How does it play into your point that you've now been modded up? Bitching isn't usually a good way to get upmodded. Maybe there are Other Forces At Work? Like people having an actual opinion?
Moore's Law 1) isn't about speed in particular and 2) may or may not hold for much longer. It was only predicted to last 10-20 years, and that was almost 50 years ago. We have about 5 halvings to go before we've saturated silicon at the atomic level, and although there are other techniques for preserving the growth curve, we're far enough away from Grand Computing Goals that it would seem likely we're going to see a dramatic slowing in the growth of computer power per dollar spent in the reasonably near future.
It's definitely well past time that anyone who wants to work in IT start concerning themselves with scalable solutions. Relying on morebetterfastercheaper hardware stopped being wise about the same time processor clock speeds stopped rising, which was several years ago.
Herb Sutter once observed in relation to C++0x that when it comes to complex, interesting questions of language design, very few people are even vaguely qualified to comment, and when it comes to issues of whitespace every idiot on the planet has an opinion. And when those idiots get the chance, they'll post those issues as news on an aggregator of some sort (ok, that last part wasn't Herb Sutter).
What did they do, exactly? They bombed a country, maybe? Killed some orphans?
No. They outcompeted their competitors based on merit - Linux being a total joke at the time for anyone who didn't want to send out their home or work computer for a week and didn't have a kernel programmer on hand to fix things when they went pear-shaped, Apple being in utter disarry, Commodore, Be and Atari in the process of failing quietly for reasons that had nothing to do with Microsoft - and in the process they overstepped some ethical lines, which nobody's contesting. But they didn't cause anyone's stuff to stop working in ways that killed anyone. The very commonality of their products made it possible to build a working commercial ecosystem, which is how we all got nice shiny new computers that do all kinds of cool things that are (on the back end) unimaginably complex based on a couple of simple clicks. They built a stable, relatively secure core (NT) for business and a friendly, futz-ish front end for the home (95 et al) and then eventually they brought those worlds together.
What exactly are you proving there? That Windows has built-in lock-in and competes (sometimes unfairly) with other vendors? I would suggest that you try working in a large company for a while and see how difficult that world is, how impossible the challenge of providing a common infrastructure without the kind of high-class vendor support Microsoft products come with, before you call up a couple of half-assed examples that are provably wrong about why people use MS. People use MS because they know it has a huge weight of support behind and in front of it. BeOS replacing Windows was NEVER a real possibility for anyone with systems more complex than a couple of connected workstations. The Windows API has been over as a concern for ten years, yet people still use Windows.
What entire industry has Microsoft hindered, exactly? The IT industry, where they've delivered software and service as a package deal at a level that has made them ubiquitous based on their merits? The software development industry that uses COM and descendants (and DDE before it, even) to implement technologies in self-organizing ways that are occasionally just shy of magical? The tech industry in general, where Microsoft has often driven innovation through both positive (advanced APIs to cover difficult low-level details without smothering the gains they provide) and negative (favouring features over raw performance) drivers?
Open Source is not an industry. It's an approach to a problem. Microsoft has hindered open source, there's very little doubt about that, but it's far from the only effect they've had on software development.
Notes: Subject is playing WoW. Of course he's playing WoW. He's been playing WoW since I started this fucking log. What the hell is the point of stalking someone who never leaves their computer except to pee and/or restock their Cheetos supply? It's like *I'm* the pathetic wastrel here. Oh god. Have I become a pathetic wastrel? Stalker's log out!
You might think that, but try supporting a massive suite of web applications that all have their own browser ticks, all of which were critical for something just shy of a minute, but which are maintained because retiring one would cause one guy (who always, somehow, happens to have the necessary clout) to die of unproductivity. Until you've lived in that situation for years on end it is wise to withhold judgement.
Corporate users largely work on intranets, and intranets are largely supported by guys who don't have the resources a professional development team has. So corporations buy large make-your-own-adventure web-ish packages like Sharepoint, and suddenly they're locked into IE for another cycle, and the whole ugly repeats itself. It's genuinely difficult to not get locked into somebody's product stack, and Microsoft's is, on the whole, no worse than anybody else's.
Didn't the last decade contain Google's entire rise to dominance? The "start page to the internet" and all that? How exactly does Apple's crappy e-store compare with that achievement, exactly?
One has to think that the results of the poll are about flash rather than true impact.
Except that currently EA does release recycled and non-innovative games that contain bugs.
You're cherry picking theoretical software. EA releases plenty of software to a very wide audience with a very low critical failure proportion. Lots of companies execute less well than EA, and you can bet that most of the ones that innovate do worse than EA at keeping buggy behaviour in check.
Those companies that release something that works AND is innovative will sell more than those that just release something that works.
Wouldn't that create incentive to innovate?
It would create an innovation gradient. The overall incentive to innovate would still be lowered
Additionally, I firmly believe that innovative people will innovate regardless of financial risk. This goes for patents too.
You might believe that, and you might be very wrong about that, and if you are I might be very pissed off with you when you turn out to be wrong.
The downside of doing this to game companies is that when you raise the financial risk involved you stifle providers' ability to innovate. You personally might prefer software that works to software that does something interesting, but I don't think everyone holds that opinion. It is far more important to me that a game do something really interesting than that it work perfectly in every configuration, even my own.
That's not correct. A motorcycle parked on the same street wouldn't put the street in a state of severe magnetic flux which would interfere with your car's starter, while an application could in fact put your computer in the analagous state. Not to say there shouldn't be a refund available in that case, of course - most consumer goods are returnable on general principle. The software argument is entirely different, and has nothing to do with reason for return..
Slashdot Mirror
How does it play into your point that you've now been modded up? Bitching isn't usually a good way to get upmodded. Maybe there are Other Forces At Work? Like people having an actual opinion?
Moore's Law 1) isn't about speed in particular and 2) may or may not hold for much longer. It was only predicted to last 10-20 years, and that was almost 50 years ago. We have about 5 halvings to go before we've saturated silicon at the atomic level, and although there are other techniques for preserving the growth curve, we're far enough away from Grand Computing Goals that it would seem likely we're going to see a dramatic slowing in the growth of computer power per dollar spent in the reasonably near future.
It's definitely well past time that anyone who wants to work in IT start concerning themselves with scalable solutions. Relying on morebetterfastercheaper hardware stopped being wise about the same time processor clock speeds stopped rising, which was several years ago.
Herb Sutter once observed in relation to C++0x that when it comes to complex, interesting questions of language design, very few people are even vaguely qualified to comment, and when it comes to issues of whitespace every idiot on the planet has an opinion. And when those idiots get the chance, they'll post those issues as news on an aggregator of some sort (ok, that last part wasn't Herb Sutter).
Speculative Fiction: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and various other kinds of speculation-rooted fiction.
Science Fiction: one of the genres named above.
What did they do, exactly? They bombed a country, maybe? Killed some orphans?
No. They outcompeted their competitors based on merit - Linux being a total joke at the time for anyone who didn't want to send out their home or work computer for a week and didn't have a kernel programmer on hand to fix things when they went pear-shaped, Apple being in utter disarry, Commodore, Be and Atari in the process of failing quietly for reasons that had nothing to do with Microsoft - and in the process they overstepped some ethical lines, which nobody's contesting. But they didn't cause anyone's stuff to stop working in ways that killed anyone. The very commonality of their products made it possible to build a working commercial ecosystem, which is how we all got nice shiny new computers that do all kinds of cool things that are (on the back end) unimaginably complex based on a couple of simple clicks. They built a stable, relatively secure core (NT) for business and a friendly, futz-ish front end for the home (95 et al) and then eventually they brought those worlds together.
Despicable? Seriously, buy yourself a dictionary.
Way to not make a point. I promise I'll go back to the office as long as you promise to get back under your rock and keep your beard to yourself?
What exactly are you proving there? That Windows has built-in lock-in and competes (sometimes unfairly) with other vendors? I would suggest that you try working in a large company for a while and see how difficult that world is, how impossible the challenge of providing a common infrastructure without the kind of high-class vendor support Microsoft products come with, before you call up a couple of half-assed examples that are provably wrong about why people use MS. People use MS because they know it has a huge weight of support behind and in front of it. BeOS replacing Windows was NEVER a real possibility for anyone with systems more complex than a couple of connected workstations. The Windows API has been over as a concern for ten years, yet people still use Windows.
What entire industry has Microsoft hindered, exactly? The IT industry, where they've delivered software and service as a package deal at a level that has made them ubiquitous based on their merits? The software development industry that uses COM and descendants (and DDE before it, even) to implement technologies in self-organizing ways that are occasionally just shy of magical? The tech industry in general, where Microsoft has often driven innovation through both positive (advanced APIs to cover difficult low-level details without smothering the gains they provide) and negative (favouring features over raw performance) drivers?
Open Source is not an industry. It's an approach to a problem. Microsoft has hindered open source, there's very little doubt about that, but it's far from the only effect they've had on software development.
Maybe a truck full of soda cans full of MicroSD cards?
Notes: Subject is playing WoW. Of course he's playing WoW. He's been playing WoW since I started this fucking log. What the hell is the point of stalking someone who never leaves their computer except to pee and/or restock their Cheetos supply? It's like *I'm* the pathetic wastrel here. Oh god. Have I become a pathetic wastrel? Stalker's log out!
I would be delighted, if we had any likelihood of upgrading our SP installation anytime soon. Thanks for the talking point, at least.
You might think that, but try supporting a massive suite of web applications that all have their own browser ticks, all of which were critical for something just shy of a minute, but which are maintained because retiring one would cause one guy (who always, somehow, happens to have the necessary clout) to die of unproductivity. Until you've lived in that situation for years on end it is wise to withhold judgement.
Corporate users largely work on intranets, and intranets are largely supported by guys who don't have the resources a professional development team has. So corporations buy large make-your-own-adventure web-ish packages like Sharepoint, and suddenly they're locked into IE for another cycle, and the whole ugly repeats itself. It's genuinely difficult to not get locked into somebody's product stack, and Microsoft's is, on the whole, no worse than anybody else's.
That's why *I* only use Catholic(TM) brand Holy Smokes(TM) Chicken & Rib BBQ!
Call me when you can bill those hours spent in bed.
Didn't the last decade contain Google's entire rise to dominance? The "start page to the internet" and all that? How exactly does Apple's crappy e-store compare with that achievement, exactly? One has to think that the results of the poll are about flash rather than true impact.
Probably games. God knows they seem to stop working on the damn things as soon as the first blush of cash crosses the table.
One has to wonder how one differentiates an unhealthy user from an unfortunate one.
Except that currently EA does release recycled and non-innovative games that contain bugs.
You're cherry picking theoretical software. EA releases plenty of software to a very wide audience with a very low critical failure proportion. Lots of companies execute less well than EA, and you can bet that most of the ones that innovate do worse than EA at keeping buggy behaviour in check.
Those companies that release something that works AND is innovative will sell more than those that just release something that works. Wouldn't that create incentive to innovate?
It would create an innovation gradient. The overall incentive to innovate would still be lowered
Additionally, I firmly believe that innovative people will innovate regardless of financial risk. This goes for patents too.
You might believe that, and you might be very wrong about that, and if you are I might be very pissed off with you when you turn out to be wrong.
The downside of doing this to game companies is that when you raise the financial risk involved you stifle providers' ability to innovate. You personally might prefer software that works to software that does something interesting, but I don't think everyone holds that opinion. It is far more important to me that a game do something really interesting than that it work perfectly in every configuration, even my own.
That's not correct. A motorcycle parked on the same street wouldn't put the street in a state of severe magnetic flux which would interfere with your car's starter, while an application could in fact put your computer in the analagous state. Not to say there shouldn't be a refund available in that case, of course - most consumer goods are returnable on general principle. The software argument is entirely different, and has nothing to do with reason for return..
And by "humans" you mean "ladies"?
There's a difference between skepticism and uninformed judgement with a preexisting bias.
Clearly this is the case. Men haven't been able to win domestic arguments since clubbing and dragging was considered a valid way to conduct discourse.
And then presumably store it in a noble gas atmosphere...