If your friends/co-workers are "quite talented" as you say, then they can fend for themselves.
You will probably be doing them a favor to leave. They are probably staying because you need them. (-:
Does Slashdot Need a "Constructive" Karma System?
on
Linux -- Without Unix
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· Score: 1
When did 90% of Slashdot readers become Late Adopters?
Pliant is the third or fourth new project I've seen in the last few months that has been mostly bashed for forward thinking. (The other I remember clearly was Interpreted C++. A while back I remember strong Berlin bashing.) This typically happens when Late Adopters and opportunists fear things that add to what they must know, even if it improves their lives! Typically this is because they are too DUMB to understand what they are doing or how it can be improved!
I have turned up my threshold to 3 and that helps filter out lots of uninformed negativity about general subjects, but these forward-thinking projects always promote such comments to 3 or even 5! Do we need a second Karma value that expresses the constructiveness of a post? Because I have no need to see "It's been done before" or "Too bad this guy wasted his time" posts. If you know of similar systems, why not point out their good values and a link to them. And what you feel is an advantage/disadvantage. That's it!
Yes, OF COURSE projects likes this have been tried before. Perhaps they weren't perfect, were badly timed, or should come back. But anyone sitting around thinking C++/Java and Unix are the final answers should get back to wasting years programming broken, unmaintainable, large systems for their IT department and let the big boys discuss things!
I think a very reasonable discussions would be about how COBOL should be used in most db/business apps. Perhaps extended a bit. Could you imagine how that would go over here?
Works for me! You could start your browser and type "0" to bring up the directory. Then type in a business or person's name and get a list of possibilities, each with a number that can be clicked on.
Standard trademark laws would be in place. Coca-Cola probably has rights to be the only Coca-Cola, but Smith Consulting would need city information to help you whittle it down.
Then, like a memory-dial phone, you would bookmark your most commonly visited sites and forget the number.
It doesn't have to be a phone number. It just has to be a unique number, like, oh say, your IP address.
The naming system sounds good until you try to pick a unique name and let your business rely on people spelling it right, or working out your messy attempt at a unique name. If you were Smith Consulting what would you use? smith-cons.com? What did you get the first time you tried to find Via, id, or Diamond? These are national companies. Now try to find a local carpentry service.
Also, it can be embarrasing to make a messy URL when they are suppose to be so obvious.
I've been following the gaming industry for five or so years and I haven't seen anyone mention the following angle on Indrema so I guess I'll indulge.
As most of you know, game consoles sell at a loss, but then make up the cost in software. How do they do this when third parties create software? They lock the cartridge/CD system, and then become the only manufacturer of cartridges/CDs. You write the games, then they manufacturer them for $5 to $15 (last I could remember). This price is substantially above actual manufacturing costs.
However there is an insidious side to this control. If you think up a way to take advantage of this system, you can trust that they've already done it!
For instance, Nintendo (as I recall) required a minimum number of a cartridge to be built. This squeezed out any small, creative teams, because they could no longer make a small batch of games to see how it went and pour the money back into more units.
They also make claims to quality control. If your game isn't good enough, they don't let it through. This justifies some of the cost, but keep in mind that Sony, Sega, and Nintendo all have their own first party games. Don't be surprised if your quality isn't deemed high enough if one of these companies happens to be making a similar game. One of the more lucrative game genres, sports, is owned by Sony... on PlayStation. Meanwhile special deals can be cut with large companies such as Electronic Arts (the Evil Empire of games).
Sony, I believe it was, was dragged into court over limiting companies to a total number of games, limiting a company to only Sony games, and limited distribution in certain countries.
It is the monopolistic control of individual, locked systems that would seem to be the industries biggest political battle, and open source only won't help.
Now and then, I see a posting from some major publisher who knows that most games are sold on consoles and so they must write to these consoles, but you can tell that they are miffed that all the risk of manufacturing has been pushed in their lap. They're used: given a special deal to get a Quake or a Final Fantasy on a brand new system to help sell it, then charged out the wazoo to compete for racing or sports titles.
So along comes Indrema, which gets to use a free (open) OS and COTS hardware and designs. Once the system is built for cheap, they still plan to control the spice so to speak, by doing the locked CD trick. If they didn't have enough troubles already, this will surely kill them. They are not big enough to have the slightest chance playing the same game as the big boys. All the developers are wise to this game and they might as well go with a company who plans to spend $500 million on marketing.
What is needed is some sort of guerrilla marketing tactic. Perhaps the ones that follow won't work, but you can get the idea:
Idea 1: Sell the system for a profit! What an idea! (-: Consumers will balk at the price... until they realize they can get games for $10 cheaper. They can even get a few simple games for $5, like Vegas games and simple arcade style games. Plus they will get much more software. (Nintendo tried to limit software on the N64 to incredibly expensive, "quality" titles and Sony ran away with mind share for having "many more games" even if most were crap.)
Meanwhile, plenty of developers may come out of the woodwork to support a system that gives them a fair risk/profit reward (and control of their own manufacturing). Make a new system in five years with updated hardware but which is completely backwards compatible (PS2 does this). Sure, Indrema couldn't make Nintendo's billions, but they could make a happy profit and know they helped shift the power in yet another monopolistic industry.
Idea 2: Make a system that is truly for the masses. By that I mean it doesn't have to have the latest hardware. Let X-Box, G-Cube, and Z-Parallepiped fight over a few elite hard-core gamers. I still play Half-Life mods at home. My CPU, graphics card, and 3D sound card can be bought for $120 at a local store!
Idea 3: Get rid of those crappy controllers. Gawd those ruin games! (-: Find a way to get a mouse on there, and a "binary" joystick.
That's all. In short, open source is pointless on a closed system. What we need is an open system!
I don't mean to be inflammatory but the first thing you might want to consider changing is the name of the project. This tool will be most valuable to managers as has been pointed out. I don't know if a vaguely drug-related name will go over very well. The first thing you have to lose as a manager is your sense of humor. (-:
Well, I installed Red Hat 7.0 this weekend (after a year hiatus from Linux) and, I hate to say this but, I missed Windows! Perhaps I am just used to navigating Windows but I feel that some important gaps are left in the Linux "Desktop Experience:"
My NIC wasn't working. In Windows I'd go to the "System Properties," find a yellow question mark, and work on the driver. Under Linux I was lost. But I'm pretty sure I still have to work with vague 'mod' tools and configuration files. Same for the mouse. I can't remember the commands when I only need them once a year. This is nerve-wracking; and a great example of the importance of GUIs (recognition not recall).
Under Windows I get to start with a clean system and add tools I want. The start menu is relatively empty and ready for my bidding. Under Red Hat (and SUSE) I'm deluged with half-finished CD writers, and configuration tools. The start menu is filled with crap I've never heard of. Help, glub, glub.
In Windows, I go to a site like tucows or softseek, look at screenshots of little helper applications and install them separately. Again, Red Hat and SUSE filled my system with half-finished toys. Want KDE? Fine, use gnorpm and dig through weird menus of choices and find all sorts of little pesky individual packages. (In the end, I STILL can't load the KDE window manager.)
In Windows, I click on "Windows Update..." and get system patches for bugs, security holes, etc. I'm not aware of a simple method under Red Hat.
In short, a "Desktop Experience" to me means I don't read man pages and tinker with config files, then rc.d. I've read about all that, and tinkered with it. I'm glad it works. But I DON'T want to revel in it! While Unix systems get their power from scripting and small tools, the "Desktop Experience" is a different beast! I'm all for the Unix tools and use them religiously, but that's a different issue. (Linux the OS still works great!)
I'll keep it short but I was in Atlanta going to school during the games. The committee did a sweep of local venues and closed down anything with a reference to the Olympics, or which had rings in it's logo - even though the city was sponsoring the games and putting lots of money into it. A decades old restaurant - The Olympiad (a pizza joint) was forced to change its name!!! The potential penalty was something ludicrous though I don't remember it now.
The mayor was bribed. The schools were shut down to house the athletes so students were kicked out and had to find some place for the summer. (Studying is a pretty noble goal as well.) Several new stadiums were built under the promise (by city govt) that there would be a windfall of profits from the games. Not surpisingly, a follow up story never pointed out just how much was made.
So the 3D "look" is in, and that killed Bluth et al, eh? Titan WAS essentially 3D! As a matter of fact many of my nerd friends thought it had some of the best over-use of 3D in a movie so far! (-: Remember the ice fields with all those reflections? Or the bad guy city of semi-transparent aqua blue walls?
I guess they mean the character animation though.
I think what killed it was the crappy trailers and more importantly, the crappy plot. Or maybe it was the crappy solutions to the problems in the heros way. Did you know you can break a force field by sticking two fingers in it instead of just one? Maybe it was ALL those cliches in the place of a fresh sci-fi movie? Nah, it's the 2D.
Remember that article, "The Programmer's Stone," on slashdot a while back? It's the article about "Mappers" vs. "Packers." If you believe his point of view, it seems very related.
"Mappers" would work to grok the rules and how they interrelate, drill themselves on skills, learn from each other, and feel satisfaction for "exercising their mind" by thinking about the rules, etc. This isn't even a REAL problem. It's just a game.
"Packers" would want the one answer that wins everytime. There is no interest in exercising or grokking. Better (expensive) equipment to win? Fine. A loophole in the rules (found by someone else even)? "Boy am I clever for using that!" A patch to close a loophole. "That isn't fair!" (-:
I was playing a single player game a couple of years ago trying to decide if I should jump down into the lava and look for a secret. Clues pointed that a secret down there was likely but it would cost half my health to even check and see. A kid at work comes up behind me (it was after hours:-)) and says, "Why don't you just turn on the flying cheat."... WHAT? GET THE F**K AWAY FROM ME! I can't fathom this personally. And in a SINGLE-PLAYER game. My point is that it wasn't even necessarily to beat others or"prank" others to bring out his desire to cheat.
Now, I know there is plenty of controversy anytime an elitist view claims one type of person/personality (mapper) is superior at problem solving to another. But cheating in games bring up a good point to me: wouldn't it be nice to be a problem-challenged "packer" who could actually derive pleasure from winning through loopholes and superior (expensive) equipment? How nice it would be to avoid all the frustration with those that take advantage of the rules. (-: Why create problems that don't HAVE to exist? It's just a game. When there is no real problem, why create one? (Well, for fun, but that is the kind of fun that mapper personalities would enjoy.)
Most of the polygons on a level are culled out using a BSP tree before the graphics card gets involved. The card then draws a surface or two per pixel and has ot pick which one is closer.
Normally the closest wall is opaque and "paints over" the farther walls before you see the scene. So you are right: transparency has to be planned for specially so the closest surface is always painted last as a "discoloration" of what is "behind" it. This won't be accounted for.
However, who cares? Only a couple of layers of walls are involved, most gamers know the level well, and it just looks a little disturbed. Most importantly, you can see the enemy! 'Nuff said.
Switching subjects, what is disturbing me at the moment is that it appears the moderator of this article is advocating the release of these drivers so he can cheat. That would be a very selfish, short-sighted attitude if so. It doesn't take much effort to see how this destroys the whole community. Now I have to wonder if I should listen to moderator opinions about Napster or any other important issue.
So, I figured lots of slashdotters would be bothered by this:
It is important that the bad guys have their arse covered! (hostages, whatever) So 30 minutes into this movie my mind is racing as to HOW they have assured their lives!...
Oh, they DON'T have the virus, just the antecdote. Problem solved. Stop following them and put a bullet in them at the race track.
Don't forget that Napster fundamentally works by the NAME of a song or artist!
"What was the name of that artist I've never heard of again?" (-:
So theoretically, to find even ONE artist by name when you have never heard of his name is a very high hit rate. (-:
Now using MP3.com or some similar service, I believe several unknown artists, searched via LIST instead of name, get 10s of thousands of hits! But don't quote me on that. I'm just trying to remember and I'm too lazy to look.
RedHat [...] does seem to have its own mind, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst.
Then again, I've also learned that as long as you stick to *one* package tool you won't run in to trouble.
(-: I think you've hit the nail on the head here as to my concern. I think the higher-ups at Red Hat know that locking a market is easier than some of us realize.
You get Joe Clueless Sys Admin at 500 big corporations to load up Red Hat, the choice of big business (tm), now with new, improved GUI installation. The Trojan Horse is the Red Hat file structure. Then you have 10,000 Joe Clueless programmers hard-coding the paths and other "special cases" into their work. Mr. Clueless always does this for some reason. Now Red Hat is half-way to locking people into their "proprietary" file structure, upgrade cycles and distribution prices.
But other distros can use the same structure you say? Yeah, THAT will happen. Plus, we should be all to familiar with "embrace and extend" by now. Red Hat just keeps moving. They can even make a tool to rebuild the RPMs over night. I guess that sounds paranoid but it was just an example of the possibility.
But you can download it for free you say? Maybe it's just me, but I also noticed some of the bigger distributions have made it relatively hard to download over the net. And they "bundle" their docs in and charge relatively high bucks for the distributions. (I don't find the docs THAT useful.) Thank goodness for LinuxCentral and the $2 distro CD, but most of the Joe Clueless aren't going to know about that. Plus they want a support package.
So don't hard code paths, you say? One article here has already pointed out that Oracle works only with Red Hat because of the hard-coded paths and libraries. If I were REALLY paranoid, I might wonder if they have a deal. (-:
All Red Hat has to do from here is hype up their name in front of the word Linux constantly -- Red Hat Linux, Borland C++ for Red Hat Linux, Red Hat Linux,... and soon Mr. Clueless will simply say "Red Hat" instead of Linux. From my experience people love to claim allegiance to a leader as long as he doesn't stab too many people in the back.
Already a bit of hand-waving, but you get the point. It doesn't take much to fill it in.
The reason that I'm not that supportive of these attempts to standardize the unix file system is because they aren't fresh approaches based on practical experience.
The standard appears to include every single nuance that the Unix system has ever had. Even those that are contradictory. I read half-way through it and was no better off than if I hadn't. It's like looking at a street map of a town. There isn't any logic to it; just a lot of dots to memorize.
What I would have prefered is a standard that is forward thinking. Start out explaining the contradictory goals of file management (multiple architectures, read only partitions, local partitions), resolve that they can't all be solved at once. Pick an "axis" (I'd prefer "logical" organization over speed or read-only concerns). Then, try to design a layout that "makes sense" for "general purpose computing and development."
What I got was a document of how things are done and "why" but you have to memorize many, many "why's."
P.S. Of course, if I had my way, we'd banish generic "bin" directories and have one software product per one directory with its own "bin." (The PATH variable would have to be re-thought.) The exception is common libraries for all software. But, then again, as those stand, they are over-burdened with libraries most people never use anyway. See? Much to discuss.
"I give up. These guys are the biggest criminals I've ever seen! They're not even ashamed of it! Everything they've proposed has intentionally had loopholes you could drive a truck through
(-: The only thing that has ever REALLY bothered me about MS is the constant insisting that the products are so much better than anything else. Some of the products are great. Most of them aren't better than everything else. (i.e. SQL Server, Win9x, Plug N Play, DirectX) It just infuriates me to listen to smug marketing crap when the stuff sells for OTHER REASONS. Could a large part of MS really believe everyone is stupid enough to buy MS marketing machismo simply because it has been "bundled" with each product? (-: Gee, imagine suits under-estimating the importance of the engineering staff and assuming they deserve all the credit.
Now maybe I'm over-assuming, but this court case may turn out to be too classic of a tragic tale, ala Icarus. Here are two highly intelligent, thoughtful judges at the root of all that is corrupt and... MS can't turn off "marketing mode"! MS is dumbfounded that it isn't working. They have flown too high. They simply can't realize that these judges (and customers) see right through that crap and so MS will continue to play the machismo and superior-product hands to the end while all of us look on in shock.
I can see the judges wanting to say, "Who do you think we are, your customers?" but knowing they can't.
Well, that is probably true. Especially if you pick very bad algorithms and compare them to very good ones. But as long as your picking and choosing, it may be valuable to type check as well. Of course.
I assume you mean you look at algorithms at a higher level? ("more chances to use better algorithms" is a double-edged statement:-) There are also more chances to write worse code!)
Hopefully Python does better than SQL as for as high-level! I don't know anybody who programs SQL that doesn't optimize the table searches in their mind first, THEN contort the algorithm until it is in a form that SQL (for a specific database) can work with efficiently.
Anyway, SQL is a forced example, but there is a line between "controlling the machine" and "a language that controls the machine in a way that is always right, trust us" and the latter has been a miserable approach in all of my experiences. I'll have to check out Python.
Good points. I think the important issue to remember (and which Bjarne often points out) is that one language won't work for all problem types! What may not be pointed out very often, however, is that almost all large systems will include many problem types!
You mention how Python can save lines of code. In your example, this is true because Python is not doing strong type checking. C++, and other strongly typed languages are forcing you to be very explicit about types.
So why not just use Python? I can't tell you how many times strong typing has helped me debug a sophisticated data structure.
Also, sooner or later, you're going to run into speed problems in a music type-setting program. Some speed cost is inherent in the fact that your language isn't strongly typed (-: You want to '+' two items? Well, are they strings are ints? In one case, you concatenate and in another you integer add. For strongly typed languages, the compiler would have known at compile time and already included the correct operations. If you've gotten away without specifying a type up until this moment...
Judging by your examples of focusing (studying for exams or reading a text book), it may be that Carmack is discussing a different kind of focus.
I think you mean the ability to be intense (clear and imaginative) for long periods of time. I would guess that he means the ability to follow through over long periods of time, including the drudge work.
If I'm right, what you describe is too painful to do for months on end. Meanwhile, his is just saying you have to limit your curiosities in the near future to those that contribute to the project.
If you don't follow through, probably no one will do it for you!
For instance, you may enjoy 3D programming the most, but you have to write that parts that read in models of various formats, animate, etc, You also need network programming, level creation tools, some business administration... to make a game work. (Ironically, this could be considered "focusing" on your project.) If you just finish the 3D programming (or half finish it), then move on to writing a sci-fi short story, then... you never get a real product finished.
Slashdot Mirror
If your friends/co-workers are "quite talented" as you say, then they can fend for themselves.
You will probably be doing them a favor to leave. They are probably staying because you need them. (-:
When did 90% of Slashdot readers become Late Adopters?
Pliant is the third or fourth new project I've seen in the last few months that has been mostly bashed for forward thinking. (The other I remember clearly was Interpreted C++. A while back I remember strong Berlin bashing.) This typically happens when Late Adopters and opportunists fear things that add to what they must know, even if it improves their lives! Typically this is because they are too DUMB to understand what they are doing or how it can be improved!
I have turned up my threshold to 3 and that helps filter out lots of uninformed negativity about general subjects, but these forward-thinking projects always promote such comments to 3 or even 5! Do we need a second Karma value that expresses the constructiveness of a post? Because I have no need to see "It's been done before" or "Too bad this guy wasted his time" posts. If you know of similar systems, why not point out their good values and a link to them. And what you feel is an advantage/disadvantage. That's it!
Yes, OF COURSE projects likes this have been tried before. Perhaps they weren't perfect, were badly timed, or should come back. But anyone sitting around thinking C++/Java and Unix are the final answers should get back to wasting years programming broken, unmaintainable, large systems for their IT department and let the big boys discuss things!
I think a very reasonable discussions would be about how COBOL should be used in most db/business apps. Perhaps extended a bit. Could you imagine how that would go over here?
Works for me! You could start your browser and type "0" to bring up the directory. Then type in a business or person's name and get a list of possibilities, each with a number that can be clicked on.
Standard trademark laws would be in place. Coca-Cola probably has rights to be the only Coca-Cola, but Smith Consulting would need city information to help you whittle it down.
Then, like a memory-dial phone, you would bookmark your most commonly visited sites and forget the number.
It doesn't have to be a phone number. It just has to be a unique number, like, oh say, your IP address.
The naming system sounds good until you try to pick a unique name and let your business rely on people spelling it right, or working out your messy attempt at a unique name. If you were Smith Consulting what would you use? smith-cons.com? What did you get the first time you tried to find Via, id, or Diamond? These are national companies. Now try to find a local carpentry service.
Also, it can be embarrasing to make a messy URL when they are suppose to be so obvious.
I've been following the gaming industry for five or so years and I haven't seen anyone mention the following angle on Indrema so I guess I'll indulge.
As most of you know, game consoles sell at a loss, but then make up the cost in software. How do they do this when third parties create software? They lock the cartridge/CD system, and then become the only manufacturer of cartridges/CDs. You write the games, then they manufacturer them for $5 to $15 (last I could remember). This price is substantially above actual manufacturing costs.
However there is an insidious side to this control. If you think up a way to take advantage of this system, you can trust that they've already done it!
For instance, Nintendo (as I recall) required a minimum number of a cartridge to be built. This squeezed out any small, creative teams, because they could no longer make a small batch of games to see how it went and pour the money back into more units.
They also make claims to quality control. If your game isn't good enough, they don't let it through. This justifies some of the cost, but keep in mind that Sony, Sega, and Nintendo all have their own first party games. Don't be surprised if your quality isn't deemed high enough if one of these companies happens to be making a similar game. One of the more lucrative game genres, sports, is owned by Sony... on PlayStation. Meanwhile special deals can be cut with large companies such as Electronic Arts (the Evil Empire of games).
Sony, I believe it was, was dragged into court over limiting companies to a total number of games, limiting a company to only Sony games, and limited distribution in certain countries.
It is the monopolistic control of individual, locked systems that would seem to be the industries biggest political battle, and open source only won't help.
Now and then, I see a posting from some major publisher who knows that most games are sold on consoles and so they must write to these consoles, but you can tell that they are miffed that all the risk of manufacturing has been pushed in their lap. They're used: given a special deal to get a Quake or a Final Fantasy on a brand new system to help sell it, then charged out the wazoo to compete for racing or sports titles.
So along comes Indrema, which gets to use a free (open) OS and COTS hardware and designs. Once the system is built for cheap, they still plan to control the spice so to speak, by doing the locked CD trick. If they didn't have enough troubles already, this will surely kill them. They are not big enough to have the slightest chance playing the same game as the big boys. All the developers are wise to this game and they might as well go with a company who plans to spend $500 million on marketing.
What is needed is some sort of guerrilla marketing tactic. Perhaps the ones that follow won't work, but you can get the idea:
Idea 1: Sell the system for a profit! What an idea! (-: Consumers will balk at the price... until they realize they can get games for $10 cheaper. They can even get a few simple games for $5, like Vegas games and simple arcade style games. Plus they will get much more software. (Nintendo tried to limit software on the N64 to incredibly expensive, "quality" titles and Sony ran away with mind share for having "many more games" even if most were crap.)
Meanwhile, plenty of developers may come out of the woodwork to support a system that gives them a fair risk/profit reward (and control of their own manufacturing). Make a new system in five years with updated hardware but which is completely backwards compatible (PS2 does this). Sure, Indrema couldn't make Nintendo's billions, but they could make a happy profit and know they helped shift the power in yet another monopolistic industry.
Idea 2: Make a system that is truly for the masses. By that I mean it doesn't have to have the latest hardware. Let X-Box, G-Cube, and Z-Parallepiped fight over a few elite hard-core gamers. I still play Half-Life mods at home. My CPU, graphics card, and 3D sound card can be bought for $120 at a local store!
Idea 3: Get rid of those crappy controllers. Gawd those ruin games! (-: Find a way to get a mouse on there, and a "binary" joystick.
That's all. In short, open source is pointless on a closed system. What we need is an open system!
I don't mean to be inflammatory but the first thing you might want to consider changing is the name of the project. This tool will be most valuable to managers as has been pointed out. I don't know if a vaguely drug-related name will go over very well. The first thing you have to lose as a manager is your sense of humor. (-:
Well, I installed Red Hat 7.0 this weekend (after a year hiatus from Linux) and, I hate to say this but, I missed Windows! Perhaps I am just used to navigating Windows but I feel that some important gaps are left in the Linux "Desktop Experience:"
My NIC wasn't working. In Windows I'd go to the "System Properties," find a yellow question mark, and work on the driver. Under Linux I was lost. But I'm pretty sure I still have to work with vague 'mod' tools and configuration files. Same for the mouse. I can't remember the commands when I only need them once a year. This is nerve-wracking; and a great example of the importance of GUIs (recognition not recall).
Under Windows I get to start with a clean system and add tools I want. The start menu is relatively empty and ready for my bidding. Under Red Hat (and SUSE) I'm deluged with half-finished CD writers, and configuration tools. The start menu is filled with crap I've never heard of. Help, glub, glub.
In Windows, I go to a site like tucows or softseek, look at screenshots of little helper applications and install them separately. Again, Red Hat and SUSE filled my system with half-finished toys. Want KDE? Fine, use gnorpm and dig through weird menus of choices and find all sorts of little pesky individual packages. (In the end, I STILL can't load the KDE window manager.)
In Windows, I click on "Windows Update..." and get system patches for bugs, security holes, etc. I'm not aware of a simple method under Red Hat.
In short, a "Desktop Experience" to me means I don't read man pages and tinker with config files, then rc.d. I've read about all that, and tinkered with it. I'm glad it works. But I DON'T want to revel in it! While Unix systems get their power from scripting and small tools, the "Desktop Experience" is a different beast! I'm all for the Unix tools and use them religiously, but that's a different issue. (Linux the OS still works great!)
Neat, revolutionary stuff. Hopefully something comes of them.
I'll keep it short but I was in Atlanta going to school during the games. The committee did a sweep of local venues and closed down anything with a reference to the Olympics, or which had rings in it's logo - even though the city was sponsoring the games and putting lots of money into it. A decades old restaurant - The Olympiad (a pizza joint) was forced to change its name!!! The potential penalty was something ludicrous though I don't remember it now. The mayor was bribed. The schools were shut down to house the athletes so students were kicked out and had to find some place for the summer. (Studying is a pretty noble goal as well.) Several new stadiums were built under the promise (by city govt) that there would be a windfall of profits from the games. Not surpisingly, a follow up story never pointed out just how much was made.
So the 3D "look" is in, and that killed Bluth et al, eh? Titan WAS essentially 3D! As a matter of fact many of my nerd friends thought it had some of the best over-use of 3D in a movie so far! (-: Remember the ice fields with all those reflections? Or the bad guy city of semi-transparent aqua blue walls?
I guess they mean the character animation though.
I think what killed it was the crappy trailers and more importantly, the crappy plot. Or maybe it was the crappy solutions to the problems in the heros way. Did you know you can break a force field by sticking two fingers in it instead of just one? Maybe it was ALL those cliches in the place of a fresh sci-fi movie? Nah, it's the 2D.
Remember that article, "The Programmer's Stone," on slashdot a while back? It's the article about "Mappers" vs. "Packers." If you believe his point of view, it seems very related.
:-)) and says, "Why don't you just turn on the flying cheat." ... WHAT? GET THE F**K AWAY FROM ME! I can't fathom this personally. And in a SINGLE-PLAYER game. My point is that it wasn't even necessarily to beat others or"prank" others to bring out his desire to cheat.
"Mappers" would work to grok the rules and how they interrelate, drill themselves on skills, learn from each other, and feel satisfaction for "exercising their mind" by thinking about the rules, etc. This isn't even a REAL problem. It's just a game.
"Packers" would want the one answer that wins everytime. There is no interest in exercising or grokking. Better (expensive) equipment to win? Fine. A loophole in the rules (found by someone else even)? "Boy am I clever for using that!" A patch to close a loophole. "That isn't fair!" (-:
I was playing a single player game a couple of years ago trying to decide if I should jump down into the lava and look for a secret. Clues pointed that a secret down there was likely but it would cost half my health to even check and see. A kid at work comes up behind me (it was after hours
Now, I know there is plenty of controversy anytime an elitist view claims one type of person/personality (mapper) is superior at problem solving to another. But cheating in games bring up a good point to me: wouldn't it be nice to be a problem-challenged "packer" who could actually derive pleasure from winning through loopholes and superior (expensive) equipment? How nice it would be to avoid all the frustration with those that take advantage of the rules. (-: Why create problems that don't HAVE to exist? It's just a game. When there is no real problem, why create one? (Well, for fun, but that is the kind of fun that mapper personalities would enjoy.)
Most of the polygons on a level are culled out using a BSP tree before the graphics card gets involved. The card then draws a surface or two per pixel and has ot pick which one is closer.
Normally the closest wall is opaque and "paints over" the farther walls before you see the scene. So you are right: transparency has to be planned for specially so the closest surface is always painted last as a "discoloration" of what is "behind" it. This won't be accounted for.
However, who cares? Only a couple of layers of walls are involved, most gamers know the level well, and it just looks a little disturbed. Most importantly, you can see the enemy! 'Nuff said.
Switching subjects, what is disturbing me at the moment is that it appears the moderator of this article is advocating the release of these drivers so he can cheat. That would be a very selfish, short-sighted attitude if so. It doesn't take much effort to see how this destroys the whole community. Now I have to wonder if I should listen to moderator opinions about Napster or any other important issue.
So, I figured lots of slashdotters would be bothered by this:
It is important that the bad guys have their arse covered! (hostages, whatever) So 30 minutes into this movie my mind is racing as to HOW they have assured their lives!...
Oh, they DON'T have the virus, just the antecdote. Problem solved. Stop following them and put a bullet in them at the race track.
Mission: Accomplished. (-:
Don't forget that Napster fundamentally works by the NAME of a song or artist!
"What was the name of that artist I've never heard of again?" (-:
So theoretically, to find even ONE artist by name when you have never heard of his name is a very high hit rate. (-:
Now using MP3.com or some similar service, I believe several unknown artists, searched via LIST instead of name, get 10s of thousands of hits! But don't quote me on that. I'm just trying to remember and I'm too lazy to look.
Then again, I've also learned that as long as you stick to *one* package tool you won't run in to trouble.
(-: I think you've hit the nail on the head here as to my concern. I think the higher-ups at Red Hat know that locking a market is easier than some of us realize.
You get Joe Clueless Sys Admin at 500 big corporations to load up Red Hat, the choice of big business (tm), now with new, improved GUI installation. The Trojan Horse is the Red Hat file structure. Then you have 10,000 Joe Clueless programmers hard-coding the paths and other "special cases" into their work. Mr. Clueless always does this for some reason. Now Red Hat is half-way to locking people into their "proprietary" file structure, upgrade cycles and distribution prices.
But other distros can use the same structure you say? Yeah, THAT will happen. Plus, we should be all to familiar with "embrace and extend" by now. Red Hat just keeps moving. They can even make a tool to rebuild the RPMs over night. I guess that sounds paranoid but it was just an example of the possibility.
But you can download it for free you say? Maybe it's just me, but I also noticed some of the bigger distributions have made it relatively hard to download over the net. And they "bundle" their docs in and charge relatively high bucks for the distributions. (I don't find the docs THAT useful.) Thank goodness for LinuxCentral and the $2 distro CD, but most of the Joe Clueless aren't going to know about that. Plus they want a support package.
So don't hard code paths, you say? One article here has already pointed out that Oracle works only with Red Hat because of the hard-coded paths and libraries. If I were REALLY paranoid, I might wonder if they have a deal. (-:
All Red Hat has to do from here is hype up their name in front of the word Linux constantly -- Red Hat Linux, Borland C++ for Red Hat Linux, Red Hat Linux, ... and soon Mr. Clueless will simply say "Red Hat" instead of Linux. From my experience people love to claim allegiance to a leader as long as he doesn't stab too many people in the back.
Already a bit of hand-waving, but you get the point. It doesn't take much to fill it in.
The reason that I'm not that supportive of these attempts to standardize the unix file system is because they aren't fresh approaches based on practical experience.
The standard appears to include every single nuance that the Unix system has ever had. Even those that are contradictory. I read half-way through it and was no better off than if I hadn't. It's like looking at a street map of a town. There isn't any logic to it; just a lot of dots to memorize.
What I would have prefered is a standard that is forward thinking. Start out explaining the contradictory goals of file management (multiple architectures, read only partitions, local partitions), resolve that they can't all be solved at once. Pick an "axis" (I'd prefer "logical" organization over speed or read-only concerns). Then, try to design a layout that "makes sense" for "general purpose computing and development."
What I got was a document of how things are done and "why" but you have to memorize many, many "why's."
P.S. Of course, if I had my way, we'd banish generic "bin" directories and have one software product per one directory with its own "bin." (The PATH variable would have to be re-thought.) The exception is common libraries for all software. But, then again, as those stand, they are over-burdened with libraries most people never use anyway. See? Much to discuss.
(-: The only thing that has ever REALLY bothered me about MS is the constant insisting that the products are so much better than anything else. Some of the products are great. Most of them aren't better than everything else. (i.e. SQL Server, Win9x, Plug N Play, DirectX) It just infuriates me to listen to smug marketing crap when the stuff sells for OTHER REASONS. Could a large part of MS really believe everyone is stupid enough to buy MS marketing machismo simply because it has been "bundled" with each product? (-: Gee, imagine suits under-estimating the importance of the engineering staff and assuming they deserve all the credit.
Now maybe I'm over-assuming, but this court case may turn out to be too classic of a tragic tale, ala Icarus. Here are two highly intelligent, thoughtful judges at the root of all that is corrupt and... MS can't turn off "marketing mode"! MS is dumbfounded that it isn't working. They have flown too high. They simply can't realize that these judges (and customers) see right through that crap and so MS will continue to play the machismo and superior-product hands to the end while all of us look on in shock.
I can see the judges wanting to say, "Who do you think we are, your customers?" but knowing they can't.
I assume you mean you look at algorithms at a higher level? ("more chances to use better algorithms" is a double-edged statement :-) There are also more chances to write worse code!)
Hopefully Python does better than SQL as for as high-level! I don't know anybody who programs SQL that doesn't optimize the table searches in their mind first, THEN contort the algorithm until it is in a form that SQL (for a specific database) can work with efficiently.
Anyway, SQL is a forced example, but there is a line between "controlling the machine" and "a language that controls the machine in a way that is always right, trust us" and the latter has been a miserable approach in all of my experiences. I'll have to check out Python.
Good luck on your program!
You mention how Python can save lines of code. In your example, this is true because Python is not doing strong type checking. C++, and other strongly typed languages are forcing you to be very explicit about types.
So why not just use Python? I can't tell you how many times strong typing has helped me debug a sophisticated data structure.
Also, sooner or later, you're going to run into speed problems in a music type-setting program. Some speed cost is inherent in the fact that your language isn't strongly typed (-: You want to '+' two items? Well, are they strings are ints? In one case, you concatenate and in another you integer add. For strongly typed languages, the compiler would have known at compile time and already included the correct operations. If you've gotten away without specifying a type up until this moment...
Can anybody guess who wrote this /. front page summary:
"Author Unknown is relevant to life online, where responsibility for words and anonymous authorship is an everyday issue."
I like Katz, but I can spot his paragraphs a mile away. (-:
Judging by your examples of focusing (studying for exams or reading a text book), it may be that Carmack is discussing a different kind of focus.
I think you mean the ability to be intense (clear and imaginative) for long periods of time. I would guess that he means the ability to follow through over long periods of time, including the drudge work.
If I'm right, what you describe is too painful to do for months on end. Meanwhile, his is just saying you have to limit your curiosities in the near future to those that contribute to the project.
If you don't follow through, probably no one will do it for you!
For instance, you may enjoy 3D programming the most, but you have to write that parts that read in models of various formats, animate, etc, You also need network programming, level creation tools, some business administration... to make a game work. (Ironically, this could be considered "focusing" on your project.) If you just finish the 3D programming (or half finish it), then move on to writing a sci-fi short story, then ... you never get a real product finished.