I'm also an Android developer and I don't share those concerns. There have been some frustrations, yes, but there are usually decent workarounds for a lot of things. As an example: Bluetooth support wasn't really solid until 2.0, yet there are excellent backport open-source libraries that make it easy to provide that support to 1.5 and 1.6 devices.
I completely disagree about reflection as well. Using reflection you can degrade gracefully for platforms that dont support what you're doing. Reflection is not ugly at all, it actually quite an elegant deign pattern imho.
If you're ending up with 6 layouts for each screen you're doing something wrong and perhaps overreaching in your support for older devices or your layout is overly complicated. It's unreasonable to think the latest Mass Effect game would run on a tiny 320x240 screen. And while that's hyperbole, yes, the point is made.
Just to be clear though, I don't find you concerns invalid, However I don't think this is unique to Android.
Granted there is still much work Google and the manufacturers could do to streamline all of this. But any software development platform, any OS, has some level of variation for what is supported. OSX, Linux, iOS, WebOS, Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, HTML5/JS/CSS, Blackberry OS. Really the only platforms that don't, are the video game consoles. But now even that's starting to happen there too with external storage and peripherals.
Yes why in the world would the Federal Communications Commission, that normally regulates Telcos and Cable companies, think it has authority to regulate a new communication and information service they provide over the same wires and spectrum with some of the same types of content as cable and telephones.
Your sir are rude, and your circular logic is flawed. You don't want regulation and the FCC decided to let the market decide -- and you call that a failure, blaming people who are pro regulation? Seriously, what's wrong with you?
How is toothless regulation a problem for the anti-regulation crowd? Or were you just pining for a chance to call someone a statist?
Most of those who are pro Net Neutrality wanted real regulation, not toothless fluff to cater to the anti-regulation, pro-business crowd. If anything it's your pocliy positions that got us this. Toothless regulation is pretty much the same as no regulation in my mind.
No, it really just needs to be something in the middle. ISPs should not be able to discriminate based on endpoint or traffic type or protocol with the exception of E-911 and a few other specific and sensible exceptions. Spam and DDoS filtering, QoS for traffic types like VOIP that doesnt discriminate based on end point, or company. It's not really that hard. While a simple "everything should be equal based on X" rule wont work, it's equally absurd to think the law must be so complex as to impossible to craft. This fatalism from some./ posters (not you) about the technical and legal wording being impossible is nonsense and not helpful. There is easily a middle ground here, and yes it requires some technical specifics, but it's NOT impossible
The problem is telcos are not producing content. Any plan that lets them set up as being able to charge based on the quality of content that they DONT produce, is tantamount to blessing rent seeking. They dont just hurt consumers, they hurt the whole ecosystem.
You mean regulate, right? There used to be a regulation the required telcos to sell their lines at wholesale to competitors but they removed that regulation so that telcos were as unregulated as cable companies (with regards to internet service).
The local monopolies these ISPs enjoy are not a regulation but rather a grant/partnership of various cities/towns/etc to the cable/telco operator as well as some natural monopolies due to the giants being the only ones with infrastructure. The kind of competition you are promoting is exactly what we need, but don't kid yourself that there are federal regulations that are creating these local monopolies.
Here's the difference: What are they investigating? They can't go trolling for wrong doing. They dont even imply what types of regulations or laws may have been broken.
It's "Don't be evil" and it's a tired tired joke at this point. Yes it's a silly corporate slogan and, yes, some of the stuff they do is considered evil by some people -- probably rightly so.
But I also don't believe that
-my world will be delivered by ATT -Apple thinks differently -UPS brown wants to know what they can do for me -Diet Coke is just for the taste of it -Verizon rules the air -Mcdonalds will make me love it -TBS is very funny -Fox is fair and balanced -Nike will make me just do it -Or that Slashdot is only stuff that matters
Are you talking about Sarbanes -Oxley? Doesnt that apply more towards accounting records? Say Google wanted to delete its maps of the US, they wouldn't need permission for that. But if they wanted to delete expense reports they would.
The fact that his answer was so evasive is actually very telling. If they had a good reason to be looking at the data they'd have a warrant in hand.
“There’s a range of potential opportunities for oversight and scrutiny by a member of the U.S. Congress – including letters, meetings hearings, and potentially even legislation.”
Translation: we got nothing, so we're gonna try and invent some reason to get the data.
Destroying evidence while being investigated by the FCC/FTC is usually frowned upon. But I'm glad they are declining to hand it over for what you aptly called grandstanding. Honestly I think Google has handled it the best they can given the situation. Seeing politicians exploit the situation is beginning to irk me too though.
Ah I see, thanks. Seems the real culprit here is iframes. Sometimes I wonder if they cause more harm than good. But really i guess it's hidden iframes causing the problem? Guess I'm just wondering what's the solution here. Should iframes send a limited header with just a domain name? Should they be removed? Are they really necessary? Or should there be a minimum size that can't be covered with other content or made visible? This is a pretty clever hack I'll have to admit.
Sometimes it even goes to the Supreme Court but not often, since the justices are part of the government and often defend their colleagues by simply not hearing cases.
That's about as spurious a claim as the DHS agent made. I suspect you'll get some hits with that kinda trolling though.
Huh? How about, "ISPs are required to be net neutral with the exception of email."
Whew, that was hard. Glad we averted spam doomsday...just barely.;)
Kidding aside, you do seem to be overacting without providing an example of how ISP spam filtering would actually get caught in the wake of a Net Neutrality bill.
You still haven't explained why being pro copyright policy is hypocritical to pro net neutrality. Just because the blogger from techdirt frames that bill as being about free speech, doesn't mean Franken thinks it is. These two policies aren't one in the same.
Copyright law and Net Neutrality are not the same thing. I think he clearly came down on the wrong side of that issue, but the right side of this issue.
Net Neutrality needs supporters, if that happens to make strange bedfellows out of pro RIAA politicians, so be it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm also an Android developer and I don't share those concerns. There have been some frustrations, yes, but there are usually decent workarounds for a lot of things. As an example: Bluetooth support wasn't really solid until 2.0, yet there are excellent backport open-source libraries that make it easy to provide that support to 1.5 and 1.6 devices.
I completely disagree about reflection as well. Using reflection you can degrade gracefully for platforms that dont support what you're doing. Reflection is not ugly at all, it actually quite an elegant deign pattern imho.
If you're ending up with 6 layouts for each screen you're doing something wrong and perhaps overreaching in your support for older devices or your layout is overly complicated. It's unreasonable to think the latest Mass Effect game would run on a tiny 320x240 screen. And while that's hyperbole, yes, the point is made.
Just to be clear though, I don't find you concerns invalid, However I don't think this is unique to Android.
Granted there is still much work Google and the manufacturers could do to streamline all of this. But any software development platform, any OS, has some level of variation for what is supported. OSX, Linux, iOS, WebOS, Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, HTML5/JS/CSS, Blackberry OS. Really the only platforms that don't, are the video game consoles. But now even that's starting to happen there too with external storage and peripherals.
Yes why in the world would the Federal Communications Commission, that normally regulates Telcos and Cable companies, think it has authority to regulate a new communication and information service they provide over the same wires and spectrum with some of the same types of content as cable and telephones.
Golly gee, that's just crazy talk!
Your sir are rude, and your circular logic is flawed. You don't want regulation and the FCC decided to let the market decide -- and you call that a failure, blaming people who are pro regulation? Seriously, what's wrong with you?
How is toothless regulation a problem for the anti-regulation crowd? Or were you just pining for a chance to call someone a statist?
Most of those who are pro Net Neutrality wanted real regulation, not toothless fluff to cater to the anti-regulation, pro-business crowd. If anything it's your pocliy positions that got us this. Toothless regulation is pretty much the same as no regulation in my mind.
No, it really just needs to be something in the middle. ISPs should not be able to discriminate based on endpoint or traffic type or protocol with the exception of E-911 and a few other specific and sensible exceptions. Spam and DDoS filtering, QoS for traffic types like VOIP that doesnt discriminate based on end point, or company. It's not really that hard. While a simple "everything should be equal based on X" rule wont work, it's equally absurd to think the law must be so complex as to impossible to craft. This fatalism from some ./ posters (not you) about the technical and legal wording being impossible is nonsense and not helpful. There is easily a middle ground here, and yes it requires some technical specifics, but it's NOT impossible
The problem is telcos are not producing content. Any plan that lets them set up as being able to charge based on the quality of content that they DONT produce, is tantamount to blessing rent seeking. They dont just hurt consumers, they hurt the whole ecosystem.
You mean regulate, right? There used to be a regulation the required telcos to sell their lines at wholesale to competitors but they removed that regulation so that telcos were as unregulated as cable companies (with regards to internet service).
The local monopolies these ISPs enjoy are not a regulation but rather a grant/partnership of various cities/towns/etc to the cable/telco operator as well as some natural monopolies due to the giants being the only ones with infrastructure. The kind of competition you are promoting is exactly what we need, but don't kid yourself that there are federal regulations that are creating these local monopolies.
Here's the difference: What are they investigating? They can't go trolling for wrong doing. They dont even imply what types of regulations or laws may have been broken.
It's "Don't be evil" and it's a tired tired joke at this point. Yes it's a silly corporate slogan and, yes, some of the stuff they do is considered evil by some people -- probably rightly so.
But I also don't believe that
-my world will be delivered by ATT
-Apple thinks differently
-UPS brown wants to know what they can do for me
-Diet Coke is just for the taste of it
-Verizon rules the air
-Mcdonalds will make me love it
-TBS is very funny
-Fox is fair and balanced
-Nike will make me just do it
-Or that Slashdot is only stuff that matters
We get it, time to move on.
Are you talking about Sarbanes -Oxley? Doesnt that apply more towards accounting records? Say Google wanted to delete its maps of the US, they wouldn't need permission for that. But if they wanted to delete expense reports they would.
I'd hazard a guess that another reason might be that those countries actually have privacy laws that could compel Google to turn over the information.
There's all kinds of things that data could show, leading to any number of possible charges against (and eventual fines collected from) Google.
Like what? Can you give some examples?
The fact that his answer was so evasive is actually very telling. If they had a good reason to be looking at the data they'd have a warrant in hand.
“There’s a range of potential opportunities for oversight and scrutiny by a member of the U.S. Congress – including letters, meetings hearings, and potentially even legislation.”
Translation: we got nothing, so we're gonna try and invent some reason to get the data.
Destroying evidence while being investigated by the FCC/FTC is usually frowned upon. But I'm glad they are declining to hand it over for what you aptly called grandstanding. Honestly I think Google has handled it the best they can given the situation. Seeing politicians exploit the situation is beginning to irk me too though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/magazine/25internet-t.html
Has really taken on new meaning these days
Ah I see, thanks. Seems the real culprit here is iframes. Sometimes I wonder if they cause more harm than good. But really i guess it's hidden iframes causing the problem? Guess I'm just wondering what's the solution here. Should iframes send a limited header with just a domain name? Should they be removed? Are they really necessary? Or should there be a minimum size that can't be covered with other content or made visible? This is a pretty clever hack I'll have to admit.
Er, answering my own question -- it seems like it's quite difficult, but not impossible, to spoof the referrer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery
Can JS make an HTTP request without sending the referrer?
Sometimes it even goes to the Supreme Court but not often, since the justices are part of the government and often defend their colleagues by simply not hearing cases.
That's about as spurious a claim as the DHS agent made. I suspect you'll get some hits with that kinda trolling though.
what is the third word on the 37 page
Petunias
Huh? How about, "ISPs are required to be net neutral with the exception of email."
Whew, that was hard. Glad we averted spam doomsday...just barely. ;)
Kidding aside, you do seem to be overacting without providing an example of how ISP spam filtering would actually get caught in the wake of a Net Neutrality bill.
You still haven't explained why being pro copyright policy is hypocritical to pro net neutrality. Just because the blogger from techdirt frames that bill as being about free speech, doesn't mean Franken thinks it is. These two policies aren't one in the same.
QoSing torrent traffic is not net neutrality.
Copyright law and Net Neutrality are not the same thing. I think he clearly came down on the wrong side of that issue, but the right side of this issue.
Net Neutrality needs supporters, if that happens to make strange bedfellows out of pro RIAA politicians, so be it.