free) meets my meager needs. You can even download copies of your documents, in several different formats, to store locally.
Highly recommended unless you have advanced needs.
In theory, the Wii remote would make an excellent aiming device.
I own a Wii, an Xbox 360, and a PC, and game on them all, to varying degrees.
The Wii remote is uncomfortable to hold and point at the screen for long periods of time. Also, it is not very accurate. Or perhaps my hands just aren't as steady as other people's hands.
Of my three systems, the Wii is my least favorite, by quite a margin, but not because of the power of the machine itself, but because of the Wii remotes. They only seem good for a very narrow section of games.
I thought I would hate the Xbox 360 controllers (the Xbox 360 was a gift), but I've ended up finding them very comfortable to hold and control. The aiming is slightly sloppy (as already pointed out), but otherwise I like them a lot. I have some trouble with my forearm hurting and going slightly tingly and/or numb with the mouse, and don't experience that with the Xbox 360 controllers, so that's really nice.
I basically agree with you. But I'm not a manager. It is merely my experience that 99% of managers merely think "gets stuff done fast" == "rock star developer", without paying attention to the disaster they often leave in their wake.
You are describing a cowboy coder, not a rock star.
The problem is that management equates "gets stuff done fast" with "rock star", regardless of the unmaintainable mess they may leave behind.
Except they/we are rockstars because they get the job done
The problem with rockstar developers is they often write code that mere mortals cannot read or maintain.
Sure, they can whip out version 1.0 or impressive enhancements quickly, but if it becomes a maintenance nightmare later, isn't the cost just being shifted from up front to later? Rockstar developers are often more trouble than they're worth.
Good, solid, dependable non-rockstar developers are better, in my experience, because they're more likely to write code that their colleagues can actually maintain later.
$5.5 billion paid to developers is 70% of the total raked in, which is (5.5/70%) = $7.85 billion. 30% of that is about $2.4 billion.
Ugh, sorry about my brain fart. :-)
It's a fantastic market Apple provides for developers, no argument there. My point is only that it's a very good little business for Apple. Personally I think 30% is a bit rich--20% or 25% would be fairer. But Apple dictates the terms--developers don't exactly have a choice if they want to develop for iOS.
Do you have any links to resources that document in detail the cost of running the app store? I do agree that 30% feels a little high, but some cold, hard numbers would be nice!
Apple makes good money from their App store. Their earnings report for 2012 Q3 states they've paid (cumulatively) $5.5 billion to app developers, which means $2.4 billion in commissions to Apple--hardly chump change.
Doesn't Apple take 30% of app sales? If they paid $5.5 billion to developers, their 30% cut is $1.65 billion, right? Or am I missing some other important calculation?
Apple pays all the infrastructure costs that developers would normally have to handle, so a chunk of that 30% is money the developer would have had to spend anyway. It does not look like that bad of a deal for developers.
You mean the checkbox in plain sight that you can simply un-check, and not install Safari?
You know, I always used to look down on people the same way you are now. For years and years.
Until, one fateful day, I did not pay enough attention to an Adobe Reader update. It installed Google Chrome. I guess I missed an opt-out checkbox somewhere along the way. (Unless it was a 100% stealth install? I guess that's possible.)
Ever since that happened, I no longer look down on people the same way like that. I think an out-opt default, when we are talking about installing brand new software (not updates), is just plain wrong for companies to do. In my opinion, new software installs should always be opt-in.
It's just the right thing to do.
Ah well, I'm still glad people like us are doing what we can, and voting with our wallets.
(Piracy is not an option in my house.)
Can I please have my single player offline games back?
Speaking just for myself, I'm skipping both StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, because of the onerous DRM and always-online requirements Blizzard now uses.
I wonder if the DRM and always-online requirements are preventing enough piracy that results in sales, to overcome the loss of buyers like me.