Maybe, but criticizing those same web devs for using what they had to work with only shows ones ignorance, which was my point and still is.
Unless CSS didn't exist by the time the last couple versions of Dreamweaver were written, the GGP didn't do that, only the fact that Dreamweaver still uses them. A perfectly fair criticism if you ask me.
You can make a website without CSS. I can't really put it any more plain than that. Before someone complains about plain HTML, they should learn how to use it properly.
I do, thank you very much. And using tables for layout most definitely does *not* qualify as "using it properly", so CSS it is.
Been there, done that, cried the same tears. I have never criticized it. I said, contrary to the GGP, it wasn't necessary to create a website, and you should learn HTML, first. So, go, re-read my comments, then come back and criticize them, if you can.
See above. Arguing that theoretically it isn't needed is a fool's errand, *nothing* is needed for any and all webpages, except perhaps a markup language of sorts which can but mustn't necessarily be HTML itself. Yet the best way to learn how to create a webpage *is* learning HTML+CSS first, because most of the other markup languages are at least inspired by HTML, and learning CSS alongside prevents the developer from being tempted to use ugly HTML hacks to get the design he wants.
People used tables because that's all that was there. There were no DIV or SPAN tags, and CSS was still a pipe dream in somebody's bong. It's hard to make the claim that something was wrong from the beginning when what was right didn't exist, but I guess you don't need any real education to make revisionist history.
Using something and considering it a good solution aren't necessarily related, specially when as you say it's the only solution that exists. In fact, I remember many web devs admitting that using tables for layout *was* an ugly hack and one they regretted having to use, despite not having CSS at the time.
CSS isn't really necessary for web design. People really need to learn to use HTML correctly, first and foremost, before starting with these flavor-of-the-hour technologies. Some of these things you mention have no place in web design. Business logic should never, ever be in a web page. A web page shouldn't give an unwashed rat's ass about what database or programming language, style or paradigm is being used on the backend. I'm sure that it doesn't even matter whether you use tabs or spaces in indenting code, unless you're using Piss-on (pronounced with a lisp):).
Cute insult at the end, but the rest of your post is so irrelevant to the topic at hand I can only understand it if you ignored that CSS is not, in fact, a programming language nor has anything to do with the backend. CSS deals with the presentation of a webpage, which I might add *also* has no business in the webpage per se, a problem CSS seeks to solve and one that pure, vanilla HTML has in spades.
So go, learn CSS, use it, then come back and criticise it if you can.
This is probably one of the best articles I've read in Slashdot in a while. Yes, game AI may be a couple steps below true AI, but it's certainly a step above the problem-solving your average software developer is used to, so it picked my interest.
Thing is, I'd like to learn more about this and perhaps try my hand at writing a basic AI for a game, but I have no clue on how or where to start. Anyone has any recommendations?
You can't make a list of rules then go "oh yeah, this would be cool too, but it's optional". and then get pissed when someone adheres to all of your rules but chooses not to do the optional one. If you don't want it optional, make it part of the license. They're not assholes for not doing more than is required of them.
What does legality have to do with being an asshole? seriously, doing a "yo mamma" joke is perfectly legal (free speech and such) but it's still an asshole thing to do, and advertising a product without mentioning the volunteers that wrote 90% of it is pretty much the same thing to many of us.
They are under no requirement, morally or legally, to provide a linux safari. The essence and full spirit of open source is for the source to be available so that if someone desires to port it to linux they can do so. That spirit has been satisfied.
Only for Webkit, not Safari itself which is what the GP is arguing about. And he's talking about morality, we all know they're legally allowed not to give a fuck. Still, even in that case I'd complain to Google instead, at least they've got a browser worth porting over. Asking for Safari on Linux is like demanding Emacs on the Wii: an excercise in pointless masochism.
But if I write a piece of software along with 3 other people, I don't own the copyrights to the whole program, only to the lines of code I actually wrote. Wouldn't the same apply to music?
Sucks to be you, but for us here in South America is completely the opposite case. For instance Warhammer 40K: DoW Soulstorm, which costs $60 retail but I got for $7.50 on Steam, or UT3 which is now $30 but was $60-70 last X-mas, when I bought the pack of all Unreal games on Steam for $20, and don't even *remind* me of how much I paid for my retail copy of Mass Effect. And it's not just Steam, Sins of a Solar Empire is $60 here too, double of what it costs on the developer's website.
Sometimes I bite the bullet and pay their insane prices because I'm a sucker for a shiny box and a good manual, but damn, Steam et al are the best things that have happened to me as a gamer since the invention of the CD-ROM.
Well, if I like a game chances are I'll want to replay it sometime later (with "sometime" being up to 15 years) so reselling means crap to me. Meanwhile, an advantage I *do* appreciate is not having my status as a license owner tied to a specific copy of the game and, therefore, being able to download the game I want wherever I want, with no hassles, no unnecessary bureocracy, just double click, accept and go.
And funny you mention the price differences, when I got the Unreal pack on Steam for $20 this past xmas, when only the retail copy of UT3 was (and to my knowledge still is) around $60-70 on my little corner of the world.
That statement's been debunked several times, if VALVe goes belly up the administrators that take over are incredibly unlikely to allow anyone to flip a switch that would destroy the value of the company's assets.
By actual lawyers? because I believe they're the only ones whose opinion is worth anything in that matter, since there are credible arguments for either side so without legal advice I wouldn't say either side has been "debunked".
Either way, I'm confident in the warez community to break the protection if Steam ever goes belly up, so I'm happy anyways.
I do, too, but I've gotta say that my old MS-DOS era floppies didn't fare as well, and I *still* like DooM thank you very much. And I'm sure my two copies of Unreal Tournament work very well wherever they are, but it still does me no good if I can't find them.
The anti-DRM lobby isn't as big as folks like to make it sound.
Read up Steam's user forums for any game that has included DRM on top of Steam's, you'll be surprised. Or GameFAQS, or any other gaming forum in existence. People *are* pissed off about DRM, and it's not just Slashdot-reading geeks.
On books it's not so much, of course, because even 100% of zero is still zero and besides a couple nerds back when the Kindle was first released, I haven't heard anyone say that they bought something for their Kindle, or any other DRM'ed eBook platform. For most readers it seems it's either dead-tree or DRM-free PDFs, far too much hassle to find DRM that'll play nice with your phone, PDA, notebook and desktop.
If you find something usable only after months of practice, that application is not usable for most values of the word usable.
I once heard a definition of "usable" I quite liked, though I can't remember where: "it makes the simple easy, and the complex possible". ViM and Emacs may require some initial training and a willingness to RTFM, but once learned they excel at the latter in ways that no other editor I've tried has done.
Just a question then: how do generics get made and sold? do they get a "free pass" from all that expensive regulation?
Plus I've always been told that the brand-name pharmaceutics are priced as such to pay for the billions being spent on research, and if a bunch of academics is willing to do that for free companies willing to make it shouldn't need Big Pharma pricing to get a nice profit, would they?
It's not a huge leap of faith to believe that what we see actually is real
Study some philosophy and you'll see it is:)
It is not just 'I believe in an afterlife', because when I start asking you questions about why you believe in an afterlife, and you have no observable evidence, you have to rely on doctrine.
While even that is arguable, the doctrine does not necessarily have to contain the elements you described. For instance, Plato's idea of an 'afterlife' had neither the first nor second, and the third is arguable. That's why your post sounds to me more like your personal rationalization for your hatred of Catholicism rather than a logical conclusion based on actual data.
I'm not sure that building societies is good either, but we have, and the ones based around religious dogma tend to have poor human rights records, limited personal freedoms and lower standards of living.
Are you saying that religious doctrine is logical? To use an example, the question, 'What happens when we die?'. To believe that when we die, our body systems shut down and we begin to decay does not require any leaps of faith. It is observable.
Except for the pretty fucking huge leap of faith that what we see is what actually is. Insert clever Matrix analogy here. It is, however, a fairly common assumption so I'll give you that. Now, the *other* assumption and one that is usually despised by us, critical thinkers, is that because we see the body die that's the only thing actually happening, without a logical reason to believe so.
To believe in an afterlife requires you to believe that a) the universe was created for us, b) the being responsible follows you through your life and is able to judge you when you die, c) your 'life force' is transported to a place that we can't see or detect, and so on.
Not really. To believe in an afterlife requires you only to believe in an afterlife, A) and B) have nothing to do with the concept and in fact there's plenty of belief systems that have an afterlife but lack both, and while they all, AFAIK, require C) I think it'd be perfectly doable to construct a belief system that has both an identifiable afterlife and yet fails your third criteria.
Is it at all sensible to build society around a system that may exist, even though there is not an inkling of proof, whatsoever?
Does it matter? I mean, plenty of us could argue whether building a society is sensible itself in the first place, anarchists do so all the time, and without valid reasons to build it we cannot even begin to see whether its goals are helped or hindered by the inclusion of a belief system into it.
If programmers spent less time figuring out the hardware, perhaps they could spend more time working on plot, playability, and flow. Or you can be Sony and make excuses after the fact.
Or you could let programmers worry about the programming and hire actual writers for the plot and, if the plot sucks, hire better writers, not call Bob from programming and tell him to start writing.
In the US maybe, but I don't think I've ever seen an iPod dock connector here in South America, whereas since both my digital camera and my scanner use standard USB connectors, I'd already have plenty of spares for the cellphone even before buying it.
Um, I use Linux, where would I buy digital music that plays on my system and has any value?
Magnatune.com, their collection of Classical music is huge and excellent, and as far as I'm concerned that's the only kind of music that has any value;) though their Rock section has some pretty nice gems, too.
Yes, but I believe the grandparent was merely trying to state that the one doing the actual *copying* (and therefore running afoul of copyright laws) is the uploader, not the downloader, and that so far the courts have seen it as such.
It does make sense, IMHO, though it'd add an interesting loophole to copyright law: namely, when you download something off someone living in a non-Berne country.
For you in the US, I presume. For me, living in Chile, South America, I've only met 3 Apple users face-to-face in my oh-so-many years of using computers, whereas for Linux the number is easily five to ten times that amount. And no, no LUGs or people I've personally introduced to it, just people at my university, my dad's coworkers and such.
Probably something to do with the fact that Apple doesn't spend millions in advertisement here, unlike the US.
Why would you stay and cling to an old OS for years and years and years. It kills productivity and the time spent fussing with it and waiting for it to churn out data outweighs the cost of upgrading to a better OS/system. At least, from a business point of view.
And yet, business users are the classical example of such a phenomena. Why? simple, because upgrading to an allegedly better OS/system *also* kills productivity, and since all software has bugs it's better to deal with familiar ones, than risk getting unknown ones that take months to track down with all the issues that follow such things.
Apple does not care and has never cared about the business and the server markets, Microsoft does so they can't just pump new, fully incompatible versions of their OS every five years.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe, but criticizing those same web devs for using what they had to work with only shows ones ignorance, which was my point and still is.
Unless CSS didn't exist by the time the last couple versions of Dreamweaver were written, the GGP didn't do that, only the fact that Dreamweaver still uses them. A perfectly fair criticism if you ask me.
You can make a website without CSS. I can't really put it any more plain than that. Before someone complains about plain HTML, they should learn how to use it properly.
I do, thank you very much. And using tables for layout most definitely does *not* qualify as "using it properly", so CSS it is.
Been there, done that, cried the same tears. I have never criticized it. I said, contrary to the GGP, it wasn't necessary to create a website, and you should learn HTML, first. So, go, re-read my comments, then come back and criticize them, if you can.
See above. Arguing that theoretically it isn't needed is a fool's errand, *nothing* is needed for any and all webpages, except perhaps a markup language of sorts which can but mustn't necessarily be HTML itself. Yet the best way to learn how to create a webpage *is* learning HTML+CSS first, because most of the other markup languages are at least inspired by HTML, and learning CSS alongside prevents the developer from being tempted to use ugly HTML hacks to get the design he wants.
People used tables because that's all that was there. There were no DIV or SPAN tags, and CSS was still a pipe dream in somebody's bong. It's hard to make the claim that something was wrong from the beginning when what was right didn't exist, but I guess you don't need any real education to make revisionist history.
Using something and considering it a good solution aren't necessarily related, specially when as you say it's the only solution that exists. In fact, I remember many web devs admitting that using tables for layout *was* an ugly hack and one they regretted having to use, despite not having CSS at the time.
CSS isn't really necessary for web design. People really need to learn to use HTML correctly, first and foremost, before starting with these flavor-of-the-hour technologies. Some of these things you mention have no place in web design. Business logic should never, ever be in a web page. A web page shouldn't give an unwashed rat's ass about what database or programming language, style or paradigm is being used on the backend. I'm sure that it doesn't even matter whether you use tabs or spaces in indenting code, unless you're using Piss-on (pronounced with a lisp) :).
Cute insult at the end, but the rest of your post is so irrelevant to the topic at hand I can only understand it if you ignored that CSS is not, in fact, a programming language nor has anything to do with the backend. CSS deals with the presentation of a webpage, which I might add *also* has no business in the webpage per se, a problem CSS seeks to solve and one that pure, vanilla HTML has in spades.
So go, learn CSS, use it, then come back and criticise it if you can.
Sure you can. That's the reason we still have the phrase "This website requires IE6 or above" floating around.
The problem is that so few of you realize that just because you can doesn't mean you should.
This is probably one of the best articles I've read in Slashdot in a while. Yes, game AI may be a couple steps below true AI, but it's certainly a step above the problem-solving your average software developer is used to, so it picked my interest.
Thing is, I'd like to learn more about this and perhaps try my hand at writing a basic AI for a game, but I have no clue on how or where to start. Anyone has any recommendations?
You can't make a list of rules then go "oh yeah, this would be cool too, but it's optional". and then get pissed when someone adheres to all of your rules but chooses not to do the optional one. If you don't want it optional, make it part of the license. They're not assholes for not doing more than is required of them.
What does legality have to do with being an asshole? seriously, doing a "yo mamma" joke is perfectly legal (free speech and such) but it's still an asshole thing to do, and advertising a product without mentioning the volunteers that wrote 90% of it is pretty much the same thing to many of us.
They are under no requirement, morally or legally, to provide a linux safari. The essence and full spirit of open source is for the source to be available so that if someone desires to port it to linux they can do so. That spirit has been satisfied.
Only for Webkit, not Safari itself which is what the GP is arguing about. And he's talking about morality, we all know they're legally allowed not to give a fuck. Still, even in that case I'd complain to Google instead, at least they've got a browser worth porting over. Asking for Safari on Linux is like demanding Emacs on the Wii: an excercise in pointless masochism.
But if I write a piece of software along with 3 other people, I don't own the copyrights to the whole program, only to the lines of code I actually wrote. Wouldn't the same apply to music?
Sucks to be you, but for us here in South America is completely the opposite case. For instance Warhammer 40K: DoW Soulstorm, which costs $60 retail but I got for $7.50 on Steam, or UT3 which is now $30 but was $60-70 last X-mas, when I bought the pack of all Unreal games on Steam for $20, and don't even *remind* me of how much I paid for my retail copy of Mass Effect. And it's not just Steam, Sins of a Solar Empire is $60 here too, double of what it costs on the developer's website.
Sometimes I bite the bullet and pay their insane prices because I'm a sucker for a shiny box and a good manual, but damn, Steam et al are the best things that have happened to me as a gamer since the invention of the CD-ROM.
Well, if I like a game chances are I'll want to replay it sometime later (with "sometime" being up to 15 years) so reselling means crap to me. Meanwhile, an advantage I *do* appreciate is not having my status as a license owner tied to a specific copy of the game and, therefore, being able to download the game I want wherever I want, with no hassles, no unnecessary bureocracy, just double click, accept and go.
And funny you mention the price differences, when I got the Unreal pack on Steam for $20 this past xmas, when only the retail copy of UT3 was (and to my knowledge still is) around $60-70 on my little corner of the world.
That statement's been debunked several times, if VALVe goes belly up the administrators that take over are incredibly unlikely to allow anyone to flip a switch that would destroy the value of the company's assets.
By actual lawyers? because I believe they're the only ones whose opinion is worth anything in that matter, since there are credible arguments for either side so without legal advice I wouldn't say either side has been "debunked".
Either way, I'm confident in the warez community to break the protection if Steam ever goes belly up, so I'm happy anyways.
I do, too, but I've gotta say that my old MS-DOS era floppies didn't fare as well, and I *still* like DooM thank you very much. And I'm sure my two copies of Unreal Tournament work very well wherever they are, but it still does me no good if I can't find them.
The anti-DRM lobby isn't as big as folks like to make it sound.
Read up Steam's user forums for any game that has included DRM on top of Steam's, you'll be surprised. Or GameFAQS, or any other gaming forum in existence. People *are* pissed off about DRM, and it's not just Slashdot-reading geeks.
On books it's not so much, of course, because even 100% of zero is still zero and besides a couple nerds back when the Kindle was first released, I haven't heard anyone say that they bought something for their Kindle, or any other DRM'ed eBook platform. For most readers it seems it's either dead-tree or DRM-free PDFs, far too much hassle to find DRM that'll play nice with your phone, PDA, notebook and desktop.
So, something like Autopackage only "borrowing" the name from Apple's marketing dept? No, thanks.
If you find something usable only after months of practice, that application is not usable for most values of the word usable.
I once heard a definition of "usable" I quite liked, though I can't remember where: "it makes the simple easy, and the complex possible". ViM and Emacs may require some initial training and a willingness to RTFM, but once learned they excel at the latter in ways that no other editor I've tried has done.
Just a question then: how do generics get made and sold? do they get a "free pass" from all that expensive regulation?
Plus I've always been told that the brand-name pharmaceutics are priced as such to pay for the billions being spent on research, and if a bunch of academics is willing to do that for free companies willing to make it shouldn't need Big Pharma pricing to get a nice profit, would they?
It's not a huge leap of faith to believe that what we see actually is real
Study some philosophy and you'll see it is :)
It is not just 'I believe in an afterlife', because when I start asking you questions about why you believe in an afterlife, and you have no observable evidence, you have to rely on doctrine.
While even that is arguable, the doctrine does not necessarily have to contain the elements you described. For instance, Plato's idea of an 'afterlife' had neither the first nor second, and the third is arguable. That's why your post sounds to me more like your personal rationalization for your hatred of Catholicism rather than a logical conclusion based on actual data.
I'm not sure that building societies is good either, but we have, and the ones based around religious dogma tend to have poor human rights records, limited personal freedoms and lower standards of living.
I'd like to see your actual, hard data for that.
Are you saying that religious doctrine is logical? To use an example, the question, 'What happens when we die?'. To believe that when we die, our body systems shut down and we begin to decay does not require any leaps of faith. It is observable.
Except for the pretty fucking huge leap of faith that what we see is what actually is. Insert clever Matrix analogy here. It is, however, a fairly common assumption so I'll give you that. Now, the *other* assumption and one that is usually despised by us, critical thinkers, is that because we see the body die that's the only thing actually happening, without a logical reason to believe so.
To believe in an afterlife requires you to believe that a) the universe was created for us, b) the being responsible follows you through your life and is able to judge you when you die, c) your 'life force' is transported to a place that we can't see or detect, and so on.
Not really. To believe in an afterlife requires you only to believe in an afterlife, A) and B) have nothing to do with the concept and in fact there's plenty of belief systems that have an afterlife but lack both, and while they all, AFAIK, require C) I think it'd be perfectly doable to construct a belief system that has both an identifiable afterlife and yet fails your third criteria.
Is it at all sensible to build society around a system that may exist, even though there is not an inkling of proof, whatsoever?
Does it matter? I mean, plenty of us could argue whether building a society is sensible itself in the first place, anarchists do so all the time, and without valid reasons to build it we cannot even begin to see whether its goals are helped or hindered by the inclusion of a belief system into it.
If programmers spent less time figuring out the hardware, perhaps they could spend more time working on plot, playability, and flow. Or you can be Sony and make excuses after the fact.
Or you could let programmers worry about the programming and hire actual writers for the plot and, if the plot sucks, hire better writers, not call Bob from programming and tell him to start writing.
In the US maybe, but I don't think I've ever seen an iPod dock connector here in South America, whereas since both my digital camera and my scanner use standard USB connectors, I'd already have plenty of spares for the cellphone even before buying it.
Apparently they were, otherwise they wouldn't be buying them now that the iPhone is there.
Um, I use Linux, where would I buy digital music that plays on my system and has any value?
Magnatune.com, their collection of Classical music is huge and excellent, and as far as I'm concerned that's the only kind of music that has any value ;) though their Rock section has some pretty nice gems, too.
Yes, but I believe the grandparent was merely trying to state that the one doing the actual *copying* (and therefore running afoul of copyright laws) is the uploader, not the downloader, and that so far the courts have seen it as such.
It does make sense, IMHO, though it'd add an interesting loophole to copyright law: namely, when you download something off someone living in a non-Berne country.
Dude, I think you have Aspergers because that must've been the single biggest WOOOSH! I've ever seen. Srsly.
Who do they think they are, anyway?
People who honestly believe they're helping catch "the bad guys" with their small "oversight of technicalities".
For you in the US, I presume. For me, living in Chile, South America, I've only met 3 Apple users face-to-face in my oh-so-many years of using computers, whereas for Linux the number is easily five to ten times that amount. And no, no LUGs or people I've personally introduced to it, just people at my university, my dad's coworkers and such.
Probably something to do with the fact that Apple doesn't spend millions in advertisement here, unlike the US.
Why would you stay and cling to an old OS for years and years and years. It kills productivity and the time spent fussing with it and waiting for it to churn out data outweighs the cost of upgrading to a better OS/system. At least, from a business point of view.
And yet, business users are the classical example of such a phenomena. Why? simple, because upgrading to an allegedly better OS/system *also* kills productivity, and since all software has bugs it's better to deal with familiar ones, than risk getting unknown ones that take months to track down with all the issues that follow such things.
Apple does not care and has never cared about the business and the server markets, Microsoft does so they can't just pump new, fully incompatible versions of their OS every five years.