If no matching or later version was found then the program would have to exit gracefully
Earlier;-) You want applications to be able to work with newer libraries.
There tended to be few (compared to Linux anyway) libraries. Libraries tended to be biggish. A few big libraries instead of many tiny libraries. This made them manageable.
You must be kidding. The biggest libraries in AmigaOS are graphics.library (all graphics primitives) which is about 100K in the 3.0 release, and intuition.library (the window manager so to speak) which is about the same size. That's not "biggish", that's unbelievably small considering the functionality they offer.
Other big libraries (none of which originally came with the OS) are the hwgpost.library (postscript interpreter, 171K), ixemul.library (support routines for UNIX ports, 164K), and the various RTG libraries (support for non-native graphics boards, also in the 100K range). I have a LIBS: directory here containing about 200 libraries, the result of many long years of installing Amiga programs. Ah, the memories...
New functions can be added to an AmigaOS library at any time, so that is not a problem. Once added functions cannot be removed, so compatibility code has to be maintained for all eternity (or until C= went broke, which happened first).
One example is that the original OpenLibrary() call only took the library name as a parameter. In the next OS release they realized the minimum required version number was also needed, so a new function was introduced that had both parameters. The old function was then reimplemented by calling the new function with a zero for the version number, thus maintaining compatibility.
Obviously if a library decides to flagrantly break the law then anything calling the function will now cause problems (crashes, most likely).
On the whole I did like the Amiga system for libraries. It was clean, elegant, and manageable.
Well, I completed it too. So I guess that makes two of us now;-)
I thought the doors in the mansion were a bit annoying, being stuck or locked all the damn time. I would have preferred to adventure a bit more, choosing my own path. Indeed, it seems a shame that such a beautiful location is only used for blasting through just once.
I expect a recursive "del *.mp3". Which brings us to another subject, how about OS'es other than windows? Would those be safe? How about.ogg and other formats?
That would only be a problem if they cared about it. If Microsoft cares about Windows 3.1 they could just release new Windows 3.1 CD's yearly, and that's just fine with me. Meanwhile, all that excellent software from companies that no longer exist, or where the author would prefer to see his work live on in PD instead of dying, would become available without making the public at large criminals.
The risk I see with this is that a single company (say, Microsoft or Disney) could simply buy old media from other sources for peanuts and keep it out of PD forever.
I have a copy here of PC Gameplay (the Belgium magazine featuring HL2). It has a long interview with Gabe Newell, and he states that TF2 was delayed because it uses the HL2 engine which they did not want to reveal before HL2 itself was revealed.
As for a date, all he says is "coming soon". I'm sure that makes you feel better;-)
About the perceived quality of the story: my guess is that people fill in the blanks by themselves. In my opinion too many games force certain emotions upon the player - you meet someone you don't care about one way or another, and your avatar becomes angry and excited because in a past we know nothing about this person killed your father or whatever. But often such outbursts feel fake and hollow, and leave me feeling disconnected from the game.
Since Gordon Freeman has no lines, any emotions he might feel are entirely your own. Since there is no story you are free to make one up.
The real star of Half Life is not mr. Freeman anyway: it is the Black Mesa Research Facility. Clearly something fishy is going on there (otherwise the government would not take it out, right?). It is huge, full of hidden secrets, with something new to discover around every corner. The emotions it conveys are real: claustrophobia (crawling down endless small tubes), relief (help is on the way!), betrayal (the military shooting down the scientists), despair (at never seeing daylight again). None of these need help from some cheesy lines by Gordon Freeman, and in fact the lack thereof just makes it easier to associate with him.
I cannot imagine Half Life 2 without the Black Mesa Research Facility. The journey of discovery the player makes is vital to the experience, and I find it hard to believe that it can be replicated in a meaningful way. But I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised;-)
As far as I can tell this film single-handedly destroyed anime in the Netherlands. It was off to a promising start, until Uro... Iru... "Legend of the Overfiend" appeared. And then suddenly whenever you mentioned anime people would go "Ah yes, tentacles demons rape little girls, why do you watch that crap? Are you sick in your head maybe?" Soon after the video rental shops stopped carrying all anime.
I'm still waiting for an opportunity to see Spirited Away on the large screen. The way things are going I guess I never will:-(
People don't care either. I know I don't - I have nothing to hide.
Of course I work in a small office, on a machine that is not connected to the internet, with at least five people who also know the root password. And my employer thinks this is fine - we are all responsible adults.
1) I don't see it working on the international level. I cannot imagine (say) France paying the record companies in the US, for example.
2) I don't think a fair solution to dividing the money exists. Any solution based on measurement of downloads or similar will instantly create a small industry around 'download boosting'.
3) Why should it be limited to music and video's? Why not software, books, patents, etc.?
4) Would this just be for personal accounts, or also for professional accounts? Would Microsoft have to pay a charge for every employee that has an account on their system (or do we simply assume that noone ever downloads anything at work?)? What if I had a one-man company?
5) Who decides how much money the record industry will get? The record industry themselves? The US government? The UN? How will we stop them from lobbying for ever-increasing income (which they will be sure to do)? How will we respond to lesser economic conditions, like now?
6) What incentive will exist for the record companies to create saleable songs? They might just as well sell white-noise (song argue they already do, but that's another point), once they have a guaranteed income.
If you look at the historical development of programming, you can see a general trend towards ever greater organizational structures. Initially programs were structureless; then we got functions, then objects, and now groups of objects working together: patterns.
Based on this description I would say patterns are definitely an alternative (or extension) to OO. What we really need is languages that let us express pattern relationships more directly.
For example, right now in C++ I can express that part of a class is visible to every other class (i.e. public), or that another class may see everything from one class (i.e. friendship). Why is there no "specific class may see specific part of another class" access qualifier? This IMHO is vital in expressing the special relationships the various classes in a pattern have.
You don't really need a compiler either, but it is bloody convenient not having to write your own hex codes...
The truth is of course that crap programmers will write crap programs in any language, while good programmers will do a good job no matter what tools he has available. In the end it always comes down to people.
Yeah, great idea: make everyone pay for the music habits of a few. Hey, here is an even greater idea: why not simply levy a tax over the entire population? I'm sure everyone listens to music (on the radio, in restaurants, in elevators, whether you want it or not), so everyone is sharing some of the guilt over this illicit behaviour! (that's sarcasm...)
Extending this idea further, I'd say software authors should also be illegible for receiving compensation for illegally downloaded software. I'm a software author myself - where can I sign up?
And why not apply the same thing to books and other materials? That way capitalism, at long last, ushers in the delights of the communist state! (someone insert an "in soviet russia" joke here please, I cannot think of a good one)
Getting back to CD's, it seems obvious that the record companies will pretty quickly stop bothering with physical CD's if something like this becomes law. That seems slightly unfair to people without broadband, but that's life. People survived without canned music for thousands of years, so it won't be a real problem.
There's one thing that is good about this proposal though, which is why I guess the EFF is making it: it doesn't actually take away our toys or our freedom, it just targets our money. And that's a real step forwards, unfortunately.
In the spirit of contribution, here's an idea of my own: forbid the sale of intellectual property altogether. It was never "property" to begin with (that's why it needs to "intellectual" qualifier), so property law does not apply. Artists will have to make a living by doing performing (which is hard work, but hey, look at what the rest of us are doing).
The game you are asking for is Warhead. It is old and looks crap on todays hardware but the plot, tech, and aliens were great. And it had "real space physics": you could fly in any direction and shoot in any other direction. With real inertia, of course;-)
Although this explains how I ended up in a small office 10km away from my customers, it still does not make me very happy.
I can communicate just fine, and I can handle interruptions to my work. What I *cannot* handle is being alone all day every day, with noone to talk to.
I'm sure it is a different problem to what some people are experiencing, but let me tell you: it sucks.
I'm not sure what you've been drinking, but the Russian safety record is far better than the American. They lost fewer astronauts and the Soyuz has a far lower failure rate than any American rocket.
If all I want to do is exchange content I can do so just fine using a raw text file, no need for fancy XML stuff. If I want to exchange a word processed document I do not want to "separate presentation", because presentation is the primary reason for using the format in the first place.
That would almost certainly be the country that uses nerve gas on its own people.
All Saddam ever wanted was to stop piracy in the Kurdish population, then?
For that matter, Sharon is merely concerned about the Palestines ripping off Britney. That's all, really...
Slashdot Mirror
Earlier ;-) You want applications to be able to work with newer libraries.
There tended to be few (compared to Linux anyway) libraries. Libraries tended to be biggish. A few big libraries instead of many tiny libraries. This made them manageable.
You must be kidding. The biggest libraries in AmigaOS are graphics.library (all graphics primitives) which is about 100K in the 3.0 release, and intuition.library (the window manager so to speak) which is about the same size. That's not "biggish", that's unbelievably small considering the functionality they offer.
Other big libraries (none of which originally came with the OS) are the hwgpost.library (postscript interpreter, 171K), ixemul.library (support routines for UNIX ports, 164K), and the various RTG libraries (support for non-native graphics boards, also in the 100K range). I have a LIBS: directory here containing about 200 libraries, the result of many long years of installing Amiga programs. Ah, the memories...
One example is that the original OpenLibrary() call only took the library name as a parameter. In the next OS release they realized the minimum required version number was also needed, so a new function was introduced that had both parameters. The old function was then reimplemented by calling the new function with a zero for the version number, thus maintaining compatibility.
Obviously if a library decides to flagrantly break the law then anything calling the function will now cause problems (crashes, most likely).
On the whole I did like the Amiga system for libraries. It was clean, elegant, and manageable.
I thought the doors in the mansion were a bit annoying, being stuck or locked all the damn time. I would have preferred to adventure a bit more, choosing my own path. Indeed, it seems a shame that such a beautiful location is only used for blasting through just once.
System Shock 2 was damn scary though. I hope some day someone will get around to writing System Shock 3.
...a commercial entity such as Microsoft sicking the BSA on you for an audit.
Don't tell me you don't know how to use the three sea shells!?
I expect a recursive "del *.mp3". Which brings us to another subject, how about OS'es other than windows? Would those be safe? How about .ogg and other formats?
The risk I see with this is that a single company (say, Microsoft or Disney) could simply buy old media from other sources for peanuts and keep it out of PD forever.
As for a date, all he says is "coming soon". I'm sure that makes you feel better ;-)
Isn't it obvious?
Since Gordon Freeman has no lines, any emotions he might feel are entirely your own. Since there is no story you are free to make one up.
The real star of Half Life is not mr. Freeman anyway: it is the Black Mesa Research Facility. Clearly something fishy is going on there (otherwise the government would not take it out, right?). It is huge, full of hidden secrets, with something new to discover around every corner. The emotions it conveys are real: claustrophobia (crawling down endless small tubes), relief (help is on the way!), betrayal (the military shooting down the scientists), despair (at never seeing daylight again). None of these need help from some cheesy lines by Gordon Freeman, and in fact the lack thereof just makes it easier to associate with him.
I cannot imagine Half Life 2 without the Black Mesa Research Facility. The journey of discovery the player makes is vital to the experience, and I find it hard to believe that it can be replicated in a meaningful way. But I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised ;-)
I'm still waiting for an opportunity to see Spirited Away on the large screen. The way things are going I guess I never will :-(
Then again, you are posting on slashdot...
People don't care either. I know I don't - I have nothing to hide. Of course I work in a small office, on a machine that is not connected to the internet, with at least five people who also know the root password. And my employer thinks this is fine - we are all responsible adults.
1) I don't see it working on the international level. I cannot imagine (say) France paying the record companies in the US, for example.
2) I don't think a fair solution to dividing the money exists. Any solution based on measurement of downloads or similar will instantly create a small industry around 'download boosting'.
3) Why should it be limited to music and video's? Why not software, books, patents, etc.?
4) Would this just be for personal accounts, or also for professional accounts? Would Microsoft have to pay a charge for every employee that has an account on their system (or do we simply assume that noone ever downloads anything at work?)? What if I had a one-man company?
5) Who decides how much money the record industry will get? The record industry themselves? The US government? The UN? How will we stop them from lobbying for ever-increasing income (which they will be sure to do)? How will we respond to lesser economic conditions, like now?
6) What incentive will exist for the record companies to create saleable songs? They might just as well sell white-noise (song argue they already do, but that's another point), once they have a guaranteed income.
Based on this description I would say patterns are definitely an alternative (or extension) to OO. What we really need is languages that let us express pattern relationships more directly.
For example, right now in C++ I can express that part of a class is visible to every other class (i.e. public), or that another class may see everything from one class (i.e. friendship). Why is there no "specific class may see specific part of another class" access qualifier? This IMHO is vital in expressing the special relationships the various classes in a pattern have.
The truth is of course that crap programmers will write crap programs in any language, while good programmers will do a good job no matter what tools he has available. In the end it always comes down to people.
Extending this idea further, I'd say software authors should also be illegible for receiving compensation for illegally downloaded software. I'm a software author myself - where can I sign up?
And why not apply the same thing to books and other materials? That way capitalism, at long last, ushers in the delights of the communist state! (someone insert an "in soviet russia" joke here please, I cannot think of a good one)
Getting back to CD's, it seems obvious that the record companies will pretty quickly stop bothering with physical CD's if something like this becomes law. That seems slightly unfair to people without broadband, but that's life. People survived without canned music for thousands of years, so it won't be a real problem.
There's one thing that is good about this proposal though, which is why I guess the EFF is making it: it doesn't actually take away our toys or our freedom, it just targets our money. And that's a real step forwards, unfortunately.
In the spirit of contribution, here's an idea of my own: forbid the sale of intellectual property altogether. It was never "property" to begin with (that's why it needs to "intellectual" qualifier), so property law does not apply. Artists will have to make a living by doing performing (which is hard work, but hey, look at what the rest of us are doing).
The game you are asking for is Warhead. It is old and looks crap on todays hardware but the plot, tech, and aliens were great. And it had "real space physics": you could fly in any direction and shoot in any other direction. With real inertia, of course ;-)
Although this explains how I ended up in a small office 10km away from my customers, it still does not make me very happy. I can communicate just fine, and I can handle interruptions to my work. What I *cannot* handle is being alone all day every day, with noone to talk to. I'm sure it is a different problem to what some people are experiencing, but let me tell you: it sucks.
Reading the article would reveal how it is the *Russians* that are inviting the *Americans* to come along, not the other way around.
I'm not sure what you've been drinking, but the Russian safety record is far better than the American. They lost fewer astronauts and the Soyuz has a far lower failure rate than any American rocket.
If all I want to do is exchange content I can do so just fine using a raw text file, no need for fancy XML stuff. If I want to exchange a word processed document I do not want to "separate presentation", because presentation is the primary reason for using the format in the first place.
That would almost certainly be the country that uses nerve gas on its own people. All Saddam ever wanted was to stop piracy in the Kurdish population, then? For that matter, Sharon is merely concerned about the Palestines ripping off Britney. That's all, really...