That's entirely fair, and a good point. I'd probably use Linux more if it had the applications I need. (These days I'm pretty sure I'd still dev on Windows, though. Nothing out there steps to Visual Studio, and.NET is how I make my money.)
I was being a little figurative when I said "I'll believe it when I see it". It's not really a priority for me.;-)
But whether it's broken on the ATI driver or not is really kind of immaterial, don't you think? It either works or it doesn't, as far as an end user's concerned, and the end user really doesn't give two shits about whether it's a driver problem or not. If people want Linux to get any meaningful place on the desktop, they need to understand this and deal with it. I'm not saying I have the answers on how to deal with it; I'm not that smart. But it needs to happen.
You don't get it, do you? I personally don't care about extra session support. It isn't a factor for me. But a user who does care doesn't care that "b-b-b-but the drivers!". The user cares that it doesn't work. That's all. Whether it's your fault or ATI's fault or whoever--it doesn't matter. Your software (the "you" is generalized, of course, in this case, Linux/free OSes as a whole) appears to be at fault. You don't get the luxury of shifting blame even when you're right.
I wish them the best, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Personally, I think that Apple had it right when they ditched X as their primary windowing environment and made it a process that runs under Quartz. But that's a step I don't think Linux will take in the near, or not-so-near, future.
Apparently a hell of a lot of people want it to be. Me, I don't really care. I use what works best. Right now that's Windows and Visual Studio; in the past it was Linux and Eclipse.
That's not terribly "seamless", and breaks on a lot of hardware even to this day. With the last version of Xorg I tried, it'd hang if I tried to move to another X session.
"But the drivers--" Doesn't matter. User doesn't care, user shouldn't care, fix it or you don't get the users.
If I was working on a basic game project, I'd go grab XNA. The older versions of XNA were skiffy, but the newest is pretty nice for that sort of thing. Free, too.
Ah, my occasional "Why I Hate OpenGL" bit can make an appearance.:-P
Some of this stuff may be old and outdated to a point; I haven't used OpenGL significantly in years because of how much of a pain in the ass it was.
Environmental/"Social" Problems:
-The extensions system. In a perfect world, this might really be an excellent way to do things. As it is, it's vaguely irritating at best because very important functionality is stuffed in them, and sometimes doesn't work at all across card manufacturers. This is of course true with Direct3D at times, but it's more rare and there are often easier workarounds. (A number of extensions don't work on non-nVidia cards.)
-Weak documentation organization (when documentation exists at all). My favorite assache: once in a while, extensions are subsumed into core. But the documentation stays under the title of the extension. Pain in the ass.
-Lack of a tool suite comparable to what you get when working with D3D. If you've worked with Microsoft's tools, you know what I mean. It's just easier.
Specific Technical Annoyances:
-Everything's a GLuint. Types? Who needs types? D3D has strong typing for just about everything and I like it that way, dammit.
-GLSL can't target SM1. Less important now that almost everyone has SM2+, but still, that sucked for a long while.
-GLSL functionality is very hit-or-miss and it's hard to query it. My friend Roy pointed this out to me once, using the noise() function: almost nobody implements it, they just return a constant of {0.0, 0.0, 0.0}. You can't query whether it works or not, either.
-No convenient object for storing vertex declaration. This is basic and should be standardized.
-While on vertices: change your VBO, you trashed everything and have to recall all your *Pointer functions. Stupid stupid stupid.
This is just a bit off my head at 5AM, but my point is--it's just a serious pain in the ass. D3D is by no means perfect, but the developers at Microsoft actually looked at how people use their stuff and made it work better for those cases. The same was never true of OpenGL.
id Software's engines are a very rare exception; Carmack, for some strange reason, likes OpenGL over DirectX. Unreal Engine 3 technically supports OpenGL, but their primary focus is on D3D as is just about everyone else's.
Why? Because D3D is better than OpenGL in the majority of ways, enough that targeting the minute market of Linux is almost certainly not worth the hassle.
And no, don't say "use SDL." SDL sucks, too. If you can seriously look at SDL next to DirectX and say that there's any valid comparison that doesn't involve a belly laugh, you do not belong in this conversation.
I do not know how it should be narrowed, legally speaking--but if it's a website where registration is open (and, I suppose, where money isn't being transferred via credit card or the like), the idea that it should be a crime to register under a pseudonym is insane.
I don't recall saying it doesn't mean you need some help. I don't recall saying she was weak or stupid or useless. I am quite often the one lending that help to my friends when they need it, and I don't consider them weak or stupid or useless. What the hell is help for, other than getting the fuck over it, as I said in my previous post?
I do recall saying it's not a crime, though. If you want to try to make it one? Great, go ahead and try (I'm sure there will be plenty of resistance). Attempting to shoe-horn it in under other criminal laws, as is being done in this case, is fucking cretinous.
Bullshit. "Causing emotional harm" is not a crime. Your posts sound like the rage-venting of somebody who was bullied in school and wants everybody who ever dared hurt somebody else's feelings "punished" by Big Daddy Government.
I was bullied in school too. I got the fuck over it and moved on. You should try it sometime.
Re:Revenge of the Nerds...
on
American Nerd
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
No, you're pretty backwards (at least for the East Coast). Geeks have interests, but are generally fairly socially savvy and competent. You've got music geeks, art geeks, etc.
Ironic given that Orson Scott Card has advocated the violent overthrow of the government due to his bigotry and hatred of gays (outright disapproval of their lifestyle). What makes you think that he deserves anything better from us?
This would be interesting, if it were true.
Card said precisely the opposite and condemned the idea of violent overthrow. He stated that the American people don't want gay marriage and that the government was going to have a hell of a hard time forcing acceptance of it. And while I disagree with the majority stance (because I think it should be legal), he's right: the average American is either apathetic or against gay marriage, and the government will just push more into "against" by attempting to force acceptance of it.
Slashdot Mirror
That's entirely fair, and a good point. I'd probably use Linux more if it had the applications I need. (These days I'm pretty sure I'd still dev on Windows, though. Nothing out there steps to Visual Studio, and .NET is how I make my money.)
I was being a little figurative when I said "I'll believe it when I see it". It's not really a priority for me. ;-)
But whether it's broken on the ATI driver or not is really kind of immaterial, don't you think? It either works or it doesn't, as far as an end user's concerned, and the end user really doesn't give two shits about whether it's a driver problem or not. If people want Linux to get any meaningful place on the desktop, they need to understand this and deal with it. I'm not saying I have the answers on how to deal with it; I'm not that smart. But it needs to happen.
You don't get it, do you? I personally don't care about extra session support. It isn't a factor for me. But a user who does care doesn't care that "b-b-b-but the drivers!". The user cares that it doesn't work. That's all. Whether it's your fault or ATI's fault or whoever--it doesn't matter. Your software (the "you" is generalized, of course, in this case, Linux/free OSes as a whole) appears to be at fault. You don't get the luxury of shifting blame even when you're right.
No, it's not fair, but there you have it.
I wish them the best, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Personally, I think that Apple had it right when they ditched X as their primary windowing environment and made it a process that runs under Quartz. But that's a step I don't think Linux will take in the near, or not-so-near, future.
Apparently a hell of a lot of people want it to be. Me, I don't really care. I use what works best. Right now that's Windows and Visual Studio; in the past it was Linux and Eclipse.
That's not terribly "seamless", and breaks on a lot of hardware even to this day. With the last version of Xorg I tried, it'd hang if I tried to move to another X session.
"But the drivers--" Doesn't matter. User doesn't care, user shouldn't care, fix it or you don't get the users.
Open source will continue to suck for Joe User until the cats start choosing to move in a direction to make open source stop sucking for Joe User.
Your attitude, and by extension you, are the problem. Not the article author.
If I was working on a basic game project, I'd go grab XNA. The older versions of XNA were skiffy, but the newest is pretty nice for that sort of thing. Free, too.
Ah, my occasional "Why I Hate OpenGL" bit can make an appearance. :-P
Some of this stuff may be old and outdated to a point; I haven't used OpenGL significantly in years because of how much of a pain in the ass it was.
Environmental/"Social" Problems:
-The extensions system. In a perfect world, this might really be an excellent way to do things. As it is, it's vaguely irritating at best because very important functionality is stuffed in them, and sometimes doesn't work at all across card manufacturers. This is of course true with Direct3D at times, but it's more rare and there are often easier workarounds. (A number of extensions don't work on non-nVidia cards.)
-Weak documentation organization (when documentation exists at all). My favorite assache: once in a while, extensions are subsumed into core. But the documentation stays under the title of the extension. Pain in the ass.
-Lack of a tool suite comparable to what you get when working with D3D. If you've worked with Microsoft's tools, you know what I mean. It's just easier.
Specific Technical Annoyances:
-Everything's a GLuint. Types? Who needs types? D3D has strong typing for just about everything and I like it that way, dammit.
-GLSL can't target SM1. Less important now that almost everyone has SM2+, but still, that sucked for a long while.
-GLSL functionality is very hit-or-miss and it's hard to query it. My friend Roy pointed this out to me once, using the noise() function: almost nobody implements it, they just return a constant of {0.0, 0.0, 0.0}. You can't query whether it works or not, either.
-No convenient object for storing vertex declaration. This is basic and should be standardized.
-While on vertices: change your VBO, you trashed everything and have to recall all your *Pointer functions. Stupid stupid stupid.
This is just a bit off my head at 5AM, but my point is--it's just a serious pain in the ass. D3D is by no means perfect, but the developers at Microsoft actually looked at how people use their stuff and made it work better for those cases. The same was never true of OpenGL.
I'm not a consumer. I'm a programmer.
And while SDL is a cross-platform interface, it's the closest thing the open-source community has to DirectX as a whole. And it's not very good.
id Software's engines are a very rare exception; Carmack, for some strange reason, likes OpenGL over DirectX. Unreal Engine 3 technically supports OpenGL, but their primary focus is on D3D as is just about everyone else's.
Why? Because D3D is better than OpenGL in the majority of ways, enough that targeting the minute market of Linux is almost certainly not worth the hassle.
And no, don't say "use SDL." SDL sucks, too. If you can seriously look at SDL next to DirectX and say that there's any valid comparison that doesn't involve a belly laugh, you do not belong in this conversation.
I agree. (Although I would also put forth that VB6 is not all that bad a language, though there are of course far superior tools for most cases.)
There's a difference between what you *can* do and what you *should* do.
Under GPLv2, Tivoization is allowed, but you "shouldn't" do that either, right?
The latter. I mean, come on. It's an open system.
I do not know how it should be narrowed, legally speaking--but if it's a website where registration is open (and, I suppose, where money isn't being transferred via credit card or the like), the idea that it should be a crime to register under a pseudonym is insane.
These days, there's absolutely nothing wrong with modern editions of Visual Basic. It's essentially C# with different syntax.
But by doing so, the government takes as much. Isn't that interesting?
Yes, she was convicted for accessing the system without authorization--in what should be a tort at best, not a criminal act.
Because the people who earned it presumably want him to have it?
I don't recall saying it doesn't mean you need some help. I don't recall saying she was weak or stupid or useless. I am quite often the one lending that help to my friends when they need it, and I don't consider them weak or stupid or useless. What the hell is help for, other than getting the fuck over it, as I said in my previous post?
I do recall saying it's not a crime, though. If you want to try to make it one? Great, go ahead and try (I'm sure there will be plenty of resistance). Attempting to shoe-horn it in under other criminal laws, as is being done in this case, is fucking cretinous.
Bullshit. "Causing emotional harm" is not a crime. Your posts sound like the rage-venting of somebody who was bullied in school and wants everybody who ever dared hurt somebody else's feelings "punished" by Big Daddy Government.
I was bullied in school too. I got the fuck over it and moved on. You should try it sometime.
No, you're pretty backwards (at least for the East Coast). Geeks have interests, but are generally fairly socially savvy and competent. You've got music geeks, art geeks, etc.
Nerds are the MIT-esque pocket-protector types.
There's a lot of ways to "destroy" a government. Not all require violence.
Ironic given that Orson Scott Card has advocated the violent overthrow of the government due to his bigotry and hatred of gays (outright disapproval of their lifestyle). What makes you think that he deserves anything better from us?
This would be interesting, if it were true.
Card said precisely the opposite and condemned the idea of violent overthrow. He stated that the American people don't want gay marriage and that the government was going to have a hell of a hard time forcing acceptance of it. And while I disagree with the majority stance (because I think it should be legal), he's right: the average American is either apathetic or against gay marriage, and the government will just push more into "against" by attempting to force acceptance of it.
Hint: when you start calling proprietary software developers "slave owners," you're a member of the "fucking crazy" subculture. You are the problem.
My god, you used "begs the question" correctly!
The mind reels.