My other issue is that the Java Standard Widget Toolkit(SWT) has not been ported to XP64(nor to the devs seem to have a plan to do so at the moment) which means no Eclipse or Azureus in spite of the whole write-once, run-anywhere Java mentality(and it's a shame, poor Sun actually has had a version of Java ready for XP64 for some time now).
Yeah... I like SWT too, but maybe Sun is right in that the speed comes at a price.
You could try Netbeans instead of Eclipse. I prefer Eclipse, but several friends swear by Netbeans.
>> [...]theoretically allowing them to automatically tune themselves for the best possible performance for any given workload.
> A common criticism of Open Source is the accusation that it lacks innovation.
> I mean, common. Just look at this. Amazing.
Well, not to denigrate the efforts of the people working on the Linux kernel, but Java has had Hotspot and other Just in Time compiling tricks since 2001, and I'm sure there are others before it.
Java Hotspot does not use the same technology of course, but the goal is the same - automatic tuning.
The garbage collection process is a memory leak how?
as well as the fact that it does not release memory in some situations for 1 hour or until the application is closed constitutes a leak.
I can't comment on all java applications of course, but this IS usually a mistake in programming. One possible example - an application which has a separate window for configuration etc. The programmer remembers to null the obvious reference to this window when it closes but still has a strong link (for instance an event observer) remaining to it. The window, all its buttons and widgets, and all their associated objects will not be garbage collected.
I apologize in advance if I sound confrontative, however, I find few things on Slashdot more tiresome than when any language X comes up, instead of sticking to the topic, hordes of people are going to yap about their favourite languages Y, Z, W, V...
However, with Java client apps it's write-once, debug-everywhere, since every VM has its quirks you have to troubleshoot, and suddenly I have several versions of my software to troubleshoot (last time I did that was circa 99, so maybe it's better now)
I have personally never come across it, though I had a collegue who claimed to have run across a bug where the JVM on IBMs AIX didn't follow the specifications (forgot where).
The thing works, but the memory leaks were terrible, even making sure I set everything to null after using it, it was a memory bleeding dog.
Er, yes, memory management can be a bit more than nulling objects. Did you every find out what caused it?
And this stuff runs much faster... almost as fast a C. Sounds absolutely nuts, but it's true.
So does Java these days for most parts. And Microsoft have the usual advantage of designing their own system on their own operating system. Come back when they have ported their framework to as many operating systems and devices as Sun has.
The language features are much more clean, like my favorite: foreach (SomeObject i in SomeCollection)
Java has it too these days.
but there's a ton of language features that I don't want to get into here.
I can say without any irony or sarcasm: Thank you.
It's the stability and deployment that really got me. I can just compile my code to a DLL (and a couple of stub.asmx files) and throw it up on a webserver in the/bin folder, and I can have me a webservice, or a simple way to access compiled code from a script.
WAR files...Tomcat....
If I neglect to patch a server, it would stay up longer than the Java boxes.
Are you claiming that there are memory leaks in the virtual machine itself?
Actually, I think these days, you are allowed to copy an entire book at a library as part of fair use if you can show you are using it for research.
However - we are moving in the same direction as Germany in many other cases. We are already paying a "piracy" tax on all blank media sold. Also, some anti-piracy group recently announced that they are suing "Jens of Sweden", the makers of popular MP3 players.
I'm not that surprised. If you can get money by extorsion instead of working, it's not surprising that some scumbags are doing it. What disgusts me is that politicians aren't doing anything about this. I'm beginning to think the old farts don't understand modern technology and the implications of this.
A poll recently showed that the french do take a shower every day
Well, a real survey by the BBC a few years back actually showed that a larger percentage of French people shower every day than, for instance, British people.
I will admit upfront that I am biased. I am a Sun certified Java Programmer, working on Developer. My C#/.Net experience is limited to reading a book and talking to friends who are currently taking a course at Uni.
As you can probably guess, I'm going to recommend Java. The technologies are very similar and it is probably not a great problem whichever you choose, but in my opinion Java has this going for it:
-It has been around longer, which means more people are familiar with it and it has time to mature. -There are a huge number of tools and libraries available. The best ones are being copied (NUnit from JUnit etc) but there are many more. -It doesn't have MS behind it. Those who don't think MS are going to play the lock in game again if things are going bad for them, are terribly naive.
On the other hand,.Net might have the advantages of: -As a newcomer it can avoid some of the mistakes that Java did and is stuck with. -It has the massive resources of MS behind it.
Even if the headline is wrong (as many claim), with the influence gaming have on society today why aren't there more people in academia researching this?
Why aren't there more university courses teaching it?
One reason why games isn't accepted by the mainstream as culture or art is of course the immaturity of the industry. And I don't mean it hasn't existed long, I am talking about the age of the developers and the attitude of the industry. Again and again polls show that the averge gamer is in fact somewhere between 25 and 30 years old, and there are are a lot more female gamers than people think. However, average age of the people working in the gaming industry is actually much lower (I know several), and the games created and the ways they are sold seem to mostly cater to the segment "early teenage American male".
And in this segment, violence sells, nude women sells. One of the few things I dislike about Planescape:Torment for instance is the rampant "big tit-itis" in the artwork.
So anyway, I would like to see more mature games, and not mature as "full of sex". The number one thing for me when buying a game is a well thought out plot with interesting characters. Then it doesn't matter if it is a shooter (Half-Life, Thief3, Deus Ex) or a role-playing game (anything from Bioware/Black Isle basically). These games are no nobel prize winners in literature of course, but still good enough for me.
I want more good writers in the gaming industry, and less graphics engine geeks. More Warren Specter, Greg Zeschuk, Ray Muzyka, less John Carmack.
I hate so-called scientists who can predict global warming but not predict the weather tomorrow
That is because there is a difference between weather and climate. Can I predict that it will be warmer in summer? Yes. Can I predict which days will be sunny and which cloudy next summer? No. That a system is too chaotic to predict on a microlevel does not mean we can't understand or predict it on a macrolevel. Though we know the exact half life of a substance, we can't tell which atoms will be affected. Do you hate "so called physicists" too?
In the same way, we can predict that the globe is getting hotter, and approximately how many degrees. The question is why, and if we can do anything about it.
Some researchers notes that the earth were four degrees warmer around 1000 BC (my memory may be wrong with the year) and that the climate also were significantly warmer 800-1200 AD which let to prosperity up until the colder middle age. So let us look forward to a bit of warming!
Doubtful. Most climate models predict an increasingly chaotic weather as temperature increases - floods, tornados, draughts, increasing desertification. Any economic benefits we get from higher crops or less energy going to heating is quickly going to be eaten up.
On a serious note, I would say more than 99% of the population would never even notice if all the GPS satellites suddenly fell from the sky in unison.
Well, perhaps most people don't use GPS directly, but they would notice all right. It would cause a major disturbance to shipping and aircraft communications, with economic upheavals as a consequence.
Mind you, don't ships have any kind of backup? I mean, what would happen if the ship's GPS receiver developed a fault?
Then you have to do it the old way; sea charts, compasses, a trained navigator.
However, at night the navigator has to rely on lighthouses, and the problem is that (in Sweden at least), there are fewer and fewer lighthouses running. They cost quite a lot in electricity and maintanance, and since even small sailboats can afford GPSes and even navigation computers these days the authorites are chosing to save money by turning them off.
So if you are out at sea a stormy night and you GPS fails because it breaks, or because Dubya crapped his pants and turned off the satellites, you could be in trouble.:-)
But don't say that it costs $30 Million/day when we would be spending $20 Million/day in times of peace, in that case the war is only costing an additional $10 Million for the basics. Get back to me when you figure out how much all the stuff we wouldn't have to pay for if these guys were sitting back here at some base in the US costs.
You know, that is not difficult to calculate. I think if you look at the numbers people HAVE in fact included this.
Besides, the cost of US military is probably just a small part. Recruiting local people, building up infrastructure, humanitarian aid etc is more expensive.
Note that I am pulling all these numbers out of deep dark places and are only to be used as examples and not actual costs.
Yeah, if by "persecuted" you mean repeatedly debunked and asked not to spread his pseudoscience. Poor little baby. He is not a scientists, he is a statistician, and a pretty poor one at that.
And not one mention about THE SUN. Every "it must be Global Warming from Mankind's Activities" "study" I have ever seen ignores the HOT GLOWING BALL OF FIRE IN THE SKY which throws more heat at the entrie EARTH than billions and billions of cow farts and automobiles.
Haha! Bravo, you hereby win the prize for "dumbest post ever" on the subject of global warming. When you are competing on Slashdot, that is not a small feat. Are you Rush Limbaughs science advisor by any chance?
In case you are not just trolling and are just incredibly ignorant, the Greenhouse effect doesn't mean that earth gets warm because the gases are warm. It means that these gases causes more of the suns energy to stay on earth, thereby heating it up. And I think even most kids above age 8 know this.
Look, the global warming theory doesn't deny that global climate fluctuates, so stop beating that strawman. What we are currently are worrying about is a much sudden and drastic change than before.
Think of it as a pendulum that has slowly gone back and forth has now very suddenly rocketed towards one extreme as if someone whacked it with a tennis racket. Yes, it was already heading in that direction, and it hasn't reached the previous extreme end yet. However, the speed causes more difficulties for species to adapt than they had before, and we worry what will happen when it reaches the extreme end, and if it will continue in that direction much further than before.
There are many indirect measures that you can get.
Ice core samples from artic/antarctic. Also trees can tell you some things of the temperature centuries back, they grow faster and get bigger year rings warmer years.
So, we are one step closer to Roujin Z it seems....
Seriously though, I've seen on TV before how elderly people in Japan were given little animatronic bears to keep them company. Perhaps for those suffering from dementia it could be an aid, but mostly I found it sad. Imagine being cooped up in a home for the elderly with just a machine that is barely on the level of "Eliza" to keep you company, every day the same as last. No wonder some long for death.
When my parents are getting old, I will make sure I have enough free time to visit them and spend time with them regularly.
This sounds like a case for The European Cort of Human Rights. Turkey is very eager to join the EU and recently got promises that they could at least start talks with the EU about membership. This was after the EU recognized that Turkey had done progress with regards to human rights (they have had a very dark past with regards to womens' rights, minorities rights, police torture of dissidents, forbidding kurds to publish media in their own language etc). The EU have said that they have to do more though, there are still incidents of torture in Turkish prisons for instance, and opression of kurds.
With the political preassure on the Turkish government, this guy might actually have a chance if enough people raise hell.
I personally will write letter to the court about this case, and I will also contact Amnesty International in Sweden about this.
I urge other Slashdot readers to take similar action.
I haven't touched VB in 5 years when I played with it for a little bit. But there is an option for explicit declarations. You can type it in or select if for the menu's. Unfortantely I forgot since its been awhile.
Same here, had to use it at work a year ago...
"Option Explicit" is what you type. If you choose it in the preferences menu it appears in all new files, otherwise you can just type it manually. "Option Explicit On" if you are using VB.Net.
Slashdot Mirror
My other issue is that the Java Standard Widget Toolkit(SWT) has not been ported to XP64(nor to the devs seem to have a plan to do so at the moment) which means no Eclipse or Azureus in spite of the whole write-once, run-anywhere Java mentality(and it's a shame, poor Sun actually has had a version of Java ready for XP64 for some time now).
Yeah... I like SWT too, but maybe Sun is right in that the speed comes at a price.
You could try Netbeans instead of Eclipse. I prefer Eclipse, but several friends swear by Netbeans.
>> [...]theoretically allowing them to automatically tune themselves for the best possible performance for any given workload.
> A common criticism of Open Source is the accusation that it lacks innovation.
> I mean, common. Just look at this. Amazing.
Well, not to denigrate the efforts of the people working on the Linux kernel, but Java has had Hotspot and other Just in Time compiling tricks since 2001, and I'm sure there are others before it.
Java Hotspot does not use the same technology of course, but the goal is the same - automatic tuning.
Still, this was a very interesting read.
>>Thats not Java, thats your programming.
>Check again. The garbage collection process
The garbage collection process is a memory leak how?
as well as the fact that it does not release memory in some situations for 1 hour or until the application is closed constitutes a leak.
I can't comment on all java applications of course, but this IS usually a mistake in programming. One possible example - an application which has a separate window for configuration etc. The programmer remembers to null the obvious reference to this window when it closes but still has a strong link (for instance an event observer) remaining to it. The window, all its buttons and widgets, and all their associated objects will not be garbage collected.
Weak references should be used much more often.
I apologize in advance if I sound confrontative, however, I find few things on Slashdot more tiresome than when any language X comes up, instead of sticking to the topic, hordes of people are going to yap about their favourite languages Y, Z, W, V...
.asmx files) and throw it up on a webserver in the /bin folder, and I can have me a webservice, or a simple way to access compiled code from a script.
However, with Java client apps it's write-once, debug-everywhere, since every VM has its quirks you have to troubleshoot, and suddenly I have several versions of my software to troubleshoot (last time I did that was circa 99, so maybe it's better now)
I have personally never come across it, though I had a collegue who claimed to have run across a bug where the JVM on IBMs AIX didn't follow the specifications (forgot where).
The thing works, but the memory leaks were terrible, even making sure I set everything to null after using it, it was a memory bleeding dog.
Er, yes, memory management can be a bit more than nulling objects. Did you every find out what caused it?
And this stuff runs much faster... almost as fast a C. Sounds absolutely nuts, but it's true.
So does Java these days for most parts. And Microsoft have the usual advantage of designing their own system on their own operating system. Come back when they have ported their framework to as many operating systems and devices as Sun has.
The language features are much more clean, like my favorite:
foreach (SomeObject i in SomeCollection)
Java has it too these days.
but there's a ton of language features that I don't want to get into here.
I can say without any irony or sarcasm: Thank you.
It's the stability and deployment that really got me. I can just compile my code to a DLL (and a couple of stub
WAR files...Tomcat....
If I neglect to patch a server, it would stay up longer than the Java boxes.
Are you claiming that there are memory leaks in the virtual machine itself?
Wow, a post bashing Java on Slashdot. How incredibly original and refreshing!
Well, at least you are honest about your bias.
Actually, I think these days, you are allowed to copy an entire book at a library as part of fair use if you can show you are using it for research.
However - we are moving in the same direction as Germany in many other cases. We are already paying a "piracy" tax on all blank media sold. Also, some anti-piracy group recently announced that they are suing "Jens of Sweden", the makers of popular MP3 players.
I'm not that surprised. If you can get money by extorsion instead of working, it's not surprising that some scumbags are doing it. What disgusts me is that politicians aren't doing anything about this. I'm beginning to think the old farts don't understand modern technology and the implications of this.
A poll recently showed that the french do take a shower every day
Well, a real survey by the BBC a few years back actually showed that a larger percentage of French people shower every day than, for instance, British people.
I will admit upfront that I am biased. I am a Sun certified Java Programmer, working on Developer. My C#/.Net experience is limited to reading a book and talking to friends who are currently taking a course at Uni.
.Net might have the advantages of:
As you can probably guess, I'm going to recommend Java. The technologies are very similar and it is probably not a great problem whichever you choose, but in my opinion Java has this going for it:
-It has been around longer, which means more people are familiar with it and it has time to mature.
-There are a huge number of tools and libraries available. The best ones are being copied (NUnit from JUnit etc) but there are many more.
-It doesn't have MS behind it. Those who don't think MS are going to play the lock in game again if things are going bad for them, are terribly naive.
On the other hand,
-As a newcomer it can avoid some of the mistakes that Java did and is stuck with.
-It has the massive resources of MS behind it.
Natty dreads on one of the guys. I would hate to get a hair in my cake from that guy, it would be bigger than the plate.
Even if the headline is wrong (as many claim), with the influence gaming have on society today why aren't there more people in academia researching this?
Why aren't there more university courses teaching it?
One reason why games isn't accepted by the mainstream as culture or art is of course the immaturity of the industry. And I don't mean it hasn't existed long, I am talking about the age of the developers and the attitude of the industry. Again and again polls show that the averge gamer is in fact somewhere between 25 and 30 years old, and there are are a lot more female gamers than people think. However, average age of the people working in the gaming industry is actually much lower (I know several), and the games created and the ways they are sold seem to mostly cater to the segment "early teenage American male".
And in this segment, violence sells, nude women sells. One of the few things I dislike about Planescape:Torment for instance is the rampant "big tit-itis" in the artwork.
So anyway, I would like to see more mature games, and not mature as "full of sex". The number one thing for me when buying a game is a well thought out plot with interesting characters. Then it doesn't matter if it is a shooter (Half-Life, Thief3, Deus Ex) or a role-playing game (anything from Bioware/Black Isle basically). These games are no nobel prize winners in literature of course, but still good enough for me.
I want more good writers in the gaming industry, and less graphics engine geeks. More Warren Specter, Greg Zeschuk, Ray Muzyka, less John Carmack.
I hate so-called scientists who can predict global warming but not predict the weather tomorrow
That is because there is a difference between weather and climate. Can I predict that it will be warmer in summer? Yes. Can I predict which days will be sunny and which cloudy next summer? No. That a system is too chaotic to predict on a microlevel does not mean we can't understand or predict it on a macrolevel. Though we know the exact half life of a substance, we can't tell which atoms will be affected. Do you hate "so called physicists" too?
In the same way, we can predict that the globe is getting hotter, and approximately how many degrees. The question is why, and if we can do anything about it.
Some researchers notes that the earth were four degrees warmer around 1000 BC (my memory may be wrong with the year) and that the climate also were significantly warmer 800-1200 AD which let to prosperity up until the colder middle age. So let us look forward to a bit of warming!
Doubtful. Most climate models predict an increasingly chaotic weather as temperature increases - floods, tornados, draughts, increasing desertification. Any economic benefits we get from higher crops or less energy going to heating is quickly going to be eaten up.
On a serious note, I would say more than 99% of the population would never even notice if all the GPS satellites suddenly fell from the sky in unison.
Well, perhaps most people don't use GPS directly, but they would notice all right. It would cause a major disturbance to shipping and aircraft communications, with economic upheavals as a consequence.
Mind you, don't ships have any kind of backup? I mean, what would happen if the ship's GPS receiver developed a fault?
:-)
Then you have to do it the old way; sea charts, compasses, a trained navigator.
However, at night the navigator has to rely on lighthouses, and the problem is that (in Sweden at least), there are fewer and fewer lighthouses running. They cost quite a lot in electricity and maintanance, and since even small sailboats can afford GPSes and even navigation computers these days the authorites are chosing to save money by turning them off.
So if you are out at sea a stormy night and you GPS fails because it breaks, or because Dubya crapped his pants and turned off the satellites, you could be in trouble.
Preemptive post about how joking about getting assraped by BubbaAIDS in prison isn't funny. Bla bla bla.
Well, if you stop making the jokes about rape you won't have to read the comments about how this isn't funny, will you.
But don't say that it costs $30 Million/day when we would be spending $20 Million/day in times of peace, in that case the war is only costing an additional $10 Million for the basics. Get back to me when you figure out how much all the stuff we wouldn't have to pay for if these guys were sitting back here at some base in the US costs.
You know, that is not difficult to calculate. I think if you look at the numbers people HAVE in fact included this.
Besides, the cost of US military is probably just a small part. Recruiting local people, building up infrastructure, humanitarian aid etc is more expensive.
Note that I am pulling all these numbers out of deep dark places and are only to be used as examples and not actual costs.
Now that I can belive.
Yeah, if by "persecuted" you mean repeatedly debunked and asked not to spread his pseudoscience. Poor little baby. He is not a scientists, he is a statistician, and a pretty poor one at that.
Here is what some real scientists are saying about Lomborg.
And not one mention about THE SUN. Every "it must be Global Warming from Mankind's Activities" "study" I have ever seen ignores the HOT GLOWING BALL OF FIRE IN THE SKY which throws more heat at the entrie EARTH than billions and billions of cow farts and automobiles.
Haha! Bravo, you hereby win the prize for "dumbest post ever" on the subject of global warming. When you are competing on Slashdot, that is not a small feat. Are you Rush Limbaughs science advisor by any chance?
In case you are not just trolling and are just incredibly ignorant, the Greenhouse effect doesn't mean that earth gets warm because the gases are warm. It means that these gases causes more of the suns energy to stay on earth, thereby heating it up. And I think even most kids above age 8 know this.
Look, the global warming theory doesn't deny that global climate fluctuates, so stop beating that strawman. What we are currently are worrying about is a much sudden and drastic change than before.
Think of it as a pendulum that has slowly gone back and forth has now very suddenly rocketed towards one extreme as if someone whacked it with a tennis racket. Yes, it was already heading in that direction, and it hasn't reached the previous extreme end yet. However, the speed causes more difficulties for species to adapt than they had before, and we worry what will happen when it reaches the extreme end, and if it will continue in that direction much further than before.
There are many indirect measures that you can get.
Ice core samples from artic/antarctic. Also trees can tell you some things of the temperature centuries back, they grow faster and get bigger year rings warmer years.
It wouldn't surpise me if there are other ways.
So, we are one step closer to Roujin Z it seems....
Seriously though, I've seen on TV before how elderly people in Japan were given little animatronic bears to keep them company. Perhaps for those suffering from dementia it could be an aid, but mostly I found it sad. Imagine being cooped up in a home for the elderly with just a machine that is barely on the level of "Eliza" to keep you company, every day the same as last. No wonder some long for death.
When my parents are getting old, I will make sure I have enough free time to visit them and spend time with them regularly.
If you did it long enough, you would actually PAY to not have sex. Trust me. Even sex gets boring eventually.
Source of this claim? Googled around for a while, couldn't find anything.
This sounds like a case for The European Cort of Human Rights. Turkey is very eager to join the EU and recently got promises that they could at least start talks with the EU about membership. This was after the EU recognized that Turkey had done progress with regards to human rights (they have had a very dark past with regards to womens' rights, minorities rights, police torture of dissidents, forbidding kurds to publish media in their own language etc). The EU have said that they have to do more though, there are still incidents of torture in Turkish prisons for instance, and opression of kurds.
With the political preassure on the Turkish government, this guy might actually have a chance if enough people raise hell.
I personally will write letter to the court about this case, and I will also contact Amnesty International in Sweden about this.
I urge other Slashdot readers to take similar action.
I haven't touched VB in 5 years when I played with it for a little bit. But there is an option for explicit declarations. You can type it in or select if for the menu's. Unfortantely I forgot since its been awhile.
Same here, had to use it at work a year ago...
"Option Explicit" is what you type. If you choose it in the preferences menu it appears in all new files, otherwise you can just type it manually.
"Option Explicit On" if you are using VB.Net.
Ahh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.