"I never saw what Psystar did that was actually wrong..."
Except they explicitly violated Apple's terms of use for OS X.
EULA is a legally binding contract, period. Breaking that contract is illegal, period. Apple isn't going to go after some Schmoe that violates their OS X EULA because they figured out how to mash OS X on a PC, but another company looking to profit by violating a legally binding contract is NEVER going to stand in court. I may not be a lover of Apple's business practices, but I cannot tolerate leach companies trying to jump on a bandwagon using illegal business ethics
I know people on Slashdot find it hard to accept there are laws out there because either they believe those laws are stupid or just annoying, but them laws do exist and the decision for the court to rule this case out was just.
I would suggest it would be collectively far worse for laws only to be enforced when readers of Slashdot can agree when and where they should be enforced.
Sorry, the last time I had to physically stand up and interact with a TV to change the channel was back in the 70's. I like to think we have advanced past that unnecessary tedium. The concept of touch screen TV's works great in the school or boardroom, but is an epic fail in the living room.
Microsoft has missed many chances to excel in a coming post-PC era, and yet Microsoft has played catch up for at least a decade. Ballmer should have stepped down years ago to recognize the need for a fresh and perhaps younger CEO that is down with current trends in social networks and mobile platforms.
But he ain't the worst CEO. Nortel's CEO comes to mind as one of the worst people (not just CEO), he destroyed a company with deceptive business practices and screwed over tens of thousands of employees and pretty much walked away unscathed and is still one of the richest people in Canada.
I pulled Java off of all my systems because of the incessant nagging of updates and the fact is would add 16 versions to the computer rather then updating a single version. I found that anything using Java on a desktop was not useful or missed anyways.
I've also gotten rid of Adobe (service) products for the same reason, ridiculously annoying install nagging and update process and yet another security hole with not much benefit. Silverlight too.
The only reason for a website to use Java technology these days is because "the fossil" a company hired 20 years ago refuses to learn something new. The only reason for a website to use Flash is because they got a bunch of graphic designers who will crap their pants if they see an actual line of code. The only reason for a website to use Silverlight is because Microsoft wanted fossils and graphic designers to use their platform instead.
As for updating, FTW would companies please adopt Google's model in Chrome of constant BACKGROUND updating rather then nagging "You have an update!" popup's or explicitly requiring to manually update. I love the fact that the software I am running is known to be current, relevant, stable, and secure without having to do anything but simply use the product.
The best way for a company or technology to become irrelevant is to constantly announce your failures and expect people to invest time and effort to fix them.
The earth is over 4.5 billion years old, I am sure there were a few warmer days at some point in time.
Anyways I have absolutely no worries about the Earth. Humans are not going to destroy the planet, the Earth existed long before we arrived, and it will last long after we are gone.
Global warming is a social/economical issue, period. Yes some animal species are going to go extinct, but what many don't realize is that new ones emerge all the time too. But species extinction is nothing new only that Greenpeace and Peta exist now to make us feel guilty because some rare form of spotted slug couldn't handle a.1 degree change in temperature of some puddle in the middle of the Andes or something, or some cute species like the lazy Panda evolved to only eat one form of inefficient food source that Ikea decided makes a good chopping board.
The problem with our current society is that a few thousand years ago if an area of the world became uninhabitable, people moved. Today people are locked by regional and political borders so as their lakes and rivers dry up, crops fail, or their sea levels rise, instead of doing something sensible like migrate they are forced to have to stay because governments will not tolerate mass exodus or emigration.
Global warming is not an ecological disaster, period. The ice caps melted, and the ice caps grew and expanded over and over and over again. The earth has recovered from FAR worst disasters then a rise in CO2 levels, and there are scientific studies that have shown the earth can combat a rise in CO2 (i.e. plant life thrives off of CO2 and suck up all the CO2).
We have to stop treating this like some ecological disaster and stop feeling guilty just because we are initiated with scenes of polar bears on floating chunks of ice from the WWF. We are not going to STOP global warming, period. The biggest factor overlooked in Global Warming is that the sun's solar output is nearing its peak levels and does so every few thousand years or so. The sun is far more powerful then people give it credit for, and while CO2 might factor into trapping a little of that energy against the earth, ultimately the sun is what is causing the warming trend.
Global warming is an artificial "disaster" caused by politics.
Instead of shoving Green environmentalism down everyone's throats the world's governments should start forming contingency plans to start accepting global warming and start dealing with the aftermath. How will the world handle mass exodus and transplanting large population centers? You driving a Hybrid or composting is not going to stop some Pacific Rim family from being swept out to sea because of an increase in Tsunamis and Cyclones. Sorry, thinking otherwise makes you incredibly vapid and naive, pretty much a smug douche in every aspect.
That is the crux of why people are all about environmentalism these days. Environmentalism is easy. Its easy to lecture reducing your carbon footprint. Its easy to assume we have some control over environmental change. Its easy to buy into yippie concepts like carbon offset taxes and LED lighting. Its easy to point fingers and blame. An entire economic market has arisen to make it easier for people to feel less guilty about Global warming by spending money.
By happenstance the combination of the invention of social networking, CO2 levels and high solar output have combined into the perfect storm of slander and finger pointing that is hiding the obvious truth, its going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. So lets stop focusing on the "marketing" of environmentalism and start thinking about how to DEAL with global warming.
Whether we caused it, or the Earth was already in the process of doing so, Global Warming is HERE. Its not coming, its not irreversible, and its not going to stop because of clever marketing or the incessant guilt driven by smug and futile non-profits.
How we deal with it is more important then why it happened. What do we do NEXT? I would like to know, but its just easier not to think about it and instead bicker and lay blame.
Comment boards and science don't mix. Comment boards are the new religion, spreading FUD and turning nonsense into science simply because "enough" people have drunk the Kool-aid.
So, because your are an idiot, then VS sucks. That's pretty much run of the course for Slashdot opinions.
What is hard about opening up a code file and coding? Or starting a project from 100's of templates. I found that all Eclipse has done is try to play catch up to VS and has not come close. You even said Eclipse has many shortcomings, largely because they are trying to do things that Microsoft has been doing for decades in VS.
In fact with C#, VS is about the best IDE you are going to get with any development language. I would even accept that even C++ development on VS is lacking, but C# and Intellisense are about the most synergistic coupling I have yet to find in any language/IDE combination. Also, there are 2 new versions of VS since your first foray into "development" on VS.
To say VS is "hard" and therefore it sucks pretty much solidifies that your opinion doesn't count. Any new IDE is going to be a struggle to become efficient in, I found Eclipse difficult and annoying to set up an Android project environment at first and while I use it now to develop Android and web stuff, but it pails in comparison in so many ways to VS.
Most of you don't pay for DVD's anyways, you download it from TPB and then watch it on VLC. Almost every negative criticism about this is just people bitching about something they never use just because Microsoft and Windows was mentioned.
F*ck, Apple isn't even putting optical drives in their stuff anymore.
A few years ago Microsoft got slammed for building too much stuff into Windows so they have slowly been pulling out content that can otherwise be obtained in about a hundred other different ways instead of having to bundled into the OS.
So, shut up all of you. If you want to watch DVD's on your PC get VLC or many, many, many alternatives. Otherwise download the movie, stream from Netflix and dozen's of other services, or just sit there and curb your desire to dump more sh*t on something you know damn well does not affect 99% of the people reading this.
"I'm all for the latest and greatest. I'm a tech nerd",
what he really means "but after 5 years I still can't figure out this new newfangled OS and I haven't even used Windows 8 yet so the world should not bother with it and it sucks because I don't get it. My proof is that I know 4 people that I upgraded to Windows 7 because they couldn't figure out how to install an OS and because they didn't like it on day one I formed an unwavering opinion. I won't ask them how they like it on day 30 or day 120, or 4 years later when their BSODs have disappeared and enjoy significantly better security and stability because that doesn't matter, its only the out of box experience counts. I don't like something and that marks it as vastly inferior because I don't like change and unwilling to accept that something new could be better then something I have been using for 8 years...."
A 100 watt incandescent light bulb should cost $60 and and this LED light should cost $1, that the only way you are going to get stupid poor people (i.e. the 99%) to save the planet.
Want to fight obesity? A Big Mac should cost $30 and an organic produce salad should be $1.
Gas should be $10 a gallon, the bus should be $1/day for unlimited use.
Catch my drift?
The problem with the whole "Green" movement is that it was created and marketed towards rich Yuppies who feel so guilty about driving their dumb ass gas guzzlers and living in their huge, inefficient houses and so feel compelled to drop crap loads of money on stuff to take their guilt away. Such as $60 light bulbs, expensive organic produce, the "other" car(s) that is a Hybrid, the stupidity of paying carbon taxes, etc.
Green is purely about marketing, period. Its not about saving the planet. If you wanted to save the planet make the crap that is destroying it expensive and the stuff that will fix it dirt cheap. Then the other 99% will pick up the Green cause and make change will actually happen.
The problem with crap like this light bulb is for all the energy your are saving, the help you hire to clean your house and drive you around town is using 100 watt light bulbs which serve as better space heaters then sources of light, thus negating what impact you are trying to achieve.
I would rather see a world where the 99% uses LED bulbs, and only the 1% can afford their polar bear killing designer incandescents.
I think the efficiency of the"modern" combustion engine only delivers 10% of the total power available from gas to moving the car forward. That means 90% of the energy available in gasoline is lost through heat, vibration, noise, and inefficiency in the drive train mechanics.
Why not just design a better engine and car?
Hybrids are a a stupid mediocre attempt at trying to grab a few more % in efficiency of an otherwise broken technology.
When you realize that we have used up all readily accessible reserves of fossil fuels on the planet in just over 100 years, it is ridiculous that car companies are allowed to continue to put out a flawed product. 100 years from now, the "modern" combustion engine will be regarded as one of the biggest technological follies in the history of mankind, on par with other stupid human tricks like hunting a species to extinction, clear cutting entire forests for a cow pasture, and destroying the environment. Electric cars just use fossil fuels from a different source, with few communities drawing energy from renewable sources of power.
If cars followed the same innovation trend of other technologies, we should be measuring mileage in triple figures. The idea of a car company selling 30 or even 50 mpg car would be laughed out of existence.
We are seeing some attempt at car companies to build a better engine in order to achieve better mileage, WITHOUT using hybrid technology, but when you are only using 10% of total efficiency, there is a significant room for improvement. The problems is that in 100 years of car "evolution", nobody has any better idea on a finding a more efficient way of propelling a 4 wheel wagon, care companies are just jumping on the hybrid bandwagon because its the "cool green" technology at the moment.
Carbon dioxide is not the enemy, the Green movement is a recipe for disaster. A bunch of like minded idiots buying into the concept that carbon offset taxes and hybrids is the way we are going to save the planet. But all the green tree hugging granlola crunchers do is suppress real innovations that WILL save the planet in favour of cheap tricks and fads. Instead of inventing a better engines and extracting better efficiency out of fuel (whether its fossil or renewable), instead car companies are bending over backwards catering to smug assholes trying to build the next cool green thing all to save a little carbon dioxide while still gobbling up our fuel reserves.
The "threat" of global warming will pail in comparison to the economic and social disaster that is looming when the fuel pumps run dry and 100 years of continued abuse of this valuable resource is being suppressed by pure marketing and green hype.
Now is a good time to start good habits rather then developing bad coding habits.
Read up on test driven design.
The biggest fail of any developer is in thinking they should write more code then is required to solve a purpose. Many developers love to create grandiose architectures in order to solve simple problems, and every line of code you write (whether it is impeccable or absolute garbage) can result in a defect.
Test driven design changes your mindset from "Hey, lets dump a bunch of code into an application and eventually it will work." to "What are the requirements of this application".
You design unit tests according to the requirements of the application (and it forces you to identify exactly what the application should achieve). You design the unit tests to fail at first and then you write your code to make them pass successfully. By doing this you only write "enough" code to match the requirements of the application because you are only focused on making the unit tests pass. This avoids over-architecting and because your code is unit tested, adding new code in the future will ensure it is always self-reviewed because the tests will fail and you have to fix your code.
This is a hard concept to understand at first (and most developers will always baulk at the idea), but a very useful coding practice when you get the hang of it.
In the end, its not about reviewing lines of code and confirming that, yes, this is good code. Its about writing good applications that do what they are supposed to do with a minimum (or no) defects. This is a fundamental flaw of most code developers in assuming they have to write gobs of code and expect to be patted on the back because it looks nice or conforms to some coding standard; I have seen some beautifully written code that is full of defects, as well as have seen some of the worst looking code ever execute flawlessly.
Peer review does not prevent defects. Mostly what happens in a peer review is a bunch of nit-picking and a false sense of security when someone "more senior" signs off on a a code review. They want you to follow their coding "standards", make your code look like theirs. Bottom line is, if you write unit tests first and those unit test pass, then there is nothing a code reviewer can say negative about your code except to nit-pick, because the code simply "works", meets the expectations of the software requirements, and is protected from future defects because it is tested.
Test driven design is the only way I can see an individual developer writing good applications without having a mentor, it focuses on writing code that works, not about style or design.
Regardless of what the founder believes, Wikipedia should have monetized the website with the "subtle" use of advertising which would have generated billions in revenue over the past decade.
Wikipedia could have then bought Brittanica/Encarta and re purposed the authors and developers to write decent articles, perform fact finding research, and moderate articles to help improve the site. It would have been win-win for both: Brittanica would have entered a new era of real time information and Wikipedia would have gained valuable resources to improve content.
Instead, Brittanica is now bankrupt and the founder of Wikipedia begs for change yearly to run his website.
I don't find Wikipedia particularly good. It lacks rich content and interactivity, is woefully poor on facts and most articles are purely subjective. Its a glorified blog, period. The website is run on a dollar store budget and lacks any real innovation and the website has been stagnant for a decade.
Bottom line is, someone had a good idea 10 years ago and has done nothing since to expand, improve, or re-invigorate that idea.
I don't care for what moral purpose the founder of Wikipedia chose not to monetize Wikipedia; Google never charged people a dime and provided what today would be considered essential services to the Internet. So why the hell couldn't Wikipedia? Even if the founder gave all his money away (and honestly, isn't giving millions to charity BETTER then begging for change?), just keep enough money to run your website and re-invest back in evolving and innovating.
When I see those stupid beg "ads" and long diatribes about what wonderful service Wikipedia provides to the world it is just a reminder to all that an idiot with morals is still an idiot.
I think if you look up "clown" in Wikipedia, the founder's face should probably be shown. He killed the competition full of rich, "factful" content in place of a dollar store product that won't evolve because of cheap and lazy development and a founder that has tunnel vision. He is a one hit wonder that has taken far to much credit and not given anything back.
So, in light of all the "consoles are dead" speculation, yes the next generation of game consoles have a tough road ahead if they continue to follow the same trends and habits from the past.
But, we are already seeing examples of how game console companies ARE changing.
I recently bought the PS Vita, and I have downloaded 4 free games so far. There are 3 free games designed to showcase the Augmented Reality features of the PS Vita, and recently Motorstorm came out with a sponsored version of their RC game. So, aside from the "console" purchase and buying Uncharted, I haven't spent a dime and have been enjoying a few weeks of various games, and I spent a hell of a lot less money then the cost of iPad 3.
Also, people keep forgetting that it was Microsoft and Sony that first released the embedded "store" concept on their consoles, before Apple rolled out Apps on iTunes, 3 years later, Wii eventually caught up. The Xbox Live and PSN "stores" offered free and cheap games and allowed a flood of independent game development. Microsoft even offered the ability for hobbyists to release game titles on Xbox LIve. Sony offers a subscription allowing monthly rollouts of free gaming titles and discounted prices. Next gen consoles will most likely embrace this legacy and enhance it based on competition from Apple and Android stores.
Console makers are seeing the trends for free and cheap games on tablets and phones and are adapting. I am sure game prices will drop, but a game company like Big Dog that create the Uncharted series of games invests a HELL of a lot more time, talent and money producing a game then the guys at Rovio. Consider that most Apple games do not have voice talent, limited game depth (sure 40 hours of hack and slash or pull and release != 40 hours of game play with 10 hours of scripted voice acting and cut scenes) and often just ports from console games, I don't see a direct comparison of mobile games to console games.
Yes, $60 is too much and that price will most likely drop, but also to a abhor a reality where all games cost $0.99 and play and feel like a dollar store game. If games like Uncharted "die" in favor of Angry Birds, that will be a sad day for gaming.
If you look back over history, game console sell about 200 million units in any given generation, give or take In this generation of consoles, there where 3 major contenders, Wii, PS3, and X Box360, total sales of all game consoles exceed 200 million. Throwing in hand-held game devices, you see there are over 250 million between DS, PSP, Vita and 3DS.
The flaw is to assume that game console sales MUST match tablet tor mobile platform sales in order to succeed. This is wrong.
Just because
a) tablet and phones sales are growing and exceed game console sales AND b) software sales on tablet and phones exceed game console sales
does NOT conclude that game consoles are dying.
What the idiots are not understanding is that Game Console HAVE and ALWAYS will be a "NICHE" market.
Generation over Generation growth of units in this NICHE market have increased. The PS3/360/Wii generation sold more units then the PS2/Xbox/GameCube generation. However grown in game consoles HAVE NEVER matched growth of PC's or Tablets or Phones. Game consoles sales have grown year over year, but you will never see 1 billion units sold in any generation. It is wrong to look at unit totals and declare one market segment is in decline.
Also wrong is the idea that someone who owns a tablet will not want a game console, both provide DIFFERENT experiences. A tablet or phone does not replace ALL experiences offered by a console, and vice versa.
Also wrong is the idea that game developers will not support new game consoles. Again, game developers will develop software titles that will match the experience of the target platform. Unique games will be created for Tablets, unique games will be developed for consoles.
When Sony/MS/Nintendo release a new generation of product, the niche market consumers will buy these consoles, I would only declare that game consoles are dying if a new generation of game consoles do not sell as much as the previous generation.
Comparing Tablet and Phone sales to game console sales is ignorant, and this presentation was performed by a complete idiot.
As more processing power is available, compilers are getting smarter. At least working with C#, it highlights errors long before I have to compile the code to see what the results are and other systems are trying to catch issues long before they are built and shipped.
The idea of "realtime" software development will make sense in the near future, why not build an application while it is running so you can see the side effects of the code immediately, both good and bad.
However the problem isn't "conceptualization", its in testing. Programs are only as good as the testing done on them. Anyone can whip up software, but bugs are found from usage without adequate testing.
What is needed is not an "easier" way to develop software, but a smarter way to test it. If a compiler could be invented that would automatically generate the test cases to throw against your code that would solve the problem of buggy code once and for all. Today test driven development is still broken by the idea that humans have to write test cases. If a test case is not properly written with adequate code coverage, it can still produce code that fails. If an automated process could throw every conceivable scenario where your code could fail rather then just "compile" and execute it, that would be the future of bug free software.
Slashdot Mirror
"I never saw what Psystar did that was actually wrong..."
Except they explicitly violated Apple's terms of use for OS X.
EULA is a legally binding contract, period. Breaking that contract is illegal, period. Apple isn't going to go after some Schmoe that violates their OS X EULA because they figured out how to mash OS X on a PC, but another company looking to profit by violating a legally binding contract is NEVER going to stand in court. I may not be a lover of Apple's business practices, but I cannot tolerate leach companies trying to jump on a bandwagon using illegal business ethics
I know people on Slashdot find it hard to accept there are laws out there because either they believe those laws are stupid or just annoying, but them laws do exist and the decision for the court to rule this case out was just.
I would suggest it would be collectively far worse for laws only to be enforced when readers of Slashdot can agree when and where they should be enforced.
Sorry, the last time I had to physically stand up and interact with a TV to change the channel was back in the 70's. I like to think we have advanced past that unnecessary tedium. The concept of touch screen TV's works great in the school or boardroom, but is an epic fail in the living room.
Like to explain how Microsoft is a monopoly these days?
Microsoft has missed many chances to excel in a coming post-PC era, and yet Microsoft has played catch up for at least a decade. Ballmer should have stepped down years ago to recognize the need for a fresh and perhaps younger CEO that is down with current trends in social networks and mobile platforms.
But he ain't the worst CEO. Nortel's CEO comes to mind as one of the worst people (not just CEO), he destroyed a company with deceptive business practices and screwed over tens of thousands of employees and pretty much walked away unscathed and is still one of the richest people in Canada.
Like a cube.
All movie piracy has done is move some of the 1% into the 2%.
I pulled Java off of all my systems because of the incessant nagging of updates and the fact is would add 16 versions to the computer rather then updating a single version. I found that anything using Java on a desktop was not useful or missed anyways.
I've also gotten rid of Adobe (service) products for the same reason, ridiculously annoying install nagging and update process and yet another security hole with not much benefit. Silverlight too.
The only reason for a website to use Java technology these days is because "the fossil" a company hired 20 years ago refuses to learn something new.
The only reason for a website to use Flash is because they got a bunch of graphic designers who will crap their pants if they see an actual line of code.
The only reason for a website to use Silverlight is because Microsoft wanted fossils and graphic designers to use their platform instead.
As for updating, FTW would companies please adopt Google's model in Chrome of constant BACKGROUND updating rather then nagging "You have an update!" popup's or explicitly requiring to manually update. I love the fact that the software I am running is known to be current, relevant, stable, and secure without having to do anything but simply use the product.
The best way for a company or technology to become irrelevant is to constantly announce your failures and expect people to invest time and effort to fix them.
1999?
The earth is over 4.5 billion years old, I am sure there were a few warmer days at some point in time.
Anyways I have absolutely no worries about the Earth. Humans are not going to destroy the planet, the Earth existed long before we arrived, and it will last long after we are gone.
Global warming is a social/economical issue, period. Yes some animal species are going to go extinct, but what many don't realize is that new ones emerge all the time too. But species extinction is nothing new only that Greenpeace and Peta exist now to make us feel guilty because some rare form of spotted slug couldn't handle a .1 degree change in temperature of some puddle in the middle of the Andes or something, or some cute species like the lazy Panda evolved to only eat one form of inefficient food source that Ikea decided makes a good chopping board.
The problem with our current society is that a few thousand years ago if an area of the world became uninhabitable, people moved. Today people are locked by regional and political borders so as their lakes and rivers dry up, crops fail, or their sea levels rise, instead of doing something sensible like migrate they are forced to have to stay because governments will not tolerate mass exodus or emigration.
Global warming is not an ecological disaster, period. The ice caps melted, and the ice caps grew and expanded over and over and over again. The earth has recovered from FAR worst disasters then a rise in CO2 levels, and there are scientific studies that have shown the earth can combat a rise in CO2 (i.e. plant life thrives off of CO2 and suck up all the CO2).
We have to stop treating this like some ecological disaster and stop feeling guilty just because we are initiated with scenes of polar bears on floating chunks of ice from the WWF. We are not going to STOP global warming, period. The biggest factor overlooked in Global Warming is that the sun's solar output is nearing its peak levels and does so every few thousand years or so. The sun is far more powerful then people give it credit for, and while CO2 might factor into trapping a little of that energy against the earth, ultimately the sun is what is causing the warming trend.
Global warming is an artificial "disaster" caused by politics.
Instead of shoving Green environmentalism down everyone's throats the world's governments should start forming contingency plans to start accepting global warming and start dealing with the aftermath. How will the world handle mass exodus and transplanting large population centers? You driving a Hybrid or composting is not going to stop some Pacific Rim family from being swept out to sea because of an increase in Tsunamis and Cyclones. Sorry, thinking otherwise makes you incredibly vapid and naive, pretty much a smug douche in every aspect.
That is the crux of why people are all about environmentalism these days. Environmentalism is easy. Its easy to lecture reducing your carbon footprint. Its easy to assume we have some control over environmental change. Its easy to buy into yippie concepts like carbon offset taxes and LED lighting. Its easy to point fingers and blame. An entire economic market has arisen to make it easier for people to feel less guilty about Global warming by spending money.
By happenstance the combination of the invention of social networking, CO2 levels and high solar output have combined into the perfect storm of slander and finger pointing that is hiding the obvious truth, its going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. So lets stop focusing on the "marketing" of environmentalism and start thinking about how to DEAL with global warming.
Whether we caused it, or the Earth was already in the process of doing so, Global Warming is HERE. Its not coming, its not irreversible, and its not going to stop because of clever marketing or the incessant guilt driven by smug and futile non-profits.
How we deal with it is more important then why it happened. What do we do NEXT? I would like to know, but its just easier not to think about it and instead bicker and lay blame.
Comment boards and science don't mix. Comment boards are the new religion, spreading FUD and turning nonsense into science simply because "enough" people have drunk the Kool-aid.
Yeah
public bool MyProperty { get; set; }
Very clumsy...
The only thing unsafe about delegates is the level of intelligence of the coder using them.
Ah, you don't understand generics, that's ok, web development doesn't use them much anyways.
So, because your are an idiot, then VS sucks. That's pretty much run of the course for Slashdot opinions.
What is hard about opening up a code file and coding? Or starting a project from 100's of templates. I found that all Eclipse has done is try to play catch up to VS and has not come close. You even said Eclipse has many shortcomings, largely because they are trying to do things that Microsoft has been doing for decades in VS.
In fact with C#, VS is about the best IDE you are going to get with any development language. I would even accept that even C++ development on VS is lacking, but C# and Intellisense are about the most synergistic coupling I have yet to find in any language/IDE combination. Also, there are 2 new versions of VS since your first foray into "development" on VS.
To say VS is "hard" and therefore it sucks pretty much solidifies that your opinion doesn't count. Any new IDE is going to be a struggle to become efficient in, I found Eclipse difficult and annoying to set up an Android project environment at first and while I use it now to develop Android and web stuff, but it pails in comparison in so many ways to VS.
because you use the word "open" in front of something and repeat it several dozen times and it just makes it better by Slashdot standards.
Shut up cause the sh*t is starting to pile up.
Most of you don't pay for DVD's anyways, you download it from TPB and then watch it on VLC. Almost every negative criticism about this is just people bitching about something they never use just because Microsoft and Windows was mentioned.
F*ck, Apple isn't even putting optical drives in their stuff anymore.
A few years ago Microsoft got slammed for building too much stuff into Windows so they have slowly been pulling out content that can otherwise be obtained in about a hundred other different ways instead of having to bundled into the OS.
So, shut up all of you. If you want to watch DVD's on your PC get VLC or many, many, many alternatives. Otherwise download the movie, stream from Netflix and dozen's of other services, or just sit there and curb your desire to dump more sh*t on something you know damn well does not affect 99% of the people reading this.
LMOFA.
"I'm all for the latest and greatest. I'm a tech nerd",
what he really means "but after 5 years I still can't figure out this new newfangled OS and I haven't even used Windows 8 yet so the world should not bother with it and it sucks because I don't get it. My proof is that I know 4 people that I upgraded to Windows 7 because they couldn't figure out how to install an OS and because they didn't like it on day one I formed an unwavering opinion. I won't ask them how they like it on day 30 or day 120, or 4 years later when their BSODs have disappeared and enjoy significantly better security and stability because that doesn't matter, its only the out of box experience counts. I don't like something and that marks it as vastly inferior because I don't like change and unwilling to accept that something new could be better then something I have been using for 8 years...."
Ask the 1% what they would do with $2.6 billion and they say "Lets jump into the Spruce Goose and get us some space rocks".
Meanwhile, the other 99% are going to look up into the sky one day and say "Hey, that's not a moon..."
A 100 watt incandescent light bulb should cost $60 and and this LED light should cost $1, that the only way you are going to get stupid poor people (i.e. the 99%) to save the planet.
Want to fight obesity? A Big Mac should cost $30 and an organic produce salad should be $1.
Gas should be $10 a gallon, the bus should be $1/day for unlimited use.
Catch my drift?
The problem with the whole "Green" movement is that it was created and marketed towards rich Yuppies who feel so guilty about driving their dumb ass gas guzzlers and living in their huge, inefficient houses and so feel compelled to drop crap loads of money on stuff to take their guilt away. Such as $60 light bulbs, expensive organic produce, the "other" car(s) that is a Hybrid, the stupidity of paying carbon taxes, etc.
Green is purely about marketing, period. Its not about saving the planet. If you wanted to save the planet make the crap that is destroying it expensive and the stuff that will fix it dirt cheap. Then the other 99% will pick up the Green cause and make change will actually happen.
The problem with crap like this light bulb is for all the energy your are saving, the help you hire to clean your house and drive you around town is using 100 watt light bulbs which serve as better space heaters then sources of light, thus negating what impact you are trying to achieve.
I would rather see a world where the 99% uses LED bulbs, and only the 1% can afford their polar bear killing designer incandescents.
The 5 remaining people with dial up internet won't be able to play a game in the 21st century.
I think the efficiency of the"modern" combustion engine only delivers 10% of the total power available from gas to moving the car forward. That means 90% of the energy available in gasoline is lost through heat, vibration, noise, and inefficiency in the drive train mechanics.
Why not just design a better engine and car?
Hybrids are a a stupid mediocre attempt at trying to grab a few more % in efficiency of an otherwise broken technology.
When you realize that we have used up all readily accessible reserves of fossil fuels on the planet in just over 100 years, it is ridiculous that car companies are allowed to continue to put out a flawed product. 100 years from now, the "modern" combustion engine will be regarded as one of the biggest technological follies in the history of mankind, on par with other stupid human tricks like hunting a species to extinction, clear cutting entire forests for a cow pasture, and destroying the environment. Electric cars just use fossil fuels from a different source, with few communities drawing energy from renewable sources of power.
If cars followed the same innovation trend of other technologies, we should be measuring mileage in triple figures. The idea of a car company selling 30 or even 50 mpg car would be laughed out of existence.
We are seeing some attempt at car companies to build a better engine in order to achieve better mileage, WITHOUT using hybrid technology, but when you are only using 10% of total efficiency, there is a significant room for improvement. The problems is that in 100 years of car "evolution", nobody has any better idea on a finding a more efficient way of propelling a 4 wheel wagon, care companies are just jumping on the hybrid bandwagon because its the "cool green" technology at the moment.
Carbon dioxide is not the enemy, the Green movement is a recipe for disaster. A bunch of like minded idiots buying into the concept that carbon offset taxes and hybrids is the way we are going to save the planet. But all the green tree hugging granlola crunchers do is suppress real innovations that WILL save the planet in favour of cheap tricks and fads. Instead of inventing a better engines and extracting better efficiency out of fuel (whether its fossil or renewable), instead car companies are bending over backwards catering to smug assholes trying to build the next cool green thing all to save a little carbon dioxide while still gobbling up our fuel reserves.
The "threat" of global warming will pail in comparison to the economic and social disaster that is looming when the fuel pumps run dry and 100 years of continued abuse of this valuable resource is being suppressed by pure marketing and green hype.
Now is a good time to start good habits rather then developing bad coding habits.
Read up on test driven design.
The biggest fail of any developer is in thinking they should write more code then is required to solve a purpose. Many developers love to create grandiose architectures in order to solve simple problems, and every line of code you write (whether it is impeccable or absolute garbage) can result in a defect.
Test driven design changes your mindset from "Hey, lets dump a bunch of code into an application and eventually it will work." to "What are the requirements of this application".
You design unit tests according to the requirements of the application (and it forces you to identify exactly what the application should achieve). You design the unit tests to fail at first and then you write your code to make them pass successfully. By doing this you only write "enough" code to match the requirements of the application because you are only focused on making the unit tests pass. This avoids over-architecting and because your code is unit tested, adding new code in the future will ensure it is always self-reviewed because the tests will fail and you have to fix your code.
This is a hard concept to understand at first (and most developers will always baulk at the idea), but a very useful coding practice when you get the hang of it.
In the end, its not about reviewing lines of code and confirming that, yes, this is good code. Its about writing good applications that do what they are supposed to do with a minimum (or no) defects. This is a fundamental flaw of most code developers in assuming they have to write gobs of code and expect to be patted on the back because it looks nice or conforms to some coding standard; I have seen some beautifully written code that is full of defects, as well as have seen some of the worst looking code ever execute flawlessly.
Peer review does not prevent defects. Mostly what happens in a peer review is a bunch of nit-picking and a false sense of security when someone "more senior" signs off on a a code review. They want you to follow their coding "standards", make your code look like theirs. Bottom line is, if you write unit tests first and those unit test pass, then there is nothing a code reviewer can say negative about your code except to nit-pick, because the code simply "works", meets the expectations of the software requirements, and is protected from future defects because it is tested.
Test driven design is the only way I can see an individual developer writing good applications without having a mentor, it focuses on writing code that works, not about style or design.
Regardless of what the founder believes, Wikipedia should have monetized the website with the "subtle" use of advertising which would have generated billions in revenue over the past decade.
Wikipedia could have then bought Brittanica/Encarta and re purposed the authors and developers to write decent articles, perform fact finding research, and moderate articles to help improve the site. It would have been win-win for both: Brittanica would have entered a new era of real time information and Wikipedia would have gained valuable resources to improve content.
Instead, Brittanica is now bankrupt and the founder of Wikipedia begs for change yearly to run his website.
I don't find Wikipedia particularly good. It lacks rich content and interactivity, is woefully poor on facts and most articles are purely subjective. Its a glorified blog, period. The website is run on a dollar store budget and lacks any real innovation and the website has been stagnant for a decade.
Bottom line is, someone had a good idea 10 years ago and has done nothing since to expand, improve, or re-invigorate that idea.
I don't care for what moral purpose the founder of Wikipedia chose not to monetize Wikipedia; Google never charged people a dime and provided what today would be considered essential services to the Internet. So why the hell couldn't Wikipedia? Even if the founder gave all his money away (and honestly, isn't giving millions to charity BETTER then begging for change?), just keep enough money to run your website and re-invest back in evolving and innovating.
When I see those stupid beg "ads" and long diatribes about what wonderful service Wikipedia provides to the world it is just a reminder to all that an idiot with morals is still an idiot.
I think if you look up "clown" in Wikipedia, the founder's face should probably be shown. He killed the competition full of rich, "factful" content in place of a dollar store product that won't evolve because of cheap and lazy development and a founder that has tunnel vision. He is a one hit wonder that has taken far to much credit and not given anything back.
So, in light of all the "consoles are dead" speculation, yes the next generation of game consoles have a tough road ahead if they continue to follow the same trends and habits from the past.
But, we are already seeing examples of how game console companies ARE changing.
I recently bought the PS Vita, and I have downloaded 4 free games so far. There are 3 free games designed to showcase the Augmented Reality features of the PS Vita, and recently Motorstorm came out with a sponsored version of their RC game. So, aside from the "console" purchase and buying Uncharted, I haven't spent a dime and have been enjoying a few weeks of various games, and I spent a hell of a lot less money then the cost of iPad 3.
Also, people keep forgetting that it was Microsoft and Sony that first released the embedded "store" concept on their consoles, before Apple rolled out Apps on iTunes, 3 years later, Wii eventually caught up. The Xbox Live and PSN "stores" offered free and cheap games and allowed a flood of independent game development. Microsoft even offered the ability for hobbyists to release game titles on Xbox LIve. Sony offers a subscription allowing monthly rollouts of free gaming titles and discounted prices. Next gen consoles will most likely embrace this legacy and enhance it based on competition from Apple and Android stores.
Console makers are seeing the trends for free and cheap games on tablets and phones and are adapting. I am sure game prices will drop, but a game company like Big Dog that create the Uncharted series of games invests a HELL of a lot more time, talent and money producing a game then the guys at Rovio. Consider that most Apple games do not have voice talent, limited game depth (sure 40 hours of hack and slash or pull and release != 40 hours of game play with 10 hours of scripted voice acting and cut scenes) and often just ports from console games, I don't see a direct comparison of mobile games to console games.
Yes, $60 is too much and that price will most likely drop, but also to a abhor a reality where all games cost $0.99 and play and feel like a dollar store game. If games like Uncharted "die" in favor of Angry Birds, that will be a sad day for gaming.
Did you really just said that "Consoles are proprietary to one company and are ruled over with an iron fist by said company."
Have you heard of Apple?
Saying Console's are dying because of an increase in Table sales is a flawed analysis.
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/
If you look back over history, game console sell about 200 million units in any given generation, give or take
In this generation of consoles, there where 3 major contenders, Wii, PS3, and X Box360, total sales of all game consoles exceed 200 million.
Throwing in hand-held game devices, you see there are over 250 million between DS, PSP, Vita and 3DS.
The flaw is to assume that game console sales MUST match tablet tor mobile platform sales in order to succeed. This is wrong.
Just because
a) tablet and phones sales are growing and exceed game console sales
AND
b) software sales on tablet and phones exceed game console sales
does NOT conclude that game consoles are dying.
What the idiots are not understanding is that Game Console HAVE and ALWAYS will be a "NICHE" market.
Generation over Generation growth of units in this NICHE market have increased. The PS3/360/Wii generation sold more units then the PS2/Xbox/GameCube generation. However grown in game consoles HAVE NEVER matched growth of PC's or Tablets or Phones. Game consoles sales have grown year over year, but you will never see 1 billion units sold in any generation. It is wrong to look at unit totals and declare one market segment is in decline.
Also wrong is the idea that someone who owns a tablet will not want a game console, both provide DIFFERENT experiences. A tablet or phone does not replace ALL experiences offered by a console, and vice versa.
Also wrong is the idea that game developers will not support new game consoles. Again, game developers will develop software titles that will match the experience of the target platform. Unique games will be created for Tablets, unique games will be developed for consoles.
When Sony/MS/Nintendo release a new generation of product, the niche market consumers will buy these consoles, I would only declare that game consoles are dying if a new generation of game consoles do not sell as much as the previous generation.
Comparing Tablet and Phone sales to game console sales is ignorant, and this presentation was performed by a complete idiot.
I would have hoped in the 21st century, you could just say "lights on" or "lights off" to control a lamp, not thump on the wall like a caveman.
As more processing power is available, compilers are getting smarter. At least working with C#, it highlights errors long before I have to compile the code to see what the results are and other systems are trying to catch issues long before they are built and shipped.
The idea of "realtime" software development will make sense in the near future, why not build an application while it is running so you can see the side effects of the code immediately, both good and bad.
However the problem isn't "conceptualization", its in testing. Programs are only as good as the testing done on them. Anyone can whip up software, but bugs are found from usage without adequate testing.
What is needed is not an "easier" way to develop software, but a smarter way to test it. If a compiler could be invented that would automatically generate the test cases to throw against your code that would solve the problem of buggy code once and for all. Today test driven development is still broken by the idea that humans have to write test cases. If a test case is not properly written with adequate code coverage, it can still produce code that fails. If an automated process could throw every conceivable scenario where your code could fail rather then just "compile" and execute it, that would be the future of bug free software.