The Apple mouse is probably the most classic example. Absolutely horrible and wrong from day one. Pure arrogance there.
The one that always got me is when Apple removed the power button on iPods and produced a product that only pretended to turn off, then shipped it with totally unacceptable battery life that took generations to overcome. Works fine now after years of broken function.
There's their UI adherence to concepts justified by Fitts' Law long after Fitts' Law tells us differently (due to much larger, higher resolution displays), and that's just one of a laundry list of poor-functioning UI concepts like the constantly resizing modal dialogs, windows that are almost impossible to resize (until recently), and maximize functions that are comically broken. Of course, Apple does things well also, but the challenge was to list non-functional Apple design of which there are many.
There's Apple's historical distain for color displays and the fact that Apple was the last platform to offer color with Steve Jobs insisting it was a useless distraction.
There's Apple's historically worst SCSI implementation ever due to their desire to use the cheapest connector possible (a trend that dates back to the founding of the company). Of course, that ties into and endless trail of tears of proprietary cable and connector technologies that Apple inflicts on its customers.
More recently there was the first first generation Air that had grossly inadequate storage yet only provided one USB port, meaning that the system couldn't be used in applications requiring storage AND a flash card reader without blowing the whole portability advantage. I suppose that's OK, though, since Macs aren't marketed to creative types, right? It was marketed as the perfect "second computer"; in other words, a computer for people who can accept poor function. Yet another example of Apple design that works fine now that technology has caught up but was dysfunctional when introduced.
Speaking of dysfunctional, Apple's mobile web browser for the iPhone is the most glaring example of dysfunctional design that there is. It's not just the omission of Flash, it's the omission of the pointer device (that Flash couldn't tolerate) that broke compatibility with a massive percentage of sites, including ALL business and commerce sites, at the time, yet Apple marketed it as being "all the web" when it was, in fact, the least amount of the web ever delivered. The irony is that it was Apple's failure of function that spawned an an entire industry focus on web design for inferior mobile devices for which Apple now receives credit.
The list is truly endless. Apple is a fashion company, not a function company. Function companies would not standardize on chicklet keyboards, glossy screens, and no-button mice. Where's the pizza-box or small desktop Mac without an integrated display? Too much function, too much differentiation, too much deviation from their minimalist aesthetic.
Yes, I don't get how anyone accepts the notion that removing a power button is an example of good functional design on a portable product with inadequate battery life. Apple so full of it with that stuff. Apple is good at fashion, emphasis on function is a myth.
But typical LED kicks the crap out of typical fluorescent, and most fluorescent is not good fluorescent....and even if you have a good fluorescent it's still a fluorescent. It's got the same environmental concerns, the same balast, the same problems with dimmers, the same size constraints...so yeah, every once in a while CFL makers fix their horrible light quality. That doesn't change the typical bulb. LED kicks the crap out of fluorescent and will replace it entirely soon enough.
"Also, I don't see how that demonstration proves anything."
And I don't see how your interpretation of a datasheet proves anything either. There is an objective measurement of a light's ability to render colors and that information is also available from Cree. There are variations of the MK-R with CRIs of at least 90. If you don't know what 90 means, look it up.
Virtually all light sources have lumpy spectra.
"Still, until these materialise, plain 'ol incandescents are the only cheap light sources which produce a nice, continuous blackbody spectrum. Sigh."
Many incandescents have CRIs in the 60s. including many typical household bulbs. Incandescent does not mean they don't suck. Meanwhile there are many LEDs with CRIs over 90. That's good enough for a lot of photographic work.
You would be best served by not looking at spectral graphs but instead looking at direct measurements of what you are concerned about.
Not all white LEDs. Some have fairly broad spectrums.
There's a measure for that, though, and it's called CRI. A perfect CRI is defined as 100, and you'd think that incandescent would have a 100 CRI but it often doesn't. Great CRI is anything >=95 and halogens often achieves that, but general purpose incandescent lamps are usually less, sometimes horrifyingly less. LED is commonly worse than 95, but almost always better than CFL. For critical viewing LED isn't always the best choice unless it's made for the purpose, but that's true for any bulb. LED as a class looks better than FL and metal halide.
"LEDs that produce the same amount of light as a CFL are typically less efficient then the CFL. So for a 1W light, LEDs are looking good. Try to make a 100W (incandescent equivalent) light source and the CFL will be better. If this were not the case then LEDs would have already replaced CFLs. The 10x difference you claim is completely unreasonable."
Not true, and the reason LED hasn't already replaced CFL has nothing to do with this efficiency curve you don't understand.
It is easy to scale a CFL, or incandescent, bulb. You just make it bigger. That is not so for LED. LED is also not inherently omnidirectional. These differences lead to different cost structures having nothing to with lumens/watt. Of course, this argument matters only to those who don't care what the light looks like. For those that do, CFL isn't part of the discussion anyway.
100W equivalent LED is doable at high efficiency, there are simply other factors to its marketability.
There is virtually no selection of dimmable CFL, the few that exist are incredibly expensive, and they work like hell. That's all added to the crappy light they put out. They are junk and a waste of money. You're whole comment reads like you have no experience with any of this.
Some light switches, very often dimmers, trickle a small amount power through them when switched off. CFL is incompatible with those, dimmable or not. Then there's the fact that the places you use dimmers you are likely to care about the light quality and CFL is worthless there. CFL is essentially incompatible with dimming, regardless of whether there's an example of a dimmable balast or not.
CFL sucks. We're better off with incandescent in the meantime.
Your land and "infrastructure" aren't free just because you've already bought them and no one else's business plan matters when you do your own cost/benefit analysis.
You have any numbers to back up your claims of energy surpluses?
We can have surpluses simply by building too many generation plants. I don't see that as a benefit to anybody, nor do I see tackling the resulting storage problem as anything other than two wrongs making a right in your mind. Solar energy isn't free, so producing too much of it isn't a plus.
If backfeeding the grid offered such potential, then there should be at least a few examples of people making significant money from their utility companies. Where are those? Where are the wise homeowners raking in the cash using their free land and infrastructure?
It takes more than the fertile imagination of zealots to solve real problems.
But keeping the panels clean, and replacing them, IS a maintenance cost, as are the replacement of other electrical components and service due to occasional damage. Maintenance costs AREN'T zero and the product has a finite lifetime. There is no such thing as a price per watt of 0 unless you are willing to ignore some of your costs. There are fixed costs and recurring costs and while the recurring cost per watt is 0, the fixed costs are still prohibitive.
Selling excess production back to grid isn't making anyone anything.
Finally:
"In most cases, the reduction in your bill will be more than enough to cover the cost of the loan to have the panels installed in the first place, and in some cases you'll find yourself in a position where the power company is paying you each month."
That proves either your ignorance or your dishonesty, or both.
If it takes 10-15 years to recover the cost, then it will never profit. There is this thing called opportunity cost that tells you that. Money earns more sitting in an investment than a doubling every 10-15 years. That's why solar isn't adopted.
Roof budgets are also not fixed nor are they particularly relevant. What matters are the costs of doing ANY solar plan compared the rate of return. Roofs cost more with solar for reasons other than the panels themselves. That's true for passive solar too.
But yes, if the government pays for it in tax incentives then, by all means, grab the cash from your fellow taxpayers. It still doesn't make economic sense.
Maybe if you tried writing that you'd understand why. Remember that your solution needs to work with plain text files in any editor a programmer might want to use.
"The best article that I've ever read on coding style is Style is Substance [artima.com] by Ken Arnold."
I can't think of any article being more diametrically opposed to reason than that one. It is absolutely terrible.
K&R is the ugliest style ever concieved, and the reason for NOT enforcing style as syntax is because better approached can, and have, evolved over time. The author doesn't realize that because he dismisses the very possibility of value up front. He is an idiot.
Editors have done this tab/space importing stuff for 30 years and that's just as far back as my memory goes of them. The problem is that you use and editor that doesn't understand this and that explains why you care about something you shouldn't.
Incidentally, editors that understand and fix space/tab issues with identation are frequently the ones broken by these stupid variable tab "rules" that so many here seem to think are the right answer. For an editor to get space/tab interpretation right, it has to know what a tab is and that meaning cannot vary from file to file. That's why it's 8.
Accommodating variable indention whims is way down the list of important things when working on team projects. Variable indention can only be made to work for the *first* thing that aligns on a line. There are other things of importance.
The only people who would say this are people who've never really faced these issues. Getting a consistent view of source and a protocol for everyone to follow is of fundamental value and everyone with experience knows it.
"For the same reason why CSS was invented to style HTML. Tabs are entirely font-agnostic and they are semantic. Spaces are not, and are directly visual."
You couldn't be more wrong. Tabs are semantic only in poorly devised languages, like make for instance. Indention isn't semantic in any general sense.
Anyone who uses a proportional font for coding has already accepted broken alignment. Tabs do nothing special for them.
There is a great benefit to using spaces rather than tabs, it's the only thing that produces a predictable view when tab stops are variable.
Variable tab stops break everything and fix nothing.
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The Apple mouse is probably the most classic example. Absolutely horrible and wrong from day one. Pure arrogance there.
The one that always got me is when Apple removed the power button on iPods and produced a product that only pretended to turn off, then shipped it with totally unacceptable battery life that took generations to overcome. Works fine now after years of broken function.
There's their UI adherence to concepts justified by Fitts' Law long after Fitts' Law tells us differently (due to much larger, higher resolution displays), and that's just one of a laundry list of poor-functioning UI concepts like the constantly resizing modal dialogs, windows that are almost impossible to resize (until recently), and maximize functions that are comically broken. Of course, Apple does things well also, but the challenge was to list non-functional Apple design of which there are many.
There's Apple's historical distain for color displays and the fact that Apple was the last platform to offer color with Steve Jobs insisting it was a useless distraction.
There's Apple's historically worst SCSI implementation ever due to their desire to use the cheapest connector possible (a trend that dates back to the founding of the company). Of course, that ties into and endless trail of tears of proprietary cable and connector technologies that Apple inflicts on its customers.
More recently there was the first first generation Air that had grossly inadequate storage yet only provided one USB port, meaning that the system couldn't be used in applications requiring storage AND a flash card reader without blowing the whole portability advantage. I suppose that's OK, though, since Macs aren't marketed to creative types, right? It was marketed as the perfect "second computer"; in other words, a computer for people who can accept poor function. Yet another example of Apple design that works fine now that technology has caught up but was dysfunctional when introduced.
Speaking of dysfunctional, Apple's mobile web browser for the iPhone is the most glaring example of dysfunctional design that there is. It's not just the omission of Flash, it's the omission of the pointer device (that Flash couldn't tolerate) that broke compatibility with a massive percentage of sites, including ALL business and commerce sites, at the time, yet Apple marketed it as being "all the web" when it was, in fact, the least amount of the web ever delivered. The irony is that it was Apple's failure of function that spawned an an entire industry focus on web design for inferior mobile devices for which Apple now receives credit.
The list is truly endless. Apple is a fashion company, not a function company. Function companies would not standardize on chicklet keyboards, glossy screens, and no-button mice. Where's the pizza-box or small desktop Mac without an integrated display? Too much function, too much differentiation, too much deviation from their minimalist aesthetic.
Yes, I don't get how anyone accepts the notion that removing a power button is an example of good functional design on a portable product with inadequate battery life. Apple so full of it with that stuff. Apple is good at fashion, emphasis on function is a myth.
"For the same reason..."
Yes, true, and that reason is hubris, but why use "pattern language" as an example when the term "pattern" itself was created for that reason?
Groups create their own languages to differentiate themselves and feed their professional egos. Now, time to do some "refactoring"...
But typical LED kicks the crap out of typical fluorescent, and most fluorescent is not good fluorescent. ...and even if you have a good fluorescent it's still a fluorescent. It's got the same environmental concerns, the same balast, the same problems with dimmers, the same size constraints...so yeah, every once in a while CFL makers fix their horrible light quality. That doesn't change the typical bulb. LED kicks the crap out of fluorescent and will replace it entirely soon enough.
"Also, I don't see how that demonstration proves anything."
And I don't see how your interpretation of a datasheet proves anything either. There is an objective measurement of a light's ability to render colors and that information is also available from Cree. There are variations of the MK-R with CRIs of at least 90. If you don't know what 90 means, look it up.
Virtually all light sources have lumpy spectra.
"Still, until these materialise, plain 'ol incandescents are the only cheap light sources which produce a nice, continuous blackbody spectrum. Sigh."
Many incandescents have CRIs in the 60s. including many typical household bulbs. Incandescent does not mean they don't suck. Meanwhile there are many LEDs with CRIs over 90. That's good enough for a lot of photographic work.
You would be best served by not looking at spectral graphs but instead looking at direct measurements of what you are concerned about.
Not all white LEDs. Some have fairly broad spectrums.
There's a measure for that, though, and it's called CRI. A perfect CRI is defined as 100, and you'd think that incandescent would have a 100 CRI but it often doesn't. Great CRI is anything >=95 and halogens often achieves that, but general purpose incandescent lamps are usually less, sometimes horrifyingly less. LED is commonly worse than 95, but almost always better than CFL. For critical viewing LED isn't always the best choice unless it's made for the purpose, but that's true for any bulb. LED as a class looks better than FL and metal halide.
Here's a link to some LED bulbs with CRIs over 90: http://store.earthled.com/collections/high-cri-led-lighting-90-cri-led-lighting
If you want that looks good, LED is not problematic like CFL.
"LEDs that produce the same amount of light as a CFL are typically less efficient then the CFL. So for a 1W light, LEDs are looking good. Try to make a 100W (incandescent equivalent) light source and the CFL will be better. If this were not the case then LEDs would have already replaced CFLs. The 10x difference you claim is completely unreasonable."
Not true, and the reason LED hasn't already replaced CFL has nothing to do with this efficiency curve you don't understand.
It is easy to scale a CFL, or incandescent, bulb. You just make it bigger. That is not so for LED. LED is also not inherently omnidirectional. These differences lead to different cost structures having nothing to with lumens/watt. Of course, this argument matters only to those who don't care what the light looks like. For those that do, CFL isn't part of the discussion anyway.
100W equivalent LED is doable at high efficiency, there are simply other factors to its marketability.
There is virtually no selection of dimmable CFL, the few that exist are incredibly expensive, and they work like hell. That's all added to the crappy light they put out. They are junk and a waste of money. You're whole comment reads like you have no experience with any of this.
Some light switches, very often dimmers, trickle a small amount power through them when switched off. CFL is incompatible with those, dimmable or not. Then there's the fact that the places you use dimmers you are likely to care about the light quality and CFL is worthless there. CFL is essentially incompatible with dimming, regardless of whether there's an example of a dimmable balast or not.
CFL sucks. We're better off with incandescent in the meantime.
and this is a big problem for local law enforcement. Revenues are predicated on a reliable base of violators. That's why laws are the way they are.
You sound really educated on the subject.
A subsidy can then exist before a tax. It's called borrowing.
Your land and "infrastructure" aren't free just because you've already bought them and no one else's business plan matters when you do your own cost/benefit analysis.
You have any numbers to back up your claims of energy surpluses?
We can have surpluses simply by building too many generation plants. I don't see that as a benefit to anybody, nor do I see tackling the resulting storage problem as anything other than two wrongs making a right in your mind. Solar energy isn't free, so producing too much of it isn't a plus.
If backfeeding the grid offered such potential, then there should be at least a few examples of people making significant money from their utility companies. Where are those? Where are the wise homeowners raking in the cash using their free land and infrastructure?
It takes more than the fertile imagination of zealots to solve real problems.
But keeping the panels clean, and replacing them, IS a maintenance cost, as are the replacement of other electrical components and service due to occasional damage. Maintenance costs AREN'T zero and the product has a finite lifetime. There is no such thing as a price per watt of 0 unless you are willing to ignore some of your costs. There are fixed costs and recurring costs and while the recurring cost per watt is 0, the fixed costs are still prohibitive.
Selling excess production back to grid isn't making anyone anything.
Finally:
"In most cases, the reduction in your bill will be more than enough to cover the cost of the loan to have the panels installed in the first place, and in some cases you'll find yourself in a position where the power company is paying you each month."
That proves either your ignorance or your dishonesty, or both.
I guess after 10-15 years its not "all profit" then, huh?
You've really thought this through.
If it takes 10-15 years to recover the cost, then it will never profit. There is this thing called opportunity cost that tells you that. Money earns more sitting in an investment than a doubling every 10-15 years. That's why solar isn't adopted.
Roof budgets are also not fixed nor are they particularly relevant. What matters are the costs of doing ANY solar plan compared the rate of return. Roofs cost more with solar for reasons other than the panels themselves. That's true for passive solar too.
But yes, if the government pays for it in tax incentives then, by all means, grab the cash from your fellow taxpayers. It still doesn't make economic sense.
Maybe if you tried writing that you'd understand why. Remember that your solution needs to work with plain text files in any editor a programmer might want to use.
"The best article that I've ever read on coding style is Style is Substance [artima.com] by Ken Arnold."
I can't think of any article being more diametrically opposed to reason than that one. It is absolutely terrible.
K&R is the ugliest style ever concieved, and the reason for NOT enforcing style as syntax is because better approached can, and have, evolved over time. The author doesn't realize that because he dismisses the very possibility of value up front. He is an idiot.
"... it's silly to have to conform to one standard to make the software happy."
You mean like forcing everyone to use the same IDE so you can have your flexibility?
Not every project requires each team member to use exactly the same tools. Doing what you say becomes much harder when tools are mixed.
"Although it can make it harder to work on each other's code, it has one benefit - you can easily tell who wrote the code."
and that's SO worth the price of admission since it's so hard to achieve that otherwise.
"And if I do go in to "someone else's code" and change or fix things, I follow their style, more or less."
Which really helps everyone tell who wrote the code. ;)
It's amazing how hard people are trying to justify their own prejudices here.
Editors have done this tab/space importing stuff for 30 years and that's just as far back as my memory goes of them. The problem is that you use and editor that doesn't understand this and that explains why you care about something you shouldn't.
Incidentally, editors that understand and fix space/tab issues with identation are frequently the ones broken by these stupid variable tab "rules" that so many here seem to think are the right answer. For an editor to get space/tab interpretation right, it has to know what a tab is and that meaning cannot vary from file to file. That's why it's 8.
I would like an example of a "refactoring program". Beautifiers are not refactoring programs.
"refactor" is a term that doesn't need to exist at all, much less be a term for re-"pretty print".
Coding style guidelines go beyond what any beautifier can achieve.
You have a poor understanding of what refactoring is.
The tab character was not "developed for indentation".
Accommodating variable indention whims is way down the list of important things when working on team projects. Variable indention can only be made to work for the *first* thing that aligns on a line. There are other things of importance.
The only people who would say this are people who've never really faced these issues. Getting a consistent view of source and a protocol for everyone to follow is of fundamental value and everyone with experience knows it.
"For the same reason why CSS was invented to style HTML. Tabs are entirely font-agnostic and they are semantic. Spaces are not, and are directly visual."
You couldn't be more wrong. Tabs are semantic only in poorly devised languages, like make for instance. Indention isn't semantic in any general sense.
Anyone who uses a proportional font for coding has already accepted broken alignment. Tabs do nothing special for them.
There is a great benefit to using spaces rather than tabs, it's the only thing that produces a predictable view when tab stops are variable.
Variable tab stops break everything and fix nothing.