There was a recent story about how much sway the peripheral makers had over Apple, and how new products would be hampered by the accessories market.
Three days later, apple introduces completely different iPod form factors, and accessory makers instantly have warehouses filled with worthless plastic and fake leather. So much for "sway".
When MS ships it's products with it's own security software (antivirus, intrusion detection, ), the market will shrink dramatically. No one of the competitioners would have a chance to sell it's products to private ans small buisness customers.
The problem isn't that Microsoft will own the "Windows Security" market. The problem is that such a market exists in the first place. What about all of the other markets that are formed around the windows platform, or that use the windows platform. Supposing that the EU "protected" the security market, you'd end up with the vast majority of PC's purchased without security measures ("I can save 30EUR by ditching Macaffe!"). Windows would continue to be the target of malware, virii, and other unwanted code. Yeah, the security market is protected, at the expense of everyone else: Not just Microsoft, but resellers, developers, and especially end users.
This "protection" is short-sighted at best.
And i think we all know what happens when there is no more competition at the free market. The quality goes down the drain.
Yes, I imagine this is true... but this contradicts your next point
BTW. This would end in a monoculture of security-products by MS, and monoculture makes the whole infrastructure extremely vulnerable for real big or well organized attacks.
When/if the infrastructure becomes more vulnerable, the market will grow. Look at Firefox's growth due to the stagnation of IE.
This being slashdot, I'm sure someone will say "how about they stop writing such crappy code!". Fair enough, but wouldn't that have the same effect of shrinking the security market? Should the EU prevent Microsoft from developing software that is too robust!?
The concept of racial equality is a western one, and a western one alone
Hold on. Is this the same western concept of racial equality that included the slaughtering of Native Americans, or the one that promoted "seperate but equal" as a perfectly valid way to treat people until the 1950's? If so, I'll need to recalibrate my notion of equality and re-read your post.
That said, I think you misunderstand me. I never said that Japan wasn't racist. Every culture has at least some level of racism it seems. My point was that greed wins out over racism (almost) every time. Nintendo's decision to alter gameplay was based more on business sense rather than racism. SMB2 would have tanked in the USA for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. The relabeling decision netted them more money, and that's the motivation: money.
You're conclusion as to the motives for the "simplification" process is, ironically, an oversimplification of the reasoning and intent behind doing such a thing.
For much the same reason - we are seen as too stupid.
I don't think this is what executives at Nintendo, Square, and the like are thinking. I'm not saying that Japan is devoid of nationalism or even outright racism, but I simply can't see a rational human being uttering the phrase "The American mind simply cannot take in all of the brilliance that is Final Fantasy I&II, we must water it down". It all comes down to the bottom line, and anyone wanting to sell a product has to know their market. There's a big difference between "Let's not port SMB2 because it won't sell" and "Americans are too stupid for SMB2".
The interesting question is: is this true? I don't really think so, Imports/unedited releases are too popular when available. IMO people are mostly just people - difficulty doesn't matter much. Culture references very much are important, but that is very different from complexity.
Unfortunately, I feel the market disagrees with you. Take a look at rare instances where Japanese RPG titles get the full-on marketing push in the USA. EarthBound for the SNES is a good example. Originally known as "Mother 2" in Japan, the game received a very good (yet faithful) translation effort, had a big marketing push by Nintendo, and was prominantly displayed in oversize packaging that was custom-made just for that title (to accomodate the strategy guide they threw in to sweeten the deal). In fact, the USA translation was arguably more expensive to develop and market than the original Japanese version.
By your theory Earthbound should have done every bit as well as it did in japan. However, the game tanked badly. I was one of the, oh, maybe 5 people in the USA to buy that game. It was awesome, btw, but that's not the point.
There are a couple instances that play out similar to this, but smart companies learn lessons quick and that's why nintendo is very shrewd about what titles get ported.
As for this conventional wisdom regarding why Nintendo didn't release the "real" SMB2 in the USA... I don't buy it. I see the same reason stated repeatedly, but never with attribution. I'd be willing to guess that there was a quote taken out of context and/or badly translated. I'd be much more willing to believe that Nintendo felt that the Japanese SMB2 would be poorly received because the American gaming demographic skewed younger than their japanese demographic and that small children would be turned off by a weak cash-in of a game that was so frustrating that you wanted to bash the cartridge into tiny bits.
Yeah, I played it, and though I'm sure to offend the obscure-japanese-game-title-snobs out there, but the truth is this: The Japanese version of SMB 2 simply wasn't very good.
My recollection of developer lock-in tactics is different from yours, though I may be wrong. Most of my knowledge on the subject comes from an excellent book, Game Over (no I don't get a kickback if you follow the link...damn).
You're right that Console makers tried to ensure exclusivity in any way they could. However, my understanding is that the court cases you refer to were more than simple title exclusivity. Back in the height of their power, Nintendo's restrictions on publishers were pretty severe. Nintendo would only license two titles per year, and exclusivity was a requirement. This is legal, but I believe Nintendo tried to push it further by prohibiting licensees from developing *any* title for another console. This is where the revolts came.
However, the power has shifted (for the most part) towards publishers. No company, even Sony, could make such demands even if it were legal for fear that the publisher would simply jump ship. Imagine telling EA that they can only release two titles per year (hah!).
These days, Console makers have switched to the "catching flies with honey" approach to exclusivity. They either give big publishers sweet deals (Like Sony did to lockdown the exclusivity window on GTA III), or they buy out dev studios (like MSFT did with Bungie), or they entice independent studios with digital distribution (MSFT with Xbox Live Arcade, and now Sony with Playstation Beyond). Granted, you see XBLA titles that aren't exclusive (Street Fighter, Marble Blast, etc), but I'd wager the smaller name studios are bound by form of exclusivity provision. This doesn't mean that the console makers have given up being evil, but at the very least you get the facade of a benevolent company.
I don't see anything new here with the Playstation Beyond thing. Either from service itself (it seems no different from Xbox Live Arcade), or in terms of the furthering schemes of companies trying to lock-in exclusivity.
In my mind, this is the real motivation behind the HD-DVD / BD camps -- they aren't trying to sell consumers on HD quality, they're trying to convince Hollywood to adopt the format based on how well you can lock it down. Then, just kill of DVD's. Why entice consumers when you can *force* them, right?
Of course this scheme will fail -- you can't convince Hollywood to embrace a new technology (for any reason) because they are scared of change and hate risks. You have to drag them kicking and screaming into new technology.
the obvious answer is that native vs interpreted is basically simply the balance of developer cost versus cost of end-user resources
I guess I've become "old enough" to recognize the cycles in computer science debates and schools-of-thought. Unfortunately, it seems as though far too few people recognize these patterns and get caught in the same inane argments.
start here: Assembly eplaces many tasks formerly accomplished in hand-written machine code. But I can write much smaller programs by manually plugging/unplugging these-here vacuum tubes
"macro-assembly" allows programmers to code for different cpu instruction-sets simultaneously. But, but... the hc11 has an extra 16-bit register than the 6809, I can shave 2 bytes off your macro-code, you lazy bastard!
C replaces assembly in the majority of roles traditionally set aside for assembly. Your sacrificing all that speed to save time. (snickers at your times-two multiplication expressions)
c++ blah blah c. blah blah syntax sugar blah blah...
....
Wash rinse repeat. In 10 years the Java camp will mock the young 3DUML-on-rails punks that use tactile feedback gloves.
Why oh why can't they just upgrade the voice quality!? Weve had basically the same voice quality since the 70's.
In fact, when compared to a standard land-line telephone, the voice quality is worse! I think it's hilarious that we have phones that can transfer data at 1mbps yet the bitrate for voice calls is still around 1.5kps-4kps!
Not to justify the existance of the MPAA but if people think this stuff is crap why are people being caught downloading it?
I see your point: Economics 101 tells us that the demand on these so-called "crap" movies is proof that it indeed has value. And I would even agree that piracy is proof that there is a viable market even for crap movies. Hell, I'll sacrifice my karma (both kinds) and say that there is a viable market for Gigli.
But here's the rub: the MPAA opposes the only viable market for crap movies: digital downloads at low prices. The MPAA claims that the viable market is their current distribution system.
Having me pay $20 to watch a movie one time only at the cineplex along with two hundred other people
Having me wait 3-9 months for the $20 DVD that has ads that I cannot skip through (GODDAMN YOU DREAMWORKS)
So, yeah, Gigli has value, but not enough to make me (and apparently anyone else) pursue either of the above options. But as a $1.00 download that I can burn to a DVD? I bet you'd get alot more money than what they pulled in the old-fashioned way.
What the MPAA still does not get (and what the RIAA doesn't want to admit that they just now starting to get) is that most consumers would rather pay than steal. But you can't claim that you need to defend a viable market when you have not provided one.
Another false layer of security for parents that can't be bothered to actually raise thier children.
Let me guess - you aren't a parent. Perhaps this service is worthless for parents that have poor relationship with their children. But don't you think that this phone could be a valuable tool for good parents, too? How about this:
Billy starts walking home from bus stop
Stranger grabs Billy and forces him into The Van With No Doors and No Windows
Stranger drives off.
So, is being able to track your kid's GPS-enabled phone still worthless?
There are actually some very good arguments in favor of giving your kid a cell phone. However, there are downsides such as
kids can easily exceed alotted minutes (usually inadvertantly).
too easy to sign up for costly services (ringtones, screensavers, whatnot) by pressing 4 numbers but often very difficult to cancel/unsubscribe
not as much control over who your child is talking to than the home phone
So, a phone w/ parental controls and GPS goes a long way to addressing these concerns. I myself would have loved this phone back when I was a kid. When I was 15, my parents were pretty lenient about what I could do so long as I a) told them where I'd be b) who I'd be with and c) prove it (usually a phone call from me to check in). Not having a cell phone made it kindof a pain sometimes. Now parents can maintain the same rules but also give their kids a greater sense of freedom.
Of course this is a project at MS research - I wouldn't expect it to ever see the light of day in an actual product released by MS. It's nice to know that some people set their expectations suitably high though.
I know this was more a bash of MS execs than the research department, but more stuff comes out of MS research than you might think. Microsoft spends a greater percentage of their funds on research than IBM, Sun, or Apple . Of the top of my head: there's.NET, C#, and matchmaking and TrueSkill systems used for Xbox Live.
The same application in C/Win32 does the same task in 8 minutes. That is 2 minutes per day times 60 people or 120 minutes/2 hours per day....[snip]
This scenario is pure fantasy. The vast majority of apps nowadays are IO limited, and spend most of their time idling whilst they wait for on the hard drive/network for more data, or (more commonly) waiting for the user to type something or click a button. I doubt you'd realise these types speed gains you talk about - most of the time the user him/herself is the weak link in the throughput chain.
...Even if it took me an extra 100 hours to write the app in C/Win32 at $50/h that would only be $5,000.
Well, you've left out those 60 people who are twiddling their thumbs for 100 hours because the "super-speedy C version" of their app doesn't exist yet. That's 60 people * 100 hours of thumb-twiddling * $8.00/h = $48,000 of money that is lost as users eagerly await the software that is going to save them $4,160 per year.
In your world, they'll break even in around 12 years. Funny, you haven't convinced that development time isn't the leading factor in the cost equation.
Access is not the best solution out there--it is horrible to use, the interface just blows, and it doesn't do a lot of what it should do.
Hmm... I'm torn. As I developer I agree with you say on a technical level. Problem is, the majority of small businesses in the USA (50 or less employees), at most, 1 programmer. Your best bet is the single IT who mainly exists to keep things running. In this context, MSSQL + Crystal Reports is simply out of the question. You'll be lucky to have somebody on staff that can architect something or even install/administer it. The other issue is cost: licensing mssql and crystal reports aint cheep, and deployment is non-trivial.
Contrast that with the fact that a small business probably has Access installed on every PC. And the reason developers and DBA's revile it is the same reason why business analysts adore it: you don't need to be a programmer to create a useful, data-driven application. The real problem is when so-and-so's app is *really* useful, and the entire department starts using it, and your non-indexed, one-table database with 57 columns and a char(255) primary key starts to run into scaleability issues.
Not to say that Microsoft is all that great. The Access dev team has become weak & flabby, and the amount of functionality they've added since Access97 is pitiful. They make the IE dev team look bleeding edge. In spite of all that, it is still the gold standard for small businesses. As a developer I think that's truly sad, but that's just how it is.
If you're in a corporate or school environment, check whether you have virus-protection that does on-access file scanning (most do). This will KILL your Netbeans performance (and I suspect any other java ide) as it's constantly loading/accessing.jar files. Once I added put.jar files in Norton's exception list things went much, much faster.
I used to use the application about 5 years ago, since it was the best free IDE around for Java. The problem was that it was really heavy on the CPU and memory.
I hear ya - Netbeans definitely likes the RAM. I have a winxp p4 2.8ghz box, and 512mb of ram was just not cutting it. Now I have 1.5 gig and it runs very smooth. I tend to be less critical of ram usage for dev tools, and ram is relatively cheap so I've pretty much stuck w/ Netbeans over Eclipse.
It apppears netbeans 5.0 footprint hasn't changed. I just built/ran a decent sized web app (150 classes, 200 jsp's), and it's currently soaking up 160mb for the ide and 60mb for built-in tomcat. Build time and overall responsiveness seem generally improved but it's too soon to make a final call.
My biggest gripe w/ Netbeans still hasn't changed, however: the api/documentation browsing still sucks (imho). Eclipse wins in this arena hands down - the "iTunes-like" multi-pane api browser is very quick and intuitive. With netbeans i feel like I'm scrolling or expanding tree-lists 90% of the time.
Of course, the FBI should have gotten a search warrant, but I'm sure they will now and I hope they can determine who sent the threats, because I want to live in a world where I know if someone sends me a death threat (or what-have-you), that they will be found and I won't have to fear my safety on their account.
Most people that support the librarian's actions also appreciate the FBI and support its mandate (well, at least I do). You seem to hold the impression that the defense of civil liberties and the pursuit of criminals are mutually exclusive. They are not. A system checks and balances is the best way to ensure that both goals can be achieved.
However, this system of checks of and balances in practice is not always pretty. The scenario you describe is a perfect example. It is possible that an FBI investigaion into a kidnapped child could be impeded by procedural restrictions designed to protect civil liberties. But it is just as possible that you could could apprehend the 9/11 hijackers by if agents had stormed into the residence of all middle-eastern men between the ages of 20-40 with student visas.
The motives & concerns of the FBI agents in this article, as well as those of the librarian, should be admired. And the entire situation was a justification of why we should strive for a system of checks and balances.
True, but I think that part of the Justice Department's stipulations to MS was that they had to decouple the browser from the rest of the OS (e.g. the desktop integration). In addition, there are websites out there that host prior versions of IE which you can run on your box along with the latest version, so it's possible.
I think this is a decision on Microsoft's part to limit the number of configurations that they'd have to troubleshoot, rather than because of some technical limitation. I don't even have any beef with that decision, but my larger point is that microsoft's target audience with this release is web developers and early adopters - and the 7.0 beta is "unsupported" by official tech support channels anyway. So they'll maximize their target audience by allowing dual versions. As long as it's techinically possible (which is the case with prior versions), why not allow it?
It's good to know you can rollback, but ideally you'd be able to use both versions simultaneously. As an end-user I imagine there wouldn't be much demand for this, but for a web developer (whom this release was targeted towards) it would be very, very handy.
Okay, quick check to see if IE6 is still on here...aaaannddd...of course not. Fuckers.
That ain't good. Does IE7beta actually wipe out IE6, or does it simply make IE7 the default?
Though we are allowed to install multple browsers, my employer mandates that all intranet web apps work in IE6 at minimum. It would be nice to install IE7 and prepare our apps for any upcoming changes, but if I can't ensure that any changes won't break our IE6 functionality then it's a show-stopper. I imagine this is the case for a number of web developers. Ostensibly this beta release targets the development community so it baffling that Microsoft would make such a decision.
And besides that - what kind of idiot has their *beta* installation overwrite a *production* installation?? (rhetorical question)
If you write a flexible enough rendering engine this wont matter so much.
True, but part of the reason why you use a graphics API is to spare programmers the work of rolling their own rendering engine in the first place, right? A wrapper layer shields the layers above (maybe), but somebody's still gonna have to write the layers under it. Far from trivial.
I agree for the most part, but just a couple points
-There's the joke that goes "Don't buy anything from microsoft until at least the third version.". Direct3D definitely fits into that stigma. The early versions of directx were apparently garbage I think Direct3D v3.0 was the version that Carmack blasted when he opted to use OpenGL. I've read that nowadays he is much happier with the API, and he's even working on an Xbox360 game - which is noteable considering that the PS3 uses OpenGL.
DirectX is a non-portable skill. It ties you to Windows and the X-Box(s). OpenGL "ties" you to the Gamecube, Windows, PS2, PS3, Linux, Macintosh, etc.
-The PS2 and Gamecube have proprietary api's (though Gamecube's GX api is very similar). However, you're point is correct - the reason why Quake 3 was able to target Linux, Windows, and Mac was because 90% of the codebase was ANSI C and OpenGL.
So, OpenGL is still very good, but DX9 is much better than when you grew to hate it(you mentioned retained mode, which is gone as of dx8 I think), and Microsoft has ended up stealing-er, embracing- so many of the OpenGL concepts that learning one at least partially prepares you for the other.
Because what consumers really need another online music store. Of course, if it's anything like their poorly received video store, I don't think that Apple has a lot to worry about.
They already have a very good music search feature, why not just grow that service and use the same click-through ad model? It even has links to music download services, which makes it much easier to evaluate which music store has the music you want. It'd be nice if they could grow this service using the same click-through model for ad revenue that they've used in the past.
Why yet another music store? How many damn music services do I have to subscribe to? Imagine how people would react in the 80's & 90's if the CD's you bought from Tower Records could only be played on your Tower Records CD Player, and you needed a seperate Rockaway Records CD Player for other tracks. Yet for some reason we accept it in the online world.
I'm hoping that they have the ending for Final Fantasy II (US version which I think is actually III or IV in Japan). Back in high school I got so engrossed in that game that I skipped work/school for an entire week. Unfortunately, the threat of being fired, kicked out of the house, and repeating my senior year forced me to put it on hold plus it was a rental, and the late fee was becoming epic.
15 years later, I'm still dying to know how it ended, but I've never been able to bring myself to commit the 20+ hours to get back to the point I was.
Or just spit out XML
on
Wicked Cool Java
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If your customer/employer works with OfficeXP and later (or OpenOffice, for that matter) you can use the XMLSpreadsheet format. This format has 90% the functionality of the native xls format (no macros or graphs, but can do tabs, pivot tables, etc. This way you aren't tied down to a particular api or programming language. Plus you can use design your spreadsheet as a php/jsp page, or use xslt to transform from your xml data to the excel format.
Best of all, Microsoft has published very good documentation as well as the XML Schema (which comes in quite handy for text editors that use schemas for tag-completion. They are also much easier to "debug" because the file format is human readable (well... it's ugly but still better than looking at bif8 in a hex editor).
Slashdot Mirror
There was a recent story about how much sway the peripheral makers had over Apple, and how new products would be hampered by the accessories market.
Three days later, apple introduces completely different iPod form factors, and accessory makers instantly have warehouses filled with worthless plastic and fake leather. So much for "sway".
The problem isn't that Microsoft will own the "Windows Security" market. The problem is that such a market exists in the first place. What about all of the other markets that are formed around the windows platform, or that use the windows platform. Supposing that the EU "protected" the security market, you'd end up with the vast majority of PC's purchased without security measures ("I can save 30EUR by ditching Macaffe!"). Windows would continue to be the target of malware, virii, and other unwanted code. Yeah, the security market is protected, at the expense of everyone else: Not just Microsoft, but resellers, developers, and especially end users.
This "protection" is short-sighted at best.
Yes, I imagine this is true... but this contradicts your next point
When/if the infrastructure becomes more vulnerable, the market will grow. Look at Firefox's growth due to the stagnation of IE.
This being slashdot, I'm sure someone will say "how about they stop writing such crappy code!". Fair enough, but wouldn't that have the same effect of shrinking the security market? Should the EU prevent Microsoft from developing software that is too robust!?
Hold on. Is this the same western concept of racial equality that included the slaughtering of Native Americans, or the one that promoted "seperate but equal" as a perfectly valid way to treat people until the 1950's? If so, I'll need to recalibrate my notion of equality and re-read your post.
That said, I think you misunderstand me. I never said that Japan wasn't racist. Every culture has at least some level of racism it seems. My point was that greed wins out over racism (almost) every time. Nintendo's decision to alter gameplay was based more on business sense rather than racism. SMB2 would have tanked in the USA for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. The relabeling decision netted them more money, and that's the motivation: money.
I don't think this is what executives at Nintendo, Square, and the like are thinking. I'm not saying that Japan is devoid of nationalism or even outright racism, but I simply can't see a rational human being uttering the phrase "The American mind simply cannot take in all of the brilliance that is Final Fantasy I&II, we must water it down". It all comes down to the bottom line, and anyone wanting to sell a product has to know their market. There's a big difference between "Let's not port SMB2 because it won't sell" and "Americans are too stupid for SMB2".
Unfortunately, I feel the market disagrees with you. Take a look at rare instances where Japanese RPG titles get the full-on marketing push in the USA. EarthBound for the SNES is a good example. Originally known as "Mother 2" in Japan, the game received a very good (yet faithful) translation effort, had a big marketing push by Nintendo, and was prominantly displayed in oversize packaging that was custom-made just for that title (to accomodate the strategy guide they threw in to sweeten the deal). In fact, the USA translation was arguably more expensive to develop and market than the original Japanese version.
By your theory Earthbound should have done every bit as well as it did in japan. However, the game tanked badly. I was one of the, oh, maybe 5 people in the USA to buy that game. It was awesome, btw, but that's not the point.
There are a couple instances that play out similar to this, but smart companies learn lessons quick and that's why nintendo is very shrewd about what titles get ported.
As for this conventional wisdom regarding why Nintendo didn't release the "real" SMB2 in the USA... I don't buy it. I see the same reason stated repeatedly, but never with attribution. I'd be willing to guess that there was a quote taken out of context and/or badly translated. I'd be much more willing to believe that Nintendo felt that the Japanese SMB2 would be poorly received because the American gaming demographic skewed younger than their japanese demographic and that small children would be turned off by a weak cash-in of a game that was so frustrating that you wanted to bash the cartridge into tiny bits.
Yeah, I played it, and though I'm sure to offend the obscure-japanese-game-title-snobs out there, but the truth is this: The Japanese version of SMB 2 simply wasn't very good.
My recollection of developer lock-in tactics is different from yours, though I may be wrong. Most of my knowledge on the subject comes from an excellent book, Game Over (no I don't get a kickback if you follow the link...damn).
You're right that Console makers tried to ensure exclusivity in any way they could. However, my understanding is that the court cases you refer to were more than simple title exclusivity. Back in the height of their power, Nintendo's restrictions on publishers were pretty severe. Nintendo would only license two titles per year, and exclusivity was a requirement. This is legal, but I believe Nintendo tried to push it further by prohibiting licensees from developing *any* title for another console. This is where the revolts came.
However, the power has shifted (for the most part) towards publishers. No company, even Sony, could make such demands even if it were legal for fear that the publisher would simply jump ship. Imagine telling EA that they can only release two titles per year (hah!).
These days, Console makers have switched to the "catching flies with honey" approach to exclusivity. They either give big publishers sweet deals (Like Sony did to lockdown the exclusivity window on GTA III), or they buy out dev studios (like MSFT did with Bungie), or they entice independent studios with digital distribution (MSFT with Xbox Live Arcade, and now Sony with Playstation Beyond). Granted, you see XBLA titles that aren't exclusive (Street Fighter, Marble Blast, etc), but I'd wager the smaller name studios are bound by form of exclusivity provision. This doesn't mean that the console makers have given up being evil, but at the very least you get the facade of a benevolent company.
I don't see anything new here with the Playstation Beyond thing. Either from service itself (it seems no different from Xbox Live Arcade), or in terms of the furthering schemes of companies trying to lock-in exclusivity.
Ah you left out one:
- more robust forms of DRM
In my mind, this is the real motivation behind the HD-DVD / BD camps -- they aren't trying to sell consumers on HD quality, they're trying to convince Hollywood to adopt the format based on how well you can lock it down. Then, just kill of DVD's. Why entice consumers when you can *force* them, right?
Of course this scheme will fail -- you can't convince Hollywood to embrace a new technology (for any reason) because they are scared of change and hate risks. You have to drag them kicking and screaming into new technology.
- start here: Assembly eplaces many tasks formerly accomplished in hand-written machine code. But I can write much smaller programs by manually plugging/unplugging these-here vacuum tubes
- "macro-assembly" allows programmers to code for different cpu instruction-sets simultaneously. But, but... the hc11 has an extra 16-bit register than the 6809, I can shave 2 bytes off your macro-code, you lazy bastard!
- C replaces assembly in the majority of roles traditionally set aside for assembly. Your sacrificing all that speed to save time. (snickers at your times-two multiplication expressions)
- c++ blah blah c. blah blah syntax sugar blah blah
...
....
Wash rinse repeat. In 10 years the Java camp will mock the young 3DUML-on-rails punks that use tactile feedback gloves.Why oh why can't they just upgrade the voice quality!? Weve had basically the same voice quality since the 70's.
In fact, when compared to a standard land-line telephone, the voice quality is worse! I think it's hilarious that we have phones that can transfer data at 1mbps yet the bitrate for voice calls is still around 1.5kps-4kps!
But here's the rub: the MPAA opposes the only viable market for crap movies: digital downloads at low prices. The MPAA claims that the viable market is their current distribution system.
So, yeah, Gigli has value, but not enough to make me (and apparently anyone else) pursue either of the above options. But as a $1.00 download that I can burn to a DVD? I bet you'd get alot more money than what they pulled in the old-fashioned way.
What the MPAA still does not get (and what the RIAA doesn't want to admit that they just now starting to get) is that most consumers would rather pay than steal. But you can't claim that you need to defend a viable market when you have not provided one.
So, is being able to track your kid's GPS-enabled phone still worthless?
There are actually some very good arguments in favor of giving your kid a cell phone. However, there are downsides such as
So, a phone w/ parental controls and GPS goes a long way to addressing these concerns. I myself would have loved this phone back when I was a kid. When I was 15, my parents were pretty lenient about what I could do so long as I a) told them where I'd be b) who I'd be with and c) prove it (usually a phone call from me to check in). Not having a cell phone made it kindof a pain sometimes. Now parents can maintain the same rules but also give their kids a greater sense of freedom.
I know this was more a bash of MS execs than the research department, but more stuff comes out of MS research than you might think. Microsoft spends a greater percentage of their funds on research than IBM, Sun, or Apple . Of the top of my head: there's
This scenario is pure fantasy. The vast majority of apps nowadays are IO limited, and spend most of their time idling whilst they wait for on the hard drive/network for more data, or (more commonly) waiting for the user to type something or click a button. I doubt you'd realise these types speed gains you talk about - most of the time the user him/herself is the weak link in the throughput chain.
Well, you've left out those 60 people who are twiddling their thumbs for 100 hours because the "super-speedy C version" of their app doesn't exist yet. That's 60 people * 100 hours of thumb-twiddling * $8.00/h = $48,000 of money that is lost as users eagerly await the software that is going to save them $4,160 per year.
In your world, they'll break even in around 12 years. Funny, you haven't convinced that development time isn't the leading factor in the cost equation.
Hmm... I'm torn. As I developer I agree with you say on a technical level. Problem is, the majority of small businesses in the USA (50 or less employees), at most, 1 programmer. Your best bet is the single IT who mainly exists to keep things running. In this context, MSSQL + Crystal Reports is simply out of the question. You'll be lucky to have somebody on staff that can architect something or even install/administer it. The other issue is cost: licensing mssql and crystal reports aint cheep, and deployment is non-trivial.
Contrast that with the fact that a small business probably has Access installed on every PC. And the reason developers and DBA's revile it is the same reason why business analysts adore it: you don't need to be a programmer to create a useful, data-driven application. The real problem is when so-and-so's app is *really* useful, and the entire department starts using it, and your non-indexed, one-table database with 57 columns and a char(255) primary key starts to run into scaleability issues.
Not to say that Microsoft is all that great. The Access dev team has become weak & flabby, and the amount of functionality they've added since Access97 is pitiful. They make the IE dev team look bleeding edge. In spite of all that, it is still the gold standard for small businesses. As a developer I think that's truly sad, but that's just how it is.
If you're in a corporate or school environment, check whether you have virus-protection that does on-access file scanning (most do). This will KILL your Netbeans performance (and I suspect any other java ide) as it's constantly loading/accessing .jar files. Once I added put .jar files in Norton's exception list things went much, much faster.
I hear ya - Netbeans definitely likes the RAM. I have a winxp p4 2.8ghz box, and 512mb of ram was just not cutting it. Now I have 1.5 gig and it runs very smooth. I tend to be less critical of ram usage for dev tools, and ram is relatively cheap so I've pretty much stuck w/ Netbeans over Eclipse.
It apppears netbeans 5.0 footprint hasn't changed. I just built/ran a decent sized web app (150 classes, 200 jsp's), and it's currently soaking up 160mb for the ide and 60mb for built-in tomcat. Build time and overall responsiveness seem generally improved but it's too soon to make a final call.
My biggest gripe w/ Netbeans still hasn't changed, however: the api/documentation browsing still sucks (imho). Eclipse wins in this arena hands down - the "iTunes-like" multi-pane api browser is very quick and intuitive. With netbeans i feel like I'm scrolling or expanding tree-lists 90% of the time.
Most people that support the librarian's actions also appreciate the FBI and support its mandate (well, at least I do). You seem to hold the impression that the defense of civil liberties and the pursuit of criminals are mutually exclusive. They are not. A system checks and balances is the best way to ensure that both goals can be achieved.
However, this system of checks of and balances in practice is not always pretty. The scenario you describe is a perfect example. It is possible that an FBI investigaion into a kidnapped child could be impeded by procedural restrictions designed to protect civil liberties. But it is just as possible that you could could apprehend the 9/11 hijackers by if agents had stormed into the residence of all middle-eastern men between the ages of 20-40 with student visas.
The motives & concerns of the FBI agents in this article, as well as those of the librarian, should be admired. And the entire situation was a justification of why we should strive for a system of checks and balances.
I think this is a decision on Microsoft's part to limit the number of configurations that they'd have to troubleshoot, rather than because of some technical limitation. I don't even have any beef with that decision, but my larger point is that microsoft's target audience with this release is web developers and early adopters - and the 7.0 beta is "unsupported" by official tech support channels anyway. So they'll maximize their target audience by allowing dual versions. As long as it's techinically possible (which is the case with prior versions), why not allow it?
It's good to know you can rollback, but ideally you'd be able to use both versions simultaneously. As an end-user I imagine there wouldn't be much demand for this, but for a web developer (whom this release was targeted towards) it would be very, very handy.
That ain't good. Does IE7beta actually wipe out IE6, or does it simply make IE7 the default?
Though we are allowed to install multple browsers, my employer mandates that all intranet web apps work in IE6 at minimum. It would be nice to install IE7 and prepare our apps for any upcoming changes, but if I can't ensure that any changes won't break our IE6 functionality then it's a show-stopper. I imagine this is the case for a number of web developers. Ostensibly this beta release targets the development community so it baffling that Microsoft would make such a decision.
And besides that - what kind of idiot has their *beta* installation overwrite a *production* installation?? (rhetorical question)
True, but part of the reason why you use a graphics API is to spare programmers the work of rolling their own rendering engine in the first place, right? A wrapper layer shields the layers above (maybe), but somebody's still gonna have to write the layers under it. Far from trivial.
I agree for the most part, but just a couple points
-There's the joke that goes "Don't buy anything from microsoft until at least the third version.". Direct3D definitely fits into that stigma. The early versions of directx were apparently garbage I think Direct3D v3.0 was the version that Carmack blasted when he opted to use OpenGL. I've read that nowadays he is much happier with the API, and he's even working on an Xbox360 game - which is noteable considering that the PS3 uses OpenGL.
DirectX is a non-portable skill. It ties you to Windows and the X-Box(s). OpenGL "ties" you to the Gamecube, Windows, PS2, PS3, Linux, Macintosh, etc.
-The PS2 and Gamecube have proprietary api's (though Gamecube's GX api is very similar). However, you're point is correct - the reason why Quake 3 was able to target Linux, Windows, and Mac was because 90% of the codebase was ANSI C and OpenGL.
So, OpenGL is still very good, but DX9 is much better than when you grew to hate it(you mentioned retained mode, which is gone as of dx8 I think), and Microsoft has ended up stealing-er, embracing- so many of the OpenGL concepts that learning one at least partially prepares you for the other.
Because what consumers really need another online music store. Of course, if it's anything like their poorly received video store, I don't think that Apple has a lot to worry about.
They already have a very good music search feature, why not just grow that service and use the same click-through ad model? It even has links to music download services, which makes it much easier to evaluate which music store has the music you want. It'd be nice if they could grow this service using the same click-through model for ad revenue that they've used in the past.
Why yet another music store? How many damn music services do I have to subscribe to? Imagine how people would react in the 80's & 90's if the CD's you bought from Tower Records could only be played on your Tower Records CD Player, and you needed a seperate Rockaway Records CD Player for other tracks. Yet for some reason we accept it in the online world.
...it's slashdotted already, DAMN!!!
I'm hoping that they have the ending for Final Fantasy II (US version which I think is actually III or IV in Japan). Back in high school I got so engrossed in that game that I skipped work/school for an entire week. Unfortunately, the threat of being fired, kicked out of the house, and repeating my senior year forced me to put it on hold plus it was a rental, and the late fee was becoming epic.
15 years later, I'm still dying to know how it ended, but I've never been able to bring myself to commit the 20+ hours to get back to the point I was.
If your customer/employer works with OfficeXP and later (or OpenOffice, for that matter) you can use the XMLSpreadsheet format. This format has 90% the functionality of the native xls format (no macros or graphs, but can do tabs, pivot tables, etc. This way you aren't tied down to a particular api or programming language. Plus you can use design your spreadsheet as a php/jsp page, or use xslt to transform from your xml data to the excel format.
Best of all, Microsoft has published very good documentation as well as the XML Schema (which comes in quite handy for text editors that use schemas for tag-completion. They are also much easier to "debug" because the file format is human readable (well... it's ugly but still better than looking at bif8 in a hex editor).