One thing the article steps around is the fact that many people like to use their computer for games. In that respect, the availability of Windows titles DOES dwarf Linux availability.
So this, a sarcastic and biased rant about Linux being better than Windows, is headline news, whereas a story involving Opera turning 10 years old today and giving away its desktop browser licenses (happening NOW) is rejected by the/. mods.
But actually you pay to see it because it's out and people are talking about it and you want to be part of the zeitgeist so you can talk at the watercooler. And it's a place to take a date that isn't your stinkhole of an apartment;)
Yep, most of Hollywood is overpriced these days. Are the theaters to blame or are the movie executives who agree to pay Tom Cruise eighty kajillion dollars for 2-3 months work? Or is it a combination?
Of course the new media (TV, home theatre, cable, internet) have intruded on the movie business. But what I read out of this is that the decline this year was sharper than expected.
As far as I'm concerned most Hollywood movies suffer from movie executive meddling, basically the excessive script-rewriting and second-guessing. For instance, I could have done without the stupid car chase in Batman Begins and the whole "new and cool" Batmobile altogether. It did not add one ounce to the plot or make the movie any more interesting. In my mind and was there to try and get kids techno-geeked about Batman. And they needed to fill some time.
The unwillingness to take a chance on the passion of a film maker, let the director and artists involved have true artistic input and leave the movie-making to the movie-makers, not the bean-counters.
But of course it's a business, right? Not an art form...
Wow you have put a lot of effort into this, but have you talked with anyone in the community? Why not participate in Atom discussions, why go off an implement yet another flavour of RSS.
I call "practical joke" or lame attempt at getting "internet famous".
So basically the two points you try to make have been rendered moot by your own post. 1) There ARE tools available (Sodipodi, Inkscape, ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR, Sketsa) and 2) Most browsers have SVG native support plans (Opera has it, Firefox nightlies currently have it, will be publicly available in September-ish, Konqueror has it in plugin form, Safari has begun support).
Here's a tip: do a little research on a topic before you publicly post about it.
I know what you mean, but the problem is that certain browsers are lagging behind in the area of standards support. Why would you let one browser (IE) hold you captive about what you can create when there are plugins for IE that can bring it up to a level of compatibility and all other browsers have plans for native SVG?
Another piece of irony: "I design XHTML 1.1 and CSS compliant", yet IE is considerably lacking in support of both of these areas.
Your points are understood. But we're talking about a delay of a month or two. Firefox 1.5 is just Firefox 1.1 renamed with the release date pushed back about a month. Surely you understand that.
Back to your original point though: Do you REALLY think that Firefox 1.1 being officially released one month earlier would have convinced the Internet Explorer team to go and quickly implement SVG?!? Implementing SVG is not a trivial thing, just look at how long it took SVG status in Mozilla to get where it's at (woefully incomplete). And since when has Microsoft willingly followed someone's lead?
I notice you also sidestep the issue of plugins. The Flash plugin gained mass market acceptance because of the cool things it can do. The same things apply for SVG, the Adobe plugin just needs to be pushed for IE.
FWIW, IE has their own vector markup language (VML) already implemented in IE 5.5 and 6.0. For simple applications it would be POSSIBLE (though not trivial) to build SVG and then use the object tag to supply VML (or SWF). That's why I mentioned the object tag in the first place.
"There are *no* major browsers except IE."
If you truly believed this, then Firefox implementing SVG would have no benefit to IE. So make up your mind. Is Firefox a major browser or not.
Opera has SVG 1.1 Tiny already. Safari is currently working on SVG support. Konqueror has the KSVG2 plugin (which Safari's will be based on). This means that all of the major browsers except IE will have some form of SVG support in the near-term.
Also, the Renesis plugin beta is due in September.
Also, SVG in the mobile market is doing wonderfully.
It's possible I removed the "Go" button because it's not present for me. It's also possible that they removed it by default in Firefox 1.1 Alpha but I'm not sure.
"You mean, other than being smaller, faster, and with lots of useful features that work together rather than being bolted on as an afterthought?"
Can you please give me some examples of useful features that Opera has that a standalone Firefox (without extensions) doesn't? I keep hearing this but I'd really like to get some concrete examples. I'm being straight up here.
You seem to think that the user interface ends with menus. Firefox has 7 menus, Opera has 6. Firefox has 5 buttons, Opera has 7. Firefox has one 'x' button to close tabs, Opera has one for every tab open. Firefox has no ads, Opera has a whole row between menus and toolbars dedicated to ads.
m50d: I returned to this post to try and figure out what you are talking about. I have Opera 8.01 and there is no "x underneath the one for the whole window" (at least in the default Opera user interface). Is there an option to turn this on (I find Opera's preference dialog also dizzying, like most aps that I'm not familiar with).
Thanks,
Jeff
FUD? Fear? Uncertainty? Doubt? I don't think my post expressed any of those things...but of course that's just my opinion.
"I think the "who actually uses it" argument is a good one."
Millions apparently. They had four million downloads in a few days when 8.0 was released.
Are you really that obtuse? As I explained in my post, "download" != "regular usage". I downloaded Opera, but I don't use it as my regular browser, I use it to test my websites. Did you read my full post?
"Opera is envious of how Firefox became the darling of the internet community and threads like this prove that they still don't understand why (hint: clean, crisp interface and a lot of word of mouth)"
Yeah, good job posting a link to a thread posted long before Opera 8.0 was released... Have you actually tried Opera 8.0? It has fewer menus than Firefox by default!
The fact that the article is 8 months old does not make it entirely irrelevant. The purpose of posting the link was to show the attitude of Opera zealots when it comes to acknowledging deficiencies in the product.
Yes, I've used Opera 8.01 and here's proof. I never used Opera before 8 so I can't speak to earlier versions, but "fewer menus" != "perfect UI"! As I explained in another reply I think the ad bar placement and the extra buttons detract from the user experience in a big way.
"It's odd that the CEO of a for-profit company whines that they don't have a not-for-profit "sugar-daddy" like MoFo. Who funds MoFo? Isn't it a not-for-profit company (I'm not sure if AOL still does any funding there)?"
It's not whining. It's pointing out the fact that Mozilla gets funding from huge corporations like Nokia, Sun, Google, IBM, and so on. It's just a simple fact, and he's explaining how Opera needs to actually sell products to make money to hire devs. Mozilla has hired staff as well, you know, but those rely on donations from large companies.
You realize that the funding from these corporations is _to build a better product_ right? It's not free money from a company to a charity so that the company can go to heaven. These large companies funding MoFo don't hold lofty ideals about open-source just "because". They have motives that are built upon increasing their own profits through offering a better product. Nokia uses Opera in their web devices, but is also planning to put out a Mozilla browser by funding the MoFo. Why do you think this is? Don't you think it has something to do with MoFo having a better product?
Hey, don't get me wrong here. I like Opera as a browser, and I'm really excited about its potential in the SVG arena. I just think the CEO of the company came off rather poorly in this article. And apparently so does most of/.
Hehe, let me guess, you're an Opera user?
The biggest single problem is the shoved in ads that are a different colour than the system window background. They totally separate the toolbars from the menus and give a fractured view. My recommendation is they should move the ads to the bottom.
On top of this, do you understand why an average user would never need two Back buttons, two Forward buttons... and what's that wand for? And what's those sunglasses for?
If I want to close down five tabs in a row, I need to move my cursor to each tab and click the red 'x', whereas with Fx I can just keep my mouse in one location.
On the other hand, both O and Fx screwed up the search toolbar, placing it in the same toolbar as the Address field. Can't either browser developers get a clue that this is FAR too small an edit box for a useful search?
In my opinion, the only thing they did better than Firefox (UI-wise!) was to turn the "Reload" button into a "Stop" button when a page is loading...
Slashdot Mirror
Come on, you have to admit that Windows didn't reach anything approximating mass market usage until Windows 3.0/3.1 (1990).
One thing the article steps around is the fact that many people like to use their computer for games. In that respect, the availability of Windows titles DOES dwarf Linux availability. So this, a sarcastic and biased rant about Linux being better than Windows, is headline news, whereas a story involving Opera turning 10 years old today and giving away its desktop browser licenses (happening NOW) is rejected by the /. mods.
Um, is that the way you feel about your investments too?
But actually you pay to see it because it's out and people are talking about it and you want to be part of the zeitgeist so you can talk at the watercooler. And it's a place to take a date that isn't your stinkhole of an apartment ;)
Yep, most of Hollywood is overpriced these days. Are the theaters to blame or are the movie executives who agree to pay Tom Cruise eighty kajillion dollars for 2-3 months work? Or is it a combination?
Of course the new media (TV, home theatre, cable, internet) have intruded on the movie business. But what I read out of this is that the decline this year was sharper than expected.
As far as I'm concerned most Hollywood movies suffer from movie executive meddling, basically the excessive script-rewriting and second-guessing. For instance, I could have done without the stupid car chase in Batman Begins and the whole "new and cool" Batmobile altogether. It did not add one ounce to the plot or make the movie any more interesting. In my mind and was there to try and get kids techno-geeked about Batman. And they needed to fill some time. The unwillingness to take a chance on the passion of a film maker, let the director and artists involved have true artistic input and leave the movie-making to the movie-makers, not the bean-counters. But of course it's a business, right? Not an art form...
A horrible, horrible pun...
Wow you have put a lot of effort into this, but have you talked with anyone in the community? Why not participate in Atom discussions, why go off an implement yet another flavour of RSS. I call "practical joke" or lame attempt at getting "internet famous".
This is how W3C specs are often written.
Kevin Clarke writes about his thoughts on Evolgrafix' Renesis presentation here
So basically the two points you try to make have been rendered moot by your own post. 1) There ARE tools available (Sodipodi, Inkscape, ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR, Sketsa) and 2) Most browsers have SVG native support plans (Opera has it, Firefox nightlies currently have it, will be publicly available in September-ish, Konqueror has it in plugin form, Safari has begun support).
Here's a tip: do a little research on a topic before you publicly post about it.
Cheers,
Jeff
I know what you mean, but the problem is that certain browsers are lagging behind in the area of standards support. Why would you let one browser (IE) hold you captive about what you can create when there are plugins for IE that can bring it up to a level of compatibility and all other browsers have plans for native SVG? Another piece of irony: "I design XHTML 1.1 and CSS compliant", yet IE is considerably lacking in support of both of these areas.
Funny, I blogged about this very idea two weeks ago at http://blog.codedread.com/archives/2005/07/12/xhtm lsvg-htmlvml/
Your points are understood. But we're talking about a delay of a month or two. Firefox 1.5 is just Firefox 1.1 renamed with the release date pushed back about a month. Surely you understand that.
Back to your original point though: Do you REALLY think that Firefox 1.1 being officially released one month earlier would have convinced the Internet Explorer team to go and quickly implement SVG?!? Implementing SVG is not a trivial thing, just look at how long it took SVG status in Mozilla to get where it's at (woefully incomplete). And since when has Microsoft willingly followed someone's lead?
I notice you also sidestep the issue of plugins. The Flash plugin gained mass market acceptance because of the cool things it can do. The same things apply for SVG, the Adobe plugin just needs to be pushed for IE.
FWIW, IE has their own vector markup language (VML) already implemented in IE 5.5 and 6.0. For simple applications it would be POSSIBLE (though not trivial) to build SVG and then use the object tag to supply VML (or SWF). That's why I mentioned the object tag in the first place.
"There are *no* major browsers except IE."
If you truly believed this, then Firefox implementing SVG would have no benefit to IE. So make up your mind. Is Firefox a major browser or not.
Opera has SVG 1.1 Tiny already. Safari is currently working on SVG support. Konqueror has the KSVG2 plugin (which Safari's will be based on). This means that all of the major browsers except IE will have some form of SVG support in the near-term.
Also, the Renesis plugin beta is due in September.
Also, SVG in the mobile market is doing wonderfully.
I suggest you learn about the HTML object tag.
100% agree with you. I won't finish reading that article for the exact same reason.
You can get this functionality looking very close to what you have written. Look up Boost.function and Boost.bind.
It's possible I removed the "Go" button because it's not present for me. It's also possible that they removed it by default in Firefox 1.1 Alpha but I'm not sure.
"You mean, other than being smaller, faster, and with lots of useful features that work together rather than being bolted on as an afterthought?"
Can you please give me some examples of useful features that Opera has that a standalone Firefox (without extensions) doesn't? I keep hearing this but I'd really like to get some concrete examples. I'm being straight up here.
You seem to think that the user interface ends with menus. Firefox has 7 menus, Opera has 6. Firefox has 5 buttons, Opera has 7. Firefox has one 'x' button to close tabs, Opera has one for every tab open. Firefox has no ads, Opera has a whole row between menus and toolbars dedicated to ads.
m50d: I returned to this post to try and figure out what you are talking about. I have Opera 8.01 and there is no "x underneath the one for the whole window" (at least in the default Opera user interface). Is there an option to turn this on (I find Opera's preference dialog also dizzying, like most aps that I'm not familiar with). Thanks, Jeff
FUD? Fear? Uncertainty? Doubt? I don't think my post expressed any of those things...but of course that's just my opinion.
Are you really that obtuse? As I explained in my post, "download" != "regular usage". I downloaded Opera, but I don't use it as my regular browser, I use it to test my websites. Did you read my full post?
The fact that the article is 8 months old does not make it entirely irrelevant. The purpose of posting the link was to show the attitude of Opera zealots when it comes to acknowledging deficiencies in the product.
Yes, I've used Opera 8.01 and here's proof. I never used Opera before 8 so I can't speak to earlier versions, but "fewer menus" != "perfect UI"! As I explained in another reply I think the ad bar placement and the extra buttons detract from the user experience in a big way.
You realize that the funding from these corporations is _to build a better product_ right? It's not free money from a company to a charity so that the company can go to heaven. These large companies funding MoFo don't hold lofty ideals about open-source just "because". They have motives that are built upon increasing their own profits through offering a better product. Nokia uses Opera in their web devices, but is also planning to put out a Mozilla browser by funding the MoFo. Why do you think this is? Don't you think it has something to do with MoFo having a better product?
Hey, don't get me wrong here. I like Opera as a browser, and I'm really excited about its potential in the SVG arena. I just think the CEO of the company came off rather poorly in this article. And apparently so does most of /.
Hehe, let me guess, you're an Opera user? The biggest single problem is the shoved in ads that are a different colour than the system window background. They totally separate the toolbars from the menus and give a fractured view. My recommendation is they should move the ads to the bottom. On top of this, do you understand why an average user would never need two Back buttons, two Forward buttons ... and what's that wand for? And what's those sunglasses for?
If I want to close down five tabs in a row, I need to move my cursor to each tab and click the red 'x', whereas with Fx I can just keep my mouse in one location.
On the other hand, both O and Fx screwed up the search toolbar, placing it in the same toolbar as the Address field. Can't either browser developers get a clue that this is FAR too small an edit box for a useful search?
In my opinion, the only thing they did better than Firefox (UI-wise!) was to turn the "Reload" button into a "Stop" button when a page is loading...