One thing that I feel people should keep in mind is that Rails is more than just the scaffolding. After many of the breathless "zero to web in 15 minutes" articles it seems like Rails is no more than a simplistic CRUD framework. While you can go from nothing to a basic app in such a short time, it will be using the Scaffold, which is just that, something to get you started.
After the first few tutorials I read my impression was almost "that's it?" There demo/article Four Days With Rails gives a better view of going beyond the scaffolding, as does the Pragmatic Programmers' rails book.
Re:Is Rails useful to aggregate web services?
on
What is Ruby on Rails?
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· Score: 2, Informative
The models in Rails are not required to be ActiveRecord (the SQL object layer) classes at all. You could have model classes that delegate calls out to another web-service like you describe, and even make use of some ActiveRecord facilities with a little more work to override the default functionality that hits up the database.
As the article says, there are really two components to the framework, ActiveRecord and ActionPack, which handle the model, then the controller/view sections respectively. Each of these can be used without the other, in fact I'm considering using ActiveRecord for a non-web project in the near future.
Ahhh nono, see this aspect of it was badly explained to start with. It works more liks this:
You play the game. You earn your Lindenbucks. You buy land. Your subscription rate is based on how much land you own. If you think of it more like varying website hosting plans (disk space/bandwidth/etc) then it makes more sense.
Just to clear it up: Your subscription rate depends on how much land you own (how much of the server resources you use), you cannot yet buy land with real money.
One of the things that, I believe, prompted this change was a user who wanted to write a framework for an MMORPG style game ruleset in SecondLife. They wanted to have the option to use this framework else where, such as porting it from the in-game scripting language to say, perl. The previous TOS, like most, included stipulations that all content created in SecondLife becomes the property of Linden Labs.
Now, the TOS reads closer to the Yahoo!/GeoCities one for websites. In fact, that particular TOS was brought up as an example of what could be done. So the new TOS basically gives Linden Labs the ability to use your work to advertise, to delete it if the game goes under, or to debug it when it breaks things.
I've been playing SecondLife for a couple months now, and it has been amazing. The basic concept is similar to a 3D MUSH, more oriented to social and building activities than combat. But the Lindens have been hands down the most responsive online gaming company that I have dealt with. Unlike EQ, DAoC, etc, the in-game representatives socialize with the players, and have a face. They are real people not just a glowing orb that teleports you out of the lava where you got stuck. The change in the TOS after commentary by players is just the latest example of how well they actually listen.
You can still try out that character with your friends... just convince them all to create characters on another server. Its not really *that* much of an inconvience is it?
Actually, it is. This example comes from deeper in the thread..
You have a group of friends. People are going to level at different rates. It's entirely possible that you level pretty fast, yet have a friend who doesn't. So you start an alt that you play with him or her. That way no one really misses out. The specific example used was a guy who created an alt on AC to play when his less-dedicated friend did. Both of them had other friends playing on the same server, so rolling new characters on another server wasn't the best idea.
Another, somewhat more practical reason would be that I don't want to have to hop over 10 different servers checking to see who is online from my group of friends. So to get started, I'm going to have to first find my friends, or hope that the character I feel like playing is on the same server as someone else who does, then go through the usual mmorpg tasks of setting up a group, a place to hunt, etc. So yeah, that's pretty inconvenient for me.
In trying to present reasons why the popular desires for multiple characters per server aren't warrented, the one that is probably most popular was completely glossed over.
"I want to try something new without having to leave my friends."
Later on in the thread someone posted a statistic from a poll on the site, stating that nearly 50% of people were going to choose their server based on their friends. This is how most people tend to play these games, with friends. So now if you want to try a wookie instead of a human, gotta give the big adios to your buddies.
There are some situations where a limitation on characters per server is a good thing. Dark Age of Camelot, for example, limits your choice of the three realms to play in to one realm per server for most servers. They do this to discourage 'spy' characters. But within that choice of a single realm you can make 8 characters. Feel free to try out that new spec, or different class, and still be able to have fun with your friends.
I had no real opinion on this game before. But I'm the type that likes to try my "alt of the week". If I can't try it out with my friends, no way I'm getting the game. Pretty effective way to discourage community if you ask me.
It's halfway changed. From my fooling around, the first press of Cmd-Tab or Cmd-Shift-Tab will swap to the last used app. After that, if you keep hitting tab without letting go of cmd, it will move in dock order (or reverse with shift).
However, if you hit Cmd-Tab, release, hit Cmd-Tab again, release, etc, you'll just flip back and forth between the last two used apps.
50 hours is fairly low for many PSO characters. My personal ones have logged roughly 700 hours between the three of them. This is a typical amount for the type of person that's going to get seriously distraught over the loss.;)
PSO should really be looked at by anyone doing an online console game. And basically what you'll see is that without server side saving, and having the client be nothing more than a dumb terminal, you will see problems. It all comes down to the oft-said "Never trust your client". Even in the MS network, the closed Disneyland, if someone makes a buggy game, it's a buggy game no matter who runs the server.
Then of course, there's the addition of devices like Gameshark, which will undoubtedly make an appearance soon.
The only time I really notice the fan on mine is when I have the CD tray open. I'd say it doubles in volume, or more. But even then, it's still not enough to overcome the jet engine sounds from the Athlon on the floor next to it.
I found the 30s skip + 8s replay to be a pain in the ass. The number of button presses required was usually much more than the FF,FF,Play to buzz through the commercial at the 2nd level of fast forward. Using the third level FF I tend to get too far into the show when hitting play, and have to resport to instant replay to pop it back. Then it gets as bad as using 30s skip.
Maybe what I was just happens to have long commercials, but it seemed I was always pressing 30s skip 4-5 times, then instant replay another 2-3. Very annoying to me.
I love Netflix for the selection, and I am one of those people that fills my queue to bursting (115 movies at the moment).
The one thing that has had me worried during my two years dealing with netflix is the slow degradation in service levels. In the beginning, you could mail back a DVD, then tell their website you did so and you would get your new one. Not so anymore, though I can understand it for dealing with people who say "yeeeah, I sent it back" but never did. Second was when they bumped the basic service level down to 3 DVDs from 4. Finally, it seems that they are taking much longer to process my movies lately. A couple months ago I could expect that they send the top of my queue out a day after recieving my return. Now it seems there is a 2-3 day lag time between them, without having 'Wait' movies in my queue.
I do love the service though, and bought a year of it for my parents this past Xmas. There's just this nagging feeling that they will do more to cripple it.
They're found elsewhere. There's another group that creates codes for various games, and sadly seemed to focus on making life hell for those of us who just wanted to play the game in peace.
The codes weren't only of the "harmless" variety like duping items, infinite money, etc. More like letting you kill others even though the game was not designed for that, enter passworded games, convert people's character into an NPC permantently. That sort of fun stuff.
That's the same box as the Rio Reciever. They have a special server software that feeds it music, it's not just pulled from shares. Windows only out of the box, but there's another comment on this article pointing to sources for an Apache/Perl based solution for feeding music to it.
The one with the bipod is great. My ex-roommate had one of them, it shoots the equivalent of 1.5 Coke cans per second, or something obscene like that. Best thing is, it's actually got a kick to it when you fire. Great in a car with a sunroof, too. Stand someone up in the passenger seat, with the gun on the roof..
I think the main reason that MD didn't catch on so much in the US is that it was originally billed as a CD replacement when it first came out, at least that's the way I remember it. Trouble is, it hit around the time CDs were really taking off, so who wants to buy new format a year later? Finally, now, MD is being pushed as what it ought to be, the digital equivalent of a cassette tape. Recording CDs to MD should be as natural a pair as vinyl to cassette.
About six months ago I was looking at MiniDisc v. mp3 player, and went with the MD. For one, the pocket recorder is a great idea, can use it for live music, lectures, etc. And compared to an mp3 player, you get much more music media per $ (Though maybe not per cubic inch.) Personally, I won't consider the format dead until I can't buy blanks anymore. Just because you can't buy pre-made albums anymore doesn't mean you can't roll your own.
I'd say that's because it isn't a review. It's a technical explination of why Rambus is the way it is. The explination serves to shed light on what sort of goals were in mind and what sacrifices were made to get there. Combined with the first two parts of the series, and the rest to come, it's more of a history book than an editorial.
Personally, I like seeing articles that are informative like this, without getting into a "which one is better" match. If people read them, and (gasp) learn from them, then they can be better informed to make their own opinion, rather than just "Rambus baaad! DDR goood!". I've made my decision (mainly though choosing the other chip), but it's interesting to read nonetheless.
Voting Online vs. Voting from home
on
Online Voting?
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· Score: 1
In a recent government class we were given the project to rewrite the Texas constitution, and the group I worked with was to handle the election parts. Since 90% of the people in the group were CS people, we natrually thought of online voting. When doing research though, we found that a perhaps easier to implement system would be a sort of limited online vote, versus voting from home.
If you allow anyone to log in and vote over the web, it opens up the door to massive fraud, because people can pretty much use whatever tools they have at their disposal to comprimise the system. Our solution was to only allow online voting from certain public places with internet access, such as libraries, schools, and the like. In these places the access at terminals is usually more limited, and monitored, reducing the ability to easily do damage. With specially designed software running to do the access (not just something over the web) it would possibly be even harder.
This compromise doesn't give the option of voting in one's underwear at home, but it would increase the number of polling places, and possibly the hours of operation.
Actually, this is why I like Diablo/Diablo2. I love nethack, adom, etc. I play Rogue on my Palm. The thing that initially interested me about Diablo was the very nethack-ness of it. Combine the real-time and graphics with the multiplayer aspects, and you do have something that isn't just a re-packaging of the originals.
In my opinion, the major problem with DIVX was that it required a special player to run them. If these folks can make a degradable disc that will run in any normal player, I think it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Ecological implications aside, I would much rather not have to worry about having to return rentals, especially seeing how lazy I am. Maybe a once every 20 rental trip to get the discarded hulks recycled instead of 20 trips to return them.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing that I feel people should keep in mind is that Rails is more than just the scaffolding. After many of the breathless "zero to web in 15 minutes" articles it seems like Rails is no more than a simplistic CRUD framework. While you can go from nothing to a basic app in such a short time, it will be using the Scaffold, which is just that, something to get you started.
After the first few tutorials I read my impression was almost "that's it?" There demo/article Four Days With Rails gives a better view of going beyond the scaffolding, as does the Pragmatic Programmers' rails book.
The models in Rails are not required to be ActiveRecord (the SQL object layer) classes at all. You could have model classes that delegate calls out to another web-service like you describe, and even make use of some ActiveRecord facilities with a little more work to override the default functionality that hits up the database.
As the article says, there are really two components to the framework, ActiveRecord and ActionPack, which handle the model, then the controller/view sections respectively. Each of these can be used without the other, in fact I'm considering using ActiveRecord for a non-web project in the near future.
Ahhh nono, see this aspect of it was badly explained to start with. It works more liks this:
You play the game. You earn your Lindenbucks. You buy land. Your subscription rate is based on how much land you own. If you think of it more like varying website hosting plans (disk space/bandwidth/etc) then it makes more sense.
Just to clear it up: Your subscription rate depends on how much land you own (how much of the server resources you use), you cannot yet buy land with real money.
One of the things that, I believe, prompted this change was a user who wanted to write a framework for an MMORPG style game ruleset in SecondLife. They wanted to have the option to use this framework else where, such as porting it from the in-game scripting language to say, perl. The previous TOS, like most, included stipulations that all content created in SecondLife becomes the property of Linden Labs.
Now, the TOS reads closer to the Yahoo!/GeoCities one for websites. In fact, that particular TOS was brought up as an example of what could be done. So the new TOS basically gives Linden Labs the ability to use your work to advertise, to delete it if the game goes under, or to debug it when it breaks things.
I've been playing SecondLife for a couple months now, and it has been amazing. The basic concept is similar to a 3D MUSH, more oriented to social and building activities than combat. But the Lindens have been hands down the most responsive online gaming company that I have dealt with. Unlike EQ, DAoC, etc, the in-game representatives socialize with the players, and have a face. They are real people not just a glowing orb that teleports you out of the lava where you got stuck. The change in the TOS after commentary by players is just the latest example of how well they actually listen.
You can still try out that character with your friends ... just convince them all to create characters on another server. Its not really *that* much of an inconvience is it?
Actually, it is. This example comes from deeper in the thread..
You have a group of friends. People are going to level at different rates. It's entirely possible that you level pretty fast, yet have a friend who doesn't. So you start an alt that you play with him or her. That way no one really misses out. The specific example used was a guy who created an alt on AC to play when his less-dedicated friend did. Both of them had other friends playing on the same server, so rolling new characters on another server wasn't the best idea.
Another, somewhat more practical reason would be that I don't want to have to hop over 10 different servers checking to see who is online from my group of friends. So to get started, I'm going to have to first find my friends, or hope that the character I feel like playing is on the same server as someone else who does, then go through the usual mmorpg tasks of setting up a group, a place to hunt, etc. So yeah, that's pretty inconvenient for me.
In trying to present reasons why the popular desires for multiple characters per server aren't warrented, the one that is probably most popular was completely glossed over.
"I want to try something new without having to leave my friends."
Later on in the thread someone posted a statistic from a poll on the site, stating that nearly 50% of people were going to choose their server based on their friends. This is how most people tend to play these games, with friends. So now if you want to try a wookie instead of a human, gotta give the big adios to your buddies.
There are some situations where a limitation on characters per server is a good thing. Dark Age of Camelot, for example, limits your choice of the three realms to play in to one realm per server for most servers. They do this to discourage 'spy' characters. But within that choice of a single realm you can make 8 characters. Feel free to try out that new spec, or different class, and still be able to have fun with your friends.
I had no real opinion on this game before. But I'm the type that likes to try my "alt of the week". If I can't try it out with my friends, no way I'm getting the game. Pretty effective way to discourage community if you ask me.
It's halfway changed. From my fooling around, the first press of Cmd-Tab or Cmd-Shift-Tab will swap to the last used app. After that, if you keep hitting tab without letting go of cmd, it will move in dock order (or reverse with shift).
However, if you hit Cmd-Tab, release, hit Cmd-Tab again, release, etc, you'll just flip back and forth between the last two used apps.
50 hours is fairly low for many PSO characters. My personal ones have logged roughly 700 hours between the three of them. This is a typical amount for the type of person that's going to get seriously distraught over the loss. ;)
PSO should really be looked at by anyone doing an online console game. And basically what you'll see is that without server side saving, and having the client be nothing more than a dumb terminal, you will see problems. It all comes down to the oft-said "Never trust your client". Even in the MS network, the closed Disneyland, if someone makes a buggy game, it's a buggy game no matter who runs the server.
Then of course, there's the addition of devices like Gameshark, which will undoubtedly make an appearance soon.
The only time I really notice the fan on mine is when I have the CD tray open. I'd say it doubles in volume, or more. But even then, it's still not enough to overcome the jet engine sounds from the Athlon on the floor next to it.
I found the 30s skip + 8s replay to be a pain in the ass. The number of button presses required was usually much more than the FF,FF,Play to buzz through the commercial at the 2nd level of fast forward. Using the third level FF I tend to get too far into the show when hitting play, and have to resport to instant replay to pop it back. Then it gets as bad as using 30s skip.
Maybe what I was just happens to have long commercials, but it seemed I was always pressing 30s skip 4-5 times, then instant replay another 2-3. Very annoying to me.
I love Netflix for the selection, and I am one of those people that fills my queue to bursting (115 movies at the moment).
The one thing that has had me worried during my two years dealing with netflix is the slow degradation in service levels. In the beginning, you could mail back a DVD, then tell their website you did so and you would get your new one. Not so anymore, though I can understand it for dealing with people who say "yeeeah, I sent it back" but never did. Second was when they bumped the basic service level down to 3 DVDs from 4. Finally, it seems that they are taking much longer to process my movies lately. A couple months ago I could expect that they send the top of my queue out a day after recieving my return. Now it seems there is a 2-3 day lag time between them, without having 'Wait' movies in my queue.
I do love the service though, and bought a year of it for my parents this past Xmas. There's just this nagging feeling that they will do more to cripple it.
They're found elsewhere. There's another group that creates codes for various games, and sadly seemed to focus on making life hell for those of us who just wanted to play the game in peace.
The codes weren't only of the "harmless" variety like duping items, infinite money, etc. More like letting you kill others even though the game was not designed for that, enter passworded games, convert people's character into an NPC permantently. That sort of fun stuff.
That's the same box as the Rio Reciever. They have a special server software that feeds it music, it's not just pulled from shares. Windows only out of the box, but there's another comment on this article pointing to sources for an Apache/Perl based solution for feeding music to it.
The one with the bipod is great. My ex-roommate had one of them, it shoots the equivalent of 1.5 Coke cans per second, or something obscene like that. Best thing is, it's actually got a kick to it when you fire. Great in a car with a sunroof, too. Stand someone up in the passenger seat, with the gun on the roof..
I think the main reason that MD didn't catch on so much in the US is that it was originally billed as a CD replacement when it first came out, at least that's the way I remember it. Trouble is, it hit around the time CDs were really taking off, so who wants to buy new format a year later? Finally, now, MD is being pushed as what it ought to be, the digital equivalent of a cassette tape. Recording CDs to MD should be as natural a pair as vinyl to cassette.
About six months ago I was looking at MiniDisc v. mp3 player, and went with the MD. For one, the pocket recorder is a great idea, can use it for live music, lectures, etc. And compared to an mp3 player, you get much more music media per $ (Though maybe not per cubic inch.) Personally, I won't consider the format dead until I can't buy blanks anymore. Just because you can't buy pre-made albums anymore doesn't mean you can't roll your own.
I'd say that's because it isn't a review. It's a technical explination of why Rambus is the way it is. The explination serves to shed light on what sort of goals were in mind and what sacrifices were made to get there. Combined with the first two parts of the series, and the rest to come, it's more of a history book than an editorial.
Personally, I like seeing articles that are informative like this, without getting into a "which one is better" match. If people read them, and (gasp) learn from them, then they can be better informed to make their own opinion, rather than just "Rambus baaad! DDR goood!". I've made my decision (mainly though choosing the other chip), but it's interesting to read nonetheless.
In a recent government class we were given the project to rewrite the Texas constitution, and the group I worked with was to handle the election parts. Since 90% of the people in the group were CS people, we natrually thought of online voting. When doing research though, we found that a perhaps easier to implement system would be a sort of limited online vote, versus voting from home.
If you allow anyone to log in and vote over the web, it opens up the door to massive fraud, because people can pretty much use whatever tools they have at their disposal to comprimise the system. Our solution was to only allow online voting from certain public places with internet access, such as libraries, schools, and the like. In these places the access at terminals is usually more limited, and monitored, reducing the ability to easily do damage. With specially designed software running to do the access (not just something over the web) it would possibly be even harder.
This compromise doesn't give the option of voting in one's underwear at home, but it would increase the number of polling places, and possibly the hours of operation.
Actually, this is why I like Diablo/Diablo2. I love nethack, adom, etc. I play Rogue on my Palm. The thing that initially interested me about Diablo was the very nethack-ness of it. Combine the real-time and graphics with the multiplayer aspects, and you do have something that isn't just a re-packaging of the originals.
In my opinion, the major problem with DIVX was that it required a special player to run them. If these folks can make a degradable disc that will run in any normal player, I think it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Ecological implications aside, I would much rather not have to worry about having to return rentals, especially seeing how lazy I am. Maybe a once every 20 rental trip to get the discarded hulks recycled instead of 20 trips to return them.