Precisely my point. That's lovely. I'm glad you like it - personally I have one of those squishy gel things as a wrist rest (cue off colour joke) and that does it for me. But neither of our anecdotes are more than a personal preference.
I'd be much more interested to read the results of proper research into this stuff.
first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in
Fine, if you like one mouse more than another that's lovely.
But unless you have actual medical evidence that one mouse is better than another, I'll stick with my el cheapo free-with-the-machine mouse and not buy something expensive just because you think it's important.
...but this is the exception to that rule. It's sitting on the corner of my desk, and it's been calling to me since I got it.
I'm actually just taking a couple of months off to finish it properly. Like TAOP this is one of those books you need to read with a notebook to hand. Reading it in the bath could prove hazardous...
No secrets, lies, or ulterior motives. Aslan = Jesus. Lewis made no claims otherwise.
Yes, I know. That's why I said:
But really the parallels are so blatent that there's no way he was trying to sneak anything past anyone. It was just his inspiration for the stories.
If you did enjoy the books, but feel cheated
What part of the past tense presents you with comprehension difficulties? I read them when I was nine. At the time I felt tricked. The point of my posting was solely to observe that I had no grounds for that - Lewis wasn't trying to hide anything, I just didn't pick up on it immediately, because I was a child.
Prior to that, and subsequent to that, I enjoyed and enjoy them considerably. And if you don't find my observations and recollections interesting, then that's entirely your problem.
I can't find a small enough violin to play your sad sad song.
That's fine, I can't find the words to explain just how worthless I'd find your sympathy. But thanks for your utterly fatuous comments anyway.
You live in Ransome's old flat and you have a second hand bookshop just around the corner? So, is your flat rented or owned? Either way would it go back on the market if you had an unfortunate "accident"?
You felt tricked and were upset? How pathetic can you get?
I wasn't pathetic, I was nine.
Yeah, I always get horribly upset and feel "tricked" when I read a book or listen to something contrary to my opinion.
At the time I did believe in God, so I wasn't listening to or reading something contrary to my opinion. I was upset specifically because I felt that the author had been duplicitous.
My, aren't we sensitive.
Yes, nine-year-olds do tend to be sensitive.
My reaction to such things: *shrug*
Gosh, you can imagine how much I care about the reaction of someone with reading difficulties and the intellectual status that comes with "anonymous coward" postings.
That said, I don't think it fair to saying that he was trying to manipulate his readers
I think that's an important point. Lewis was writing at a time when being a Christian was the norm. His books were written to put across Christian morality, not Christianity in and of itself.
I remember being upset when I found out that the Narnia books were about Christianity; I felt tricked. But really the parallels are so blatent that there's no way he was trying to sneak anything past anyone. It was just his inspiration for the stories.
As for Screwtape, well, it's a story written as letters from a senior to a junior devil - if you can't spot the possibility of a Christian message there, then you can't really blame the author!
I guess. And mostly I like hard science based science fiction.
On the other hand:
"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Clarke.
Clarke's own work is fairly "hard" science fiction, but sometimes has fantasy elements to it. So I'd be hard put where to draw the line. In the end, the quality of the writing is more important than such niceties. It's all fiction.
...the trilogy of "science fiction" novel he wrote should really be referred to as fantasy...
Since one of the characters of the story was Merlin, I don't think I could plausibly deny you that point.
But still, it irritates me that as a man of letters at Oxford, Lewis had access to some of the most brilliant physicists of his day, yet clearly didn't bother to consult any of them about the basic science of the non-fantasy aspects of his trilogy.
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was not one of the inklings, or in any other way that I'm aware of a part of the "same writing group", except in so far as she was a contemporary of theirs at Oxford. I believe she exchanged letters with Chesterton later in life.
That said, I think she was also a better writer than any of them (save Charles Williams whose works I've not read). "The Nine Taylors" is sublime.
C.S.Lewis did write some "science fiction", but it was horribly inaccurate in all sorts of details, and like most of his writings it was a religious tract dressed up as a story.
Now that worked brilliantly with the Narnia stories, but in his science fiction (That Hideous Strength) it did not.
Incidentally, while I'm not even remotely religious, I think that his best writing was The Screwtape Letters. They're entertaining and they show his deep understanding of human nature.
They're a tabloid "news" site. The aim is primarily to entertain, not to inform. Since I don't find Orlowski's brand of bitter diatribe entertaining, I don't read it any more - but there's nothing particularly wrong with the approach as long as the readers know to liberally salt their servings.
Then you shouldn't have any trouble with Orlowski's subjective approach. As far as I know he doesn't claim to be objective either.
Personally I find Groklaw's very obviously partisan commentary on the facts to be unhelpful. I particularly dislike it when they stray away from the SCO discussion onto other subjects where their real strength (the presentation of raw evidence) is not exhibited, or less so.
Do you remember Jon Katz? I don't know if he still posts on Slashdot, because (hallelujah) they provided the block-Jon-Katz option in user preferences.
I've stopped reading El Reg because they don't have a block Andrew Orlowski option. I could tell within a sentence (without reading the byline) that an article was by Andrew.
Previously his articles have dripped with vitriolic envy of Google. I'm guessing that the new ones have the same acidic content agains Groklaw. While I've doubts about the objectivity (ho ho) of Groklaw, life is too short to read Andrew's rantings on the subject.
Whatever you do, can I suggest that you put it in a Wiki? This will give you some glimmering of a hope in hell that it will reflect the actual product you deliver some day.
All other design documentation gets admired right up to the point that the writing of the application begins, then lip service is paid to it. If that.
If you do accept my advice, make the first job of any developer or support person this: walk through the design of the application (or their part of it) with a current dev team member, and amend all any inaccuracies found during this process. They will thus learn about the application, and the Wiki at the same time. You get immediate feedback (in the form of their contributions) on their competence. If they get it wrong it's easy to revert.
Another benefit is that the history will allow you to see how the application evolved through time - some of those nasty hacks the support team curse will be easier to understand (and thus support) when they know the short term advantages, or misapprehensions that it resulted from.
And lastly a word of warning - I've only had limited success selling this to management; I've not tried it in anger. But I've read a lot of design documentation that didn't faintly resemble an application that I was expected to fix at short notice - so it's got to be worth a shot.
Or maybe it's because the dialogue is so stilted nobody could make it sound good.
I think that's unlikely; Harrison Ford once told Lucas "George, you can write this stuff, but you can't say it." I reckon a good actor can do a lot with duff dialogue.
Generally speaking, Beta seems to have meant, and still mean: "We will not attempt to maintain backward compatibility to any version with Beta in its name"
Once you release a 1.0 version, you should be maintaining 1.x versions to fix problems - severe breakage should be limited to the 2.0Beta stream.
Of course the end user doesn't get to see this, and with Open Source software there's usually no limitation on who gets to use it - but I don't see it as a problem as long as this basic difference is maintained; if the software's good enough for primary use, why not use it? Just don't expect the API to stay that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps not him, but certainly there's spam that specifically tries not to recognisably be spam.
Or had you not heard of phishing?
Precisely my point. That's lovely. I'm glad you like it - personally I have one of those squishy gel things as a wrist rest (cue off colour joke) and that does it for me. But neither of our anecdotes are more than a personal preference.
I'd be much more interested to read the results of proper research into this stuff.
first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in
Fine, if you like one mouse more than another that's lovely.
But unless you have actual medical evidence that one mouse is better than another, I'll stick with my el cheapo free-with-the-machine mouse and not buy something expensive just because you think it's important.
If you cannot package and distribute the application "with the JVM" it is not and never will be free.
You can. What was your point again?
...but this is the exception to that rule. It's sitting on the corner of my desk, and it's been calling to me since I got it.
I'm actually just taking a couple of months off to finish it properly. Like TAOP this is one of those books you need to read with a notebook to hand. Reading it in the bath could prove hazardous...
Yes, I know. That's why I said:
If you did enjoy the books, but feel cheated
What part of the past tense presents you with comprehension difficulties? I read them when I was nine. At the time I felt tricked. The point of my posting was solely to observe that I had no grounds for that - Lewis wasn't trying to hide anything, I just didn't pick up on it immediately, because I was a child.
Prior to that, and subsequent to that, I enjoyed and enjoy them considerably. And if you don't find my observations and recollections interesting, then that's entirely your problem.
I can't find a small enough violin to play your sad sad song.
That's fine, I can't find the words to explain just how worthless I'd find your sympathy. But thanks for your utterly fatuous comments anyway.
You live in Ransome's old flat and you have a second hand bookshop just around the corner? So, is your flat rented or owned? Either way would it go back on the market if you had an unfortunate "accident"?
(/me goes off to poison your cornflakes...)
You felt tricked and were upset? How pathetic can you get?
I wasn't pathetic, I was nine.
Yeah, I always get horribly upset and feel "tricked" when I read a book or listen to something contrary to my opinion.
At the time I did believe in God, so I wasn't listening to or reading something contrary to my opinion. I was upset specifically because I felt that the author had been duplicitous.
My, aren't we sensitive.
Yes, nine-year-olds do tend to be sensitive.
My reaction to such things: *shrug*
Gosh, you can imagine how much I care about the reaction of someone with reading difficulties and the intellectual status that comes with "anonymous coward" postings.
The degree of my envy would be hard to underestimate. Have you read the Hugh Brogan bigraphy of Ransome? It's out of print, but it's damn good.
Did his novels get a lot of coverage in India, Tibet, Japan, or "Arabia" ? I think not. So for his audience it was the norm.
We named our daughter "Lucy" after the character in the books, btw.
:-)
It's a lovely name. Good thing you weren't an Arthur Ransome fan though
That said, I don't think it fair to saying that he was trying to manipulate his readers
I think that's an important point. Lewis was writing at a time when being a Christian was the norm. His books were written to put across Christian morality, not Christianity in and of itself.
I remember being upset when I found out that the Narnia books were about Christianity; I felt tricked. But really the parallels are so blatent that there's no way he was trying to sneak anything past anyone. It was just his inspiration for the stories.
As for Screwtape, well, it's a story written as letters from a senior to a junior devil - if you can't spot the possibility of a Christian message there, then you can't really blame the author!
I guess. And mostly I like hard science based science fiction.
On the other hand:
"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Clarke.
Clarke's own work is fairly "hard" science fiction, but sometimes has fantasy elements to it. So I'd be hard put where to draw the line. In the end, the quality of the writing is more important than such niceties. It's all fiction.
...the trilogy of "science fiction" novel he wrote should really be referred to as fantasy...
Since one of the characters of the story was Merlin, I don't think I could plausibly deny you that point.
But still, it irritates me that as a man of letters at Oxford, Lewis had access to some of the most brilliant physicists of his day, yet clearly didn't bother to consult any of them about the basic science of the non-fantasy aspects of his trilogy.
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was not one of the inklings, or in any other way that I'm aware of a part of the "same writing group", except in so far as she was a contemporary of theirs at Oxford. I believe she exchanged letters with Chesterton later in life.
That said, I think she was also a better writer than any of them (save Charles Williams whose works I've not read). "The Nine Taylors" is sublime.
Dave.
No, that was Arthur C. Clarke, you idiot.
C.S.Lewis did write some "science fiction", but it was horribly inaccurate in all sorts of details, and like most of his writings it was a religious tract dressed up as a story.
Now that worked brilliantly with the Narnia stories, but in his science fiction (That Hideous Strength) it did not.
Incidentally, while I'm not even remotely religious, I think that his best writing was The Screwtape Letters. They're entertaining and they show his deep understanding of human nature.
It's the dross in the articles that worries me; I don't read the comments on Groklaw. Or indeed on Slashdot 90% of the time.
I have never met anyone who went to university and regretted it later. I have met quite a few people who did not go to university and do regret that.
They're a tabloid "news" site. The aim is primarily to entertain, not to inform. Since I don't find Orlowski's brand of bitter diatribe entertaining, I don't read it any more - but there's nothing particularly wrong with the approach as long as the readers know to liberally salt their servings.
Then you shouldn't have any trouble with Orlowski's subjective approach. As far as I know he doesn't claim to be objective either.
Personally I find Groklaw's very obviously partisan commentary on the facts to be unhelpful. I particularly dislike it when they stray away from the SCO discussion onto other subjects where their real strength (the presentation of raw evidence) is not exhibited, or less so.
Do you remember Jon Katz? I don't know if he still posts on Slashdot, because (hallelujah) they provided the block-Jon-Katz option in user preferences.
I've stopped reading El Reg because they don't have a block Andrew Orlowski option. I could tell within a sentence (without reading the byline) that an article was by Andrew.
Previously his articles have dripped with vitriolic envy of Google. I'm guessing that the new ones have the same acidic content agains Groklaw. While I've doubts about the objectivity (ho ho) of Groklaw, life is too short to read Andrew's rantings on the subject.
Whatever you do, can I suggest that you put it in a Wiki? This will give you some glimmering of a hope in hell that it will reflect the actual product you deliver some day.
All other design documentation gets admired right up to the point that the writing of the application begins, then lip service is paid to it. If that.
If you do accept my advice, make the first job of any developer or support person this: walk through the design of the application (or their part of it) with a current dev team member, and amend all any inaccuracies found during this process. They will thus learn about the application, and the Wiki at the same time. You get immediate feedback (in the form of their contributions) on their competence. If they get it wrong it's easy to revert.
Another benefit is that the history will allow you to see how the application evolved through time - some of those nasty hacks the support team curse will be easier to understand (and thus support) when they know the short term advantages, or misapprehensions that it resulted from.
And lastly a word of warning - I've only had limited success selling this to management; I've not tried it in anger. But I've read a lot of design documentation that didn't faintly resemble an application that I was expected to fix at short notice - so it's got to be worth a shot.
This myth, .net is merely thin wrappers to Win32 has been very thoroughly debunked by the inimitable Ian Griffiths in his OnDotNet column on Longhorn.
Being anti-Microsoft doesn't automatically make something true.
Or maybe it's because the dialogue is so stilted nobody could make it sound good.
I think that's unlikely; Harrison Ford once told Lucas "George, you can write this stuff, but you can't say it." I reckon a good actor can do a lot with duff dialogue.
Generally speaking, Beta seems to have meant, and still mean: "We will not attempt to maintain backward compatibility to any version with Beta in its name"
Once you release a 1.0 version, you should be maintaining 1.x versions to fix problems - severe breakage should be limited to the 2.0Beta stream.
Of course the end user doesn't get to see this, and with Open Source software there's usually no limitation on who gets to use it - but I don't see it as a problem as long as this basic difference is maintained; if the software's good enough for primary use, why not use it? Just don't expect the API to stay that way.