I've found from experience that you don't need to understand an agorithm in order to implement it in software. As long as the researchers explain clearly what needs to be done to, say, decode a media stream in a given format, you should be able to implement it without necessarily knowing the theory behind it.
The title says it. I'd buy Ultima 9, Monkey Island 3, Wing Commander 5, and anything similar. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in the current crop of ports, which consists entirely of strategy and FPS's.
If a piece of free software doesn't work for you, then don't use it. My impression is that Gnome has a prettier interface than KDE, but is not yet as stable. And I've been using KDE for more than two years now with virtually no problems. I've also found that WindowMaker makes a very stable and easy- to-use software environment. Don't knock Linux just because one of the packages you're using isn't sufficiently complete. Similarly, if gedit doesn't work for you, then try emacs (or xemacs for a more GUI version). Emacs never, ever crashes in my experience. You do have a point about the lack of an incremental linker; it would be nice. But 5 minutes to link? At my previous job, I was linking about 20K lines of C++ code in less than 20 seconds on a PPro200. At my current job, I'm writing in Java, which doesn't even require linking. So perhaps nobody has really considered incremental linking all that important. What I consider really important is that gcc has been very stable for me, and that the source is available so that I can easily create cross-compilers targeting platforms other than the one I'm developing on. Can you do that with MS's tools? That's really sorry...:-) On the other hand, I have heard that Cygnus now supports pre-compiled headers in its C/C++ compilers. This should give more of a speed boost, although I haven't tried it.
Let's see, the RedHat car is: More reliable (1 point) Faster (1 point) Cheaper (1 point)
The MicroMobile car has: A better radio (1 point) White lettering on the tires (1 point) A bigger speedometer (1 point) Corinthian leather shift knob (1 point)
Therefore, we conclude that the MicroMobile is the clear winner, with a 33% higher rating than the RedMobile.
Fortunately, once you've had some successful experience, you'll find that companies will want to recruit you. And then you get a bit of leverage. Some people will use this leverage to bargain for higher salaries, or more perks. But I just make one demand: Regardless of the target platform, I get to choose my development environment.
And guess what I've picked for my last two jobs?
At my previous job, where my department had its budget restrained, my boss was really quite happy that my choice of software tools (which included gcc set up as a cross-compiler for two different targets) was nearly free of costs.
I agree, as most of the true "professional" software engineers I've met were incapable of writing software. And although you compared software to poetry, I believe writing software is more like writing a novel. Sure, there are "engineering" aspects to writing a novel, such as plot devices and techniques for character development. But basically, some people have the talent for writing a decent work of fiction, and most don't. From what I've seen of software development, the same is true there.
It's not just women that they are ignoring. With few exceptions (the Wing Commander series), I have no interest in action games, especially the FPS's that are so common nowadays. Yet, I have lots of money to spend on games, and, until about five years ago, used to buy about one $50 game per month. Now, most of my purchases are old RPG and adventure games from the $5 bargain bins and the used-software store.
Just wondering, but does this really affect us as much as J. Katz suggests? I generally don't read Time Magazine, and don't subscribe to AOL. Is "Warner" the same as that in "Warner Brothers"? In that case, I've probably watched some of their movies and TV shows. But they certainly aren't a big part of my world.
Now if, say, AOL bought MCI, or my local phone company (US West), THEN I'd start to get really nervous.
He must have been playing rather high stakes to lose that kind of money.
My safe method of gambling is to play the 5-cent video poker machines. You get the same entertainment value (i.e., practically none), and it would take a couple lifetimes to lose that much money. Last time, I played for several hours and ended up $2.50 ahead.
Yes, this has been driving me crazy for years. I also get extremely annoyed when Netscape constantly reloads pages when I press the "Back" button; but I've been told that this is a feature. My only "solution" (okay, I just saw Austin Powers 2) is to use the KFM browser, which does a pretty good job as long as there's no Javascript.
Some of us who've been around Unix for a few years remember "Mince" as a commercial derivative of emacs, where "Mince" stood for "Mince is not complete emacs".
Maybe the protestors are similar to those of the 60's. But if they have their way, we're more likely to see conditions like those in the 30's. It's quite likely that the major cause of the Great Depression was the trade/tariff conflict that preceded it.
Typically, an "Alpha" version is feature-complete (as far as the developers know), and is ready to be used in non-critical ways within the company where it was developed. Features can still be added during Alpha testing, but only if several of the testers and developers agree that they are really necessary. It's okay if there are bugs and crashes, as long as the product is mostly useable.
I'd say the last Mozilla release was pretty much there.
Actually, there is a free-market price for Windows; you can find it by visiting the on-line auction sites. When I wanted a copy of Windows95 for my home-built machine, I bought a shrink-wrapped (and I believe, legitimate) copy of Windows 95 for $65. This was the "full" version for new machines, which sold at retail for around $180 and which my hardware distributor was selling for about $100.
The OpenSource movement reminds me of the software industry in the late 70's and early 80's. It seemed like the only people involved in computer work were the "geeks", and most did it more for love than money (and especially for the chance to use nice hardware, which was much more expensive then). Some techies came up with cool ideas, like the spreadsheet, and formed startup companies to sell them. When some of these startups became wildly successful, the money attracted business people; and soon managers (lots of them), and marketing departments were running the companies, with the techies subordinate to them. And techies were told to stop wasting time on their "cool ideas", because there was no market for them. Besides, there were too many Windows bugs that they had to work around before the next release.
I see OpenSource as a reaction against purely profit-driven software, much of which is dull (as in how many Windows fix-it programs does the world need?) and lifeless (like, why are 80% of the game titles in the stores FPS's?). In fact, OpenSource reminds me a lot of Alternative Rock in the 80's, which finally swept away the cheesy disco and boring balads of the previous decade.
Should the new software "artists" profit from their work? I certainly believe they should. And they should also be careful to keep control of it.
Just read in the paper that deaths due to shooting are way down, at their lowest level in 20 years. It's funny: When something like Columbine happens, lots of experts are quick to blame video games. But could the opposite be true, that gun violence is dropping because people are taking out their aggression on virtual targets instead of real ones?
Slashdot Mirror
I've found from experience that you don't need to understand an agorithm in order to implement it in software. As long as the researchers explain clearly what needs to be done to, say, decode a media stream in a given format, you should be able to implement it without necessarily knowing the theory behind it.
The title says it. I'd buy Ultima 9, Monkey Island 3, Wing Commander 5, and anything similar. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in the current crop of ports, which consists entirely of strategy and FPS's.
If a piece of free software doesn't work for you, then don't use it. My impression is that Gnome has a prettier interface than KDE, but is not yet as stable. And I've been using KDE for more than two years now with virtually no problems. I've also found that WindowMaker makes a very stable and easy- to-use software environment. Don't knock Linux just because one of the packages you're using isn't sufficiently complete. Similarly, if gedit doesn't work for you, then try emacs (or xemacs for a more GUI version). Emacs never, ever crashes in my experience. You do have a point about the lack of an incremental linker; it would be nice. But 5 minutes to link? At my previous job, I was linking about 20K lines of C++ code in less than 20 seconds on a PPro200. At my current job, I'm writing in Java, which doesn't even require linking. So perhaps nobody has really considered incremental linking all that important. What I consider really important is that gcc has been very stable for me, and that the source is available so that I can easily create cross-compilers targeting platforms other than the one I'm developing on. Can you do that with MS's tools? That's really sorry... :-) On the other hand, I have heard that Cygnus now supports pre-compiled headers in its C/C++ compilers. This should give more of a speed boost, although I haven't tried it.
Let's see, the RedHat car is:
More reliable (1 point)
Faster (1 point)
Cheaper (1 point)
The MicroMobile car has:
A better radio (1 point)
White lettering on the tires (1 point)
A bigger speedometer (1 point)
Corinthian leather shift knob (1 point)
Therefore, we conclude that the MicroMobile is the clear winner, with a 33% higher rating than the RedMobile.
And guess what I've picked for my last two jobs?
At my previous job, where my department had its budget restrained, my boss was really quite happy that my choice of software tools (which included gcc set up as a cross-compiler for two different targets) was nearly free of costs.
I agree, as most of the true "professional" software engineers I've met were incapable of writing software. And although you compared software to poetry, I believe writing software is more like writing a novel. Sure, there are "engineering" aspects to writing a novel, such as plot devices and techniques for character development. But basically, some people have the talent for writing a decent work of fiction, and most don't. From what I've seen of software development, the same is true there.
It's not just women that they are ignoring. With few exceptions (the Wing Commander series), I have no interest in action games, especially the FPS's that are so common nowadays. Yet, I have lots of money to spend on games, and, until about five years ago, used to buy about one $50 game per month. Now, most of my purchases are old RPG and adventure games from the $5 bargain bins and the used-software store.
Oh no! Please don't tell me that they own Slashdot!
Just wondering, but does this really affect us as much as J. Katz suggests? I generally don't read Time Magazine, and don't subscribe to AOL. Is "Warner" the same as that in "Warner Brothers"? In that case, I've probably watched some of their movies and TV shows. But they certainly aren't a big part of my world.
Now if, say, AOL bought MCI, or my local phone company (US West), THEN I'd start to get really nervous.
... Marcel Marceau (did I spell that right?) is suing Nintendo for their use of the "Mr. Mime" Pokemon.
He must have been playing rather high stakes to lose that kind of money.
My safe method of gambling is to play the 5-cent video poker machines. You get the same entertainment value (i.e., practically none), and it would take a couple lifetimes to lose that much money. Last time, I played for several hours and ended up $2.50 ahead.
Yes, this has been driving me crazy for years. I also get extremely
annoyed when Netscape constantly reloads pages when I press
the "Back" button; but I've been told that this is a feature. My only
"solution" (okay, I just saw Austin Powers 2) is to use the KFM
browser, which does a pretty good job as long as there's no
Javascript.
Some of us who've been around Unix for a few years remember "Mince" as a commercial derivative of emacs, where "Mince" stood for "Mince is not complete emacs".
Maybe the protestors are similar to those of the 60's. But if they have their way, we're more likely to see conditions like those in the 30's. It's quite likely that the major cause of the Great Depression was the trade/tariff conflict that preceded it.
Typically, an "Alpha" version is feature-complete (as far as the developers know), and is ready to be used in non-critical ways within the company where it was developed. Features can still be added during Alpha testing, but only if several of the testers and developers agree that they are really necessary. It's okay if there are bugs and crashes, as long as the product is mostly useable.
I'd say the last Mozilla release was pretty much there.
Actually, there is a free-market price for Windows; you can find it by visiting the on-line auction sites. When I wanted a copy of Windows95 for my home-built machine, I bought a shrink-wrapped (and I believe, legitimate) copy of Windows 95 for $65. This was the "full" version for new machines, which sold at retail for around $180 and which my hardware distributor was selling for about $100.
The OpenSource movement reminds me of the software industry in the late 70's and early 80's. It seemed like the only people involved in computer work were the "geeks", and most did it more for love than money (and especially for the chance to use nice hardware, which was much more expensive then). Some techies came up with cool ideas, like the spreadsheet, and formed startup companies to sell them. When some of these startups became wildly successful, the money attracted business people; and soon managers (lots of them), and marketing departments were running the companies, with the techies subordinate to them. And techies were told to stop wasting time on their "cool ideas", because there was no market for them. Besides, there were too many Windows bugs that they had to work around before the next release.
I see OpenSource as a reaction against purely profit-driven software, much of which is dull (as in how many Windows fix-it programs does the world need?) and lifeless (like, why are 80% of the game titles in the stores FPS's?). In fact, OpenSource reminds me a lot of Alternative Rock in the 80's, which finally swept away the cheesy disco and boring balads of the previous decade.
Should the new software "artists" profit from their work? I certainly believe they should. And they should also be careful to keep control of it.
Just read in the paper that deaths due to shooting are way down, at their lowest level in 20 years. It's funny: When something like Columbine happens, lots of experts are quick to blame video games. But could the opposite be true, that gun violence is dropping because people are taking out their aggression on virtual targets instead of real ones?