Of course there are lots of examples of great tech entrepreneurs who can't write a single line of code, so it's obviously it's not a requirement. But I do think it's a practical skill to have, especially in the beginning of your new company when resources are scarce. You can save lots of money and time by being able to whip up your own demo's and prototypes, instead of having to let 3rd party developers create them for you, especially as there tends to be lots of different versions and ideas at the start. And later on it is a great benefit to have a general knowledge of what it is your company offers and the people working for you are doing in your ability to manage your company properly.
No they don't. The folks in Star Trek only communicate by audio when they are very close to each other (e.g. someone on a planet and a ship orbiting that planet, or two ships within clear visual range). They can pick up signals from light years away, but there is no indication that there isn't a lot of latency going on.
And as others have pointed out earlier in this discussion, quantum teleportation is not faster than light.
Yeah. Meanwhile in reality, Apple's market share in the smartphone market is actually *declining* and nowhere near a monopoly. So stop the fud, there is plenty of choice and there will be plenty of choice in the future.
Of course you can develop iPad apps on the iPad. Haven't you seen the link to Codea in the summary? That app does exactly that. In fact I have a game coded in Codea right here on my iPad, and I haven't even bought Codea.
A simple game or a visualization of some data? Sure, you might program that on an iPad.
But for serious work it just lacks the tools. You need more than just an IDE to create a real application. The fact you can't easily work with files or open up a terminal is a serious deal breaker there.
And of course there's the fact there's no way to share screen space between different apps on an iPad. The fact every app always takes up the entire screen is great for a lot of people, but I don't think developers are amongst those who appreciate this level of user friendliness. At least not for work purposes.
Writing scripts has nothing to do with being a system administrator. If you don't use your computer to automate trivial yet repetitive tasks, then what the hell do you have it for in the first place?
I've been trying for quite some time to score a "+5 Flamebait" or "+5 Troll", but with little success so far. This might be my best attempt yet though.
No, that's ridiculous. Amazon is WAY to big for Google to buy.
But I do agree with you that if they are that afraid of them, they should approach Amazon and team up. For starters, maybe Google could provide the search functionality within Amazon.com? Or Google Ads could provide Amazon's "related products" functionality. That sort of thing would be a great start for Google to make some money without having to compete with them head on.
It's true that he can't sell a build of this project which includes code you have contributed. But I'm guessing that's not what's he's after in the first place. I genuinely think he wants this software to be open source, forever and ever.
He might keep working on his private text editor project though, which won't include code from TextMate 2 contributed by others. And he might eventually release this software commercially, with or without calling it TextMate.
Yes. Offering choice equals making things more complex. No mainstream user understands the question "which desktop environment do you want to use?" as nobody knows what options are available, what the pros and cons of those options are and what a desktop environment is in the first place. It's a major hassle to have to make such a choice for most people.
Then again, Debian isn't for those people in the first place of course.
I can't disagree with you there. I have no idea what he actually wants to do. But this is what I got from his question.
If he wants to go all hardcore and really learn how to properly write code from the ground up, then your suggestion is obviously a better approach. That will take a few years of his life though. If that's worth the effort is only up to him I guess.
If you read the guy's question, you would see the only reason he's asking the best way to learn how to be a programmer is in order to make games.
I say: let the man create games. Once he creates a prototype that's worth something, he can always team up with a real developer. But until then, fiddling and copy-pasting is just fine, as he will actually be doing what he wants to do.
There are some really great tools out there to get the ball rolling quickly (like Unity or Game Maker). I'd say: think up a simple game, make some designs and get cracking.
DirectX helped, but it was the gaming platform of choice for years before that.
No, it wasn't. The number of games for Windows before the release of DirectX was next to nothing. Almost all PC games at the time were developed for DOS, not Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
[q]And why the fuck should you care[/q]
Because there is such a thing called the stock market.
Of course there are lots of examples of great tech entrepreneurs who can't write a single line of code, so it's obviously it's not a requirement. But I do think it's a practical skill to have, especially in the beginning of your new company when resources are scarce. You can save lots of money and time by being able to whip up your own demo's and prototypes, instead of having to let 3rd party developers create them for you, especially as there tends to be lots of different versions and ideas at the start. And later on it is a great benefit to have a general knowledge of what it is your company offers and the people working for you are doing in your ability to manage your company properly.
I should know better than to discuss Star Trek on Slashdot.
The main advantage is that it uses a lot less power.
No they don't. The folks in Star Trek only communicate by audio when they are very close to each other (e.g. someone on a planet and a ship orbiting that planet, or two ships within clear visual range). They can pick up signals from light years away, but there is no indication that there isn't a lot of latency going on.
And as others have pointed out earlier in this discussion, quantum teleportation is not faster than light.
Yeah. Meanwhile in reality, Apple's market share in the smartphone market is actually *declining* and nowhere near a monopoly. So stop the fud, there is plenty of choice and there will be plenty of choice in the future.
Who are they to decide whether or not you can run development tools on your own device?
The designers, developers, maintainers and owners of their platform.
It's their system and their rules apply. Don't like their rules? Get something else. Simple as that.
Of course you can develop iPad apps on the iPad. Haven't you seen the link to Codea in the summary? That app does exactly that. In fact I have a game coded in Codea right here on my iPad, and I haven't even bought Codea.
A simple game or a visualization of some data? Sure, you might program that on an iPad.
But for serious work it just lacks the tools. You need more than just an IDE to create a real application. The fact you can't easily work with files or open up a terminal is a serious deal breaker there.
And of course there's the fact there's no way to share screen space between different apps on an iPad. The fact every app always takes up the entire screen is great for a lot of people, but I don't think developers are amongst those who appreciate this level of user friendliness. At least not for work purposes.
Writing scripts has nothing to do with being a system administrator. If you don't use your computer to automate trivial yet repetitive tasks, then what the hell do you have it for in the first place?
I've been trying for quite some time to score a "+5 Flamebait" or "+5 Troll", but with little success so far. This might be my best attempt yet though.
Who the hell posts on Slashdot but can't write a simple script to compare hashes of files?
No, that's ridiculous. Amazon is WAY to big for Google to buy.
But I do agree with you that if they are that afraid of them, they should approach Amazon and team up. For starters, maybe Google could provide the search functionality within Amazon.com? Or Google Ads could provide Amazon's "related products" functionality. That sort of thing would be a great start for Google to make some money without having to compete with them head on.
The author of TextMate doesn't strike me as the sort of person who wouldn't think about the consequences of his choice of license.
It's true that he can't sell a build of this project which includes code you have contributed. But I'm guessing that's not what's he's after in the first place. I genuinely think he wants this software to be open source, forever and ever.
He might keep working on his private text editor project though, which won't include code from TextMate 2 contributed by others. And he might eventually release this software commercially, with or without calling it TextMate.
The fact GPL3 doesn't allow other people to build this project and offer it for sale in the App Store is exactly the reason why the author chose GPL3.
Yes. Offering choice equals making things more complex. No mainstream user understands the question "which desktop environment do you want to use?" as nobody knows what options are available, what the pros and cons of those options are and what a desktop environment is in the first place. It's a major hassle to have to make such a choice for most people.
Then again, Debian isn't for those people in the first place of course.
Again!? Implying it was great once?
IE3 was pretty good and I liked IE4 as well. At least it was a whole lot better than the big mess Netscape presented with Navigator 4.
Nothing but misery after that though.
Haiku has been around for 10 years or something. They've always aimed for a binary-compatible successor of BeOS. And they're still at it.
So what?
I can't disagree with you there. I have no idea what he actually wants to do. But this is what I got from his question.
If he wants to go all hardcore and really learn how to properly write code from the ground up, then your suggestion is obviously a better approach. That will take a few years of his life though. If that's worth the effort is only up to him I guess.
If you read the guy's question, you would see the only reason he's asking the best way to learn how to be a programmer is in order to make games.
I say: let the man create games. Once he creates a prototype that's worth something, he can always team up with a real developer. But until then, fiddling and copy-pasting is just fine, as he will actually be doing what he wants to do.
You're talking as if the goal is to become a programmer. It's not.
The goal is to create a game. I think the guy will learn how to program a game just fine by simply starting to create simple games using proper tools.
So if Pong is too complicated, make something simpler. Games are only as complicated as you choose it to be.
...then why don't you start with that?
There are some really great tools out there to get the ball rolling quickly (like Unity or Game Maker). I'd say: think up a simple game, make some designs and get cracking.
DirectX helped, but it was the gaming platform of choice for years before that.
No, it wasn't. The number of games for Windows before the release of DirectX was next to nothing. Almost all PC games at the time were developed for DOS, not Windows.