An amazing feat, this man should be recognized. Linux will never be on the desktop if your teenage daughter cant videochat with predators 2000 miles away!
I for one welcome this new voyeur overlord.
I started using multiple monitors when the Matrox G400 came out. I am a developer and I can say it really boosted my productivity by a large margin. It my previous job I used 3, which I personally see as the optimum number - more gets confusing (sounds stupid, but it's true), less is well, less (how very un-Zen of me!). I mostly used it with email and visual design on the left monitor, code on the middle monitor and the running program and documentation on the right. (Sadly enough it seems most of todays IDE like you to have everything on one screen). These days I only have two (i'll put in a 3rd soon again though) and it is acceptable. 3 over 2 is maybe a 10% increase in ease of work, 2 over 1, in my case, easily doubled my productivity. The number of times you have to switch between different applications just for a glance, need to have a reference for something handy, or need to type in one window something related to what you can read in another window, etc, is enormous. Ever since I started using it, I've been recommending it to everyone who works a lot behind their computers, and a lot of them have taken up this advice and not ONE person is less than ecstatic about it - developers, designers, administrive (type monkeys), alike. It's hard for me to imagine a user that would NOT benefit.
Justifying it may be hard depending on exactly what you do and how your bosses/managers are. If you can get away with claiming a 5% productivity boost (which is way below the real world, IMHO) it easily pays itself back in a few months. The question is if the person in charge is sold on that point alone.
I've also tried these virtual desktops and such, but really, it does not compare, whatever people try to tell you:)
Well, it's not exactly arthritis, but I've had RSI (repetitive strain injury) from computing for years. It's very light though, I can still pretty much do anything and everything I want, I just have to stop sooner than my friends. One thing I have noticed though, is that when playing consoles, within minutes everything hurts. This is while I can play games on the PC just about indefinitly without aching at all. That should spell out the difference. Yes, I do use special ergonomical mouses and keyboard though, but those are like $100 together and in all probability, your health care plan will actually pay for it (mine did). Is this all relevant to you? I don't know, it could be. Good luck.
I don't replace drives until they break. What I do do however, is regularly run out of space.
What happens then? I buy a new large disc (last one was 300gb last week, 300gb is not the largest but at this time one of the best gb/size and big). I add this one to my PC, and move everything "up one disc" in the newer harddrives chain. Ok, that takes a night, but hey, let the PC do the work while I sleep. When my system maximum of 8 HD's is reached, I wipe the oldest one, remove it, and throw or give it away. When this is done, I usually have the few hundreds gig left accross drives to backup important data, and still enough space to download all these new TV shows (and pr0n ofcourse). Since I watch a lot of TV shows over the internet this takes a lot of space, and I don't put them on DVDs 'til the season is complete. And I have to burn them all twice too, because my sister is a researcher in Italy, and apparently, TV sucks over there. The burn for myself is usually a few months after that burn batch too. The most important data, apart from being backup up on all those discs is also regularly backup up to a removable drive which I then take to work to get backup up (hey it's MY company, so no issues there).
Ok, I may be a little bit crazy... but... nah wait no buts.
I'm a little late in replying, but, I'm still going to:)
First off, I do not believe (X)HTML is still the way to go for web. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Flash advocate (*eek*) but it's simply horrible to do anything useful. I'd personally like to see a more 'software-development' approach to these things, but hey, that's me.
Anyway, IMHO, very bad and very good comments have been made for both HTML and XHTML. Yes, HTML 4.01 will get the job done in many cases, and no, XHTML isn't properly supported in the most-used browser: IE. What strikes me as odd as that it's seen as so either/or.
You can implement most XHTML things perfectly in HTML (as in, browsers will display it properly) and it does, very much, improve readability and maintainability. What makes me scream "wtf?!?!!" the most is people who disagree with that. Using lowercase tags, using " to encase attributes (and doing attributes the XHTML way), closing all tags, strict doctype, etc. It's just so much easier in the end, get used to it and you will not want to go back! All popular browsers will accept HTML formed like this perfectly. Since I switched to this (ofcourse including all the CSS and such, though CSS is still lacking in so many ways), development has actually gotten a lot easier, and my pages have the added bonus of being perfectly parseable by any XML parser. So no, it's not 100% HTML, it's not 100% XHTML, but it's nearly XHTML and looks good in HTML, cross-browser and all.
In the end though, it's still not 'how the web should be'.
Am I the only one who thinks a skeleton 10 meters in length does not constitute a "giant" monster? I mean, isn't this even a bit on the smallish size for "giant sea monsters"? A sperm whale, for example, can easily grow twice as long as that.
I must say, I hardly play FPS's online anymore as I can't spare the time and today's FPS's just aren't what they used to be. I have been #1 on ngWorldStats for UT/CTF a few times. I have written (non-cheater)mods for a game or two, and an ANTIcheating tool for another (all very well received by their communities). Cheating pisses me off. Yes I used to be real good at some FPS's, and I spent a LOT of time becoming it, playing several hours a day (so call me sad, whatever). What the hell is fun in cheating? If I go into a server and own everybody in there, do I feel good? No. It sucks! I leave and find a server with people who are up to par with my skills. Sometimes they're way above you, then you find a server that is only a little bit above your own skills. And if you get really good in a game, you get to know the other good players. You know who cheats and who doesn't. You don't play with cheaters in general, though sometimes it is fun to kick their scrawny girlfriendless hinies. If you cheat, where's the challenge? What is fun in winning all the time? Ok, I may have actually written a few cheats, but that is because I love coding - it's not like I ever used them 'in the wild'.
Online cheaters are below contempt. I don't care what their motivation is. You don't go and purposely ruin others people's fun. It's just "not done". I don't care if your retarded, doing it for kicks, have some half decent self invented excuse or whatever, you just don't. Hell, I've ended real life friendships when I learned they were cheating (in various ways) and couldn't convince them it's just not done.
The arguments presented in the article are just beyond sanity. "I tend to ignore those people, they bitch and morn about how I cheated but they could have modded their box just like mine.", "How can they complain about people like me. They should have built a anti-cheating engine in the game to prevent it.", "Anyone reading this is simply jealous of the fact that I have enough nuts to cheat and play the game the way I want to.", "why should I stop if no one else does"
It's all about the morals and values. Hell, I could've been fairly rich if I didn't hang on to it. Many players of various games have used tools (mods, extensions, cheater-finding, etc) I've made daily. I could've taken most of their accounts if I wanted, selling them on ebay, and in some cases just exchanging it for real world cash (in case of real-cash-economy games). And believe me, there's lots and lots of cash in that. Morals and values...
Saddest thing is, we are most likely to see this guy grow up to be president of some company that earns millions by ripping other people of or otherwise cheating them (spammers anyone?). Fuck that.
Interesting... I have a really good sense of direction as well, which has freaked out many-o-friend(tm). One of the things people tend to notice is that you know the way everywhere, even if you have never been in that area. Ofcourse this is not true, but it seems like it to other people. Though I don't consciencely do it, I have always suspected it is really something I do in my head rather than sense. I do think of it as North/South/East/West but after a bit of investigation, I have found that my North (from which I get the others) is not actually North and may vary in various in physical locations.
With some more thinking and testing, I have long ago found out that what I actually perceive as North has to do with a reference point in that city. For example, in my home town and surrounding region, my North is the same direction as if you'd be walking straight out of my parents garage. While in the city I live in now, my North is perpendicular to the train station (first time I was here I came by train).
I don't know how this works for other people, but I suspect many people do have a sense of direction, but this is really related to some reference point than actual magnetic directions. Ofcourse if I go somewhere and you tell me where North is, I can keep telling you where North is wherever I go in that area, but again, if it were based on the Earth's magnetic field, wouldn't I be the one telling you where North is in the first place?
On a side note, both my father and two of my uncles have the same thing. My mother, my sisters and my aunts don't have it at all though. Don't know if that means anything:)
Those security questions often annoy me... especially if you have to chose from a predefined set. Everybody who knows me knows my hometown, for example. What kind of security question is that?
If possible (e.g., the answer box has enough text), I usually use the 40-digit serial number from the box the first CD-R I ever bought came in. Don't even ask why I know that number by memory:D
Back to Linden Labs, while they may have been at fault for not sufficiently securing the servers, the way they have handled it is commendable. Not many publishers of games like that would handle it like this. Hell, I'm sure MindArk (Project Entropia) wouldn't!
Well I have been working as software developer for several companies and I always demanded full internet access and the network folks to keep their hands of my work equipment. Sure for the average worker, lock some of it down. But through MSN Messenger I connected quickly to all other developers all over the building to quickly discuss things, send links, etc. Sure you can use the phone on the desk, but that's a much bigger distraction. Walking over only when it's big. The chatting can be done while you work, but for phoning you need to stop working. I also need access to any arbitrary site, to look up information I need, discuss framework or development tool oddness and their workarounds etc etc. And indeed I did read my personal email and news sites at work at well. So boohoo. On the other hand, I'm also the guy that you could never find at the cantina or taking a coffee break. On several occasions I have needed to go all the way up to the CEO to get network folk to stop messing with my stuff. One brilliant networking person once had the idea of installing Norton Corporate AntiVirus. You can guess what happened next. Never again. Here's all the stuff that needs daily backups, and that's all your touching. Security updates? I'll pick them up myself thank you, after reading up exactly what update breaks what. I'll install my personal choice of AV software that can actually run on development machines and otherwise make sure my system is doing fine. I'll take full responsibility. As for stuff like MySpace and such... well who uses that crap anyways. I'll do all that and still be more productive than if anyone messes with my systems.
Today however, I am the owner of a startup. I'm pretty sure I'd quit if I'd lock 'my' network down though. Call me paranoid, but I never trust network folk (for good laughs: if you have the authority, go visit the networking center of your local big city's police hq and take a look at the things you can find there...)
There's a bit of info about all this over at DRMadness as well, though it's aimed specifically at Blu-ray and HD-DVD (but that's HighDef content as well, isn't it)...
In my experience, sites like RentACoder don't really work. I've only been there as a coder, not as an 'employer'.
When I had some spare time I'd sometimes bid on a project. I never actually got one though. The employers usually want a lot of work done for very little money.
I see a project and think about it. To do a real good job, would require about 10 hours. Max bid: $100. That's $10 an hour (7 euro?) BEFORE taxes. I'd make more working in a supermarket. In the end, you see someone getting this job for $30.
Either there are some people that just about work for free or, more likely, the end product is not quite the quality expected by the employer.
So my impression is, if you want the job done good, get more cash. If you're getting more cash anyway, you can just as well hire someone that's close to you.
Ofcourse, you are correct in what you're saying. It just doesn't apply to our situation:)
The quicker design/test/deploy cycle, if true, would be a GoodThing(tm) and I can clearly see it's benefits.
Drag and drop is often just not very practical at all. I could state numerous examples why it isn't useful for (internally used) webapps but I'm not writing an essay here. Furthermore, you have misunderstood me if you think I mean that eye-candy is for people who do not know what they're doing. If people know what they're doing in the whole process (not in the webapp itself), they'll usually know identification codes for everything and don't need big pretty lists or drag-and-drop functionality. Ofcourse I'm beating up on drag-and-drop here, but the same thing stands for several candy items
Now if you're talking external webapps (unleashed on the internet or another large network with people who don't know exactly what they want, with which records ID) THEN things become entirely different ofcourse.
I've been in software development for years. Until very recently, I only did desktop applications and didn't have to bother with web stuff, apart from fooling around a little with Delphi's [AToZed's] IntraWeb and writing the HTTP compression code for it. Now I'm back working for a company that does all sorts of webrelated stuff. I haven't been doing this since HTML 2.0!
Ofcourse: we start with PHP and MySQL, sometimes replacing MySQL with MSSQL and very rarely writing CGI/ISAPI/DSO in my language of choice if a dedicated server is warranted.
Since then, I've been looking for ways to improve. ActiveX's never even been alive, Flash is pure evil. XMLHTTP seemed like a revelation to me. But getting all your stuff to work together properly, is a real bitch (excuse me). By now I've written a decent framework using PHP, Smarty, XMLHTTP and JavaScript (doing things they're not meant to all the way) which is really very MVC . But it just isn't nearly desktop programming.
So my question is, to you, the experienced (or well, it is fairly new) RoR/AJAX users: Is this what I'm waiting for? Will this drastically improve development time? Or is it just FuD like all the other 'promising' stuff we've seen?
Because IMHO, investing lots of time in stuff like JavaScript validation (etc), simply wont beat the costs for just buying a big server with a fat pipe that'll give users fast responsiveness in a more brute way. I'm not interested in shopping carts and drag and drop. Our customers have specific needs usually not for the 'home user'. They don't really care about eye-candy or technology. The people using it know what they're doing. They want it to work, work properly and work fast.
Paul Graham - Science vs Art - Work vs Hobby
on
Is Programming Art?
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· Score: 1
For example, I was taught in college that one ought to figure out a program completely on paper before even going near a computer. I found that I did not program this way. I found that I liked to program sitting in front of a computer, not a piece of paper. Worse still, instead of patiently writing out a complete program and assuring myself it was correct, I tended to just spew out code that was hopelessly broken, and gradually beat it into shape. Debugging, I was taught, was a kind of final pass where you caught typos and oversights. The way I worked, it seemed like programming consisted of debugging.
For a long time I felt bad about this, just as I once felt bad that I didn't hold my pencil the way they taught me to in elementary school. If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to program in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as you're writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.
(Sorry for quoting such a large piece)
IMHO, this guy really hits the spot. I agree 100% with him. This is why I enjoy coding as a hobby, while I do not really enjoy it so much for work.
When you code for work, you have to do it "the right way". It often kills the fun and often gives me a feeling of "it 5'o yet?". I would call this the Science of Programming. Ofcourse, the results are often very good (but not necessarily better) and scientifically sound. A big caveat is that if you skip a few steps or don't do it with a 100% conviction, it is as bugprone as any piece of software developed with another method. To not even mention faults you make with the design that will not be pointed out until you actually build it and the redesign/refactoring that comes with that.
When you (well, I) code for hobby, I sketch most of the time. This is often frowned upon by the theorists as being bugprone and medieval (sp?). I disagree. While I concur that most beginners do it this way and often generate really crappy code, when done correctly, the outcome can be more beautiful then any fully designed software. After many many years of doing this in my free time, I do believe I've gotten rather good at it. My 'sketched' software in the end is just as object oriented and looks just as well designed. I would call this the Art of Programming. The design evolves in your head while you hack at it, beating it into submission. Object Orientedness, in the same way, just happens. In the end, everything falls in to place. IMHO, this is a much more creative and satisfying form of coding than the scientific variant.
Ofcourse, my definition of the Art can only be done with languages that don't take Coffee-Compile-Time(tm) like C++, since then you would never actually be able to finish such a project. I also suspect you must be reasonably fluid in the scientific variant to bring (my) art variant to a good end.
My gal is usually playing "Patience" or "Spider" or card games like that if she only has a few minutes. She's also a big fan of those online java games as well, and plays those if she has a bit more time.
The odd thing is, even though she plays card games on the PC a lot, we play some of those in real life too, yet I always win (poker, 2-person-patience, and lots of other games I don't know the english name for).
I myself never play card games on the pc, and not very often in my real life either (not counting having a beer and playing poker for who's going to pay for the beer)
Slashdot Mirror
An amazing feat, this man should be recognized. Linux will never be on the desktop if your teenage daughter cant videochat with predators 2000 miles away! I for one welcome this new voyeur overlord.
I started using multiple monitors when the Matrox G400 came out. I am a developer and I can say it really boosted my productivity by a large margin. It my previous job I used 3, which I personally see as the optimum number - more gets confusing (sounds stupid, but it's true), less is well, less (how very un-Zen of me!). I mostly used it with email and visual design on the left monitor, code on the middle monitor and the running program and documentation on the right. (Sadly enough it seems most of todays IDE like you to have everything on one screen). These days I only have two (i'll put in a 3rd soon again though) and it is acceptable. 3 over 2 is maybe a 10% increase in ease of work, 2 over 1, in my case, easily doubled my productivity. The number of times you have to switch between different applications just for a glance, need to have a reference for something handy, or need to type in one window something related to what you can read in another window, etc, is enormous. Ever since I started using it, I've been recommending it to everyone who works a lot behind their computers, and a lot of them have taken up this advice and not ONE person is less than ecstatic about it - developers, designers, administrive (type monkeys), alike. It's hard for me to imagine a user that would NOT benefit.
:)
Justifying it may be hard depending on exactly what you do and how your bosses/managers are. If you can get away with claiming a 5% productivity boost (which is way below the real world, IMHO) it easily pays itself back in a few months. The question is if the person in charge is sold on that point alone.
I've also tried these virtual desktops and such, but really, it does not compare, whatever people try to tell you
" The Entropia ATM card can be used to instantly withdraw real cash from over 1 million ATM machines worldwide "
:D
is in error, it should read:
" The Entropia ATM card can be used to instantly withdraw real cash from absolutely zero ATM machines worldwide "
In other words, the card don't work!
Well, it's not exactly arthritis, but I've had RSI (repetitive strain injury) from computing for years. It's very light though, I can still pretty much do anything and everything I want, I just have to stop sooner than my friends. One thing I have noticed though, is that when playing consoles, within minutes everything hurts. This is while I can play games on the PC just about indefinitly without aching at all. That should spell out the difference. Yes, I do use special ergonomical mouses and keyboard though, but those are like $100 together and in all probability, your health care plan will actually pay for it (mine did). Is this all relevant to you? I don't know, it could be. Good luck.
I don't replace drives until they break. What I do do however, is regularly run out of space.
What happens then? I buy a new large disc (last one was 300gb last week, 300gb is not the largest but at this time one of the best gb/size and big). I add this one to my PC, and move everything "up one disc" in the newer harddrives chain. Ok, that takes a night, but hey, let the PC do the work while I sleep. When my system maximum of 8 HD's is reached, I wipe the oldest one, remove it, and throw or give it away. When this is done, I usually have the few hundreds gig left accross drives to backup important data, and still enough space to download all these new TV shows (and pr0n ofcourse). Since I watch a lot of TV shows over the internet this takes a lot of space, and I don't put them on DVDs 'til the season is complete. And I have to burn them all twice too, because my sister is a researcher in Italy, and apparently, TV sucks over there. The burn for myself is usually a few months after that burn batch too. The most important data, apart from being backup up on all those discs is also regularly backup up to a removable drive which I then take to work to get backup up (hey it's MY company, so no issues there).
Ok, I may be a little bit crazy... but... nah wait no buts.
I'm a little late in replying, but, I'm still going to :)
First off, I do not believe (X)HTML is still the way to go for web. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Flash advocate (*eek*) but it's simply horrible to do anything useful. I'd personally like to see a more 'software-development' approach to these things, but hey, that's me.
Anyway, IMHO, very bad and very good comments have been made for both HTML and XHTML. Yes, HTML 4.01 will get the job done in many cases, and no, XHTML isn't properly supported in the most-used browser: IE. What strikes me as odd as that it's seen as so either/or.
You can implement most XHTML things perfectly in HTML (as in, browsers will display it properly) and it does, very much, improve readability and maintainability. What makes me scream "wtf?!?!!" the most is people who disagree with that. Using lowercase tags, using " to encase attributes (and doing attributes the XHTML way), closing all tags, strict doctype, etc. It's just so much easier in the end, get used to it and you will not want to go back! All popular browsers will accept HTML formed like this perfectly. Since I switched to this (ofcourse including all the CSS and such, though CSS is still lacking in so many ways), development has actually gotten a lot easier, and my pages have the added bonus of being perfectly parseable by any XML parser. So no, it's not 100% HTML, it's not 100% XHTML, but it's nearly XHTML and looks good in HTML, cross-browser and all.
In the end though, it's still not 'how the web should be'.
Am I the only one who thinks a skeleton 10 meters in length does not constitute a "giant" monster? I mean, isn't this even a bit on the smallish size for "giant sea monsters"? A sperm whale, for example, can easily grow twice as long as that.
...they want their article back!
I must say, I hardly play FPS's online anymore as I can't spare the time and today's FPS's just aren't what they used to be. I have been #1 on ngWorldStats for UT/CTF a few times. I have written (non-cheater)mods for a game or two, and an ANTIcheating tool for another (all very well received by their communities). Cheating pisses me off. Yes I used to be real good at some FPS's, and I spent a LOT of time becoming it, playing several hours a day (so call me sad, whatever). What the hell is fun in cheating? If I go into a server and own everybody in there, do I feel good? No. It sucks! I leave and find a server with people who are up to par with my skills. Sometimes they're way above you, then you find a server that is only a little bit above your own skills. And if you get really good in a game, you get to know the other good players. You know who cheats and who doesn't. You don't play with cheaters in general, though sometimes it is fun to kick their scrawny girlfriendless hinies. If you cheat, where's the challenge? What is fun in winning all the time? Ok, I may have actually written a few cheats, but that is because I love coding - it's not like I ever used them 'in the wild'.
Online cheaters are below contempt. I don't care what their motivation is. You don't go and purposely ruin others people's fun. It's just "not done". I don't care if your retarded, doing it for kicks, have some half decent self invented excuse or whatever, you just don't. Hell, I've ended real life friendships when I learned they were cheating (in various ways) and couldn't convince them it's just not done.
The arguments presented in the article are just beyond sanity. "I tend to ignore those people, they bitch and morn about how I cheated but they could have modded their box just like mine.", "How can they complain about people like me. They should have built a anti-cheating engine in the game to prevent it.", "Anyone reading this is simply jealous of the fact that I have enough nuts to cheat and play the game the way I want to.", "why should I stop if no one else does"
It's all about the morals and values. Hell, I could've been fairly rich if I didn't hang on to it. Many players of various games have used tools (mods, extensions, cheater-finding, etc) I've made daily. I could've taken most of their accounts if I wanted, selling them on ebay, and in some cases just exchanging it for real world cash (in case of real-cash-economy games). And believe me, there's lots and lots of cash in that. Morals and values...
Saddest thing is, we are most likely to see this guy grow up to be president of some company that earns millions by ripping other people of or otherwise cheating them (spammers anyone?). Fuck that.
Interesting... I have a really good sense of direction as well, which has freaked out many-o-friend(tm). One of the things people tend to notice is that you know the way everywhere, even if you have never been in that area. Ofcourse this is not true, but it seems like it to other people. Though I don't consciencely do it, I have always suspected it is really something I do in my head rather than sense. I do think of it as North/South/East/West but after a bit of investigation, I have found that my North (from which I get the others) is not actually North and may vary in various in physical locations.
:)
With some more thinking and testing, I have long ago found out that what I actually perceive as North has to do with a reference point in that city. For example, in my home town and surrounding region, my North is the same direction as if you'd be walking straight out of my parents garage. While in the city I live in now, my North is perpendicular to the train station (first time I was here I came by train).
I don't know how this works for other people, but I suspect many people do have a sense of direction, but this is really related to some reference point than actual magnetic directions. Ofcourse if I go somewhere and you tell me where North is, I can keep telling you where North is wherever I go in that area, but again, if it were based on the Earth's magnetic field, wouldn't I be the one telling you where North is in the first place?
On a side note, both my father and two of my uncles have the same thing. My mother, my sisters and my aunts don't have it at all though. Don't know if that means anything
Those security questions often annoy me... especially if you have to chose from a predefined set. Everybody who knows me knows my hometown, for example. What kind of security question is that? If possible (e.g., the answer box has enough text), I usually use the 40-digit serial number from the box the first CD-R I ever bought came in. Don't even ask why I know that number by memory :D
Back to Linden Labs, while they may have been at fault for not sufficiently securing the servers, the way they have handled it is commendable. Not many publishers of games like that would handle it like this. Hell, I'm sure MindArk (Project Entropia) wouldn't!
Well I have been working as software developer for several companies and I always demanded full internet access and the network folks to keep their hands of my work equipment. Sure for the average worker, lock some of it down. But through MSN Messenger I connected quickly to all other developers all over the building to quickly discuss things, send links, etc. Sure you can use the phone on the desk, but that's a much bigger distraction. Walking over only when it's big. The chatting can be done while you work, but for phoning you need to stop working. I also need access to any arbitrary site, to look up information I need, discuss framework or development tool oddness and their workarounds etc etc. And indeed I did read my personal email and news sites at work at well. So boohoo. On the other hand, I'm also the guy that you could never find at the cantina or taking a coffee break. On several occasions I have needed to go all the way up to the CEO to get network folk to stop messing with my stuff. One brilliant networking person once had the idea of installing Norton Corporate AntiVirus. You can guess what happened next. Never again. Here's all the stuff that needs daily backups, and that's all your touching. Security updates? I'll pick them up myself thank you, after reading up exactly what update breaks what. I'll install my personal choice of AV software that can actually run on development machines and otherwise make sure my system is doing fine. I'll take full responsibility. As for stuff like MySpace and such... well who uses that crap anyways. I'll do all that and still be more productive than if anyone messes with my systems. Today however, I am the owner of a startup. I'm pretty sure I'd quit if I'd lock 'my' network down though. Call me paranoid, but I never trust network folk (for good laughs: if you have the authority, go visit the networking center of your local big city's police hq and take a look at the things you can find there...)
I always thought Neophilia was the term for people addicted to the Matrix movies...
I forget what I was going to put here... Can't wait for this to hit the market, I'd forget my own head if it wasn't attached.
Sign up for revolting at the url I posted a bit higher up ;)
There's a bit of info about all this over at DRMadness as well, though it's aimed specifically at Blu-ray and HD-DVD (but that's HighDef content as well, isn't it)...
In my experience, sites like RentACoder don't really work. I've only been there as a coder, not as an 'employer'.
When I had some spare time I'd sometimes bid on a project. I never actually got one though. The employers usually want a lot of work done for very little money.
I see a project and think about it. To do a real good job, would require about 10 hours. Max bid: $100. That's $10 an hour (7 euro?) BEFORE taxes. I'd make more working in a supermarket. In the end, you see someone getting this job for $30.
Either there are some people that just about work for free or, more likely, the end product is not quite the quality expected by the employer.
So my impression is, if you want the job done good, get more cash. If you're getting more cash anyway, you can just as well hire someone that's close to you.
Ofcourse, you are correct in what you're saying. It just doesn't apply to our situation :)
The quicker design/test/deploy cycle, if true, would be a GoodThing(tm) and I can clearly see it's benefits.
Drag and drop is often just not very practical at all. I could state numerous examples why it isn't useful for (internally used) webapps but I'm not writing an essay here. Furthermore, you have misunderstood me if you think I mean that eye-candy is for people who do not know what they're doing. If people know what they're doing in the whole process (not in the webapp itself), they'll usually know identification codes for everything and don't need big pretty lists or drag-and-drop functionality. Ofcourse I'm beating up on drag-and-drop here, but the same thing stands for several candy items
Now if you're talking external webapps (unleashed on the internet or another large network with people who don't know exactly what they want, with which records ID) THEN things become entirely different ofcourse.
I've been in software development for years. Until very recently, I only did desktop applications and didn't have to bother with web stuff, apart from fooling around a little with Delphi's [AToZed's] IntraWeb and writing the HTTP compression code for it. Now I'm back working for a company that does all sorts of webrelated stuff. I haven't been doing this since HTML 2.0! Ofcourse: we start with PHP and MySQL, sometimes replacing MySQL with MSSQL and very rarely writing CGI/ISAPI/DSO in my language of choice if a dedicated server is warranted. Since then, I've been looking for ways to improve. ActiveX's never even been alive, Flash is pure evil. XMLHTTP seemed like a revelation to me. But getting all your stuff to work together properly, is a real bitch (excuse me). By now I've written a decent framework using PHP, Smarty, XMLHTTP and JavaScript (doing things they're not meant to all the way) which is really very MVC . But it just isn't nearly desktop programming. So my question is, to you, the experienced (or well, it is fairly new) RoR/AJAX users: Is this what I'm waiting for? Will this drastically improve development time? Or is it just FuD like all the other 'promising' stuff we've seen? Because IMHO, investing lots of time in stuff like JavaScript validation (etc), simply wont beat the costs for just buying a big server with a fat pipe that'll give users fast responsiveness in a more brute way. I'm not interested in shopping carts and drag and drop. Our customers have specific needs usually not for the 'home user'. They don't really care about eye-candy or technology. The people using it know what they're doing. They want it to work, work properly and work fast.
IMHO, this guy really hits the spot. I agree 100% with him. This is why I enjoy coding as a hobby, while I do not really enjoy it so much for work.
When you code for work, you have to do it "the right way". It often kills the fun and often gives me a feeling of "it 5'o yet?". I would call this the Science of Programming. Ofcourse, the results are often very good (but not necessarily better) and scientifically sound. A big caveat is that if you skip a few steps or don't do it with a 100% conviction, it is as bugprone as any piece of software developed with another method. To not even mention faults you make with the design that will not be pointed out until you actually build it and the redesign/refactoring that comes with that.
When you (well, I) code for hobby, I sketch most of the time. This is often frowned upon by the theorists as being bugprone and medieval (sp?). I disagree. While I concur that most beginners do it this way and often generate really crappy code, when done correctly, the outcome can be more beautiful then any fully designed software. After many many years of doing this in my free time, I do believe I've gotten rather good at it. My 'sketched' software in the end is just as object oriented and looks just as well designed. I would call this the Art of Programming. The design evolves in your head while you hack at it, beating it into submission. Object Orientedness, in the same way, just happens. In the end, everything falls in to place. IMHO, this is a much more creative and satisfying form of coding than the scientific variant.
Ofcourse, my definition of the Art can only be done with languages that don't take Coffee-Compile-Time(tm) like C++, since then you would never actually be able to finish such a project. I also suspect you must be reasonably fluid in the scientific variant to bring (my) art variant to a good end.
Ok, I'll shut up now.
My gal is usually playing "Patience" or "Spider" or card games like that if she only has a few minutes. She's also a big fan of those online java games as well, and plays those if she has a bit more time. The odd thing is, even though she plays card games on the PC a lot, we play some of those in real life too, yet I always win (poker, 2-person-patience, and lots of other games I don't know the english name for). I myself never play card games on the pc, and not very often in my real life either (not counting having a beer and playing poker for who's going to pay for the beer)