Send stdout to other programs, send stderr to the human/log.
Sure, and when you are at it, use a different level or logging facility for your debug log, and make it runtime configurable etc...
In other words, yes, you can debug using simple printf, and as you say, you can do better when sending its output to a seperate file of stderr, the point was that simple, straightforward printf() may work but quickly becomes unusable due to its output getting mixed with other output (regardless of using stdout or err, just moves the problem somehwere else), and a slightly more 'advanced' setup will do a much better job at it.
Absurd or not, if the stakes are raised, some companies will try to push this harder and lobby government to improve its effectiveness and reduce safeguards for employees.
Which should have zero chance in a working democracy... unless you have voting rights for companies and so many of them that they become a relevant force..
Oh wait.. 'working democracy' might be part of a problem there.
The second point actually supports my point. Basically, the scientific method is discouraged without patents.
Not really. You can say that having a working patent system encourages the scientific method, but it was known and used before a patent system similar to what we know now existed, and it wasn't unpopular either. Alchemy has other motives for not using the scientific method then lack of patents. Trying to achieve things easily debunked by that scientific method, and making more money by 'working on the invention' then the impossible invention could ever bring come to mind.
In other words, simply by looking at what alchemy tries to achieve it should be clear why it does not use the scientific method and why secrecy about what it really being done is of the uttermost importance for its survival.
And that makes it pretty much irrelevant for the patents discussion.
Of course your first point shows that patents can also slow down the scientific process. However, slow is better than stopped.
Its more a matter of hindering progress or not. Neither way results in no progress at all, wich is pretty much evident from progress in science having been there for much longer then a working patent system, and there being a pretty clear correlation between weak patent protection and a high rate of scientific progress.
Just to witness, patents are the one and only reason why people had to wait till the 50s for TV became easily available and usable, while the technology used had been there for the last 30 or so years.
Also, I think it's worth putting the patent system into perspective.
Yes, but lets put it into the perspective of what was originally the intention of the system..
The intention was NOT to help companies make a profit
The intention was to promote usefull inventions, and to make the details to their workings publicly available.
Helping an inventor to profit from an invention is the MEANS, not the purpose.
Now, by allowing patents that are overly broad, are written such that they are of absolutely no use for recreating the invention, and hinder others from participating in invention, basicly all the ideas that are underlying the current system have been broken. All it does now is indeed as you say allow a company some choice in how they profit from their inventions, but at such a huge expense to society that it is really better to just do away with it.
You, like many who argue to keep the current patent system are confusing the goal with the means here.
Great idea! Then everybody will jealously guard every innovation as a trade secret
Which in quite a few cases means not being able to sell a product that uses it.. sounds like a real good idea.....
and industrial espionage will surge.
Heh, as if that isn't happening already at a large scale...
If you think office security is a pain now imagine what it'll be like when the stakes are raised.
Most 'office security' serves the same purpose as airport security, its making sure they can say 'but we tried to prevent it really' and to make people think about not taking risks. More of it won't do shit to stop industrial espionage.
There are already problems with onerous non-competition clauses in high level employee contracts.
Those clauses should really be dealt with by law. It is absurd to ban someone from working in their field of choice because it is economically destriuctive. You effectively force a person to not contribute for a specific amount of time, resulting in lost production/inventiveness during that time.
With no patent protection, you could expect EVERY knowledge worker to have to sign a contract saying that if they quit, that they can't work in any, even vaguely, similar career. So, if you're a software person and you quit, you better not be doing software anything for anybody else in your next job.
How good I live in a country where this is simply out of the question since such clauses in contracts hae been found to be entirely unenforcable here (and actually in much if not all of the EU).
But at any rate, as I already said, this is a seperate problem that needs to be dealt with, regardless of patents.
It'll be like all of the nasty parts of cyberpunk coming to fruition.
OK. I exaggerate. However much we all hate (software) patents, there probably does need to be some force that encourages invention disclosure for the greater good. The patent system may need massive overhaul, but abolishing it altogether ends up producing the problems that prompted its' creation in the first place. There's a reason that alchemy got nowhere for centuries... they all kept their research secret.
I beg to differ with your conclusion.
1. Where I live, patents existed already in the 1600s. Examples of patents preventing further invention, stalling development of an entire country even, are also dating back to the 1600s.
2. Alchemy had some interesting but usually pretty impossible objectives, and did not often employ scenmtific methods to study things. Those are the main reasons it never got anywhere, where they wanted to get didn't exist to begin with.
At any rate, you have one valid point here, how to get companies to release information on their inventions to the public so that such information can be reused.
I don't know the answer, but I do know a system that allows you to document your inventiuon in ways to prevent reproducing it (read the typical software patent for examples of this) and where you can prevent your competition from using your invention (as opposed to can force your competition to compensate you for a bit for using your invention) is really seriously broken and is not accomplishing the desired result either, while it is expensive for everyone.
So in the end, yeah, a workign patent system might be even better, but abolishing the current system is very very likely a much better idea then keeping it.
This logic is twisted to me. If a patent is so bad that you can't use it to "stop someone from doing something" then it is worthless. That is the whole point of a patent.
Correct. If you can't use your patent to stop someone from doing what you patented, then you have no argument for trying to negotiate any deal with them based on that patent.
Also, if you don't enforce a violation of that patent as soon as you learn about it then you stand to lose any case you bring later.
You must be thinking of trademarks here. Those you have to defend vigorously when you become aware of infringement, but this is not true for patents at all.
The idea that patents can be used defensively is only valid if you are also willing to use them offensively.
'Willing' as in, use them to threaten and get others to comply? sure.
As anyone can tell who ever thought about this, this is called 'artificial barrier to entry' and is a really stupid idea if you also are striving for a 'free market' (that is, a market free of anti-competative influences, which is not at all the same as being able to do whatever the fuck you want)
At any rate, no you don't have to defend your patent from eery infringement, and no, not defending it in specific cases does not make you lose standing or such in cases where you do defend them.
Another big advantage of trackballs is that the mouseball/surface contact is always known. I currently have the optical mouseball from logitech, and this never hops,
I have an optical trackman from Logitech here, and came to the interesting (but pretty obvious) conclusion that optical trackballs are more sensitive to dirt then optical mice. It doesn't affect their sensor or such, but it does affect how 'smooth' the ball will move. That said, the known surface makes up for that (and its easy to clean usually)
But if you're writing something for the community at large, as part of a project, and you want it and Linux to succeed, it's a good idea to write good documentation.
If you want others to use your stuff it helps to document it, sure.
Given. Microsoft produces ridiculous help, in my experience. The difference is, Linux doesn't have the money or the near-monopoly that Microsoft has, and if we want new users, we have to be better than the other guys
And this is where the problem is. Linux was not made to replace Windows. OSS isn't out to 'win' from Microsoft, however, some contributors have beating MS as their main motivator. Don't confise those 2 things.
Linux (and many other OSS projects) was made to 'scratch an itch'. Its success is defined by how well it does that, not by how many people use it or whomever gets beaten in marketshare.
Now, more users is a nice idea because it also means more people helping out, and documenting things helps for that, but as said, people giving you stuff for free doesn't make for you being able to 'demand' things from them, rather, if you feel that documentation is lacking and would be helpfull, maybe help writing it.
If they write the software and expect other people to use it (hence making it available for other people), they should write the documentation.
Now wait a moment..
I make something because I need/want it for whatever reason. I then decide to share what I made with others, and now you tell me that results in me being required to do something?
You can come back with that argument the day you pay me for the work.
When I publish some bit of open source software, it is in the hope it is usefull to someone, but I do not expect anything, and you should not expect anything from me besides what you just got. Seems like a fair deal to me.
Some times, the documentation just sucks, some times it doesn't
Yep, and it has been that way for as long as I have been using computers regardless of what kind of software or software development process you are looking at. Some people can write documentation, some can't.
Sometimes users who can't write the underlying code, but can very well figure out what it does, write howtos and even documentation.. Sometimes that documentation is very good, sometimes it is a big mess.. usually its somewhere inbetween..
Maybe, just maybe the problem is that writing documentation isn't exactly easy, and what is usefull documentation for some people isn't usefull by definition to everyone who would be interested in what is documented. This isn't just true for software either.
Regardless, there exists usefull documentation for many of the open source projects out there. Sometimes it takes a bit of efford to find, sometimes it isn't too well organized, but often it is actually pretty difficult to miss on the project's website, and I find the typical quality above average given you have sufficient knowledge of the system it is supposed to work on (and no, that doesn't mean having to be a cs major at all)
And sometimes people who have been helping people for years assume too easily that everyone who comes with a question they believe documented, did not try to find the answer, as well as many people getting a 'rtfm' answer assume it is just a snide remark.
Regardless, I responded to the 'I have no time or don't feel like it' statement saying I regard that as a good reason to be either ignored or actually trigger some annoyance (you tend to forget that the spending time part comes first of all from reading and unneeded traffic on lists, and only after that from answering). I think I was clear about the 'willing to learn' and 'putting in efford' part. Of course not everyone understands everything at first glance, but really, how difficult is it to ask 'I read x and y, but I still don't understand how to get z to work' instead of 'how do I get z to work'? Your question is simply easier to answer that way, people know what to not point you to, what you prolly missed reading, or can ask some more directed questions.
but I'm really comfortable with it now. It's very nice for 3D viewing of molecules, the molecule actually rotates the same way as you rotate the ball, and also you can do rotations that would require 2 separate mouse movements in one go, very nice. When I'll get really rich I'll buy the spacemouse 3D or whatever it is called:)
It does require getting used to if you have been using a mouse forever (for me it is the other way around.. )
Still I couldn't imagine using the trackball for gaming, though, it really requires a lot more practice to do fast, precise, movements than a normal mouse I'd guess
It depends on the game of course, but the kind of 'advantage' you have with manipulating a 3d model is not unlike the kind of advantage you get manupulating a character or other object in a 3d world.
On another note, I have seen trackballs on arcade cabinets since the early 80s at least but I've yet to find one with a mouse. Those were actually what made me curious about using a trackball for my computer some odd 15 years ago.
well I'd only ask on a forum, not the people who wrote the software... besides, if someone doesn't want to answer the question then they can just ignore it...
Well, it doesn't really matter whom you are asking, rather, the point is that the software, documentation, and answering of questions all take time from others. Not having the time or not feeling like figuring out something really aren't good excuses imho. Not knowing where to start however is a very good one.
I neither force people to read it or reply to it. Besides, I now like easy questions, they are a good way of me helping people with no effort... I've even spent over an hour searching round to try and help a person who couldn't figure out what was going; it's a bit of give and take or karma or something
You see, being willing to learn how to figure things out and investing some time yourself in helping others is perfectly acceptable to me at least. Being unwilling to invest some time and efford yourself while expecting others would not be fine with me, that is basicly what it comes down to.
To some extent I know where your coming from... but I often just don't have the time or inclination (or in the case of the source code, the knowledge) to do a lot of those things when the solution is really simple
Yet somehow you expect others to have the time to: - write said software - write the documentation - repeatedly answer the same question
Does not compute.
But then, people who actually make clear in their posts (or irc messages) what they did try to solve their problem, not only would it help to prevent people from suggesting things already tried, it also makes it clear what kind of efford has been spent on trying to solve the situation before asking.
When playing an fps, there is no 'end of screen' to match the end of whatever surface your mouse is on, you can always rotate some more. A trackball is just a much more logical match for that (but some people just don't like them)
You'd have to ask the makers. It could be for any number of reasons unrelated to convergence. If you wish to claim that convergence was the cause, please say so and offer evidence beyond idle speculation.
Convergence results in color screen which also needs backlit in many cases, more powerfull cpu, more memory. Yes, all those things use more energy then needed even when not using any of the features resulting from convergence.
If you have these things in separate devices, then you are carrying three screens,
2 extremely low power black and white ones that don't need backlit when there is some light, and one that does color and requires backlit, but also is substantially bigger and more usable then anything in a phone formfactor.
three input mechanisms
Optimized for their specific purpose, making them quite a bit more comfortable to use.
and three batteries. If you are concerned about battery life, then bring a couple of extra batteries along and you are still ahead.
Why does a computer have to be more than a device to read e-mail with?
It doesn't have to, and many computers are used in a single purpose way.
I assume you are talking about the typical pc however, which is a general purpose computer. This indeed implies it does multiple things (tho few if any of them really well).
I am willing to buy the 'a mobile phone is a general purpose mobile communications device' idea, its just that either the phone has to be too big or the screen ends up too small for using it comfortably beyond very basic non voice communications, so in practise I don't see how a phone alone is gonna do this well. Adding things like an mp3 player seems pointless to me, its just an amazingly good way to reduce standby time.
Why is the average standby time of my now ancient t39m so much better then that of my newer k300i, despite the later having a higher capacity and newer battery?
To add some reasons for not wanting to combine all kinds of devices into one:
No phone smaller then a pda has a big enough screen for doing any serious reading (of web content, ebooks and such), let alone for using any slightly complicated software, and I find a pda sized phone uncomfortable for calling..
Why should the fact that I spent the last 4 hours reading an ebook/listening to mp3s waste the standby time of my phone?
I think you are right that he didn't know the details of the situation, on the other hand, what you describe does sound like rather bad game design to me if that is a valid gaming situation and what you describe is the only way to accomplish it.
Its worth trying if you can deal with a trackball.. not having to move it and no 'end of table/mouse mat' is quite helpfull for games where quick and accurate 'broad' movements are required (ie, FPS)
That said, I'm running the mldonkey p2p client (does a whole variety of different networks, including bittorrent) and its sharing some 60 or so files and downloading another 50 or so. It currently needs 30mb for the core, and another 35 for the gui if I want to run that.. Which is quite a bit less then Azureus in similar circumstances it seems.
For all I can tell, the reasons for this is not so much java as a language but the universe of libraries and junk that comes with the typical jre and the fact that using a garbage collector without too hefty a performance penalty (or a gain at times even) requires quite a bit more memory.
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Send stdout to other programs, send stderr to the human/log.
Sure, and when you are at it, use a different level or logging facility for your debug log, and make it runtime configurable etc...
In other words, yes, you can debug using simple printf, and as you say, you can do better when sending its output to a seperate file of stderr, the point was that simple, straightforward printf() may work but quickly becomes unusable due to its output getting mixed with other output (regardless of using stdout or err, just moves the problem somehwere else), and a slightly more 'advanced' setup will do a much better job at it.
Absurd or not, if the stakes are raised, some companies will try to push this harder and lobby government to improve its effectiveness and reduce safeguards for employees.
Which should have zero chance in a working democracy... unless you have voting rights for companies and so many of them that they become a relevant force..
Oh wait.. 'working democracy' might be part of a problem there.
The second point actually supports my point. Basically, the scientific method is discouraged without patents.
Not really. You can say that having a working patent system encourages the scientific method, but it was known and used before a patent system similar to what we know now existed, and it wasn't unpopular either. Alchemy has other motives for not using the scientific method then lack of patents. Trying to achieve things easily debunked by that scientific method, and making more money by 'working on the invention' then the impossible invention could ever bring come to mind.
In other words, simply by looking at what alchemy tries to achieve it should be clear why it does not use the scientific method and why secrecy about what it really being done is of the uttermost importance for its survival.
And that makes it pretty much irrelevant for the patents discussion.
Of course your first point shows that patents can also slow down the scientific process. However, slow is better than stopped.
Its more a matter of hindering progress or not. Neither way results in no progress at all, wich is pretty much evident from progress in science having been there for much longer then a working patent system, and there being a pretty clear correlation between weak patent protection and a high rate of scientific progress.
Just to witness, patents are the one and only reason why people had to wait till the 50s for TV became easily available and usable, while the technology used had been there for the last 30 or so years.
Also, I think it's worth putting the patent system into perspective.
Yes, but lets put it into the perspective of what was originally the intention of the system..
The intention was NOT to help companies make a profit
The intention was to promote usefull inventions, and to make the details to their workings publicly available.
Helping an inventor to profit from an invention is the MEANS, not the purpose.
Now, by allowing patents that are overly broad, are written such that they are of absolutely no use for recreating the invention, and hinder others from participating in invention, basicly all the ideas that are underlying the current system have been broken. All it does now is indeed as you say allow a company some choice in how they profit from their inventions, but at such a huge expense to society that it is really better to just do away with it.
You, like many who argue to keep the current patent system are confusing the goal with the means here.
Which situations might those be: concurrent programming? It's difficult to think offhand of any situations unmasterable by the venerable printf.
It really goes well when the output of your program is used as the input of another program...
Great idea! Then everybody will jealously guard every innovation as a trade secret
Which in quite a few cases means not being able to sell a product that uses it.. sounds like a real good idea.....
and industrial espionage will surge.
Heh, as if that isn't happening already at a large scale...
If you think office security is a pain now imagine what it'll be like when the stakes are raised.
Most 'office security' serves the same purpose as airport security, its making sure they can say 'but we tried to prevent it really' and to make people think about not taking risks. More of it won't do shit to stop industrial espionage.
There are already problems with onerous non-competition clauses in high level employee contracts.
Those clauses should really be dealt with by law. It is absurd to ban someone from working in their field of choice because it is economically destriuctive. You effectively force a person to not contribute for a specific amount of time, resulting in lost production/inventiveness during that time.
With no patent protection, you could expect EVERY knowledge worker to have to sign a contract saying that if they quit, that they can't work in any, even vaguely, similar career. So, if you're a software person and you quit, you better not be doing software anything for anybody else in your next job.
How good I live in a country where this is simply out of the question since such clauses in contracts hae been found to be entirely unenforcable here (and actually in much if not all of the EU).
But at any rate, as I already said, this is a seperate problem that needs to be dealt with, regardless of patents.
It'll be like all of the nasty parts of cyberpunk coming to fruition.
OK. I exaggerate. However much we all hate (software) patents, there probably does need to be some force that encourages invention disclosure for the greater good. The patent system may need massive overhaul, but abolishing it altogether ends up producing the problems that prompted its' creation in the first place. There's a reason that alchemy got nowhere for centuries... they all kept their research secret.
I beg to differ with your conclusion.
1. Where I live, patents existed already in the 1600s. Examples of patents preventing further invention, stalling development of an entire country even, are also dating back to the 1600s.
2. Alchemy had some interesting but usually pretty impossible objectives, and did not often employ scenmtific methods to study things. Those are the main reasons it never got anywhere, where they wanted to get didn't exist to begin with.
At any rate, you have one valid point here, how to get companies to release information on their inventions to the public so that such information can be reused.
I don't know the answer, but I do know a system that allows you to document your inventiuon in ways to prevent reproducing it (read the typical software patent for examples of this) and where you can prevent your competition from using your invention (as opposed to can force your competition to compensate you for a bit for using your invention) is really seriously broken and is not accomplishing the desired result either, while it is expensive for everyone.
So in the end, yeah, a workign patent system might be even better, but abolishing the current system is very very likely a much better idea then keeping it.
This logic is twisted to me. If a patent is so bad that you can't use it to "stop someone from doing something" then it is worthless. That is the whole point of a patent.
Correct. If you can't use your patent to stop someone from doing what you patented, then you have no argument for trying to negotiate any deal with them based on that patent.
Also, if you don't enforce a violation of that patent as soon as you learn about it then you stand to lose any case you bring later.
You must be thinking of trademarks here. Those you have to defend vigorously when you become aware of infringement, but this is not true for patents at all.
The idea that patents can be used defensively is only valid if you are also willing to use them offensively.
'Willing' as in, use them to threaten and get others to comply? sure.
As anyone can tell who ever thought about this, this is called 'artificial barrier to entry' and is a really stupid idea if you also are striving for a 'free market' (that is, a market free of anti-competative influences, which is not at all the same as being able to do whatever the fuck you want)
At any rate, no you don't have to defend your patent from eery infringement, and no, not defending it in specific cases does not make you lose standing or such in cases where you do defend them.
Another big advantage of trackballs is that the mouseball/surface contact is always known. I currently have the optical mouseball from logitech, and this never hops,
I have an optical trackman from Logitech here, and came to the interesting (but pretty obvious) conclusion that optical trackballs are more sensitive to dirt then optical mice. It doesn't affect their sensor or such, but it does affect how 'smooth' the ball will move. That said, the known surface makes up for that (and its easy to clean usually)
I just want to see it grow. Enough that hardware manufacturers stop treating it, to use an old cliche, like a redheaded step child.
Fair enough.
But if you're writing something for the community at large, as part of a project, and you want it and Linux to succeed, it's a good idea to write good documentation.
If you want others to use your stuff it helps to document it, sure.
Given. Microsoft produces ridiculous help, in my experience. The difference is, Linux doesn't have the money or the near-monopoly that Microsoft has, and if we want new users, we have to be better than the other guys
And this is where the problem is. Linux was not made to replace Windows. OSS isn't out to 'win' from Microsoft, however, some contributors have beating MS as their main motivator. Don't confise those 2 things.
Linux (and many other OSS projects) was made to 'scratch an itch'. Its success is defined by how well it does that, not by how many people use it or whomever gets beaten in marketshare.
Now, more users is a nice idea because it also means more people helping out, and documenting things helps for that, but as said, people giving you stuff for free doesn't make for you being able to 'demand' things from them, rather, if you feel that documentation is lacking and would be helpfull, maybe help writing it.
If they write the software and expect other people to use it (hence making it available for other people), they should write the documentation.
Now wait a moment..
I make something because I need/want it for whatever reason. I then decide to share what I made with others, and now you tell me that results in me being required to do something?
You can come back with that argument the day you pay me for the work.
When I publish some bit of open source software, it is in the hope it is usefull to someone, but I do not expect anything, and you should not expect anything from me besides what you just got. Seems like a fair deal to me.
Some times, the documentation just sucks, some times it doesn't
Yep, and it has been that way for as long as I have been using computers regardless of what kind of software or software development process you are looking at. Some people can write documentation, some can't.
Sometimes users who can't write the underlying code, but can very well figure out what it does, write howtos and even documentation.. Sometimes that documentation is very good, sometimes it is a big mess.. usually its somewhere inbetween..
Maybe, just maybe the problem is that writing documentation isn't exactly easy, and what is usefull documentation for some people isn't usefull by definition to everyone who would be interested in what is documented. This isn't just true for software either.
Regardless, there exists usefull documentation for many of the open source projects out there. Sometimes it takes a bit of efford to find, sometimes it isn't too well organized, but often it is actually pretty difficult to miss on the project's website, and I find the typical quality above average given you have sufficient knowledge of the system it is supposed to work on (and no, that doesn't mean having to be a cs major at all)
And sometimes people who have been helping people for years assume too easily that everyone who comes with a question they believe documented, did not try to find the answer, as well as many people getting a 'rtfm' answer assume it is just a snide remark.
Regardless, I responded to the 'I have no time or don't feel like it' statement saying I regard that as a good reason to be either ignored or actually trigger some annoyance (you tend to forget that the spending time part comes first of all from reading and unneeded traffic on lists, and only after that from answering). I think I was clear about the 'willing to learn' and 'putting in efford' part. Of course not everyone understands everything at first glance, but really, how difficult is it to ask 'I read x and y, but I still don't understand how to get z to work' instead of 'how do I get z to work'? Your question is simply easier to answer that way, people know what to not point you to, what you prolly missed reading, or can ask some more directed questions.
but I'm really comfortable with it now. It's very nice for 3D viewing of molecules, the molecule actually rotates the same way as you rotate the ball, and also you can do rotations that would require 2 separate mouse movements in one go, very nice. When I'll get really rich I'll buy the spacemouse 3D or whatever it is called :)
It does require getting used to if you have been using a mouse forever (for me it is the other way around.. )
Still I couldn't imagine using the trackball for gaming, though, it really requires a lot more practice to do fast, precise, movements than a normal mouse I'd guess
It depends on the game of course, but the kind of 'advantage' you have with manipulating a 3d model is not unlike the kind of advantage you get manupulating a character or other object in a 3d world.
On another note, I have seen trackballs on arcade cabinets since the early 80s at least but I've yet to find one with a mouse. Those were actually what made me curious about using a trackball for my computer some odd 15 years ago.
well I'd only ask on a forum, not the people who wrote the software... besides, if someone doesn't want to answer the question then they can just ignore it...
Well, it doesn't really matter whom you are asking, rather, the point is that the software, documentation, and answering of questions all take time from others. Not having the time or not feeling like figuring out something really aren't good excuses imho. Not knowing where to start however is a very good one.
I neither force people to read it or reply to it. Besides, I now like easy questions, they are a good way of me helping people with no effort... I've even spent over an hour searching round to try and help a person who couldn't figure out what was going; it's a bit of give and take or karma or something
You see, being willing to learn how to figure things out and investing some time yourself in helping others is perfectly acceptable to me at least. Being unwilling to invest some time and efford yourself while expecting others would not be fine with me, that is basicly what it comes down to.
To some extent I know where your coming from... but I often just don't have the time or inclination (or in the case of the source code, the knowledge) to do a lot of those things when the solution is really simple
Yet somehow you expect others to have the time to:
- write said software
- write the documentation
- repeatedly answer the same question
Does not compute.
But then, people who actually make clear in their posts (or irc messages) what they did try to solve their problem, not only would it help to prevent people from suggesting things already tried, it also makes it clear what kind of efford has been spent on trying to solve the situation before asking.
You also believe you can have factories creating art, right?
When playing an fps, there is no 'end of screen' to match the end of whatever surface your mouse is on, you can always rotate some more. A trackball is just a much more logical match for that (but some people just don't like them)
You'd have to ask the makers. It could be for any number of reasons unrelated to convergence. If you wish to claim that convergence was the cause, please say so and offer evidence beyond idle speculation.
Convergence results in color screen which also needs backlit in many cases, more powerfull cpu, more memory. Yes, all those things use more energy then needed even when not using any of the features resulting from convergence.
If you have these things in separate devices, then you are carrying three screens,
2 extremely low power black and white ones that don't need backlit when there is some light, and one that does color and requires backlit, but also is substantially bigger and more usable then anything in a phone formfactor.
three input mechanisms
Optimized for their specific purpose, making them quite a bit more comfortable to use.
and three batteries. If you are concerned about battery life, then bring a couple of extra batteries along and you are still ahead.
Yep, that would work as well.
Why does a computer have to be more than a device to read e-mail with?
It doesn't have to, and many computers are used in a single purpose way.
I assume you are talking about the typical pc however, which is a general purpose computer. This indeed implies it does multiple things (tho few if any of them really well).
I am willing to buy the 'a mobile phone is a general purpose mobile communications device' idea, its just that either the phone has to be too big or the screen ends up too small for using it comfortably beyond very basic non voice communications, so in practise I don't see how a phone alone is gonna do this well. Adding things like an mp3 player seems pointless to me, its just an amazingly good way to reduce standby time.
Why is the average standby time of my now ancient t39m so much better then that of my newer k300i, despite the later having a higher capacity and newer battery?
To add some reasons for not wanting to combine all kinds of devices into one:
I think it would need an analog scroll stick or something like that...
I think you are right that he didn't know the details of the situation, on the other hand, what you describe does sound like rather bad game design to me if that is a valid gaming situation and what you describe is the only way to accomplish it.
Its worth trying if you can deal with a trackball.. not having to move it and no 'end of table/mouse mat' is quite helpfull for games where quick and accurate 'broad' movements are required (ie, FPS)
Hehe, I figured.
That said, I'm running the mldonkey p2p client (does a whole variety of different networks, including bittorrent) and its sharing some 60 or so files and downloading another 50 or so. It currently needs 30mb for the core, and another 35 for the gui if I want to run that.. Which is quite a bit less then Azureus in similar circumstances it seems.
For all I can tell, the reasons for this is not so much java as a language but the universe of libraries and junk that comes with the typical jre and the fact that using a garbage collector without too hefty a performance penalty (or a gain at times even) requires quite a bit more memory.
I think a lot of that ram is the incoming data waiting to be written to the cpu and outgoing data held in memory to be sent out to others...
Written to the cpu?
But what do I know.
Indeed.
What is cheaper now, a 2gb RAM stick or 100 hours of good low-level programmer time?
100 hours of work payed for or shared among many users will be a lot cheaper then all those people buying more memory.