It matters for web developers. A LOT. The faster IE6 can be ignored (it won't for years for mass scale sites, but for smaller stuff, web applications, etc it will be able to soon, relatively speaking), the least likely web developers will be to go totally bonker. I do feel for the ones that DO have to support everything from Netscape 4 and up though, it will be a nightmare to support in paralelle with IE6.
We're really straight in the middle of the second bubble. Its different than the first in a way, mind you, but a lot of companies have while projects and dreams thanks to the "newfound" power of information technologies (like all the web 2.0 crap). Some work, many don't, and honestly, I don't see how long they'll be able to stay afloat pumping all that money in these projects.
Just as an anecdotal reference:
I put my resume on Monster 2 weeks ago. I only have an associate degree, and a few years experience in.NET and Ajax. I did not apply -anywhere-. Yet, since I put my resume up, I have gotten at least 2 interview offers per -day- (not counting weekends) for so called "Web 2.0" projects of all kinds, all wilders one than the next.
70 hours/played doesn't seem like much at all. I know people who have hundreds of hours logged.
You're right, its really not. Between all the MMOs and online games I played in the last few years, I have over ten THOUSAND hours logged, including over 5000 in a single game. Now I don't play MMOs anymore (got fed up with cheaters, RMT, etc), but even before that, I had a healthy relationship (am about to get married), a nice job, money comes in easy, etc. It is just a matter of knowing how to manage your time, and not to let it get to your head.
Hell, people joke saying "I could stop anytime...really!", but I really could... I started getting fedup, and eventualy I was just like "ok, I'm getting annoyed at all this, I'm quitting". I stopped on that day, and didn't look behind, no withdrawal syndrom or anything. Now honestly I'm sure a lot of people have a much harder time quitting (like gambling, etc), but this is really not like its crack or something:)
In my opinion, people just tend to have very, very weak minds...
Correct. Even in Linux, if you run in root 24/7, you could get eaten alive (assuming high market share).
Users all running in root is half Microsoft's fault, half its market share's fault (more market share -> more easy tools to develop on the platform -> more idiot developers -> more softwares that don't work the way they should, aka: don't require root, and this is just 1 example amongst millions).
Microsoft did some seriously stupid shit, but if any other OS company was in their position, they'd have a large chunk (not all, as again, Microsoft DID do some pretty stupid stuff) of Microsoft's problems.
Last I checked, science has a very, very clear cut (though not enough, since scientists still argue on it on daily basis) way of saying when 2 days are of different species. First, once the people can reproduce with those of their kinds, but not with the ones of the other "group", its pretty close to being a different specie.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened ALREADY with some flukes, but since they just adopted kids or whatsnot, no one ever noticed.
Yeah, its a shame Microsoft bowed down with this. Less intrusive anti-viruses worked fine, its only junks like Norton and McC that didn't, and forcing them to rewrite their product so that it doesn't bug down your computer more than running Oblivion in the background would have been a definate plus. Microsoft's monopoly has to be controled, but, in my opinion, not at "all costs". The customer lost on this one, in my opinion. Of course, it is easy to avoid these products for us...but for the rest, not really.
Viewstate can be handled server side (except for a very small bit of data to track the server side part of course, though care needs to be taken for security, but thats easy), so its honestly a non-factor.
Postback is to use asp.net specific page model. You don't have to use it, and its very simple to get back to the stone age if you don't want all these features, using the standard navigation and form models. Its not that way by default since ASP.NET aims more to mimic a desktop app's flow. But again, it is simplistic to not use those features. They are optional.
Though if you don't want them, things like Java with Strut or are vastly more appropriate.
There are ways to get around this. If I remember well, for example, the GWT (is that the right name? The google toolkit for web UI) handles the back button and such while dealing with Ajax.
That being said, Ajax shouldn't usualy be used in situations where you need these features. If you do, it was probably a bad place to use ajax in the first place. Things like cascading combo box, sorting grids/tables of data, paging (debatable), etc, is where its useful. Basical, all features that should be handled client side, but because of ressource and performance issues, are handled server side. Of course, things like sorting client side can be dealt with without ajax if you have a LOT of time on your hands, or use one of the many frameworks around to do it. But when you don't have access to these things, or need a custom solution, ajax helps. If your users want to be able to link to something, then ajax is probably not the best of solution. It definately has a lot of other amazing uses though.
Plus, there are all the web business solutions... web apps that mimic desktop apps. In these scenarios, obviously you don't care nor want a user to be able to link to something, so its peachy to ajax it across the board to make the user experience better. I have a framework I made myself, that uses divs and javascripts and a third party framework on top of ajax to mimic an entire window manager, so the user can deal with the entire application like they would a desktop one, and the page never, ever refresh. Yet it retains the scalability and cross platform compatibility of a web app. It works pretty well, users loved it. Right tool for the right job:)
Ultimately, AJAX is nothing more than spagetti Javascript and HTML.
Thats why frameworks like ASP.NET AJAX (formerly known as Atlas) come in to solve that issue. When you use Atlas (a much more appropriate name than its new one, as Ajax is only a fraction of the framework), you get to use classes, inheritence, interfaces, and all around reusable constructs in your javascript. So it is anything BUT spagetti code.
You are correct. #1 is the only reason that companies like Nvidia or whatsnot always try to have the fastest product. They probably barely make any profit on it (if you include R&D, though i guess the research is always useful down the road), but its simply that if they don't have the fastest product, people will associate the mid range products with that. The money is in the mid range stuff. High end is to be in the spotlight, and low end is to get a user base that hopefully will eventualy upgrade... Thats why we see stuff with rediculous price:performance ratio, like the P4 EE
As i just posted, thats very very true, however, there's more to it. A diet that would allow one to be fit (lots of fruits and veggies, lots of fish, etc), is probably more likely to enhance the brain's capabilities than coke + hamburger + chips twice a day.
Whats almost 100% sure in my view, however, is that the actual body fat doesn't affect anything, or at the very least, very little compared to the above factor, and your explaination.
Not just that, but the actual diet makes a difference. A lot of Slashdot can probably try the following experiment (I did it with several people, the result is consistantly the same).
First, have a typical diet of someone who's obese for 2-4 weeks or something. Hamburgers, chips, etc. Avoid veggies, fruits, whatever. Go to work (as a programmer, or anything that actualy requires concentration, thought, memory, focus...) everyday as normal. Keep track of how productive you are.
Next, for just 1 week, 7 days, nothing more, do whatever you want, but start the day with a banana/strawberry/orange juice smoothie every single morning no exception. In my case, the difference in productivity is something as rediculous as 30-50% (and i'm not exagerating). Results vary, of course, but the difference is -extreme-. So it goes without saying that the diet of someone who's fat is probably lacking in slowly consumed sugars, Omega 3 fatty acids, and other things that help their heads.
beyond the issues that have been raised already (like BMI not being necessarly representative, IQ tests not being particularly good, etc), there's the following problem: Is the fact that you're fat makes you brain go to hell, OR, is it that idiots are more likely to not realise that there's 200-300 calories in a can of soda.
My vote is on the later. Because honestly, I don't see anything about body fat that could affect your head (to -this- extent). So its almost certain that its people who don't have a memory good enough to remember their grade school biology lessons about how there's fat in other things than steak.
There's really nothing special about the ipod itself, except for the fact that it was the first player of its category to turn a "tech gadget" into something that can be understood by the average joe as much as a pair of shoes. Average people are more comfy when their decisions are straight forward. They recognize the ipod brand, so they can associate with it when comes the time to shell out a few hundred bucks for it. Thats all really. And us techies fall in the same darn trap when buying stuff in categories we don't know as well, and we probably don't even notice:)
Thats the issue here. With this, the customer lose, and thats it, they just don't know it. Many, MANY anti-virus softwares worked JUST FINE on Vista. Only heavily intrusive ones, like Norton and McCafe didn't work, because they do things they shouldn't be. Microsoft had a pretty good middle ground. The problem is that companies like Norton and McCafe, which relies, again, on highly intrusive softwares to flip the computer upside down, would have had to rethink their strategies, since they were heavily "abusing" a flaw in Windows' design. The other vendors did just peachy.
In other words, you're trading a bit of security for 2 extra choices, neither of which should be available in the first place.
Worse is, unless one has a bit of a clue about biology, this actualy sounds like a valid thing. Imagine the news if someone actualy did succeed in fooling the patent office to pass that one.
Hey, I said it before and I said it again. Microsoft being threatened is the best thing that can happen to....Microsoft. If to be threatened they need to shoot -themselves- in the foot, so be it. But when Microsoft starts being scared, they actualy try to make decent product (it doesn't always work, but sometimes a gem here and there pops up). If Vista turns out to be a flop, the next version of Windows after that probably will be a great one, there will be significant room for Linux and Mac OS X, and the market as a whole will be healthier. Revolution in the making!
When it comes to standalone softwares, you are correct. However, since the internet is a royal mess (in no small part because of microsoft, but still), browsers are softwares that need attention and user support, else they are kind of useless, as developers will not support them. A little bit like a full desktop + platform (Gnome, KDE) is useless if no one writes applications for them.
To have good support for a software, it requires attention. To get attention, it requires market share. Marketshare means everything for browsers, because even if you follow standards perfectly, you still need to test in browsers (even if its only a quick glance to make some obvious fixes) to be sure everything works. Without appropriate attention, web developers will not take the 5 minutes it takes to test their work (and since a lot of us poor web devs need to support IE, its usualy more than 5 minutes in all browsers to make sure our IE hacks didn't break anything, if only because of a typo).
So again, when it comes to something like a tool to rip CDs to MP3s, a DVD player software, a RSS Feed reader, one of the 5 million windows managers...these are (to some extent) able to live on their own. Even if only 3 people use them, they still work fine. With something like a browser, if only 3 people use them, virtualy no web designer will test in them, and thus the browser becomes very useless.
Citrix isn't so hot, plus there are alternatives, like Terminal Service.
That being said, for certain relatively intensive apps, I've seen several douzans of users on a server no more powerful than my PC. A bit far from what you can do with a "real" solution for centralized applications, but still quite acceptable in many situations.
Definately. I know I'm a minority, but not allowing a DVD to play on a computer makes it 100% useless to me. I have a dedicated DVD player. Its still in its own box. I play DVDs on my lap-top while in the plane, on trips, etc, and use my PC which is hooked up to a nice sound system (and to my TV) the rest of the time. I am a big consumer of DVDs, own almost no pirated content (and the only pirated content is the stuff I couldn't find anywhere, not even imported, though how valid an excuse that is, is left to the reader). The pirates will still get their free movies, and content owners won't get money from people like me. Not a very good business model...
They can innovate. What they can't do, is integrate. One of the coolest thing for usuability that Linux has, and that always irks me that windows lack, is the software repositories and ease of integrating everything in one shot. Its fairly common for Linux users to exclusively use softwares found by repositories supported by their distros, through things like apt-get, portage, or whatever. Its awesome.
Now obviously Microsoft doesn't have anywhere close to that many free apps, but it does have a decent amount, a lot of which you have to download manualy. Often this is because of that anti-trust crap. And there's a lot they COULD do, that they don't to avoid being wiped out in lawsuits. It is fairly obvious, also, that Microsoft never actualy make any kind of effort until they are threatened (for example, IE remained stagnant until Firefox came into play). If Microsoft was below 50% market share, all of this would go away. They would actualy TRY to make better products on a regular basis, could integrate everything, and so on. It would be great for everyone, as Microsoft products would actualy become user oriented, and more targeted (since they wouldn't have to please -everyone- anymore, as they'd have to shift business model). Thus, the software world would be a lot more interesting, with more options (A world where Linux or Mac were the only options would be just as bad as the way things currently are:) )
Someone (I think on Slashdot) commented that Oracle will someday switch to ProstgreSQL, because their codebase has become too bloated and unmanageble.
Yeah, because PostgreSQL's codebase is lean and clean. Oh...wait...
PostgreSQL is one of the best open source products, all categories, in my opinion, and definately is powerful enough to live in the corporate world (even more so if one considers things like EnterpriseDB, etc). However, the codebase IS a mess. They did wonderful lately to clean it up, but some parts (especialy around the query planner/parser) is still heavily hardcoded and is a total hell to modify, parts of it are extremly slow because of legacy code, etc. While I'm sure Oracle has these issues too, it would just be trading some problems for some others, so really, I don't see Oracle switching. Either way they have to do a partial rewrite. Might as well do it on a database they know best.
Slashdot Mirror
It matters for web developers. A LOT. The faster IE6 can be ignored (it won't for years for mass scale sites, but for smaller stuff, web applications, etc it will be able to soon, relatively speaking), the least likely web developers will be to go totally bonker. I do feel for the ones that DO have to support everything from Netscape 4 and up though, it will be a nightmare to support in paralelle with IE6.
We're really straight in the middle of the second bubble. Its different than the first in a way, mind you, but a lot of companies have while projects and dreams thanks to the "newfound" power of information technologies (like all the web 2.0 crap). Some work, many don't, and honestly, I don't see how long they'll be able to stay afloat pumping all that money in these projects. Just as an anecdotal reference: I put my resume on Monster 2 weeks ago. I only have an associate degree, and a few years experience in .NET and Ajax. I did not apply -anywhere-. Yet, since I put my resume up, I have gotten at least 2 interview offers per -day- (not counting weekends) for so called "Web 2.0" projects of all kinds, all wilders one than the next.
Just yet another company trying to cash in on gullible managers :)
Hell, people joke saying "I could stop anytime...really!", but I really could... I started getting fedup, and eventualy I was just like "ok, I'm getting annoyed at all this, I'm quitting". I stopped on that day, and didn't look behind, no withdrawal syndrom or anything. Now honestly I'm sure a lot of people have a much harder time quitting (like gambling, etc), but this is really not like its crack or something
In my opinion, people just tend to have very, very weak minds...
Correct. Even in Linux, if you run in root 24/7, you could get eaten alive (assuming high market share). Users all running in root is half Microsoft's fault, half its market share's fault (more market share -> more easy tools to develop on the platform -> more idiot developers -> more softwares that don't work the way they should, aka: don't require root, and this is just 1 example amongst millions). Microsoft did some seriously stupid shit, but if any other OS company was in their position, they'd have a large chunk (not all, as again, Microsoft DID do some pretty stupid stuff) of Microsoft's problems.
Last I checked, science has a very, very clear cut (though not enough, since scientists still argue on it on daily basis) way of saying when 2 days are of different species. First, once the people can reproduce with those of their kinds, but not with the ones of the other "group", its pretty close to being a different specie. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened ALREADY with some flukes, but since they just adopted kids or whatsnot, no one ever noticed.
Yeah, its a shame Microsoft bowed down with this. Less intrusive anti-viruses worked fine, its only junks like Norton and McC that didn't, and forcing them to rewrite their product so that it doesn't bug down your computer more than running Oblivion in the background would have been a definate plus. Microsoft's monopoly has to be controled, but, in my opinion, not at "all costs". The customer lost on this one, in my opinion. Of course, it is easy to avoid these products for us...but for the rest, not really.
Of course, that statement is even funnier under the context that MySpace since somewhat recently, runs on the .NET platform.
Viewstate can be handled server side (except for a very small bit of data to track the server side part of course, though care needs to be taken for security, but thats easy), so its honestly a non-factor. Postback is to use asp.net specific page model. You don't have to use it, and its very simple to get back to the stone age if you don't want all these features, using the standard navigation and form models. Its not that way by default since ASP.NET aims more to mimic a desktop app's flow. But again, it is simplistic to not use those features. They are optional. Though if you don't want them, things like Java with Strut or are vastly more appropriate.
There are ways to get around this. If I remember well, for example, the GWT (is that the right name? The google toolkit for web UI) handles the back button and such while dealing with Ajax.
:)
That being said, Ajax shouldn't usualy be used in situations where you need these features. If you do, it was probably a bad place to use ajax in the first place. Things like cascading combo box, sorting grids/tables of data, paging (debatable), etc, is where its useful. Basical, all features that should be handled client side, but because of ressource and performance issues, are handled server side. Of course, things like sorting client side can be dealt with without ajax if you have a LOT of time on your hands, or use one of the many frameworks around to do it. But when you don't have access to these things, or need a custom solution, ajax helps. If your users want to be able to link to something, then ajax is probably not the best of solution. It definately has a lot of other amazing uses though.
Plus, there are all the web business solutions... web apps that mimic desktop apps. In these scenarios, obviously you don't care nor want a user to be able to link to something, so its peachy to ajax it across the board to make the user experience better. I have a framework I made myself, that uses divs and javascripts and a third party framework on top of ajax to mimic an entire window manager, so the user can deal with the entire application like they would a desktop one, and the page never, ever refresh. Yet it retains the scalability and cross platform compatibility of a web app. It works pretty well, users loved it. Right tool for the right job
You are correct. #1 is the only reason that companies like Nvidia or whatsnot always try to have the fastest product. They probably barely make any profit on it (if you include R&D, though i guess the research is always useful down the road), but its simply that if they don't have the fastest product, people will associate the mid range products with that. The money is in the mid range stuff. High end is to be in the spotlight, and low end is to get a user base that hopefully will eventualy upgrade... Thats why we see stuff with rediculous price:performance ratio, like the P4 EE
Correct, i had bottle in mind when I wrote that. Sorry for the mistake.
As i just posted, thats very very true, however, there's more to it. A diet that would allow one to be fit (lots of fruits and veggies, lots of fish, etc), is probably more likely to enhance the brain's capabilities than coke + hamburger + chips twice a day.
Whats almost 100% sure in my view, however, is that the actual body fat doesn't affect anything, or at the very least, very little compared to the above factor, and your explaination.
Not just that, but the actual diet makes a difference. A lot of Slashdot can probably try the following experiment (I did it with several people, the result is consistantly the same).
First, have a typical diet of someone who's obese for 2-4 weeks or something. Hamburgers, chips, etc. Avoid veggies, fruits, whatever. Go to work (as a programmer, or anything that actualy requires concentration, thought, memory, focus...) everyday as normal. Keep track of how productive you are.
Next, for just 1 week, 7 days, nothing more, do whatever you want, but start the day with a banana/strawberry/orange juice smoothie every single morning no exception. In my case, the difference in productivity is something as rediculous as 30-50% (and i'm not exagerating). Results vary, of course, but the difference is -extreme-. So it goes without saying that the diet of someone who's fat is probably lacking in slowly consumed sugars, Omega 3 fatty acids, and other things that help their heads.
beyond the issues that have been raised already (like BMI not being necessarly representative, IQ tests not being particularly good, etc), there's the following problem: Is the fact that you're fat makes you brain go to hell, OR, is it that idiots are more likely to not realise that there's 200-300 calories in a can of soda.
My vote is on the later. Because honestly, I don't see anything about body fat that could affect your head (to -this- extent). So its almost certain that its people who don't have a memory good enough to remember their grade school biology lessons about how there's fat in other things than steak.
There's really nothing special about the ipod itself, except for the fact that it was the first player of its category to turn a "tech gadget" into something that can be understood by the average joe as much as a pair of shoes. Average people are more comfy when their decisions are straight forward. They recognize the ipod brand, so they can associate with it when comes the time to shell out a few hundred bucks for it. Thats all really. And us techies fall in the same darn trap when buying stuff in categories we don't know as well, and we probably don't even notice :)
Thats the issue here. With this, the customer lose, and thats it, they just don't know it. Many, MANY anti-virus softwares worked JUST FINE on Vista. Only heavily intrusive ones, like Norton and McCafe didn't work, because they do things they shouldn't be. Microsoft had a pretty good middle ground. The problem is that companies like Norton and McCafe, which relies, again, on highly intrusive softwares to flip the computer upside down, would have had to rethink their strategies, since they were heavily "abusing" a flaw in Windows' design. The other vendors did just peachy.
In other words, you're trading a bit of security for 2 extra choices, neither of which should be available in the first place.
Worse is, unless one has a bit of a clue about biology, this actualy sounds like a valid thing. Imagine the news if someone actualy did succeed in fooling the patent office to pass that one.
Hey, I said it before and I said it again. Microsoft being threatened is the best thing that can happen to....Microsoft. If to be threatened they need to shoot -themselves- in the foot, so be it. But when Microsoft starts being scared, they actualy try to make decent product (it doesn't always work, but sometimes a gem here and there pops up). If Vista turns out to be a flop, the next version of Windows after that probably will be a great one, there will be significant room for Linux and Mac OS X, and the market as a whole will be healthier. Revolution in the making!
When it comes to standalone softwares, you are correct. However, since the internet is a royal mess (in no small part because of microsoft, but still), browsers are softwares that need attention and user support, else they are kind of useless, as developers will not support them. A little bit like a full desktop + platform (Gnome, KDE) is useless if no one writes applications for them.
To have good support for a software, it requires attention. To get attention, it requires market share. Marketshare means everything for browsers, because even if you follow standards perfectly, you still need to test in browsers (even if its only a quick glance to make some obvious fixes) to be sure everything works. Without appropriate attention, web developers will not take the 5 minutes it takes to test their work (and since a lot of us poor web devs need to support IE, its usualy more than 5 minutes in all browsers to make sure our IE hacks didn't break anything, if only because of a typo).
So again, when it comes to something like a tool to rip CDs to MP3s, a DVD player software, a RSS Feed reader, one of the 5 million windows managers...these are (to some extent) able to live on their own. Even if only 3 people use them, they still work fine. With something like a browser, if only 3 people use them, virtualy no web designer will test in them, and thus the browser becomes very useless.
Citrix isn't so hot, plus there are alternatives, like Terminal Service. That being said, for certain relatively intensive apps, I've seen several douzans of users on a server no more powerful than my PC. A bit far from what you can do with a "real" solution for centralized applications, but still quite acceptable in many situations.
Definately. I know I'm a minority, but not allowing a DVD to play on a computer makes it 100% useless to me. I have a dedicated DVD player. Its still in its own box. I play DVDs on my lap-top while in the plane, on trips, etc, and use my PC which is hooked up to a nice sound system (and to my TV) the rest of the time. I am a big consumer of DVDs, own almost no pirated content (and the only pirated content is the stuff I couldn't find anywhere, not even imported, though how valid an excuse that is, is left to the reader). The pirates will still get their free movies, and content owners won't get money from people like me. Not a very good business model...
They can innovate. What they can't do, is integrate. One of the coolest thing for usuability that Linux has, and that always irks me that windows lack, is the software repositories and ease of integrating everything in one shot. Its fairly common for Linux users to exclusively use softwares found by repositories supported by their distros, through things like apt-get, portage, or whatever. Its awesome.
:) )
Now obviously Microsoft doesn't have anywhere close to that many free apps, but it does have a decent amount, a lot of which you have to download manualy. Often this is because of that anti-trust crap. And there's a lot they COULD do, that they don't to avoid being wiped out in lawsuits. It is fairly obvious, also, that Microsoft never actualy make any kind of effort until they are threatened (for example, IE remained stagnant until Firefox came into play). If Microsoft was below 50% market share, all of this would go away. They would actualy TRY to make better products on a regular basis, could integrate everything, and so on. It would be great for everyone, as Microsoft products would actualy become user oriented, and more targeted (since they wouldn't have to please -everyone- anymore, as they'd have to shift business model). Thus, the software world would be a lot more interesting, with more options (A world where Linux or Mac were the only options would be just as bad as the way things currently are
PostgreSQL is one of the best open source products, all categories, in my opinion, and definately is powerful enough to live in the corporate world (even more so if one considers things like EnterpriseDB, etc). However, the codebase IS a mess. They did wonderful lately to clean it up, but some parts (especialy around the query planner/parser) is still heavily hardcoded and is a total hell to modify, parts of it are extremly slow because of legacy code, etc. While I'm sure Oracle has these issues too, it would just be trading some problems for some others, so really, I don't see Oracle switching. Either way they have to do a partial rewrite. Might as well do it on a database they know best.