I was initially wary of Steam - and there were definitely problems. Thing is I could never find any stories where someone couldn't get an reasonable issue resolved by Valve. (found lots of attempts at pulling a fast one and then whining about evil Valve though)
I purchased the Orange Box via Steam (only my second purchase) and have not been made to feel like a thief at any point. It's pretty easy to play offline, and probably the only real issue I ever had with it was when I tried to play HL2 and it insisted on spending nearly an hour updating it before I could play. I used to keep games on don't update, but now I have 1Meg cable net so it never takes more time than it takes me to brew a cuppa...
By casting spells, you mean where spell scrolls are not handily provided for non-magic users - I don't remember any instances where that's the case. As for solving quests in different ways, there really aren't that many options - and usually those options take the form of how you go about killing something.
Wow. It's a dumbed down, albeit pretty, game. It's hardly much of an RPG, and I got bored after 15 hours when I realised how utterly shallow and moronic the game was. The patronising inbuilt quest walkthrough comments and complete lack of choice is most situations is absolutely unbelievable. It's a crying shame the direction the current bunch of idiots at Bethseda, lead by Todd 'boobies' Howard, has taken the ES series. I loved Daggerfall, and Morrowind was pretty good - Oblivion should have taken the strong points of both instead of being dumbed down for the masses, even if it did make a large amount of money.
"The normal course of action is to blame Java, since it has led to a simplistic approach to CS assignments. I'd love to blame it, I ferkin hate the language, but that isn't the root cause."
It's nice to see you're not blinded by your hate for Java, this is/. after all, but I'm curious as to why you hate it? There are a few languages that I dislike, but I don't think there are any that have inspired actual hate. Java is actually one of my favorite languages that I've used.
I definitely recommend JProfiler - I've used it for a couple of years now and it has always been easy to use and very effective at giving me the information I need.
When I need to do some profiling I use JProfiler (http://www.ej-technologies.com/products/jprofiler /overview.html) and it's pretty good. Still some things which could be improved, but most certainly better that anything else out there two years ago when I did some Java profiler research.
Also a very cool company, as I have had personal replies to my enquiries regarding certain aspects and suggested enhancements...
Thanks for the coherent reply, after the initial frothing I kinda expected a flame... lol.
But then there's also the "All OO, All The Time" thing. I think it's ridiculuous for a language to limit a person to only OO techniques. Some things just are not objects, and do not abstract well as objects. I'm very much in the camp that believes that OO should be used judiciously only for those things which readily and naturally abstract to Objects. Some languages allow the mixing of OO and non-OO idioms easily, but Java isn't one of them.
Hmm, I don't find this a problem personally. There are situations where OO doesn't fit at all. It's really not a problem in Java.. okay so the source file is still called a class file, but you can't instantiate it and it only contains static methods. I'm constantly telling (my) developers not to try and use the OO paradigm where it doesn't fit. Most of them don't understand OOP properly anyway which gives me no end of headaches. In fact I think that the lack of good people is a problem industry wide. Of all the many hundreds of programmers I've worked with over the last decade or so, 10% were good, 40% were adequate (within their safety zone) and 50% were useless monkeys. This is slightly more prevalent in Java than in the other programming languages I've used professionally, but I'll happily stick it out because I like Java so much.
Used right, and with good design, it's really good. Like most things really. I do fight a constant battle to keep our core Java code consistant and of good quality. I think a lot of the problem is the difficulty hiring good tech people. It's not easy for me to get this right (track record is probably around 2:1 good:bad) so I've no idea how managers and HR think they can even comment...
To use a metaphor to describe what I think gives you, and others like you, the opinion you have of Java - think of it like this. If you have two swordsmen, one is a master and the other a useless beginner, and give them a viciously sharp Katana - more than likely the novice will cut off a limb before too long but the master will be pretty formidable. All you are seeing is novices and the resulting severed limbs, and concluding that Katana's are bad.. instead you'll equip your swordsmen with safer longswords which will do the job, but that master will not be quite so formidable.
That may be the worst metaphor ever, but I hope you understand my point.;-) For the record I've always been pretty language agnostic - a good programmer and their skills are a lot more important than the languages they know. I never want to do c++ ever again though. (although admittedly I haven't used it in 5 years...) What's the quote? Something like: "C++ is akin to making an octopus by nailing four extra limbs on a dog."
Well I think parent is trolling. (possibly unintentionally)
What can be expressed succinctly in 40 lines of instantly recognizable code in any other language becomes a multiple-inheritance heirarchy of 40 classes in the hands of a "professional java developer".
What a load of rubbish - maybe you're thinking of c++ there. Java doesn't even have multiple inheritance (for good reasons) and using Java is not nearly as verbose as languages where you have to re-invent the wheel due to a lack of libraries.
I suspect that you, along with many others, have a conception of Java that was formed when it was a buzz word and everyone and their CTO wanted in on the hot steamy action. Just because a lot of rubbish Java programmers filled up the sudden void does not mean that people who are 'real' programmers as you put it don't use Java and have grown to love it. It is frustrating that so many people don't learn it properly, sometimes not even OO theory, but that's not Java's fault.
Look beyond the hype, analyse the (now more mature) language & platform with an objective eye. Use it. Read 'Effective java'. Use a good IDE. (Eclipse is free) When you've used it for a year and started to get familiar with the libraries come back and let everyone know what you think. I challenge you... otherwise you're ignorant and should really keep quiet.
All the people who bash Java really don't know anything much about it usually. Sure it has its problems & faults - I would never claim it's perfect. I started doing Java simply because it was what the clients I worked for were using, but I now actively seek out Java work.
Maybe that's because I was never really a programmer to start with you'll probably say. Well, I guess that's just subjective. You'll just have to trust me...;-)
I agree that this is a major problem with Linux. There is a pretty easy solution, but Novell and others would do well to sort it out "out of the box" so to speak. (although maybe they have - I have installed openSuSE using net install)
Anyway to get the fonts looking like windows you need to follow the instructions here:
Actually it's simpler than that article states to get MP3 and (unencrypted) DVD playback:
All you need is w32codec-all and libxine1. You don't need to install mplayer or realplayer to get this.
Its the only (virtual) place where I'm not the most anal-retentive person around..;-)
It's nice to know there are loads of other people out there to whom accuracy, truth and just plain 'getting it right' is a pretty basic drive... even if it annoys the hell outta most people (just ask my wife! hehe)
Wonder if I'm the only one left running my home network using co-ax?
Yep, and my firewall is basically my first PC, a P100 (now with 24Mb, no HDD, running a firewall off an Eiger floppy distro)
Boy am I back in the dark ages...;-)
Absolutely agree - Eclipse is excellent! I've been using it for Java for 4 months now. There are still a few niggles (like not being able to change the text selection colours - annoying because it's the same as my default background) and it takes some getting used to, but now I wouldn't use anything else. The refactoring support is wonderful..
You need a fair amount of memory though, at least 256Mb I would say.
Slashdot Mirror
Jeez, either get your head out of your arse or do us all a favor and just shut the fuck up.
I was initially wary of Steam - and there were definitely problems. Thing is I could never find any stories where someone couldn't get an reasonable issue resolved by Valve. (found lots of attempts at pulling a fast one and then whining about evil Valve though) I purchased the Orange Box via Steam (only my second purchase) and have not been made to feel like a thief at any point. It's pretty easy to play offline, and probably the only real issue I ever had with it was when I tried to play HL2 and it insisted on spending nearly an hour updating it before I could play. I used to keep games on don't update, but now I have 1Meg cable net so it never takes more time than it takes me to brew a cuppa...
By casting spells, you mean where spell scrolls are not handily provided for non-magic users - I don't remember any instances where that's the case. As for solving quests in different ways, there really aren't that many options - and usually those options take the form of how you go about killing something.
That's certainly true for myself and my wife.
Wow. It's a dumbed down, albeit pretty, game. It's hardly much of an RPG, and I got bored after 15 hours when I realised how utterly shallow and moronic the game was. The patronising inbuilt quest walkthrough comments and complete lack of choice is most situations is absolutely unbelievable. It's a crying shame the direction the current bunch of idiots at Bethseda, lead by Todd 'boobies' Howard, has taken the ES series. I loved Daggerfall, and Morrowind was pretty good - Oblivion should have taken the strong points of both instead of being dumbed down for the masses, even if it did make a large amount of money.
"The normal course of action is to blame Java, since it has led to a simplistic approach to CS assignments. I'd love to blame it, I ferkin hate the language, but that isn't the root cause."
/. after all, but I'm curious as to why you hate it? There are a few languages that I dislike, but I don't think there are any that have inspired actual hate. Java is actually one of my favorite languages that I've used.
It's nice to see you're not blinded by your hate for Java, this is
If you provide the tech support (i.e. installation, configuring, fixing problems, teaching usage, etc) then it's not a useful example.
I definitely recommend JProfiler - I've used it for a couple of years now and it has always been easy to use and very effective at giving me the information I need.
Hope that helps.
Also a very cool company, as I have had personal replies to my enquiries regarding certain aspects and suggested enhancements...
Thanks for the coherent reply, after the initial frothing I kinda expected a flame... lol.
;-) For the record I've always been pretty language agnostic - a good programmer and their skills are a lot more important than the languages they know. I never want to do c++ ever again though. (although admittedly I haven't used it in 5 years...) What's the quote? Something like: "C++ is akin to making an octopus by nailing four extra limbs on a dog."
But then there's also the "All OO, All The Time" thing. I think it's ridiculuous for a language to limit a person to only OO techniques. Some things just are not objects, and do not abstract well as objects. I'm very much in the camp that believes that OO should be used judiciously only for those things which readily and naturally abstract to Objects. Some languages allow the mixing of OO and non-OO idioms easily, but Java isn't one of them.
Hmm, I don't find this a problem personally. There are situations where OO doesn't fit at all. It's really not a problem in Java.. okay so the source file is still called a class file, but you can't instantiate it and it only contains static methods. I'm constantly telling (my) developers not to try and use the OO paradigm where it doesn't fit. Most of them don't understand OOP properly anyway which gives me no end of headaches. In fact I think that the lack of good people is a problem industry wide. Of all the many hundreds of programmers I've worked with over the last decade or so, 10% were good, 40% were adequate (within their safety zone) and 50% were useless monkeys. This is slightly more prevalent in Java than in the other programming languages I've used professionally, but I'll happily stick it out because I like Java so much.
Used right, and with good design, it's really good. Like most things really. I do fight a constant battle to keep our core Java code consistant and of good quality. I think a lot of the problem is the difficulty hiring good tech people. It's not easy for me to get this right (track record is probably around 2:1 good:bad) so I've no idea how managers and HR think they can even comment...
To use a metaphor to describe what I think gives you, and others like you, the opinion you have of Java - think of it like this. If you have two swordsmen, one is a master and the other a useless beginner, and give them a viciously sharp Katana - more than likely the novice will cut off a limb before too long but the master will be pretty formidable. All you are seeing is novices and the resulting severed limbs, and concluding that Katana's are bad.. instead you'll equip your swordsmen with safer longswords which will do the job, but that master will not be quite so formidable.
That may be the worst metaphor ever, but I hope you understand my point.
Well I think parent is trolling. (possibly unintentionally)
;-)
What can be expressed succinctly in 40 lines of instantly recognizable code in any other language becomes a multiple-inheritance heirarchy of 40 classes in the hands of a "professional java developer".
What a load of rubbish - maybe you're thinking of c++ there. Java doesn't even have multiple inheritance (for good reasons) and using Java is not nearly as verbose as languages where you have to re-invent the wheel due to a lack of libraries.
I suspect that you, along with many others, have a conception of Java that was formed when it was a buzz word and everyone and their CTO wanted in on the hot steamy action. Just because a lot of rubbish Java programmers filled up the sudden void does not mean that people who are 'real' programmers as you put it don't use Java and have grown to love it. It is frustrating that so many people don't learn it properly, sometimes not even OO theory, but that's not Java's fault.
Look beyond the hype, analyse the (now more mature) language & platform with an objective eye. Use it. Read 'Effective java'. Use a good IDE. (Eclipse is free) When you've used it for a year and started to get familiar with the libraries come back and let everyone know what you think. I challenge you... otherwise you're ignorant and should really keep quiet.
All the people who bash Java really don't know anything much about it usually. Sure it has its problems & faults - I would never claim it's perfect. I started doing Java simply because it was what the clients I worked for were using, but I now actively seek out Java work.
Maybe that's because I was never really a programmer to start with you'll probably say. Well, I guess that's just subjective. You'll just have to trust me...
Anyway to get the fonts looking like windows you need to follow the instructions here:
http://www.opensuse.org/Optimal_Use_of_Fonts_on_Su SE/
You have three choices of font source:
Hope this helps someone. :)
As I just said in another comment above, installing libxine1 from packman does the trick for me - should auto install the crippled Novell libxine.
Actually it's simpler than that article states to get MP3 and (unencrypted) DVD playback: All you need is w32codec-all and libxine1. You don't need to install mplayer or realplayer to get this.
There's no way of proving that you're not an idiot.
;-)
Fucking twat.
Well you certainly proved him wrong on that point... hahaha!
Its the only (virtual) place where I'm not the most anal-retentive person around.. ;-)
It's nice to know there are loads of other people out there to whom accuracy, truth and just plain 'getting it right' is a pretty basic drive... even if it annoys the hell outta most people (just ask my wife! hehe)
Wonder if I'm the only one left running my home network using co-ax?
Yep, and my firewall is basically my first PC, a P100 (now with 24Mb, no HDD, running a firewall off an Eiger floppy distro) Boy am I back in the dark ages... ;-)
Absolutely agree - Eclipse is excellent! I've been using it for Java for 4 months now. There are still a few niggles (like not being able to change the text selection colours - annoying because it's the same as my default background) and it takes some getting used to, but now I wouldn't use anything else. The refactoring support is wonderful.. You need a fair amount of memory though, at least 256Mb I would say.