Not true. A good GUI should also support shortcuts and some level of scripting. Granted, that does start to blur the line between GUI and Command Line, but I could just as easily say you can't do something with a command line if a command line tool hasn't been written yet that can handle it. GUI and Command Line are no different in that respect though there are lots of crappy GUI interfaces that don't offer much flexibility. A good GUI interface should be just as flexible though, maybe even a bit more so since it should be easier to visualize what it is you are doing.
As for your specific example, doing that with SSAS is trivially simple while being entirely GUI based with no programming. I only mentioned C# because two topics were touched by the GP. They touched on needing to know how things actually work for programming and command line being "lower level". I was just illustrating that if you know why and how things work, you don't have to work low level. You can work abstracted if it will get the job done quicker, but it is important to know what your abstraction will do.
Also, sometimes a quick script or batch file is the fastest way to get something done, but not everything has to be command line based. I know a lot of command line stuff, but I still have GUI tools that I prefer for speed and simplicity. If I encounter something they can't handle then I'll either role my own or script my own depending on the complexity of my needs.
Yeah, I can agree with that. My favorite file management utility of all time is Total Commander and I love it specifically because it is both a fantastic GUI file manager but also has a fully functional command line built right in. If something happens to be easier with a command, I use that, if it is easier with the GUI, I use that. For server administration, I also have to admit that having the option to do things through a command line is super nice, though my goal with that is still always to get a UI working so that I can recover the rest of the way more easily.
Windows users know how Windows works too. We may not have access to the source code details exactly, but most of the underlying structure of the system is extensively documented as to how it behaves. Symbol builds are also available for debugging purposes. True, it isn't as simple as it would be with an open source system, but you are overblowing the difference between the two. The main advantage of open source software is being able to change how something behaves rather than knowing how it behaves. It can be a pain to have to work around an issue while waiting for it to be fixed, but that has nothing to do with understanding how the system works.
Understanding what the tools do under the hood is important. Using command line tools is not. I could write in assembly if I really wanted to, but I use C# for most stuff. I understand what it does under the hood, but that doesn't mean I have to always work at that level. Using GUI tools is the same thing. I know my GUI tools for administering a Windows server and I can typically make complex adjustments just as fast on it as my UNIX buddy can do using command line tools on his Linux boxes. The difference is what we are comfortable with. Some things go faster with one command, but when you have more complex actions, sometimes the GUI is faster. Either way, you still have to know your system and know what all the buttons or commands actually do.
They likely won't go away even then. We've been down this road before prior to the advent of internal expansion. Anyone else remember when computers were a small stand alone box and all the accessories were plugged in to it. Used to be your disk drive, your hard drive, pretty much everything was plugged in to it.
We moved away from that because having components inside meant that you didn't have to carry a bunch of different expansion devices with you for you computer. The industry favored internal modules over external quite strongly. Now, yes, there were technical limitations that required moving stuff close to the bus and largely accessories have been lagging on making full use of the bus speeds available now, but the closer you can get to the CPU, the faster you can make stuff operate and that is going to always be the case. No external port will ever match the speed you can get internally simply because of the distance the signals have to travel and the limited number of lanes available in a decently sized cable with reasonable power consumption.
Expansion slots may even become less common in a typical end user computer, but for a workstation, expandability and adaptability has ALWAYS been the name of the game and for expandability, internal, simple usage has always been favored over slower, modular, external options with a hard to service core.
Also, if you don't believe me, simply look at the average replacement time on tablets vs laptops vs classical desktops. The more you can swap out parts, the longer the systems last. People replace their tablet (no changeable parts) every year or two, their laptop every 3 years or so and their desktop every 6 years or so. Why does Apple want a desktop with fewer replaceable parts? Because they want you buying a new desktop every 2 or 3 years.
The GPU isn't replaceable in the new Mac Pro. It's a custom board. Other expansions currently sitting in my tower are USB 3 (which wasn't out when I built it), eSATA, a Raid controller, a professional sound card, a consumer sound card, a real time video encoder and an upgraded GPU. Now, some of those could be done as external devices, but do I really want to have to cart around 6 different external devices every time I move my desktop? Not particularly. And what if a component dies? It's easy to replace with off the shelf components because it is standardized. Standardized parts exist for a reason and migrating away from standardized parts internal assembly isn't smart, it's backwards.
They are tieing multiple expensive bits together with no way to modularly replace it and while that's great if you always want to buy entirely new hardware that looks "sexy", it's horrible if you want to actually be able to maintain a system.
For PC sales, they are simply one of the last quality builders standing. It will be interesting to see what privatized Dell is capable of depending on what direction Michael Dell takes it. Short of building your own, Lenovo and Apple are pretty much the only remotely quality hardware out there right now because PC manufacturers raced each other to the bottom of quality and consumers finally wised up to it.
If you look on the handset/mobile device side. Android is very rapidly eating away Apple's market share and has already taken significant majority lead in the smartphone market. Even Windows 8 is starting to make some headway in the tablet field, though it is still too early to tell where that will go, particularly with MS itself in flux at the moment.
No, I'm not saying that at all. Actually, I expect that PC sales will continue to decline a bit more until they stabilize. This isn't because of the death of the PC, it's because of the death of the useful advance of PC hardware. Mainline hardware (CPU and to an extent memory) are at a fairly hard limit that we can't rapidly advance. A 6 year old computer is now far more capable comparatively than a 12 year old computer was 6 years ago. The components that still advance are peripherals such as graphics cards, storage drives and to an extent, ports.
Having expansion slots allows a computer to live on much longer because it can be easily upgraded since the core components don't need to be replaced nearly as often. This means expansion slots are more important than ever before. It used to be that you would replace the entire computer every 3 to 4 years because CPUs and bus speeds were being so rapidly outpaced, so expansion wasn't important.
Similarly, people hold on to their desktops longer, so no kidding, sales are dropping off because people aren't re-entering the market. If we suddenly made cars that lasted 30 years we would see far fewer car sales within 6 or 7 years. It wouldn't mean that cars aren't desired any more, just that new ones aren't needed as often.
That slack has been taken up by the rapidly growing portable device market, but Apple and many industry analysts are foolishly thinking this means the death of the PC and that all computing will become mobile devices. It is true that it is disruptive technology and that it results in a spending shift, but they are distinct products with distinct characteristics and it's a new market so it has high growth as the lack of advance in the PC sector has allowed for available funds to buy in to the new sector.
And if you doubt my credibility, keep in mind, I saw both the e-book boom and the way that the previous console generation would play out when everyone else was predicting incorrectly. I have a far better than average track record for judging tech trends because I understand not only the technology but what both consumers, technophiles and business are looking for in technology.
I don't mean open source open, I mean MS open. Open to use software your way. The PC beat the Mac historically because it was a) cheaper and b) easier to use the way someone wanted to use it / more forgiving. It was even enough to get past the stability issues with crashes since old software simply worked and you could throw it at just about any hardware.
Apple's mantra is to make one really easy way to do things they think people want to do and at first, that does draw people in, but as they start to get comfortable and try to push the boundaries, they realize they can't. Android and Windows on the other hand allow far more boundary pushing and the #1 reason that average users that switch to Android consciously tell me is because of that flexibility.
Apple is making their classic mistake again, but this time they are probably going to overstep too far to be saved. For a time they've captured the "hip" pop-culture market which is great for their bottom line since they can control everything that a large number of people do on their devices and thus make huge profits, but they are courting that market instead of the A/V and Graphic Design markets that kept them alive for pretty much the entire rest of their existence. They already gave up the education market when Microsoft started really going after it years ago.
Thing is, people are starting to realize how much of a corner Apple backs them in to and are starting to favor more open options (ie, anything else) so we're seeing Android growing in the market. Eventually, Apple's bubble will burst and they aren't going to have any die-hard markets to fall on, just like any other sell out. I've never been a fan of Apple, but it's almost comical to watch as they predictably run the same path over and over. Just before they had Jobs to distort reality and make people buy what he wanted to sell.
The post Jobs Apple doesn't seem to understand they have to actually meet consumer desires instead of trying to control and monetize the entire experience.
Note that if you owned property and did all that, then you would have made a substantial profit on your investment as your land values go up. If you aren't doing a job that allows you to stay in the area at the level of living you want, then sell, take your gains, reinvest elsewhere and do the process again. That's business and moving up market. The only way you lose out is if you only rent and invest in the area without having an actual investment in the area.
This is also the same reason that you rarely see a professional photographer shooting in fully automatic mode on their camera. People do better work than computers on most complex activities if they have sufficient knowledge, skill and experience.
Yes, the reason is because if you know what you are doing, the automatic system may interfere with your needs when it misreads a situation. At a level more people can understand, this is similar to automatic vs manual transmission. Most people prefer the convenience of automatic transmission, however it is a) added complexity and b) does not respond to situations as well as a driver who knows how to use a manual transmission well. I won't touch any car for anything more than a rental if it doesn't have manual transmission and the ability to turn off any driver assist functionality that may interfere with my ability to handle the car safely. I normally leave things like traction control and stability control on, however under certain rare circumstances, they are a threat rather than an aid.
It's certainly present largely in both. It has just been my experience that Catholics (being biggest fish around) get the most of them, but it also depends on where abouts you are I suppose and when locally Catholic isn't the big dog, then the roles may be reversed. Either way, my point is that it isn't the religion but the culture that is responsible for the issue.
Thanks for sharing, yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about with people who have a cultural affiliation but don't really know what there views are or how they differ from others. I personally agree with your parents that Mormons are not Christians though as there are key and critical theological differences there. It is really hard to explain the differences in how critical parts of theology are though, particularly since the level of criticality of some elements is different for different groups. The most core points are pretty consistent though.
That largely comes from the fact that "Catholic" individuals frequently have nothing but religion rather than faith. In fairness though, this is not really the Catholic church's fault. They are the big dog, so they attract the most cultural identification without any actual belief or practice. Thus you may have a country that is 95% Catholic, but in many cases as few as 5% or less actually attend church. That's a huge group of people that isn't reached. My church supports a church plant in Italy for exactly that reason, even though it is "hugely catholic" it is effectively post-Christian because there is no actual involvement with any church (including the Roman Catholic church).
Historically, yes, the reason for breaking off from the Catholic church was widespread corruption within the church where priests were selling things instead of behaving in a Godly manner. This has largely been rectified by the Catholic church in more recent times though. It is true however, that it is far more difficult for a Catholic to see protestants as saved than the other way around. It's a bit more complicated than you make it out to be though as the basic foundation still comes from Christ and belief in him. A lot of that is probably questions better asked of a strongly practicing Catholic (which I am not, nor have I ever been). I only know what I have picked up from conversations with Catholic friends on the subjects.
As far as religion having no place in government, you won't get any argument from me. I don't think that a law should be forbidden just because it happens to correspond with a religious morality, so long as it is truly the majority view, though personally, I always vote towards letting people do what they want so long as it doesn't demonstrateably harm someone other than themselves (or willing participants with them).
My point was simply that the vast majority of Christians are not as divided as the original post seemed to indicate. There are people on the extremes in most of them, but if you look, particularly at those who are deeply theologically involved, you will find much less disagreement than might culturally be stoked for reasons of personal power or cultural superiority. As in most things (not just religion) those who are always the most aggressive against those who disagree are those who are either weak in their views or power hungry. That isn't a religion thing, its a human thing and it applies to any divisions.
Note that I also am not advocating that the US is "Christian" or should be. Personally, I don't think the government and religion should be crossed. It's a little more questionable when laws based on morality come in to the picture, but I tend to be very much against "moral" laws that can't demonstrate harm to someone other than the person doing it. Religion and politics do not mix well because those who seek power will abuse religion to get what they want. I elude to that in another one of my posts and this is also where much of the infighting has come from.
There is no Biblical basis (new testament anyway) for violent acts against someone for being a heretic, so therefore the only way to come to that conclusion is that it is an erosion of your power base and therefore a threat to be attacked. You even see this today with the "Christian" politicians who fear-monger up followers by saying all sorts of bad things will happen if they don't get their way.
Sorry, one last thought, as a real world example, check out Christianity on Stack Exchange some time. We've actually got people from all of those and we have quite interesting conversations on topics such as those, but also none of us think the others aren't Christian, just that we think they may be mistaken about some minor issues.
Also, to respond to your other points, issues like birth control, evolution, drinking & dancing, to some extent literal Biblical interpretation, guns, gay marriage (to an extent) and most other political hot topics are outlier issues that are not of core theological importance. Core theological issues are things like core nature of God and means of salvation. These core foundations are represented in things like the Apostles and Naciean(sp?) creeds. Departure from those core views will get you branded as heretical by the vast majority of mainline Christian denominations and staying within them is good enough to considered to have a saving faith by most. The rest is just minor details that have an impact on how we live our lives, but not on who is "actually" Christian (ie, saved).
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Not true. A good GUI should also support shortcuts and some level of scripting. Granted, that does start to blur the line between GUI and Command Line, but I could just as easily say you can't do something with a command line if a command line tool hasn't been written yet that can handle it. GUI and Command Line are no different in that respect though there are lots of crappy GUI interfaces that don't offer much flexibility. A good GUI interface should be just as flexible though, maybe even a bit more so since it should be easier to visualize what it is you are doing.
As for your specific example, doing that with SSAS is trivially simple while being entirely GUI based with no programming. I only mentioned C# because two topics were touched by the GP. They touched on needing to know how things actually work for programming and command line being "lower level". I was just illustrating that if you know why and how things work, you don't have to work low level. You can work abstracted if it will get the job done quicker, but it is important to know what your abstraction will do.
Also, sometimes a quick script or batch file is the fastest way to get something done, but not everything has to be command line based. I know a lot of command line stuff, but I still have GUI tools that I prefer for speed and simplicity. If I encounter something they can't handle then I'll either role my own or script my own depending on the complexity of my needs.
Yeah, I can agree with that. My favorite file management utility of all time is Total Commander and I love it specifically because it is both a fantastic GUI file manager but also has a fully functional command line built right in. If something happens to be easier with a command, I use that, if it is easier with the GUI, I use that. For server administration, I also have to admit that having the option to do things through a command line is super nice, though my goal with that is still always to get a UI working so that I can recover the rest of the way more easily.
Windows users know how Windows works too. We may not have access to the source code details exactly, but most of the underlying structure of the system is extensively documented as to how it behaves. Symbol builds are also available for debugging purposes. True, it isn't as simple as it would be with an open source system, but you are overblowing the difference between the two. The main advantage of open source software is being able to change how something behaves rather than knowing how it behaves. It can be a pain to have to work around an issue while waiting for it to be fixed, but that has nothing to do with understanding how the system works.
Understanding what the tools do under the hood is important. Using command line tools is not. I could write in assembly if I really wanted to, but I use C# for most stuff. I understand what it does under the hood, but that doesn't mean I have to always work at that level. Using GUI tools is the same thing. I know my GUI tools for administering a Windows server and I can typically make complex adjustments just as fast on it as my UNIX buddy can do using command line tools on his Linux boxes. The difference is what we are comfortable with. Some things go faster with one command, but when you have more complex actions, sometimes the GUI is faster. Either way, you still have to know your system and know what all the buttons or commands actually do.
They likely won't go away even then. We've been down this road before prior to the advent of internal expansion. Anyone else remember when computers were a small stand alone box and all the accessories were plugged in to it. Used to be your disk drive, your hard drive, pretty much everything was plugged in to it.
We moved away from that because having components inside meant that you didn't have to carry a bunch of different expansion devices with you for you computer. The industry favored internal modules over external quite strongly. Now, yes, there were technical limitations that required moving stuff close to the bus and largely accessories have been lagging on making full use of the bus speeds available now, but the closer you can get to the CPU, the faster you can make stuff operate and that is going to always be the case. No external port will ever match the speed you can get internally simply because of the distance the signals have to travel and the limited number of lanes available in a decently sized cable with reasonable power consumption.
Expansion slots may even become less common in a typical end user computer, but for a workstation, expandability and adaptability has ALWAYS been the name of the game and for expandability, internal, simple usage has always been favored over slower, modular, external options with a hard to service core.
Also, if you don't believe me, simply look at the average replacement time on tablets vs laptops vs classical desktops. The more you can swap out parts, the longer the systems last. People replace their tablet (no changeable parts) every year or two, their laptop every 3 years or so and their desktop every 6 years or so. Why does Apple want a desktop with fewer replaceable parts? Because they want you buying a new desktop every 2 or 3 years.
The GPU isn't replaceable in the new Mac Pro. It's a custom board. Other expansions currently sitting in my tower are USB 3 (which wasn't out when I built it), eSATA, a Raid controller, a professional sound card, a consumer sound card, a real time video encoder and an upgraded GPU. Now, some of those could be done as external devices, but do I really want to have to cart around 6 different external devices every time I move my desktop? Not particularly. And what if a component dies? It's easy to replace with off the shelf components because it is standardized. Standardized parts exist for a reason and migrating away from standardized parts internal assembly isn't smart, it's backwards.
They are tieing multiple expensive bits together with no way to modularly replace it and while that's great if you always want to buy entirely new hardware that looks "sexy", it's horrible if you want to actually be able to maintain a system.
For PC sales, they are simply one of the last quality builders standing. It will be interesting to see what privatized Dell is capable of depending on what direction Michael Dell takes it. Short of building your own, Lenovo and Apple are pretty much the only remotely quality hardware out there right now because PC manufacturers raced each other to the bottom of quality and consumers finally wised up to it.
If you look on the handset/mobile device side. Android is very rapidly eating away Apple's market share and has already taken significant majority lead in the smartphone market. Even Windows 8 is starting to make some headway in the tablet field, though it is still too early to tell where that will go, particularly with MS itself in flux at the moment.
No, I'm not saying that at all. Actually, I expect that PC sales will continue to decline a bit more until they stabilize. This isn't because of the death of the PC, it's because of the death of the useful advance of PC hardware. Mainline hardware (CPU and to an extent memory) are at a fairly hard limit that we can't rapidly advance. A 6 year old computer is now far more capable comparatively than a 12 year old computer was 6 years ago. The components that still advance are peripherals such as graphics cards, storage drives and to an extent, ports.
Having expansion slots allows a computer to live on much longer because it can be easily upgraded since the core components don't need to be replaced nearly as often. This means expansion slots are more important than ever before. It used to be that you would replace the entire computer every 3 to 4 years because CPUs and bus speeds were being so rapidly outpaced, so expansion wasn't important.
Similarly, people hold on to their desktops longer, so no kidding, sales are dropping off because people aren't re-entering the market. If we suddenly made cars that lasted 30 years we would see far fewer car sales within 6 or 7 years. It wouldn't mean that cars aren't desired any more, just that new ones aren't needed as often.
That slack has been taken up by the rapidly growing portable device market, but Apple and many industry analysts are foolishly thinking this means the death of the PC and that all computing will become mobile devices. It is true that it is disruptive technology and that it results in a spending shift, but they are distinct products with distinct characteristics and it's a new market so it has high growth as the lack of advance in the PC sector has allowed for available funds to buy in to the new sector.
And if you doubt my credibility, keep in mind, I saw both the e-book boom and the way that the previous console generation would play out when everyone else was predicting incorrectly. I have a far better than average track record for judging tech trends because I understand not only the technology but what both consumers, technophiles and business are looking for in technology.
I don't mean open source open, I mean MS open. Open to use software your way. The PC beat the Mac historically because it was a) cheaper and b) easier to use the way someone wanted to use it / more forgiving. It was even enough to get past the stability issues with crashes since old software simply worked and you could throw it at just about any hardware.
Apple's mantra is to make one really easy way to do things they think people want to do and at first, that does draw people in, but as they start to get comfortable and try to push the boundaries, they realize they can't. Android and Windows on the other hand allow far more boundary pushing and the #1 reason that average users that switch to Android consciously tell me is because of that flexibility.
Apple is making their classic mistake again, but this time they are probably going to overstep too far to be saved. For a time they've captured the "hip" pop-culture market which is great for their bottom line since they can control everything that a large number of people do on their devices and thus make huge profits, but they are courting that market instead of the A/V and Graphic Design markets that kept them alive for pretty much the entire rest of their existence. They already gave up the education market when Microsoft started really going after it years ago.
Thing is, people are starting to realize how much of a corner Apple backs them in to and are starting to favor more open options (ie, anything else) so we're seeing Android growing in the market. Eventually, Apple's bubble will burst and they aren't going to have any die-hard markets to fall on, just like any other sell out. I've never been a fan of Apple, but it's almost comical to watch as they predictably run the same path over and over. Just before they had Jobs to distort reality and make people buy what he wanted to sell.
The post Jobs Apple doesn't seem to understand they have to actually meet consumer desires instead of trying to control and monetize the entire experience.
But... but... if I needed it, my Mac daddy would tell me and market it to me cause they totally want me to have the best experience ever.
Note that if you owned property and did all that, then you would have made a substantial profit on your investment as your land values go up. If you aren't doing a job that allows you to stay in the area at the level of living you want, then sell, take your gains, reinvest elsewhere and do the process again. That's business and moving up market. The only way you lose out is if you only rent and invest in the area without having an actual investment in the area.
This is also the same reason that you rarely see a professional photographer shooting in fully automatic mode on their camera. People do better work than computers on most complex activities if they have sufficient knowledge, skill and experience.
Yes, the reason is because if you know what you are doing, the automatic system may interfere with your needs when it misreads a situation. At a level more people can understand, this is similar to automatic vs manual transmission. Most people prefer the convenience of automatic transmission, however it is a) added complexity and b) does not respond to situations as well as a driver who knows how to use a manual transmission well. I won't touch any car for anything more than a rental if it doesn't have manual transmission and the ability to turn off any driver assist functionality that may interfere with my ability to handle the car safely. I normally leave things like traction control and stability control on, however under certain rare circumstances, they are a threat rather than an aid.
Well I get unlimited data for buying an unlocked phone. That works out to saving about $60 a month.
The cake is a lie!
It's certainly present largely in both. It has just been my experience that Catholics (being biggest fish around) get the most of them, but it also depends on where abouts you are I suppose and when locally Catholic isn't the big dog, then the roles may be reversed. Either way, my point is that it isn't the religion but the culture that is responsible for the issue.
Thanks for sharing, yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about with people who have a cultural affiliation but don't really know what there views are or how they differ from others. I personally agree with your parents that Mormons are not Christians though as there are key and critical theological differences there. It is really hard to explain the differences in how critical parts of theology are though, particularly since the level of criticality of some elements is different for different groups. The most core points are pretty consistent though.
That largely comes from the fact that "Catholic" individuals frequently have nothing but religion rather than faith. In fairness though, this is not really the Catholic church's fault. They are the big dog, so they attract the most cultural identification without any actual belief or practice. Thus you may have a country that is 95% Catholic, but in many cases as few as 5% or less actually attend church. That's a huge group of people that isn't reached. My church supports a church plant in Italy for exactly that reason, even though it is "hugely catholic" it is effectively post-Christian because there is no actual involvement with any church (including the Roman Catholic church).
Historically, yes, the reason for breaking off from the Catholic church was widespread corruption within the church where priests were selling things instead of behaving in a Godly manner. This has largely been rectified by the Catholic church in more recent times though. It is true however, that it is far more difficult for a Catholic to see protestants as saved than the other way around. It's a bit more complicated than you make it out to be though as the basic foundation still comes from Christ and belief in him. A lot of that is probably questions better asked of a strongly practicing Catholic (which I am not, nor have I ever been). I only know what I have picked up from conversations with Catholic friends on the subjects.
As far as religion having no place in government, you won't get any argument from me. I don't think that a law should be forbidden just because it happens to correspond with a religious morality, so long as it is truly the majority view, though personally, I always vote towards letting people do what they want so long as it doesn't demonstrateably harm someone other than themselves (or willing participants with them).
My point was simply that the vast majority of Christians are not as divided as the original post seemed to indicate. There are people on the extremes in most of them, but if you look, particularly at those who are deeply theologically involved, you will find much less disagreement than might culturally be stoked for reasons of personal power or cultural superiority. As in most things (not just religion) those who are always the most aggressive against those who disagree are those who are either weak in their views or power hungry. That isn't a religion thing, its a human thing and it applies to any divisions.
Note that I also am not advocating that the US is "Christian" or should be. Personally, I don't think the government and religion should be crossed. It's a little more questionable when laws based on morality come in to the picture, but I tend to be very much against "moral" laws that can't demonstrate harm to someone other than the person doing it. Religion and politics do not mix well because those who seek power will abuse religion to get what they want. I elude to that in another one of my posts and this is also where much of the infighting has come from.
There is no Biblical basis (new testament anyway) for violent acts against someone for being a heretic, so therefore the only way to come to that conclusion is that it is an erosion of your power base and therefore a threat to be attacked. You even see this today with the "Christian" politicians who fear-monger up followers by saying all sorts of bad things will happen if they don't get their way.
Sorry, one last thought, as a real world example, check out Christianity on Stack Exchange some time. We've actually got people from all of those and we have quite interesting conversations on topics such as those, but also none of us think the others aren't Christian, just that we think they may be mistaken about some minor issues.
Also, to respond to your other points, issues like birth control, evolution, drinking & dancing, to some extent literal Biblical interpretation, guns, gay marriage (to an extent) and most other political hot topics are outlier issues that are not of core theological importance. Core theological issues are things like core nature of God and means of salvation. These core foundations are represented in things like the Apostles and Naciean(sp?) creeds. Departure from those core views will get you branded as heretical by the vast majority of mainline Christian denominations and staying within them is good enough to considered to have a saving faith by most. The rest is just minor details that have an impact on how we live our lives, but not on who is "actually" Christian (ie, saved).