Alot of the things you reference here are great points, and I agree that Java in and of itself is not the problem. Good programming practices are built over time. The more you program and the more real systems you are involved in, the more refined your skills become. School can only take you so far with programming. They can teach you all of the concepts in the world, but at the end of the day until you are involved in a job or some sort of meaningful team project, you don't really understand good programming practices.
I will say though, if you go through college and at the end of your degree you have only worked with Java, there are some serious problems with the university's program. You really need to work with many different languages to truly understand programming concepts.
Two problems that exist when debating with JT. The first is that gamers seem unable to control themselves when they talk to him. The best they can do is spout names and overreact to extreme degrees making the world of gaming seem that much more juvenile. The second is that debating with him does nothing. Fight to have more research done, decimating his arguments. If there is no link studies will prove this fact. Ultimately the science is what will matter in the end.
As they have said before, "Don't argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
I wish people would just ignore Jack Thompson. Arguing with him (poorly in most cases) only adds fuel to his fire. He wants publicity and the more people who argue with him give him the publicity he craves. Just let this man die out of the public eye and continue on your merry way. Start worrying about him when there is a possibility of anti-gaming legislation being passed.
OMFG it's like a bad dream. I read about it on Kotaku and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Starting bouncing around the net and land on revolution.nintendo.com and see it straight from the horses mouth. My God Nintendo what have you done? You took the most badass name and threw it in the garbage!!!!
I think the biggest problem with game movies is simply that they choose the wrong games to make movies out of. Games like Beyond Good and Evil, Perfect Dark, Second Sight, would make excellent movies as long as they followed the "general" plot points and did a little elaboration in between.
I thought Silent Hill did a pretty good job, and was a bit better than any other game movie to come out yet. Now if they could put the effort they put into Silent Hill into games with a more fleshed out plotline I think we could have some great game movies.
"Any game that is heavily reliant on the controller to make a majority of the mechanics function is doomed from the start - you're going to add 20-30$ to the cost of the game for the attachment alone."
Donkey Konga and Donkey Konga 2 both sold for $50 with the bongo controller. This price is still $10 less than a standard XBOX360 game. I don't know if you have ever seen the controller, but it is built pretty sturdy. So I highly doubt that we will be looking at a price bump because of controller attachments. I think Nintendo released Donkey Konga to feel out the market, and I also think it has shown them that even with including the bongos they can still turn a profit.
I really wish the RIAA would just give up already. Music theft has become far too widespread to ever be contained. If they just drop all these attacks on people and focus all this time and energy on making themselves for marketable they would be in a much better position with the public and they would definitely make up the money they lose to piracy. I flat out have stopped purchasing CDs because of this BS. I wish others would do the same and show them that the public they are attacking are the ones who pay their bills.
It seriously seems like everyday I come to/. Sony is digging themselves a bigger hole. But you know what, none of it will add up to them failing in the marketplace. The average consumer will never take the time to figure out just how much Sony is trying to screw them and they will all be suckered into buying blu-ray stuff just because of their PS3.
I hope the PS3 bombs and puts Sony out of the game. I am just waiting for them to really mess up (ie something that pisses off the average consumer).
I could definitely follow everything this guy had to say about reviewers and video games. I almost can't stand to read the review anymore because they are all cliche and focus far too much on useless things like graphics and sound and not enough on gameplay. I personally think the bigeest perpetrator is Gamespot. Nearly every review I read by them is complete and utter garbage. It is riddled with bias and focuses on everything but how much fun the game is to play. I really don't give a shit if the sprite animations aren't as clean looking as they should be. I want to know simple things when I read a game review, which are mainly, A) Is the game fun and, B) is it worth my X amount of dollars.
Double Fine Productions developed Psychonauts, and I'm sure any game Tim Schafer is behind will find a home at some publisher.
If I remember correctly, Tim Schafer got dumped by Microsoft and tried to find a home for Psychonauts and noone wanted to take a risk on it. Pyschonauts almost didn't see the light of day and Majesco came to the rescue.
Personally I worry that there aren't going to be smaller publishers looking to take a risk on games like this in the future and will all ultimately fall out of the market. It is frightening to think that EA and bigger publishers would sooner put out a crapass, cookie-cutter movie based game than something as amazing as Psychonauts.
The key to Nintendo's success rests solely on their shoulders. If Nintendo can hold the hands of all the developers and fans out there like they did with the DS they will almost definitely see success. If they don't have a plethora of games that people must have at release they will have a tough time gaining marketshare. Nintendo has to wow the world and truly bring in the "non-gamer" demographic.
Just as Nintendo did with the DS, they should push innovation from 3rd parties and try to have exclusive Revolution features that makes people want the Revolution to play the games rather than an XBOX 360 or a PS3. Nintendo has alot of work to do if they will take over the world again, but I definitely think it is possible.
I have no doubts that the Revolution will kick ass but I know plenty of people who do have doubts. Nintendo has to wow the hell out of these individuals if they expect to be #1 again.
I think the reason the DS is so popular is a simple one... It's fun to play with.*Gasps* There have been alot of fresh games come to the market that really showcase how bland gaming has become lately. It's these games that give the DS such appeal. Gamers want something new, even if they say they don't. I think the article points that out very well.
Not to mention that people who don't play video games want the DS because it looks like something manageable. It has a simple interface and looks like fun. Little kids are starting to want it because of games like Nintendogs, The Urbz, The Sims 2, Mario Kart, etc. For somebody like me, a hardcore gamer, there is just and endless supply of awesome games, that are portable to boot. There seems to be a little something for everyone in the DS whereas the PSP doesn't have that kind of appeal at all.
I agree whole-heartedly with the writer that we shouldn't count Nintendo out yet. They have a better head on their shoulders than some may think. The Revolution just may be the system everyone is looking for and personally I am curious to see where Nintendo takes this crazy world of gaming. All I have to say is, Nintendo, you have my vote, continue kicking ass.
It almost seems to me that a line like that was put in just to stir you people up. The point Taco is trying to make here is that accidentally using "to" instead of "too" isn't that big of a deal. I find it ridiculous that people get so worked up over that little "o" missing. I knew what he meant when I read it and that is all that matters. If you parse a sentence a certain way and it doesn't make sense you take the extra two seconds and read through it again as if the "to" was a "too."
I mean seriously, the guy posts a whole article on this kind of thing and you make a comment like that, to be honest blinder that was pretty dick. Complaining about the editors isn't going to get you anywhere.
But seriously if you want to have readable code you really need to have useful commenting, where you don't comment every line just the ones that are out of the norm or do somethign crazy. I find that using a naming scheme for variables works extremely well. For instance, if you have an object of any sort o_objectName, an integer i_intName, a String s_stringName, etc. It lets the reader know what the variable is for and what type it is when you are looking at it. I hate when people assign dumb names to variables, makes code a pain to read.
Well it seems like you must be a collector of sorts and I can't understand why you would love to remove all those classics from display. I myself am a collector and I must say I would never remove any of my old Nintendo systems from display. With the Xbox I guess I can see the frustration, because it is a bulky machine and the new controller and system are simply much nicer than the original. My only concern with this is about save games and such. All my saved games are on my Xbox hard drive as are most peoples. If there was no easy way to move them, there would be no way my Xbox would be dumped for just a 360.
As an RIT senior, CS major, I can say that an online degree in CS could truly work depending on your capabilities. Lets assume you came into the program with a couple of years of programmign experience, ultimately 75% of the classes could be done online just by either reading the lecture slides or a book and writing the necessary programs.
Around my sophomore year at RIT I lost complete interest in my classes and for the most part treated the course like an online one. I read the book and notes outside of class and wrote the programs on my home terminal and submitting using an ssh client. If you think about it there is no real difference, plus you can do the work when it suits you not when a particular course is scheduled. Not to mention given there is a prof and a grader you could ultimately have a pretty large class size and accomodate a larger number of students.
But this will only work for every student only some. But having the RIT name attached to the diploma would certainly make it worthwhile. Once the brick and mortar institutions have a good online system, a major like CS could easily be dumped on the net and handled remotely. It would probably cut alot of costs for the school and the students which would also be nice considering the ridiculous price of higher education.
Why does everyone trash the Virtual Boy? Have you ever actually played one? Most people talk shit about it and haven't even played it, or played it for a whole 2 minutes at a department store when they were 10. The Virtual Boy, though a failure money wise was not a piece of shit. There are a handful of very fun games that really show some innovation. It was a product where people expected virtual reality and were given something far less and as a result hated it. How many products come out on the market that are good products just not what you anticipated, and because of this you hate it?
Sorry but it is a rant I needed to have. I hate how everyone trash talks the Virtual Boy just because it's "cool" to trash it.
By the way, it's ROB not robby and as previously stated Nintendo did not make the power glove, even though it was a pretty damn cool idea and way before its time, too bad the technology wasnt there to support it.
Though I wouldn't mind picking up a PS3 I am probably going to hold out for at least a few years to get one. The pricing of these consoles is just ridiculous. Who has 400 bucks to drop on just a system? After that you have to buy at least a game and then what, controllers and memory cards if there is no hard drive. Not to mention games are now going to cost $60 new rather than $50. The price of gaming is getting out of hand. I wish everyone could've ran with this generation a couple of more years seeing how the best games are really just coming out now anyway. Now we will get a new generation of systems with poor games for at least a year and then maybe some decent stuff will come out. I think I'll be getting a Revolution where I can at least be assured 100% backwards compatibility, reasonably priced games(that don't suck) and a console that definitely won't be even $300.
"Gamecubes are virtually indestructible as are Sega Saturns and Dreamcasts...and those systems are all failures..."
Sorry to be off topic but I hate when people claim the Gamecube as a failure. Nintendo has profited MORE than Sony and Microsoft COMBINED with the Gamecube in this generation. Though it may have sold the least that DOES NOT make it a failure.
Personally, I couldn't care less about the drop in price of XBOX software, I can't wait for the drop in price of the hardware. I'll definitely be picking up a few XBOX's and modding them all and putting one in every room of my house. If I could pick up the cheap wireless cards that would be great too.
Perhaps I'm the only one but once I modded my XBOX, gaming on it almost became a non-point. I played all my games on the Cube and the PS2 and simply used my XBOX as a media player. It would be awesome to have a box like this in all my rooms hooked up to my network with access to all the stuff on my HDD. Not to mention all the other stuff people turned XBOX's into like server farms and such. If the system goes down to less than $50 I will be picking up quite a few of them.
Why is it that everyone has this dying urge for people to consider videogames art. Videogames are a form of entertainment and while there are plenty of games that spew style(Katamari) and have tons of artistic overtones(Zelda, esp. Wind Waker) that doesn't mean that it matters whether anyone else thinks it is or is not art. The type of people who appreciate something as an art are the most die hard types of people. The average person doesn't see a movie as an art, but ask Roger Ebert and I'm sure he'll have a different rap for you. The same exists in the Videogame Community, ask a seasoned gamer and they will be able to tell you what is full of artistic genious and what is just mundane garbage.
For right now and some years to come people will just have to accept gaming as a niche in the market for a group of enthusiasts, mainly the younger crowd. But I can assure you when our generation starts to have children (Which has already happened) you will see a wider acceptance of games. Even with games with hooker mutilation and stealing cars, the medium will be widely accepted enough to start considering it art.
And to be perfectly honest, I love video games, it is my number one hobby and form of entertainment, and I couldn't care less whether the general public sees the beauty of video games. Accept the fact that even though you may love your games doesn't mean the whole damn world needs to appreciate it as art for you to keep loving it.
Slashdot Mirror
Alot of the things you reference here are great points, and I agree that Java in and of itself is not the problem. Good programming practices are built over time. The more you program and the more real systems you are involved in, the more refined your skills become. School can only take you so far with programming. They can teach you all of the concepts in the world, but at the end of the day until you are involved in a job or some sort of meaningful team project, you don't really understand good programming practices.
I will say though, if you go through college and at the end of your degree you have only worked with Java, there are some serious problems with the university's program. You really need to work with many different languages to truly understand programming concepts.
Illusions hitmark, illusions. Tricks are what whores do for money.
Smell being the keyword here.
Two problems that exist when debating with JT. The first is that gamers seem unable to control themselves when they talk to him. The best they can do is spout names and overreact to extreme degrees making the world of gaming seem that much more juvenile. The second is that debating with him does nothing. Fight to have more research done, decimating his arguments. If there is no link studies will prove this fact. Ultimately the science is what will matter in the end. As they have said before, "Don't argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
I wish people would just ignore Jack Thompson. Arguing with him (poorly in most cases) only adds fuel to his fire. He wants publicity and the more people who argue with him give him the publicity he craves. Just let this man die out of the public eye and continue on your merry way. Start worrying about him when there is a possibility of anti-gaming legislation being passed.
... And we all know everyone loves getting the V.
OMFG it's like a bad dream. I read about it on Kotaku and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Starting bouncing around the net and land on revolution.nintendo.com and see it straight from the horses mouth. My God Nintendo what have you done? You took the most badass name and threw it in the garbage!!!!
I'M SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW I COULD KILL SOMEBODY
I think the biggest problem with game movies is simply that they choose the wrong games to make movies out of. Games like Beyond Good and Evil, Perfect Dark, Second Sight, would make excellent movies as long as they followed the "general" plot points and did a little elaboration in between.
I thought Silent Hill did a pretty good job, and was a bit better than any other game movie to come out yet. Now if they could put the effort they put into Silent Hill into games with a more fleshed out plotline I think we could have some great game movies.
I will only reply to this:
"Any game that is heavily reliant on the controller to make a majority of the mechanics function is doomed from the start - you're going to add 20-30$ to the cost of the game for the attachment alone."
Donkey Konga and Donkey Konga 2 both sold for $50 with the bongo controller. This price is still $10 less than a standard XBOX360 game. I don't know if you have ever seen the controller, but it is built pretty sturdy. So I highly doubt that we will be looking at a price bump because of controller attachments. I think Nintendo released Donkey Konga to feel out the market, and I also think it has shown them that even with including the bongos they can still turn a profit.
I really wish the RIAA would just give up already. Music theft has become far too widespread to ever be contained. If they just drop all these attacks on people and focus all this time and energy on making themselves for marketable they would be in a much better position with the public and they would definitely make up the money they lose to piracy.
I flat out have stopped purchasing CDs because of this BS. I wish others would do the same and show them that the public they are attacking are the ones who pay their bills.
It seriously seems like everyday I come to /. Sony is digging themselves a bigger hole. But you know what, none of it will add up to them failing in the marketplace. The average consumer will never take the time to figure out just how much Sony is trying to screw them and they will all be suckered into buying blu-ray stuff just because of their PS3.
I hope the PS3 bombs and puts Sony out of the game. I am just waiting for them to really mess up (ie something that pisses off the average consumer).
Claptrap? See you spelled it all wrong, it's "klaptrap" with a 'K'. What kind of Nintendo fanboy are you?....
Oh wait, wrong klaptrap... **Goes back to playing Donkey Kong Country**
I could definitely follow everything this guy had to say about reviewers and video games. I almost can't stand to read the review anymore because they are all cliche and focus far too much on useless things like graphics and sound and not enough on gameplay. I personally think the bigeest perpetrator is Gamespot. Nearly every review I read by them is complete and utter garbage. It is riddled with bias and focuses on everything but how much fun the game is to play. I really don't give a shit if the sprite animations aren't as clean looking as they should be. I want to know simple things when I read a game review, which are mainly, A) Is the game fun and, B) is it worth my X amount of dollars.
Double Fine Productions developed Psychonauts, and I'm sure any game Tim Schafer is behind will find a home at some publisher.
If I remember correctly, Tim Schafer got dumped by Microsoft and tried to find a home for Psychonauts and noone wanted to take a risk on it. Pyschonauts almost didn't see the light of day and Majesco came to the rescue.
Personally I worry that there aren't going to be smaller publishers looking to take a risk on games like this in the future and will all ultimately fall out of the market. It is frightening to think that EA and bigger publishers would sooner put out a crapass, cookie-cutter movie based game than something as amazing as Psychonauts.
The key to Nintendo's success rests solely on their shoulders. If Nintendo can hold the hands of all the developers and fans out there like they did with the DS they will almost definitely see success. If they don't have a plethora of games that people must have at release they will have a tough time gaining marketshare. Nintendo has to wow the world and truly bring in the "non-gamer" demographic.
Just as Nintendo did with the DS, they should push innovation from 3rd parties and try to have exclusive Revolution features that makes people want the Revolution to play the games rather than an XBOX 360 or a PS3. Nintendo has alot of work to do if they will take over the world again, but I definitely think it is possible.
I have no doubts that the Revolution will kick ass but I know plenty of people who do have doubts. Nintendo has to wow the hell out of these individuals if they expect to be #1 again.
I think the reason the DS is so popular is a simple one... It's fun to play with.*Gasps* There have been alot of fresh games come to the market that really showcase how bland gaming has become lately. It's these games that give the DS such appeal. Gamers want something new, even if they say they don't. I think the article points that out very well.
Not to mention that people who don't play video games want the DS because it looks like something manageable. It has a simple interface and looks like fun. Little kids are starting to want it because of games like Nintendogs, The Urbz, The Sims 2, Mario Kart, etc. For somebody like me, a hardcore gamer, there is just and endless supply of awesome games, that are portable to boot. There seems to be a little something for everyone in the DS whereas the PSP doesn't have that kind of appeal at all.
I agree whole-heartedly with the writer that we shouldn't count Nintendo out yet. They have a better head on their shoulders than some may think. The Revolution just may be the system everyone is looking for and personally I am curious to see where Nintendo takes this crazy world of gaming. All I have to say is, Nintendo, you have my vote, continue kicking ass.
It almost seems to me that a line like that was put in just to stir you people up. The point Taco is trying to make here is that accidentally using "to" instead of "too" isn't that big of a deal. I find it ridiculous that people get so worked up over that little "o" missing. I knew what he meant when I read it and that is all that matters. If you parse a sentence a certain way and it doesn't make sense you take the extra two seconds and read through it again as if the "to" was a "too."
I mean seriously, the guy posts a whole article on this kind of thing and you make a comment like that, to be honest blinder that was pretty dick. Complaining about the editors isn't going to get you anywhere.
it definitely works!
But seriously if you want to have readable code you really need to have useful commenting, where you don't comment every line just the ones that are out of the norm or do somethign crazy. I find that using a naming scheme for variables works extremely well. For instance, if you have an object of any sort o_objectName, an integer i_intName, a String s_stringName, etc. It lets the reader know what the variable is for and what type it is when you are looking at it. I hate when people assign dumb names to variables, makes code a pain to read.
Well it seems like you must be a collector of sorts and I can't understand why you would love to remove all those classics from display. I myself am a collector and I must say I would never remove any of my old Nintendo systems from display. With the Xbox I guess I can see the frustration, because it is a bulky machine and the new controller and system are simply much nicer than the original. My only concern with this is about save games and such. All my saved games are on my Xbox hard drive as are most peoples. If there was no easy way to move them, there would be no way my Xbox would be dumped for just a 360.
As an RIT senior, CS major, I can say that an online degree in CS could truly work depending on your capabilities. Lets assume you came into the program with a couple of years of programmign experience, ultimately 75% of the classes could be done online just by either reading the lecture slides or a book and writing the necessary programs.
Around my sophomore year at RIT I lost complete interest in my classes and for the most part treated the course like an online one. I read the book and notes outside of class and wrote the programs on my home terminal and submitting using an ssh client. If you think about it there is no real difference, plus you can do the work when it suits you not when a particular course is scheduled. Not to mention given there is a prof and a grader you could ultimately have a pretty large class size and accomodate a larger number of students.
But this will only work for every student only some. But having the RIT name attached to the diploma would certainly make it worthwhile. Once the brick and mortar institutions have a good online system, a major like CS could easily be dumped on the net and handled remotely. It would probably cut alot of costs for the school and the students which would also be nice considering the ridiculous price of higher education.
Why does everyone trash the Virtual Boy? Have you ever actually played one? Most people talk shit about it and haven't even played it, or played it for a whole 2 minutes at a department store when they were 10. The Virtual Boy, though a failure money wise was not a piece of shit. There are a handful of very fun games that really show some innovation. It was a product where people expected virtual reality and were given something far less and as a result hated it. How many products come out on the market that are good products just not what you anticipated, and because of this you hate it?
Sorry but it is a rant I needed to have. I hate how everyone trash talks the Virtual Boy just because it's "cool" to trash it.
By the way, it's ROB not robby and as previously stated Nintendo did not make the power glove, even though it was a pretty damn cool idea and way before its time, too bad the technology wasnt there to support it.
Though I wouldn't mind picking up a PS3 I am probably going to hold out for at least a few years to get one. The pricing of these consoles is just ridiculous. Who has 400 bucks to drop on just a system? After that you have to buy at least a game and then what, controllers and memory cards if there is no hard drive. Not to mention games are now going to cost $60 new rather than $50. The price of gaming is getting out of hand. I wish everyone could've ran with this generation a couple of more years seeing how the best games are really just coming out now anyway. Now we will get a new generation of systems with poor games for at least a year and then maybe some decent stuff will come out. I think I'll be getting a Revolution where I can at least be assured 100% backwards compatibility, reasonably priced games(that don't suck) and a console that definitely won't be even $300.
"Gamecubes are virtually indestructible as are Sega Saturns and Dreamcasts...and those systems are all failures..."
Sorry to be off topic but I hate when people claim the Gamecube as a failure. Nintendo has profited MORE than Sony and Microsoft COMBINED with the Gamecube in this generation. Though it may have sold the least that DOES NOT make it a failure.
Personally, I couldn't care less about the drop in price of XBOX software, I can't wait for the drop in price of the hardware. I'll definitely be picking up a few XBOX's and modding them all and putting one in every room of my house. If I could pick up the cheap wireless cards that would be great too.
Perhaps I'm the only one but once I modded my XBOX, gaming on it almost became a non-point. I played all my games on the Cube and the PS2 and simply used my XBOX as a media player. It would be awesome to have a box like this in all my rooms hooked up to my network with access to all the stuff on my HDD. Not to mention all the other stuff people turned XBOX's into like server farms and such. If the system goes down to less than $50 I will be picking up quite a few of them.
Why is it that everyone has this dying urge for people to consider videogames art. Videogames are a form of entertainment and while there are plenty of games that spew style(Katamari) and have tons of artistic overtones(Zelda, esp. Wind Waker) that doesn't mean that it matters whether anyone else thinks it is or is not art. The type of people who appreciate something as an art are the most die hard types of people. The average person doesn't see a movie as an art, but ask Roger Ebert and I'm sure he'll have a different rap for you. The same exists in the Videogame Community, ask a seasoned gamer and they will be able to tell you what is full of artistic genious and what is just mundane garbage.
For right now and some years to come people will just have to accept gaming as a niche in the market for a group of enthusiasts, mainly the younger crowd. But I can assure you when our generation starts to have children (Which has already happened) you will see a wider acceptance of games. Even with games with hooker mutilation and stealing cars, the medium will be widely accepted enough to start considering it art.
And to be perfectly honest, I love video games, it is my number one hobby and form of entertainment, and I couldn't care less whether the general public sees the beauty of video games. Accept the fact that even though you may love your games doesn't mean the whole damn world needs to appreciate it as art for you to keep loving it.