I have nothing against Gentoo. It's the very vocal fanbase I have issues with
What vocal fanbase? Really, looking around here and on other places on the net, Gentoo is constantly attacked and bashed by people from all over, but I have almost never seen a "vocal fanboy" going on about Gentoo.
It is very strange that it is being attacked so vehemently, when Gentoo users do not attack others. Usually - everyone has their share of pimply teenagers that thinks it makes them alpha males to do such. But in Gentoo community, they seem very, very rare.
You must be thinking about Debian and Mac users. Great distribution and OS, but the people using them... I'd use either in a blink, but I don't really want to be connected to those people. Sadly, as especially Debian might really be the best distro around.
As for having a *big* fanbase, Gentoo has that. Which is one of their real strengths, really. You always get help, are never ever flamed for being a newbie or anything, just friendly helpfulness. Elitist fanboys take note.
Nevermind getting OOo in KDE/Qt, what I'm looking forward to is Gecko in all it's incarnations. Konqueror is pretty good for filesystem and some other tasks, but it is nowhere close when it comes to browsing, both interfacewise and renderingwise. Also, integration and interoperation between KDE and the Mozilla products are not very good, hopefully this will also be remedied.
I want best of both worlds! =)
You guys who are hacking on this, know that there are people that will call you heroes once you get this out the door.;-)
Two things I'd need/like and that doesn't seem to be there, although I haven't had time to investigate yet, is the possibility to run this via an existing web server instead, and the editor widget.
Re:One question...
on
Flying By Brain
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Exactly what I wondered too, and I did even read the whole article to see if it was mentioned.
I suppose that the goal would be to keep the plane level and heading straight ahead or something, then the brain learns how to accomplish this, thus allowing it to fly in different conditions. But I couldn't find any info on how the brain was told this was the "right" thing.
Maybe they just let the simulator fly the plane straight ahead without interference until the brain learnt that this was "normal", then, when conditions changed, it tried to compensate. This is pretty much how humans animals react to change, after all, so it would make some wierd sense.;-)
"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. Well, I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!" - Ned Flanders
"I find the defendant not guilty. As for Science vs Religion, I'm issuing a restraining order. Religion must stay 500 yards from Science at all times." - Judge Snyder
The two big reason I'm not using ruby much is: * No CPAN (RAA and Rubyforge does not compare) * No community even close to the one Perl has
Really, ruby is super sweet, but for productivity and getting things done, those above things are really, really important. And since Perl is a great language too, it wins out every time.
Python... I never got what was so great about it. It feels limited and limiting in so many ways, although I suppose it is easy in a "one way only" kind of way. This is one of the things that probably boils down to taste and taste alone.
Ruby is wonderfully crystal clean in its syntax, yet powerful and it doesn't feel at all limiting. Perl is a bit more obscure at times, although if you think of it as a natural language, the pieces fits quickly.
I'd be hard pressed to choose. However, if Parrot could just get out the door, maybe I could finally try ruby + CPAN. That might just be heaven.;-)
I don't personally see the need for such a thing anyways. I've gmail open in a tab and when I get a mail, the title changes to indicate this. Also, non-critical mail, such as mailing lists and stuff goes directly to a label without hitting the inbox, so no false alerts there.
I have my browser up often, often, so it works fine for me. Not to mention it works equally well on linux. For me, who use both win and lin often, I like common things to be similar.:) That is why I'm extra sad SIM seems to have stopped development. It was by far the best IM client I've ever used (I guess I really, really liked all those features and the plugin system), and it worked on both platforms almost exactly the same. Sadly, it has encoding issues when talking to some others, like Mac ICQ users and GAIM users, which finally forced me to drop it as it doesn't seem to get fixed.:(
Now I run Miranda, which is way good and GAIM, which is not, but as good as it gets I suppose. Before anyone starts up the flamethrowers, GAIM is not buggy or anything, it just does not fit me personally, featurewise and especially interface-wise. We all have our preferences.
Yes. You should be able to use libraries freely no matter what language they were written in, so python users get to use CPAN, perl users get access to RAA, and so on... it's all bytecode in the end.:)
Potentially, you might even be able to switch and mix languages mid-file too, though that probably is not useful all that often.;-) (Evals might be able to give a language as a parameter if I understood it right).
Maybe all that GNOME discussion about.NET via Mono or Java via JVM shoudl start considering Perl/Python/Ruby via Parrot as a very serious choice for doing the high level application programming.
That could be a very nice descision indeed, and something for other libs (whether GUI, game, or whatever) to ponder also: when you are powered by parrot, you suddenly have a lot of potential languages to choose between for development, even your own(!) so you can use the ones most fit for any special task, and you'll have access to all those different libs.
One of the big wins is that there is no need to maintain lots of different language bindings either, if you support parrot, you get those other languages automatically. At least in an ideal world.;-) SWIG is great when it works, but can be such a royal pain when it doesn't... and this would be one step up indeed.
Not only is it supposed to support those languages and more (from Forth to Java via Lua and Lisp;-), it is also meant to be easy to target with your own custom languages - in fact, several such beasts have been spotted on the mailing list, some of them very impressive already.
Moreover, libraries will (hopefully?) be possible to share code, especially libraries, across languages(!) so you could write your programs in ruby or python and still have access to all of CPAN, and vice versa. Talk about code reuse!:)
One of the big things I see a use for this, maybe to some extent already now, is scripting for game libs and engines. Those often have support for one or several languages, homebrewn or regular, in various stages of completion, with or without SWIG and it is all too often a huge big semi-maintained mess. With parrot bindings, you could use any supported language and possibly even mix - different languages are better at different things. Moreover, you could implement your own, custom languages to fit special tasks. Want a language that can handle 3d calcs, physics and AI interactions in a natural way? Just do it and reuse it for the whole series.:)
Ok, so maybe I am dreaming a bit, but having a powerful interpreter *made* for writing languages for, easily embedded, cross-platform and open source is something to really look forward to in so many ways! I just wish it'd hurry up getting there... and yes, I guess sometime I'll have to stop talking and start contributing myself.;-)
And oh, there are already some simple games written using parrot and SDL, check em out. And do what I also should, join the effort!:)
Since version 7 the audio and video has no synchronizing problems that I've seen, and that is on various boxes. It was a big problem with v6 though, maybe you want to try and upgrade? It has been available for months now...
Another possible reason would be if you are using arts or esd. Sound daemons can mess up sync pretty badly, never ever got it to work properly with mplayer or flash as examples, so now I'm using dmix instead. Which, in turn, has other issues, the one that annoys me being that I have to stop playing all other sound sources before starting firefox if I want to hear sound in flash movies. And no, piping firefox via various translating programs alsa/arts/oss you name it, does not work. Usually that just makes everything crash.;-)
I have Gmail open in a tab. The text on the tab (the title) tells me when new messages have arrived. In case I really am in such a hurry to notice such. I always have a browser running anyways, so it doesn't cost any extra, actually it is less effort on both me an the computer. And it works on both Windows and Linux.
As for the toolbar, I've stopped using it. With bookmark keywords, the new type ahead bar and the "go up" extension (as well as "go up" mouse gestures), it is just so much lost space. I'm searching and navigating faster now without it, and most of the functions I never used.
I used to love the toolbar, but now I've come to realize that it was so great when I used it on IE, because on IE you need it. With firefox, it is just making you do stuff the slow and painful IE way. Try doing it the other way for a while!
I still would like the go up button to have a dropdown like the googlebar has though, that is the one thing still missing.;-)
If opt-in was enough for the spammers, we wouldn't have spam. If absolutely noone that recieved unsolicited offers bought anything, we wouldn't have spam.
Spam is there because opt-in does not work - for the spammers. What you are proposing is just that, nothing more. Their target audience will not go out of their way and register to get spammed, but when they get mails anyway, they buy.
If spammers would be satisfied with your suggestion, it would already have been solved without needing a special TLD.
If you wish, you could also add the fact these "advertisers" does not want to be called spammers, so why on earth would they want a.spam address?
We're glad that it looks like Theora will reach beta soon. We think you can't have too many free codecs, but that the Open Source community also needs to continue to develop codecs with increasingly better performance. We also think there could be a good deal in Theora that we could use in Dirac, and we'd like to work with developers who've been closely involved in Theora. We intend to pack the Dirac elementary stream into MXF, which has lots of useful features. That doesn't preclude it packing into Ogg as well, and it's probably a good idea to have a variety of packing formats. For this the elementary stream needs to be very well defined.
A lot of it boils down to who you are and why you are getting an engine, and yes, price matters. If you are an indie, an hobbyist or an upstart, $20,000 (Serious Engine minimum) is still a lot of money, even if the engine itself is worth every buck. I wouldn't know if it is, I just skimmed the site briefly.
If you are someone who has investors backing you, or have a company with money in the bank... or at least someone with a contract with a publisher, you maybe can afford to shell out that kind of money, but is it worth it?
On the surface, it seems you are getting about the same deal as you get with Torque, which is $100 per programmer - so it would then be a matter of ease of use and results: Are the tools that much better and does the result look that much nicer that it will be worth it - and even more importantly, will it pay off in money returned?
But don't get me wrong, $20,000 is a drop in the ocean if we are talking about modern AAA games budgets, that is like what? What it costs to have a programmer for a couple of months maybe? So it may well be worth it to get that extra bang. However, if you have the money, why not step up a bit more and get an engine from Epic or ID or something? Sure, it costs quite a lot more, but you get to put "Powered by Really Known Engine" on the box.;-)
I'k kinda guessing that they might fall between the chairs a bit: low budget productions and upstarts can't afford it, and it isn't cool enough for the big boys.
Also add to the fact that because Torque is so cheap, students and hobbysist can afford it, which gives a big and friendly userbase and community that helps each other out... and these guys can afford to do a demo level that can be used to sell the real game, which will use... Torque, probably, because that is what they know. They aren't gonna switch engine unless they land a deal that lets them buy one of the really big guns.
Or so I speculate. It isn't easy to be sure of anything, but those are my best guesses.
And am I happy we chose Torque? Yeah, mostly. What you get per dollar is simply unbeatable, even by the free alternatives, and the company has a sound take on open source, cross platform and indies. The engine sure has a lot of quirks, which hopefully will be sorted out with TSE, the next generation, but compared to doing all the tools ourselves or doing editing without them, it is a no-brainer.
Would I use the Unreal Engine instead if I could? Probably in a heart-beat, as long as I personally didn't pay for it.;-) But this Serious Engine? Dunno. Is it that good?
I would say that the engine supports everything that is in the currently released version (right now 0.7), which is quite a lot as it is. And that code is available, you can download it, use it, modify it, fork it or whatever today.
There is still other features to come, and so far features has kept on coming as promised, which is a good sign. And if the guy drops development, you *still* have the latest released snapshot to pick it up from, with no strings attached - as in *any* open source project. This one just happens to commit changes more rarely than some (and still more often than some that do has CVS).
So where's your problem? If it isn't being done fast enough for you, grab a copy of the source and finish it yourself. You seem to be the kind of guy that likes to tell people to write it themeselves, so now I'm telling you. =)
It is open source (under the zlib license I think) but there is no CVS access. The code you have access to and can do whatever you like with is released in snapshots because the guy does not want to field support questions about unstable code. The releases contains pretty stable code, but there is no nightlies - his choice. Still the code that he does release, you can do whatever you want with.
Slashdot Mirror
I have nothing against Gentoo. It's the very vocal fanbase I have issues with
What vocal fanbase? Really, looking around here and on other places on the net, Gentoo is constantly attacked and bashed by people from all over, but I have almost never seen a "vocal fanboy" going on about Gentoo.
It is very strange that it is being attacked so vehemently, when Gentoo users do not attack others. Usually - everyone has their share of pimply teenagers that thinks it makes them alpha males to do such. But in Gentoo community, they seem very, very rare.
You must be thinking about Debian and Mac users. Great distribution and OS, but the people using them... I'd use either in a blink, but I don't really want to be connected to those people. Sadly, as especially Debian might really be the best distro around.
As for having a *big* fanbase, Gentoo has that. Which is one of their real strengths, really. You always get help, are never ever flamed for being a newbie or anything, just friendly helpfulness. Elitist fanboys take note.
Nevermind getting OOo in KDE/Qt, what I'm looking forward to is Gecko in all it's incarnations. Konqueror is pretty good for filesystem and some other tasks, but it is nowhere close when it comes to browsing, both interfacewise and renderingwise. Also, integration and interoperation between KDE and the Mozilla products are not very good, hopefully this will also be remedied.
;-)
I want best of both worlds! =)
You guys who are hacking on this, know that there are people that will call you heroes once you get this out the door.
If a PHP or Perl app could be emebedded into a browser, I'd have to change my pants.
& mode=module
:)
This is pretty close for some uses, and with some more development it could really be something:
http://search.cpan.org/search?query=XUL%3A%3ANode
Do try out the examples!
Two things I'd need/like and that doesn't seem to be there, although I haven't had time to investigate yet, is the possibility to run this via an existing web server instead, and the editor widget.
Exactly what I wondered too, and I did even read the whole article to see if it was mentioned.
;-)
I suppose that the goal would be to keep the plane level and heading straight ahead or something, then the brain learns how to accomplish this, thus allowing it to fly in different conditions. But I couldn't find any info on how the brain was told this was the "right" thing.
Maybe they just let the simulator fly the plane straight ahead without interference until the brain learnt that this was "normal", then, when conditions changed, it tried to compensate. This is pretty much how humans animals react to change, after all, so it would make some wierd sense.
Woah, way to support the developers for your platform!
-- Other non-article-reading moron, at your service.
"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. Well, I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!" - Ned Flanders
"I find the defendant not guilty. As for Science vs Religion, I'm issuing a restraining order. Religion must stay 500 yards from Science at all times." - Judge Snyder
He killed eight civilians with that damn monofilament microphone.
And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The two big reason I'm not using ruby much is:
;-)
* No CPAN (RAA and Rubyforge does not compare)
* No community even close to the one Perl has
Really, ruby is super sweet, but for productivity and getting things done, those above things are really, really important. And since Perl is a great language too, it wins out every time.
Python... I never got what was so great about it. It feels limited and limiting in so many ways, although I suppose it is easy in a "one way only" kind of way. This is one of the things that probably boils down to taste and taste alone.
Ruby is wonderfully crystal clean in its syntax, yet powerful and it doesn't feel at all limiting. Perl is a bit more obscure at times, although if you think of it as a natural language, the pieces fits quickly.
I'd be hard pressed to choose. However, if Parrot could just get out the door, maybe I could finally try ruby + CPAN. That might just be heaven.
I don't personally see the need for such a thing anyways. I've gmail open in a tab and when I get a mail, the title changes to indicate this. Also, non-critical mail, such as mailing lists and stuff goes directly to a label without hitting the inbox, so no false alerts there.
:) That is why I'm extra sad SIM seems to have stopped development. It was by far the best IM client I've ever used (I guess I really, really liked all those features and the plugin system), and it worked on both platforms almost exactly the same. Sadly, it has encoding issues when talking to some others, like Mac ICQ users and GAIM users, which finally forced me to drop it as it doesn't seem to get fixed. :(
I have my browser up often, often, so it works fine for me. Not to mention it works equally well on linux. For me, who use both win and lin often, I like common things to be similar.
Now I run Miranda, which is way good and GAIM, which is not, but as good as it gets I suppose. Before anyone starts up the flamethrowers, GAIM is not buggy or anything, it just does not fit me personally, featurewise and especially interface-wise. We all have our preferences.
news:// at 11?
Examples please? I couldn't think of any off-hand.
;-)
Although, all those Inline::* modules on CPAN is allowing you to do just that, so apparently people find it at the very least amusing.
Yes. You should be able to use libraries freely no matter what language they were written in, so python users get to use CPAN, perl users get access to RAA, and so on... it's all bytecode in the end. :)
;-) (Evals might be able to give a language as a parameter if I understood it right).
Potentially, you might even be able to switch and mix languages mid-file too, though that probably is not useful all that often.
Maybe all that GNOME discussion about .NET via Mono or Java via JVM shoudl start considering Perl/Python/Ruby via Parrot as a very serious choice for doing the high level application programming.
;-) SWIG is great when it works, but can be such a royal pain when it doesn't... and this would be one step up indeed.
That could be a very nice descision indeed, and something for other libs (whether GUI, game, or whatever) to ponder also: when you are powered by parrot, you suddenly have a lot of potential languages to choose between for development, even your own(!) so you can use the ones most fit for any special task, and you'll have access to all those different libs.
One of the big wins is that there is no need to maintain lots of different language bindings either, if you support parrot, you get those other languages automatically. At least in an ideal world.
Not only is it supposed to support those languages and more (from Forth to Java via Lua and Lisp ;-), it is also meant to be easy to target with your own custom languages - in fact, several such beasts have been spotted on the mailing list, some of them very impressive already.
:)
:)
;-)
:)
Moreover, libraries will (hopefully?) be possible to share code, especially libraries, across languages(!) so you could write your programs in ruby or python and still have access to all of CPAN, and vice versa. Talk about code reuse!
One of the big things I see a use for this, maybe to some extent already now, is scripting for game libs and engines. Those often have support for one or several languages, homebrewn or regular, in various stages of completion, with or without SWIG and it is all too often a huge big semi-maintained mess. With parrot bindings, you could use any supported language and possibly even mix - different languages are better at different things. Moreover, you could implement your own, custom languages to fit special tasks. Want a language that can handle 3d calcs, physics and AI interactions in a natural way? Just do it and reuse it for the whole series.
Ok, so maybe I am dreaming a bit, but having a powerful interpreter *made* for writing languages for, easily embedded, cross-platform and open source is something to really look forward to in so many ways! I just wish it'd hurry up getting there... and yes, I guess sometime I'll have to stop talking and start contributing myself.
And oh, there are already some simple games written using parrot and SDL, check em out. And do what I also should, join the effort!
Not if they wanted any sales.
Since version 7 the audio and video has no synchronizing problems that I've seen, and that is on various boxes. It was a big problem with v6 though, maybe you want to try and upgrade? It has been available for months now...
;-)
Another possible reason would be if you are using arts or esd. Sound daemons can mess up sync pretty badly, never ever got it to work properly with mplayer or flash as examples, so now I'm using dmix instead. Which, in turn, has other issues, the one that annoys me being that I have to stop playing all other sound sources before starting firefox if I want to hear sound in flash movies. And no, piping firefox via various translating programs alsa/arts/oss you name it, does not work. Usually that just makes everything crash.
I have Gmail open in a tab. The text on the tab (the title) tells me when new messages have arrived. In case I really am in such a hurry to notice such. I always have a browser running anyways, so it doesn't cost any extra, actually it is less effort on both me an the computer. And it works on both Windows and Linux.
;-)
As for the toolbar, I've stopped using it. With bookmark keywords, the new type ahead bar and the "go up" extension (as well as "go up" mouse gestures), it is just so much lost space. I'm searching and navigating faster now without it, and most of the functions I never used.
I used to love the toolbar, but now I've come to realize that it was so great when I used it on IE, because on IE you need it. With firefox, it is just making you do stuff the slow and painful IE way. Try doing it the other way for a while!
I still would like the go up button to have a dropdown like the googlebar has though, that is the one thing still missing.
Get Firefox!
a Java implementation of an i-had?
Which is created mentioning Java on Slashdot?
If opt-in was enough for the spammers, we wouldn't have spam. If absolutely noone that recieved unsolicited offers bought anything, we wouldn't have spam.
.spam address?
Spam is there because opt-in does not work - for the spammers. What you are proposing is just that, nothing more. Their target audience will not go out of their way and register to get spammed, but when they get mails anyway, they buy.
If spammers would be satisfied with your suggestion, it would already have been solved without needing a special TLD.
If you wish, you could also add the fact these "advertisers" does not want to be called spammers, so why on earth would they want a
Can you please define victory in the war in Iraq?
But I bet Bicycle Repair Man could fix it!
A lot of it boils down to who you are and why you are getting an engine, and yes, price matters. If you are an indie, an hobbyist or an upstart, $20,000 (Serious Engine minimum) is still a lot of money, even if the engine itself is worth every buck. I wouldn't know if it is, I just skimmed the site briefly.
;-)
;-) But this Serious Engine? Dunno. Is it that good?
If you are someone who has investors backing you, or have a company with money in the bank... or at least someone with a contract with a publisher, you maybe can afford to shell out that kind of money, but is it worth it?
On the surface, it seems you are getting about the same deal as you get with Torque, which is $100 per programmer - so it would then be a matter of ease of use and results: Are the tools that much better and does the result look that much nicer that it will be worth it - and even more importantly, will it pay off in money returned?
But don't get me wrong, $20,000 is a drop in the ocean if we are talking about modern AAA games budgets, that is like what? What it costs to have a programmer for a couple of months maybe? So it may well be worth it to get that extra bang. However, if you have the money, why not step up a bit more and get an engine from Epic or ID or something? Sure, it costs quite a lot more, but you get to put "Powered by Really Known Engine" on the box.
I'k kinda guessing that they might fall between the chairs a bit: low budget productions and upstarts can't afford it, and it isn't cool enough for the big boys.
Also add to the fact that because Torque is so cheap, students and hobbysist can afford it, which gives a big and friendly userbase and community that helps each other out... and these guys can afford to do a demo level that can be used to sell the real game, which will use... Torque, probably, because that is what they know. They aren't gonna switch engine unless they land a deal that lets them buy one of the really big guns.
Or so I speculate. It isn't easy to be sure of anything, but those are my best guesses.
And am I happy we chose Torque? Yeah, mostly. What you get per dollar is simply unbeatable, even by the free alternatives, and the company has a sound take on open source, cross platform and indies. The engine sure has a lot of quirks, which hopefully will be sorted out with TSE, the next generation, but compared to doing all the tools ourselves or doing editing without them, it is a no-brainer.
Would I use the Unreal Engine instead if I could? Probably in a heart-beat, as long as I personally didn't pay for it.
I would say that the engine supports everything that is in the currently released version (right now 0.7), which is quite a lot as it is. And that code is available, you can download it, use it, modify it, fork it or whatever today.
There is still other features to come, and so far features has kept on coming as promised, which is a good sign. And if the guy drops development, you *still* have the latest released snapshot to pick it up from, with no strings attached - as in *any* open source project. This one just happens to commit changes more rarely than some (and still more often than some that do has CVS).
So where's your problem? If it isn't being done fast enough for you, grab a copy of the source and finish it yourself. You seem to be the kind of guy that likes to tell people to write it themeselves, so now I'm telling you. =)
It is open source (under the zlib license I think) but there is no CVS access. The code you have access to and can do whatever you like with is released in snapshots because the guy does not want to field support questions about unstable code. The releases contains pretty stable code, but there is no nightlies - his choice. Still the code that he does release, you can do whatever you want with.