I've never understood the sad devotion to vi and vim and other obfuscated tools that UNIX elitists have.
It's because if any part of the toolchain doesn't work for you, it can easily be exchanged for something else without having to exchange the entire toolchain.
Don't like vi? Use emacs instead. The shell and all the other tools you're using won't care. Don' like the Visual Studio editor? Tough!
The Eurostar will take you from the centre of London to the centre of Paris in the time same time the plane takes you from Heathrow to Charles the Gaulle. Add in the travel to and from the airports, the cramped space and the cavity search before they even let you on the plane, and it should be possible to detect a slight benefit of taking the train.
Actively? It's the default. UAC may add another layer of click between you and Dangerous Operation, but you're still running as an Administrator by default.
How about you let people have their opinions without trying to belittle them? Just like you most people have good reasons for liking/disliking something.
I loved Crysis and I've played it more than any other single player game I can remember in recent history. The multitude of ways you can approach any "mission" can keep me entertained for hours and hours.
The gameplay may not appeal to everyone, but it sure as hell isn't the graphics that has me coming back to it again and again.
When that one issue basically exposes you as willing to accept something as truth based on nothing but word of mouth and a 2000 year old book, I'd say that's a pretty big one for someone with a scientific leaning (which I at least hope includes most of Slashdot).
Personally I just don't trust the judgement of anyone willing to accept something as truth not only without evidence, but also with the attached notion that evidence is impossible to produce and indeed not required. Feel free to disagree.
Well the series pretty much ended with the creation of thousands of slayers so it doesn't seem that far fetched with bucketloads of them running around. Makes being a slayer a little less special though, which I guess was your point.
Why does every discussion of IP have to include someone pretending to not see the difference between a product with unlimited supply (data), and a product with a supply of one (the GP's house)? You know it's not the same thing, so why the silly act?
Instead, how about you explain how giving data artificial value through copyright is A Good Thing, and stop with this silly argument already?
I did have my "Workdir" at the C: root in XP, but after switching to Linux and Vista the Home directory seems more fitting because that's where you have default write permission.
As for the command line, I rarely work off it in Windows since I can't stand the Windows command prompt (another one for the list:)), so a longer path wouldn't bother me. You also have the %UserProfile% environment variable to help you, but it's a bit too verbose to use really. The Linux ~/ shortcut is much better there.
You know, I may have to eat my words on that one. I turned UAC off a while ago after it kept whining when I tried to delete some shortcuts on my desktop. My experience with it back then was horrible, and far removed from anything I've seen sudo do.
I've just given it a shot again though, and now it seems more reasonable. (Maybe SP1 did it some good?) It only pops up for the things I'd expect it to pop up for, and that's a relief. I do get the "it's too big and overly complex for what it does" feeling you get with most MS software, but I guess there's no way around that.:)
You still get into problems with the fact that the vast majority of applications don't store their user data in the User directory though. Most times you have to run them as Administrator as they try to write elsewhere on the file-system where you may not have permission. This of course negates the whole point of UAC, but can't really be blamed on MS. They could do a better job of educating developers though.
Of course I keep Subversion working copies in my Home directory. Where else would I keep them? Keeping them anywhere else would have UAC go mad as well. Anything related to you as a user, certainly including anything you may be working on, goes in Home.
Now I know I could of course exclude these directories from indexing, but you know what? I very often want to search them. That's why I have the indexer enabled at all. It's pathetic I can't use it without having to forego media playback.
Yeah, I just saw that and frankly the whole "Mojave" thing looked staged. People sounded far too negative before they were shown Vista and were ridiculously positive after they had been shown it. I just don't buy it. It stank of marketing.
Personally, after having used Vista for around a year now, I find it a typical Windows release. It's main strength is that there are tonnes of great software available for it, but it's generally filled with little annoyances that make my day more annoying than it has to be.
And to counter the "you only hate it because it's cool" argument; My pet peeves include;
The indexer/superfetch grinding the disk way too much, especially if you have lots of files updated often (like, say, a Subversion working copy).
The indexer occasionally completely blocking any other IO, making listening to music and watching video impossible while it's working. (That one's especially pathetic)
Very often files and directories can't be deleted or otherwise modified for some reason. I'm guessing some process somewhere is using the files, but who the hell knows?
File copying is pathetically slow, Especially if you add network and ZIP files to the mix. (Yes, even after SP1)
UAC is quite possibly the worst implementation of permission escalation I've ever seen. It cries way too often and for way too little, training you to just click continue no matter why it pops up. Give me Linux and sudo/gksudo any day.
Every single piece of UI is a complete mess of legacy features, settings and looks, leading to a very inconsistent user experience. The font dialog from 3.11 is still in there for Christ's sake.
Rubbish? If this plug-in is as easy to install as Flash is today ("You seem to be missing a required plugin, install it?"), I would have no problems taking advantage of it. (Yes, I'm a web-developer as well.) Not everyone has to cater for the corporate dinosaurs with every project they do.
Just because you may not be able to use it, doesn't mean no one can.
HTML5 comes in two flavours. One is straight HTML5 which is based off HTML4 (same parsing rules), the other is XHTML5 which is strict XML and requires the application/xml content type. None of them are really related to XHTML2 which is mostly dead at this point.
My guess is it's simply because canvas is a reasonably standalone feature to separate out of Gecko. Maybe they simply want to give it a go to see if it's feasible to do the same thing to other features later.
It allows web developers to take advantage of this feature, but still have their sites be accessible by people using IE (out of ignorance or otherwise). Right now no web-developer can really target features not available on IE unless they want to alienate a large percentage of their user base.
But in the MS case you have to pay once they drop support. Upgrading Ubuntu to the next LTS release is free (and not particularly difficult either). Why would you not upgrade your Ubuntu install?
Re:Boost epitomizes everything that is wrong with
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 1
Of course not, but Boost caters for a lot of compilers that have been superseded for years and years already. It goes to great lengths to hack around the limitations of VC++ 6 for instance, and that was released before the C++ standard was even ISO approved. There's also lots of fixes for old Borland compilers. If you removed all the old baggage, I think even Boost code would be relatively readable.
I can certainly relate to the experiences of your young self with template trickery (VC++ 6 still gives me nightmares), but that just isn't a problem any more in my experience (and I do my fair share of template meta-programming). On the VC++ side 8.0 fixed most of the complaints I had, and on GCC 4.0 and onwards have been admirable as well. Intel's latest compilers have also been quite good in my (admittedly) limited experience. Comeau has always been very good. The differences just aren't that big any more, though again, there are some minor niggles (VC++ still has the odd internal compiler error, but I have been able to figure it out the couple of times it's happened the last few years.)
As for the features you mentioned, as I said I doubt the actual usefulness of export and so do most compiler writers apparently. That one doesn't bother me. Restrict was actually a new one for me, and I had to look it up. Looks like it's a C99 feature? You can hardly fault a C++ compiler for not supporting that.:)
Inlining seems to work wonderfully for me in any recent version of the big ones. They all support NRVO and RVO and do a very good job of eliminating static expressions, and unrolling static loops. I have a matrix math library that takes heavy advantage of this and I'm still stunned when I take a peek at the generated assembly. Deep recursive calls and huge functors compile down into nothing.
Implicit functions (If you mean what I think you mean, the old deprecated C feature) are not not allowed in C++.
All in all, the C++ compilers I work with are no longer standing in my way like they did some years ago, and it's bloody beautiful.
Re:Boost epitomizes everything that is wrong with
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 1
Well export is regarded as a mistake by the only people that have actually tried to implement it, so I can't say I'm really shedding any tears over that one.
As for the rest, the only problem I've encountered recently is VC++ being too lenient in what it accepts. It still does fine with code written to the standard though, so once you have tweaked your code to work in GCC for example, it usually works in all of them. And this tweaking is hardly difficult. Took be about an hour to bring my game framework up in GCC after writing it against VC++.
If you know of specific features that aren't well implemented across the mainstream compilers, please list them, but I haven't found anything that prevents me from using most features of the language (which is quite an improvement over just a few years ago).
Now if you step off the mainstream compilers, you will probably have trouble, but in those cases don't use Boost. You'll have to write more code yourself, but that's the price you pay for sub-standard tools.
Re:Boost epitomizes everything that is wrong with
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 1
VC++, GCC, Intel, Comeau... That's just off the top of my head. None of them are perfect, but they're close enough as makes no difference.
Re:Huh. I'm still using STL.
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
smart pointers (Seriously? You can't check pointers yourself?)
Soo, what happens to your game in case of an exception then? Always careful to clean up any allocated resources I assume? See, this is not a contest to see who can "handle" cleaning up memory himself. Any monkey can do manual resource management if he wants to. Personally, I just can't be arsed to twiddle pointers and exposing myself to memory leaks and other problems unless I have to. Not that I use manual memory allocation much at all.
Anyway, my hobbyist game framework contains at least 4 of the features you mentioned (How on earth do you manage to make a game without having at least one graph in there?), and I'm damned thankful I didn't have to write the boring implementation details myself.
Re:Huh. I'm still using STL.
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Five lines out of a hundred? That's an awfully specific number for something as huge as Boost. I know I saved a lot more than that on not having to implement a complete cross-platform signals/slot implementation myself. Or a threading library. Or a parser for Unicode data files from scratch. Or a smart pointer implementation. Or a specific graph implementation with corresponding algorithms every time I need one. I could go on.
Boost isn't about performance. It's about letting you get shit done instead of reinventing the wheel all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
It's because if any part of the toolchain doesn't work for you, it can easily be exchanged for something else without having to exchange the entire toolchain.
Don't like vi? Use emacs instead. The shell and all the other tools you're using won't care. Don' like the Visual Studio editor? Tough!
Linux/OSX won't magically be able to run Windows executables just because you change your browser's UA string.
The Eurostar will take you from the centre of London to the centre of Paris in the time same time the plane takes you from Heathrow to Charles the Gaulle. Add in the travel to and from the airports, the cramped space and the cavity search before they even let you on the plane, and it should be possible to detect a slight benefit of taking the train.
Actively? It's the default. UAC may add another layer of click between you and Dangerous Operation, but you're still running as an Administrator by default.
How about you let people have their opinions without trying to belittle them? Just like you most people have good reasons for liking/disliking something.
I loved Crysis and I've played it more than any other single player game I can remember in recent history. The multitude of ways you can approach any "mission" can keep me entertained for hours and hours.
The gameplay may not appeal to everyone, but it sure as hell isn't the graphics that has me coming back to it again and again.
Nope. Still has Securom, for reasons unclear to anyone but EA.
When that one issue basically exposes you as willing to accept something as truth based on nothing but word of mouth and a 2000 year old book, I'd say that's a pretty big one for someone with a scientific leaning (which I at least hope includes most of Slashdot).
Personally I just don't trust the judgement of anyone willing to accept something as truth not only without evidence, but also with the attached notion that evidence is impossible to produce and indeed not required. Feel free to disagree.
Well the series pretty much ended with the creation of thousands of slayers so it doesn't seem that far fetched with bucketloads of them running around. Makes being a slayer a little less special though, which I guess was your point.
Why does every discussion of IP have to include someone pretending to not see the difference between a product with unlimited supply (data), and a product with a supply of one (the GP's house)? You know it's not the same thing, so why the silly act?
Instead, how about you explain how giving data artificial value through copyright is A Good Thing, and stop with this silly argument already?
I did have my "Workdir" at the C: root in XP, but after switching to Linux and Vista the Home directory seems more fitting because that's where you have default write permission.
As for the command line, I rarely work off it in Windows since I can't stand the Windows command prompt (another one for the list :)), so a longer path wouldn't bother me. You also have the %UserProfile% environment variable to help you, but it's a bit too verbose to use really. The Linux ~/ shortcut is much better there.
You know, I may have to eat my words on that one. I turned UAC off a while ago after it kept whining when I tried to delete some shortcuts on my desktop. My experience with it back then was horrible, and far removed from anything I've seen sudo do.
I've just given it a shot again though, and now it seems more reasonable. (Maybe SP1 did it some good?) It only pops up for the things I'd expect it to pop up for, and that's a relief. I do get the "it's too big and overly complex for what it does" feeling you get with most MS software, but I guess there's no way around that. :)
You still get into problems with the fact that the vast majority of applications don't store their user data in the User directory though. Most times you have to run them as Administrator as they try to write elsewhere on the file-system where you may not have permission. This of course negates the whole point of UAC, but can't really be blamed on MS. They could do a better job of educating developers though.
Of course I keep Subversion working copies in my Home directory. Where else would I keep them? Keeping them anywhere else would have UAC go mad as well. Anything related to you as a user, certainly including anything you may be working on, goes in Home.
Now I know I could of course exclude these directories from indexing, but you know what? I very often want to search them. That's why I have the indexer enabled at all. It's pathetic I can't use it without having to forego media playback.
I see your point about Exposé to a degree, but I find it works wonderfully for me in Gnome, so I don't think I would have the same problem. ALT+TAb feels painfully slow to me when you have a lot of windows open.
Yeah, I just saw that and frankly the whole "Mojave" thing looked staged. People sounded far too negative before they were shown Vista and were ridiculously positive after they had been shown it. I just don't buy it. It stank of marketing.
Personally, after having used Vista for around a year now, I find it a typical Windows release. It's main strength is that there are tonnes of great software available for it, but it's generally filled with little annoyances that make my day more annoying than it has to be.
And to counter the "you only hate it because it's cool" argument; My pet peeves include;
You may now dismiss my opinion because I'm ignorant/incompetent/doin it rong. Thank you.
Rubbish? If this plug-in is as easy to install as Flash is today ("You seem to be missing a required plugin, install it?"), I would have no problems taking advantage of it. (Yes, I'm a web-developer as well.) Not everyone has to cater for the corporate dinosaurs with every project they do.
Just because you may not be able to use it, doesn't mean no one can.
HTML5 comes in two flavours. One is straight HTML5 which is based off HTML4 (same parsing rules), the other is XHTML5 which is strict XML and requires the application/xml content type. None of them are really related to XHTML2 which is mostly dead at this point.
My guess is it's simply because canvas is a reasonably standalone feature to separate out of Gecko. Maybe they simply want to give it a go to see if it's feasible to do the same thing to other features later.
I assume you can have the browser display a "download plugin" button for those people, just like it does it you're missing flash or shockwave.
It allows web developers to take advantage of this feature, but still have their sites be accessible by people using IE (out of ignorance or otherwise). Right now no web-developer can really target features not available on IE unless they want to alienate a large percentage of their user base.
But in the MS case you have to pay once they drop support. Upgrading Ubuntu to the next LTS release is free (and not particularly difficult either). Why would you not upgrade your Ubuntu install?
Of course not, but Boost caters for a lot of compilers that have been superseded for years and years already. It goes to great lengths to hack around the limitations of VC++ 6 for instance, and that was released before the C++ standard was even ISO approved. There's also lots of fixes for old Borland compilers. If you removed all the old baggage, I think even Boost code would be relatively readable.
I can certainly relate to the experiences of your young self with template trickery (VC++ 6 still gives me nightmares), but that just isn't a problem any more in my experience (and I do my fair share of template meta-programming). On the VC++ side 8.0 fixed most of the complaints I had, and on GCC 4.0 and onwards have been admirable as well. Intel's latest compilers have also been quite good in my (admittedly) limited experience. Comeau has always been very good. The differences just aren't that big any more, though again, there are some minor niggles (VC++ still has the odd internal compiler error, but I have been able to figure it out the couple of times it's happened the last few years.)
As for the features you mentioned, as I said I doubt the actual usefulness of export and so do most compiler writers apparently. That one doesn't bother me. Restrict was actually a new one for me, and I had to look it up. Looks like it's a C99 feature? You can hardly fault a C++ compiler for not supporting that. :)
Inlining seems to work wonderfully for me in any recent version of the big ones. They all support NRVO and RVO and do a very good job of eliminating static expressions, and unrolling static loops. I have a matrix math library that takes heavy advantage of this and I'm still stunned when I take a peek at the generated assembly. Deep recursive calls and huge functors compile down into nothing.
Implicit functions (If you mean what I think you mean, the old deprecated C feature) are not not allowed in C++.
All in all, the C++ compilers I work with are no longer standing in my way like they did some years ago, and it's bloody beautiful.
Well export is regarded as a mistake by the only people that have actually tried to implement it, so I can't say I'm really shedding any tears over that one.
As for the rest, the only problem I've encountered recently is VC++ being too lenient in what it accepts. It still does fine with code written to the standard though, so once you have tweaked your code to work in GCC for example, it usually works in all of them. And this tweaking is hardly difficult. Took be about an hour to bring my game framework up in GCC after writing it against VC++.
If you know of specific features that aren't well implemented across the mainstream compilers, please list them, but I haven't found anything that prevents me from using most features of the language (which is quite an improvement over just a few years ago).
Now if you step off the mainstream compilers, you will probably have trouble, but in those cases don't use Boost. You'll have to write more code yourself, but that's the price you pay for sub-standard tools.
VC++, GCC, Intel, Comeau... That's just off the top of my head. None of them are perfect, but they're close enough as makes no difference.
Soo, what happens to your game in case of an exception then? Always careful to clean up any allocated resources I assume? See, this is not a contest to see who can "handle" cleaning up memory himself. Any monkey can do manual resource management if he wants to. Personally, I just can't be arsed to twiddle pointers and exposing myself to memory leaks and other problems unless I have to. Not that I use manual memory allocation much at all.
Anyway, my hobbyist game framework contains at least 4 of the features you mentioned (How on earth do you manage to make a game without having at least one graph in there?), and I'm damned thankful I didn't have to write the boring implementation details myself.
Five lines out of a hundred? That's an awfully specific number for something as huge as Boost. I know I saved a lot more than that on not having to implement a complete cross-platform signals/slot implementation myself. Or a threading library. Or a parser for Unicode data files from scratch. Or a smart pointer implementation. Or a specific graph implementation with corresponding algorithms every time I need one. I could go on.
Boost isn't about performance. It's about letting you get shit done instead of reinventing the wheel all the time.
Of course they have the right. They own the copyright. They can do whatever they damn well please.