I disagree. I'd go with KDevelop for anything C/C++ based, or NetBeans for Java. Eclipse is nice for large-scale projects (to an extent), but it's weighty and its workflow kind of sucks for a newbie.
KDevelop, NetBeans, and Eclipse aren't really "drop-in development environments" the same way Visual Studio is, though. That's a bit of a problem.
This post is a prime example of why you, and people like you, should not be involved in building user interfaces. That's not an insult, don't get me wrong. Techie types are valuable in areas where their expertise is useful. Trying to reason out how people actually use computers--that's not an area of expertise for most techies. I wouldn't have most UI designers writing code, either.
The GUI is less flexible, yes. That's a drawback. But for the majority of people it is far more valuable because it does not require prior knowledge to operate. A button that says "Do Foo" with checkboxes "Initialize 'Bar' Subsystem" and "Provide verbose output" is easily grasped by an individual user (especially because it's very easy to add tooltips to each of these in order to provide more information". A CLI command of "foo -Bv" is much less easily grasped by an end user who is not already comfortable with the command line.
"Microsoft Word has committed an error and must be closed" is about the most useful information for basic users. What information could you give them that's actually useful and valuable? The DLL that failed? Why will they care? What error did Microsoft Word commit? Again, why would they care? That information is available for me, as a technical user, if I want it--but I have to click a button to access it and it's out of the way of those end users.
Users don't want to know how their computers work. They don't care about that. Users don't want to have to learn how the CLI works. They don't care about that. Users want a quick, relatively efficient system for doing their stuff, rather than doing the computer's stuff. The CLI is not that system because the benefits of the CLI require more time investment and effort than users want to devote to their computer's stuff when they could be working on their own stuff. A good desktop environment tells the user nothing that they don't need to know and doesn't ask for the user to waste time on the computer's stuff, as far as that is possible.
Ding ding ding. I came back to post precisely this, but you said it well enough.
The GTK system is just obnoxiously built and more of a hindrance than a help. (Personally, I don't think that being able to use the libraries in "any language" is a good thing; I think that a concerted effort to get the desktop away from native code is the right move. But I digress.)
Gnome is about providing a programming environment for normal people to use
Then why the fuck is its primary windowing library (and a lot of other stuff) written in something as absolutely cretinous as object-oriented C? You get the compatibility arguments, sure, until you start running into breaking ABI because you've run out of reserved values in the core structs (like they're facing now, hence the talk about GTK 3) and other problems related to old, problematic languages. C might be easy to port (and yes, it is), but holy shit, does it make transitions shit--and very much not "for normal people". (Or businesses, but hey, fuck them, they dare write proprietary code, etc.)
GNOME isn't about a programming environment or any sort of environment for normal people. I'm not sure what it's about, but that ain't it.
It is in no way harder to stay in a deflationary loop, it's just that the way you stop deflation is by increasing the availability of money--which is the move that a government in a deflationary cycle will perform, and is in fact performing now.
You have to make money more available to slow deflation. That's how it works. Either you convince consumers to spend (harder than it sounds) or the government infuses money into the economy.
That said, the method by which they're dropping money in sucks, but that's a whole 'nother argument.
Deflation is not a "silver lining" - it results in a positive feedback loop that craters the economy. Some deflation is okay, but when deflation accelerates, people stop buying--so the prices continue to free-fall.
Runaway inflation is bad. Runaway deflation is almost as bad.
Not necessarily. If you can travel through the fourth dimension "instantaneously", there's no real reason you couldn't travel through the first three. Lock the earth as your frame of reference and stay where you are relative to it.
You...do realize that Silverlight 1.0 (which is the audio/video system) was released for the PowerPC Mac, right...?
And Microsoft products, both operating systems and the.NET CLR, already run on RISC architectures. Microsoft's RISC-architecture stuff goes back as far as NT on the Alpha. Windows XP Embedded also runs on a number of RISC architectures (ATMs, etcetera). In addition, a version of the.NET CLR exists for Windows Mobile, which is predominantly based on ARM. And their own XBox 360 is based on PowerPC, with plenty of Microsoft software for it (including a version of the.NET CLR, in the form of the XNA Framework). So I'll go out on a limb and say that they're quite capable of working with the mobile/console architectures out there and that your calling them a "joke" reveals more about your lack of knowledge when it comes to Microsoft's capabilities and product line than anything else.
The reason Silverlight 2.0 wasn't released for PPC Macs is much simpler than "lol M$ sux", though it might be a little bruising to your PowerPC Persecution Complex. Silverlight 2.0 wasn't released for PowerPC Macintosh boxes because, like it or not, PowerPC is more or less deprecated. It's old, it's done, Microsoft earns nothing by supporting it--I'd imagine that testing would cost more than they'd receive in return from a marketshare boost--and you know as well as I do that Apple won't support it for much longer either. Sucks for you.
The software CDs being free is insane. Production costs exist.
The monthly bit is very unlikely to work (many games wouldn't last that long!), but a total-up-front deal after the game is installed would be fine by me (full version of the game available for download with an account requirement? sure, why not).
You do realize that that was why Gabe's saying something like this, right? He has an obligation to his customers (who, for Steam, are the publishers--not you; you're the consumer, Steam's the delivery channel) to do what they want where it's reasonable. The customers want delayed releases, he loses business if he doesn't accept that.
But he's trying to change that. You should be cheering this on.
There are persistent rumors that they're working on a Linux client. No games that I know of offhand (except maybe something like the iD Pack, which has the various Quake games, since I know there are *nix ports), though.
Gabe Newell's gone on record saying that if Valve went under, Steam games would be patched to remove Steam checks. I'd be surprised if they didn't have this contingency plan already in place, to be honest; while I've never worked for Valve I do know a few of their developers socially and this topic came up, with an attitude of "it's handled" being pretty clear.
Plus, they aren't a publicly traded company, it'd be hard for them to get railroaded out before being able to release the patch.
You know, that's actually a really good idea. I really like that idea.
Although I'd think they'd release a patch to remove the check rather than have it check time servers, because checking time servers makes it really easy to crack right away.
Gabe's gone on record saying that if Valve went under, they'd release a patch to remove Steam checks on all games.
AFAIK Valve has no debt and it's also not a public company, so it'd be pretty difficult for a hostile takeover or receivership to happen. It's possible, but the chances are slim.
It actually does support my OS. Specifically, Windows.:) I use Linux on my servers, but my desktop is a Windows box.
And...well, yes, a computer that's three years old is outdated, once a processor arch switch has been made. Sucks, but still.
And AFAIK, QT/Real/WMedia didn't allow streaming at the time. Personally, I have no problem with what you suggest, but I also have no problem with the way they're going with it now. I mean absolutely no disrespect, but you know what you're getting into when you choose not to use Windows on your desktop. In my KDE 3.5 stage when I didn't have a Windows box, I didn't complain that people didn't cater to my nonstandard choice. I got around it or did without. Sucks, but you know what you're getting into.
Of course, though he does raise a good point, even if it's tongue-in-cheek: screaming that this or that IS JUST LIKE HITLAAAAAAAAR does kind of rob it of credibility.
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I disagree. I'd go with KDevelop for anything C/C++ based, or NetBeans for Java. Eclipse is nice for large-scale projects (to an extent), but it's weighty and its workflow kind of sucks for a newbie.
KDevelop, NetBeans, and Eclipse aren't really "drop-in development environments" the same way Visual Studio is, though. That's a bit of a problem.
This post is a prime example of why you, and people like you, should not be involved in building user interfaces. That's not an insult, don't get me wrong. Techie types are valuable in areas where their expertise is useful. Trying to reason out how people actually use computers--that's not an area of expertise for most techies. I wouldn't have most UI designers writing code, either.
The GUI is less flexible, yes. That's a drawback. But for the majority of people it is far more valuable because it does not require prior knowledge to operate. A button that says "Do Foo" with checkboxes "Initialize 'Bar' Subsystem" and "Provide verbose output" is easily grasped by an individual user (especially because it's very easy to add tooltips to each of these in order to provide more information". A CLI command of "foo -Bv" is much less easily grasped by an end user who is not already comfortable with the command line.
"Microsoft Word has committed an error and must be closed" is about the most useful information for basic users. What information could you give them that's actually useful and valuable? The DLL that failed? Why will they care? What error did Microsoft Word commit? Again, why would they care? That information is available for me, as a technical user, if I want it--but I have to click a button to access it and it's out of the way of those end users.
Users don't want to know how their computers work. They don't care about that. Users don't want to have to learn how the CLI works. They don't care about that. Users want a quick, relatively efficient system for doing their stuff, rather than doing the computer's stuff. The CLI is not that system because the benefits of the CLI require more time investment and effort than users want to devote to their computer's stuff when they could be working on their own stuff. A good desktop environment tells the user nothing that they don't need to know and doesn't ask for the user to waste time on the computer's stuff, as far as that is possible.
The restricted device manager craps out when trying to install drivers for my Radeon Mobility X1300. Don't sound so confident.
Ding ding ding. I came back to post precisely this, but you said it well enough.
The GTK system is just obnoxiously built and more of a hindrance than a help. (Personally, I don't think that being able to use the libraries in "any language" is a good thing; I think that a concerted effort to get the desktop away from native code is the right move. But I digress.)
some people like to code GUIs from the CLI for some perverted reason
Some people might say that those people should not be allowed to program GUIs.
Gnome is about providing a programming environment for normal people to use
Then why the fuck is its primary windowing library (and a lot of other stuff) written in something as absolutely cretinous as object-oriented C? You get the compatibility arguments, sure, until you start running into breaking ABI because you've run out of reserved values in the core structs (like they're facing now, hence the talk about GTK 3) and other problems related to old, problematic languages. C might be easy to port (and yes, it is), but holy shit, does it make transitions shit--and very much not "for normal people". (Or businesses, but hey, fuck them, they dare write proprietary code, etc.)
GNOME isn't about a programming environment or any sort of environment for normal people. I'm not sure what it's about, but that ain't it.
There's nothing stopping you from writing a JavaScript compiler. Hell, there's an ECMAScript 4.0 JavaScript implementation for .NET.
To an extent, yes, but there comes a point where the inflation completely decouples from all safeguards. Hence, hyperinflation.
Jobs ain't getting made in hyperinflative economies.
It is in no way harder to stay in a deflationary loop, it's just that the way you stop deflation is by increasing the availability of money--which is the move that a government in a deflationary cycle will perform, and is in fact performing now.
You have to make money more available to slow deflation. That's how it works. Either you convince consumers to spend (harder than it sounds) or the government infuses money into the economy.
That said, the method by which they're dropping money in sucks, but that's a whole 'nother argument.
Deflation is not a "silver lining" - it results in a positive feedback loop that craters the economy. Some deflation is okay, but when deflation accelerates, people stop buying--so the prices continue to free-fall.
Runaway inflation is bad. Runaway deflation is almost as bad.
Not necessarily. If you can travel through the fourth dimension "instantaneously", there's no real reason you couldn't travel through the first three. Lock the earth as your frame of reference and stay where you are relative to it.
You...do realize that Silverlight 1.0 (which is the audio/video system) was released for the PowerPC Mac, right...?
And Microsoft products, both operating systems and the .NET CLR, already run on RISC architectures. Microsoft's RISC-architecture stuff goes back as far as NT on the Alpha. Windows XP Embedded also runs on a number of RISC architectures (ATMs, etcetera). In addition, a version of the .NET CLR exists for Windows Mobile, which is predominantly based on ARM. And their own XBox 360 is based on PowerPC, with plenty of Microsoft software for it (including a version of the .NET CLR, in the form of the XNA Framework). So I'll go out on a limb and say that they're quite capable of working with the mobile/console architectures out there and that your calling them a "joke" reveals more about your lack of knowledge when it comes to Microsoft's capabilities and product line than anything else.
The reason Silverlight 2.0 wasn't released for PPC Macs is much simpler than "lol M$ sux", though it might be a little bruising to your PowerPC Persecution Complex. Silverlight 2.0 wasn't released for PowerPC Macintosh boxes because, like it or not, PowerPC is more or less deprecated. It's old, it's done, Microsoft earns nothing by supporting it--I'd imagine that testing would cost more than they'd receive in return from a marketshare boost--and you know as well as I do that Apple won't support it for much longer either. Sucks for you.
Sorry. I reflexively define "Steam stuff" as the Valve games themselves. Bioshock wasn't really worth it anyway. :P
You never lose anything you were going to get without piracy.
Newell knows more about game piracy than you do, and he's pretty clearly called "bullshit" on this in the past.
Rationalizations are dirty.
The software CDs being free is insane. Production costs exist.
The monthly bit is very unlikely to work (many games wouldn't last that long!), but a total-up-front deal after the game is installed would be fine by me (full version of the game available for download with an account requirement? sure, why not).
Steam's better, though.
You do realize that that was why Gabe's saying something like this, right? He has an obligation to his customers (who, for Steam, are the publishers--not you; you're the consumer, Steam's the delivery channel) to do what they want where it's reasonable. The customers want delayed releases, he loses business if he doesn't accept that.
But he's trying to change that. You should be cheering this on.
There are persistent rumors that they're working on a Linux client. No games that I know of offhand (except maybe something like the iD Pack, which has the various Quake games, since I know there are *nix ports), though.
WINE works for Steam stuff very well, though.
Gabe Newell's gone on record saying that if Valve went under, Steam games would be patched to remove Steam checks. I'd be surprised if they didn't have this contingency plan already in place, to be honest; while I've never worked for Valve I do know a few of their developers socially and this topic came up, with an attitude of "it's handled" being pretty clear.
Plus, they aren't a publicly traded company, it'd be hard for them to get railroaded out before being able to release the patch.
Steam charges different prices in different countries.
You know, that's actually a really good idea. I really like that idea.
Although I'd think they'd release a patch to remove the check rather than have it check time servers, because checking time servers makes it really easy to crack right away.
Gabe's gone on record saying that if Valve went under, they'd release a patch to remove Steam checks on all games.
AFAIK Valve has no debt and it's also not a public company, so it'd be pretty difficult for a hostile takeover or receivership to happen. It's possible, but the chances are slim.
Moonlight 2.0 supports XAML, I believe. (I don't like nor use WPF, so I have no experience with XAML and Moonlight.)
It actually does support my OS. Specifically, Windows. :) I use Linux on my servers, but my desktop is a Windows box.
And...well, yes, a computer that's three years old is outdated, once a processor arch switch has been made. Sucks, but still.
And AFAIK, QT/Real/WMedia didn't allow streaming at the time. Personally, I have no problem with what you suggest, but I also have no problem with the way they're going with it now. I mean absolutely no disrespect, but you know what you're getting into when you choose not to use Windows on your desktop. In my KDE 3.5 stage when I didn't have a Windows box, I didn't complain that people didn't cater to my nonstandard choice. I got around it or did without. Sucks, but you know what you're getting into.
I've never tried the Mac version, but the Windows one is fine. Moonlight 1.0 and SVN trunk of 2.0 both work fine for me.
Of course, though he does raise a good point, even if it's tongue-in-cheek: screaming that this or that IS JUST LIKE HITLAAAAAAAAR does kind of rob it of credibility.