Macs have standardized hardware and software. This makes games easier to write because you have to test on less different combinations. Linux is the opposite because you could have different kernels, libc's, and a ton of different hardware.
Mac: Uses standard batteries interchangeable with any normal battery.
AA? C? D? Doubt it. There is no "standard battery" for laptops. And that's just the most obvious of your mistakes. If you like Macs, that's nice. Looking at the rest of your little comparison, I see the Dell wins out in specs, but every time it does you say it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I love Macs... but don't try and say they're better than everything else just cause you say so.
P.S. - Laptop hard drive speed is *much* more important than capacity. A 5400 rpm hard drive will be the limiting factor for most things way before the CPU or GPU ever comes into play.
I have one of the Dell's with a 15" UXGA (1600x1200) display. I have shitty eyesight, but I can read normal Windows font sizes with no problem. It's just that clear. The Dell laptop screens are far superior to anything you can find as a desktop LCD.
Well, the trick to "anticipating everything a person will do that will inadvertantly blow up your application" is to keep it as simple as possible, specifically by restricting how the user interacts with the app. If the user can only press one of 3 buttons or put a fixed number of characters into a text box, it's not impossible to code for every possibility. In theory, you could build a complex application from lots of very simple (and easy to test and write) parts interacting in a well-defined manner.
In practice, this almost never happens. Most developers are willing to trade perfect code that'll take four months for mostly-perfect code that will be ready for the deadline.
To sum it all up, a properly designed and written program should never choke on user input. If it doesn't, that means you cut corners somewhere. Don't blame it on the user.
If I remember correctly, the optimum base for data size is base e (approx 2.7). I guess that base 3 would be the best we could achieve. Can anybody who knows more about information theory back me up?
how many times have you found that an app assumes the presence of some VB/VC++ runtime lib that just wasn't there?
After 7 versions of VC++ and VC, there are a grand total of maybe 18 runtime dlls. Add in the.NET runtime, and you've got most programs covered. Any modern version of Windows comes with most of them. I personally haven't had to update any of those dlls since, oh... when I ran Win98. This is one area where I think Linux is light-years behind Windows. Besides that, you pretty much nailed it. Bravo.
What would be really smart would be to copy what Microsoft does with DirectX and enforce strict backwards-compatibility with every version. That way, if you had lib.x.7 you could run programs linked with any previous version. However, I don't know if this is possible with Linux's loader.
Thank you, Sir. You've finally summarized what the vast majority of posts on Slashdot lack, and helped me realize that I have better things to do every day than read a bunch of idiots and fanboys quibbling over the latest tech gossip. My boss would love you. As a last sacrifice of whatever karma I have left, I'll post this last post and congratulate you so the slashbots can mod me into the non-existance that I deserve:P
There've been lots of slashdot posts debating this, and I think it has something to do with the Latin roots for virus vs. other languages. Either way, English is pretty fucked up.
The.deb package spec has the same dependency information as.rpm, but the rpm program doesn't use dependency information. That's why projects like apt4rpm can use unmodified rpms to do their job.
Do they have AGP slots? I've been looking for some cheap boxen for desktop workstations (I use a laptop), and I want to be able to throw in a decent video card.
Grandparent was a troll. Anybody who knows any assembly code could tell. I know I'm kinda stupid for responding to him, but keep the troll mods for those who actually deserve them.
Funny can also be a noun, as in "I made a funny." That usage makes just as much sense as your stupid example. Of course, I don't really think that's what he/she meant, but I feel the need to stick up for people who are abused by grammer nazis. I know it's a common mistake, but you don't need to be an asshole about it. The other thing to consider is that some people on this forum aren't native English speakers, so it's quite cruel to make fun of somebody who has only learned enough of the language to get their point across. Besides, you did understand what they said, so it isn't even that big of a deal. People make mistakes. Get over it.
So? glxgears tests nothing involving X besides it's ability to interface with your OpenGL compliant graphics card at high speed. Since XFree86 doesn't use OpenGL to draw it's normal windows, that doesn't really say anything.
However, due to all the flame references in your post, you're probably just trolling:-P
A lot of the problems with X are due to it's braindead configuration. Fortunately, this is something that can be fixed by distro-makers. Example: I use a USB mouse with my laptop, and I've installed just about every distro of linux out there. *Every* time, the mouse works fine in the graphical installer, but when I start it up after installation, it's set to the wrong mouse protocol. Things like that are some of the reasons why Linux is so frustrating to a new user. I think the default for installing X should be to set it to use the same settings that those fancy work-on-anything graphic installers use, and let the user change it once X has been sucessfully started.
I really like your proposal, but I'd suggest using the other stupid Windows key (the one that's supposed to open a context menu). I find the "System" key quite useful to open up the K menu, just like it'd work on Windows.
That's what most of us want to be able to do, but until recently that wasn't even possible. There is no X clipboard - that Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V is provided by KDE/Gnome.
It's good if you only use selection to mark things you're going to paste immediately. If you are like me, and you copy something, then select some text to delete it, then select some more to move it around, then paste what you copied earlier, then it doesn't work too well.
Some of us see the advantage and know the difference, and even use it daily... but I, for one, would rather have a full remote desktop than the "remote application displaying locally". I think it's important for X to have support for both, but have neither enabled by default. 90% of users won't ever use either form of network transparency.
P.S. - Yes, I know that X just connects to localhost when you don't have a remote server, so you can't just disable network support.
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Macs have standardized hardware and software. This makes games easier to write because you have to test on less different combinations. Linux is the opposite because you could have different kernels, libc's, and a ton of different hardware.
Disclaimer: I'm really drunk.
AA? C? D? Doubt it. There is no "standard battery" for laptops. And that's just the most obvious of your mistakes. If you like Macs, that's nice. Looking at the rest of your little comparison, I see the Dell wins out in specs, but every time it does you say it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I love Macs... but don't try and say they're better than everything else just cause you say so.
P.S. - Laptop hard drive speed is *much* more important than capacity. A 5400 rpm hard drive will be the limiting factor for most things way before the CPU or GPU ever comes into play.
I have one of the Dell's with a 15" UXGA (1600x1200) display. I have shitty eyesight, but I can read normal Windows font sizes with no problem. It's just that clear. The Dell laptop screens are far superior to anything you can find as a desktop LCD.
Well, the trick to "anticipating everything a person will do that will inadvertantly blow up your application" is to keep it as simple as possible, specifically by restricting how the user interacts with the app. If the user can only press one of 3 buttons or put a fixed number of characters into a text box, it's not impossible to code for every possibility. In theory, you could build a complex application from lots of very simple (and easy to test and write) parts interacting in a well-defined manner.
In practice, this almost never happens. Most developers are willing to trade perfect code that'll take four months for mostly-perfect code that will be ready for the deadline.
To sum it all up, a properly designed and written program should never choke on user input. If it doesn't, that means you cut corners somewhere. Don't blame it on the user.
If I remember correctly, the optimum base for data size is base e (approx 2.7). I guess that base 3 would be the best we could achieve. Can anybody who knows more about information theory back me up?
What would be really smart would be to copy what Microsoft does with DirectX and enforce strict backwards-compatibility with every version. That way, if you had lib.x.7 you could run programs linked with any previous version. However, I don't know if this is possible with Linux's loader.
Thank you, Sir. You've finally summarized what the vast majority of posts on Slashdot lack, and helped me realize that I have better things to do every day than read a bunch of idiots and fanboys quibbling over the latest tech gossip. My boss would love you. As a last sacrifice of whatever karma I have left, I'll post this last post and congratulate you so the slashbots can mod me into the non-existance that I deserve :P
There've been lots of slashdot posts debating this, and I think it has something to do with the Latin roots for virus vs. other languages. Either way, English is pretty fucked up.
Wrong.
The .deb package spec has the same dependency information as .rpm, but the rpm program doesn't use dependency information. That's why projects like apt4rpm can use unmodified rpms to do their job.
Do they have AGP slots? I've been looking for some cheap boxen for desktop workstations (I use a laptop), and I want to be able to throw in a decent video card.
Troll????
Grandparent was a troll. Anybody who knows any assembly code could tell. I know I'm kinda stupid for responding to him, but keep the troll mods for those who actually deserve them.
I haven't used glib, but from your and grandparent's description, it sounds like a GNU/Copy of the C++ Standard Template Library for C. Cool.
For someone who writes BIOS code for a living, your fake assembly code really sucks. Sorry, try harder next time troll.
Funny can also be a noun, as in "I made a funny." That usage makes just as much sense as your stupid example. Of course, I don't really think that's what he/she meant, but I feel the need to stick up for people who are abused by grammer nazis. I know it's a common mistake, but you don't need to be an asshole about it. The other thing to consider is that some people on this forum aren't native English speakers, so it's quite cruel to make fun of somebody who has only learned enough of the language to get their point across. Besides, you did understand what they said, so it isn't even that big of a deal. People make mistakes. Get over it.
Chocolate cake compression sounds suspiciously like a bunch of overweight football fans in a warehouse, sitting on each cake one by one.
So? glxgears tests nothing involving X besides it's ability to interface with your OpenGL compliant graphics card at high speed. Since XFree86 doesn't use OpenGL to draw it's normal windows, that doesn't really say anything.
:-P
However, due to all the flame references in your post, you're probably just trolling
A lot of the problems with X are due to it's braindead configuration. Fortunately, this is something that can be fixed by distro-makers. Example: I use a USB mouse with my laptop, and I've installed just about every distro of linux out there. *Every* time, the mouse works fine in the graphical installer, but when I start it up after installation, it's set to the wrong mouse protocol. Things like that are some of the reasons why Linux is so frustrating to a new user. I think the default for installing X should be to set it to use the same settings that those fancy work-on-anything graphic installers use, and let the user change it once X has been sucessfully started.
I really like your proposal, but I'd suggest using the other stupid Windows key (the one that's supposed to open a context menu). I find the "System" key quite useful to open up the K menu, just like it'd work on Windows.
Exactly what I was trying to say in a few pages up. Mod this man up!
Grandparent was comparing select/middle-click copy/paste with drag-n-drop on how it functions, not how it's programmed.
That's what most of us want to be able to do, but until recently that wasn't even possible. There is no X clipboard - that Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V is provided by KDE/Gnome.
It's good if you only use selection to mark things you're going to paste immediately. If you are like me, and you copy something, then select some text to delete it, then select some more to move it around, then paste what you copied earlier, then it doesn't work too well.
Some of us see the advantage and know the difference, and even use it daily... but I, for one, would rather have a full remote desktop than the "remote application displaying locally". I think it's important for X to have support for both, but have neither enabled by default. 90% of users won't ever use either form of network transparency. P.S. - Yes, I know that X just connects to localhost when you don't have a remote server, so you can't just disable network support.