Also what idiot keeps his software company in California?
Someone who wants to pick from among the best programmers instead of just whoever happens to live in one state. And, I hate to break it to you, even in Iowa the salary for a good programmer with some experience is closer to 100k than 65k.
The job market's bad for a lot of fields, but it's not currently bad for good programmers.
Of course, if you want to take the viewpoint that all developers are equivalent, you certainly can run your business cheaper in Iowa. Let us know how that works out for you.
Like disliking having a mosque near Ground Zero or disagreeing with the President's policies.
These things are on a spectrum.
I have people on my Facebook lists who disagree with some/most/all of the President's policies.
I also have people on my Facebook list who actually believe the President is secret Communist intent on literally transforming America into the image of Stalin's U.S.S.R., and very likely to succeed in doing so. Those people don't disagree; they're batshit fucking insane.
One of those kinds of people you can have a discussion with, and one of those kinds of people you can't.
I do! In one case, it drove my wife's crazy cousin to learn to use Facebook filters such that I don't see any of her posts anymore.
One of my personal flaws is that if someone posts something unambiguously,factually wrong, I have to correct them. I can do it politely and diplomatically, but I can't not do it. Repeatedly, if necessary.
I understand the difference between desktop and mobile platforms. Do you understand that in terms of talking about the cutting edge, mobile platforms are irrelevant? They are, by definition, several years behind the curve. It is to be expected that they lag behind the cutting edge.
So, great, Unreal Engine 3 runs on the iPhone. How many years old is that, again? It's been used in released games for at least 4 years. It makes perfect sense to use well-understood older technology for mobile platforms that have processing power more like what desktops were at years ago, but analyzing that trend doesn't say shit about where the state of the art has gone since. It is beyond irrelevant. It is at least as misguided as predicting the 2011 Super Bowl winner based on who won in 2005 would be.
There are a number of reasons why a number of one-time OpenGL die-hards like John Carmack now back DirectX -- and it's not because they love Microsoft, it's because even though they would prefer OpenGL ideologically, it has stagnated in a bad way in recent years. If you can't wrap your head around that, fine, but don't make people who can out to be the ignorant ones.
"Go into the Modding Community. Get into open source games. Do a map. Do a mod. Create a small game. Create a team or join a team and try to contribute."
Look at those and you'll see a common misconception. Creating games has little to nothing to do with most of the above save for the last two. Getting into the modding community is nice and all, but that kind of experience can lead to nothing more than an ego boost. Getting into open source game projects or small game development kits will teach them the basics, but nothing more. Doing maps is only viable if the person is into wanting to create maps and do level design only. Doing a mod in retrospect depends on the scale of the mod, but if it is just a normal mod and not something that truly creates a new game from the ground up, then it is just a dive into the internal workings of a particular game and not the elements that made the game come to be.
I always saw working on a mod, etc. as an aspiring game programmer to be sort of the equivalent of getting a good summer internship for most other jobs; it doesn't replace your education, and it doesn't exactly show that you can do the job you ultimately want, but it does teach you some things (if not everything or maybe even a lot) relevant to the job you want, it does differentiate you from twenty other people applying for the same job, and it does give you something relevant to talk about in an interview for you first real job.
But the XBox is exactly what I am talking about when I mention throwing resources at it until it is relevant. The XBox cost them loads of money until it became profitable. Nobody else could afford to be "successful" the way Microsoft is since it takes billions of dollars to prop it up until it is viable.
I don't at all disagree that Microsoft attempts that model all the time, but in the console space specifically, who has tried to enter the console market in, say, the last 20+ years and not taken a loss on that business unit for a significant time to do so?
Yes, when you deliberately break the standards and go your own way, you can consider that "done first", since everyone else is doing it the right way. ... unless it was during the several year period in which they were the only free-as-in-beer graphical web browser of consequence, in which case whatever they were doing was the real standard, and anything else claiming to be one was nerd masturbation.
Interesting. I suppose you have not noticed that Steam uses OpenGL,
I'll let someone else defend that, since my experience with Steam (generally, that it's a steaming pile of crap) is not typical and isn't even representative of a sample of people that I know.
that Left For Dead 2 just launched on Steam
It's a game essentially written to run on the XBox 360. A game written to run on hardware over five years old is not a great argument for the state of the art. That's multiple generations ago in terms of computer hardware.
and that all of those iOS games on iPhones and iPads all use OpenGL ES?
Along the same lines, a phone and its stripped-down processing power (relative to a laptop, desktop, etc.) isn't a great argument for the state of the art.
Maybe I should have been a little more clear: OpenGL fell behind DirectX badly around 2005, give or take. If you are dealing with something meant to run on hardware specs that didn't exist five years ago, OpenGL doesn't qualify as good. If you are writing for legacy processing power (which an iPhone is, even if it's a newer piece of hardware), it certainly can be good because it was, back in the day.
Oh, I'm going to karma hell, but it's true. OpenGL fell behind a long time ago and now its remedial class is trying to catch up by going slower than the normal kids.
I actually think the whole opening sequence of the movie with the two Jedi fighting their way out of the trap is pretty good.
I also think the fight between them and Darth Maul is pretty good.
That might not actually be 20 minutes but I think it's close? Not coincidentally, that's a chunk of the movie with no Anakin and no Jar-Jar.
Episode 2 would later disprove my theory that whenever someone's trying to kill someone else with a lightsaber, Star Wars is good. It takes a special directing talent to make even that boring.
Hey, let's not be revisionist about the history of Netscape. At best, that was an assisted suicide.
Having to support the many differently-broken versions of latter-day Netscape is why web developers of 10 years ago will be having 'Nam-like violent PTSD flashbacks someday. Charlie in the trees has nothing on that action.
You have to be deep, deep, deep into the Apple Kool-Aid to seriously compare Office to iWork. Its grape-tastic deliciousness is spilling from your mouth and running down your chin.
iWork is to Office as my $30 Walkman is to a 64 GB iPod Touch. Yeah, one's cheaper. There's a reason for that.
And hell, I love my $30 Walkman for what it is -- it does the job I bought it for perfectly, but let's not pretend it's something it's not.
To his credit, there are no Alanis Morissette fans really.
I was dragged to one of her shows a year or two ago by my wife, and she and her band put on a shockingly good and rock-like show, not at all what I would have expected. It was almost like watching a metal band fronted by Alanis Morissette cover the works of Alanis Morissette.
I'm a little ashamed to say it reminded me a lot of a Metallica concert, back before Metallica started sucking. AM was even headbanging to the guitar solos.
If that all sounds too surreal to be real, I can only say I would have thought the same thing.
I haven't played a lot of Civ4 but from what I understand from reading some of the Civ forums was that religion was too powerful in multiplayer. I guess people would always make a play to be the first religion founder and thereby have a serious leg up on the competition for the rest of the game.
FWIW, I'm not convinced this is necessarily true -- I could buy that having one of the earliest religions is a big help, but one of the best ways to achieve that is to let someone else do the hard work of founding a religion, and then descend on them with a bunch of axemen and take it. While they're busy trying to figure out Buddha, your people are figuring out axe, and then shortly thereafter you've got axes AND Buddha and they're out of the game.
Slashdot Mirror
Also what idiot keeps his software company in California?
Someone who wants to pick from among the best programmers instead of just whoever happens to live in one state. And, I hate to break it to you, even in Iowa the salary for a good programmer with some experience is closer to 100k than 65k.
The job market's bad for a lot of fields, but it's not currently bad for good programmers.
Of course, if you want to take the viewpoint that all developers are equivalent, you certainly can run your business cheaper in Iowa. Let us know how that works out for you.
Like disliking having a mosque near Ground Zero or disagreeing with the President's policies.
These things are on a spectrum.
I have people on my Facebook lists who disagree with some/most/all of the President's policies.
I also have people on my Facebook list who actually believe the President is secret Communist intent on literally transforming America into the image of Stalin's U.S.S.R., and very likely to succeed in doing so. Those people don't disagree; they're batshit fucking insane.
One of those kinds of people you can have a discussion with, and one of those kinds of people you can't.
Do you challenge them on these beliefs?
I do! In one case, it drove my wife's crazy cousin to learn to use Facebook filters such that I don't see any of her posts anymore.
One of my personal flaws is that if someone posts something unambiguously ,factually wrong, I have to correct them. I can do it politely and diplomatically, but I can't not do it. Repeatedly, if necessary.
No kidding -- and I can't even unfriend my wife's family without it being awkward at holidays.
Have you ever tried to use a 16:9 monitor turned sideways?
I have! Works for me. *shrug*
Turn your monitor sideways. If only all problems were this easy to solve!
I understand the difference between desktop and mobile platforms. Do you understand that in terms of talking about the cutting edge, mobile platforms are irrelevant? They are, by definition, several years behind the curve. It is to be expected that they lag behind the cutting edge.
So, great, Unreal Engine 3 runs on the iPhone. How many years old is that, again? It's been used in released games for at least 4 years. It makes perfect sense to use well-understood older technology for mobile platforms that have processing power more like what desktops were at years ago, but analyzing that trend doesn't say shit about where the state of the art has gone since. It is beyond irrelevant. It is at least as misguided as predicting the 2011 Super Bowl winner based on who won in 2005 would be.
There are a number of reasons why a number of one-time OpenGL die-hards like John Carmack now back DirectX -- and it's not because they love Microsoft, it's because even though they would prefer OpenGL ideologically, it has stagnated in a bad way in recent years. If you can't wrap your head around that, fine, but don't make people who can out to be the ignorant ones.
"Go into the Modding Community. Get into open source games. Do a map. Do a mod. Create a small game. Create a team or join a team and try to contribute."
Look at those and you'll see a common misconception. Creating games has little to nothing to do with most of the above save for the last two. Getting into the modding community is nice and all, but that kind of experience can lead to nothing more than an ego boost. Getting into open source game projects or small game development kits will teach them the basics, but nothing more. Doing maps is only viable if the person is into wanting to create maps and do level design only. Doing a mod in retrospect depends on the scale of the mod, but if it is just a normal mod and not something that truly creates a new game from the ground up, then it is just a dive into the internal workings of a particular game and not the elements that made the game come to be.
I always saw working on a mod, etc. as an aspiring game programmer to be sort of the equivalent of getting a good summer internship for most other jobs; it doesn't replace your education, and it doesn't exactly show that you can do the job you ultimately want, but it does teach you some things (if not everything or maybe even a lot) relevant to the job you want, it does differentiate you from twenty other people applying for the same job, and it does give you something relevant to talk about in an interview for you first real job.
But the XBox is exactly what I am talking about when I mention throwing resources at it until it is relevant. The XBox cost them loads of money until it became profitable. Nobody else could afford to be "successful" the way Microsoft is since it takes billions of dollars to prop it up until it is viable.
I don't at all disagree that Microsoft attempts that model all the time, but in the console space specifically, who has tried to enter the console market in, say, the last 20+ years and not taken a loss on that business unit for a significant time to do so?
Yes, when you deliberately break the standards and go your own way, you can consider that "done first", since everyone else is doing it the right way.
... unless it was during the several year period in which they were the only free-as-in-beer graphical web browser of consequence, in which case whatever they were doing was the real standard, and anything else claiming to be one was nerd masturbation.
We have to be at least a little pragmatic.
Interesting. I suppose you have not noticed that Steam uses OpenGL,
I'll let someone else defend that, since my experience with Steam (generally, that it's a steaming pile of crap) is not typical and isn't even representative of a sample of people that I know.
that Left For Dead 2 just launched on Steam
It's a game essentially written to run on the XBox 360. A game written to run on hardware over five years old is not a great argument for the state of the art. That's multiple generations ago in terms of computer hardware.
and that all of those iOS games on iPhones and iPads all use OpenGL ES?
Along the same lines, a phone and its stripped-down processing power (relative to a laptop, desktop, etc.) isn't a great argument for the state of the art.
Maybe I should have been a little more clear: OpenGL fell behind DirectX badly around 2005, give or take. If you are dealing with something meant to run on hardware specs that didn't exist five years ago, OpenGL doesn't qualify as good. If you are writing for legacy processing power (which an iPhone is, even if it's a newer piece of hardware), it certainly can be good because it was, back in the day.
You mean OpenGL?
No, I think he wanted something good.
Oh, I'm going to karma hell, but it's true. OpenGL fell behind a long time ago and now its remedial class is trying to catch up by going slower than the normal kids.
When you put it that way, it sounds like something that would run afoul of DADT.
I actually think the whole opening sequence of the movie with the two Jedi fighting their way out of the trap is pretty good.
I also think the fight between them and Darth Maul is pretty good.
That might not actually be 20 minutes but I think it's close? Not coincidentally, that's a chunk of the movie with no Anakin and no Jar-Jar.
Episode 2 would later disprove my theory that whenever someone's trying to kill someone else with a lightsaber, Star Wars is good. It takes a special directing talent to make even that boring.
True! But not a bad set of movies, that way.
Occasionally I get the urge to watch the cool parts of Episode 1. It takes about 20 minutes.
Yeah, I think bringing up Hasslehoff would have been sufficient to make the point. No need to Godwin it all up.
Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then
Sure, but what's the alternative?
Oracle actually is the malevolent cartoon devil that people here will make Microsoft/Apple/Google/whatever out to be depending on what day it is.
And that's different from what was already happening, how? :)
(and had to bludgeon Netscape to death to win),
Hey, let's not be revisionist about the history of Netscape. At best, that was an assisted suicide.
Having to support the many differently-broken versions of latter-day Netscape is why web developers of 10 years ago will be having 'Nam-like violent PTSD flashbacks someday. Charlie in the trees has nothing on that action.
You have to be deep, deep, deep into the Apple Kool-Aid to seriously compare Office to iWork. Its grape-tastic deliciousness is spilling from your mouth and running down your chin.
iWork is to Office as my $30 Walkman is to a 64 GB iPod Touch. Yeah, one's cheaper. There's a reason for that.
And hell, I love my $30 Walkman for what it is -- it does the job I bought it for perfectly, but let's not pretend it's something it's not.
She actually enjoyed it, even though she hates metal. Go figure.
To his credit, there are no Alanis Morissette fans really.
I was dragged to one of her shows a year or two ago by my wife, and she and her band put on a shockingly good and rock-like show, not at all what I would have expected. It was almost like watching a metal band fronted by Alanis Morissette cover the works of Alanis Morissette.
I'm a little ashamed to say it reminded me a lot of a Metallica concert, back before Metallica started sucking. AM was even headbanging to the guitar solos.
If that all sounds too surreal to be real, I can only say I would have thought the same thing.
There was rain on my wedding day, you insensitive clod!
Please look up the definition of irony before posting anything with that particular word in it.
(This especially includes all Sheryl Crow fans)
Ironically, you probably meant Alanis Morissette.
I haven't played a lot of Civ4 but from what I understand from reading some of the Civ forums was that religion was too powerful in multiplayer. I guess people would always make a play to be the first religion founder and thereby have a serious leg up on the competition for the rest of the game.
FWIW, I'm not convinced this is necessarily true -- I could buy that having one of the earliest religions is a big help, but one of the best ways to achieve that is to let someone else do the hard work of founding a religion, and then descend on them with a bunch of axemen and take it. While they're busy trying to figure out Buddha, your people are figuring out axe, and then shortly thereafter you've got axes AND Buddha and they're out of the game.