I've tried pretty much all the windows/mac clients:
AIM: bloated, lots of ads, poor UI
MSN: bloated, lots of ads
Trillian: poor UI, and you have pay for Jabber/Google Talk access
Gaim: poor UI (try resizing on windows...)
Miranda: poor UI, crashes constantly
IM2: Good UI, but crashed within seconds of connecting each time
Adium: awesome. Crashes occasionally for me, but awesome
iChat: good client. Only supports AIM/Google Talk/Jabber, but still a good client
AIM with DeadAim: still a bit bloated, but adds in the features I needed on windows (IM logging, tabbed messaging, ad-free). Good IM client overall.
The fact is that the windows IM clients suck - the UI is especially poor in the multiprotocol ones. I've tried all the windows ones, and went back to AIM with DeadAim and the straight msn messenger client.
Look at this situation without bias: do you really expect Google to assign developers to Linux? You assigned more or less then same number of engineers as you'd need for Windows, for a fraction of the potential users? It's just not worth it.
Google has shown itself to support open source and to support Linux, but it just doesn't make sense to invest time in desktop applications for Linux right now.
What I intended to illustrate was the steps it took to create an app, put a button on a form and make pressing the button execute some piece of code. That is, after all, the building blocks of desktop applications: controls which respond to events by executing chunks of code. I probably should have left the specifics of which action it is out of the equation, as every development environment has specifics actions which can be performed with less code than another dev environment
That being said, I think Xcode has its advantage. It has some features that are very nice when building large apps (like the search tool for locating a file). It also tends to produce more attractive UIs (that's a combination of the design of OS X and the fact that Xcode enforces the OS X design guidelines).
Nonetheless, I've found Xcode (with Cocoa / Obj-C) more painful to work with than Visual Studio (with.NET). There are pros and cons of each, however.
Hmm, so much for that whole "bloated executable thing." Looks like.NET is, at worse, the same as Cocoa as far as executable size. At best, much smaller.
And it wasn't a contracting gig - I was an Apple employee.
I done professional development with Objective-C/Cocoa,.NET, and C++/MFC, and.NET is by far the fastest and easiest to work with. Cocoa's ok - far better than C++/MFC when it comes to building apps with a GUI -.NET is still more powerful. Furthermore, Xcode just kinda sucks. It's not stable and very buggy, especially when it comes debugging. Visual Studio is bloated, I can't deny that, but it does an excellent job.
Compare, for example, the amount of steps it takes to build a simple app with button on the center that'll close when run it.
In.NET, it's something like this:
1. Drag button on to form
2. Double click button to create the Close method
3. Type "this.Close()" in the form
In Cocoa, it's more like this:
1. Open up MainMenu.nib in interface builder
2. Drag a button on to the form
3. Subclass Object to create a controller class
4. Ctrl-drag from Controller icon to the class
5. Add an action to the controller class's header file
6. Ctrl-drag from button to the action
7. Save everything
8. Open up the.m file
9. Type the close code into the.m file
(I may have even missed a few steps in there. And yes, you have to do all this dragging in Cocoa - you can't write that stuff by hand)
Now, which one is more complicated?
The speed it takes to do the GUI stuff very much matters when you're writing a desktop application. In C++/MFC you have to spend a lot of time on the GUI stuff, instead of on the core code. That's somewhat true about Cocoa, although not quite as extreme.
You totally botched that.
It's supposed to be: "Procrastination is like masturbation: It feels good at first, but in the end, you're just fucking yourself."
You sure about that? Parts of Asia (China, I believe) have 50% women.
20 years ago, when law school was dominated by men, could you have said "men are more interested in law - look at the percentages in law school!" Why do you make the same argument about computer science?
http://www.glaak.com/Default.aspx?b=1dfdb56c-f693- 481f-9b64-59487b18e198Here's a blog from a woman in computer science who talks about her experiences.
But people need encouragement. If someone is never pushed towards the sciences, they will likely never even consider it. And that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be great at it.
I'm a woman in computer science and while I don't really mind the stereotypes, they are very real. When I tell people that I'm a software engineer, they're literally shocked. If I tell them that I work for Microsoft (I don't work there now, but I used to), they assume that I'm in a less technical position (recruiting, marketing, etc).
Now, if people make the assumption when they meet me that I couldn't possibly be technical, do you think all stereotypes are dropped as soon as I say that I'm a software engineer? I don't think so.
In fact, at a previous internship, my mananager's manager tried to prevent me from being hired for a full-time position by lying on my reviews - despite having a ZERO interaction with me, and despite my direct manager fighting him on it. I didn't want to believe it at the time, but I've had a number of people confirm that this guy was known to be sexist.
Now, tell me: if you have a bunch of people discouraging you or belittling you - sometimes even discriminating against you - and very few people encouraging you (and those who do encourage you because you're female and not because you're smart), you think that wouldn't decrease your ambition? Consider, additionally, that women are generally less confident and less aggressive than me.
Oh, and incidentally, parts of Asia (China, I believe) have a 50/50 ratio. And, as far as "thinking for themselves," recall that law school used to be male dominated and now it's female dominated. Back when it was male dominated, someone could have also said that "women just don't like law," but that's apparently not the case.
Stereotypes and discrimination are very real and they do discourage women.
Well, I love it. And I don't see any ads.
But, if you really don't like it, you can:
1) Customize what feeds you get
2) Disable it (go to settings)
Re:Xcode and half-measures (Possibly OT)
on
Build a Program Now
·
· Score: 1
You prefer vi and gcc, yet Xcode is your preferred graphical dev environment?
Xcode is overkill as far as drag-and-drop UI builders. Xcode uses this complicated processes of creating "outlets" (essentially controls) and "actions" (method handlers) in your header files which you then load into Interface Builder (a completely seperate app) and ctrl-drag from each button/textfield/etc to the outlet and from the control to the appropriate action. The direction in which you drag is even important. This all gets serialized into a.nib file. You have essentially no choice but to use Interface Builder - you can't really even do minor tweaks to the.nib file yourself.
So how does someone who like vi and gcc prefer building UI in an environment where you are required to use a GUI interface builder for each and every change?
I've done profession GUI development with Visual Studio (MFC and.NET) and Xcode. Here's how I'd rank them:
1. Visual Studio with.NET [easier and faster to build UI, better debugging, stable]
2. Xcode [has some nice UI environment elements, but being forced to do everything with drag and drop can be frustrating and tedious]
3. Visual Studio with MFC [stable environment, but very tedious]
Beta means under construction, right? It means "here, play with what we have right now, but we're going to come out with a bunch of changes real fast."
For software that you purchase in a box, there's a clear line between beta and non-beta software. The software that you purchase in a box in a store has a version number tied with it. You know that you are using v 7.0 or whatever. It had a definite ship date and list of features. You can't magically start using a new version.
For web apps, it's a blurry line. Web apps can push out new builds several times a week, and many companies do, in fact, push out changes weekly - and roll them back when things go very wrong.
So you think Google News, which has been out for several years, shouldn't be called beta? Why, because it's been out for several years? That doesn't mean anything. As we speak, Google is writing code and putting it into Google News. It's not like you're using the same version of Google News that you were using when it first came out. Every time they push a new feature - which could well be several times a month - it's in beta all over again.
Frankly, all web apps that aren't released in "versions" should be called beta. Google's just more honest about it.
"beta" and "running ads" have nothing to do with each other. It can be in beta and run ads (aka, gmail) or not be in beta and not have ads.
Google News is in beta for some other reason.
If you already have enough of a manufacturing plant to build items, then its not going to break your back to try out a new design.
That's not true at all. What if your invention is a medical device? That takes years and years to develop and get approved. It's incredibly risky because you may not be able to do it at all and it may never be approved by the FDA. The upside - the thing that makes it worth it to even try - is that if you *are* able to do it, you have a patent on the technology and that gives you an advantage in the marketplace. If those patents don't exist, the potential benefits wouldn't outweigh the risks.
While I kind of agree with you, it's also not always that simple. Generally, the only reason to fear someone over hearing your conversations is embarrassment over what you're talking about, but not always. For example, a CEO talking about a potential merger, someone giving credit card info over the phone (yes, you're not supposed to do that, but there isn't always a better way), and many other cases you can think of.
Worse yet - what if someone can write an app to specifically scan for things like credit card numbers?
For what, exactly?
Gmail doesn't provide your mail to any third parties - no, not even the context-dependent ad do that. Sure, there's a database of your emails somewhere... but every single email service has a database of your email. How is gmail a threat to your privacy?
C'mon, it takes a lot of money to look good and to develop the style to know when you look good. People in tech support don't get paid enough money to look good.
IT doesn't just mean tech support - it can also extend to in-house development. In that case, they don't make that little money. In fact, either way IT workers aren't poor. I'm sure they make more than receptionists at any company.
It would have much more to do with: 1) it's a mostly male job, and men tend to be less focused on their looks 2) nerds are attracted to IT jobs, and are less social, and therefore less focused on their looks.
I disagree. Just because something can be copied easily doesn't mean that the invention process was trivial.
Let's look at this mathematically:
Currently:
Expected profits = (odds of success) * (sales of Foo if successful) - costs to develop Foo
Without protections, if you invent Foo:
Expected profits = (odds of success) * ( [sales of Foo is successful ] / [companies copy & producing Foo]) - costs to develop Foo
Without protections, if you don't invent Foo:
Expected profits = (odds of success) * ( [sales of Foo is successful ] / [companies copy & producing Foo])
Clearly, without protections, you're better off NOT inventing Foo and just copying another company when they do. After all, why pay the development costs yourself if you can just cheat? And thus, no one invents stuff.
The difference between an actual invention of Foo and your store is that another store can't just lower their costs by copying you. But, in fact, if your store were a restaurant and someone stole your recipes, then yes, you would be protected.
Yes, that's right, the little green men at Google are reading every email you sent. I hear they have a "Favorite Emails from Duncan" wall with print outs from messages.
A couple problems with what you said:
"I have unlimited storage:" 2.6 GB really is a lot. But, if you need more storage, you can always have your email download to your machine.
"I can remote in from anywhere on earth:" Yeah, because remoting in from a friend's machine is just as easy as firing up a web browser.
"I have backups:" Somehow, I think Google's backup system is a bit more reliable than yours.
"and best of all GOOGLE ISN'T WATCHING:" If you use hotmail, yahoo or any other company to host your email, it's still being held on servers... not a significant difference there. But who cares? Do you really think people are sitting their going through your email?
And finally: using thunderbird / OS X Mail.app is NOT mutually exclusive with using gmail. If you want to use a real email client with gmail, there's nothing stopping you. Gmail will still provide a fast, efficient web interface for when it's more convenient.
Sounds good (maybe) if the other country is England or France. Not so good if it's a third world country.
Also: Even in the US the laws about spam aren't clear cut. Spamming isn't illegal everywhere.
But what does this have to do with Google? It's not like Google takes the pictures itself.
Map imagery is public data. If they don't want pictures of certain buildings made public, then whoever Google gets the photos from needs to do that, not Google. msn virtualearth also provides satellite images and makes them easily accessible. Both, however, blur images of the whitehouse because that's how the images came.
This is not the responsibility of Google, Microsoft or any other company which provides an interface to the images. It's the responsibility of the organization providing the data in the first place.
"Closed" isn't just about what client can sign on - it's also about what *services* you can send a message to. For example, if you only use msn messenger, and I only use AOL, we can't have a conversation.
Yes, there are multiprotocol IM clients, but let's face it: Trillian sucks... and that's the best windows multiprotocol IM client. Plus, the free version doesn't support jabber.
Furthermore, the average user doesn't know enough to download a multiprotocol client, so they just use the default one. That means that many, many, many only use the official AIM client or the official msn client - and they can't talk to each other.
What we need is openness in terms of the protocols themselves.
So was email back in the early 1990's. It was in the same position as IM, where people had multiple email accounts so that they could email "anyone". Back then, you could only email people on compuserver with a compuserve address - same with other services. Same thing as IM is now.
Then, business got fed up with it and start adopting SMTP and that's how we got interoperability with email.
Problem is... SMTP was adopted before the spam issue had been resolved (or perhaps spam never even occured to people as an issue). And, that's why we have spam.
That's also why Google hasn't started federating with other jabber servers. We don't want spam on IM like we have on email. We need a good spec for how to properly authenticate and prevent spam before Google can open up server2server.
Slashdot Mirror
I've tried pretty much all the windows/mac clients: AIM: bloated, lots of ads, poor UI MSN: bloated, lots of ads Trillian: poor UI, and you have pay for Jabber/Google Talk access Gaim: poor UI (try resizing on windows...) Miranda: poor UI, crashes constantly IM2: Good UI, but crashed within seconds of connecting each time Adium: awesome. Crashes occasionally for me, but awesome iChat: good client. Only supports AIM/Google Talk/Jabber, but still a good client AIM with DeadAim: still a bit bloated, but adds in the features I needed on windows (IM logging, tabbed messaging, ad-free). Good IM client overall. The fact is that the windows IM clients suck - the UI is especially poor in the multiprotocol ones. I've tried all the windows ones, and went back to AIM with DeadAim and the straight msn messenger client.
Look at this situation without bias: do you really expect Google to assign developers to Linux? You assigned more or less then same number of engineers as you'd need for Windows, for a fraction of the potential users? It's just not worth it. Google has shown itself to support open source and to support Linux, but it just doesn't make sense to invest time in desktop applications for Linux right now.
What I intended to illustrate was the steps it took to create an app, put a button on a form and make pressing the button execute some piece of code. That is, after all, the building blocks of desktop applications: controls which respond to events by executing chunks of code. I probably should have left the specifics of which action it is out of the equation, as every development environment has specifics actions which can be performed with less code than another dev environment That being said, I think Xcode has its advantage. It has some features that are very nice when building large apps (like the search tool for locating a file). It also tends to produce more attractive UIs (that's a combination of the design of OS X and the fact that Xcode enforces the OS X design guidelines). Nonetheless, I've found Xcode (with Cocoa / Obj-C) more painful to work with than Visual Studio (with .NET). There are pros and cons of each, however.
Hmm, so much for that whole "bloated executable thing." Looks like .NET is, at worse, the same as Cocoa as far as executable size. At best, much smaller.
And it wasn't a contracting gig - I was an Apple employee.
I done professional development with Objective-C/Cocoa, .NET, and C++/MFC, and .NET is by far the fastest and easiest to work with. Cocoa's ok - far better than C++/MFC when it comes to building apps with a GUI - .NET is still more powerful. Furthermore, Xcode just kinda sucks. It's not stable and very buggy, especially when it comes debugging. Visual Studio is bloated, I can't deny that, but it does an excellent job.
Compare, for example, the amount of steps it takes to build a simple app with button on the center that'll close when run it.
In .NET, it's something like this:
1. Drag button on to form
2. Double click button to create the Close method
3. Type "this.Close()" in the form
In Cocoa, it's more like this:
1. Open up MainMenu.nib in interface builder
2. Drag a button on to the form
3. Subclass Object to create a controller class
4. Ctrl-drag from Controller icon to the class
5. Add an action to the controller class's header file
6. Ctrl-drag from button to the action
7. Save everything
8. Open up the .m file
9. Type the close code into the .m file
(I may have even missed a few steps in there. And yes, you have to do all this dragging in Cocoa - you can't write that stuff by hand)
Now, which one is more complicated?
The speed it takes to do the GUI stuff very much matters when you're writing a desktop application. In C++/MFC you have to spend a lot of time on the GUI stuff, instead of on the core code. That's somewhat true about Cocoa, although not quite as extreme.
You totally botched that. It's supposed to be: "Procrastination is like masturbation: It feels good at first, but in the end, you're just fucking yourself."
You sure about that? Parts of Asia (China, I believe) have 50% women. 20 years ago, when law school was dominated by men, could you have said "men are more interested in law - look at the percentages in law school!" Why do you make the same argument about computer science? http://www.glaak.com/Default.aspx?b=1dfdb56c-f693- 481f-9b64-59487b18e198Here's a blog from a woman in computer science who talks about her experiences.
But people need encouragement. If someone is never pushed towards the sciences, they will likely never even consider it. And that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be great at it. I'm a woman in computer science and while I don't really mind the stereotypes, they are very real. When I tell people that I'm a software engineer, they're literally shocked. If I tell them that I work for Microsoft (I don't work there now, but I used to), they assume that I'm in a less technical position (recruiting, marketing, etc). Now, if people make the assumption when they meet me that I couldn't possibly be technical, do you think all stereotypes are dropped as soon as I say that I'm a software engineer? I don't think so. In fact, at a previous internship, my mananager's manager tried to prevent me from being hired for a full-time position by lying on my reviews - despite having a ZERO interaction with me, and despite my direct manager fighting him on it. I didn't want to believe it at the time, but I've had a number of people confirm that this guy was known to be sexist. Now, tell me: if you have a bunch of people discouraging you or belittling you - sometimes even discriminating against you - and very few people encouraging you (and those who do encourage you because you're female and not because you're smart), you think that wouldn't decrease your ambition? Consider, additionally, that women are generally less confident and less aggressive than me. Oh, and incidentally, parts of Asia (China, I believe) have a 50/50 ratio. And, as far as "thinking for themselves," recall that law school used to be male dominated and now it's female dominated. Back when it was male dominated, someone could have also said that "women just don't like law," but that's apparently not the case. Stereotypes and discrimination are very real and they do discourage women.
Perhaps... but that's a lot of overhead cost and probably not worth it.
Well, I love it. And I don't see any ads. But, if you really don't like it, you can: 1) Customize what feeds you get 2) Disable it (go to settings)
You prefer vi and gcc, yet Xcode is your preferred graphical dev environment? Xcode is overkill as far as drag-and-drop UI builders. Xcode uses this complicated processes of creating "outlets" (essentially controls) and "actions" (method handlers) in your header files which you then load into Interface Builder (a completely seperate app) and ctrl-drag from each button/textfield/etc to the outlet and from the control to the appropriate action. The direction in which you drag is even important. This all gets serialized into a .nib file. You have essentially no choice but to use Interface Builder - you can't really even do minor tweaks to the .nib file yourself.
So how does someone who like vi and gcc prefer building UI in an environment where you are required to use a GUI interface builder for each and every change?
I've done profession GUI development with Visual Studio (MFC and .NET) and Xcode. Here's how I'd rank them:
1. Visual Studio with .NET [easier and faster to build UI, better debugging, stable]
2. Xcode [has some nice UI environment elements, but being forced to do everything with drag and drop can be frustrating and tedious]
3. Visual Studio with MFC [stable environment, but very tedious]
Beta means under construction, right? It means "here, play with what we have right now, but we're going to come out with a bunch of changes real fast." For software that you purchase in a box, there's a clear line between beta and non-beta software. The software that you purchase in a box in a store has a version number tied with it. You know that you are using v 7.0 or whatever. It had a definite ship date and list of features. You can't magically start using a new version. For web apps, it's a blurry line. Web apps can push out new builds several times a week, and many companies do, in fact, push out changes weekly - and roll them back when things go very wrong. So you think Google News, which has been out for several years, shouldn't be called beta? Why, because it's been out for several years? That doesn't mean anything. As we speak, Google is writing code and putting it into Google News. It's not like you're using the same version of Google News that you were using when it first came out. Every time they push a new feature - which could well be several times a month - it's in beta all over again. Frankly, all web apps that aren't released in "versions" should be called beta. Google's just more honest about it.
"beta" and "running ads" have nothing to do with each other. It can be in beta and run ads (aka, gmail) or not be in beta and not have ads. Google News is in beta for some other reason.
While I kind of agree with you, it's also not always that simple. Generally, the only reason to fear someone over hearing your conversations is embarrassment over what you're talking about, but not always. For example, a CEO talking about a potential merger, someone giving credit card info over the phone (yes, you're not supposed to do that, but there isn't always a better way), and many other cases you can think of. Worse yet - what if someone can write an app to specifically scan for things like credit card numbers?
For what, exactly? Gmail doesn't provide your mail to any third parties - no, not even the context-dependent ad do that. Sure, there's a database of your emails somewhere... but every single email service has a database of your email. How is gmail a threat to your privacy?
IT doesn't just mean tech support - it can also extend to in-house development. In that case, they don't make that little money. In fact, either way IT workers aren't poor. I'm sure they make more than receptionists at any company.
It would have much more to do with:
1) it's a mostly male job, and men tend to be less focused on their looks
2) nerds are attracted to IT jobs, and are less social, and therefore less focused on their looks.
This has nothing to do with money.
I disagree. Just because something can be copied easily doesn't mean that the invention process was trivial. Let's look at this mathematically: Currently: Expected profits = (odds of success) * (sales of Foo if successful) - costs to develop Foo Without protections, if you invent Foo: Expected profits = (odds of success) * ( [sales of Foo is successful ] / [companies copy & producing Foo]) - costs to develop Foo Without protections, if you don't invent Foo: Expected profits = (odds of success) * ( [sales of Foo is successful ] / [companies copy & producing Foo]) Clearly, without protections, you're better off NOT inventing Foo and just copying another company when they do. After all, why pay the development costs yourself if you can just cheat? And thus, no one invents stuff. The difference between an actual invention of Foo and your store is that another store can't just lower their costs by copying you. But, in fact, if your store were a restaurant and someone stole your recipes, then yes, you would be protected.
Yes, that's right, the little green men at Google are reading every email you sent. I hear they have a "Favorite Emails from Duncan" wall with print outs from messages. A couple problems with what you said: "I have unlimited storage:" 2.6 GB really is a lot. But, if you need more storage, you can always have your email download to your machine. "I can remote in from anywhere on earth:" Yeah, because remoting in from a friend's machine is just as easy as firing up a web browser. "I have backups:" Somehow, I think Google's backup system is a bit more reliable than yours. "and best of all GOOGLE ISN'T WATCHING:" If you use hotmail, yahoo or any other company to host your email, it's still being held on servers... not a significant difference there. But who cares? Do you really think people are sitting their going through your email? And finally: using thunderbird / OS X Mail.app is NOT mutually exclusive with using gmail. If you want to use a real email client with gmail, there's nothing stopping you. Gmail will still provide a fast, efficient web interface for when it's more convenient.
Sounds good (maybe) if the other country is England or France. Not so good if it's a third world country. Also: Even in the US the laws about spam aren't clear cut. Spamming isn't illegal everywhere.
And... how do you arrest people if they live in another country?
http://virtualearth.msn.com/ And actually, the pictures are often of higher quality.
But what does this have to do with Google? It's not like Google takes the pictures itself. Map imagery is public data. If they don't want pictures of certain buildings made public, then whoever Google gets the photos from needs to do that, not Google. msn virtualearth also provides satellite images and makes them easily accessible. Both, however, blur images of the whitehouse because that's how the images came. This is not the responsibility of Google, Microsoft or any other company which provides an interface to the images. It's the responsibility of the organization providing the data in the first place.
"Closed" isn't just about what client can sign on - it's also about what *services* you can send a message to. For example, if you only use msn messenger, and I only use AOL, we can't have a conversation. Yes, there are multiprotocol IM clients, but let's face it: Trillian sucks... and that's the best windows multiprotocol IM client. Plus, the free version doesn't support jabber. Furthermore, the average user doesn't know enough to download a multiprotocol client, so they just use the default one. That means that many, many, many only use the official AIM client or the official msn client - and they can't talk to each other. What we need is openness in terms of the protocols themselves.
So was email back in the early 1990's. It was in the same position as IM, where people had multiple email accounts so that they could email "anyone". Back then, you could only email people on compuserver with a compuserve address - same with other services. Same thing as IM is now. Then, business got fed up with it and start adopting SMTP and that's how we got interoperability with email. Problem is... SMTP was adopted before the spam issue had been resolved (or perhaps spam never even occured to people as an issue). And, that's why we have spam. That's also why Google hasn't started federating with other jabber servers. We don't want spam on IM like we have on email. We need a good spec for how to properly authenticate and prevent spam before Google can open up server2server.