Name one case....exactly. And saying that Visual Studio is the "Best IDE" is really a large jump, Most widely used, yes, but the best? Hardly.
Obviously, "best IDE" is always going to be extremely subjective. Keep that in mind reading everything that follows.
But, since you asked (not that I'm the OP), yes, to my tastes, for the kind of work I do, VS is the best IDE. I'm not going to bash XCode in saying that, but I'm a professional developer and it is my opinion. I don't want to spend time dicking around with my IDE changing a pile of settings or installing half a dozen Eclipse plug-ins or what have you before I'm ready to just get some work done, and while VS isn't the only IDE that provides that, I would say it does provide that.
I don't know how you got over onto VSS, though, and I haven't actually met anyone using VSS within the last five years. Although, since you bring it up, there's another example -- SVN is a lot more stable than VSS (to be fair, development / new versions of VSS beyond the minimum necessary to work with new versions of VS ceased several years ago), but it's ridiculously less user friendly.
I mean, sure something like Office is an evolution of other productivity software that came before it, but you're kidding yourself if you think Apple (to use your example) is creating things that aren't similar evolutionary steps or improvements over previous products.
That being said, I think the outsourcing fever has largely run its course in development. More managers have come to learn the hard way that some development can be smart to outsource, but it's a lot less than the "nearly everything" than they thought five years ago.
reading about hobbits camping is far more interesting than a film of them camping.
I have to respectfully disagree.
I started Fellowship so many times before I successfully finished it -- and I like fantasy and I like reading. I kept trying on and off over about 20 years until I eventually managed because I'd always heard how great it is, but what a struggle. Even the Bible drags less. (For the record, so do Two Towers and Return of the King.)
I have a ton of respect for Tolkien as a world-builder and for essentially being the father of modern fantasy, but I just can't agree that hobbits jerking off in the woods is more painful, boring, or slow in the movies than in the books.
exactly, when a company/organization performs poorly they should fail. the post-office will never fail because they will be propped up by your and my tax dollars, perpetually no mater how poorly (or good) they are run.
No offense intended, but that's only a nice idea in this case as long as you don't think very hard about the problem.
It's beneficial to America, overall, if you can send mail anywhere in the country for a reasonable rate. This makes all kinds of business possible that wouldn't be otherwise.
It's not always economically viable to do that and serve the whole country. There's a reason that even a FedEx has a service like SmartPost that uses the USPS for final delivery.
A private company / capitalism is a good way, perhaps even the best way, to efficiently do X and make a profit. It falls down when doing X isn't profitable at all, or if you don't want the profitability/efficiency of X to be the primary concern, such as in health care, yet, for whatever reason, it benefits society to have X done anyway. It's not wholly unlike some kind of inverse version of the Tragedy of the Commons.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have patents expire after the research costs have been recovered?
What if I put money into researching 100 different ideas, but only one of them is a "winner"? If I can recover my research costs for all of them, probably we've got "Hollywood accounting" problems. If I can only recover my research costs for the one, probably it's not worth my money to invest in research.
I think the problem with the patent system in general is that it ends up having to try to straddle similar lines (and fails). It's ultimately good for everyone if research and innovation are financially encouraged, but a flawed patent system can also stifle innovation.
I liked the BGs; I like Mass Effect more. (I don't love its combat system, but BG's was the weak point of those games for me, too.) I say this as someone who was an old-school FR/D&D gamer and who generally doesn't care for the kind of Sci-Fi that ME's setting/story is.
They're all good games and what appeals to you more is largely, I think, a matter of personal taste.
I eagerly agreed and walked out of the store with my new machine and my faith in Apple restored.
Honest question: is this statement sarcastic?
Because I think I'd have a lot more faith (or at least some) in Apple if you didn't have to escalate to management and argue them down about it, after buying a ludicrously expensive warranty.
I guardsmen you that if WINE had 100% compatibility with no slowdowns you could stick a Windows XP theme on Ubuntu with WINE set to open up all.exe files, install some of the software the person was used to running and they wouldn't know the difference.
Sure. And when that happens, maybe the OS doesn't matter anymore.
If the Microsoft store concept, when fully realized, ends up mimicing the Apple store concept as much as some of the preliminary stuff makes it seem, I have to think that's going to end in failure. Yeah, you can push the 'cool factor' of things like the XBox, but Microsoft just doesn't have (and I don't think will ever have in the foreseeable future) the kind of cult-mindset cool factor that Apple has. I know guys who work retail in Apple stores and essentially are taking a huge pay cut from any number of other retail jobs to do it, mainly because they buy into the whole Apple = cool thing. (Note: I don't claim all of my friends are smart.) Microsoft just isn't going to get that kind of thing going.
But trying to move in a direction of personalization and customization, there maybe they could have something. Yeah, a Windows PC isn't customized in terms of setup or apps or hardware from the perspective of the kind of techie who builds their own machine from parts downloads their own distros, but compared to the (relatively) "one size fits all and you better like it because it's cool" Apple computer mentality, it really can be.
Requirements are usually flexible, especially when hiring a Computer Scientist.
If you're dealing strictly with technical people, this can be true.
My experience says, unless you know someone at the company personally, your resume will almost always need to make it past non-technical human resources personnel first -- and HR is usually not flexible about requirements.
I've written code in Emacs in the past and probably if the occasion calls for it I will again, but that doesn't mean I don't want to use a good IDE when I can. I also use a hammer to pound nails in when I'm working on a home improvement project even though I've discovered that, in a pinch, I can pound them in with a shoe.
Writing code with simpler tools that require either more time or more esoteric knowledge to do the same job does not make your coding penis bigger.
Someone explain this to me, because I feel like I have to be missing something.
This is an RTS, based on a mod for an RTS? What does that mean?
In other words, reading the article and knowing only a little about DotA, I think: Game in the same genre as Warcraft 3, based on a Warcraft 3 mod... won't that just basically be like Warcraft 3? I don't follow how a DotA RTS is distinct from that.
There I disagree a little -- in a lot of ways, the latter two books are all about the fallout from what happens at the end of Neuromancer. Neuromancer is the cause and the latter books are about the effect.
Probably, they'll do it the same way they can with Starcraft 1.
You can play a map you created on Battle.net without having to do some kind of mass release of it. The other people in the game download it automatically from the game creator.
Maybe that's what this is, too? Good press for them, while at the same time, they're doing more to undermine web standards with things like Silverlight than they have ever done to support them?
When did Flash become a web standard?
If it is one, what's so bad about competition forcing it to become better or die? Doing Flash programming used to be about as much fun as repeatedly slamming your junk in a car door. Now it's getting better from that perspective and I don't doubt that competition looming from Silverlight is some of why.
My anecdotal experience is pretty different than yours.
Almost everyone I've talked to about the Office 07 interface hated it at first, but all of them admitted it was, overall, actually a lot better after using it for a day or two.
It's not what people were used to in an office app menu, but it's not necessarily bad. (Although the location of printing and saving is a bit counter-intuitive, I don't disagree there.)
Slashdot Mirror
Name one case....exactly. And saying that Visual Studio is the "Best IDE" is really a large jump, Most widely used, yes, but the best? Hardly.
Obviously, "best IDE" is always going to be extremely subjective. Keep that in mind reading everything that follows.
But, since you asked (not that I'm the OP), yes, to my tastes, for the kind of work I do, VS is the best IDE. I'm not going to bash XCode in saying that, but I'm a professional developer and it is my opinion. I don't want to spend time dicking around with my IDE changing a pile of settings or installing half a dozen Eclipse plug-ins or what have you before I'm ready to just get some work done, and while VS isn't the only IDE that provides that, I would say it does provide that.
I don't know how you got over onto VSS, though, and I haven't actually met anyone using VSS within the last five years. Although, since you bring it up, there's another example -- SVN is a lot more stable than VSS (to be fair, development / new versions of VSS beyond the minimum necessary to work with new versions of VS ceased several years ago), but it's ridiculously less user friendly.
If you'd said this:
All software work is derivative.
I'd probably agree.
I mean, sure something like Office is an evolution of other productivity software that came before it, but you're kidding yourself if you think Apple (to use your example) is creating things that aren't similar evolutionary steps or improvements over previous products.
As a developer, I've often thought the inverse.
That being said, I think the outsourcing fever has largely run its course in development. More managers have come to learn the hard way that some development can be smart to outsource, but it's a lot less than the "nearly everything" than they thought five years ago.
reading about hobbits camping is far more interesting than a film of them camping.
I have to respectfully disagree.
I started Fellowship so many times before I successfully finished it -- and I like fantasy and I like reading. I kept trying on and off over about 20 years until I eventually managed because I'd always heard how great it is, but what a struggle. Even the Bible drags less. (For the record, so do Two Towers and Return of the King.)
I have a ton of respect for Tolkien as a world-builder and for essentially being the father of modern fantasy, but I just can't agree that hobbits jerking off in the woods is more painful, boring, or slow in the movies than in the books.
exactly, when a company/organization performs poorly they should fail. the post-office will never fail because they will be propped up by your and my tax dollars, perpetually no mater how poorly (or good) they are run.
No offense intended, but that's only a nice idea in this case as long as you don't think very hard about the problem.
It's beneficial to America, overall, if you can send mail anywhere in the country for a reasonable rate. This makes all kinds of business possible that wouldn't be otherwise.
It's not always economically viable to do that and serve the whole country. There's a reason that even a FedEx has a service like SmartPost that uses the USPS for final delivery.
A private company / capitalism is a good way, perhaps even the best way, to efficiently do X and make a profit. It falls down when doing X isn't profitable at all, or if you don't want the profitability/efficiency of X to be the primary concern, such as in health care, yet, for whatever reason, it benefits society to have X done anyway. It's not wholly unlike some kind of inverse version of the Tragedy of the Commons.
The genius of what they did is that they made DDR for fat or lazy people.
Unsurprisingly, a DDR-like game where you're required to get much less exercise is much more popular in America.
(Yes, there are other reasons for that, too -- but that one's the funniest.)
Wouldn't it make more sense to have patents expire after the research costs have been recovered?
What if I put money into researching 100 different ideas, but only one of them is a "winner"? If I can recover my research costs for all of them, probably we've got "Hollywood accounting" problems. If I can only recover my research costs for the one, probably it's not worth my money to invest in research.
I think the problem with the patent system in general is that it ends up having to try to straddle similar lines (and fails). It's ultimately good for everyone if research and innovation are financially encouraged, but a flawed patent system can also stifle innovation.
I liked the BGs; I like Mass Effect more. (I don't love its combat system, but BG's was the weak point of those games for me, too.) I say this as someone who was an old-school FR/D&D gamer and who generally doesn't care for the kind of Sci-Fi that ME's setting/story is.
They're all good games and what appeals to you more is largely, I think, a matter of personal taste.
You're entitled to your opinion, but clearly a lot of people don't share it.
I eagerly agreed and walked out of the store with my new machine and my faith in Apple restored.
Honest question: is this statement sarcastic?
Because I think I'd have a lot more faith (or at least some) in Apple if you didn't have to escalate to management and argue them down about it, after buying a ludicrously expensive warranty.
I'm not sure that you were trying to sell me on mass promiscuity and totalitarianism, but you've succeeded!
I guardsmen you that if WINE had 100% compatibility with no slowdowns you could stick a Windows XP theme on Ubuntu with WINE set to open up all .exe files, install some of the software the person was used to running and they wouldn't know the difference.
Sure. And when that happens, maybe the OS doesn't matter anymore.
But the point is, that's not today.
I think this is spot on.
If the Microsoft store concept, when fully realized, ends up mimicing the Apple store concept as much as some of the preliminary stuff makes it seem, I have to think that's going to end in failure. Yeah, you can push the 'cool factor' of things like the XBox, but Microsoft just doesn't have (and I don't think will ever have in the foreseeable future) the kind of cult-mindset cool factor that Apple has. I know guys who work retail in Apple stores and essentially are taking a huge pay cut from any number of other retail jobs to do it, mainly because they buy into the whole Apple = cool thing. (Note: I don't claim all of my friends are smart.) Microsoft just isn't going to get that kind of thing going.
But trying to move in a direction of personalization and customization, there maybe they could have something. Yeah, a Windows PC isn't customized in terms of setup or apps or hardware from the perspective of the kind of techie who builds their own machine from parts downloads their own distros, but compared to the (relatively) "one size fits all and you better like it because it's cool" Apple computer mentality, it really can be.
its impossible to see the MS store as a pathetic attempt to stay relevant in an era where the OS doesn't matter.
Are you from the future? Because today, the OS sure as hell still matters.
I too will stick to my nice, PRINTED books, thank you very much!
Sure you will... until the firemen show up to BURN them!
Er... we're still on the dystopian fiction kick from the article summary, right?
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think a good IDE is [b]immensely[/b] helpful with that.
Requirements are usually flexible, especially when hiring a Computer Scientist.
If you're dealing strictly with technical people, this can be true.
My experience says, unless you know someone at the company personally, your resume will almost always need to make it past non-technical human resources personnel first -- and HR is usually not flexible about requirements.
I take it you've never worked on a project with millions of lines of code that you didn't write?
Because those kinds of things have been a lot of my career.
Sorry, no.
I've written code in Emacs in the past and probably if the occasion calls for it I will again, but that doesn't mean I don't want to use a good IDE when I can. I also use a hammer to pound nails in when I'm working on a home improvement project even though I've discovered that, in a pinch, I can pound them in with a shoe.
Writing code with simpler tools that require either more time or more esoteric knowledge to do the same job does not make your coding penis bigger.
Someone explain this to me, because I feel like I have to be missing something.
This is an RTS, based on a mod for an RTS? What does that mean?
In other words, reading the article and knowing only a little about DotA, I think: Game in the same genre as Warcraft 3, based on a Warcraft 3 mod... won't that just basically be like Warcraft 3? I don't follow how a DotA RTS is distinct from that.
There I disagree a little -- in a lot of ways, the latter two books are all about the fallout from what happens at the end of Neuromancer. Neuromancer is the cause and the latter books are about the effect.
They don't reference it directly a lot, true.
For every person who feels as you do, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of people who are going to just buy the game.
Probably, they'll do it the same way they can with Starcraft 1.
You can play a map you created on Battle.net without having to do some kind of mass release of it. The other people in the game download it automatically from the game creator.
Maybe that's what this is, too? Good press for them, while at the same time, they're doing more to undermine web standards with things like Silverlight than they have ever done to support them?
When did Flash become a web standard?
If it is one, what's so bad about competition forcing it to become better or die? Doing Flash programming used to be about as much fun as repeatedly slamming your junk in a car door. Now it's getting better from that perspective and I don't doubt that competition looming from Silverlight is some of why.
My anecdotal experience is pretty different than yours.
Almost everyone I've talked to about the Office 07 interface hated it at first, but all of them admitted it was, overall, actually a lot better after using it for a day or two.
It's not what people were used to in an office app menu, but it's not necessarily bad. (Although the location of printing and saving is a bit counter-intuitive, I don't disagree there.)