Of course, I'll always continue to love it. But these days, it's just too slow. It "greys" out all the time. Chrome never does that.
I'm happy I'm not the only person that experiences this. My home PC is a single core 1.6 GHz Atom, and Firefox goes (Not Responding) all the time. I can wait it out, of course, and it doesn't take that long to wake back up, but it's still annoying. Chrome doesn't do that, so I use Chrome at home.
On my work PC (quad core i7), Firefox performs admirably, and has features Chrome is missing (the killer feature: Firefox does not share proxy settings with the OS, but Chrome does -- I need those proxy settings to be separate at work), so I use Firefox at work.
Both browsers are very good, in my opinion, though Firefox has some catching up to do in terms of UI responsiveness and performance.
I also like how Chrome handles incognito mode better (separate windows, one being normal, one being incognito).
I used to think this was just an insult to apple buyers. Then the iPhone 4s came out. I'll never forget the first words that came out of my apple buying friend's mouth after seeing the design. "How will anyone be able to tell I have the new one?"
An anecdote changed your mind? And for this you get +5 Insightful?
So, as predicted, my comment gets moderated downwards (at least at the time I'm posting this), and all of the comments trashing Oracle have been moderated up.
...
Geez, at least try to make a technical comment about why Oracle's Linux is a poor choice. Ad hominen attacks may make you feel good, but it doesn't add anything to the discussion on the merits of Oracle Linux.
Maybe you got modded down because you said this:
Once you grow up and get into the real world...
And this:
So, if you're a screaming freetard...
Those sure look like ad hominem attacks to me. Oh, but look, they were coming from you. So it's okay for you to ad hominem other people, but it's not okay for them to ad hominem you?
You, bungo, are one of the reasons Slashdot is becoming a less cool place. Your unnecessary harsh and insulting post gets 5, Insightful, and it's filled insults and flamebait. Shame on you.
I was excited when I unexpectedly received an Xbox 360 as a Christmas present. I thought I could sell my Wii, which my wife and I use only for streaming Netflix.
To my severe disappointment, Microsoft wants me to pay $5/month for the privilege of streaming Netflix movies on the Xbox 360 (that is, on top of the normal Netflix bill).
No other device I'm aware of charges extra for this (Wii, PS3, Windows, Mac, Roku, Tivo, etc.)
I converted back from web-based shit email (had enough of google's mail, yahoo's mail and all the rest of the big CRAP mail ui's they throw at us) and I went back to thunderbird. have been loving it for the last year or so, now. its great. local typing, no lost stuff, no hangs, no delays, no network-reachability issues or timeouts, no ads, no jscript, no worries about blocking and maintenance.
my life is a whole lot simpler using good old IMAP and local email pulled down.
the cloud can go fuck itself;) I'm back with local apps and enjoying the speed of my machine and a *stable* UI experience.
I use Gmail (the web-based interface), but once a week, use Portable Thunderbird + IMAP to ensure I have a local backup.
Thunderbird's UI is...OK. It tends to hang up a lot (I get the old, "Thunderbird (Not Responding)" in the caption a lot.) They seem to have some UI problems, letting the UI thread get hung up for too long.
Of course, I wouldn't expect a non-tech geek to be able to figure out this setup...
#1 I like really advanced complex features like having multiple messages open simultaneously, the average web interface either doesn't support this or does it poorly.
You can do this in Gmail by clicking on the "In new window" icon, an arrow that points to the upper right, and is in the upper right hand corner of the email. Then you can open multiple emails in multiple windows. (Using Chrome, you can even pop them back into your browser window as a tab, if you like.)
#2 I already have half a dozen browser windows and tabs open if not more. I -like- my email windows have a different title bar, a different icon in the task bar, etc. Having everything open via the web browser makes making sense of my open windows more of a hassle. Plus if i quit the mail program, all the mail windows close. Nice.
In Chrome, you can click the wrench icon, followed by "New window". That way you can keep Gmail (or some other web based email) separate from your regular web browsing. But you're right, the icon looks the same in the task bar. In Chrome, you could use incognito mode to make the icon look different, I guess. If you come up with a solution to this, please, let me know. This would be a nice-to-have!
#3 Hotkeys - yes some web interfaces have them, but its a mess.
Gmail has shortcut keys, but I'm not sure how good they are. I turned them off because I would sometimes hit them by accident.
#4 Attachment handling - web clients are getting better but it still sucks, and its far worse if your internet connection is ever less than perfect.
No argument here. Being offline definitely reduces the usefulness of web based email.
#5 Mass message handling... most web clients let you handle a page of email at a time.
Gmail lets you select some messages, go to another page, select some more, go to another page (etc.) and then apply some action on all those selected messages. Admittedly, not as convenient as having one big list you can scroll up and down, rather than having to page through.
Search can sometimes obviate the need to select messages manually. Perform a search, get some results, select them all, perform an action.
Also, leveraging labels can make some things really easy, but of course, it requires some discipline to label your messages appropriately.
#6 Folders - yeah yeah... gmail has tags and they aren't bad either, but like being able to expand and collapse folders within folders within folders.
Yeah, folders-in-folders can be nice. You could probably fake it with a clever label naming scheme...
By the way, I'm not disagreeing with your preference for a thick email client. For some things, I prefer a thick client, too. I'm mostly "thinking out loud" here, trying to come up with some solutions to the issues you mentioned while staying in the web based email world. (I suspect you are already aware of everything I've mentioned, but other people reading the thread might find some useful information here.)
I use Gmail day-to-day, but every week, I hop into Thunderbird, and using IMAP, let it download my Gmail (no delete, just copy). That way I have an off-line backup, if I ever need it. I find the Thunderbird GUI very broken (it goes unresponsive all the time), but hey, it's free, and does the job I want (backup). I hope TB does not go away.
The C standard defines many things explicitly that other languages do not. The minefield exists in all languages with more than one implementation, it is just that in C you get a map with known mine locations, and areas which you should probably check for mines before you go walking there.
I disagree. C goes out of its way to have bunches of implementation defined behaviors so that it's easier to port or write C compilers for unknown or weird architectures. This is great for the compiler implementer, but puts an extra burden on the software developer to be aware of all those implementation defined minefields. All those implementation defined behaviors also makes it easier to have a C compiler generate extremely efficient code for your target architecture, so it's a trade-off.
That's all a long-winded way to say that C is complex in some ways (you really need to keep a handle on all those undefined and implementation defined behaviors), but also very powerful (it is those implementation defined behaviors which allows for the very efficient code generation).
C compilers are generally by far the most stable, as the operating system is also written in C. If the system C compiler contains major bugs... chances are that the operating system is very unstable as well.
I agree that C compilers are generally very reliable. In 25+ years of C programming, I've only found a few actual C compiler bugs. And, come to think of it, they may not have been C compiler bugs, but rather, bugs in some library routines, and not even in the standard library itself.
The masses to which you refer are idiots. C is great. It lets you do what you want, how you want. True, you're afforded enough programming rope to easily hang yourself, but you learn not to, and while most things can be more easily done in higher languages (you'll have to pry Perl from my dead, cold hands), many things can only be done in languages like C or its derivatives. C is one of those languages that separates the adults from the kids, so put on your big-boy pants, stop whinging about it and step up.
What a pile of arrogant, chest-thumping uber-geek nonsense.
C is a really lousy choice in a lot of application domains. You should get your hate on if someone is trying to use a screwdriver to pound nails.
With its 250+ undefined and implementation defined behaviors, C is a minefield. Sure, if you're writing OS kernels or device drivers or something else where C's advantages outweigh the significant disadvantages, go for it. But in many application domains, C is entirely, utterly inappropriate.
C is very complicated to program in because it puts a huge burden on the developer. There are 250+ undefined and implementation defined behaviors. The language is a minefield. That's not simple for the developer, that's a damn nightmare.
The C committee keeps adding more crap with questionable value instead of tightening up the spec. e.g., We're well past the point of having to worry about one's complement machines. They need to start taking a lot of old cruft out.
Classic astroturfing; try to emphasize with audience and then attack the competition.
I can see where you might draw that conclusion, but no, I'm not astroturfing.
I don't have a horse in the race (I don't own a smartphone). Also, I have a Gmail (not Hotmail) email account. And I enjoy using Google Docs, they meet my needs wonderfully.
If anything, I'm a little bit of a Google fanboy. But that doesn't stop me from perceiving that Google is stumbling a bit with Android.
If you have a real counterargument instead of an Ad Hominem on my character, let me know.
I'm not a fan of Microsoft, having watched their bad behavior over the decades. However, one thing I've noticed is that they are very stubborn. They will keep trying, and trying, and trying, and trying, in some markets, until they succeed. Also, they can throw massive resources at a problem for a very long period of time, until it succeeds, thanks to their Windows and Office cash cows. And those cash cows are still delivering the milk. Big time.
Also, I've typically been pretty confident about Google, but when it comes to Android, I'm not so sure anymore. Google is allowing the carriers to run amok with Android, giving Android a bad name. The fragmentation is a real problem. The OS updates (or lack thereof) to existing phones is a real problem. The carriers mangling the experience is a real problem. The spotty support for this feature or that feature is a real problem.
The crappy Android devices are a real problem, too. (I'm not saying they're all crappy, but a lot of them are.) Sure, having several price points is great, but it only takes one bad experience with a crappy Android phone to push someone to iPhone... or maybe, just maybe, a Windows Phone.
If Microsoft can avoid these problems plaguing Android devices, they might manage to get a foothold. And then gain a little market share. And a little more, and a little more. And then, oops, all of a sudden, Microsoft is a real contender in smartphones.
Again, I'm no Microsoft lover. Their anti-competitive practices in the past has left me cold. The fact that every time they dominate some niche, they usually stop innovating, has left me cold. The way they break up products into far too many versions has left me cold. Their nickle-and-dime dance has left me cold.
But there are plenty of examples of Microsoft not giving up, trying again and again, until they get it right (or close enough to right) and become a serious player in an area where they used to be a laughing stock.
Predictions of Microsoft's failure in smartphones is a never-ending echo right now, but if Google keeps stumbling with Android, there may be room for another competitor. Especially with how fickle consumers are. If they are replacing their smartphones every 2-3 years anyway, they might decide it's not such a big deal to try out a Windows Phone for a couple of years... and they might end up sticking with it.
I found some additional information (see the link below). It looks like Microsoft intends to implement those parts of C99 and C11 which are a subset of C++11. Which is better than nothing, I guess, but hardly what I would call a great effort to truly support C99 and C11.
As far as I can tell, Microsoft cherry picked a few (very few) C99 features for inclusion in their C compiler, but have no intention of implementing C99 (or even the majority of C99). As you may or may not know, C99 isn't even the latest version of the C standard anymore. This means the C compiler in Visual Studio is horribly out-of-date.
If you have information that says otherwise, please let me know. Thanks.
I've been a professional software developer for a few decades now, and done my fair share of running Linux, including Ubuntu. And, Ubuntu sucks.
Last year, I installed Ubuntu via wubi. It worked great, for a while. At some point, an update caused some kind of grub/kernel incompatibility. Ubuntu never managed to boot again.
So then I decided to install Ubuntu in its own partition and dual boot instead. Surely that would work. And it did, for a while. I foolishly allowed Ubuntu to try to update itself to the latest release. The update failed, and once again, Ubuntu never managed to boot again.
In disgust, I wiped Ubuntu from my system, and I'm back to Windows 7 full time. Linux has some real and serious advantages, but I'm tired of the bullshit. I will happily pay for something that is more reliable on the desktop.
What kind of moron takes something that "look[s] like a cell phone attached to a remote control car with some exposed wires protruding" onto an airplane?
Uh, someone that does not want the device utterly destroyed?
Checked luggage gets the shit beat out of it. Also, very often, security personnel will go through your luggage, and break even more stuff, through plain negligence, or just plain re-packing it poorly.
The 1% don't care that much about inflation; you say they own "almost everything", but the thing is, if what you own is real, its value doesn't generally go down.
That's a really good point, and something us 99%'ers should probably consider when saving / investing!
Thank you for the rest of your interesting comment, too.
Well, as a C++/python developer I spend 90% of my time in C++ wrestling with the obscure syntax and memory management to tell the compiler what I want to do.
C++ evolved into a monstrosity. I share your dislike of C++. I won't touch it unless I absolutely have to.
Shorter prettier easier code is less likely to be buggy.
In general, I agree; however, when it comes strictly to static typing vs. dynamic typing, I think giving up static typing for a little less code is a false economy.
Decent error handling makes code robust. Ack, I ran over the end of my std::vector. Better hope I tested for that. Ack, I ran over the end of my list. Lucky python throws an error for me.
I, too, use a language that does bounds checking for me (that language is not C or C++, is also statically typed, and outperforms Python by miles). I will only "drop down" into C if I need absolute top performance -- which is pretty rare, these days.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, I'll always continue to love it. But these days, it's just too slow. It "greys" out all the time. Chrome never does that.
I'm happy I'm not the only person that experiences this. My home PC is a single core 1.6 GHz Atom, and Firefox goes (Not Responding) all the time. I can wait it out, of course, and it doesn't take that long to wake back up, but it's still annoying. Chrome doesn't do that, so I use Chrome at home.
On my work PC (quad core i7), Firefox performs admirably, and has features Chrome is missing (the killer feature: Firefox does not share proxy settings with the OS, but Chrome does -- I need those proxy settings to be separate at work), so I use Firefox at work.
Both browsers are very good, in my opinion, though Firefox has some catching up to do in terms of UI responsiveness and performance.
I also like how Chrome handles incognito mode better (separate windows, one being normal, one being incognito).
The logo itself is a status symbol.
I used to think this was just an insult to apple buyers. Then the iPhone 4s came out. I'll never forget the first words that came out of my apple buying friend's mouth after seeing the design. "How will anyone be able to tell I have the new one?"
An anecdote changed your mind? And for this you get +5 Insightful?
Pathetic.
So, as predicted, my comment gets moderated downwards (at least at the time I'm posting this), and all of the comments trashing Oracle have been moderated up.
...
Geez, at least try to make a technical comment about why Oracle's Linux is a poor choice. Ad hominen attacks may make you feel good, but it doesn't add anything to the discussion on the merits of Oracle Linux.
Maybe you got modded down because you said this:
Once you grow up and get into the real world...
And this:
So, if you're a screaming freetard...
Those sure look like ad hominem attacks to me. Oh, but look, they were coming from you. So it's okay for you to ad hominem other people, but it's not okay for them to ad hominem you?
You, bungo, are one of the reasons Slashdot is becoming a less cool place. Your unnecessary harsh and insulting post gets 5, Insightful, and it's filled insults and flamebait. Shame on you.
Whining and complaining about Oracle's software just makes you look like a child.
Do you know what else makes someone look like a child? This:
Once you grow up and get into the real world...
And this:
So, if you're a screaming freetard...
You, sir, simply don't deserve your current 5, Insightful moderation.
This article is why I hate hipsters and people that moan about their first world problems.
There are children starving in Africa and people with cancer, so nobody is allowed to discuss anything less important, right?
By the way, you took time out of your day to whine about the submission. Oh, the irony...
...but after coming from a PS3 and Wii...
I was excited when I unexpectedly received an Xbox 360 as a Christmas present. I thought I could sell my Wii, which my wife and I use only for streaming Netflix.
To my severe disappointment, Microsoft wants me to pay $5/month for the privilege of streaming Netflix movies on the Xbox 360 (that is, on top of the normal Netflix bill).
No other device I'm aware of charges extra for this (Wii, PS3, Windows, Mac, Roku, Tivo, etc.)
Fucking Microsoft and their nickel and dime shit.
I converted back from web-based shit email (had enough of google's mail, yahoo's mail and all the rest of the big CRAP mail ui's they throw at us) and I went back to thunderbird. have been loving it for the last year or so, now. its great. local typing, no lost stuff, no hangs, no delays, no network-reachability issues or timeouts, no ads, no jscript, no worries about blocking and maintenance.
my life is a whole lot simpler using good old IMAP and local email pulled down.
the cloud can go fuck itself ;) I'm back with local apps and enjoying the speed of my machine and a *stable* UI experience.
I use Gmail (the web-based interface), but once a week, use Portable Thunderbird + IMAP to ensure I have a local backup.
Thunderbird's UI is...OK. It tends to hang up a lot (I get the old, "Thunderbird (Not Responding)" in the caption a lot.) They seem to have some UI problems, letting the UI thread get hung up for too long.
Of course, I wouldn't expect a non-tech geek to be able to figure out this setup...
#1 I like really advanced complex features like having multiple messages open simultaneously, the average web interface either doesn't support this or does it poorly.
You can do this in Gmail by clicking on the "In new window" icon, an arrow that points to the upper right, and is in the upper right hand corner of the email. Then you can open multiple emails in multiple windows. (Using Chrome, you can even pop them back into your browser window as a tab, if you like.)
#2 I already have half a dozen browser windows and tabs open if not more. I -like- my email windows have a different title bar, a different icon in the task bar, etc. Having everything open via the web browser makes making sense of my open windows more of a hassle. Plus if i quit the mail program, all the mail windows close. Nice.
In Chrome, you can click the wrench icon, followed by "New window". That way you can keep Gmail (or some other web based email) separate from your regular web browsing. But you're right, the icon looks the same in the task bar. In Chrome, you could use incognito mode to make the icon look different, I guess. If you come up with a solution to this, please, let me know. This would be a nice-to-have!
#3 Hotkeys - yes some web interfaces have them, but its a mess.
Gmail has shortcut keys, but I'm not sure how good they are. I turned them off because I would sometimes hit them by accident.
#4 Attachment handling - web clients are getting better but it still sucks, and its far worse if your internet connection is ever less than perfect.
No argument here. Being offline definitely reduces the usefulness of web based email.
#5 Mass message handling... most web clients let you handle a page of email at a time.
Gmail lets you select some messages, go to another page, select some more, go to another page (etc.) and then apply some action on all those selected messages. Admittedly, not as convenient as having one big list you can scroll up and down, rather than having to page through.
Search can sometimes obviate the need to select messages manually. Perform a search, get some results, select them all, perform an action.
Also, leveraging labels can make some things really easy, but of course, it requires some discipline to label your messages appropriately.
#6 Folders - yeah yeah... gmail has tags and they aren't bad either, but like being able to expand and collapse folders within folders within folders.
Yeah, folders-in-folders can be nice. You could probably fake it with a clever label naming scheme...
By the way, I'm not disagreeing with your preference for a thick email client. For some things, I prefer a thick client, too. I'm mostly "thinking out loud" here, trying to come up with some solutions to the issues you mentioned while staying in the web based email world. (I suspect you are already aware of everything I've mentioned, but other people reading the thread might find some useful information here.)
I use Gmail day-to-day, but every week, I hop into Thunderbird, and using IMAP, let it download my Gmail (no delete, just copy). That way I have an off-line backup, if I ever need it. I find the Thunderbird GUI very broken (it goes unresponsive all the time), but hey, it's free, and does the job I want (backup). I hope TB does not go away.
The C standard defines many things explicitly that other languages do not. The minefield exists in all languages with more than one implementation, it is just that in C you get a map with known mine locations, and areas which you should probably check for mines before you go walking there.
I disagree. C goes out of its way to have bunches of implementation defined behaviors so that it's easier to port or write C compilers for unknown or weird architectures. This is great for the compiler implementer, but puts an extra burden on the software developer to be aware of all those implementation defined minefields. All those implementation defined behaviors also makes it easier to have a C compiler generate extremely efficient code for your target architecture, so it's a trade-off.
That's all a long-winded way to say that C is complex in some ways (you really need to keep a handle on all those undefined and implementation defined behaviors), but also very powerful (it is those implementation defined behaviors which allows for the very efficient code generation).
C compilers are generally by far the most stable, as the operating system is also written in C. If the system C compiler contains major bugs... chances are that the operating system is very unstable as well.
I agree that C compilers are generally very reliable. In 25+ years of C programming, I've only found a few actual C compiler bugs. And, come to think of it, they may not have been C compiler bugs, but rather, bugs in some library routines, and not even in the standard library itself.
First you disagree then agree with me.
Ha! You are right. Sorry about that! :-)
The masses to which you refer are idiots. C is great. It lets you do what you want, how you want. True, you're afforded enough programming rope to easily hang yourself, but you learn not to, and while most things can be more easily done in higher languages (you'll have to pry Perl from my dead, cold hands), many things can only be done in languages like C or its derivatives. C is one of those languages that separates the adults from the kids, so put on your big-boy pants, stop whinging about it and step up.
What a pile of arrogant, chest-thumping uber-geek nonsense.
C is a really lousy choice in a lot of application domains. You should get your hate on if someone is trying to use a screwdriver to pound nails.
With its 250+ undefined and implementation defined behaviors, C is a minefield. Sure, if you're writing OS kernels or device drivers or something else where C's advantages outweigh the significant disadvantages, go for it. But in many application domains, C is entirely, utterly inappropriate.
C is a very simple language
People keep saying that, but it's not true.
C is very complicated to program in because it puts a huge burden on the developer. There are 250+ undefined and implementation defined behaviors. The language is a minefield. That's not simple for the developer, that's a damn nightmare.
The C committee keeps adding more crap with questionable value instead of tightening up the spec. e.g., We're well past the point of having to worry about one's complement machines. They need to start taking a lot of old cruft out.
Not just control, but predictability. C does exactly what you tell it to do and you can see what it is doing more easily then other languages.
C? Predictable?! I suppose you've memorized C's 250+ implementation defined and undefined behaviors?
Oh, unless you meant predictably unpredictable. Unless you're a superhuman programmer and can avoid the myriad minefields in the language.
Classic astroturfing; try to emphasize with audience and then attack the competition.
I can see where you might draw that conclusion, but no, I'm not astroturfing.
I don't have a horse in the race (I don't own a smartphone). Also, I have a Gmail (not Hotmail) email account. And I enjoy using Google Docs, they meet my needs wonderfully.
If anything, I'm a little bit of a Google fanboy. But that doesn't stop me from perceiving that Google is stumbling a bit with Android.
If you have a real counterargument instead of an Ad Hominem on my character, let me know.
because no one will buy them anyway.
I'm not sure this is true.
I'm not a fan of Microsoft, having watched their bad behavior over the decades. However, one thing I've noticed is that they are very stubborn. They will keep trying, and trying, and trying, and trying, in some markets, until they succeed. Also, they can throw massive resources at a problem for a very long period of time, until it succeeds, thanks to their Windows and Office cash cows. And those cash cows are still delivering the milk. Big time.
Also, I've typically been pretty confident about Google, but when it comes to Android, I'm not so sure anymore. Google is allowing the carriers to run amok with Android, giving Android a bad name. The fragmentation is a real problem. The OS updates (or lack thereof) to existing phones is a real problem. The carriers mangling the experience is a real problem. The spotty support for this feature or that feature is a real problem.
The crappy Android devices are a real problem, too. (I'm not saying they're all crappy, but a lot of them are.) Sure, having several price points is great, but it only takes one bad experience with a crappy Android phone to push someone to iPhone... or maybe, just maybe, a Windows Phone.
If Microsoft can avoid these problems plaguing Android devices, they might manage to get a foothold. And then gain a little market share. And a little more, and a little more. And then, oops, all of a sudden, Microsoft is a real contender in smartphones.
Again, I'm no Microsoft lover. Their anti-competitive practices in the past has left me cold. The fact that every time they dominate some niche, they usually stop innovating, has left me cold. The way they break up products into far too many versions has left me cold. Their nickle-and-dime dance has left me cold.
But there are plenty of examples of Microsoft not giving up, trying again and again, until they get it right (or close enough to right) and become a serious player in an area where they used to be a laughing stock.
Predictions of Microsoft's failure in smartphones is a never-ending echo right now, but if Google keeps stumbling with Android, there may be room for another competitor. Especially with how fickle consumers are. If they are replacing their smartphones every 2-3 years anyway, they might decide it's not such a big deal to try out a Windows Phone for a couple of years... and they might end up sticking with it.
Seriously, there should be a GPL agent model
Or just skip all the GPL drama entirely and use code based on BSD, MIT, Apache, etc., licenses instead.
I found some additional information (see the link below). It looks like Microsoft intends to implement those parts of C99 and C11 which are a subset of C++11. Which is better than nothing, I guess, but hardly what I would call a great effort to truly support C99 and C11.
Reader Q&A: What about VC++ and C99?
As far as I can tell, Microsoft cherry picked a few (very few) C99 features for inclusion in their C compiler, but have no intention of implementing C99 (or even the majority of C99). As you may or may not know, C99 isn't even the latest version of the C standard anymore. This means the C compiler in Visual Studio is horribly out-of-date.
If you have information that says otherwise, please let me know. Thanks.
Now if only Microsoft would update their damn C compiler.
Microsoft seems to only care about developers if you stay on the treadmill and only use technologies they care about.
The Tab Mix Plus add-on also lets you display an empty page, when a new tab is opened.
I've been a professional software developer for a few decades now, and done my fair share of running Linux, including Ubuntu. And, Ubuntu sucks.
Last year, I installed Ubuntu via wubi. It worked great, for a while. At some point, an update caused some kind of grub/kernel incompatibility. Ubuntu never managed to boot again.
So then I decided to install Ubuntu in its own partition and dual boot instead. Surely that would work. And it did, for a while. I foolishly allowed Ubuntu to try to update itself to the latest release. The update failed, and once again, Ubuntu never managed to boot again.
In disgust, I wiped Ubuntu from my system, and I'm back to Windows 7 full time. Linux has some real and serious advantages, but I'm tired of the bullshit. I will happily pay for something that is more reliable on the desktop.
And don't even get me started on Unity...
What kind of moron takes something that "look[s] like a cell phone attached to a remote control car with some exposed wires protruding" onto an airplane?
Uh, someone that does not want the device utterly destroyed?
Checked luggage gets the shit beat out of it. Also, very often, security personnel will go through your luggage, and break even more stuff, through plain negligence, or just plain re-packing it poorly.
The 1% don't care that much about inflation; you say they own "almost everything", but the thing is, if what you own is real, its value doesn't generally go down.
That's a really good point, and something us 99%'ers should probably consider when saving / investing!
Thank you for the rest of your interesting comment, too.
Well, as a C++/python developer I spend 90% of my time in C++ wrestling with the obscure syntax and memory management to tell the compiler what I want to do.
C++ evolved into a monstrosity. I share your dislike of C++. I won't touch it unless I absolutely have to.
Shorter prettier easier code is less likely to be buggy.
In general, I agree; however, when it comes strictly to static typing vs. dynamic typing, I think giving up static typing for a little less code is a false economy.
Decent error handling makes code robust. Ack, I ran over the end of my std::vector. Better hope I tested for that. Ack, I ran over the end of my list. Lucky python throws an error for me.
I, too, use a language that does bounds checking for me (that language is not C or C++, is also statically typed, and outperforms Python by miles). I will only "drop down" into C if I need absolute top performance -- which is pretty rare, these days.
As someone who's worked with Python for years both in personal projects and professionally, I've never had an issue with that.
Because your anecdotal experience means that the debate is over. Your single, biased data point is plenty to draw sweeping conclusions.
I hope you write better program logic, because your logical thinking skills are definitely lacking.
Maybe python attracts more intelligent programmers than the dime-a-dozen .Net / Java programmers being pumped out of university.
Oh. You're one of those "I'm smarter than everyone else" types.