Seriously. I can't stand people who call having a big R&D budget wasteful. There are a lot of things I don't like about Microsoft, but spending money on Research and Development isn't one of them. I'd rather see them spending money there than just lining the pockets of investors.
It's a chicken and egg kind of thing. Manufacturers don't include software for their products that works in linux because linux represents a small enough portion of their target market that they feel they can ignore it. However, the growth of linux's share of desktop PC's is often stunted by lack of support for cutting edge hardware.
As long as linux users must develop their own software for stuff like the iPod, they'll alway be a step behind the Windows and Mac OS in that regard. Luckily, linux is far enough ahead in so many other ways (ie, freedom) that it's never going to give up its strangle hold on us nerds. That provides hope for the future, IMHO.
I'm in full agreement. If you're on a Windows machine, uTorrent is the way to go. My biggest complaint about Azureus (aside from the plans to go ad-supported) is the memory footprint associated with running it in the Java Runtime Environment. Maybe I just need to break down and upgrade my computer, but in the meantime, uTorrent is a small, effecient, fully featured bittorrent client. Good stuff.
"I'm gonna spend 4 to 8 years on a software engineering degree, and when I'm almost 30, I can have the Best Job in America!!!!!"
I'm a software engineer, and I've got a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Nobody's going to give you a job as a CEO if you don't have at least a bachelor's degree, right? Duh... You've got to go to college to get a good job.
Any code that can be compiled and tested on Solaris 10 can be run on the grid. However, to get the benefit of parallel execution (meaning running parts of a job on multiple processors at the same time), which is really the main benefit of running on a grid like this, you must either write multi-threaded code, or you must use the MPI library, which is pretty much the standard these days for scientific and parallel computing.
I think it's time for the industry to get creative. With the advent of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, you should be able go out and buy a "boxed set" of the complete recordings of The Beatles, complete with album art, videos, extras, and features, all on one disk. Throw in a nice little booklet, and you can bet that there's going to be a market for it, and it will be very cheap to produce.
I do think that physical media like CDs are on the way out, but I think there are plenty of people who will cling to it for years and years down the road.
"It's the *company's* information. Just as if you took out your file folders and TPS reports before you quit work and burned them, it's a violation of law."
OK, but there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. Otherwise, every time I wad up a sticky note that I wrote on at work and throw it away, I'm potentially committing a crime.
If he returned the laptop in working order, OS and software intact, and the computer was usable to the next person who got it after him, and nothing was deleted that will prevent his coworkers and successors from doing their jobs, then this is a frivolous lawsuit.
If, however, he damaged software and deleted files necessary to his or others' job functions, then the lawsuit is warranted.
The OOP tools you need to write good, maintainable applications (inheritance, polymorphism, etc...) were not there in version of VB before.net. That is why it was considered a toy language. It really is much better now.
That said, I still wouldn't recommend it as a first language. I think C++ is a really good learning language. Failing that, maybe go with C# or Java.
The way I look at it is like this, though. If you learn to drive on a stick shift, when you get the hang of it you'll be able to drive any stick shift vehicle in the world with a little practice. If you learn on an automatic, you'll have a more difficult time making that transition.
C# and Java (and VB.net) are like an automatic. You don't have to think about important things like memory allocation and stuff like that, and it's much too easy to rely on code generated by visual studio, which is not a good programming practice.
Yeah, without spending any time researching it, I'm going to guess that MIT probably doesn't offer an English major.
I'm working on my masters in CS right now. When I was an undergrad, you could ask anybody in the CS department what they wanted to do with their degree, and I'd estimate 75% of you would say they wanted to work in some kind of area related to gaming or graphics.
It's only natural that a field with that many people clamoring to get a job will pay somewhat less. It's supply and demand.
I can think of a couple reasons: It's easy to roll out upgrades, people don't have to worry as much about backups (the tape drive will take care of that), you don't have to maintain hundreds of separately installed office suites, etc...
I could see this being somewhat attractive to an administrator, but as a user it seems like a real pain in the ass.
If you are simply talking about Moore's Law in terms of processing power, there are other places to gain improvements rather than just compactness of chips. There is also parallel processing technology, which is still steadily improving.
Then, far off over the horizon, there's the possibility of quantum computing, which would make for a rediculously huge surge in processing power all at once.
That's fundamentally how Moore's Law works: as soon as the current paradigm starts to get maxed out, we simply shift to another paradigm.
"...referring to videogames as 'games' is inhibiting their adoption by mainstream society"
Is mainstream adoption something we really need to be pushing for? I don't get this. People are either interested, or they're not. If they are, they'll find their way to video games (or whatever you feel like calling them), and if they're not, don't worry about it.
I'm sure they find other ways to entertain themselves, and I doubt there's some hole in their lives that will only be filled by an "interactive entertainment console".
"they don't pay you for your blood in the uk, its called a donation"
Man, every time I forget how much better things are in the UK than they are in the US, somebody on Slashdot reminds me. Much appreciated.
FYI, it is illegal to pay money in the U.S. for blood that will be used in transfusions If you get paid for blood or plasma (or Platelets or RBCs or whatever), it is probably going to research.
What do you feel is more important to Wikipedia: Open-ness or accuracy? Do you feel that you have to make sacrifices in one to get the other? Has it been difficult to strike a balance?
If Java is an option, both Jbuilder and Netbeans have good drag-and-drop GUI tools available. Your app would also be easy to intall and cross-platform, and you don't have to give MS any money.
If that's no good, then Visual Studio is probably your best bet.
"Wouldn't that be like forcing a car company to produce crappy cars so 3rd party mechanics wouldn't go out of business?"
If you want to use a metaphor like that, I'd say it's more like forcing a car company to allow customers to choose their own mechanic rather than forcing the company's favorite mechanic upon them.
"This would also be really helpfull for wine and samba developers."
Totally. It'll also be helpful to developers of malware and exploits. MS had better be on top of their game getting patches out. (Like that will happen.)
I worked for a state agency. I did some web development for them, but ultimately I wasn't the guy calling the shots on the web site. They evaluated a bunch of CMS's when it came time for a redesign, but they ended up shelling out a ton of money for Microsoft's CMS because they were worried about support. I've long since moved on, but I'm still scratching my head about it.
It's the same reason commercial software will always have a place. Those of us with confidence in our skills are happy to try something free and cool and new and cutting (or bleeding)-edge, but managers just want to know that something's going to work, and if not, there's a number they can call.
"I (so far) have not seen any reason to suppose that the difference between 'thought' and 'computing' is any different."
I totally agree. Besides, saying that a computer is incapable of assigning semantics to sybols is incorrect, IMO.
I'll use a complier as an example. A programming language is full of both syntax and semantics, and a compiler must be able to deal with both in order to understand a line as an instruction rather than a bunch of characters. It is giving a very real and purposeful meaning to a bunch of letters in a text file.
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Seriously. I can't stand people who call having a big R&D budget wasteful. There are a lot of things I don't like about Microsoft, but spending money on Research and Development isn't one of them. I'd rather see them spending money there than just lining the pockets of investors.
It's a chicken and egg kind of thing. Manufacturers don't include software for their products that works in linux because linux represents a small enough portion of their target market that they feel they can ignore it. However, the growth of linux's share of desktop PC's is often stunted by lack of support for cutting edge hardware.
As long as linux users must develop their own software for stuff like the iPod, they'll alway be a step behind the Windows and Mac OS in that regard. Luckily, linux is far enough ahead in so many other ways (ie, freedom) that it's never going to give up its strangle hold on us nerds. That provides hope for the future, IMHO.
I'm in full agreement. If you're on a Windows machine, uTorrent is the way to go. My biggest complaint about Azureus (aside from the plans to go ad-supported) is the memory footprint associated with running it in the Java Runtime Environment. Maybe I just need to break down and upgrade my computer, but in the meantime, uTorrent is a small, effecient, fully featured bittorrent client. Good stuff.
As long as you're buying their hardware, Apple doesn't care what OS you're running.
Seriously, though, if you could give Jordy his sight back or give Data a soul, which would you do? Hooray for Friday night on Slashdot!!!!
Any code that can be compiled and tested on Solaris 10 can be run on the grid. However, to get the benefit of parallel execution (meaning running parts of a job on multiple processors at the same time), which is really the main benefit of running on a grid like this, you must either write multi-threaded code, or you must use the MPI library, which is pretty much the standard these days for scientific and parallel computing.
I think it's time for the industry to get creative. With the advent of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, you should be able go out and buy a "boxed set" of the complete recordings of The Beatles, complete with album art, videos, extras, and features, all on one disk. Throw in a nice little booklet, and you can bet that there's going to be a market for it, and it will be very cheap to produce.
I do think that physical media like CDs are on the way out, but I think there are plenty of people who will cling to it for years and years down the road.
If he returned the laptop in working order, OS and software intact, and the computer was usable to the next person who got it after him, and nothing was deleted that will prevent his coworkers and successors from doing their jobs, then this is a frivolous lawsuit.
If, however, he damaged software and deleted files necessary to his or others' job functions, then the lawsuit is warranted.
The OOP tools you need to write good, maintainable applications (inheritance, polymorphism, etc...) were not there in version of VB before .net. That is why it was considered a toy language. It really is much better now.
That said, I still wouldn't recommend it as a first language. I think C++ is a really good learning language. Failing that, maybe go with C# or Java.
The way I look at it is like this, though. If you learn to drive on a stick shift, when you get the hang of it you'll be able to drive any stick shift vehicle in the world with a little practice. If you learn on an automatic, you'll have a more difficult time making that transition.
C# and Java (and VB.net) are like an automatic. You don't have to think about important things like memory allocation and stuff like that, and it's much too easy to rely on code generated by visual studio, which is not a good programming practice.
I'm working on my masters in CS right now. When I was an undergrad, you could ask anybody in the CS department what they wanted to do with their degree, and I'd estimate 75% of you would say they wanted to work in some kind of area related to gaming or graphics.
It's only natural that a field with that many people clamoring to get a job will pay somewhat less. It's supply and demand.
I can think of a couple reasons:
It's easy to roll out upgrades, people don't have to worry as much about backups (the tape drive will take care of that), you don't have to maintain hundreds of separately installed office suites, etc...
I could see this being somewhat attractive to an administrator, but as a user it seems like a real pain in the ass.
If you are simply talking about Moore's Law in terms of processing power, there are other places to gain improvements rather than just compactness of chips. There is also parallel processing technology, which is still steadily improving.
Then, far off over the horizon, there's the possibility of quantum computing, which would make for a rediculously huge surge in processing power all at once.
That's fundamentally how Moore's Law works: as soon as the current paradigm starts to get maxed out, we simply shift to another paradigm.
Mark me off topic or troll if you like, but I have to say it...
You know it's Friday night in nerdtown when there are four back to back "Ask Slashdots".
I'm sure they find other ways to entertain themselves, and I doubt there's some hole in their lives that will only be filled by an "interactive entertainment console".
The whole conversation just seems silly to me.
FYI, it is illegal to pay money in the U.S. for blood that will be used in transfusions If you get paid for blood or plasma (or Platelets or RBCs or whatever), it is probably going to research.
What do you feel is more important to Wikipedia: Open-ness or accuracy? Do you feel that you have to make sacrifices in one to get the other? Has it been difficult to strike a balance?
Also, Macaroni and Cheese. Have you considered selling plasma?
If Java is an option, both Jbuilder and Netbeans have good drag-and-drop GUI tools available. Your app would also be easy to intall and cross-platform, and you don't have to give MS any money.
If that's no good, then Visual Studio is probably your best bet.
It sounds to me like they're trying to avoid antitrust cases from Symantec and other AV software venders.
Here's the thing:
I worked for a state agency. I did some web development for them, but ultimately I wasn't the guy calling the shots on the web site. They evaluated a bunch of CMS's when it came time for a redesign, but they ended up shelling out a ton of money for Microsoft's CMS because they were worried about support. I've long since moved on, but I'm still scratching my head about it.
It's the same reason commercial software will always have a place. Those of us with confidence in our skills are happy to try something free and cool and new and cutting (or bleeding)-edge, but managers just want to know that something's going to work, and if not, there's a number they can call.
I'll use a complier as an example. A programming language is full of both syntax and semantics, and a compiler must be able to deal with both in order to understand a line as an instruction rather than a bunch of characters. It is giving a very real and purposeful meaning to a bunch of letters in a text file.
Wow. You guys are hilarious. Hey, Wandering Hermit- something tells me you take yourself a little too seriously.