Can someone pls explain what above poster meant by: > GPS kicks-ass. Interact with other GPS systems and keep track of things via GPSD and such.
what's the point of GPSD? I know its a deamon that allows multiple GPS receivers to send GPS data but what is the point of that, why do you care where the device is.
wikipedia article doesn't explain why you'd want to use it
Bear in mind the "virtual machine" on most phones is in fact simply a slow interpreter - it makes BASIC look souped-up.
Presumably you're referring to the KVM (the J2ME JVM) which is slow. I think you're out of date.
AFAIK modern phones have Sun's CLDC HotSpot VM (the "CLDC HI VM") which has speeds equivilent in relative terms to a JVM on a desktop PC. The Blackberry phones in particular have a great JVM. When more phones have decent ARM-based gigahertz processors speed Java speed will stop being an issue much like the desktop space.
There's no associated complexity with programming in JavaScript. There's lack of progress in the language (still no native support of ECMA4 in browser, shame that *Flash* comes with ECMA4 implementation in just two months, before browsers do).
I disagree.
Javascript is complex due to it's idiosynchroses due it's weird mix of functional LISP-like features and half-baked OO constructs (prototype) which means that (for instance) the "this" keyword has strange properties which, although well-documentated, make it hard to use the encapsulation features that do exist
As a result of this, Javascript-capable IDEs have poor code naviagtion and outlining - and the deguggers have similar problems making it complex to develop using to Javascript.
JS synthesis is a hack anyway. I've seen the code produced by such technologies, and it's crap. You trust your application's well being to the compiler authors with the hope they update it when it breaks in the latest and greatest browser out there.
Given the browser issues, I would think that a Javascript compiler is just the way to go. As soon as (say) IE 7 comes out and breaks all those hand-crafted scripts, you just recompile with the lastest version of (say) Google's GWT whcih will obviously be kept up to date with the latest browers
I'm a functional (Haskell, LISP) programmer as well as being well versed in OO (C++ & Java mainly) and I've just started my first AJAX project and I've hopped from IDE TO ide including plain vim, Eclipse with ADT & WDT, Mozilla with Venkman debugger and (gasp horror) Visual Studio 2005 and I still find it harder than anything else I've done in terms of code-navigation and debugging
Symbian... especially Series 60 development classically has been known as an #ifdef hell. Symbian developers add #ifdefs everywhere even if they're not necessary. In this case, Nokia had the opportunity to actually fix out of memory or constrained memory handling for all platforms but instead chose to write code that was specific to themselves and simply label it something else.
The reason Symbian code uses #ifdefs is because one bit of source code is often designed for many different devices and they're looking to produce various versions of the program for each device at compile time.
Then again, I'm a former Symbian employee so I'm used to writing core OS code, if application developers are doing the same thing, it's probably unnecessary. But #ifdefs are common in any OS source code - the Linux Kernel is no better IMHO
Furthermore, there is a need to keep the compiled code small as we're talking about devices that are very limited in terms of storage and RAM
If it were Linus saying "but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Windows, and you don't use MacOS," everyone here would get it.
Seconded.
And thirded, and fourthed, and fifthed,...
Has everyone on slashdot either not RTFA / lost their sense of humour ?
You can call MS programmers lots of things, but third-rate wouldn't be one of them
I have seen their hiring at universities; only the third-raters apply because anyone else has too much pride to work for a company where ensuring the user is locked in to you, no matter how bad your product, is more important than making them want to stay with you. If you care about what you do that's not an attractive environment.
I advise you to Google their interview process. I think you'll disciver you you would very likely never get into M$ - their interviews are tough - or at least are *as* tough as (say) Google and you cannot be a third-rate programmer and get in.
Ultimately there are enough of us programmers out there that even if 80% wouldn't consider M$ because of pride, only a tiny fraction most of the remaining 20% are capable enough to be hired by M$ - they only accept extremely good programmers, I'm in the middle of their hiring process and trust me, it's tough - and I'm no third-rate programmer.
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Can someone pls explain what above poster meant by:
> GPS kicks-ass. Interact with other GPS systems and keep track of things via GPSD and such.
what's the point of GPSD? I know its a deamon that allows multiple GPS receivers to send GPS data but what is the point of that, why do you care where the device is.
wikipedia article doesn't explain why you'd want to use it
thx,
Ash.
Bear in mind the "virtual machine" on most phones is in fact simply a slow interpreter - it makes BASIC look souped-up.
Presumably you're referring to the KVM (the J2ME JVM) which is slow. I think you're out of date.
AFAIK modern phones have Sun's CLDC HotSpot VM (the "CLDC HI VM") which has speeds equivilent in relative terms to a JVM on a desktop PC. The Blackberry phones in particular have a great JVM. When more phones have decent ARM-based gigahertz processors speed Java speed will stop being an issue much like the desktop space.
There's no associated complexity with programming in JavaScript. There's lack of progress in the language (still no native support of ECMA4 in browser, shame that *Flash* comes with ECMA4 implementation in just two months, before browsers do).
I disagree.
Javascript is complex due to it's idiosynchroses due it's weird mix of functional LISP-like features and half-baked OO constructs (prototype) which means that (for instance) the "this" keyword has strange properties which, although well-documentated, make it hard to use the encapsulation features that do exist
As a result of this, Javascript-capable IDEs have poor code naviagtion and outlining - and the deguggers have similar problems making it complex to develop using to Javascript.
JS synthesis is a hack anyway. I've seen the code produced by such technologies, and it's crap. You trust your application's well being to the compiler authors with the hope they update it when it breaks in the latest and greatest browser out there.
Given the browser issues, I would think that a Javascript compiler is just the way to go. As soon as (say) IE 7 comes out and breaks all those hand-crafted scripts, you just recompile with the lastest version of (say) Google's GWT whcih will obviously be kept up to date with the latest browers
I'm a functional (Haskell, LISP) programmer as well as being well versed in OO (C++ & Java mainly) and I've just started my first AJAX project and I've hopped from IDE TO ide including plain vim, Eclipse with ADT & WDT, Mozilla with Venkman debugger and (gasp horror) Visual Studio 2005 and I still find it harder than anything else I've done in terms of code-navigation and debugging
Symbian... especially Series 60 development classically has been known as an #ifdef hell. Symbian developers add #ifdefs everywhere even if they're not necessary. In this case, Nokia had the opportunity to actually fix out of memory or constrained memory handling for all platforms but instead chose to write code that was specific to themselves and simply label it something else.
The reason Symbian code uses #ifdefs is because one bit of source code is often designed for many different devices and they're looking to produce various versions of the program for each device at compile time.
Then again, I'm a former Symbian employee so I'm used to writing core OS code, if application developers are doing the same thing, it's probably unnecessary. But #ifdefs are common in any OS source code - the Linux Kernel is no better IMHO
Furthermore, there is a need to keep the compiled code small as we're talking about devices that are very limited in terms of storage and RAM
Seconded.
And thirded, and fourthed, and fifthed, ...
Has everyone on slashdot either not RTFA / lost their sense of humour ?
Ash.
You can call MS programmers lots of things, but third-rate wouldn't be one of them
I have seen their hiring at universities; only the third-raters apply because anyone else has too much pride to work for a company where ensuring the user is locked in to you, no matter how bad your product, is more important than making them want to stay with you. If you care about what you do that's not an attractive environment.
I advise you to Google their interview process. I think you'll disciver you you would very likely never get into M$ - their interviews are tough - or at least are *as* tough as (say) Google and you cannot be a third-rate programmer and get in.
Ultimately there are enough of us programmers out there that even if 80% wouldn't consider M$ because of pride, only a tiny fraction most of the remaining 20% are capable enough to be hired by M$ - they only accept extremely good programmers, I'm in the middle of their hiring process and trust me, it's tough - and I'm no third-rate programmer.
Ash