I have Be and it is very nice. Reminds me of the BEST of Mac and NT. Which other OS gets FASTER after every release?!
The interface is nice and clean. Normally I hate the Mac's straightjacket-you-dont-know-what-you-re-doing UI, but Be is well designed. I just wish Tog would comment on it;-)
I was thinking more of an UI that lets you interchange command line and mouse commands.
i.e. you have a folder viewer with a mini command line at the bottom. You want to select *.txt *doc in all sub-folders? Thats what you type: select/s *.txt *.doc then you can use your mouse to drag the selected files to a completely different path. The move command would be smart enough to recognize if you had selected sub folders and then ask you if you wanted all those docs in one directory, or preserve the tree structure. I could even imagine doing advanced file selection like using grep to find a keyword in files then selecting those files. i.e. grep -r "Password" * | select
> In a good GUI, all possible operations are available using the menu bar. >... you select it, and the look through the menus to find the command you want.
In a GUI, all the commands VISIBLE which you have said, unlike a CLI where all the commands are usually HIDDEN. CLI's allow for very efficient commands for the power user.
> Secondly, GUI's allow for more efficient use of screen real estate and allow more rapid entry of some kinds of data
Power comes at price. Why waste valuable screen real estate when the user already knows the commands (or hotkeys)
> GUI's allow elegant setting of configuration options. ONLY when you a small number of options ! Otherwise you have multiple 'tabs' or 'pages' of config options. Ever see a drop down box with 200 items? That's not elegant. (A country selection is one bad example.)
> For example, rearranging a file system with a CLI just can't match the simplicity of doing it with a GUI.
That DEPENDS on what you are doing. Try moving *.bat, *.com, *.exe files into another directory. I could type: move *.bat *.com *.exe progdir With a mouse that would take you _THREE_ operations.
> CLI's have their strengths, but there are some things that they just can't do.
And likewise with GUI's. For the advanced user, GUIs just slow the user down. i.e. if you spend a lot of time copying text, do you use the arrow keys to select the text, and then ctrl-c ctrl-v OR do you use the mouse to select the text, and then drag the mouse to make a copy?
What I really would love to see is a system that COMBINES the power and intuitiveness of CLI's and GUI's
> 1. You just can't get decent graphics on a 320x240 resolution TV
I think you meant TEXT output at 320x240 on a TV.
When I worked on the PSX Need For Speed, we tried using 640x480. The higher resolution helped with the smaller fonts, but we had almost no room left over for textures in the 2 Megs video buffer. So we went back to 320x240 and had a richer color to boot (excuse the pun.)
The Dreamcast uses 640x480 and has a VGA output. This certainly helps, but TV does antialiasing "for free" so it is STILL a problem of designing a readable font at SMALL sizes.
Thankfully the Dreamcast has a 16 Megs of video memory.
> 4. Ever try playing Tiberian Sun with a gamepad?
Yes, RTS games are very bad on a console. Until keyboards and mice come standard with a console, playing FPS and RTS games are "better" on the PC.
The argument which is beter, is pretty pointless. They were designed for different things. i.e. I don't see any game developers running DevStudio ON a console.
Firing Squad has an interesting link comparing the genres on PC vs Console.
The ORIGINAL Playstation used that resolution. If you TRY to use 640x480 you have NO RAM left over in the frame buffer for textures since it only has 2 Megs for video.
> As a game developer WinNT is not an option for developers using the DirectX API
You aren't a professional game developer are you?
At work all of our artists and and allmost of of our programmers are already using NT. I have to use that peice of crud called Win99 (aka Win98SE) because of D3D testing.
Yes DirectX has 2 problems under WinNT 4. Namely, 1. DirectInput is borked under NT. So don't use it.
2. There is no hardware acceleration for Direct3D which also sucks, but if a game is hard-coded to only use ONE rendering API, that is just dumb programming. (What happens when you need to port you game to a console?!) OpenGL, Glide, SurRender, etc have been around for ages.
The frame rate difference between Win9X and NT is negligable. NT makes up for its security overhead by being all 32-bit, no thunking is required or locking of the win16 mutex.
I will only be too happy when I can finally use Win2K as our base dev platform.
> Fact is, whether you need a license or not, a licensed driver is FAR LESS likely to kill someone than an unlicensed one.
And your proof is ?
With freedom comes responsibility.
Since I DON'T have insurance to fall back on (insurance is the ultime ponzi scam) I am a LOT MORE carefull about my surroundings and other drivers then I normally would be.
> I don't see you complaing about QuakeC or UnrealScript and how they slow the game down so much.
They are fine for a tiny game, 16 people, but they don't scale up to 4,000 people, UNLESS the language was designed to support that many people from the beginning.
> , why not assume that God was also created by something else? Because God is not an effect but THE cause. See the principal cause-and-effect argument.
> assume the universe was always around? Super string theory DOES do this. There was no time before the big bang, and all of sudden there was? If you don't believe that God created the universe, then the only way you can explain the universe is for it to always exist.
> If you accept those biblical doctrines, you must also accept the biblical account of creation (Gen. 1-2), which clearly describes God's six-day creation.
Meta-data is any kind of info ABOUT a file. i.e. it's filename, it's attributes, etc.
If you study philosophy, you will come across the term meta-physical. Same idea. (Bad pun, since ideas are meta-physical;-)
> url?
A directory is also meta-data. The OS opens the directory as a file, but treats it specially.
So I guess in once sense you could call a url meta-data, since it points the way to the data, i.e. the.html file.
A true journaling system also backs up file data. Meaning no data loss. There is a minor speed hit with "mirroring" the data, but usually filesystems use B+ Trees and other database concepts so they can be just as fast as a "simple" filesystem.
> I dont want to buy an out of date print about a microsoft product to find out.
Its actually not too bad. Quota's and Encrytion aren't covered, but the rest of the book is good.
Slashdot Mirror
> Perhaps BeOS?
;-)
;-)
/s *.txt *.doc
Allmost
I have Be and it is very nice. Reminds me of the BEST of Mac and NT. Which other OS gets FASTER after every release?!
The interface is nice and clean. Normally I hate the Mac's straightjacket-you-dont-know-what-you-re-doing UI, but Be is well designed. I just wish Tog would comment on it
I was thinking more of an UI that lets you interchange command line and mouse commands.
i.e. you have a folder viewer with a mini command line at the bottom.
You want to select *.txt *doc in all sub-folders?
Thats what you type: select
then you can use your mouse to drag the selected files to a completely different path. The move command would be smart enough to recognize if you had selected sub folders and then ask you if you wanted all those docs in one directory, or preserve the tree structure.
I could even imagine doing advanced file selection like using grep to find a keyword in files then selecting those files.
i.e. grep -r "Password" * | select
Hope that made sense.
Cheers
Just to play Devil's Advocate:
... you select it, and the look through the menus to find the command you want.
> In a good GUI, all possible operations are available using the menu bar.
>
In a GUI, all the commands VISIBLE which you have said, unlike a CLI where all the commands are usually HIDDEN. CLI's allow for very efficient commands for the power user.
> Secondly, GUI's allow for more efficient use of screen real estate and allow more rapid entry of some kinds of data
Power comes at price. Why waste valuable screen real estate when the user already knows the commands (or hotkeys)
> GUI's allow elegant setting of configuration options.
ONLY when you a small number of options ! Otherwise you have multiple 'tabs' or 'pages' of config options. Ever see a drop down box with 200 items? That's not elegant. (A country selection is one bad example.)
> For example, rearranging a file system with a CLI just can't match the simplicity of doing it with a GUI.
That DEPENDS on what you are doing.
Try moving *.bat, *.com, *.exe files into another directory. I could type: move *.bat *.com *.exe progdir
With a mouse that would take you _THREE_ operations.
> CLI's have their strengths, but there are some things that they just can't do.
And likewise with GUI's. For the advanced user, GUIs just slow the user down. i.e. if you spend a lot of time copying text, do you use the arrow keys to select the text, and then ctrl-c ctrl-v OR do you use the mouse to select the text, and then drag the mouse to make a copy?
What I really would love to see is a system that COMBINES the power and intuitiveness of CLI's and GUI's
Cheers
I agree with your post. Just would like to point a few things...
> Question: How can you use science to test whether there is a God or not?
You can't prove existance claims.
Asking science to "prove" God exists is irrelevent.
There is knowledge OUTSIDE the realm of science.
i.e. How do you setup an expirement to answer WHY ?
Cheers
> else you'd be headed for Hell
Where does the bible say that ?
I have a SB 16 PnP and it works under NT.
Microsoft put Plug 'n Play in NT 4 (very BASIC support)
They just forgot to tell anyone.
PnP under NT4
> It may be more reliable than Win9x (YMMV)
It IS way more reliable. No thunking, or win16 mutexes tieing up the system.
Win99 (aka Win98SE) crashes twice a day where I work.
Cheers
> Steve Jackson Games happen to me
What happened to them??
Take a look at the back of the box of the Warcraft 2 expansion set. Who developed it?
It wasn't Blizzard !
Cheers
> 1. You just can't get decent graphics on a 320x240 resolution TV
I think you meant TEXT output at 320x240 on a TV.
When I worked on the PSX Need For Speed, we tried using 640x480. The higher resolution helped with the smaller fonts, but we had almost no room left over for textures in the 2 Megs video buffer. So we went back to 320x240 and had a richer color to boot (excuse the pun.)
The Dreamcast uses 640x480 and has a VGA output.
This certainly helps, but TV does antialiasing "for free" so it is STILL a problem of designing a readable font at SMALL sizes.
Thankfully the Dreamcast has a 16 Megs of video memory.
> 4. Ever try playing Tiberian Sun with a gamepad?
Yes, RTS games are very bad on a console. Until keyboards and mice come standard with a console, playing FPS and RTS games are "better" on the PC.
The argument which is beter, is pretty pointless. They were designed for different things. i.e. I don't see any game developers running DevStudio ON a console.
Firing Squad has an interesting link comparing the genres on PC vs Console.
PC vs Console game genres
Cheers
3d game programmer
> Where do you live where TVs are only 320*240?
The ORIGINAL Playstation used that resolution.
If you TRY to use 640x480 you have NO RAM left over in the frame buffer for textures since it only has 2 Megs for video.
Cheers
> As a game developer WinNT is not an option for developers using the DirectX API
You aren't a professional game developer are you?
At work all of our artists and and allmost of of our programmers are already using NT. I have to use that peice of crud called Win99 (aka Win98SE) because of D3D testing.
Yes DirectX has 2 problems under WinNT 4. Namely,
1. DirectInput is borked under NT. So don't use it.
2. There is no hardware acceleration for Direct3D which also sucks, but if a game is hard-coded to only use ONE rendering API, that is just dumb programming. (What happens when you need to port you game to a console?!)
OpenGL, Glide, SurRender, etc have been around for ages.
The frame rate difference between Win9X and NT is negligable. NT makes up for its security overhead by being all 32-bit, no thunking is required or locking of the win16 mutex.
I will only be too happy when I can finally use Win2K as our base dev platform.
Cheers
Michael
3d game programmer
> Fact is, whether you need a license or not, a licensed driver is FAR LESS likely to kill someone than an unlicensed one.
And your proof is ?
With freedom comes responsibility.
Since I DON'T have insurance to fall back on (insurance is the ultime ponzi scam) I am a LOT MORE carefull about my surroundings and other drivers then I normally would be.
Cheers
Ok, here is the correct link.
You DON'T need a driver's license to travel.
Proof here:
Driver Licensing vs. the Right to Travel
> far too many people simply give away their right to privacy.
Yes, its sad.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Ben Franklin
Many more good quotes can be found here
Foundin g Fathers Quotes
> Many states use your social security number as your drivers license number
You do know that there is no law requiring a person to have a SSN.
I am not a number, I am a free man.
Furthermore, there you CAN travel without a driver's license.
Driver Licensing vs. the Right to Travel
I travel without a Driver's License and have never been given a ticket for driving without one.
Read the above and see for yourself the court cases!
Cheers
> I don't see you complaing about QuakeC or UnrealScript and how they slow the game down so much.
They are fine for a tiny game, 16 people, but they don't scale up to 4,000 people, UNLESS the language was designed to support that many people from the beginning.
Cheers
3D game programmer
Cool, they have real trees. ( No cardboard cutout trees, aka 2 billboarded textures, ala EQ. )
Cheers
3d game programmer
> "Before" (the big bang), there was no time.
> So there is no "before".
So the universe just decides one day to create itself?
Where did the material from the universe come from?
What caused the big bang to happen?
Cheers
> , why not assume that God was also created by something else?
Because God is not an effect but THE cause.
See the principal cause-and-effect argument.
> assume the universe was always around?
Super string theory DOES do this.
There was no time before the big bang, and all of sudden there was? If you don't believe that God created the universe, then the only way you can explain the universe is for it to always exist.
Cheers
> Are you still clinging to a belief that the earth is only 5000 years old? (A much smaller, less mind boggling number)
Where does the bible say the earth is only 5000 years old ?
Oh wait, the WHOLE bible is LITERAL.
Yeah right.
Cheers
> If you accept those biblical doctrines, you must also accept the biblical account of creation (Gen. 1-2), which clearly describes God's six-day creation.
So the WHOLE bible is literal ??
I don't think so.
Cheers
> BE no
Why do you say that?
Ver 5 will be free.
The gui is pretty slick, and the whole system is very fast - even booting.
Ok, it doesn't have multi-user, but for the home user, they don't need that.
Cheers
> I can't believe that NT 5 (err, sorry, Windows 2000) is going to beat Diablo II out the door.
Win2K has already shipped. Its just not available until Feb 17.
Diablo II won't be out till the Mar-Jun slot.
Cheers
Michael
3d game programmer
> This is somewhat old news for anyone who's been keeping track on the loki.requests
:-(
... but without the sale figure, its hard.
I emailed Loki this week asking what the sales of Linux games was, and they said it was under NDA.
I'm still trying to convince management that its a good thing to port our game to Linux though
Cheers
Michael
3d game programmer
Meta means 'above' or 'about'.
;-)
.html file.
Meta-data is any kind of info ABOUT a file.
i.e. it's filename, it's attributes, etc.
If you study philosophy, you will come across the term meta-physical. Same idea. (Bad pun, since ideas are meta-physical
> url?
A directory is also meta-data. The OS opens the directory as a file, but treats it specially.
So I guess in once sense you could call a url meta-data, since it points the way to the data, i.e. the
A true journaling system also backs up file data. Meaning no data loss. There is a minor speed hit with "mirroring" the data, but usually filesystems use B+ Trees and other database concepts so they can be just as fast as a "simple" filesystem.
> I dont want to buy an out of date print about a microsoft product to find out.
Its actually not too bad. Quota's and Encrytion aren't covered, but the rest of the book is good.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
> Windows NT offers JFS???? Did I miss something??
;-)
Probably.
Inside the Windows Nt File System - Helen Custer
NT only journals Meta-Data though ! Something MS forgots to tell people.
Cheers
Summary of The Communist Manifesto
:-(
1.Abolition of private property (You don't own your land UNLESS you have Allodial title)
2. Heavy progressive income tax. (30% isn't heavy?!)
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. (Estate tax)
4. Confiscation of property of all emigratns and rebels.
5. Central bank. (Federal Reserve)
6. Government control of Communication and Transportation (FTC, and Driver's License)
7. Government ownership of factories and agriculture. (Governments grant business license's)
8. Government control of labor.
9. Corporate farms, regional planning.
10. Government control of education (Public schools.)
Hmm, seems like our democratic US is already on the way there
Sad isn't it.