Re:What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
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Sid Meier Responds
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· Score: 1
There were 61 comments rated to +5 on the original story (note -- it's not the one that's linked to in the post; that links to the "Ask CivIV Devs" which in turn links to the proper story). They can only submit 10 questions to be answered (and hey, where'd #8 go?) -- submitting much more than that isn't reasonable. Can you imagine if you'd agreed to answer 10 questions and got a list of 60+ and were told "just answer the 10 you like"? If I was in that situation I'd answer precisely zero -- because you clearly don't understand what the hell your job is as an interviewer.
Good point. I clicked the link in this story's write up and didn't notice it was for the other interview. That one had 4 of its 36 +5 modded questions related to platforms other than windows. Guess we'll have to wait and see how that one goes. The world of warcraft repsonses left out any of the linux questions.
That includes setting up the sqlnet client? Thought it was proprietary to oracle.
Re:What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
on
Sid Meier Responds
·
· Score: 1
Thanks for the reply, Zonk.
Maybe nextime you could post all on topic questions and ask him to pick ten, or answer more than that if he'd like?
Given that Sid allowed loki to port Alpha Centauri to linux, it may have been something he would have wanted to answer.
BTW, tuxgames.com has some more stock of alhpa centauri. Its the top seller again.
Re:What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
on
Sid Meier Responds
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· Score: 2, Insightful
That's really neither here nor there. The questions are supposed to be the ones that slashdot users and mods find interesting. The fact that a slasdhot editor disagrees shouldn't factor in.
What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
on
Sid Meier Responds
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The most popular questions from the slashdot comments don't get picked.
For the second game developer interview in a row +5 modded questions about linux ports of the games have been posted and ignored. Come one, slashdot. Just ask the questions we've modded up.
While PEAR:DB is nice, its a far cry from jdbc. JDBC drivers are usually pure java, not just a wrapper to call a native library. Try connecting to oracle from php on anything other than redhat enterprise. It can be done, but its extremely painful to set up.
The problem with Java is that you can't really integrate it with anything other than Java itself
Huh? Not sure what you mean here. If by integrate you mean communicate with other languages there's things like CORBA and SOAP, if you mean call other shared libraries there's always JNI if you can't find a java lib to do something.
Until, as you say, gcj or any other piece of free software catches up, Java won't be usable.
Strange, I'm using it every day at work. Have been in one way or another professionally for 8 years now.
It died as a client-side language, and is struggling on the server as well.
You do realise that is no better than a BSD is dying troll right? Just checked Moster.com. 105 java positions available within 50 miles of my house, 18 for PHP, 42 for perl
Now I'm saying that as someone who also uses PHP. I've been using it quite a bit lately and don't mind it at all, but we're talking apples and oranges here. Sure PHP can be used to write monstrously sloppy and/or insecure code, but so can any language. PHP can also be used to write clean easily maintable secure code. PHP wasn't even close to java in terms of object oriented coding until PHP5 came out, which unfortuneatly has been very slow to appear on most 3rd party hosting servers and distros.
My only real gripes with PHP are the lack of a standard DB connectivity layer like JDBC. PEAR:DB and ADODB are close, but they still rely on non-php libraries so setting up a connection to oracle or sql server is painful. The other thing is a lack of type hinting for primatives. Seems kinda silly to have to do a check if something is an int or double in the method instead of just putting it in the method's signature. I'm know its a loosely typed language, but type hinting is there as an option for objects, why not primatives too?
I'm looking forward to PHP5.5 its going to have some real nice features that will bring it little closer to server side java and a little further from something like.asp where most of the business logic is in the presentation layer.
Ok, so life sucks in Africa, therefore its ok for MS to stick to them a little more?
Of course putting a linux box in a hut without electricity isn't going to make anyone's life better. I would like to help as many people as possible, but I am neither a diamond company CEO nor the head of a major oil conglomerate. Just an IT person like many of the other people here.
I do think that the places in africa (or any other continent for that matter) that are developed and stable enough to sustain a computer lab could be helped with open source software. It won't have the same effect as overthrowing the area's warlord or sending truckloads of food to a famished area, but its not a bad thing to want to help people in areas of our own expertise.
What would be their motivation to do something like that?
Does it have to be microsoft? Not rhetorical. Just curious about MS office's plugin architecture or lack thereof.
Having OpenDocument filters on MS Office would do wonders for spreading the use of OpenDocument. Imagine if there was a very small download for people to upgrade their MS office install with the new filters. IMHO, once.doc is no longer the defacto standard, the use of OpenOffice.org even in corporate settings will skyrocket.
A Denial of Service attack denies you access to a service.
That's a pretty broad statement. So almost anything could be a DoS attack? How about having the server hacked and pieces of code replaced? With the service no longer working correctly is it a DoS? How about donwloading a bad executeable that messes with Internet Explorer. The browser can no longer connect to the service. That a DoS attack? How about when your neighbor finally secures his wireless access point and cuts you off from slashdot? DoS?
To be honest, I don't recall the "Denial of Service" being in the news until people started scripting requests to websites, particularly dynamic database-driven ones. Seems really strange to call a browser crashing on funky HTML a Denial of Service attack.
I got one too, was only a few bucks more a month and works pretty well. I'm still probably gonna build a MythTV box as I can't pull the recorded shows off the rental unit.
Interseting.
Do the.net & mono implementations do this for all collection type objects?
Seems strange that you could add a primitive to a vector without some kind of wrapper. I could see that if you were only doing that for a single type of primitive, but what happens when you add a complex object to the list that only had primitives? Does the structure stay effecient?
The java version may indeed just be syntactical sugar, but I haven't seen any benchmarks from a reliable source that compares it to.net or mono.
How about sequences? Last time I checked it wasn't even on the roadmap.
Auto-increment is nice, but not when you have child records that you'd like to write in one transaction. This seems like such a trivial feature to add.
You could create a table with just a single auto increment field and then insert null and get the last inserted id per connection, but it seems like such a hack to do so.
I knocked it out in a couple minutes. No XML parsing, just simple request and innterHTML.
One problem. XmlHttpRequest is sandboxed in much the same way Java applets are. They can only make requests back to the host they originated from. So I defaulted in an address.
I am well aware of that. What does that have to do with naming it OpenOffice.org? Anything could have been picked. Naming the software like a domain was a bad idea for several reasons.
>>Not only that, but the name of it isn't OpenOffice, it's OpenOffice.org (which is incredibly stupid-sounding and I wish they'd figure out a way to fix that). If Google and Sun were partnering on this, they'd use StarOffice, not OpenOffice.org.
I completely agree. What's worse, calling it OpenOffice.org causes other problems when using it. I fired up the MS Access replacement in 2.0 and was propmted if I wanted to register my new database with OpenOffice.org. Do they mean the website? The organizaton? The office suite so the new database can be used globally? Its a shame that this confusing part was thrown in as I very much like the application.
>>So why is Dell dropping the price by exactly $30? *Shrug* Probably to keep goodwill with the masses who think cost-plus pricing is somehow "fair". No math can overcome that factor.
Or they are just using cost-plus. Whether or not it is a good idea, in my experience, it seems rampant in the tech industry. In cases where people can clearly see the differences in computer W and computer N, it needs to be less. Dell does build to order on their product. It wouldn't make sense for the consumer changing the option in the online configurator to go from Windows to no OS and have the price go up before their eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
There were 61 comments rated to +5 on the original story (note -- it's not the one that's linked to in the post; that links to the "Ask CivIV Devs" which in turn links to the proper story). They can only submit 10 questions to be answered (and hey, where'd #8 go?) -- submitting much more than that isn't reasonable. Can you imagine if you'd agreed to answer 10 questions and got a list of 60+ and were told "just answer the 10 you like"? If I was in that situation I'd answer precisely zero -- because you clearly don't understand what the hell your job is as an interviewer.
Good point. I clicked the link in this story's write up and didn't notice it was for the other interview. That one had 4 of its 36 +5 modded questions related to platforms other than windows. Guess we'll have to wait and see how that one goes.
The world of warcraft repsonses left out any of the linux questions.
That includes setting up the sqlnet client? Thought it was proprietary to oracle.
Thanks for the reply, Zonk.
Maybe nextime you could post all on topic questions and ask him to pick ten, or answer more than that if he'd like?
Given that Sid allowed loki to port Alpha Centauri to linux, it may have been something he would have wanted to answer.
BTW, tuxgames.com has some more stock of alhpa centauri. Its the top seller again.
That's really neither here nor there.
The questions are supposed to be the ones that slashdot users and mods find interesting. The fact that a slasdhot editor disagrees shouldn't factor in.
The most popular questions from the slashdot comments don't get picked.
For the second game developer interview in a row +5 modded questions about linux ports of the games have been posted and ignored.
Come one, slashdot. Just ask the questions we've modded up.
While PEAR:DB is nice, its a far cry from jdbc.
JDBC drivers are usually pure java, not just a wrapper to call a native library.
Try connecting to oracle from php on anything other than redhat enterprise.
It can be done, but its extremely painful to set up.
The problem with Java is that you can't really integrate it with anything other than Java itself
.asp where most of the business logic is in the presentation layer.
Huh?
Not sure what you mean here. If by integrate you mean communicate with other languages there's things like CORBA and SOAP, if you mean call other shared libraries there's always JNI if you can't find a java lib to do something.
Until, as you say, gcj or any other piece of free software catches up, Java won't be usable.
Strange, I'm using it every day at work. Have been in one way or another professionally for 8 years now.
It died as a client-side language, and is struggling on the server as well.
You do realise that is no better than a BSD is dying troll right?
Just checked Moster.com. 105 java positions available within 50 miles of my house, 18 for PHP, 42 for perl
Now I'm saying that as someone who also uses PHP. I've been using it quite a bit lately and don't mind it at all, but we're talking apples and oranges here. Sure PHP can be used to write monstrously sloppy and/or insecure code, but so can any language. PHP can also be used to write clean easily maintable secure code.
PHP wasn't even close to java in terms of object oriented coding until PHP5 came out, which unfortuneatly has been very slow to appear on most 3rd party hosting servers and distros.
My only real gripes with PHP are the lack of a standard DB connectivity layer like JDBC. PEAR:DB and ADODB are close, but they still rely on non-php libraries so setting up a connection to oracle or sql server is painful. The other thing is a lack of type hinting for primatives. Seems kinda silly to have to do a check if something is an int or double in the method instead of just putting it in the method's signature. I'm know its a loosely typed language, but type hinting is there as an option for objects, why not primatives too?
I'm looking forward to PHP5.5 its going to have some real nice features that will bring it little closer to server side java and a little further from something like
oops... preview button...
Ok, so life sucks in Africa, therefore its ok for MS to stick it to them a little more?
Ok, so life sucks in Africa, therefore its ok for MS to stick to them a little more?
Of course putting a linux box in a hut without electricity isn't going to make anyone's life better.
I would like to help as many people as possible, but I am neither a diamond company CEO nor the head of a major oil conglomerate. Just an IT person like many of the other people here.
I do think that the places in africa (or any other continent for that matter) that are developed and stable enough to sustain a computer lab could be helped with open source software. It won't have the same effect as overthrowing the area's warlord or sending truckloads of food to a famished area, but its not a bad thing to want to help people in areas of our own expertise.
What would be their motivation to do something like that?
.doc is no longer the defacto standard, the use of OpenOffice.org even in corporate settings will skyrocket.
Does it have to be microsoft?
Not rhetorical. Just curious about MS office's plugin architecture or lack thereof.
Having OpenDocument filters on MS Office would do wonders for spreading the use of OpenDocument. Imagine if there was a very small download for people to upgrade their MS office install with the new filters.
IMHO, once
"In the next decade, there'll be a shortage of great software engineers."
A shortage of great software engineers, or a shortage of great software engineers that want to work for Microsoft?
Thanks for the link to eclipsezone. Been a long time user of eclipse and never come accross the site.
Maybe its time slashdot added an eclipse topic?
A Denial of Service attack denies you access to a service.
That's a pretty broad statement. So almost anything could be a DoS attack?
How about having the server hacked and pieces of code replaced? With the service no longer working correctly is it a DoS?
How about donwloading a bad executeable that messes with Internet Explorer. The browser can no longer connect to the service. That a DoS attack?
How about when your neighbor finally secures his wireless access point and cuts you off from slashdot? DoS?
To be honest, I don't recall the "Denial of Service" being in the news until people started scripting requests to websites, particularly dynamic database-driven ones. Seems really strange to call a browser crashing on funky HTML a Denial of Service attack.
(Excursus: am I the only one who is underwhelmed with XML for application configuration? Apparently not!)
Are you complaining about the amount of meta-data packed into something like struts, or just the fact that it uses XML?
XML is perfect for this sort of thing IMHO.
It does bother me that some frameworks put too much of the application into meta-data and less into code.
You're singing praises of skype and VOIP, and I agree its a cool service, but I don't like this Linksys device which is the topic of this article.
3. Most people own a computer that has USB support
That's really neither here nor there, the thing should connect to my network wifi or wired and work with my computer off.
I got one too, was only a few bucks more a month and works pretty well.
I'm still probably gonna build a MythTV box as I can't pull the recorded shows off the rental unit.
Interseting. .net & mono implementations do this for all collection type objects?
.net or mono.
Do the
Seems strange that you could add a primitive to a vector without some kind of wrapper. I could see that if you were only doing that for a single type of primitive, but what happens when you add a complex object to the list that only had primitives? Does the structure stay effecient?
The java version may indeed just be syntactical sugar, but I haven't seen any benchmarks from a reliable source that compares it to
This was fixed as of Java 1.5
:
Look for autoboxing / unboxing
article
How about sequences? Last time I checked it wasn't even on the roadmap.
Auto-increment is nice, but not when you have child records that you'd like to write in one transaction.
This seems like such a trivial feature to add.
You could create a table with just a single auto increment field and then insert null and get the last inserted id per connection, but it seems like such a hack to do so.
Here's one
I knocked it out in a couple minutes. No XML parsing, just simple request and innterHTML.
One problem. XmlHttpRequest is sandboxed in much the same way Java applets are.
They can only make requests back to the host they originated from. So I defaulted in an address.
I am well aware of that.
What does that have to do with naming it OpenOffice.org?
Anything could have been picked. Naming the software like a domain was a bad idea for several reasons.
>>Not only that, but the name of it isn't OpenOffice, it's OpenOffice.org (which is incredibly stupid-sounding and I wish they'd figure out a way to fix that). If Google and Sun were partnering on this, they'd use StarOffice, not OpenOffice.org.
I completely agree.
What's worse, calling it OpenOffice.org causes other problems when using it. I fired up the MS Access replacement in 2.0 and was propmted if I wanted to register my new database with OpenOffice.org. Do they mean the website? The organizaton? The office suite so the new database can be used globally?
Its a shame that this confusing part was thrown in as I very much like the application.
>>A smart/thick client would be easier to set up and maintain in that senerio
I could see a thick client being easier to use, but how is it easier to maintain? In your example, you still have three installs vs. one.
Aside from the deskzilla systray app, I don't see anything in the screenshots that couldn't be done with AJAX.
>>So why is Dell dropping the price by exactly $30? *Shrug* Probably to keep goodwill with the masses who think cost-plus pricing is somehow "fair". No math can overcome that factor.
Or they are just using cost-plus. Whether or not it is a good idea, in my experience, it seems rampant in the tech industry.
In cases where people can clearly see the differences in computer W and computer N, it needs to be less. Dell does build to order on their product. It wouldn't make sense for the consumer changing the option in the online configurator to go from Windows to no OS and have the price go up before their eyes.
Nvidia makes excellent drivers for linux. They are free to download, but the hardware and driver software are proprietary.