As a software engineer, I can't help but wonder what developing a game at Blizzard was like back then and how it's evolved over time to whatever it's like today. I'm really interested in the technical side of it, but not necessarily just that.
MySQL is the Visual Basic of databases - clumsy and of poor quality, used most strongly by people who don't know any better. I would be delighted to see MySQL fail as a project and have its mindshare go to projects that are superior, like PostgreSQL.
Agreed. There's an excellent list of MySQL "gotchas" that illustrates just how bad it is - http://sql-info.de/en/mysql/gotchas.html The list only applies to <5.0 versions - anyone know a similar list for >=5.0 ?
horrible? I thought it was really *really* good. Not only does it help kill the stereotype, but makes the Mac commercials much less effective as well.
I disagree.
If they were trying to counter the message of the original Apple ads, they failed miserably, because they completely missed their point. The Apple ads are basically saying "Macs are for people who want to do things better, than everyone else (the PCs) - more interesting, more fun and less effort". These ads are targeted at people who want to stand out of the crowd, or at least go their own way. The Microsoft ads on the other hand are saying "be a sheep, join EVERYONE in doing the same thing", which - to the crowd the original ads were aimed at - is the exact thing they want to avoid.
But one might argue, that these ads were actually addressed to a different group of people - the sheep. But the sheep don't need ads - they'll simply follow everyone else. Worse yet - the ads might actually make them aware of what they're doing by blindly following the others and make them stop.
Honestly, this is a fortunate turn of events. This gentleman is at least capable of defending himself against whatever accusations RIAA is making against him, while at the same time consuming time and legal resources that the fuckwits at RIAA could be using to put another party in legal jeopardy.
In fact, since this is not the same as the boilerplate legal case that RIAA makes against thousands of consumers annually, it probably also consumed more resources. We should all be thankful that RIAA has chosen this course of action.
How is that fortunate ? It's not like the money comes from the RIAA CEO's pocket - it comes from ours. And an innocent man's time and resources are wasted, the judicial system is burdened with yet another frivolous case and in the end it will all serve the RIAA by further scaring anyone who might want to stand up to them, even at least by writing a blog.
Ruby On Rails - http://rubyonrails.org/ obviously, but the interface to the library docs is rather unfriendly - try http://noobkit.com/ for something more pleasant to use.
Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).
Not true. I and other webdevelopers I know write standards-compliant code first (testing in FF, Safari, or Opera) and when everything works ok in those, they test it in IE. That's the propper order - write correct code first and THEN do the hackery IE requires. Do it otherwise and you sacrifice quality.
everyone continues on thinking about it as a tool for quick and dirty hacks. But guess what, that's how PHP started out and look where it came.
...to be a half-assed hack of a language ?
Javascript is perfect for what it was intended to do and it's very good even for what it wasn't exactly intended to do and THAT's why there hasn't been a "better" language yet, because this one is good enough for the job.
Actually it's horrible - impossible to debug, with a syntax, that seriously doesn't belong in a scripting language and is there only because it's virtually impossible to set a common, non-proprietary web standard, which the recent ECMAScript4 debacle illustrates quite well.
Good development tools are of little consolation to developers forced to deal with crappy software as basis for their work. It's like bringing up comfortable seats in a discussion about failing engines.
Why is it that we never heard about this crap in the Trib or the Post? Never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by malice. Malice ? Nah. The internet is not their medium and the defendants are not their audience. They just don't give a fsck. Stories like that are bread and butter for slashdot, but for paper-based mainstream media that's hardly even news. I'm not saying I agree, or that's it's good, but that's how it works.
If you can't afford a $200US/year fee for conducting "secure" business online, I probably wouldn't want to do business with you anyway.
SSL is about encryption, integrity and authentication. You must be a really cynical person, to associate the need for these only with business and making money...
I think most people are misunderstanding this. The nominal transfer values for DSL connections are always specified for the "last mile" (I guess that's what it's called) from the switch to the client. That's the nature of this technology/concept. The ISP does not guarantee anything besides these last-mile transfers and what happens beyond is a matter of current load on the network (at least officially, because further traffic shaping politics are likely to be relevant here).
This indeed makes DSL, as you said a home-user type thing as opposed to, say ISDN (which unfortunately has it's limitations).
If I were to choose software protecting my company, I would use commercial software. Why? Because if something does go wrong, it is the vendors fault and not yours. With free software, it is your fault.
So basicly what you're saying is that you care more about covering your ass when things go wrong, than _preventing_ them from going wrong. IMO that pretty much makes your opinion in the subject completely worthless (not to mention the quality of your work if you do this kind of job;]).
1) They think the way Windows works is the way computers work in general. Noone is even surprised their machine keeps crashing and is totally unreliable. They simply think that's the way things have to be.
2) They don't realize there are alternatives
OR
3) They are willing to give away everything it takes, just to stick with what hey already _know_. They will do anything not to learn new stuff. The less they have to _think_, the better.
4) Last but not least - everyone uses Windows. Better to be on the (he he) "safe" side;]
"Think for yourself, question authority."
- Timothy Leary
I love these estimations on how someone could have earned if not for [insert whatever]. How come they never took the time to count yearly losses from people picking their noses ? All the hours of work lost.. Or perhaps a better approach - someone has to be blamed, to allow even thinking about earning some $ on it, so perhaps "the fast food industry is causing X bln losses in all other industries causing diarrhea - employees are spending their time in the toilet instead of working".
I'm not trying to be funny here. Such estimations are _worthless_. They merely serve an agenda and are (ab)used to suck money out of the "guilty", or push some laws allowing further breaking of human rights by the ones backing the agenda.
While spam is definitely something negative and worth fighting with, it's used as a scapegoat in such estimations. It's saddest when individuals are used in such a manner during trials (programmers writing worms and such).
.NET is replacing Win32 in the next Windows version, with Win32 programs being translated do.NET (probably adding overhead), and.NET offering very nice libraries (and C# being a very good language), I believe it's a safe bet to say that new games will be written for this framework. And with mono (or perhaps other.NET implementations) we will probably be able to run most of these games on various *NIX flavours.
...and wasn't Linux all about "version A" ? Sure, full disclosure has it's pros and cons, but there is no way to fix the cons without giving up the whole philosophy altogether.
I was completely astouned to hear that Linus himself agreed for a 5-working-day embargo on making known security issues public. Even if it proves to promote security in general, Linux will lose some of it's openness and what's worse - at the very heart - which I consider the security of a system to be.
Today, if I choose Linux, I get to know virtually everything about the software I use. I get the source code, I can find out whether anything needs to be fixed and, if it's critical, I can fix it, constantly being _sure_, that my system is as secure as possible, knowing that there are no bugs kept secret from me.
Ok, so maybe a few Linux users, or even admins have ever looked into the kernel code, to fix a bug, but that's not the point. I mean, how can you talk about cooperation and openness if you keep critical information available only for an eleet, which "knows better" and will give you the fix, as soon as they're done. This is IMO against the spirit of Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
As a software engineer, I can't help but wonder what developing a game at Blizzard was like back then and how it's evolved over time to whatever it's like today. I'm really interested in the technical side of it, but not necessarily just that.
MySQL is the Visual Basic of databases - clumsy and of poor quality, used most strongly by people who don't know any better. I would be delighted to see MySQL fail as a project and have its mindshare go to projects that are superior, like PostgreSQL.
Agreed. There's an excellent list of MySQL "gotchas" that illustrates just how bad it is - http://sql-info.de/en/mysql/gotchas.html
The list only applies to <5.0 versions - anyone know a similar list for >=5.0 ?
horrible? I thought it was really *really* good. Not only does it help kill the stereotype, but makes the Mac commercials much less effective as well.
I disagree.
If they were trying to counter the message of the original Apple ads, they failed miserably, because they completely missed their point. The Apple ads are basically saying "Macs are for people who want to do things better, than everyone else (the PCs) - more interesting, more fun and less effort". These ads are targeted at people who want to stand out of the crowd, or at least go their own way. The Microsoft ads on the other hand are saying "be a sheep, join EVERYONE in doing the same thing", which - to the crowd the original ads were aimed at - is the exact thing they want to avoid.
But one might argue, that these ads were actually addressed to a different group of people - the sheep. But the sheep don't need ads - they'll simply follow everyone else. Worse yet - the ads might actually make them aware of what they're doing by blindly following the others and make them stop.
In conclusion - FAIL.
Honestly, this is a fortunate turn of events. This gentleman is at least capable of defending himself against whatever accusations RIAA is making against him, while at the same time consuming time and legal resources that the fuckwits at RIAA could be using to put another party in legal jeopardy.
In fact, since this is not the same as the boilerplate legal case that RIAA makes against thousands of consumers annually, it probably also consumed more resources. We should all be thankful that RIAA has chosen this course of action.
How is that fortunate ? It's not like the money comes from the RIAA CEO's pocket - it comes from ours.
And an innocent man's time and resources are wasted, the judicial system is burdened with yet another frivolous case and in the end it will all serve the RIAA by further scaring anyone who might want to stand up to them, even at least by writing a blog.
Ruby On Rails - http://rubyonrails.org/ obviously, but the interface to the library docs is rather unfriendly - try http://noobkit.com/ for something more pleasant to use.
C#/.NET - http://msdn.microsoft.com/
Haskell - http://haskell.org/
Nemerle - http://nemerle.org/
OCaml - http://caml.inria.fr/
PHP - http://php.net/
Python - http://python.org/
Ruby - http://ruby-doc.org/ (API docs), http://ruby-lang.org/ (for more links and info)
SML - http://smlnj.org/ (the most popular implementation), http://standardml.org/Basis/ (standard library)
(X)HTML/CSS/DOM/XSL/etc. - http://w3.org/
Hm. Now that I've written it down, I see most of these are obvious, but then it makes sense, that the "official" sites tend to be the best reference.
Considering what public schools are turning out here in the US, so much of what happens in the world isn't surprising to me anymore.
Ah, how stereotypical - US is THE WHOLE WORLD ;]
Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).
Not true. I and other webdevelopers I know write standards-compliant code first (testing in FF, Safari, or Opera) and when everything works ok in those, they test it in IE. That's the propper order - write correct code first and THEN do the hackery IE requires. Do it otherwise and you sacrifice quality.
No, developers use Firefox to do their development. Why? Because of extensions like Web Developer and Firebug and YSlow and Selenium and Firecookie and FirePHP and Venkman. To name a few.
The fact that Firefox is also highly standards compliant is a bonus.
It's not a bonus. It's a basic prerequisite to make a standards-compliant website.
They're going to think we were cuckoo!
But that's ok, since we are.
everyone continues on thinking about it as a tool for quick and dirty hacks. But guess what, that's how PHP started out and look where it came.
...to be a half-assed hack of a language ?
Javascript is perfect for what it was intended to do and it's very good even for what it wasn't exactly intended to do and THAT's why there hasn't been a "better" language yet, because this one is good enough for the job.
Actually it's horrible - impossible to debug, with a syntax, that seriously doesn't belong in a scripting language and is there only because it's virtually impossible to set a common, non-proprietary web standard, which the recent ECMAScript4 debacle illustrates quite well.
Good development tools are of little consolation to developers forced to deal with crappy software as basis for their work. It's like bringing up comfortable seats in a discussion about failing engines.
Stories like that are bread and butter for slashdot, but for paper-based mainstream media that's hardly even news.
I'm not saying I agree, or that's it's good, but that's how it works.
Just use http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/index.html , or switch to reading dilbert via rss - I use http://www.caesar.nl/CaesarRSS/DilbertRSS.aspx .
If you can't afford a $200US/year fee for conducting "secure" business online, I probably wouldn't want to do business with you anyway.
SSL is about encryption, integrity and authentication. You must be a really cynical person, to associate the need for these only with business and making money...
I think most people are misunderstanding this. The nominal transfer values for DSL connections are always specified for the "last mile" (I guess that's what it's called) from the switch to the client. That's the nature of this technology/concept. The ISP does not guarantee anything besides these last-mile transfers and what happens beyond is a matter of current load on the network (at least officially, because further traffic shaping politics are likely to be relevant here).
This indeed makes DSL, as you said a home-user type thing as opposed to, say ISDN (which unfortunately has it's limitations).
If I were to choose software protecting my company, I would use commercial software. Why? Because if something does go wrong, it is the vendors fault and not yours. With free software, it is your fault.
;]).
So basicly what you're saying is that you care more about covering your ass when things go wrong, than _preventing_ them from going wrong. IMO that pretty much makes your opinion in the subject completely worthless (not to mention the quality of your work if you do this kind of job
1) They think the way Windows works is the way computers work in general. Noone is even surprised their machine keeps crashing and is totally unreliable. They simply think that's the way things have to be.
2) They don't realize there are alternatives
OR
3) They are willing to give away everything it takes, just to stick with what hey already _know_. They will do anything not to learn new stuff. The less they have to _think_, the better.
4) Last but not least - everyone uses Windows. Better to be on the (he he) "safe" side ;]
"Think for yourself, question authority."
- Timothy Leary
I love these estimations on how someone could have earned if not for [insert whatever]. How come they never took the time to count yearly losses from people picking their noses ? All the hours of work lost.. Or perhaps a better approach - someone has to be blamed, to allow even thinking about earning some $ on it, so perhaps "the fast food industry is causing X bln losses in all other industries causing diarrhea - employees are spending their time in the toilet instead of working".
I'm not trying to be funny here. Such estimations are _worthless_. They merely serve an agenda and are (ab)used to suck money out of the "guilty", or push some laws allowing further breaking of human rights by the ones backing the agenda.
While spam is definitely something negative and worth fighting with, it's used as a scapegoat in such estimations. It's saddest when individuals are used in such a manner during trials (programmers writing worms and such).
.NET is replacing Win32 in the next Windows version, with Win32 programs being translated do .NET (probably adding overhead), and .NET offering very nice libraries (and C# being a very good language), I believe it's a safe bet to say that new games will be written for this framework. And with mono (or perhaps other .NET implementations) we will probably be able to run most of these games on various *NIX flavours.
...and wasn't Linux all about "version A" ? Sure, full disclosure has it's pros and cons, but there is no way to fix the cons without giving up the whole philosophy altogether.
I was completely astouned to hear that Linus himself agreed for a 5-working-day embargo on making known security issues public. Even if it proves to promote security in general, Linux will lose some of it's openness and what's worse - at the very heart - which I consider the security of a system to be.
Today, if I choose Linux, I get to know virtually everything about the software I use. I get the source code, I can find out whether anything needs to be fixed and, if it's critical, I can fix it, constantly being _sure_, that my system is as secure as possible, knowing that there are no bugs kept secret from me.
Ok, so maybe a few Linux users, or even admins have ever looked into the kernel code, to fix a bug, but that's not the point. I mean, how can you talk about cooperation and openness if you keep critical information available only for an eleet, which "knows better" and will give you the fix, as soon as they're done. This is IMO against the spirit of Linux.
Or am I getting things wrong ?