I Worked for a local theator chain (Star Cinema) on an off for a year or so to pick up some extra cash (and catch free movies and swag). Anyways, the Star company guys are really bleeding edge, two IMax theators, high end gear, nothing but stadium seating even in the smallest theators. Anyways, they were set to go digital back in 2002 with one problem. The Projectionist Union. Basicly, if they converted even 1 theator to digital, the projectionists would strike.
"Biometrics is only a solution for identifying that you are who you are when you are physically present."
The problem with Biometrics is that if they are ever comprimised, you are stuck with them. That's why I think hardening the security in this case is the wrong way to go. Increased flexibility, better fraud detection, and rapid responses could trivialise the problems associated with having your identity stolen, and if getting a new identity and converting old accounts, loans and credit cards to the new identity took a phone call and 4 hours, the problems of identity theft could be dramaticly reduced. Where as if your ID is protected by biometrics, and your biometrics are comprimized, you can't change them, and you are stuck with an unsecured identity.
As noted, hardening identity security is extremely costly and difficult. Another option may be to reduce the importance of an identity, make them easier to get rid of and recreate. For example, if someone grabs your credit ID and maxes you out, you'll have to battle for years to get your credit rating restored. If a system could be developed to trivialise the impact of Identity Theft, then the importance of security would decrease from its current point. Yes, it's treating the symptoms, but in this case it could be the cheapest and easiest way to having a safe experience for customers.
let me burst that bubble for you. VB.Net has Overrides, Overloads and Shadows options for Functions. And so far as I know C# does not have Operator Overloading. I'll have to double check on that part though. I also believe.Net 2k5 does have Operator Overloading, but I'll have to double check on that one too.
What about when those 30 year old reactors finally get decomistioned? Or the risks involved with 30 year old reactors?
Pebble Bed Reactors can be made now that are virtually meltdown proof, more efficient, and use a fuel source that is not produced in the same way as weapons grade nuclear material. Compare a brand new state of the art Pebble Bed reactor with any coal burning power plant and see which one poses a greator health risk to employees and the local population.
"VB is a RAD language - it's not really a programming language."
That's like saying "English is an engineering language". RAD (Rapid Application Development) and its more recent iterations (agile and extreme development) is nothing more then a project management style. You can do RAD in VB.Net, C#, Java, Ruby, or heck, even C++ if you have enough libraries and frameworks in place. And having frameworks in place hardly makes what you are doing "less programing."
For instance, I maintain an extension that reports data from a 3rd party leasing system for my job. I spent a good amount of time designing a data abstraction layer and abstract functional classes. This afternoon I was given a request for a new report. Using the framework we had in place I turned out a production ready report in under 2 hours (including all data pulls, calculations, XML generation, Crystal Reports display, and Excel exporting). So yeah, you could argue that VB.Net is just a toy, and that real programmers use C++ to do everything. Me, I'll use the best tool for the job and save myself weeks worth of man hours.
"Anyway, for someone who wants to be a designer or a scripter, or being able to program for personal use, without wanting to get a job as a serious programmer then perhaps VB would be a good beginners language."
Let's get something clear here. VB.Net IS NOT VB. And neither of them has EVER been a scripting language (You are thinking of VBA which was the scripting language of choice for Office). The original poster was asking about VB.Net. VB.Net is fully Object Oriented, structured, and event driven. The GUI design tools that VB.Net has are also available in C# and while they are handy for throwing together user interfaces, are a pretty small part of the picture.
Nothing is "wrong" with Python, but can you honestly say you would recommend it as a 1st language? I only tag it so as a humorous prodding, but I should have noted that (seeing as how my own chuckles never seem to get attached to my posts).
For starters, you just asked about a VB based syntax on/., you will recieve for the most part nothing but FUD and miss information and the pundits launch into tirades about how VB.Net is a toy compared to C# (which are both the same CLR language), Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl, and some whack job will likely even recommend Python.
Next up. Right tool for the job. If you're interested in embedded applications, coding on linux, or high performance apps, going.Net is not going to be your tool of choice.
And finally, to refute some pundits. VB.Net is a syntax option for coding in CLR, the same as C#, J#, PHP.Net and all the other screwy variations of *.Net. Vb.Net is every bit as Object Oriented as C# or Java. VB.Net by default has explicit and strict options off, turning those two options on makes its compiler just as strict as the C# compiler. VB.Net also has almost all of the functionality from C# (I have heard that there are some obscure pointer functions that are not in VB.Net's syntax, but I have never run into them, or the lack there of). Another one of those "What were they thinking?" items though, VB.Net has a "Hide Advanced Methods" option on by default that hides a lot of methods from the autocomplete lists, turning it off allows you to see all of the same functionality as in C#.
The only substantial differences from VB.Net to C# is syntax Things like: VB.Net: Private VarName as String C#: Private String VarName
Interestingly enough, PowerPlay sounds a lot like the current "Pay for Priority" scandle coming from the major pipe companies now. I wonder is Power play could be adapted into a VOIP system...
There are multiple kinds of lag: 1) Server side. Nothing you can do about this, period. 2) Graphics. Have 200 toons on your screen at once? Have an anti-virus scan fire up in the back ground? burning a DVD while playing a FPS? Enjoy the slide show. 3) Client side connection. I have 3mb cable from charter, I experience connection lag about never, same goes for those people with DSL and T1/OC3 lines. But if you are trying to play an MMO over a 33.6kbps modem, you're probably going to spend some time ghosting and going LD. If you are trying to play a FPS over satellite, you're going to be shooting at people well after they have moved. And no matter what your little NIC does, it's not going to make that tiny 2' dish transmit data umpteen miles into outer space any faster. The only place I could imagine a beefed up NIC improving lag would be on wireless NICs.
Then there is also a difference in causes of lag. It can be either a ping issue (playing over satellite or long distance wireless), or a bandwidth issue (going over a 33.6kbps land line modem). A NIC isn't going to have much effect on pings, maybe a millisecond here or there for stack handling, but nothing noticeable to users. But if you use a service like Net-Zero's or Netscape's web accelerator, you could put a compression engine on the card. That would take the accelerator load off the CPU and could theoretically help, but it would also require the server to be able to (un)compress the incoming and outgoing streams.
I searched Monster.Com for all jobs, I didn't limited to geographic scope because there are hot spots for both languages. My home town for example, the UW Madison CS degree focuses heavily on Java, so we have an absurdly large number of skilled Java developers in the area, which in turn leads to a lot of Java based work. But the head hunters I've been talking to recently say that the Java market is much tighter in Chicago while.Net is on fire.
By default (only God and Bill Gates know why) option explicit and strict are turned off. With them off you can get away with sloppy things like not returning values. With them turned on the compiler will spit out an error.
"Wow so, attend a real OO class to learn a real OO language (C# or Java). Then go back to the old VB syntax just so you're back in your comfort zone?"
Uhh, Vb.Net IS real OO. VB6 is not. And why should you make developers learn an entirely new syntax when they are already proficient in one? Especially in a system like.Net where compiling different syntaxes is trivial. VB, Java, C#, PHP, you can do it all in.Net! The whole point was that you could use what ever language syntax you are familiar with and use the framework to its fullest.
As for C# dominating the mainstream over VB.Net? Do some google searches: "VB.Net Samples" results in 5.96m results, "C# Samples" results in 4.75m. VB.Net and C# both max Monster.com's job search out at 1000 results. So whether you like it or not, it is hardly a second class language.
VB.Net is not compiled to C#. VB.Net (and C#) are both compiled to CLR, then compiled to Native at the first run on the actual machine.
The only problems I have found with programming mistakes not being picked up by the compiler are late binding issues where elements are access by string/integer identifiers and the debugger picks those up as expected. I mean, the compiler doesn't know that my database has a table with a column names "Value1" at compile time, so If I fat finger "Valeu1" into an identifier, the Compiler has no way of validating that. I'm sorry you feel the VB syntax is so bad, but it is the most popular syntax in the world (or at least was, it has been a few years since I say the world wide estimates)
I disagree. VB.Net is symanticly very similar to VB6. Almost identical. Vb.Net is Object Oriented, and it's design considerations are vastly different from VB6. The problem most VB6 developers run into is that they know the syntax and they expect it to work a specific way. What I tell most people who talk about learning VB.Net is to take a Java or C# class, becuase they are both OO languages that will remove the expectations you have from knowing the syntax. Once you can wrap your head around OO design, jump back to VB.Net and things will make much more sence.
Matters, do I get spin off production rights? Pulling $20m more profit off the movie sounds great, but if I can make another $50m in T-shirts, CDs, action figures, cartoon spin offs, etc... The $20m quickly loses it's appeal.
"If term limits, the line item veto, or this page limit idea were passed into law, you'd soon see examples of how these arbitrary rules are hindering and hurting us."
Yes, but whether or not it hurts us is not relevant. Whether or not it hurts us MORE than the previous practice is the important question. When fleeing from a hungry bear, you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than the guy next to you.
"Do you have some reason to think smartphones have worse battery life than regular cell phones?"
No, I imagine they perform very similarly when being used only for phone service. But how long does your phone battery hold up on a call when you've already used your phone as an MP3 player for 8 hours that day? And how much performance can be eeked out of that 'more efficient' processor? I have some Pocket PC apps that are heavily optimized to get sub second responses in heavy data manipulation on a 400mhz ARM processor, if a Treo can run at half the power, that's great, but if it cuts response time back to 2 seconds, that is unexceptable.
FTA: "Certified Email prevents and blocks spammers from sending e-mails to online users," said the AOL spokesman. Goodmail's program is 100-percent opt-in;
So in other words, Opt-ing and pay, or your email will be blocked. Spam kings willing to chip in would appear to be uneffected. Average joe mailing lists, kiss it good bye. Which beggs the question, why does anyone use AOL anymore?
I Love my PDA. It plays my daily play lists of mp3s and wmas, it has all of my scheduling, I use it to control my MCE box, I can check my email on it, I can browse the web (although someone really needs to make a pda.slashdot.org site).
My phone on the other hand, I want it to act like a phone (and contact phone list). That's it. no games, no web browsing, no fansy smancy battery draining crap. If my MP3 player dies, I'm fine. If my digital camera dies, my life will continue. But if I'm stuck on the side of some country road with a broken down car in the middle of the winter with a cell phone on a dead battery, I'm screwed.
So give me an all-in-one small tablet of PDA that will take car of all of my needs except for phone. And give me a simple phone that takes care of only my phone needs. No need to put them together...yet.
Slashdot Mirror
I Worked for a local theator chain (Star Cinema) on an off for a year or so to pick up some extra cash (and catch free movies and swag). Anyways, the Star company guys are really bleeding edge, two IMax theators, high end gear, nothing but stadium seating even in the smallest theators. Anyways, they were set to go digital back in 2002 with one problem. The Projectionist Union. Basicly, if they converted even 1 theator to digital, the projectionists would strike.
-Rick
"Biometrics is only a solution for identifying that you are who you are when you are physically present."
The problem with Biometrics is that if they are ever comprimised, you are stuck with them. That's why I think hardening the security in this case is the wrong way to go. Increased flexibility, better fraud detection, and rapid responses could trivialise the problems associated with having your identity stolen, and if getting a new identity and converting old accounts, loans and credit cards to the new identity took a phone call and 4 hours, the problems of identity theft could be dramaticly reduced. Where as if your ID is protected by biometrics, and your biometrics are comprimized, you can't change them, and you are stuck with an unsecured identity.
-Rick
As noted, hardening identity security is extremely costly and difficult. Another option may be to reduce the importance of an identity, make them easier to get rid of and recreate. For example, if someone grabs your credit ID and maxes you out, you'll have to battle for years to get your credit rating restored. If a system could be developed to trivialise the impact of Identity Theft, then the importance of security would decrease from its current point. Yes, it's treating the symptoms, but in this case it could be the cheapest and easiest way to having a safe experience for customers.
-Rick
let me burst that bubble for you. VB.Net has Overrides, Overloads and Shadows options for Functions. And so far as I know C# does not have Operator Overloading. I'll have to double check on that part though. I also believe .Net 2k5 does have Operator Overloading, but I'll have to double check on that one too.
-Rick
What about when those 30 year old reactors finally get decomistioned? Or the risks involved with 30 year old reactors?
Pebble Bed Reactors can be made now that are virtually meltdown proof, more efficient, and use a fuel source that is not produced in the same way as weapons grade nuclear material. Compare a brand new state of the art Pebble Bed reactor with any coal burning power plant and see which one poses a greator health risk to employees and the local population.
-Rick
/shrug
.Net IDE (and SharpDev, its open source competitor) automaticly indents. Learn it or not, your code will be correctly indented.
Microsoft's
-Rick
"VB is a RAD language - it's not really a programming language."
That's like saying "English is an engineering language". RAD (Rapid Application Development) and its more recent iterations (agile and extreme development) is nothing more then a project management style. You can do RAD in VB.Net, C#, Java, Ruby, or heck, even C++ if you have enough libraries and frameworks in place. And having frameworks in place hardly makes what you are doing "less programing."
For instance, I maintain an extension that reports data from a 3rd party leasing system for my job. I spent a good amount of time designing a data abstraction layer and abstract functional classes. This afternoon I was given a request for a new report. Using the framework we had in place I turned out a production ready report in under 2 hours (including all data pulls, calculations, XML generation, Crystal Reports display, and Excel exporting). So yeah, you could argue that VB.Net is just a toy, and that real programmers use C++ to do everything. Me, I'll use the best tool for the job and save myself weeks worth of man hours.
"Anyway, for someone who wants to be a designer or a scripter, or being able to program for personal use, without wanting to get a job as a serious programmer then perhaps VB would be a good beginners language."
Let's get something clear here. VB.Net IS NOT VB. And neither of them has EVER been a scripting language (You are thinking of VBA which was the scripting language of choice for Office). The original poster was asking about VB.Net. VB.Net is fully Object Oriented, structured, and event driven. The GUI design tools that VB.Net has are also available in C# and while they are handy for throwing together user interfaces, are a pretty small part of the picture.
-Rick
Nothing is "wrong" with Python, but can you honestly say you would recommend it as a 1st language? I only tag it so as a humorous prodding, but I should have noted that (seeing as how my own chuckles never seem to get attached to my posts).
-Rick
For starters, you just asked about a VB based syntax on /., you will recieve for the most part nothing but FUD and miss information and the pundits launch into tirades about how VB.Net is a toy compared to C# (which are both the same CLR language), Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl, and some whack job will likely even recommend Python.
.Net is not going to be your tool of choice.
//Code here
Next up. Right tool for the job. If you're interested in embedded applications, coding on linux, or high performance apps, going
And finally, to refute some pundits. VB.Net is a syntax option for coding in CLR, the same as C#, J#, PHP.Net and all the other screwy variations of *.Net. Vb.Net is every bit as Object Oriented as C# or Java. VB.Net by default has explicit and strict options off, turning those two options on makes its compiler just as strict as the C# compiler. VB.Net also has almost all of the functionality from C# (I have heard that there are some obscure pointer functions that are not in VB.Net's syntax, but I have never run into them, or the lack there of). Another one of those "What were they thinking?" items though, VB.Net has a "Hide Advanced Methods" option on by default that hides a lot of methods from the autocomplete lists, turning it off allows you to see all of the same functionality as in C#.
The only substantial differences from VB.Net to C# is syntax Things like:
VB.Net: Private VarName as String
C#: Private String VarName
VB.Net:
If Var1 = Var2 Then
'Code here
End If
C#:
If Var1 == Var2
{
}
-Rick
Interestingly enough, PowerPlay sounds a lot like the current "Pay for Priority" scandle coming from the major pipe companies now. I wonder is Power play could be adapted into a VOIP system...
-Rick
I'm with the bandwagon on the BS'o-meter pegging.
There are multiple kinds of lag:
1) Server side. Nothing you can do about this, period.
2) Graphics. Have 200 toons on your screen at once? Have an anti-virus scan fire up in the back ground? burning a DVD while playing a FPS? Enjoy the slide show.
3) Client side connection. I have 3mb cable from charter, I experience connection lag about never, same goes for those people with DSL and T1/OC3 lines. But if you are trying to play an MMO over a 33.6kbps modem, you're probably going to spend some time ghosting and going LD. If you are trying to play a FPS over satellite, you're going to be shooting at people well after they have moved. And no matter what your little NIC does, it's not going to make that tiny 2' dish transmit data umpteen miles into outer space any faster. The only place I could imagine a beefed up NIC improving lag would be on wireless NICs.
Then there is also a difference in causes of lag. It can be either a ping issue (playing over satellite or long distance wireless), or a bandwidth issue (going over a 33.6kbps land line modem). A NIC isn't going to have much effect on pings, maybe a millisecond here or there for stack handling, but nothing noticeable to users. But if you use a service like Net-Zero's or Netscape's web accelerator, you could put a compression engine on the card. That would take the accelerator load off the CPU and could theoretically help, but it would also require the server to be able to (un)compress the incoming and outgoing streams.
-Rick
-Rick
Don't forget a few polished screen shots and a bar chart showing the power difference between regular pacman and pacman after eating a big dot.
-Rick
I searched Monster.Com for all jobs, I didn't limited to geographic scope because there are hot spots for both languages. My home town for example, the UW Madison CS degree focuses heavily on Java, so we have an absurdly large number of skilled Java developers in the area, which in turn leads to a lot of Java based work. But the head hunters I've been talking to recently say that the Java market is much tighter in Chicago while .Net is on fire.
-Rick
Nope, VB.Net is just a syntax option for coding in CLR. Just like C#, J# and PHP.Net
-Rick
By default (only God and Bill Gates know why) option explicit and strict are turned off. With them off you can get away with sloppy things like not returning values. With them turned on the compiler will spit out an error.
-Rick
"Wow so, attend a real OO class to learn a real OO language (C# or Java). Then go back to the old VB syntax just so you're back in your comfort zone?"
.Net where compiling different syntaxes is trivial. VB, Java, C#, PHP, you can do it all in .Net! The whole point was that you could use what ever language syntax you are familiar with and use the framework to its fullest.
Uhh, Vb.Net IS real OO. VB6 is not. And why should you make developers learn an entirely new syntax when they are already proficient in one? Especially in a system like
As for C# dominating the mainstream over VB.Net? Do some google searches: "VB.Net Samples" results in 5.96m results, "C# Samples" results in 4.75m. VB.Net and C# both max Monster.com's job search out at 1000 results. So whether you like it or not, it is hardly a second class language.
-Rick
VB.Net is not compiled to C#. VB.Net (and C#) are both compiled to CLR, then compiled to Native at the first run on the actual machine.
The only problems I have found with programming mistakes not being picked up by the compiler are late binding issues where elements are access by string/integer identifiers and the debugger picks those up as expected. I mean, the compiler doesn't know that my database has a table with a column names "Value1" at compile time, so If I fat finger "Valeu1" into an identifier, the Compiler has no way of validating that. I'm sorry you feel the VB syntax is so bad, but it is the most popular syntax in the world (or at least was, it has been a few years since I say the world wide estimates)
-Rick
I disagree. VB.Net is symanticly very similar to VB6. Almost identical. Vb.Net is Object Oriented, and it's design considerations are vastly different from VB6. The problem most VB6 developers run into is that they know the syntax and they expect it to work a specific way. What I tell most people who talk about learning VB.Net is to take a Java or C# class, becuase they are both OO languages that will remove the expectations you have from knowing the syntax. Once you can wrap your head around OO design, jump back to VB.Net and things will make much more sence.
-Rick
Matters, do I get spin off production rights? Pulling $20m more profit off the movie sounds great, but if I can make another $50m in T-shirts, CDs, action figures, cartoon spin offs, etc... The $20m quickly loses it's appeal.
-Rick
But wasn't Q4 '06 the original expectation for the US release?
-Rick
"If term limits, the line item veto, or this page limit idea were passed into law, you'd soon see examples of how these arbitrary rules are hindering and hurting us."
Yes, but whether or not it hurts us is not relevant. Whether or not it hurts us MORE than the previous practice is the important question. When fleeing from a hungry bear, you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than the guy next to you.
-Rick
"Do you have some reason to think smartphones have worse battery life than regular cell phones?"
No, I imagine they perform very similarly when being used only for phone service. But how long does your phone battery hold up on a call when you've already used your phone as an MP3 player for 8 hours that day? And how much performance can be eeked out of that 'more efficient' processor? I have some Pocket PC apps that are heavily optimized to get sub second responses in heavy data manipulation on a 400mhz ARM processor, if a Treo can run at half the power, that's great, but if it cuts response time back to 2 seconds, that is unexceptable.
-Rick
-Rick
Sign me up, I feel for the same trap, hook, line and sinker.
-Rick
FTA: "Certified Email prevents and blocks spammers from sending e-mails to online users," said the AOL spokesman. Goodmail's program is 100-percent opt-in;
So in other words, Opt-ing and pay, or your email will be blocked. Spam kings willing to chip in would appear to be uneffected. Average joe mailing lists, kiss it good bye. Which beggs the question, why does anyone use AOL anymore?
-Rick
I Love my PDA. It plays my daily play lists of mp3s and wmas, it has all of my scheduling, I use it to control my MCE box, I can check my email on it, I can browse the web (although someone really needs to make a pda.slashdot.org site).
My phone on the other hand, I want it to act like a phone (and contact phone list). That's it. no games, no web browsing, no fansy smancy battery draining crap. If my MP3 player dies, I'm fine. If my digital camera dies, my life will continue. But if I'm stuck on the side of some country road with a broken down car in the middle of the winter with a cell phone on a dead battery, I'm screwed.
So give me an all-in-one small tablet of PDA that will take car of all of my needs except for phone. And give me a simple phone that takes care of only my phone needs. No need to put them together...yet.
-Rick