It's isn't even that they're self centered. It simply is the fact that the public is RIDICULOUS over trivial safety concerns. And if you mention something that is completely harmless, people overreact to a level of absurdity.
You're not going to find a butcher telling you about what falls into the hamburger either, even though it's within safety guidelines, perfectly legal, and harmless. Because people want to believe they live in a fantasy world where everything is perfectly safe, perfectly clean, and there aren't tiny little bugs crawling all over them.
I think often it's only one of those two skills I completely disagree. I think most programmers just aren't interested in design and have spent all of 20 minutes, or less, thinking about it. If someone spent 20 minutes learning how to program, they'd hardly be any good at it.
What makes beautiful code --code that is simple yet complete, powerful yet flexible-- is the exact same things that makes beautiful design. I believe that "beauty" is an intrinsic truth of the universe; wether mathematical, musical, or visual. If you are creating, no matter what the creation, the same process applies in your quest to reach beauty.
Much if visual design is algorithmic. Very simply rules one can apply to anything they are laying out. Saying "I'm a programmer and not artistic" is just an excuse for laziness. The least artistic programmer in the world can learn some basic rules, and produce design that is 80% perfect. If they studied hard, they could do better than that, but 80% is a huge improvement over what most people create.
Thank you for the response, that makes sense. It certainly is the most integrated environment if you're using all the Microsoft tools from IIS to SQL Server and such. So that makes sense that it works really well for you. And it also makes sense why I don't notice those features, because I'm rarely in that integrated environment, and use Visual Studio only as a c# editor and debugger. A truly great example of why some people really like one tool, and others don't; just different needs.
Style is a subtle thing, very subtle. A lot of people, simply can't distinguish good from bad. Really awesome design looks like anyone could of created it in 5 minutes; which of course they can't, but that's the genius of it.
For me it's music, I don't hear in a very wide range (so say my hearing tests), and I exasperate my co-worker, who is an audiophile, because I simply can't hear the difference, like he can. The "horrible" pop music, with terrible range, sounds the same as "good" music to me.
All that is missing now is a really awesome developer environment. I'm not trying to troll, but a serious question: I spend half my day developing in.net and the other half in Java and Ruby, so I use Visual Studio a lot. My question is why do some people say how great Visual Studio is?
I use it, it's fine, although some bugs that have existed since VS 2003 really irritate the hell out of me, but it isn't much greater than, say NetBeans 6 or IntelliJ Idea. It's nice that they finally added stuff like re-factoring (was in IntelliJ IDEA years before Microsoft copied it), but it isnt' done particularly well. Like I said, it's a fine environment, on par with the others, but "really awesome", I'm confused.
Actually, very likely. I bought a Mac Mini a few days after Tiger came out. It doesn't come pre-installed, of course as it was probably boxed at the factory months before, but on the outside of the box they had taped Tiger.
I'm with ya. We should form some sort of 6 digit UID group. Then actively ridicule anyone who posts with either less than or more than 6 digits. If you do something long enough, people will actually start to think there is something to it.
vi or emacs? Who cares, are you a 6 digiter? That's the question.
The former, no. Windows is just as stable if you are a competant admin these days I think this is a true statement. The problem is that the likelihood that you're going to find a competent Windows admin in the your typical company isn't as high as the likelihood if it were a Unix shop. It isn't because there aren't really skilled Windows admins, because there are, it's more that you're able to scrape by, in Windows, if you're incompetent; Unix is a bit less forgiving.
It's also a cultural thing also. I'm a developer, and it's true in my field as well. Back when VB was big, it was exactly the same problem: sure there were very good VB programmers, but the culture wasn't one of advanced learning or skills. If you asked a question about something in the VB forums about something advanced, you tended to get the "deer in the headlight" responses, or someone would try to tell you which Wizard to use. If you asked the same question in the c++ forum, someone would not only understand your question, they'd answer it, and explain the reason why it is done this way. Ultimately, culture, like in many aspects in life, is a very important thing.
I choose Unix because it allows me to work in a way that is powerful for me, there is a culture of excellence, and my skills are transferable to almost every OS but Windows. I don't use Unix because it's more stable than Windows; at this point I assume my OS is stable; that's hardly good enough anymore.
Just curious but what do you think is the Windows market share on the server? From your comments, I'm guessing you think it's like it is on the desktop, pretty high, right? It isn't (check Gartner or IDC for facts).
It's like GM in the 70s and 80s. When the executives looked out on the streets in Detroit all they saw was American cars (as opposed to the streets in LA for example), so they never really believed in the threat from the Asian markets; until it was too late. I find a lot of companies that are 100% Windows are this way; people just can't believe something they don't see personally. It's not just Windows shops either, this happens in 100% Unix shops too; the difference being that the Unix shops deal with Windows on the desktop so they tend to understand both.
And as for choices on the desktop, if you want to play games and use Adobe software, there are none Um, Adobe's products were Mac only for a long time, then they ported them to Windows much later (most professional graphic artists, and designers, are still on Macs because of this). So you hardly need Windows to run Adobe applications. As for games, there are games for Linux, and much more for Mac, but it's true that Windows is the primary platform on the computer; but truly with a HD PS 3 for $500, this matters less and less all the time.
Macs also have Microsoft Office, another misconception I hear all the time, "I can't use a Mac, because I need Word", [sigh]. I guess it's only natural for people to think what they are familiar with is the only thing that exists. I'm old enough to remember when 90% of the market was Novell servers and Wordperfect for word processing. To suggest, at that time, that people will be using Windows and Microsoft Office would get you laughs from everyone in the office. Times, change, don't be like those people who held onto Wordperfect long after Office took over, otherwise people like me will be taking your job.
I think the thing people have to understand, is there are different types of users who are using Vista. And those different type of users can have entirely different opinions, and they can all be correct. For example, if you're a home user, you may be using Vista and loving it. But many people, here on/. especially, work in IT departments, and when they complain about Vista it is for reasons that a home user would never experience. There is a reason that hardly any company is supporting Vista, internally, at this time; and it isn't because they hate Microsoft or are Mac fan-boys.
Then there are other users like me, who are developers, and Vista causes a lot of troubles with legacy applications; and in the real world most applications are legacy. I personally spent a few months fixing Vista related problems for a client, and after that experience I have a pretty poor view of Vista. It's not that Microsoft made bad decisions on what to add to Vista, it's that they implemented them poorly.
For a company that has that much money, and that many engineers, what they came up, after 5 years, just wasn't good enough. There are choices now on the Desktop, and there have always been choices on the server. Now is not a good time for Microsoft to produce an OS that is "OK".
You probably haven't been looking? Ah, you're one of these googler-linkers, where you find a post, pick out tiny things, take 2 minutes to google it, and then post a link, as if to prove a point. A point, I've noticed, you actually didn't even make. Now I assume your point is that Microsoft is just as giving in the development tools area as Apple; a point you're wrong on.
Microsoft gives you a very stripped down version of Visual Studio (Express Edition), which has all sorts of limitations (remember them ordering a MVC to remove a add-on they created from their site?). This is hardly the same as Apple distributing XCode, for free, with every disc of OS X. Not a stripped down version, but the entire thing. As a person who actually buys Visual Studio (for $700 for each programmer), I'm fully aware that it is not free.
Sorry, but as long as OSX refuses to install on anything but Apple hardware it doesn't look open to me at all. I fail to see why it should matter whether or not it's partly derived from an open source distribution It isn't more open because it's derived from an open source project, it's because a lot of OS X is an open-source project (Darwin). You can download it, run it on any hardware that you like, fork it, etc. Like all open-source projects. There are parts of OS X that are not open-source, and they can only be run on Apple hardware (legally, not technically). Heck, Nokia uses Webkit on some phones, another open-source project of Apple's. I'd like to fork the Windows kernel, where can I find the open-source version of that again?
If you don't see that having a large amount of an OS as open source is more open than having none of your OS open-source, well than I really don't know why I'm trying to explain it to you; I don't live in your black and white world.
Wow, you make me feel old, I remember 10 years ago like it was yesterday, the.com bubble was starting to percolate, and about that time salaries and job offers here in the San Fran/Bay area were starting to increase exponentially. That was a very cool time to be a programmer, you felt like you could change the world; well, at least the computer world. Although on the flip side, our profession was just starting to get infiltrated by people who had no business being there; people who were just in it for the money. Oh well, after the.com pop, they all went back to marketing or sales or whereever they really belonged, and we who were here long before slashdot, or pets.com, were still here.
I wonder when I started reading slashdot, I know it was around the beginning, a friend of mine turned me onto it. I never signed up, and lurked for many years, thus my 745,223 number, oh well I missed my chance to have a nice low/. number.
Flame me all you want, but I haven't noticed a lot of open-source love (or user-love in general) from Apple, and I'm sure they didn't use Darwin because they wanted to annoy Microsoft. If they wanted to annoy Microsoft, they would have joined the Linux/OpenOffice/Firefox-camp I think if you compare Apple, in this instance OS X, to something like Linux it will compare as closed and locked down; as anything compared to Linux (or even more-so BSD) is going to look that way. But if you compare it to Windows, it looks very open, and open source friendly.
OS X is based on open source (I believe this decision was made by engineers at NeXT, way before Apple had anything to do with it), and the user space is BSD, so you can do, basically, anything software-wise, that you can do in BSD. Apple hides stuff so that normal users don't get confused, but nothing is locked down, you can happily sudo bash and do whatever you like.
Sure the license says you can only install OS X on 1 machine (it may actually say 2, but I forget), but there is nothing technically stopping you from installing it on 100 machines, there are no Activation, serial numbers, etc. You can easily make a boot CD in OS X, just like in Linux; you have to do a bunch of hacks to make this happen in Windows, as it is much more locked down. Heck, my old firewire iPod has OS X on it, and I can boot off of it. This is all very similar to Linux.
Safari, isn't like IE at all, it is based from open source, which they contribute back to, and it very standards compliant.
Most everything in OS X is standards base, except for Quicktime (who cares, use VLC or mplayer, just like in Linux) related stuff. Unlike Windows that likes to use it's own formats for everything. Every app in OS X can create PDF files, for free. If, for example, you take screen shot, it saves it as a PNG file. Most programs use EPS, rather than what Microsoft did, which is create their own format (WMF/EMF). There are many examples of this.
I use MacPorts all the time, which if you aren't familiar is a port of Ports from BSD. It's like apt-get, but it compiles the apps, similar to emerge in Gentoo.
Apple does a really good job of exposing all their stuff as APIs. This is why you see shareware apps on OS X, that have some really advanced features. All of their development tools are free, and come with the OS; I don't see Microsoft giving away Visual Studio with Windows. From a developer's perspective, which I am, OS X is very transparent and open.
In regards to iPods and iPhones, which I guess is what most people think of when they think of Apple, they are much more closed then all their competitors; so I understand why people have this perception. I guess I just don't care about music players much, sure I have an iPod, but I don't use it enough for me to care that I can't install a game on it (without paying). My computer matters a whole lot to me, and OS X, works really well for me; I do wish that I could build my own Mac, but of course, if that were possible Apple would loose one of their main advantages (controlling the hardware to guarantee their software works as they like it to ). If I had to switch back to Linux on my workstation, that'd be fine too, I prefer OS X, but Linux is very nice as well.
Thanks, I was kind of happy with my retort. But truthfully I was half just being funny. You're right/. is biased towards unix, wether that is Linux or OS X. But it's not without good reason, in a lot of cases. And yeah, we all tend to exaggerate a little with how bad Windows is, tis true.
It's not that Windows is horrible, but it's more that it could be so much better. The fact that Linux, which is open source, and OS X which has a tiny user base compared, can compete at all highlights how Windows is failing. Windows should be hugely better with the resources that it has had working on it. 2000, and XP are solid, and pretty decent OSs, but that's not good enough. Vista will be fine, a few service packs later, but it has some serious issues now, especially in the enterprise.
You have to understand, especially the old time/.ers. Most likely at one time we all used Windows exclusively. At some point we left Windows behind and moved on to something else. People who once liked something then gave up on it tend to hate it a lot more than someone who never had any connection with that thing. It's an emotional response, a lot of us feel like Microsoft not only let us down, but stuck a hot poker in our eye while they were at it. Heck I used to be a certified MCP and MCSD, which at the time, there were only like 6000 of us, so it had more prestige then it does now.
Me personally, I moved to Linux on servers many years ago. I use OS X as my workstation, and my Mac Pro is my favorite workstation by far. I still do plenty of Windows development, but I'm always pushing to get away from it. I've been burned many times before, and I won't be burned again. So yeah, Vista is OK, but, darn it, OK isn't good enough anymore.
You have an equally capable Debian box, and a equally powered Mac (that'd be a Mac Pro if you are running a nice Vista box) running Tiger sitting right next to your shiny Vista machine, which just sit there turned off to save electricity? Um... sure you do... I can see why you need to save some money on electricity, you just blew $3000 on hardware you never use.
Just because Vista works for you doesn't mean it works for others. I'd say a lot of people here, are in IT for companies, and their problems with Vista are related to being required to get 100% of their companies software to work, not just most of it, or for a majority of users. I'm a developer, and I spent a few months fixing internal software after Vista came out. I can talk for days as to why Vista sucks, as I had to fix one thing after another, for no good reason, other than poor engineering on MS's part. I'm sure if my mom had Vista, it would work just fine when she wrote emails and went to Ebay; but that doesn't mean it's a good OS; Windows Me would work just fine for my mom too. Hmm, I just realized something, (MOM)OCROME, hey wait, is that you mom?
No, it's when the majority of people, or all of them in some cases are not "in character". Being juvenile isn't the problem. It's talking about real world events and things, acting like yourself rather than your character, etc. Role playing is when you are playing a roll.
If you are man, and your character is a woman, who is also a leather-maker and a fighter, then you should interact with other people as if you were a leather making female fighter, not a male accountant from New Jersey. Saying things like "anyone want to go kill that giant bear again real quick, so I can get a few more experience points before I go to bed?" isn't role playing.
My post was twofold, one I was complaining that people aren't role playing, two people being juvenile. Two separate issues.
I agree with him, there is very little role playing in MMORPGs; unfortunately.
Sorry, but elves running around, in only underwear, yelling "LOL, STFU you noob, XBox totally p0wns the PS3" is hardly role playing.
Generally speaking, I thought it would be cool, if you could have servers that people could opt to go on, that contains stuff like your real gender, your real name, and a real picture of you (I'm sure that wouldn't work, but something like that). I may be an old timer, but 10 or 11 years ago, the online gaming scene was very cool, and it was always fun to go online and play with some random stranger; people were civil, and generally had good sportsmanship. Now-a-days (get off my lawn!) it's very difficult to play a game, without people being complete jerks; mainly because they hide behind their anonymity. Because of this I usually only play with my friends, which sucks when you'd like to play when they're not available. Perhaps if their real name was there they'd be a bit more decent.
Perhaps just a ranking system like/. has. This way you could go on servers with only players with good karma; that might be a better approach.
That's nothing, I installed OS 2 the other day, and although the installation fit on 4 floppy disks there were over 32gb of updates to download over my modem. I was swapping floppy disks for hours to fit it all.
I had to reboot 7 times while rubbing my tummy and patting my head, which I felt was just plain rediculous; but maybe it has to be that way for technical reasons, I'm no expert so I'm not sure.
Gasp! A company doing PR and Marketing to increase their bottom line, the horror! WTF people, that really goes without saying, it's the purpose of every commercial company. You despise Apple? Really? Apple is the thing in the world that you spend your time despising? Perhaps you should take some time and think about your priorities, Apple is just a commercial computer company, wether you like their products or not, that's all they are. Steve jobs loves both the fanboys and people like you, because you both are the same, you are elevating him and his company way too high, to the level of absurdity.
Apple is great at marketing, well no kidding; and water is wet, and the sky is blue.
As for this particular bit of PR by Jobs and Apple, it was brilliant, and daring. If you think most companies would take the risk or the financial hit (if if a $100 store credit only costs them $20, it is still a financial hit) by doing a PR stunt like this I'd question if you've actually worked in a big company.
Slashdot Mirror
It's isn't even that they're self centered. It simply is the fact that the public is RIDICULOUS over trivial safety concerns. And if you mention something that is completely harmless, people overreact to a level of absurdity.
You're not going to find a butcher telling you about what falls into the hamburger either, even though it's within safety guidelines, perfectly legal, and harmless. Because people want to believe they live in a fantasy world where everything is perfectly safe, perfectly clean, and there aren't tiny little bugs crawling all over them.
What makes beautiful code --code that is simple yet complete, powerful yet flexible-- is the exact same things that makes beautiful design. I believe that "beauty" is an intrinsic truth of the universe; wether mathematical, musical, or visual. If you are creating, no matter what the creation, the same process applies in your quest to reach beauty.
Much if visual design is algorithmic. Very simply rules one can apply to anything they are laying out. Saying "I'm a programmer and not artistic" is just an excuse for laziness. The least artistic programmer in the world can learn some basic rules, and produce design that is 80% perfect. If they studied hard, they could do better than that, but 80% is a huge improvement over what most people create.
Thank you for the response, that makes sense. It certainly is the most integrated environment if you're using all the Microsoft tools from IIS to SQL Server and such. So that makes sense that it works really well for you. And it also makes sense why I don't notice those features, because I'm rarely in that integrated environment, and use Visual Studio only as a c# editor and debugger. A truly great example of why some people really like one tool, and others don't; just different needs.
Style is a subtle thing, very subtle. A lot of people, simply can't distinguish good from bad. Really awesome design looks like anyone could of created it in 5 minutes; which of course they can't, but that's the genius of it.
For me it's music, I don't hear in a very wide range (so say my hearing tests), and I exasperate my co-worker, who is an audiophile, because I simply can't hear the difference, like he can. The "horrible" pop music, with terrible range, sounds the same as "good" music to me.
I use it, it's fine, although some bugs that have existed since VS 2003 really irritate the hell out of me, but it isn't much greater than, say NetBeans 6 or IntelliJ Idea. It's nice that they finally added stuff like re-factoring (was in IntelliJ IDEA years before Microsoft copied it), but it isnt' done particularly well. Like I said, it's a fine environment, on par with the others, but "really awesome", I'm confused.
Nice spin; creative.
VirueDesktops
Linky goodness
Actually, very likely. I bought a Mac Mini a few days after Tiger came out. It doesn't come pre-installed, of course as it was probably boxed at the factory months before, but on the outside of the box they had taped Tiger.
Ok, I'm going to mod myself down. Score: 4 Insightful? Really... come on people... This is the post you mark as Insightful? [shakes head]
Doh! Like any good group, it gets torn apart from the inside. And to think you're a 6 digiter; I expected more from you, I really did.
I'm with ya. We should form some sort of 6 digit UID group. Then actively ridicule anyone who posts with either less than or more than 6 digits. If you do something long enough, people will actually start to think there is something to it.
vi or emacs? Who cares, are you a 6 digiter? That's the question.
It's also a cultural thing also. I'm a developer, and it's true in my field as well. Back when VB was big, it was exactly the same problem: sure there were very good VB programmers, but the culture wasn't one of advanced learning or skills. If you asked a question about something in the VB forums about something advanced, you tended to get the "deer in the headlight" responses, or someone would try to tell you which Wizard to use. If you asked the same question in the c++ forum, someone would not only understand your question, they'd answer it, and explain the reason why it is done this way. Ultimately, culture, like in many aspects in life, is a very important thing.
I choose Unix because it allows me to work in a way that is powerful for me, there is a culture of excellence, and my skills are transferable to almost every OS but Windows. I don't use Unix because it's more stable than Windows; at this point I assume my OS is stable; that's hardly good enough anymore.
Just curious but what do you think is the Windows market share on the server? From your comments, I'm guessing you think it's like it is on the desktop, pretty high, right? It isn't (check Gartner or IDC for facts).
It's like GM in the 70s and 80s. When the executives looked out on the streets in Detroit all they saw was American cars (as opposed to the streets in LA for example), so they never really believed in the threat from the Asian markets; until it was too late. I find a lot of companies that are 100% Windows are this way; people just can't believe something they don't see personally. It's not just Windows shops either, this happens in 100% Unix shops too; the difference being that the Unix shops deal with Windows on the desktop so they tend to understand both.
Macs also have Microsoft Office, another misconception I hear all the time, "I can't use a Mac, because I need Word", [sigh]. I guess it's only natural for people to think what they are familiar with is the only thing that exists. I'm old enough to remember when 90% of the market was Novell servers and Wordperfect for word processing. To suggest, at that time, that people will be using Windows and Microsoft Office would get you laughs from everyone in the office. Times, change, don't be like those people who held onto Wordperfect long after Office took over, otherwise people like me will be taking your job.
I think the thing people have to understand, is there are different types of users who are using Vista. And those different type of users can have entirely different opinions, and they can all be correct. For example, if you're a home user, you may be using Vista and loving it. But many people, here on /. especially, work in IT departments, and when they complain about Vista it is for reasons that a home user would never experience. There is a reason that hardly any company is supporting Vista, internally, at this time; and it isn't because they hate Microsoft or are Mac fan-boys.
Then there are other users like me, who are developers, and Vista causes a lot of troubles with legacy applications; and in the real world most applications are legacy. I personally spent a few months fixing Vista related problems for a client, and after that experience I have a pretty poor view of Vista. It's not that Microsoft made bad decisions on what to add to Vista, it's that they implemented them poorly.
For a company that has that much money, and that many engineers, what they came up, after 5 years, just wasn't good enough. There are choices now on the Desktop, and there have always been choices on the server. Now is not a good time for Microsoft to produce an OS that is "OK".
Microsoft gives you a very stripped down version of Visual Studio (Express Edition), which has all sorts of limitations (remember them ordering a MVC to remove a add-on they created from their site?). This is hardly the same as Apple distributing XCode, for free, with every disc of OS X. Not a stripped down version, but the entire thing. As a person who actually buys Visual Studio (for $700 for each programmer), I'm fully aware that it is not free. Sorry, but as long as OSX refuses to install on anything but Apple hardware it doesn't look open to me at all. I fail to see why it should matter whether or not it's partly derived from an open source distribution It isn't more open because it's derived from an open source project, it's because a lot of OS X is an open-source project (Darwin). You can download it, run it on any hardware that you like, fork it, etc. Like all open-source projects. There are parts of OS X that are not open-source, and they can only be run on Apple hardware (legally, not technically). Heck, Nokia uses Webkit on some phones, another open-source project of Apple's. I'd like to fork the Windows kernel, where can I find the open-source version of that again?
If you don't see that having a large amount of an OS as open source is more open than having none of your OS open-source, well than I really don't know why I'm trying to explain it to you; I don't live in your black and white world.
Wow, you make me feel old, I remember 10 years ago like it was yesterday, the .com bubble was starting to percolate, and about that time salaries and job offers here in the San Fran/Bay area were starting to increase exponentially. That was a very cool time to be a programmer, you felt like you could change the world; well, at least the computer world. Although on the flip side, our profession was just starting to get infiltrated by people who had no business being there; people who were just in it for the money. Oh well, after the .com pop, they all went back to marketing or sales or whereever they really belonged, and we who were here long before slashdot, or pets.com, were still here.
/. number.
I wonder when I started reading slashdot, I know it was around the beginning, a friend of mine turned me onto it. I never signed up, and lurked for many years, thus my 745,223 number, oh well I missed my chance to have a nice low
Oh, and today is my birthday too, yaay for me!
OS X is based on open source (I believe this decision was made by engineers at NeXT, way before Apple had anything to do with it), and the user space is BSD, so you can do, basically, anything software-wise, that you can do in BSD. Apple hides stuff so that normal users don't get confused, but nothing is locked down, you can happily sudo bash and do whatever you like.
Sure the license says you can only install OS X on 1 machine (it may actually say 2, but I forget), but there is nothing technically stopping you from installing it on 100 machines, there are no Activation, serial numbers, etc. You can easily make a boot CD in OS X, just like in Linux; you have to do a bunch of hacks to make this happen in Windows, as it is much more locked down. Heck, my old firewire iPod has OS X on it, and I can boot off of it. This is all very similar to Linux.
Safari, isn't like IE at all, it is based from open source, which they contribute back to, and it very standards compliant.
Most everything in OS X is standards base, except for Quicktime (who cares, use VLC or mplayer, just like in Linux) related stuff. Unlike Windows that likes to use it's own formats for everything. Every app in OS X can create PDF files, for free. If, for example, you take screen shot, it saves it as a PNG file. Most programs use EPS, rather than what Microsoft did, which is create their own format (WMF/EMF). There are many examples of this.
I use MacPorts all the time, which if you aren't familiar is a port of Ports from BSD. It's like apt-get, but it compiles the apps, similar to emerge in Gentoo.
Apple does a really good job of exposing all their stuff as APIs. This is why you see shareware apps on OS X, that have some really advanced features. All of their development tools are free, and come with the OS; I don't see Microsoft giving away Visual Studio with Windows. From a developer's perspective, which I am, OS X is very transparent and open.
In regards to iPods and iPhones, which I guess is what most people think of when they think of Apple, they are much more closed then all their competitors; so I understand why people have this perception. I guess I just don't care about music players much, sure I have an iPod, but I don't use it enough for me to care that I can't install a game on it (without paying). My computer matters a whole lot to me, and OS X, works really well for me; I do wish that I could build my own Mac, but of course, if that were possible Apple would loose one of their main advantages (controlling the hardware to guarantee their software works as they like it to ). If I had to switch back to Linux on my workstation, that'd be fine too, I prefer OS X, but Linux is very nice as well.
Thanks, I was kind of happy with my retort. But truthfully I was half just being funny. You're right /. is biased towards unix, wether that is Linux or OS X. But it's not without good reason, in a lot of cases. And yeah, we all tend to exaggerate a little with how bad Windows is, tis true.
/.ers. Most likely at one time we all used Windows exclusively. At some point we left Windows behind and moved on to something else. People who once liked something then gave up on it tend to hate it a lot more than someone who never had any connection with that thing. It's an emotional response, a lot of us feel like Microsoft not only let us down, but stuck a hot poker in our eye while they were at it. Heck I used to be a certified MCP and MCSD, which at the time, there were only like 6000 of us, so it had more prestige then it does now.
It's not that Windows is horrible, but it's more that it could be so much better. The fact that Linux, which is open source, and OS X which has a tiny user base compared, can compete at all highlights how Windows is failing. Windows should be hugely better with the resources that it has had working on it. 2000, and XP are solid, and pretty decent OSs, but that's not good enough. Vista will be fine, a few service packs later, but it has some serious issues now, especially in the enterprise.
You have to understand, especially the old time
Me personally, I moved to Linux on servers many years ago. I use OS X as my workstation, and my Mac Pro is my favorite workstation by far. I still do plenty of Windows development, but I'm always pushing to get away from it. I've been burned many times before, and I won't be burned again. So yeah, Vista is OK, but, darn it, OK isn't good enough anymore.
You have an equally capable Debian box, and a equally powered Mac (that'd be a Mac Pro if you are running a nice Vista box) running Tiger sitting right next to your shiny Vista machine, which just sit there turned off to save electricity? Um... sure you do... I can see why you need to save some money on electricity, you just blew $3000 on hardware you never use.
Just because Vista works for you doesn't mean it works for others. I'd say a lot of people here, are in IT for companies, and their problems with Vista are related to being required to get 100% of their companies software to work, not just most of it, or for a majority of users. I'm a developer, and I spent a few months fixing internal software after Vista came out. I can talk for days as to why Vista sucks, as I had to fix one thing after another, for no good reason, other than poor engineering on MS's part. I'm sure if my mom had Vista, it would work just fine when she wrote emails and went to Ebay; but that doesn't mean it's a good OS; Windows Me would work just fine for my mom too. Hmm, I just realized something, (MOM)OCROME, hey wait, is that you mom?
No, it's when the majority of people, or all of them in some cases are not "in character". Being juvenile isn't the problem. It's talking about real world events and things, acting like yourself rather than your character, etc. Role playing is when you are playing a roll.
If you are man, and your character is a woman, who is also a leather-maker and a fighter, then you should interact with other people as if you were a leather making female fighter, not a male accountant from New Jersey. Saying things like "anyone want to go kill that giant bear again real quick, so I can get a few more experience points before I go to bed?" isn't role playing.
My post was twofold, one I was complaining that people aren't role playing, two people being juvenile. Two separate issues.
I agree with him, there is very little role playing in MMORPGs; unfortunately.
/. has. This way you could go on servers with only players with good karma; that might be a better approach.
Sorry, but elves running around, in only underwear, yelling "LOL, STFU you noob, XBox totally p0wns the PS3" is hardly role playing.
Generally speaking, I thought it would be cool, if you could have servers that people could opt to go on, that contains stuff like your real gender, your real name, and a real picture of you (I'm sure that wouldn't work, but something like that). I may be an old timer, but 10 or 11 years ago, the online gaming scene was very cool, and it was always fun to go online and play with some random stranger; people were civil, and generally had good sportsmanship. Now-a-days (get off my lawn!) it's very difficult to play a game, without people being complete jerks; mainly because they hide behind their anonymity. Because of this I usually only play with my friends, which sucks when you'd like to play when they're not available. Perhaps if their real name was there they'd be a bit more decent.
Perhaps just a ranking system like
That's nothing, I installed OS 2 the other day, and although the installation fit on 4 floppy disks there were over 32gb of updates to download over my modem. I was swapping floppy disks for hours to fit it all.
I had to reboot 7 times while rubbing my tummy and patting my head, which I felt was just plain rediculous; but maybe it has to be that way for technical reasons, I'm no expert so I'm not sure.
Oh really? Kindly link to said study at Cambridge University (or Cmabrigde Uinervtisy if you prefer) that are referring too.
Gasp! A company doing PR and Marketing to increase their bottom line, the horror! WTF people, that really goes without saying, it's the purpose of every commercial company. You despise Apple? Really? Apple is the thing in the world that you spend your time despising? Perhaps you should take some time and think about your priorities, Apple is just a commercial computer company, wether you like their products or not, that's all they are. Steve jobs loves both the fanboys and people like you, because you both are the same, you are elevating him and his company way too high, to the level of absurdity.
Apple is great at marketing, well no kidding; and water is wet, and the sky is blue.
As for this particular bit of PR by Jobs and Apple, it was brilliant, and daring. If you think most companies would take the risk or the financial hit (if if a $100 store credit only costs them $20, it is still a financial hit) by doing a PR stunt like this I'd question if you've actually worked in a big company.