Regarding stock levels, many web stores don't have their own stock and instead utilize large distributors who will ship direct based on their direction. I encountered a situation a while ago where I was shopping for an item, and found that several stores all had exactly 37 in stock. The prices varied somewhat though. I was in a hurry for this particular item (needed it for a trade show), so I called several of them to verify that the item really was in stock and could be delivered when they said it could. A couple of them checked multiple "warehouses," one in Texas, one in Chicago, etc., and it turned out the only warehouse that had any at all was the one in Texas which had 37. These sellers make deals with the distributors of some kind and don't do their own stocking or shipping, at least of some items. Interestingly enough, none of them could get it to me on time for the trade show, so later I decided to buy one for future shows in advance, and found that CDW had it for WAY cheaper than anyone else so I bought it from them (I think it was probably a mistake, I now notice the price is a little higher than average so I guess I got an unusually good deal).
Yes, but Newegg loses me on something similar to his #8-- I have to call in to verify my shipping address, which I don't have to do with most other sellers. I'll pay a little more for the convenience of not having to do that.
Here's a good example. This item
that just closed I'd been monitoring to see what it's going for on
eBay. If instead of paying the typical Brick & Mortar price for the item they had done the teeniest bit of shopping around they would have found this,
which pops up at the top of Google if you enter the product name, and is a pretty typical Web price for it. Even B&M Sam Ash is selling it for this same price. The eBay one also comes with 128M of smartmedia which goes for about $20, but also has $15 more shipping making the difference here about $136 (resealed) or $106 (brand new). Looking at the bidding history, there appears to have been a last-minute frenzy where one yayhoo kept bidding up and up finally unwilling to pay more, not yet having exceeded the previous bidders max (either that or time ran out).
It did tell me that if I want to buy one anytime soon, eBay probably won't be much help. (the item's pretty new and few have been showing up on eBay).
Yes, the Amazon cart is brilliant. One thing the wish list needs though, is the ability to partition the items-- I've got things in my cart I wouldn't want my Mom to see for example (I'm a liberal Atheist and she's a conservative Christian, and some of the books on my list would spur conversations I'd just as soon avoid), so I can't point her at it for Xmas. There could be other good reasons to partition a wish list as well, such as things other people certainly could buy vs things I'm still considering.
Newegg has good prices, but I don't use them because they require the shipping address to be attached to the credit card (as the billing address or an alternative address). For me, that would mean putting my work address on my credit card which I think is completely inappropriate. While apparently you can call them up on the phone and adjust for this, that's just too much of a PITA. Consequently, they're on my don't-buy-from list...
And I'm aware that it's supposed to be more secure, but I think you'll find it's only more secure for Newegg, it does nothing in particular for me except make the process more complicated. I'll gladly pay $8-$10 more for the convenience of not having to call them on the phone to get the darn thing shipped to me, as I'm rewarding the seller who provides the better service.
I too, skip any site that wants me to get a quote. While it may be that their price can be cheaper because of this, it also could be a come-on to make you *think* you're getting an ultracheap price. It's too much trouble, violates my privacy IMHO, and unnecessary as there is plenty of competition. I also tend to prefer sites that allow me to pay via Paypal. That's not to say I think Paypal is so wonderful, but it reduces the number of sites that have my CC information on their computer.
Some of us want to maintain our freedom, now and in the future. In order to do that, we must have hardware appliance platforms on which open source can be run. Today, you buy a PC and it will run Window or Linux or a dozen other things. In the future, that might not be the case. Today, you can buy a digital music player that isn't open, or you can buy something like an Archos that has open source software available for it (Rockbox for example). I've heard that even the iPod has had a mini-Linux ported to it, though no doubt not through any intention on Apple's part, and in fact, that "feature" is likely to go away (I think it may have already in some versions).
If consumers don't demand hardware that gives us the freedom to enhance or repurpose the hardware, that freedom will be lost, and that particular freedom is pretty tentative right now as it is. Microsoft is currently working on a scheme whereby new PCs will be useless to run anything but Longhorn. Want to run Linux? Throw away your hardware and buy something else. Some modem boards are already like that. Ignorant consumers may grab such new devices up when they're cheap, then find out that they're locked in and replacement becomes hugely expensive-- if the manufacturer goes belly up or decides not to support it anymore, time to cough up the cash for a new one. If they decide to implement "subscription" based payment to keep it working, or have other time-out features, cough up the cash, buddy. Control is lost over your computational tools, even if you don't want to hack them yourself.
The ignorance of the consumer is what allows these limits to be placed on what they can buy. Computerized tools are too important to leave their design up to market protecting tyrants like Bill Gates. Do we have to wait until it happens before the ignorant consumer learns about his mistake? Or do we try the best we can to educate them in advance in order to stem the tide if we can?
New hardware will support all kinds of draconian limits on their use, through DRM or other "features," if users don't demand better compatibility now. You can see it all over-- Nikon using an encrypted image format making them incompatible with Photoshop. Nikon couldn't have done that if customers had demanded the Nikon cameras came with user-loadable firmware. But customers were too ignorant for that. And unless at least one camera manufacturer does that sort of thing and it becomes reasonably popular, we've already lost control over what you can do with a digital camera in the future. Got an idea how to adapt it to do something new? Save images in a new compression algorithm or add in-camera image processing? You'll have to throw your old camera away and buy a new one to do that-- nice designed in obsolescence, eh?
The big problem is, it's basically impossible to run a mail server without using RBL's (we tried).. you just get hammered. RBLs are definately useful, but there are too many run by over-zealous admins with basically an itchy trigger finger. Hopefully stunts like this will make people realize the problems with RBLs and maybe we can drop the ones that are run this way.
Uh--- excuse my ignorance here, but since the incoming mail apparently gets processed at least to the extent of checking its source against an RBL, how is that any less hammering than just appending the message to the end of someones inbox? I presume that "hammering" means "too much traffic?" Don't you still have to handle the message?...
Overzealous RBL admins screw everyone. If they think everyone is going to sit back and not mind that major ISPs like AOL have been blacklisted, they are (hopefully) if for a rude awakening.
Absolutely. Blacklists are a broken technology-- closing the barn doors after the horses have escaped. Users should have the right to demand an ISP disable any email blocking "feature" that is subject to false positives. Period. Mail service that is unreliable due to faulty blacklisting is unacceptable. Class action suit, anyone?
Email services subject to incoming blacklist blocking are next to useless as far as I'm concerned. And just how effective have blacklists been in getting ISPs to "clean up their act," anyway?
And while I hate spam, why don't I have the right to recieve it if I wanted it? Just because the ISPs don't like it? Outgoing spam is one thing, but incoming spam is really none of their business!
How well does ActiveX run on Linux? Is an Java+ActiveX game really a "write once run anywhere" deal? Or does only the Java portion of such a program have that characteristic? How much of the code actually being executed has to be written in Java for the result to be considered a "Java" program? If much of what the Java does is interfacing between platform dependent libraries, and the result won't run anywhere these platform dependent libraries haven't been ported, it seems to me significantly nontrivial portions of the code can hardly be said to be "platform independent." As the JVM context gets more and more complex with graphics and other such extention libraries, isn't the concept of moving a Java program to a brand new platform an even bigger barrier to entry for a Java program that is only be using a subset of these capabilties?-- you can't run a Java program until you have a JVM, and if a JVM has become a hugely complex nonportable piece...
Remember when everything was written in assembler? Was it "lazy" to code in C? While it would be nice to optimize the results, you have to remember that if you have more time, you can spend it debugging or adding new features - thus optimizing the process can lead to optimizing the results.
As usual, it's a tradeoff. C was a pretty good tradeoff against assembler in most cases, it is practically a generic assembler itself-- handling data at pretty much the same level, mainly just the "instruction set" is hardware independent, not so much the data. A good C programmer will generally have a pretty good idea what the equivalent machine instructions are for a given line of C code.
C++ however, somewhat less so. Many of those object oriented features move the programmer further away from the sense of what is happening with the hardware. Layers are hidden, encapsulated, etc., but bugs and performance problems can be as well. It may be a reasonable tradeoff, but there is some penalty you are paying.
When on top of that, you further add virtual machine emulation, you've completely removed the programmer from any sense of what is going on at the level of the hardware. If that's good enough for you, fine, but as long as there are available alternatives that aren't carrying around that kind of lets-make-it-playskool-for-the-programmer baggage, the only thing that is going to convince me is a Java "killer app." While Azureus may be a good performer (I wouldn't know, I've had virtually no need to bittorrent at all so far), it's not a "killer app" as there's nothing about it that Java can do better than an alternative. A true Java "killer app" would have to be one where if it wasn't written in Java or an equivalently architectured environment, it would necessarily not perform as well, AND be something that almost noone will want to do without once it's created. Until then, it'll always be second-fiddle to something with fewer layers between the language and unique hardware features.
Java may evolve to where very little of a Java program is actually written in Java-- the Java code becomes merely interface logic that calls "libraries" or "drivers" that handle the platform dependent capabilities. But then in fact, while the interface logic is "run anywhere," who cares as it's pretty trivial, and useless if you don't have the relevant libraries and drivers for a candidate platform...
In many ways, Linux takes better advantage of x86 architecture than Windows does. Linux is written multi-platform in the way I'm arguing makes sense, not by emulating a virtual machine on every platform, but by optionally taking advantage of the specialties of every platform. Otherwise, all Linux installations would be compiled strictly for the 386. And the ways that Linux comes up short on the x86 platform, it's due to either lack of hardware drivers which is a short-term problem (hopefully) OR the overhead "one-size-fits-all platform independent" solutions such as X which is also a short-term problem (see directFB.org for an example). I dual boot Linux/PC at home, Linux anytime I want to surf the web because its more secure, and PC when I want to run games or other graphics intensive programs. I create (boot) the platform I want for the job I'm trying to do. I have little interest in emulations such as Wine to do that, rebooting is not a big problem for me. Eventually I do hope to be able to stick with one environment, but it's just not a big deal in the meantime. I'm not interested in "networked" games though, if I was I'd have to do something else.
It seems to me that product managers have long concluded that programming is hard, or expensive, or otherwise prohibitive and they want to do less of it. We don't have time or money or expertise to do it right, so we have to find some kind of shortcut. And that sells lots of things-- fad methodologies, magic tools, outsourcing, all sorts of software snake-oil. The problem is however, that there's no free lunch. Each of these alternatives have their own set of complications. I choose to pick those that optimize the results, not the process.
Making a project take much longer to implement and take literally twice as long to test really isn't a sensible option when you are paying people by the hour.
Java is not the panacea your argument here is claiming it is. Testing may take a bit longer, but that's not necessarily a bad thing-- some things get tested better on one platform than another and you find things you might not otherwise. And coding doesn't necessarily take much longer to implement if you are familiar with the variations in the target platforms. Sure, I've seen a lot of *bad* attempts at multi-platform code, look for *platform* specific #ifdefs spread throughout for example, rather than *feature* specific ifdefs that are selectively defined for each platform. That sort of thing can be hell when the programmers don't know what they are doing, or if you've inherited it from some who didn't. But make no mistake, Java has its own unique set of issues that cause their fair share of problems.
Ultimately, the customer doesn't really care what it's written in, other than the fact that he's "heard" things good or bad about one language or another. I've never heard someone react to the fact that something was written in C as if it was a bad thing though, usually the contrary (most customers are ignorant of it's propensity for buffer overflows and wayward pointers). I have heard negative reactions from customers for a lot of other languages though.
If you can't afford programmers who know about coding in multi-platform environments, then Java might well be a good bet for you-- but that's not a good argument to relay to the customer as to why they should buy it...
Brushing off all apps written for the JVM (or any development kit) will cause you to miss out on a good app sometime.
Ok, sure maybe I'll encounter something worthwhile one of these days. So far, everything I've tried was a nightmare to deploy though-- "JVM version hell" for the most part. Flash animations do a lot better in that regard at least-- they run on various platforms and I've never seen them complain about needing a specific version of a player (maybe they do, I've just never seen it), and EVERY time I've tried to deploy a java app I had to reinstall java with the "right" version for the app. Except for web-based Java that is, which has been mostly quirky and/or slow.
But alright, I admit it. I've been doing fine without Java for 20 years and am now a crotchety old curmudgeon. Maybe I just should have programmed everything in MIX...
Why would I pay a programmer $1 an hour to code something for 10 hours on three different platforms, when I can pay him $1 an hour to code something once? Especially if I'm going to sell just as many copies for the same exact price in either scenerio -- the java route increases my return.
Exactly. But now think like a customer. Why would you buy a Mac and not a PC if you just wanted to run generic programs? Aren't you interested in looking for those programs out there that take specific advantage of your hardware investment? What is it about the best Mac programs that make you buy a Mac in the first place? As a customer, what do you care how hard it is to write code? Sure, you care how much it costs, but you may very well be willing to pay more for software that's better integrated with your platform. When I'm a customer and not a developer, that's the sort of customer I am. Consequently, if it's written in Java, I look elsewhere...
You have never written a large multi-platform piece of software, have you? Learn to code something a bit more complex than Hello World before you call other people slackers for not going through the hell that is making a piece of software written in C/C++ work on multiple platforms, all from the same source.
No, in fact, I have been doing multi-platform development for around 20 years now, including client server, three tier, networked database and web applications. How much hell the programmers go through is not the issue-- it's a programmer's job to program, and if that's hell for you perhaps you should look for another job.
I don't play games on the web-- when I play games I play ones specifically designed to run on the hardware I have-- because the resultant experience is far better.
Years ago I bought an Atari 800. There were games available ONLY for the Atari 800, and some that were available both for the Atari 800 and the Apple II. Guess which ones were better on the Atari 800? The ones specifically designed for the platform, where the authors could take advantage of all the special features that only the Atari had.
Suppose for example, you have a Mac. Why would you buy a Mac, if not to run things that the Mac was uniquely good at doing? How many of those things are going to run at all on a PC? How many are even going to run *as good* on a PC as they do on a Mac?
No, they're actually not all that rare. The only reason you haven't seen any on eBay so far, is similarly dated issues haven't garnered much interest, and nobody was aware of any special interest in that issue. Someone probably paid $1 apiece or less for a batch of dozens of similar issues including that one within the last year, neither the buyer or seller realizing that issue was in any way special. Now that this story has surfaced, I'll wager you'll see bunches of them crop up on eBay over the next several months. Be patient, and you'll probably be able to get one for less than $50 once the feeding frenzy wanes-- IMHO the demand relative to the supply in this is significantly smaller than there is in Playboy #1 which went for about $2700 on eBay in the last week.
Sure, the vast majority of old trade magazines got tossed, but there are more than a few packrats who've saved them-- probably far more than have an interest in acquiring this particular issue. DISCLAIMER: These opinions are based on decades of back-issue magazine collecting and trading, YMMV.
Simple really-- some programmers are lazy. They can't be bothered with optimizing their code for individual platforms. And frankly, I'm glad they've found Java, as I don't want to waste my time on the products of such slackers-- as soon as I find out something's written in Java I can immediately ignore it and look for something better tuned for the platform I'm using.
Welcome to a free country. I simply refuse to pay for the bandwidth necessary, or provide you the attention necessary, for you to feed your advertripe to me. Get used to it.
I dislike this statement because it gives rise to a false dichotomy where you only possess rights on public land.
Try picketing in front of a store inside a mall. You can't, it's private property. You have to go out to the street and picket at the driveway entrance to the parking lot. Makes it kind of difficult to communicate even which store you are picketing. Far less effective, eh?
WD-40, whatever its specific formula is, does have solvent properties which unfortuantely, are counter productive. The solvent properties tend to displace more permanent forms of lubrication, and then it evaporates. It's a very temporary solution to a lubrication problem-- good for freeing up frozen bolts perhaps, or possibly drying out a distributor cap after steam cleaning, but not for general lubrication purposes such as in locks or hinges, as it will make the problem worse. WD-40 is also quite flammable. Instead, use powdered graphite for locks, and good old 3-in-1 for hinges...
Seems fair. If the RIAA thinks it can tell ISPs how to behave regarding music, the ISPs should be able to tell the RIAA how to behave regarding privacy or perhaps a few other things.
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding stock levels, many web stores don't have their own stock and instead utilize large distributors who will ship direct based on their direction. I encountered a situation a while ago where I was shopping for an item, and found that several stores all had exactly 37 in stock. The prices varied somewhat though. I was in a hurry for this particular item (needed it for a trade show), so I called several of them to verify that the item really was in stock and could be delivered when they said it could. A couple of them checked multiple "warehouses," one in Texas, one in Chicago, etc., and it turned out the only warehouse that had any at all was the one in Texas which had 37. These sellers make deals with the distributors of some kind and don't do their own stocking or shipping, at least of some items. Interestingly enough, none of them could get it to me on time for the trade show, so later I decided to buy one for future shows in advance, and found that CDW had it for WAY cheaper than anyone else so I bought it from them (I think it was probably a mistake, I now notice the price is a little higher than average so I guess I got an unusually good deal).
Yes, but Newegg loses me on something similar to his #8-- I have to call in to verify my shipping address, which I don't have to do with most other sellers. I'll pay a little more for the convenience of not having to do that.
Here's a good example. This item that just closed I'd been monitoring to see what it's going for on eBay. If instead of paying the typical Brick & Mortar price for the item they had done the teeniest bit of shopping around they would have found this, which pops up at the top of Google if you enter the product name, and is a pretty typical Web price for it. Even B&M Sam Ash is selling it for this same price. The eBay one also comes with 128M of smartmedia which goes for about $20, but also has $15 more shipping making the difference here about $136 (resealed) or $106 (brand new). Looking at the bidding history, there appears to have been a last-minute frenzy where one yayhoo kept bidding up and up finally unwilling to pay more, not yet having exceeded the previous bidders max (either that or time ran out).
It did tell me that if I want to buy one anytime soon, eBay probably won't be much help. (the item's pretty new and few have been showing up on eBay).
Yes, the Amazon cart is brilliant. One thing the wish list needs though, is the ability to partition the items-- I've got things in my cart I wouldn't want my Mom to see for example (I'm a liberal Atheist and she's a conservative Christian, and some of the books on my list would spur conversations I'd just as soon avoid), so I can't point her at it for Xmas. There could be other good reasons to partition a wish list as well, such as things other people certainly could buy vs things I'm still considering.
Newegg has good prices, but I don't use them because they require the shipping address to be attached to the credit card (as the billing address or an alternative address). For me, that would mean putting my work address on my credit card which I think is completely inappropriate. While apparently you can call them up on the phone and adjust for this, that's just too much of a PITA. Consequently, they're on my don't-buy-from list...
And I'm aware that it's supposed to be more secure, but I think you'll find it's only more secure for Newegg, it does nothing in particular for me except make the process more complicated. I'll gladly pay $8-$10 more for the convenience of not having to call them on the phone to get the darn thing shipped to me, as I'm rewarding the seller who provides the better service.
I too, skip any site that wants me to get a quote. While it may be that their price can be cheaper because of this, it also could be a come-on to make you *think* you're getting an ultracheap price. It's too much trouble, violates my privacy IMHO, and unnecessary as there is plenty of competition. I also tend to prefer sites that allow me to pay via Paypal. That's not to say I think Paypal is so wonderful, but it reduces the number of sites that have my CC information on their computer.
Can you say "designed-in-obsolescence?"
Some of us want to maintain our freedom, now and in the future. In order to do that, we must have hardware appliance platforms on which open source can be run. Today, you buy a PC and it will run Window or Linux or a dozen other things. In the future, that might not be the case. Today, you can buy a digital music player that isn't open, or you can buy something like an Archos that has open source software available for it (Rockbox for example). I've heard that even the iPod has had a mini-Linux ported to it, though no doubt not through any intention on Apple's part, and in fact, that "feature" is likely to go away (I think it may have already in some versions).
If consumers don't demand hardware that gives us the freedom to enhance or repurpose the hardware, that freedom will be lost, and that particular freedom is pretty tentative right now as it is. Microsoft is currently working on a scheme whereby new PCs will be useless to run anything but Longhorn. Want to run Linux? Throw away your hardware and buy something else. Some modem boards are already like that. Ignorant consumers may grab such new devices up when they're cheap, then find out that they're locked in and replacement becomes hugely expensive-- if the manufacturer goes belly up or decides not to support it anymore, time to cough up the cash for a new one. If they decide to implement "subscription" based payment to keep it working, or have other time-out features, cough up the cash, buddy. Control is lost over your computational tools, even if you don't want to hack them yourself.
The ignorance of the consumer is what allows these limits to be placed on what they can buy. Computerized tools are too important to leave their design up to market protecting tyrants like Bill Gates. Do we have to wait until it happens before the ignorant consumer learns about his mistake? Or do we try the best we can to educate them in advance in order to stem the tide if we can?
New hardware will support all kinds of draconian limits on their use, through DRM or other "features," if users don't demand better compatibility now. You can see it all over-- Nikon using an encrypted image format making them incompatible with Photoshop. Nikon couldn't have done that if customers had demanded the Nikon cameras came with user-loadable firmware. But customers were too ignorant for that. And unless at least one camera manufacturer does that sort of thing and it becomes reasonably popular, we've already lost control over what you can do with a digital camera in the future. Got an idea how to adapt it to do something new? Save images in a new compression algorithm or add in-camera image processing? You'll have to throw your old camera away and buy a new one to do that-- nice designed in obsolescence, eh?
Does the mail carrier have the right to withold junk mail from your mailbox? Why, and why is spam different, if it is in fact different?
The big problem is, it's basically impossible to run a mail server without using RBL's (we tried).. you just get hammered. RBLs are definately useful, but there are too many run by over-zealous admins with basically an itchy trigger finger. Hopefully stunts like this will make people realize the problems with RBLs and maybe we can drop the ones that are run this way.
Uh--- excuse my ignorance here, but since the incoming mail apparently gets processed at least to the extent of checking its source against an RBL, how is that any less hammering than just appending the message to the end of someones inbox? I presume that "hammering" means "too much traffic?" Don't you still have to handle the message?...
Overzealous RBL admins screw everyone. If they think everyone is going to sit back and not mind that major ISPs like AOL have been blacklisted, they are (hopefully) if for a rude awakening.
Absolutely. Blacklists are a broken technology-- closing the barn doors after the horses have escaped. Users should have the right to demand an ISP disable any email blocking "feature" that is subject to false positives. Period. Mail service that is unreliable due to faulty blacklisting is unacceptable. Class action suit, anyone?
Email services subject to incoming blacklist blocking are next to useless as far as I'm concerned. And just how effective have blacklists been in getting ISPs to "clean up their act," anyway?
And while I hate spam, why don't I have the right to recieve it if I wanted it? Just because the ISPs don't like it? Outgoing spam is one thing, but incoming spam is really none of their business!
How well does ActiveX run on Linux? Is an Java+ActiveX game really a "write once run anywhere" deal? Or does only the Java portion of such a program have that characteristic? How much of the code actually being executed has to be written in Java for the result to be considered a "Java" program? If much of what the Java does is interfacing between platform dependent libraries, and the result won't run anywhere these platform dependent libraries haven't been ported, it seems to me significantly nontrivial portions of the code can hardly be said to be "platform independent." As the JVM context gets more and more complex with graphics and other such extention libraries, isn't the concept of moving a Java program to a brand new platform an even bigger barrier to entry for a Java program that is only be using a subset of these capabilties?-- you can't run a Java program until you have a JVM, and if a JVM has become a hugely complex nonportable piece...
Remember when everything was written in assembler? Was it "lazy" to code in C? While it would be nice to optimize the results, you have to remember that if you have more time, you can spend it debugging or adding new features - thus optimizing the process can lead to optimizing the results.
As usual, it's a tradeoff. C was a pretty good tradeoff against assembler in most cases, it is practically a generic assembler itself-- handling data at pretty much the same level, mainly just the "instruction set" is hardware independent, not so much the data. A good C programmer will generally have a pretty good idea what the equivalent machine instructions are for a given line of C code.
C++ however, somewhat less so. Many of those object oriented features move the programmer further away from the sense of what is happening with the hardware. Layers are hidden, encapsulated, etc., but bugs and performance problems can be as well. It may be a reasonable tradeoff, but there is some penalty you are paying.
When on top of that, you further add virtual machine emulation, you've completely removed the programmer from any sense of what is going on at the level of the hardware. If that's good enough for you, fine, but as long as there are available alternatives that aren't carrying around that kind of lets-make-it-playskool-for-the-programmer baggage, the only thing that is going to convince me is a Java "killer app." While Azureus may be a good performer (I wouldn't know, I've had virtually no need to bittorrent at all so far), it's not a "killer app" as there's nothing about it that Java can do better than an alternative. A true Java "killer app" would have to be one where if it wasn't written in Java or an equivalently architectured environment, it would necessarily not perform as well, AND be something that almost noone will want to do without once it's created. Until then, it'll always be second-fiddle to something with fewer layers between the language and unique hardware features.
Java may evolve to where very little of a Java program is actually written in Java-- the Java code becomes merely interface logic that calls "libraries" or "drivers" that handle the platform dependent capabilities. But then in fact, while the interface logic is "run anywhere," who cares as it's pretty trivial, and useless if you don't have the relevant libraries and drivers for a candidate platform...
In many ways, Linux takes better advantage of x86 architecture than Windows does. Linux is written multi-platform in the way I'm arguing makes sense, not by emulating a virtual machine on every platform, but by optionally taking advantage of the specialties of every platform. Otherwise, all Linux installations would be compiled strictly for the 386. And the ways that Linux comes up short on the x86 platform, it's due to either lack of hardware drivers which is a short-term problem (hopefully) OR the overhead "one-size-fits-all platform independent" solutions such as X which is also a short-term problem (see directFB.org for an example). I dual boot Linux/PC at home, Linux anytime I want to surf the web because its more secure, and PC when I want to run games or other graphics intensive programs. I create (boot) the platform I want for the job I'm trying to do. I have little interest in emulations such as Wine to do that, rebooting is not a big problem for me. Eventually I do hope to be able to stick with one environment, but it's just not a big deal in the meantime. I'm not interested in "networked" games though, if I was I'd have to do something else.
It seems to me that product managers have long concluded that programming is hard, or expensive, or otherwise prohibitive and they want to do less of it. We don't have time or money or expertise to do it right, so we have to find some kind of shortcut. And that sells lots of things-- fad methodologies, magic tools, outsourcing, all sorts of software snake-oil. The problem is however, that there's no free lunch. Each of these alternatives have their own set of complications. I choose to pick those that optimize the results, not the process.
Making a project take much longer to implement and take literally twice as long to test really isn't a sensible option when you are paying people by the hour.
Java is not the panacea your argument here is claiming it is. Testing may take a bit longer, but that's not necessarily a bad thing-- some things get tested better on one platform than another and you find things you might not otherwise. And coding doesn't necessarily take much longer to implement if you are familiar with the variations in the target platforms. Sure, I've seen a lot of *bad* attempts at multi-platform code, look for *platform* specific #ifdefs spread throughout for example, rather than *feature* specific ifdefs that are selectively defined for each platform. That sort of thing can be hell when the programmers don't know what they are doing, or if you've inherited it from some who didn't. But make no mistake, Java has its own unique set of issues that cause their fair share of problems.
Ultimately, the customer doesn't really care what it's written in, other than the fact that he's "heard" things good or bad about one language or another. I've never heard someone react to the fact that something was written in C as if it was a bad thing though, usually the contrary (most customers are ignorant of it's propensity for buffer overflows and wayward pointers). I have heard negative reactions from customers for a lot of other languages though.
If you can't afford programmers who know about coding in multi-platform environments, then Java might well be a good bet for you-- but that's not a good argument to relay to the customer as to why they should buy it...
Brushing off all apps written for the JVM (or any development kit) will cause you to miss out on a good app sometime.
Ok, sure maybe I'll encounter something worthwhile one of these days. So far, everything I've tried was a nightmare to deploy though-- "JVM version hell" for the most part. Flash animations do a lot better in that regard at least-- they run on various platforms and I've never seen them complain about needing a specific version of a player (maybe they do, I've just never seen it), and EVERY time I've tried to deploy a java app I had to reinstall java with the "right" version for the app. Except for web-based Java that is, which has been mostly quirky and/or slow.
But alright, I admit it. I've been doing fine without Java for 20 years and am now a crotchety old curmudgeon. Maybe I just should have programmed everything in MIX...
Why would I pay a programmer $1 an hour to code something for 10 hours on three different platforms, when I can pay him $1 an hour to code something once? Especially if I'm going to sell just as many copies for the same exact price in either scenerio -- the java route increases my return.
Exactly. But now think like a customer. Why would you buy a Mac and not a PC if you just wanted to run generic programs? Aren't you interested in looking for those programs out there that take specific advantage of your hardware investment? What is it about the best Mac programs that make you buy a Mac in the first place? As a customer, what do you care how hard it is to write code? Sure, you care how much it costs, but you may very well be willing to pay more for software that's better integrated with your platform. When I'm a customer and not a developer, that's the sort of customer I am. Consequently, if it's written in Java, I look elsewhere...
You have never written a large multi-platform piece of software, have you? Learn to code something a bit more complex than Hello World before you call other people slackers for not going through the hell that is making a piece of software written in C/C++ work on multiple platforms, all from the same source.
No, in fact, I have been doing multi-platform development for around 20 years now, including client server, three tier, networked database and web applications. How much hell the programmers go through is not the issue-- it's a programmer's job to program, and if that's hell for you perhaps you should look for another job.
I don't play games on the web-- when I play games I play ones specifically designed to run on the hardware I have-- because the resultant experience is far better.
Years ago I bought an Atari 800. There were games available ONLY for the Atari 800, and some that were available both for the Atari 800 and the Apple II. Guess which ones were better on the Atari 800? The ones specifically designed for the platform, where the authors could take advantage of all the special features that only the Atari had.
Suppose for example, you have a Mac. Why would you buy a Mac, if not to run things that the Mac was uniquely good at doing? How many of those things are going to run at all on a PC? How many are even going to run *as good* on a PC as they do on a Mac?
No, they're actually not all that rare. The only reason you haven't seen any on eBay so far, is similarly dated issues haven't garnered much interest, and nobody was aware of any special interest in that issue. Someone probably paid $1 apiece or less for a batch of dozens of similar issues including that one within the last year, neither the buyer or seller realizing that issue was in any way special. Now that this story has surfaced, I'll wager you'll see bunches of them crop up on eBay over the next several months. Be patient, and you'll probably be able to get one for less than $50 once the feeding frenzy wanes-- IMHO the demand relative to the supply in this is significantly smaller than there is in Playboy #1 which went for about $2700 on eBay in the last week.
Sure, the vast majority of old trade magazines got tossed, but there are more than a few packrats who've saved them-- probably far more than have an interest in acquiring this particular issue. DISCLAIMER: These opinions are based on decades of back-issue magazine collecting and trading, YMMV.
Simple really-- some programmers are lazy. They can't be bothered with optimizing their code for individual platforms. And frankly, I'm glad they've found Java, as I don't want to waste my time on the products of such slackers-- as soon as I find out something's written in Java I can immediately ignore it and look for something better tuned for the platform I'm using.
It could be another ploy to squeeze out open source with proprietaryisms-- Adobe can license the format from Nicon, but Gimp won't be doing that...
Welcome to a free country. I simply refuse to pay for the bandwidth necessary, or provide you the attention necessary, for you to feed your advertripe to me. Get used to it.
>>almost all malls are private property
I dislike this statement because it gives rise to a false dichotomy where you only possess rights on public land.
Try picketing in front of a store inside a mall. You can't, it's private property. You have to go out to the street and picket at the driveway entrance to the parking lot. Makes it kind of difficult to communicate even which store you are picketing. Far less effective, eh?
WD-40, whatever its specific formula is, does have solvent properties which unfortuantely, are counter productive. The solvent properties tend to displace more permanent forms of lubrication, and then it evaporates. It's a very temporary solution to a lubrication problem-- good for freeing up frozen bolts perhaps, or possibly drying out a distributor cap after steam cleaning, but not for general lubrication purposes such as in locks or hinges, as it will make the problem worse. WD-40 is also quite flammable. Instead, use powdered graphite for locks, and good old 3-in-1 for hinges...
Seems fair. If the RIAA thinks it can tell ISPs how to behave regarding music, the ISPs should be able to tell the RIAA how to behave regarding privacy or perhaps a few other things.