"At eighteen he might have been a poet. Now he is not a poet, nor a writer, not an artist. He is a computer programmer in a world in which there are no thirty-year-old computer programmers. At thirty one is too old to be a programmer: one turns oneself into something else - some kind of businessman - or one shoots oneself." - Youth (concluding paragraph), J.M. Coetzee - Nobel Laureate in literature, former IBM employee
Score: 3/5: This game is par for the course in many ways, but is likely to be a classic for the genre.
Is it a classic or not?
If it is a classic, then naturally it cannot be a score 3 on a 5 degree scale. A classic implies it is a masterpiece. Something that will stand the test of time. Survive any other mediocre imitators and pretenders.
Also, what makes this game get only a 3 on your scale? You elaborate long and hard about how well certain aspects of the game are. Why not explain better how you see this game not receiving a higher mark? Sure, Rainbow Six: Vegas has some better ducking aspects. But, surely, that cannot be the difference between a 3 and a 4, say.
Great to know your thoughts on the game, in any case.
There is no good reason not to use Java for real time systems as well. The very first JSR, JSR#1 proceeds to specify what is required for real time Java. Later, it has been enhanced in JSR#282, which is implemented in The Sun Java Real-Time System 2.0 (Java RTS).
Also, the article is clearly incorrect in suggesting EqualLogic sells virtualization software. They don't. Granted, they work with VMware but that doesn't mean they have virtualization software of their own.
EqualLogic is a data storage systems provider based in Nashua, N.H., with over 3,200 customers in 30 countries. Its virtualization products allow a single computer to function like multiple machines, so companies can spend less on hardware and energy costs in data centers.
Eh? Aren't they talking about VMware here? EqualLogic sells storage solutions. If he means that several machines can access those storage systems simultaneously, he's out on a limb! I've never heard of such systems!
Say what you will about Eric S. Raymond. His writings in the cathedral and the bazaar have some strength to it, if you are to believe neo-OSS acolyte Jonathan Schwartz of Sun who often refers to this segment when defending their share price.
It is applicable it the case of RedHat vs. CentOS as well.
Can we be so sure this is really an accident. They have been down this road before and must have learned the implications of it. Rockstar has some of the most brilliant people working for them. Are they really run by a bunch of idiots? I find that hard to believe.
Nothing pisses me off more than conspiracy theorists, but here goes. Is it just me, or could this have been done on purpose? Maybe simply to maintain their "we don't give a f*ck" public image in anticipation for greater platform releases.
Do ratings really affect end sales results? Most kids are determined enough to get their hands on what they want anyway, ratings or not, even if they have to go behind someone's back (naturally their parents). I sure know I was, even though there were no consoles back then, there were video tapes of magical events (rated and censored dare I say, here in Sweden) where real fighters squared off. I think the winner more often than not was named Bruce Lee.
I highly doubt that GMail uses JavaScript on the back-end. In fact, it is pretty well known that GMail is written in Java and only uses JavaScript on the front-end.
Am I the only one seeing a Slashdot double standard when it comes to Microsoft and the XBox?
Any article pointing out Microsoft's misdoings gets tons of attention yet it seems that the same crowd is very positive towards the XBox 360. Compare the number of posts on an average Slashdot XBox article (Halo 3, hello!) versus a PS3 article.
It would be nice to know whether you people think it is reasonable to own a 360 and still be opposing MS and its associated business methods.
That's an interesting way to contribute to a discussion.
It may be worthwhile to know that statements as your's are fascist by nature. Killing or having someone "eliminated" for having a different opinion than your own is not a very healthy outlook on life -- unless of course, you are a fascist.
Now, my opinion is not any different than your's in that I find the id:s as meaningless as you do. I also think it's pretty rude to belittle others implying they are inferior in age or experience when no such conclusions can be drawn (as was the case in this thread). It was only an attempt to take a more pragmatic approach to that discussion, although I can understand how that looks quite stupid in the end. Although, in comparison, your statement puts you way deeper in the "piece of shit" league.
"Young friend", I take that as a compliment. Yet you are the one with an ID a couple of hundred thousand greater than mine. Do not despair, I shall assume you are quite old (since I am) and evidently slow (do not falter, I shall be too, soon enough).
You do make a good point regarding in-house production uses of GWT (it is 0, as we both know) but that does not set it very much apart from the other frameworks tested. There is GPokr though, which you may find yourself enjoying while pondering over your next irrelevant proverb to verbatim.
I do not know why GWT was dismissed from the above test (claiming a new "Java API" had to be learnt, as if the other frameworks do not require some domain specific API knowledge). What I know is that GWT makes use of modern compiler optimisation theories to remove dead code (AVAIL and LVA comes to mind), to make the best decisions when it comes to code elimination. Go ahead, write your custom "l33t haxxor javascript" to keep on beating an already dead horse (bad) or reinvent the wheel (even worse).
You are probably the kind of person who think you can manually improve the register allocation by handwritten code over de facto graph colouring register allocation techniques, also implemented by compilers. Either that, or you are completely unaware of all the behind the scene computations made possible by a high level language such as JavaScript, in which case you have no idea how much "control" you are giving up. In that case, I suggest going back to asm.exe and load up a couple of networking libraries for TCP/IP, a scheduler library for multi-threading the GUI/network code, some screen drawing libs, maybe even a widget library, a nice HTML library, then some JavaScript sugar on top. Oh, wait!!! That is a lot of bloat, better make a custom library that implements only the necessities... See you at the asylum!
Finally, Java makes it hard to add debug functionality into your code without a performance hit.
That's just a weak argument. Debugging info can really screw up a codebase and should be removed after debugging. But if you're wedded to the idea, get one of the three billion preprocessors that are available.
Actually, you can use the assert facility (since Java 1.4, I believe) to achieve something similar as a pre-processor out of the box.
Specificly, about 60% down the document, the following can be read regarding removing any assertion code from the resulting class files:
Removing all Trace of Assertions from Class Files
Programmers developing applications for resource-constrained devices may wish to strip assertions out of class files entirely. While this makes it impossible to enable assertions in the field, it also reduces class file size, possibly leading to improved class loading performance. In the absence of a high quality JIT, it could lead to decreased footprint and improved runtime performance.
The assertion facility offers no direct support for stripping assertions out of class files. The assert statement may, however, be used in conjunction with the "conditional compilation" idiom described in JLS 14.20, enabling the compiler to eliminate all traces of these asserts from the class files that it generates:
static final boolean asserts =... ;// false to eliminate asserts
Games and emulation just don't go together. That applies to pretty much all kinds of emulation - VMWare, Virtual PC, whatever. Games just tend to require performance that emulation can't deliver. Plus games are often picky about hardware such as video cards.
What about MAME? It emulates thousands of games...
Solaris 10 is binary compatible with Solaris 2.6, released more than seven years ago. Any OS with history and compatibility of that kind will hence have its history and antics.
The reason why paths are different in Solaris is because they were well organised back in the '90:s, when LSB was in infancy, according to a standard named System V. Paths make a lot of sense in Solaris, if you read up on them - in fact they make as much sense as they do in Linux LSB today.
To answer your partitioning and hostname "issues" it is well stated how this is accomplished in the documentation. There is a file to set your hostname, even for a multihomed site. I suggest 'man nodename', when you have the time. In fact, for a driver developer, you seem awkwardly uncomfortable with reading documentation. That is a pity, since docs.sun.com is one of the best documentation repositories for a commersial product I've ever seen. Maybe you should read up on Solaris' devfs and the Solaris Driver Developer Kit manual - somehow it seems relevant to your work?
Finally to change the login policy on any System V UNIX, not only Solaris, try/etc/default/login, where you can also modify the global path to include any csh or tcsh users you may acquire (changing only/etc/profile will have no impact on csh-users).
I have a problem with the single player campaign in Halo 2.
The game has so little to offer compared to other titles in the same genre. Compared to Halo 1 the improvements in every aspect are minimal. Take Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for instance, it has superb voiceover acting and a story that does not seem as statically linear as Halo and Halo 2. The NPC:s are interesting and have a contribution even in the action.
A lot has changed since 2001 but Halo has not evolved much in comparison.
Playing the game at normal difficulty (I would not know about the others because I refuse to see it through again) follows a simple scheme, since checkpoints are everywhere and the rewards for actually playing the game are minimal. Completing the game in just a few hours is as simple as:
1. Run through and past enemies as far as you can until you reach the next checkpoint (works at around 25%)
2. Use the energy sword, run to the middle of the room and kill all the enemies
3. The enemies are strictly bound to certain zones. If you attract the enemies to a zone boundary (which they do not cross, seemingly) you can run away and make them lose track of you to attack them again, sometimes with their back facing you (i.e. after restoring your shield)
Actually, the most difficult part of the game is to find your way through the landscapes since there is no map - any other problem you are faced with requires no imagination.
Unfortunately this game lacks in both initiative and fantasy. Halo 2 employs melee weapons, or weapon - since there is only one available, the energy sword which is by far the most usable weapon. Any other interesting weapon is useless due to its very limited charge or maximum ammunition level. Why not take the time and make other interesting melee weapons when the functionality is already in place?
The story overall is very dull - if not hard to follow and engage in. Lots of Halo-rings suddenly. It ruins the intensity present in Halo 1 just as Star Wars would have been ruined by lots of Deathstars. Playing through and having to watch the cut-scenes are a painful experience. It is hard to care for any of the other characters since they are not involved in the game in any other significant way except perhaps for the final battle.
ISA Server may be a secure product in itself but its foundation (MS Windows NT) is severely flawed as has been shown time and time again.
If you are to compare ISA Server, do it with products in its ballpark, meaning $$$ hardware/software like for instance Cisco PIX or Nokia IPSO/Check Point Firewall-1/VPN-1.
IPTables and Squid may still be lacking in features but it is based upon the volountary work of OSS developers. ISA Server on the other hand has no excuse to be lacking in either features or in security. When comparing ISA Server with other commercial packages like Cisco or Nokia+Check Point; ISA Server does not stand a chance. Where is session authentication through client certificates? Where is single sign on? Where is a sane traffic-throttling front end? No, in its ballpark ISA Server has nothing to offer, only the ludicrous and constant patching of the underlying NOS.
Learning C as your first language, without any prior computer experience may not be the most clever thing to do. Programming C efficiently, correctly and clearly is best achieved by first understanding computer architecture and programming concepts.
A higher level language provides the abstractions necessary to accommodate "logical thinking" as opposed to a full understanding of say memory management and system I/O. Also, C is quite an orthogonal language in that it supports many awkward combinations of features and constructs. If you are not careful to make your source text clear and readable, debugging even your own code can be oh so cumbersome.
Hence, perhaps reading a book such as "Computer Architecture: A quantitative Approach" by J. Hennessy and D. Paterson is a sensible step towards learning C for the beginner.
Slashdot Mirror
"At eighteen he might have been a poet. Now he is not a poet, nor a writer, not an artist. He is a computer programmer in a world in which there are no thirty-year-old computer programmers. At thirty one is too old to be a programmer: one turns oneself into something else - some kind of businessman - or one shoots oneself."
- Youth (concluding paragraph), J.M. Coetzee - Nobel Laureate in literature, former IBM employee
ASCII?
You should see these punchcards.
Is it a classic or not?
If it is a classic, then naturally it cannot be a score 3 on a 5 degree scale. A classic implies it is a masterpiece. Something that will stand the test of time. Survive any other mediocre imitators and pretenders.
Also, what makes this game get only a 3 on your scale? You elaborate long and hard about how well certain aspects of the game are. Why not explain better how you see this game not receiving a higher mark? Sure, Rainbow Six: Vegas has some better ducking aspects. But, surely, that cannot be the difference between a 3 and a 4, say.
Great to know your thoughts on the game, in any case.
There is no good reason not to use Java for real time systems as well. The very first JSR, JSR#1 proceeds to specify what is required for real time Java. Later, it has been enhanced in JSR#282, which is implemented in The Sun Java Real-Time System 2.0 (Java RTS).
Also, the article is clearly incorrect in suggesting EqualLogic sells virtualization software. They don't. Granted, they work with VMware but that doesn't mean they have virtualization software of their own.
Ouch.. I think my joke went flying straight over your head.
More info on Forbes.
EqualLogic is a data storage systems provider based in Nashua, N.H., with over 3,200 customers in 30 countries. Its virtualization products allow a single computer to function like multiple machines, so companies can spend less on hardware and energy costs in data centers.Eh? Aren't they talking about VMware here? EqualLogic sells storage solutions. If he means that several machines can access those storage systems simultaneously, he's out on a limb! I've never heard of such systems!
Say what you will about Eric S. Raymond. His writings in the cathedral and the bazaar have some strength to it, if you are to believe neo-OSS acolyte Jonathan Schwartz of Sun who often refers to this segment when defending their share price.
It is applicable it the case of RedHat vs. CentOS as well.
Can we be so sure this is really an accident. They have been down this road before and must have learned the implications of it. Rockstar has some of the most brilliant people working for them. Are they really run by a bunch of idiots? I find that hard to believe.
Nothing pisses me off more than conspiracy theorists, but here goes. Is it just me, or could this have been done on purpose? Maybe simply to maintain their "we don't give a f*ck" public image in anticipation for greater platform releases.
Do ratings really affect end sales results? Most kids are determined enough to get their hands on what they want anyway, ratings or not, even if they have to go behind someone's back (naturally their parents). I sure know I was, even though there were no consoles back then, there were video tapes of magical events (rated and censored dare I say, here in Sweden) where real fighters squared off. I think the winner more often than not was named Bruce Lee.
...thanks to a JavaScript back-end rewrite...I highly doubt that GMail uses JavaScript on the back-end. In fact, it is pretty well known that GMail is written in Java and only uses JavaScript on the front-end.
I certainly remember what Slashdot was like ten years ago. Unfortunately, your post is dire evidence and a reminder of what it has become.
Am I the only one seeing a Slashdot double standard when it comes to Microsoft and the XBox?
Any article pointing out Microsoft's misdoings gets tons of attention yet it seems that the same crowd is very positive towards the XBox 360. Compare the number of posts on an average Slashdot XBox article (Halo 3, hello!) versus a PS3 article.
It would be nice to know whether you people think it is reasonable to own a 360 and still be opposing MS and its associated business methods.
That's an interesting way to contribute to a discussion.
It may be worthwhile to know that statements as your's are fascist by nature. Killing or having someone "eliminated" for having a different opinion than your own is not a very healthy outlook on life -- unless of course, you are a fascist.
Now, my opinion is not any different than your's in that I find the id:s as meaningless as you do. I also think it's pretty rude to belittle others implying they are inferior in age or experience when no such conclusions can be drawn (as was the case in this thread). It was only an attempt to take a more pragmatic approach to that discussion, although I can understand how that looks quite stupid in the end. Although, in comparison, your statement puts you way deeper in the "piece of shit" league.
"Young friend", I take that as a compliment. Yet you are the one with an ID a couple of hundred thousand greater than mine. Do not despair, I shall assume you are quite old (since I am) and evidently slow (do not falter, I shall be too, soon enough).
You do make a good point regarding in-house production uses of GWT (it is 0, as we both know) but that does not set it very much apart from the other frameworks tested. There is GPokr though, which you may find yourself enjoying while pondering over your next irrelevant proverb to verbatim.
Size, size, size...
I do not know why GWT was dismissed from the above test (claiming a new "Java API" had to be learnt, as if the other frameworks do not require some domain specific API knowledge). What I know is that GWT makes use of modern compiler optimisation theories to remove dead code (AVAIL and LVA comes to mind), to make the best decisions when it comes to code elimination. Go ahead, write your custom "l33t haxxor javascript" to keep on beating an already dead horse (bad) or reinvent the wheel (even worse).
You are probably the kind of person who think you can manually improve the register allocation by handwritten code over de facto graph colouring register allocation techniques, also implemented by compilers. Either that, or you are completely unaware of all the behind the scene computations made possible by a high level language such as JavaScript, in which case you have no idea how much "control" you are giving up. In that case, I suggest going back to asm.exe and load up a couple of networking libraries for TCP/IP, a scheduler library for multi-threading the GUI/network code, some screen drawing libs, maybe even a widget library, a nice HTML library, then some JavaScript sugar on top. Oh, wait!!! That is a lot of bloat, better make a custom library that implements only the necessities... See you at the asylum!
Finally, Java makes it hard to add debug functionality into your code without a performance hit.
That's just a weak argument. Debugging info can really screw up a codebase and should be removed after debugging. But if you're wedded to the idea, get one of the three billion preprocessors that are available.
Actually, you can use the assert facility (since Java 1.4, I believe) to achieve something similar as a pre-processor out of the box.
Specificly, about 60% down the document, the following can be read regarding removing any assertion code from the resulting class files:
Removing all Trace of Assertions from Class Files
Programmers developing applications for resource-constrained devices may wish to strip assertions out of class files entirely. While this makes it impossible to enable assertions in the field, it also reduces class file size, possibly leading to improved class loading performance. In the absence of a high quality JIT, it could lead to decreased footprint and improved runtime performance.
The assertion facility offers no direct support for stripping assertions out of class files. The assert statement may, however, be used in conjunction with the "conditional compilation" idiom described in JLS 14.20, enabling the compiler to eliminate all traces of these asserts from the class files that it generates:
Check out the posting time of post 14839243 (the one just after yours). That's scary .. and concurrent!
The Morrowind Speed Demo.
Games and emulation just don't go together. That applies to pretty much all kinds of emulation - VMWare, Virtual PC, whatever. Games just tend to require performance that emulation can't deliver. Plus games are often picky about hardware such as video cards.
What about MAME? It emulates thousands of games...
Solaris 10 is binary compatible with Solaris 2.6, released more than seven years ago. Any OS with history and compatibility of that kind will hence have its history and antics.
The reason why paths are different in Solaris is because they were well organised back in the '90:s, when LSB was in infancy, according to a standard named System V. Paths make a lot of sense in Solaris, if you read up on them - in fact they make as much sense as they do in Linux LSB today.
To answer your partitioning and hostname "issues" it is well stated how this is accomplished in the documentation. There is a file to set your hostname, even for a multihomed site. I suggest 'man nodename', when you have the time. In fact, for a driver developer, you seem awkwardly uncomfortable with reading documentation. That is a pity, since docs.sun.com is one of the best documentation repositories for a commersial product I've ever seen. Maybe you should read up on Solaris' devfs and the Solaris Driver Developer Kit manual - somehow it seems relevant to your work?
Finally to change the login policy on any System V UNIX, not only Solaris, try /etc/default/login, where you can also modify the global path to include any csh or tcsh users you may acquire (changing only /etc/profile will have no impact on csh-users).
You're not an academic, are you?
I have a problem with the single player campaign in Halo 2.
The game has so little to offer compared to other titles in the same genre. Compared to Halo 1 the improvements in every aspect are minimal. Take Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for instance, it has superb voiceover acting and a story that does not seem as statically linear as Halo and Halo 2. The NPC:s are interesting and have a contribution even in the action.
A lot has changed since 2001 but Halo has not evolved much in comparison.
Playing the game at normal difficulty (I would not know about the others because I refuse to see it through again) follows a simple scheme, since checkpoints are everywhere and the rewards for actually playing the game are minimal. Completing the game in just a few hours is as simple as:
1. Run through and past enemies as far as you can until you reach the next checkpoint (works at around 25%)
2. Use the energy sword, run to the middle of the room and kill all the enemies
3. The enemies are strictly bound to certain zones. If you attract the enemies to a zone boundary (which they do not cross, seemingly) you can run away and make them lose track of you to attack them again, sometimes with their back facing you (i.e. after restoring your shield)
Actually, the most difficult part of the game is to find your way through the landscapes since there is no map - any other problem you are faced with requires no imagination.
Unfortunately this game lacks in both initiative and fantasy. Halo 2 employs melee weapons, or weapon - since there is only one available, the energy sword which is by far the most usable weapon. Any other interesting weapon is useless due to its very limited charge or maximum ammunition level. Why not take the time and make other interesting melee weapons when the functionality is already in place?
The story overall is very dull - if not hard to follow and engage in. Lots of Halo-rings suddenly. It ruins the intensity present in Halo 1 just as Star Wars would have been ruined by lots of Deathstars. Playing through and having to watch the cut-scenes are a painful experience. It is hard to care for any of the other characters since they are not involved in the game in any other significant way except perhaps for the final battle.
ISA Server may be a secure product in itself but its foundation (MS Windows NT) is severely flawed as has been shown time and time again.
If you are to compare ISA Server, do it with products in its ballpark, meaning $$$ hardware/software like for instance Cisco PIX or Nokia IPSO/Check Point Firewall-1/VPN-1.
IPTables and Squid may still be lacking in features but it is based upon the volountary work of OSS developers. ISA Server on the other hand has no excuse to be lacking in either features or in security. When comparing ISA Server with other commercial packages like Cisco or Nokia+Check Point; ISA Server does not stand a chance. Where is session authentication through client certificates? Where is single sign on? Where is a sane traffic-throttling front end? No, in its ballpark ISA Server has nothing to offer, only the ludicrous and constant patching of the underlying NOS.
Please don't mention ISA Server and network security in the same context!
Learning C as your first language, without any prior computer experience may not be the most clever thing to do. Programming C efficiently, correctly and clearly is best achieved by first understanding computer architecture and programming concepts.
A higher level language provides the abstractions necessary to accommodate "logical thinking" as opposed to a full understanding of say memory management and system I/O. Also, C is quite an orthogonal language in that it supports many awkward combinations of features and constructs. If you are not careful to make your source text clear and readable, debugging even your own code can be oh so cumbersome.
Hence, perhaps reading a book such as "Computer Architecture: A quantitative Approach" by J. Hennessy and D. Paterson is a sensible step towards learning C for the beginner.
I wonder where he is basing the facts that people were writing as many letters in 1945 as today and that 99% of *all* documents are printed on paper.