If you design a game that, like most of today's MMORPGS, is based in level grinding and the achiever mindset, then, yes, a character lifespan is a terrible idea. It doesn't play to that mindset. It doesn't attract that kind of player.
However, I maintain that there are variants on that theme, alternate types of games that appeal to slightly different kinds of players, that would (and do!) make excellent use of such an idea.
I don't have much to add to the excellent posts I've seen already, but I'll chip in with my own two cents on my experience. I had Lasik done in September '01.
Simply, the surgery itself was not painful, but it was one of the flat-out freakiest experiences of my life. That said, I wish I had it done sooner.
I wore glasses for ~18 years -- never was able to do contacts. My blink reflex is freakishly good; I've frequently had eye doctors cursing at me trying to get eyedrops in, much less contacts. Going from all that time wearing thick-ass glasses to nothing was amazing.
Recovery wasn't bad. I had halos at night for maybe a month and haven't since. No other undesired side effects. I had to walk myself home after the surgery and that wasn't a problem -- I was photosensitive, but in shades I could see plenty well enough to navigate even immediately afterwards.
You end up taking joy in stupid little things. Swimming, for example. I'd never invested in prescription goggles, so anytime I was swimming I was just about blind. I'd swim into people, boats, side of the pool, etc. because I just couldn't see that shit in time to stop. It's sad in some way that I was fascinated for weeks just to be able to see the cruddy crap at the bottom of a pool, but there it is.
There are risks, of course, and I can't say I didn't spend some time making peace with the idea of what I'd have to do if I ended up blind. I spent considerably more time doing research and finding a good surgeon. This is not something you want to cut corners on. Cheaper is not necessarily better.
It's worth doing because the freedom of being able to see clearly unassisted is an amazing thing. Additionally, especially you can't or don't want to do contacts, people see you amazingly differently without glasses. That's superficial, of course, but, there it is.
Sure, Linux distros and similar large software downloads is something you can point out as a legitimate use of p2p to sell the idea... to geeks. You don't need to sell p2p's legitimacy to geeks, though. That's preaching to the choir. You need to sell it to legislators. For that purpose, saying "Here, it helps the government do something it needs to do cheaper, easier, and better!" might be effective in ways that the software distribution example never could be.
That doesn't necessarily mean anything, other than (if accurate) the fact that new people are picking up Java at a greater rate than people who already knew Java are dying. Once a Java developer always a Java developer, no?
I mean, I like Java. I'm certified by Sun as a Java developer. I'm probably counted in any number of Java developers statistic you care to name.
That said, it's been over two years since I've been offered any Java work. I know there are still projects out there being built on Java technology -- friends of mine work on them -- but it seems like the percentage of projects using Java is less than 2-3 years ago.
Obviously, if you're starting up an open source project or working on something on your own, you can use whatever language you want. But if (note, I'm not saying this is a foregone conclusion) project managers and companies stop wanting Java to be used for their projects, the language will become less relevant, number of Java developers or no.
It's past time to roll tanks into Canada and officially make it the 51st state. We might not be able to pull that on China or India, but damn it, invading Canada is just convienient enough to be worth the trouble.
You're welcome to make up your own mind and do it whatever way you like, but if you think that makes your choice the standard, you might need a dictionary.
What about MS total control of the standard? What good will the standard be if the company that owns 95% of the desktop starts shipping a.Net that deviates from the standard?
I should think the answer to that would be obvious: In any industry, if a company with 95% market share decides they're going to do something a certain way, whatever they've decided? That's the standard now.
A standards committee can go a different direction if they like, but it's akin to that guy in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I think, it's been a while since I read it) who decides that only he is sane and he needs to wall the rest of the universe into an asylum.
At the risk of turning this political, I think we can agree that heterosexuality is pretty much the "standard" human mating behavior, and the last time I saw numbers on it, even that didn't have a 95% "market share." Technology shouldn't be much different. (cue jokes.) Whether you like Microsoft or hate them, the way they do things, even when they're retarded, becomes the standard.
Try surfing at -1../ mods are typically pro open-source.
Well, sure. But if someone's looking for a serious discussion, shouldn't "but the trolls that are always modded down do it!" not be much of an excuse for acting infantile?
The brilliance of Slashdot, such as it is, is that while you always have the choice to read everything, the will of the community decides what most of the community will read. You're not forced to go along with their opinions, but if you do (i.e., browse at a 0 threshold or higher), it provides the convienience of weeding a lot of crap for you.
As a community, Slashdot is generally saying, among other things: We disfavor people posting anti-OSS trolls, and people trying to race to get the first post for no reason. I don't see why we can't as a community also say: Picking apart genuine flaws in MS business practices and products in an intelligent way is cool, but posting "M$ is lamerz!!!" is retarded* and generally not worth our time.
You are rather new here.
I've only bothered with a login for around 9 months, but I've been reading Slashdot for around 4 years. It's not as bad as all that.
* (I've done volunteer work with mentally retarded children in the past, and this statement is not really fair to them.)
Disclaimer: My post is about the "let me make name changes I think are clever and funny" trend and not the parent poster.
As opposed to people massively using names like "Lunix" or "open sores"?
I've... never seen anything like that used here on Slashdot. Not ever.
That's not saying it hasn't been, but it's sure a hell of a lot less common.
As long as those MS zealots don't disappear, expect names like "M$".
Wouldn't you rather be the bigger person?
Personally, I'd rather have intelligent discussion about the strong and weak points of various OS/software/languages/etc. here than stupid name calling. Maybe it's just my own prejudices, but when I see a post with that kind of crap, I assume I'm as likely to get reasonable discourse out of the post as I am to get a fair and balanced opinion about non-Causasians from a member of the KKK. I skip to the next post.
(I also assume the poster lives in their parents' basement and has never touched a real girl, but I keep that to myself. That'd be unfair and non-constructive name-calling, too.)
I mean for take a look at Christopher Pike or any other of those "turn out a book every week" teen mystery novel series.
I certainly won't defend any of the series you're talking about, but Christopher Pike wrote at least one serious novel for adults, "Sati". It's a really good book and will probably make you think a little -- much better than you'd expect from someone who churned out trashy teen novels.
My local 7-11 is ways better, so your "grander scale" description is also BS.
I've never seen a 7-11 that had more than 2/3 of what I saw in the fridges in the Redmond campus. Your mileage may vary.
The food was okay, but to say that it "blew away any cafeteria" is simply ridiculous -- that is, unless you live on snails out in the woods or something.
You'll notice I didn't say it blows away every restaurant, because it doesn't. Every college/corporate cafeteria or similar eatery I've seen? Absolutely.
I mean, come off it. Get out of your bedroom more often and see the real world out there. Or maybe save up some money and take a trip to the city some day...
I've lived and worked in three major cities. I've certainly visited others. I'm not a world traveller, but certainly beyond your asinine accusations.
And it looks like you missed it: the point of all their free drinks and the food court theme is to keep you THERE and WORKING, as much as possible. No need to go out for lunch (even if a brief change of scenery would be refreshing), nor even a stroll to the corner 7-11 for a soda or Starbucks for a coffee.
No, I quite got that. Point is, it's something Microsoft does right that the vast majority of companies that employ programmers do wrong. Yes, it absolutely is in a company's best economic interest if I just grab a handy soda and go back to work without losing my train of thought, rather than walk or drive to get one. They make up the $0.50 for the soda in my greater than $0.50 value of productivity. I wouldn't be disallowed the choice to go out for a drink or for lunch if I wanted -- but I have that choice, I don't have to if I don't want to.
All things being equal, why would you not rather work for a company that makes smart, rather than dumb, choices in managing you and your work environment?
I can believe it. The working conditions for developers at Microsoft are incredibly beyond anything I've personally seen at a company of any size elsewhere.
I did an interview there back when I was in college. Mind you, I didn't like a one of the people on the team I'd have been working with, but beyond that I was just blown away. Developers in large, comfortable, well-furnished (and, importantly, to their wishes rather than a corporate mold) offices rather than cube farms. Employee cafeterias which blew away any cafeteria or buffet-like restaurant I've ever seen.
For me, the really painful thing to pass up was the free beverage package. Sure, some of the places I've worked have had something like that. The words don't really describe Microsoft's setup. Imagine a huge wall of soda fridges like you'd see at most gas stations, except on a grander scale -- imagine they have every brand or flavor you've ever heard of, including some you were previously pretty sure they didn't make anymore. Imagine there's one or two of those on every floor on every building.
You can say a lot about Microsoft's business strategy, ethics, products, etc. But as far as working environment goes, it's hard to beat. They mean to provide an environment that no competitor (as in for hiring their developers away, not as in for the marketplace) can match. I can believe the high price tag.
Try to explain (especially to an HR person) during an interview why you haven't been working for a year.
At 9 out of 10 interviews, "Because the economy is shitty and I didn't want to work in sweatshop-like conditions." isn't going to cut it. They'll smile, nod, figure there's something wrong with you that you're not admitting, and quietly circular-file your resume.
A friend of mine became so desensitized from internet porn that he couldn't get off from normal sex with a woman anymore.
Granted, some of the women loved that, and granted, he did that of his own free will. I'm not saying they should make laws to take away that choice, but, much like the choice to drink, smoke, or gamble, it's not without dangers.
(In the case of that friend, he was also caught by the FBI for illegal internet porn trafficking and fined something like $10,000. Dumb bastard.)
Anyone ever notice that this "Express" is for home users only?
I don't really see that as an issue. If you're a professional developer, you're going to want the best IDE for whatever you're doing. A rational craftsman in any field is not going to skimp on his tools.
Granted, I'm not saying Visual Studio is ideal for every project. I almost certainly wouldn't use it for a Java project, for example. However, in some cases, I believe VS would be the right tool for the job, and well worth its cost in the grand scheme of things.
Sure, I still swear and shake my fist at Visual Studio sometimes when I use it -- but no more so than any IDE I've used.
Software really isn't the same thing as any of those fields. You can pretend it is, but it just isn't.
For example: it's easy for non-technical people involved in a civil engineering project to understand the dangers of bad design. If a civil engineer says: "Uh, I could build the bridge that way, but it's going to fall down and kill a ton of people", chances are good, their management will listen to them. They probably are not going to pressure a civil engineer to sign off on the bridge that will kill commuters.
On the other hand, software design flaws are much more poorly understood by most software management, and those flaws are seen as significantly less important. Obviously mission critical software that can actually kill people, as noted by someone above, is going to be an exception.
I'm working on a software project today involving trying to make the (very badly designed, and not by me) piece of software in question do something it's just not meant to do. Now, were I an architect of houses, when the client came to me and demanded I dig them a basement for their house and imply that I'm some sort of mental retard for not digging it the way they want, I could point out that their choice to live in a houseboat six months ago has made the prospect of basement digging chancy at best. But I don't, and though what management is demanding is at least that bad, it's difficult to make them understand it.
There's a passage in Fight Club where the narrator discusses the way major car companies won't do a recall unless the flaw in their cars will kill enough people and cause enough lawsuits to have a greater monetary cost than the cost of a recall. Apply that principle to software and you see the problem: Sloppy programming in a piece of software will not, in most cases, kill people, and in many cases will not be seen in any way by 99% of the customers for that software. The cost of doing it right is much higher, and so, in most cases, business isn't interested.
Anyone who's worked on a software project of any size (especially in terms of number of people on the project) can tell you that the person who takes the official blame for a development flaw is almost never the person actually responsible for it.
Maybe if we had a programmers union and I could strike if I was ever asked to implement bad design or put out someone else's fire... maybe. But as things stand? You'd drive a lot of good developers out of the field because they're not skilled enough at office politicking to avoid being made scapegoats for the messes of others, and can't afford to bear the direct financial burden of it.
2) Has been improved a lot. You still have options, but you won't, for example, see a single SQL statement in any of the code for the project I'm currently working on.
1) I can't fairly speak to. I'm not sure which internals you're looking for.
I probably have an unfairly soured opinion of the Delphi language just due to the specific Delphi projects I worked on. In all cases I was having to modify someone else's existing code and in nearly all cases it wasn't pretty. Sort of the code equivalent of the kid last picked for kickball teams, in fact. I'm sure the language is capable of better, but I didn't get to see it in my work, so I was curious.
I'm going to possibly make the mistake of assuming you're not trolling here...
I've worked with Delphi. I've worked with Visual Studio. Please explain to me why you think Delphi would be better. There have to be upsides to it that I missed.
I'm not saying even VS.NET (which I like a lot) is without its flaws, but I notice I'm no longer scheduling time to take a break from development and contemplate suicide. I can't really say that about my last Delphi project.
That's one of the problems I had with Civ 3. The wonders didn't seem especially powerful or important. Even if you could build them and beat the other civilizations to them, you might not even want to.
Compare that with Civ 2 or AC, in which there seemed to be much more urgency to winning a few key wonders (or in AC, whichever secret projects your particular faction really needed). Maybe not so much in playing a low-difficulty one-player game in which it would be possible to build every wonder, but in multiplayer or at the highest levels of difficulty it's another story entirely. The wonders race adds something to the game.
I like the genre, and Alpha Centauri is still one of my favorite games of all time. After spending countless hours playing that I was expecting more out of Civ 3.
Sure, we're talking about a sci-fi vs. historical strategy game, but still... I'd be interested to hear any opinions on why Civ 3 might've been a better game than I gave it credit for. I thought the culture system was cool, but in so many other ways it seemed like Firaxis took a colossal step back from what they'd achieved with AC.
Slashdot Mirror
... on how you design the game.
If you design a game that, like most of today's MMORPGS, is based in level grinding and the achiever mindset, then, yes, a character lifespan is a terrible idea. It doesn't play to that mindset. It doesn't attract that kind of player.
However, I maintain that there are variants on that theme, alternate types of games that appeal to slightly different kinds of players, that would (and do!) make excellent use of such an idea.
I don't have much to add to the excellent posts I've seen already, but I'll chip in with my own two cents on my experience. I had Lasik done in September '01.
Simply, the surgery itself was not painful, but it was one of the flat-out freakiest experiences of my life. That said, I wish I had it done sooner.
I wore glasses for ~18 years -- never was able to do contacts. My blink reflex is freakishly good; I've frequently had eye doctors cursing at me trying to get eyedrops in, much less contacts. Going from all that time wearing thick-ass glasses to nothing was amazing.
Recovery wasn't bad. I had halos at night for maybe a month and haven't since. No other undesired side effects. I had to walk myself home after the surgery and that wasn't a problem -- I was photosensitive, but in shades I could see plenty well enough to navigate even immediately afterwards.
You end up taking joy in stupid little things. Swimming, for example. I'd never invested in prescription goggles, so anytime I was swimming I was just about blind. I'd swim into people, boats, side of the pool, etc. because I just couldn't see that shit in time to stop. It's sad in some way that I was fascinated for weeks just to be able to see the cruddy crap at the bottom of a pool, but there it is.
There are risks, of course, and I can't say I didn't spend some time making peace with the idea of what I'd have to do if I ended up blind. I spent considerably more time doing research and finding a good surgeon. This is not something you want to cut corners on. Cheaper is not necessarily better.
It's worth doing because the freedom of being able to see clearly unassisted is an amazing thing. Additionally, especially you can't or don't want to do contacts, people see you amazingly differently without glasses. That's superficial, of course, but, there it is.
Actually, I think the poster had it right.
Sure, Linux distros and similar large software downloads is something you can point out as a legitimate use of p2p to sell the idea... to geeks. You don't need to sell p2p's legitimacy to geeks, though. That's preaching to the choir. You need to sell it to legislators. For that purpose, saying "Here, it helps the government do something it needs to do cheaper, easier, and better!" might be effective in ways that the software distribution example never could be.
That doesn't necessarily mean anything, other than (if accurate) the fact that new people are picking up Java at a greater rate than people who already knew Java are dying. Once a Java developer always a Java developer, no?
I mean, I like Java. I'm certified by Sun as a Java developer. I'm probably counted in any number of Java developers statistic you care to name.
That said, it's been over two years since I've been offered any Java work. I know there are still projects out there being built on Java technology -- friends of mine work on them -- but it seems like the percentage of projects using Java is less than 2-3 years ago.
Obviously, if you're starting up an open source project or working on something on your own, you can use whatever language you want. But if (note, I'm not saying this is a foregone conclusion) project managers and companies stop wanting Java to be used for their projects, the language will become less relevant, number of Java developers or no.
Flamebait?! SOMEbody with their finger on the mod button can't take a joke.
(tongue in cheek)
It's past time to roll tanks into Canada and officially make it the 51st state. We might not be able to pull that on China or India, but damn it, invading Canada is just convienient enough to be worth the trouble.
You're welcome to make up your own mind and do it whatever way you like, but if you think that makes your choice the standard, you might need a dictionary.
What about MS total control of the standard? What good will the standard be if the company that owns 95% of the desktop starts shipping a .Net that deviates from the standard?
I should think the answer to that would be obvious: In any industry, if a company with 95% market share decides they're going to do something a certain way, whatever they've decided? That's the standard now.
A standards committee can go a different direction if they like, but it's akin to that guy in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I think, it's been a while since I read it) who decides that only he is sane and he needs to wall the rest of the universe into an asylum.
At the risk of turning this political, I think we can agree that heterosexuality is pretty much the "standard" human mating behavior, and the last time I saw numbers on it, even that didn't have a 95% "market share." Technology shouldn't be much different. (cue jokes.) Whether you like Microsoft or hate them, the way they do things, even when they're retarded, becomes the standard.
Try surfing at -1. ./ mods are typically pro open-source.
Well, sure. But if someone's looking for a serious discussion, shouldn't "but the trolls that are always modded down do it!" not be much of an excuse for acting infantile?
The brilliance of Slashdot, such as it is, is that while you always have the choice to read everything, the will of the community decides what most of the community will read. You're not forced to go along with their opinions, but if you do (i.e., browse at a 0 threshold or higher), it provides the convienience of weeding a lot of crap for you.
As a community, Slashdot is generally saying, among other things: We disfavor people posting anti-OSS trolls, and people trying to race to get the first post for no reason. I don't see why we can't as a community also say: Picking apart genuine flaws in MS business practices and products in an intelligent way is cool, but posting "M$ is lamerz!!!" is retarded* and generally not worth our time.
You are rather new here.
I've only bothered with a login for around 9 months, but I've been reading Slashdot for around 4 years. It's not as bad as all that.
* (I've done volunteer work with mentally retarded children in the past, and this statement is not really fair to them.)
... is a Pope of safe web browsing counseling abstinence, who everyone loves but no one takes seriously.
I'll volunteer. All I need is a Pope hat.
Disclaimer: My post is about the "let me make name changes I think are clever and funny" trend and not the parent poster.
As opposed to people massively using names like "Lunix" or "open sores"?
I've... never seen anything like that used here on Slashdot. Not ever.
That's not saying it hasn't been, but it's sure a hell of a lot less common.
As long as those MS zealots don't disappear, expect names like "M$".
Wouldn't you rather be the bigger person?
Personally, I'd rather have intelligent discussion about the strong and weak points of various OS/software/languages/etc. here than stupid name calling. Maybe it's just my own prejudices, but when I see a post with that kind of crap, I assume I'm as likely to get reasonable discourse out of the post as I am to get a fair and balanced opinion about non-Causasians from a member of the KKK. I skip to the next post.
(I also assume the poster lives in their parents' basement and has never touched a real girl, but I keep that to myself. That'd be unfair and non-constructive name-calling, too.)
I mean for take a look at Christopher Pike or any other of those "turn out a book every week" teen mystery novel series.
I certainly won't defend any of the series you're talking about, but Christopher Pike wrote at least one serious novel for adults, "Sati". It's a really good book and will probably make you think a little -- much better than you'd expect from someone who churned out trashy teen novels.
Here I am feeding a troll...
My local 7-11 is ways better, so your "grander scale" description is also BS.
I've never seen a 7-11 that had more than 2/3 of what I saw in the fridges in the Redmond campus. Your mileage may vary.
The food was okay, but to say that it "blew away any cafeteria" is simply ridiculous -- that is, unless you live on snails out in the woods or something.
You'll notice I didn't say it blows away every restaurant, because it doesn't. Every college/corporate cafeteria or similar eatery I've seen? Absolutely.
I mean, come off it. Get out of your bedroom more often and see the real world out there. Or maybe save up some money and take a trip to the city some day...
I've lived and worked in three major cities. I've certainly visited others. I'm not a world traveller, but certainly beyond your asinine accusations.
And it looks like you missed it: the point of all their free drinks and the food court theme is to keep you THERE and WORKING, as much as possible. No need to go out for lunch (even if a brief change of scenery would be refreshing), nor even a stroll to the corner 7-11 for a soda or Starbucks for a coffee.
No, I quite got that. Point is, it's something Microsoft does right that the vast majority of companies that employ programmers do wrong. Yes, it absolutely is in a company's best economic interest if I just grab a handy soda and go back to work without losing my train of thought, rather than walk or drive to get one. They make up the $0.50 for the soda in my greater than $0.50 value of productivity. I wouldn't be disallowed the choice to go out for a drink or for lunch if I wanted -- but I have that choice, I don't have to if I don't want to.
All things being equal, why would you not rather work for a company that makes smart, rather than dumb, choices in managing you and your work environment?
I can believe it. The working conditions for developers at Microsoft are incredibly beyond anything I've personally seen at a company of any size elsewhere.
I did an interview there back when I was in college. Mind you, I didn't like a one of the people on the team I'd have been working with, but beyond that I was just blown away. Developers in large, comfortable, well-furnished (and, importantly, to their wishes rather than a corporate mold) offices rather than cube farms. Employee cafeterias which blew away any cafeteria or buffet-like restaurant I've ever seen.
For me, the really painful thing to pass up was the free beverage package. Sure, some of the places I've worked have had something like that. The words don't really describe Microsoft's setup. Imagine a huge wall of soda fridges like you'd see at most gas stations, except on a grander scale -- imagine they have every brand or flavor you've ever heard of, including some you were previously pretty sure they didn't make anymore. Imagine there's one or two of those on every floor on every building.
You can say a lot about Microsoft's business strategy, ethics, products, etc. But as far as working environment goes, it's hard to beat. They mean to provide an environment that no competitor (as in for hiring their developers away, not as in for the marketplace) can match. I can believe the high price tag.
Let's think about this:
They designed the system in 1981.
They expected it to last 30 years.
So that's... until 2011?
And now they're saying it'll run out around the end of this decade. That'd be about 2010-2011ish, no?
Sounds like everything's going according to plan.
Try to explain (especially to an HR person) during an interview why you haven't been working for a year.
At 9 out of 10 interviews, "Because the economy is shitty and I didn't want to work in sweatshop-like conditions." isn't going to cut it. They'll smile, nod, figure there's something wrong with you that you're not admitting, and quietly circular-file your resume.
As I understood it, he was basically buying DVD porn, making a bunch of copies of it, and then selling the copies on EBay or through similar venues.
A friend of mine became so desensitized from internet porn that he couldn't get off from normal sex with a woman anymore.
Granted, some of the women loved that, and granted, he did that of his own free will. I'm not saying they should make laws to take away that choice, but, much like the choice to drink, smoke, or gamble, it's not without dangers.
(In the case of that friend, he was also caught by the FBI for illegal internet porn trafficking and fined something like $10,000. Dumb bastard.)
Anyone ever notice that this "Express" is for home users only?
I don't really see that as an issue. If you're a professional developer, you're going to want the best IDE for whatever you're doing. A rational craftsman in any field is not going to skimp on his tools.
Granted, I'm not saying Visual Studio is ideal for every project. I almost certainly wouldn't use it for a Java project, for example. However, in some cases, I believe VS would be the right tool for the job, and well worth its cost in the grand scheme of things.
Sure, I still swear and shake my fist at Visual Studio sometimes when I use it -- but no more so than any IDE I've used.
Software really isn't the same thing as any of those fields. You can pretend it is, but it just isn't.
For example: it's easy for non-technical people involved in a civil engineering project to understand the dangers of bad design. If a civil engineer says: "Uh, I could build the bridge that way, but it's going to fall down and kill a ton of people", chances are good, their management will listen to them. They probably are not going to pressure a civil engineer to sign off on the bridge that will kill commuters.
On the other hand, software design flaws are much more poorly understood by most software management, and those flaws are seen as significantly less important. Obviously mission critical software that can actually kill people, as noted by someone above, is going to be an exception.
I'm working on a software project today involving trying to make the (very badly designed, and not by me) piece of software in question do something it's just not meant to do. Now, were I an architect of houses, when the client came to me and demanded I dig them a basement for their house and imply that I'm some sort of mental retard for not digging it the way they want, I could point out that their choice to live in a houseboat six months ago has made the prospect of basement digging chancy at best. But I don't, and though what management is demanding is at least that bad, it's difficult to make them understand it.
There's a passage in Fight Club where the narrator discusses the way major car companies won't do a recall unless the flaw in their cars will kill enough people and cause enough lawsuits to have a greater monetary cost than the cost of a recall. Apply that principle to software and you see the problem: Sloppy programming in a piece of software will not, in most cases, kill people, and in many cases will not be seen in any way by 99% of the customers for that software. The cost of doing it right is much higher, and so, in most cases, business isn't interested.
Are you crazy?
Anyone who's worked on a software project of any size (especially in terms of number of people on the project) can tell you that the person who takes the official blame for a development flaw is almost never the person actually responsible for it.
Maybe if we had a programmers union and I could strike if I was ever asked to implement bad design or put out someone else's fire... maybe. But as things stand? You'd drive a lot of good developers out of the field because they're not skilled enough at office politicking to avoid being made scapegoats for the messes of others, and can't afford to bear the direct financial burden of it.
2) Has been improved a lot. You still have options, but you won't, for example, see a single SQL statement in any of the code for the project I'm currently working on.
1) I can't fairly speak to. I'm not sure which internals you're looking for.
I probably have an unfairly soured opinion of the Delphi language just due to the specific Delphi projects I worked on. In all cases I was having to modify someone else's existing code and in nearly all cases it wasn't pretty. Sort of the code equivalent of the kid last picked for kickball teams, in fact. I'm sure the language is capable of better, but I didn't get to see it in my work, so I was curious.
I'm going to possibly make the mistake of assuming you're not trolling here...
.NET (which I like a lot) is without its flaws, but I notice I'm no longer scheduling time to take a break from development and contemplate suicide. I can't really say that about my last Delphi project.
I've worked with Delphi. I've worked with Visual Studio. Please explain to me why you think Delphi would be better. There have to be upsides to it that I missed.
I'm not saying even VS
That's one of the problems I had with Civ 3. The wonders didn't seem especially powerful or important. Even if you could build them and beat the other civilizations to them, you might not even want to.
Compare that with Civ 2 or AC, in which there seemed to be much more urgency to winning a few key wonders (or in AC, whichever secret projects your particular faction really needed). Maybe not so much in playing a low-difficulty one-player game in which it would be possible to build every wonder, but in multiplayer or at the highest levels of difficulty it's another story entirely. The wonders race adds something to the game.
Am I the only one who didn't care for Civ 3?
I like the genre, and Alpha Centauri is still one of my favorite games of all time. After spending countless hours playing that I was expecting more out of Civ 3.
Sure, we're talking about a sci-fi vs. historical strategy game, but still... I'd be interested to hear any opinions on why Civ 3 might've been a better game than I gave it credit for. I thought the culture system was cool, but in so many other ways it seemed like Firaxis took a colossal step back from what they'd achieved with AC.