Who is your typical (non-funded) developer ? He's someone who wants to make a good tool primarily for himself. He looks at what he wants it to do, how he wants to interact with it.
If he adds a GUI, it's because either he wants to tinker with this GUI toolkit, or he has a specific usage pattern and a GUI suits it well.
He documents it as much as it's minimally needed. He doesn't provide links on how to update your drivers, or how to build an ---insert yours but not his favorite package management tool--- for this application.
At the end when he's done, he releases it with the mindset "Hey I've done something nice, and I'd like to share it with you all AS IT IS."
There's no surprise here if his needs, usage, or documentation don't exactly suit yours. Most nerds tend to be alike, and we can mostly deal with each others' preferences/style/etc., but Aunt Tillie definitely cannot.
And unfortunately, as the article states, it is not trivial to glue an informative GUI to this finished product. The original developer didn't have that interest to begin with.
There are people out there who publish on their homepages their experiences with getting wireless ethernet to work on linux, and some others help other newbies by answering their questions on usenet. However, only few people commit to keeping their webpages up to date with howto's on new cards and drivers.
There are a lot of good people out there who'd like to solve other people's problems. Are there enough to overhaul desktop linux and make it usable by the masses ? I wouldn't know.
I think I am slow today. Why was parent modded funny ? I do what's described already by using a neat program called Password Safe (on sf.net, by Schneier's company). It copies the password to the clipboard and after you paste it, close psafe, and clipboard is cleared.
He means the non-game screens of 3d engine powered games, such as options screens, server browsers, etc.
Obviously those guys know something about UI design and are smart enough not to use the readily available 3d engine for such tasks. It just adds nothing.
Before looking at how information is rendered on OS screens, it's better to look at how information is represented, such as the concept of a file, event based GUI's, etc. If you've got the right idea, I think the rendering part seldom gets in the way...
Who said I wanted a driver's licence ? I want the car to go by itself in terms of your piss poor analogy.
And I'll solve my problem, thank you very much. However, you have to understand that Average Joe does NOT want to even know that there is rpm and apt-get, let alone decide what's the right/better one.
Ah. It just dawned on me why. If you knew enough to hack the pb client, wouldn't you pass a forged md5sum to the server anyway ? There is no way a pb client can prove that it is unmodified unless the authentication scheme is part of the O/S. (then again, you can hack the OS, too.)
I didn't say it was going to be quick and simple, and yes, there are 100s of driver files. But it is practical. Once you get it going, you only need to update your list maybe once a week. Vendors don't release drivers every day.
All hardware comes with Windows driver installation CD's...
And they have customer support lines. I called netgear, and d-link several times for my problems on Win2k. None of them officially support linux. Imagine tech support asking average Joe to perform rmmod, modprobe, etc...
Hey Bani. I never thought that I'd reply to you on slashdot...
I remember seeing MD5SUM messages on the q3/rtcw console. I assumed that those were being sent to the server for client integrity verification. Are you sure that pb doesn't check its own integrity ?
It doesn't have to TCPA, but anti-cheat software must be able to authenticate (e.g. by md5sum) every gfx driver.
I don't think this constitutes a problem for linux games except for the fact that you just cannot compile and run your own set of ATi drivers. You have to use a pre-compiled one whose md5sum matches what's recognized by pb.
I agree wholeheartedly. This is not stricly related to games, but it is critical.
You just need to get out of the "if you want something, compile it yourself" mentality. I am a software developer myself, but I hate downloading source code that I have no interest in reading. I hate looking for Mandrake RPM's on the net, too. I hate when RPM's require other RPM's. I just wanna be able to download whatever binary and run it as soon as the download finishes. And no, I don't even wanna know about apt-get, rpm, or whatever else is the proper tool.
Just like it's in the Windows world, when I click on an application's Setup.exe, it should just install. I don't care if you'll have to statically link everything, or implement another scheme.
In the OSS world, the itch that gets scratched is the one that the developer has. This is the itch that belongs to people who either don't have the time or the talent to solve it.
...great for wallhacking, btw. If everyone could roll their own version of the driver, you cannot track how many versions are out there and which does what.
Maybe Linux kernel should provide (I don't know if it does already) md5sum's of loaded drivers so that anti-cheat software like Punkbuster can detect. In that case, even with the open source, you need official binary distributions...
Everytime such a technique is mentioned, numerous posts follow stating the obvious: It just cannot be done. But I don't think that RIAA simply have no tech experts and are mindlessly pushing such "magical" technologies.
I am certain that they are well aware of how difficult (impossible) this is. There must be some other motive behind this move.
Making noise ? Trying to mask the fact that copyrights are too hard to enforce in an environment where information exchange is happening at uncontrollable rates and speeds and between uncountable people across continents ? Give the false idea that their antiquated business model can prevail at this day and age ?
Whatever it is, we're going to witness that it is in vain. I just hope that all these attempts and researches find use in other areas...
geek: A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.
nerd: 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games.
If you care about what the mass media thinks of you, then you're not a geek, or a nerd, IMHO.
Turkey is not an "islamic" country. It's a democratic republic with muslim majority; quite a bit different from many so-called islamic countries in the region...
Moreover, the muslims in Bosnia are of Turkish descent. Arabs and Turks have never got along well. Turkey also has economic and military ties with Israel. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Arabs don't really care what happens with Turks...
I don't think it's fair to blame the English language for what perl is...
It is possible to think "anything" in any language. At one point I spoke three languages fluently at the same time. I can safely say that the more powerful the language, the easier it is to formulate thoughts, catch inconsistencies and think as a group.
However, I would also say that a language that's worth anything doesn't naturally face extinction.
I don't see at all how much this is related to computer languages. Programming is the job of translating your understanding of a process into another language. The "other" languages of today (c++, java, etc.) resemble English (to some extent) TODAY because it's easier to teach a second language when it has similar constructs.
TOMORROW, we will more often see that programming languages resemble our internal understanding of the problem (vision, sounds, etc.). Even today we treat source code different than we treat prose: class diagrams, syntax highlighting, code generation, etc.
Do you know "what" Mainsoft do ? Apparently you don't. Maybe you should check their website before posting such a question. Hell, if you had just read some of the comments on slashdot, even that would have given you an idea...
From your second question I gather you're just a tad older than 24...
Who in his right mind modded your comment full of question marks "informative"...
Also, the md5 files give you the chance to download the tarball from a mirror/personal website/etc. and still be pretty sure that you've got the right stuff.
That's correct. But that doesn't stop you from reading the compromised source. That's still better than nothing. However, it is important to recognize the threat.
I could as well attack a developer's machine and obtain his private keys, and start submitting patches with his signature.
Maybe compilers need a switch to force them to generate identical binaries consecutively. Or maybe a tool that can strip the variable stuff and diff the rest.
See, the economists ALWAYS see the big picture. How dare we mere mortals look at this from our own point of view ???
What suprises me is how the Americans (the exec's at least) are so willing to throw in the towel. Yeah, the Indians are charging less, but you'd think that a nation obsessed with plugging the word "American" in front of every product would say something along the lines of "Yeah, the Indians may charge less, but the American engineering is better..."
If they keep their current attitude of accepting the defeat, offshoring won't really bring any competition; instead it will bring Indian domination. Whatever happens, it'll take a while for India to get so filthy rich that they don't want to study engineering anymore (like the yanks now), and send those jobs back to the poor Americans of the future. (Yes, I am done exaggerating.)
1.8 useful for what ? There is no such thing as a hardcoded gamma value. Ideal gamma for your monitor depends on contrast/brightness settings, room illlumination, and monitor hardware. It typically is around 2.2, but it could be quite higher. The point is, you have to individually calibrate each and every monitor.
Right now, ATi and nvidia drivers give you the opportunity to customize the hell out of gamma (e.g. different gamma per R, G and B), but I think it's way too late in the game.
First of all, gamma is the monitor's property, not the drivers. Moreover, right now there is virtually nothing that expects calibrated monitors (people don't even adjust their contrast/brightness right). So everything looks like ass. This *should* have been part of the monitor driver (whazzat?) way back when it mattered.
When I saw this, I first thought that they were planning to start charging for email and anti-spam benefits were just sugar coating...
I cannot believe that spam is such a big problem. Tons of smart individuals all over the world, big companies, academic institutions have already spent a lot of effort to no avail. Maybe they're looking at the wrong side of the problem.
IMHO, the problem is the people with disposable incomes who cannot tell real mail from spam using the sender field. Their eyes somehow wonder over to the subject line. Something reminds them that they are not happy with their penis sizes, and they read the whole e-mail, click on the links, go to the website and spend their money.
I have a hotmail account and I get 5-10 spam e-mails that pass thru hotmail's filter. Deleting them manually takes me 5-10 seconds, which I have to spend because you people out there are not doing this and conducting business with spammers. Seeing how you react, the spammers up the dosage in proportion with their level of greed.
Author claims "good programmers know assembly well, so make everybody a good programmer by teaching them assembly first".
It is correct that many (most?) good programmers have a decent understanding of the underlying machine. I wouldn't go farther than that and claim that it's the assembly knowledge that makes them better. Gigantic logic flaw. You're immune to it though, once you put the magic "linux x86" in it, your submission will be published.
The number of Linux servers was actually a reason why HL had so many players.
No, the reason why HL has had so many players is because people like the game. People wanted to play it, so they set up servers. Valve released a linux server because it's a good idea, so people often chose to set up linux servers.
After this it became clear that Valve really didn't give a damn about rewarding the Linux community with a client version. Much to the opposite, HL2 was being tought from the ground up to be Windows-only.
Umm, why should they reward anybody ? They didn't ask anyone to set up linux servers. There are perfectly well running windows servers. They just gave you the option, and you took it.
To make it short I sold my HL CD's, shut the servers down and replaced them with Q3 and UT. Many Linux admins were doing the same, since it really looked like Valve was spitting in the face of the people that helped them. I have never touched HL since then (nor any of the mods).
So you care more about what OS the game server is running than the game itself ?
Btw, I guess most people care more about the game than the server's OS. As you can see from gamespy.com's stats page, HL has (maybe ten times) more players than Q3 and UT players combined.
So, basically, I believe in supporting companies that support me (and the Linux community) for their effort. With so many good games of the genre available for Linux it isn't even difficult.
"Your support effort" is nothing compared to "the real work they actually have to do" in order to get a DirectX 9 game running on linux (and btw, it is actually difficult).
Slashdot Mirror
"ogg" files ? That's a bit ironic, imho.
If he adds a GUI, it's because either he wants to tinker with this GUI toolkit, or he has a specific usage pattern and a GUI suits it well.
He documents it as much as it's minimally needed. He doesn't provide links on how to update your drivers, or how to build an ---insert yours but not his favorite package management tool--- for this application.
At the end when he's done, he releases it with the mindset "Hey I've done something nice, and I'd like to share it with you all AS IT IS."
There's no surprise here if his needs, usage, or documentation don't exactly suit yours. Most nerds tend to be alike, and we can mostly deal with each others' preferences/style/etc., but Aunt Tillie definitely cannot.
And unfortunately, as the article states, it is not trivial to glue an informative GUI to this finished product. The original developer didn't have that interest to begin with.
There are people out there who publish on their homepages their experiences with getting wireless ethernet to work on linux, and some others help other newbies by answering their questions on usenet. However, only few people commit to keeping their webpages up to date with howto's on new cards and drivers.
There are a lot of good people out there who'd like to solve other people's problems. Are there enough to overhaul desktop linux and make it usable by the masses ? I wouldn't know.
I think I am slow today. Why was parent modded funny ? I do what's described already by using a neat program called Password Safe (on sf.net, by Schneier's company). It copies the password to the clipboard and after you paste it, close psafe, and clipboard is cleared.
Obviously those guys know something about UI design and are smart enough not to use the readily available 3d engine for such tasks. It just adds nothing.
Before looking at how information is rendered on OS screens, it's better to look at how information is represented, such as the concept of a file, event based GUI's, etc. If you've got the right idea, I think the rendering part seldom gets in the way...
And I'll solve my problem, thank you very much. However, you have to understand that Average Joe does NOT want to even know that there is rpm and apt-get, let alone decide what's the right/better one.
I didn't say it was going to be quick and simple, and yes, there are 100s of driver files. But it is practical. Once you get it going, you only need to update your list maybe once a week. Vendors don't release drivers every day.
And they have customer support lines. I called netgear, and d-link several times for my problems on Win2k. None of them officially support linux. Imagine tech support asking average Joe to perform rmmod, modprobe, etc...
I remember seeing MD5SUM messages on the q3/rtcw console. I assumed that those were being sent to the server for client integrity verification. Are you sure that pb doesn't check its own integrity ?
It doesn't have to TCPA, but anti-cheat software must be able to authenticate (e.g. by md5sum) every gfx driver.
I don't think this constitutes a problem for linux games except for the fact that you just cannot compile and run your own set of ATi drivers. You have to use a pre-compiled one whose md5sum matches what's recognized by pb.
You just need to get out of the "if you want something, compile it yourself" mentality. I am a software developer myself, but I hate downloading source code that I have no interest in reading. I hate looking for Mandrake RPM's on the net, too. I hate when RPM's require other RPM's. I just wanna be able to download whatever binary and run it as soon as the download finishes. And no, I don't even wanna know about apt-get, rpm, or whatever else is the proper tool.
Just like it's in the Windows world, when I click on an application's Setup.exe, it should just install. I don't care if you'll have to statically link everything, or implement another scheme.
In the OSS world, the itch that gets scratched is the one that the developer has. This is the itch that belongs to people who either don't have the time or the talent to solve it.
Moreover, things like fog just cannot be done on the server side.
Maybe Linux kernel should provide (I don't know if it does already) md5sum's of loaded drivers so that anti-cheat software like Punkbuster can detect. In that case, even with the open source, you need official binary distributions...
I am certain that they are well aware of how difficult (impossible) this is. There must be some other motive behind this move.
Making noise ? Trying to mask the fact that copyrights are too hard to enforce in an environment where information exchange is happening at uncontrollable rates and speeds and between uncountable people across continents ? Give the false idea that their antiquated business model can prevail at this day and age ?
Whatever it is, we're going to witness that it is in vain. I just hope that all these attempts and researches find use in other areas...
Bias Meter:
[Perl ---------|-- Python]
geek: A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.
nerd: 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games.
If you care about what the mass media thinks of you, then you're not a geek, or a nerd, IMHO.
Moreover, the muslims in Bosnia are of Turkish descent. Arabs and Turks have never got along well. Turkey also has economic and military ties with Israel. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Arabs don't really care what happens with Turks...
It is possible to think "anything" in any language. At one point I spoke three languages fluently at the same time. I can safely say that the more powerful the language, the easier it is to formulate thoughts, catch inconsistencies and think as a group.
However, I would also say that a language that's worth anything doesn't naturally face extinction.
I don't see at all how much this is related to computer languages. Programming is the job of translating your understanding of a process into another language. The "other" languages of today (c++, java, etc.) resemble English (to some extent) TODAY because it's easier to teach a second language when it has similar constructs.
TOMORROW, we will more often see that programming languages resemble our internal understanding of the problem (vision, sounds, etc.). Even today we treat source code different than we treat prose: class diagrams, syntax highlighting, code generation, etc.
From your second question I gather you're just a tad older than 24...
Who in his right mind modded your comment full of question marks "informative"...
Also, the md5 files give you the chance to download the tarball from a mirror/personal website/etc. and still be pretty sure that you've got the right stuff.
I could as well attack a developer's machine and obtain his private keys, and start submitting patches with his signature.
Maybe compilers need a switch to force them to generate identical binaries consecutively. Or maybe a tool that can strip the variable stuff and diff the rest.
PWNED !
What suprises me is how the Americans (the exec's at least) are so willing to throw in the towel. Yeah, the Indians are charging less, but you'd think that a nation obsessed with plugging the word "American" in front of every product would say something along the lines of "Yeah, the Indians may charge less, but the American engineering is better..."
If they keep their current attitude of accepting the defeat, offshoring won't really bring any competition; instead it will bring Indian domination. Whatever happens, it'll take a while for India to get so filthy rich that they don't want to study engineering anymore (like the yanks now), and send those jobs back to the poor Americans of the future. (Yes, I am done exaggerating.)
Right now, ATi and nvidia drivers give you the opportunity to customize the hell out of gamma (e.g. different gamma per R, G and B), but I think it's way too late in the game.
First of all, gamma is the monitor's property, not the drivers. Moreover, right now there is virtually nothing that expects calibrated monitors (people don't even adjust their contrast/brightness right). So everything looks like ass. This *should* have been part of the monitor driver (whazzat?) way back when it mattered.
What if dark matter indeed exists, but it's not dark ?
IMHO, the problem is the people with disposable incomes who cannot tell real mail from spam using the sender field. Their eyes somehow wonder over to the subject line. Something reminds them that they are not happy with their penis sizes, and they read the whole e-mail, click on the links, go to the website and spend their money.
I have a hotmail account and I get 5-10 spam e-mails that pass thru hotmail's filter. Deleting them manually takes me 5-10 seconds, which I have to spend because you people out there are not doing this and conducting business with spammers. Seeing how you react, the spammers up the dosage in proportion with their level of greed.
It is correct that many (most?) good programmers have a decent understanding of the underlying machine. I wouldn't go farther than that and claim that it's the assembly knowledge that makes them better. Gigantic logic flaw. You're immune to it though, once you put the magic "linux x86" in it, your submission will be published.