Keeping this more relevant to the topic, there's also the issue that smart young coders who previously might have gone into kernel development, well, look what they're seeing in the market right now.
UI is the exciting part, it's driving Google's growth, it's driving Apple's growth, the most interesting work Microsoft is doing (Project Natal on the Xbox, the Surface table, the Office 2007 UI research) is all based around improving the user interfaces of established devices.
Working on the kernel is about as far away as you can get from the really interesting work going on right now. Project Natal developers don't give a flying whit whether the Xbox 360 runs Linux or BSD or Windows kernels, that's completely irrelevant to their work.
Note also: this is a really, really, really good thing! Computer UI is finally getting some much-needed attention! Programmers are finally learning that if their features are hard-to-use, they might as well not even exist to the average user! Dancing Bear-ware is finally and at long last going away! Exciting times.
Finally, some of the noteworthy exceptions to this trend (Microsoft, for example.
I'm guessing you've never worked at Microsoft.
The reason Microsoft recruits at colleges and supports H1B visas has nothing to do with them wanting to shed older programmers. (In fact, quite the opposite: experienced programmers are treated really well by Microsoft, much better than the average company.) The real reason is that the demand for talent from MS is so great they they've pretty much already hired everybody who wants to work for them and lives in the northwest. This isn't new; Bill Gates has been telling this to Congress for half a decade.
Separately, I have a dream where all of the Alans Cox get together to write an operating system.
Yeah, they'd spend 5 years perfecting every single line of code for the USB subsystem. Meanwhile, nobody cares because the optimizations from those 5 years were completely leap-frogged by hardware improvements, and normal people want an OS that they can use to get shit done.
Sometimes I think the concept of "pragmatism" is entirely absent from this field.
In the US, well, nothing would surprise me. Labour laws seem incredibly weak from the employee side.
The US is composed of 50 States, each of which has their own labor laws. The United States isn't a single country, it's a collection of States. That's... United.
Saying, "I'm in the US" is not even close to sufficient-- I would wager the labor law differences between California and Texas are more substantial than the labor law differences between the UK and France. (To give a related EU example.)
I'd recommend watching Steam. It goes on sale pretty often, if you're lucky you can get it for $10 or less-- I think I actually got my copy in a package of other indie games, 10 games for $20 IIRC. It's not like the game is new or shiny anymore, so wait for a sale.:)
Look, you seem really angry about this. But think about it: did you really expect Sony to *not* screw you over? That's all Sony does anymore-- produce crummy products and screw their own customers.
I mean, yes, be angry, but you should have been expecting this from day one. Stop buying Sony's shit and you won't get screwed over. (As much.)
Usually I'd be out here saying let Sony do what they want with their own platform, but this is really kind of a dick move. They don't lose anything keeping the extra functionality,
Well, they have to be losing *something* by supporting Linux, otherwise they wouldn't remove it-- Sony's not *that* stupid. At the very least, there's the additional support costs related to it.
My guess, though, is what they're really trying to prevent is somebody using the Linux layer to create a disk copier or game downloader or some other kind of piracy tool. Or maybe that's already happened, and they're trying to minimize the damage from it.
Since their ploy to minimize duties by calling the PS3 a general-purpose computer instead of a game console failed, they really have no financial reason left to keep it. (Other than "good PR with a few nerds", but that's not worth much.)
On a related note, the iPhone DOES multitasking; it just doesn't let the USER multitask. How do you suppose an incoming call gets through while youre listening to music?
More than just that. Here are the apps that get to multi-task:
1) Phone (obviously, like you mentioned) 2) iTunes (music plays while you switch to other apps) 3) Safari, to a limited extent (pages continue to download when it's not active) 4) AppStore
Possibly more, those are the ones I'm aware of from using it. In general, it seems that Apple can use all the multitasking they want on their own apps.
Well, the first few were-- that's what the Northwest Passage was, and that's what all of those guys were trying to find. Ships can sail surprisingly far north during the summer. When you get into the 20th century explorers, then it gets a bit more fuzzy... by that time, it was pretty obvious that there was no Northwest Passage.
Manned space flight isn't about being "cost effective", "high priority", or "a good return on investment" (yes, I've heard all of these terms used in regards to spaceflight). It's about exploration, curiosity, and wonder. I challenge you to tell someone who was around on July 20, 1969 that manned spaceflight is pointless.
Nobody's saying it's pointless. People are saying it's pointless *now*. When technology improves, maybe it won't be as pointless.
It's about doing something simply to show that it can be done, like the explorers of centuries past.
Explorers of centuries past were looking for moolah. Or things worth moolah: gold, spices, slaves even. The "spreading the religion" crap was just a weak justification to get the support of the church.
(Actually, I guess you could argue that 19th and early 20th century arctic explorers were "simple showing it can be done"... but even then I doubt it. They were looking for trade routes, which equates to moolah.)
> This for instance is not something you do while the IDE is open
Then that pretty much rules using an IDE. It's crazy to imagine opening and closing an IDE every few minutes just because I want to backport my fixes to a different branch, or bisect to find a bug, etc.
Well, normally you'd use a version control system that's integrated into the IDE. Then you wouldn't have to close jack.
But seriously, you do those operations "every few minutes?" I find that very hard to believe.
Yeah. Unfortunately, the worse assumption is always: "people who post on Slashdot know what they're talking about." (Including me, of course.)
That said, apparently, VS2010 makes it much easier to target older compiler versions. So the feature isn't "it can do it", but "it's easy to do it." I haven't tried 2010 yet, but I think I'll download the Express version right now, now that I'm thinking about it.
BTW Intellisense in Visual Studio is a bit of a misnomer since it's largely unusable without Resharper.
Resharper got a ton of sales when Intellisense wasn't all that great. But you know what? Go through Resharper's "feature list" now, and you'll just be saying: "Intellisense already does that. It already does that. Already does that." Resharper has very little that in it that isn't already in Visual Studio 2008, I imagine it has even less that's not in 2010.
Seriously, go through Resharper's feature list, and tell me what it's doing that Intellisense doesn't already do.
You're just buying it out of habit at this point, not out of need.
That would still mean I can use newer tools around an older compiler and stuff works. Which is what GP wanted, imo.
Well, like I said in another reply, then somebody's obviously confused, because you can already do that in Visual Studio and have been able to for ages. It's not necessarily trivially easy to configure, but it's definitely possible, and VS ships with everything needed.
Notice those individual tool/command names? Those are completion snippets for the specific command. A tool author can create one of those to tailor bash completion for his/her creation.
1) You can do that with Intellisense, which you seem to be completely ignorant of and so I have no idea why you're continuing this debate.
2) The problem is when the language *syntax* changes. When.NET added getters and setters, if Intellisense wasn't aware of those, it would have no way of doing any sort of auto-completion-- in fact, to Intellisense, it would just look like you were typing syntax errors.
The point is that Intellisense has to actually be able to parse the language, and since all of the languages included with Visual Studio change regularly, Intellisense has to be updated regularly as well. Even C++ has been updated in every release.
Another side effect is that languages that are nearly-impossible to parse (for example, JavaScript) don't get much Intellisense help.
Then one of us is definitely confused, because VS can be set to use the old compilers. Well, maybe not for all languages, but definitely for C#... I'm working on a.NET 2.0 project in VS2008 right now. (VS2008 was released with.NET 3.5.)
Slashdot Mirror
Keeping this more relevant to the topic, there's also the issue that smart young coders who previously might have gone into kernel development, well, look what they're seeing in the market right now.
UI is the exciting part, it's driving Google's growth, it's driving Apple's growth, the most interesting work Microsoft is doing (Project Natal on the Xbox, the Surface table, the Office 2007 UI research) is all based around improving the user interfaces of established devices.
Working on the kernel is about as far away as you can get from the really interesting work going on right now. Project Natal developers don't give a flying whit whether the Xbox 360 runs Linux or BSD or Windows kernels, that's completely irrelevant to their work.
Note also: this is a really, really, really good thing! Computer UI is finally getting some much-needed attention! Programmers are finally learning that if their features are hard-to-use, they might as well not even exist to the average user! Dancing Bear-ware is finally and at long last going away! Exciting times.
Finally, some of the noteworthy exceptions to this trend (Microsoft, for example.
I'm guessing you've never worked at Microsoft.
The reason Microsoft recruits at colleges and supports H1B visas has nothing to do with them wanting to shed older programmers. (In fact, quite the opposite: experienced programmers are treated really well by Microsoft, much better than the average company.) The real reason is that the demand for talent from MS is so great they they've pretty much already hired everybody who wants to work for them and lives in the northwest. This isn't new; Bill Gates has been telling this to Congress for half a decade.
I suppose you're insinuating (or trying to) that there's something wrong with "copying and pasting together" code, hm?
Separately, I have a dream where all of the Alans Cox get together to write an operating system.
Yeah, they'd spend 5 years perfecting every single line of code for the USB subsystem. Meanwhile, nobody cares because the optimizations from those 5 years were completely leap-frogged by hardware improvements, and normal people want an OS that they can use to get shit done.
Sometimes I think the concept of "pragmatism" is entirely absent from this field.
In the US, well, nothing would surprise me. Labour laws seem incredibly weak from the employee side.
The US is composed of 50 States, each of which has their own labor laws. The United States isn't a single country, it's a collection of States. That's... United.
Saying, "I'm in the US" is not even close to sufficient-- I would wager the labor law differences between California and Texas are more substantial than the labor law differences between the UK and France. (To give a related EU example.)
imagine what Government could do with a well-financed team of, say, ten people?
Ten government employees wouldn't even be enough to keep the coffeemaker going.
You should get that cough looked at.
I'd recommend watching Steam. It goes on sale pretty often, if you're lucky you can get it for $10 or less-- I think I actually got my copy in a package of other indie games, 10 games for $20 IIRC. It's not like the game is new or shiny anymore, so wait for a sale. :)
And what will DNS look like in 100 years when 95% of all domain names belong to companies that no longer exist but refuse to let anybody recycle it?
Yah! How are Russians scammers supposed to make money, then!?
Look, you seem really angry about this. But think about it: did you really expect Sony to *not* screw you over? That's all Sony does anymore-- produce crummy products and screw their own customers.
I mean, yes, be angry, but you should have been expecting this from day one. Stop buying Sony's shit and you won't get screwed over. (As much.)
Usually I'd be out here saying let Sony do what they want with their own platform, but this is really kind of a dick move. They don't lose anything keeping the extra functionality,
Well, they have to be losing *something* by supporting Linux, otherwise they wouldn't remove it-- Sony's not *that* stupid. At the very least, there's the additional support costs related to it.
My guess, though, is what they're really trying to prevent is somebody using the Linux layer to create a disk copier or game downloader or some other kind of piracy tool. Or maybe that's already happened, and they're trying to minimize the damage from it.
Since their ploy to minimize duties by calling the PS3 a general-purpose computer instead of a game console failed, they really have no financial reason left to keep it. (Other than "good PR with a few nerds", but that's not worth much.)
Running the Norwegian Government? What is that, like 15 minutes a week? Tops.
On a related note, the iPhone DOES multitasking; it just doesn't let the USER multitask. How do you suppose an incoming call gets through while youre listening to music?
More than just that. Here are the apps that get to multi-task:
1) Phone (obviously, like you mentioned)
2) iTunes (music plays while you switch to other apps)
3) Safari, to a limited extent (pages continue to download when it's not active)
4) AppStore
Possibly more, those are the ones I'm aware of from using it. In general, it seems that Apple can use all the multitasking they want on their own apps.
Well, the first few were-- that's what the Northwest Passage was, and that's what all of those guys were trying to find. Ships can sail surprisingly far north during the summer. When you get into the 20th century explorers, then it gets a bit more fuzzy... by that time, it was pretty obvious that there was no Northwest Passage.
Ok, the first and third one I'll give you.
But unless there's more to "code insight" other than what you just described, VS already does that-- has for ages.
Manned space flight isn't about being "cost effective", "high priority", or "a good return on investment" (yes, I've heard all of these terms used in regards to spaceflight). It's about exploration, curiosity, and wonder. I challenge you to tell someone who was around on July 20, 1969 that manned spaceflight is pointless.
Nobody's saying it's pointless. People are saying it's pointless *now*. When technology improves, maybe it won't be as pointless.
It's about doing something simply to show that it can be done, like the explorers of centuries past.
Explorers of centuries past were looking for moolah. Or things worth moolah: gold, spices, slaves even. The "spreading the religion" crap was just a weak justification to get the support of the church.
(Actually, I guess you could argue that 19th and early 20th century arctic explorers were "simple showing it can be done"... but even then I doubt it. They were looking for trade routes, which equates to moolah.)
> This for instance is not something you do while the IDE is open
Then that pretty much rules using an IDE. It's crazy to imagine opening and closing an IDE every few minutes just because I want to backport my fixes to a different branch, or bisect to find a bug, etc.
Well, normally you'd use a version control system that's integrated into the IDE. Then you wouldn't have to close jack.
But seriously, you do those operations "every few minutes?" I find that very hard to believe.
Yeah. Unfortunately, the worse assumption is always: "people who post on Slashdot know what they're talking about." (Including me, of course.)
That said, apparently, VS2010 makes it much easier to target older compiler versions. So the feature isn't "it can do it", but "it's easy to do it." I haven't tried 2010 yet, but I think I'll download the Express version right now, now that I'm thinking about it.
Ok, the lameness filter filters tons of genuine jokes, but lets this stinker through? Christ.
BTW Intellisense in Visual Studio is a bit of a misnomer since it's largely unusable without Resharper.
Resharper got a ton of sales when Intellisense wasn't all that great. But you know what? Go through Resharper's "feature list" now, and you'll just be saying: "Intellisense already does that. It already does that. Already does that." Resharper has very little that in it that isn't already in Visual Studio 2008, I imagine it has even less that's not in 2010.
Seriously, go through Resharper's feature list, and tell me what it's doing that Intellisense doesn't already do.
You're just buying it out of habit at this point, not out of need.
That would still mean I can use newer tools around an older compiler and stuff works. Which is what GP wanted, imo.
Well, like I said in another reply, then somebody's obviously confused, because you can already do that in Visual Studio and have been able to for ages. It's not necessarily trivially easy to configure, but it's definitely possible, and VS ships with everything needed.
Notice those individual tool/command names? Those are completion snippets for the specific command. A tool author can create one of those to tailor bash completion for his/her creation.
1) You can do that with Intellisense, which you seem to be completely ignorant of and so I have no idea why you're continuing this debate.
2) The problem is when the language *syntax* changes. When .NET added getters and setters, if Intellisense wasn't aware of those, it would have no way of doing any sort of auto-completion-- in fact, to Intellisense, it would just look like you were typing syntax errors.
The point is that Intellisense has to actually be able to parse the language, and since all of the languages included with Visual Studio change regularly, Intellisense has to be updated regularly as well. Even C++ has been updated in every release.
Another side effect is that languages that are nearly-impossible to parse (for example, JavaScript) don't get much Intellisense help.
Then one of us is definitely confused, because VS can be set to use the old compilers. Well, maybe not for all languages, but definitely for C#... I'm working on a .NET 2.0 project in VS2008 right now. (VS2008 was released with .NET 3.5.)
CrazyJim1, YOU SO CRAZY!
Does your Zynga game have katanas with rockets in the hilt?
At the very least, it could have been 4 actual entries so that the comments don't just become a huge clusterfuck.
But... nobody running Slashdot gives a fuck. They don't even pretend, really.