I've tried it (microswitches and a PIC). Still have the problem of ridiculously expensive coin mechs (if you can even find them--I can't).
Nice idea, though.
People like me, who build arcade machines (though I own a MAME-based machine, most of the machines I build use a game I've written called Jewel Crash which is very similar to Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo), can't set the prices. That's left up to the people who end up operating the machines. I work at an arcade where most of the video games are $0.50 and the ticket games are $0.25; there's a ton of pass-through, but it's also located at a resort so there's a lot of built-in clientele among the kids.
The machines aren't new. The most played game is Area 51, with Skee-Ball being a close second. But they get a metric fuckton of use. Part of it's the cheap play; part of it's just that the games are addictive.
Someone up above suggested having varying price structures ($0.25 on a Tuesday morning and $2.00 on a Friday afternoon). This is a great idea. I've been tried to work on the same thing on a newer-type cabinet--I have the advantage of being the one who wrote the game, so I can build the machine and edit the code as well. The problem is that it vastly increases the price of building the cabinet. It also means that every old-style game is suddenly incompatible with new machines.
The standard coin doors that you see in arcades can't support that. Coin mechanisms are based on an electronic switch. When you drop in a coin that validates (there's a different mech for quarters, brass tokens, nickels, or whatever), it completes a circuit. It's no different to the program running it than a button press (indeed, MAME cabinets usually have a button that simulates a coin drop). Every arcade coin mech I've ever seen operates like this and doesn't accept more than one type of coin/token.
There are mechanisms that accept multiple types of coins. They're pricey as hell and I've never seen one that interfaces with an arcade system (like the I-PAC, which most people use in combination with PC hardware to simulate behavior with MAME or PC-written "arcade" games).
Basically--the current method of arcade systems is not conducive to modern entertainment centers. And unless they can find USB-based or even serial-connecting coin devices that are as cheap as the current coin mechs--I don't see anything like this working out.
I will admit to the occaisonal downloading in years past (can you say "fuck Metallica"?), but haven't in quite some time. The parent post (and great-grandparent post, with a fucking idiot in between) sums up my feelings on the matter quite nicely.
And the beating of the aforementioned fucking idiot is a Good Thing.
BlueJ is the worst pile of sludge I've ever had to work with (and I've used vi and emacs to boot--well, no, not to boot; we know it can, but I really do prefer Linux under my emacs instead of emacs under my emacs).
It uses soft tabs (spaces). Most students in my class (I'm a high school senior in an AP Computer Science A class because I needed the elective credit to graduate, so I help teach) are none too bright and click somewhere in the middle of the whitespace, then hit tab. This brings the cursor to the nearest tabstop--and fills the area between the cursor's last position and its current tabstop with spaces. Moron students don't see a problem with this and they're off on their merry way. Meanwhile, those of us who have to LOOK at their code are puzzling over why there are four spaces before the beginning of an if statement and seven before its final brace (no, it isn't GNU-style). BlueJ encourages hard-to-read, poorly formatted code. Its text editing functionality could be duplicated in about four hours using Visual Basic 6 and a richtext control.
It also seems to crash a lot on WinXP machines. And its layout is ugly as hell. If you're forced to teach Java, use an IDE that someone out there is actually going to use.
Oh, goodie, talking about the GPLv3...do we shoot him before or afterwards?
More seriously, though. I'm sure that Stallman will attempt to tailor his comments to a business audience. I am equally sure that he'll be looked on as little more than a joke. The man has charisma--I've seen him speak in public, and he's got something there--but he's just not the one you want speaking to a business audience.
Torvalds? Sure. He actually works for a living. He is someone whose existence a businessman can parse, relate to, and understand.
You don't have a clue about what you're talking about.
As of VB5, VB objects could be instantiated, given constructors, etc., just like any other language you'd mention. The syntax was a bit different, but the concept was the same.
Also as of VB5 (though it may well have been sooner), it was possible (and in most versions of VB6 I've used, the default) to have "Option Explicit" active, aka typesafety that required explicit conversions and declarations.
VB4 was my first "real" programming language (I used QBASIC for years, but that doesn't really count). Since then I've used VB5, VB6, and VB.NET; I am also fluent with C/C++, Java, PHP, and a few other languages.
The long and the short of it is this: VB ain't bad.
People will say that Visual Basic is "unstructured," and they're clueless. People will say that Visual Basic is slow, and they're one step up from clueless (VB5 and VB6 compiled to native code and could, when used correctly, rival Win32 C++ applications for speed; VB.NET compiles to the same CLR the rest of the.NET crap does).
My personal view of the Win32 API is that the inventor didn't like people. Window creation is needlessly masochistic. VB takes that hassle away. I've written applications where the entire backend of the program is in C++ and used the VB interface just to call C++ DLL functions. It's doable. It works pretty well.
Basically--VB is a viable language if you want to get something done *now* and don't care all that much about whether it's pretty. Would I use it for game programming? No (once was enough, a 2D RPG for a school project in sophomore year of high school). Would I use it to write something quick and dirty that I need immediately? Sure, and I'll be done before a C++ coder even has a window up and running.
VB also has some pretty nice features that YFTL lacks. You can run the program without compiling it, in interpreted mode--very useful for bug-ferreting. Its class system pre VB.NET was baroque at best, but its built-in garbage collection/memory allocation on-the-fly and the fact that all arrays could be dynamic without external references made it fun to mess with.
Caveat: I use Ubuntu at home and am fairly conversant with Linux. At school I typically use a FC4 server via VNC.
As for your question--I wouldn't really recommend it. I'm what I'd consider an above average user (or average, for a Linux-head)--I don't eat, sleep, and breathe ls switches, but I know how to get around, deal with most problems that come up, etc. And I still get stuck. The Edubuntu packages aren't all that good, though they're getting better, and if you don't have time to play the sysadmin, who in the hell will?
I'll probably need to pass in my Geek Card for saying this, but come on. You want to switch to software that doesn't really do what they'd want to do and you don't want to put in the effort to follow through. I don't think that makes sense. At all.
Slashdot Mirror
I've tried it (microswitches and a PIC). Still have the problem of ridiculously expensive coin mechs (if you can even find them--I can't). Nice idea, though.
This is old news.
People like me, who build arcade machines (though I own a MAME-based machine, most of the machines I build use a game I've written called Jewel Crash which is very similar to Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo), can't set the prices. That's left up to the people who end up operating the machines. I work at an arcade where most of the video games are $0.50 and the ticket games are $0.25; there's a ton of pass-through, but it's also located at a resort so there's a lot of built-in clientele among the kids.
The machines aren't new. The most played game is Area 51, with Skee-Ball being a close second. But they get a metric fuckton of use. Part of it's the cheap play; part of it's just that the games are addictive.
Someone up above suggested having varying price structures ($0.25 on a Tuesday morning and $2.00 on a Friday afternoon). This is a great idea. I've been tried to work on the same thing on a newer-type cabinet--I have the advantage of being the one who wrote the game, so I can build the machine and edit the code as well. The problem is that it vastly increases the price of building the cabinet. It also means that every old-style game is suddenly incompatible with new machines.
The standard coin doors that you see in arcades can't support that. Coin mechanisms are based on an electronic switch. When you drop in a coin that validates (there's a different mech for quarters, brass tokens, nickels, or whatever), it completes a circuit. It's no different to the program running it than a button press (indeed, MAME cabinets usually have a button that simulates a coin drop). Every arcade coin mech I've ever seen operates like this and doesn't accept more than one type of coin/token.
There are mechanisms that accept multiple types of coins. They're pricey as hell and I've never seen one that interfaces with an arcade system (like the I-PAC, which most people use in combination with PC hardware to simulate behavior with MAME or PC-written "arcade" games).
Basically--the current method of arcade systems is not conducive to modern entertainment centers. And unless they can find USB-based or even serial-connecting coin devices that are as cheap as the current coin mechs--I don't see anything like this working out.
I will admit to the occaisonal downloading in years past (can you say "fuck Metallica"?), but haven't in quite some time. The parent post (and great-grandparent post, with a fucking idiot in between) sums up my feelings on the matter quite nicely.
And the beating of the aforementioned fucking idiot is a Good Thing.
BlueJ is the worst pile of sludge I've ever had to work with (and I've used vi and emacs to boot--well, no, not to boot; we know it can, but I really do prefer Linux under my emacs instead of emacs under my emacs).
It uses soft tabs (spaces). Most students in my class (I'm a high school senior in an AP Computer Science A class because I needed the elective credit to graduate, so I help teach) are none too bright and click somewhere in the middle of the whitespace, then hit tab. This brings the cursor to the nearest tabstop--and fills the area between the cursor's last position and its current tabstop with spaces. Moron students don't see a problem with this and they're off on their merry way. Meanwhile, those of us who have to LOOK at their code are puzzling over why there are four spaces before the beginning of an if statement and seven before its final brace (no, it isn't GNU-style). BlueJ encourages hard-to-read, poorly formatted code. Its text editing functionality could be duplicated in about four hours using Visual Basic 6 and a richtext control.
It also seems to crash a lot on WinXP machines. And its layout is ugly as hell. If you're forced to teach Java, use an IDE that someone out there is actually going to use.
That means Eclipse.
And pretty soon, they are going to have thermonuclear weapons, and theres not a lot anyone can do about it.
Sounds like ol' Dubya thinks he's got something he can do about it.
...he probably knows how to drive.
...free porn is quite commonplace.
I installed UNIX off punch cards.
/me eyeshifts.
On a 486.
In 1993.
Don't you be judgin' me!
I am too busy being in awe of your ID number to read the transcript.
These things have priorities, you know.
I love you, Brother Bob!
*bro-hug*
For the gay gun-arm fetishists among us, you could even date Barret in his sailor suit.
Kinky.
Because, remember, everyone's equal! The ditchdigger is as valuable to a society as a doctor and we all should hug and chant Om and love each other!
Get a grip.
(Oh yeah--and pretty offtopic.)
I like it. Needs more features, but it's nice and easy to read. No clutter.
Oh, my bad. I should have just called it velveeta. Perhaps it even qualifies as jello.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
How much does a Dell with Windows XP cost? How much does the equivalent Dell cost when you put Linux on it? ...there ya go.
...to think that you had a germane point in another thread with this crap.
Stop the bloody astroturfing already. We get it.
Oh, goodie, talking about the GPLv3...do we shoot him before or afterwards?
More seriously, though. I'm sure that Stallman will attempt to tailor his comments to a business audience. I am equally sure that he'll be looked on as little more than a joke. The man has charisma--I've seen him speak in public, and he's got something there--but he's just not the one you want speaking to a business audience.
Torvalds? Sure. He actually works for a living. He is someone whose existence a businessman can parse, relate to, and understand.
Stallman? Considerably less so.
What the hell?
(The above should be flagged "sarcastic" for those who happen to lack such a barometer internally. I hear it's coming in Hurd 1.0, though.)
You don't have a clue about what you're talking about.
As of VB5, VB objects could be instantiated, given constructors, etc., just like any other language you'd mention. The syntax was a bit different, but the concept was the same.
Also as of VB5 (though it may well have been sooner), it was possible (and in most versions of VB6 I've used, the default) to have "Option Explicit" active, aka typesafety that required explicit conversions and declarations.
Mod parent -1, clueless.
~Ed
VB4 was my first "real" programming language (I used QBASIC for years, but that doesn't really count). Since then I've used VB5, VB6, and VB.NET; I am also fluent with C/C++, Java, PHP, and a few other languages.
.NET crap does).
The long and the short of it is this: VB ain't bad.
People will say that Visual Basic is "unstructured," and they're clueless. People will say that Visual Basic is slow, and they're one step up from clueless (VB5 and VB6 compiled to native code and could, when used correctly, rival Win32 C++ applications for speed; VB.NET compiles to the same CLR the rest of the
My personal view of the Win32 API is that the inventor didn't like people. Window creation is needlessly masochistic. VB takes that hassle away. I've written applications where the entire backend of the program is in C++ and used the VB interface just to call C++ DLL functions. It's doable. It works pretty well.
Basically--VB is a viable language if you want to get something done *now* and don't care all that much about whether it's pretty. Would I use it for game programming? No (once was enough, a 2D RPG for a school project in sophomore year of high school). Would I use it to write something quick and dirty that I need immediately? Sure, and I'll be done before a C++ coder even has a window up and running.
VB also has some pretty nice features that YFTL lacks. You can run the program without compiling it, in interpreted mode--very useful for bug-ferreting. Its class system pre VB.NET was baroque at best, but its built-in garbage collection/memory allocation on-the-fly and the fact that all arrays could be dynamic without external references made it fun to mess with.
~Ed
I'm sure you still use Windows.
Caveat: I use Ubuntu at home and am fairly conversant with Linux. At school I typically use a FC4 server via VNC.
As for your question--I wouldn't really recommend it. I'm what I'd consider an above average user (or average, for a Linux-head)--I don't eat, sleep, and breathe ls switches, but I know how to get around, deal with most problems that come up, etc. And I still get stuck. The Edubuntu packages aren't all that good, though they're getting better, and if you don't have time to play the sysadmin, who in the hell will?
I'll probably need to pass in my Geek Card for saying this, but come on. You want to switch to software that doesn't really do what they'd want to do and you don't want to put in the effort to follow through. I don't think that makes sense. At all.