Bitcoin is useless from a PRACTICAL standpoint. Why?
1) Transactions aren't instant, you have to wait potentially for hours for your transaction to go through and the value in your account to change. (Even transactions between two accounts you own, because Bitcoin isn't smart enough to handle that.)
2) Every device using Bitcoin needs a copy of the Bitcoin database. As of about a year ago, this was 700 MB of data. Every device needs a copy of this. Every device needs to go through this file and parse it. Including your low-power cellphone.
I'm not against the concept of Bitcoin, but the implementation stinks.
Yeah I didn't read your post carefully enough before replying, sorry.
But I do honestly believe Valve has zero interest in Linux-as-a-PC-OS, they only care about Linux-as-a-console-OS. That you get the first is a side-effect of them developing the second.
Frozen Bubble is just a port of bust-a-move. You can buy it on every platform under the sun. Hell, I've seen at least 3 DIFFERENT ports of it on iPad alone. (None of which give credit to the original, of course.)
If Frozen Bubble is your best selling point, you got problems.
No; they're doing it so they have an OS for their upcoming set-top box product.
The fact that, due to the OS chosen being Linux, it just happens to run on PCs to? Just a side-effect. Whether they continue to support Linux-on-PCs after the set-top-box succeeds or fails is really the best indicator, but we won't know that for years.
So the solution there is to ship BIG EXPANSIVE libraries with the OS, and keep on top of them so new stuff is supported by those libraries ASAP. You don't have 75 copies of zlib.dll, you have one-- and it's owned and updated by the OS.
Take Microsoft's.net for example. The library covers pretty much everything you can imagine wanting to do with a computer, and it's constantly updated as new file formats/etc arrive. But since there's only ONE.net, the library is still one holistic thing that can be updated when security problems arise without breaking anything.
That's not to say that.net is the perfect solution to all problems, but it's definitely worth examining how other vendors solve the problems in Linux.
For what it's worth, I come from Mac Classic, a platform that never had DLLs in the first place (but did have a huge expansive built-in library). Frankly, I've never been convinced that shared libraries were a good idea, even when HD space was expensive. But that's just me.
To give you an idea, Skyrim has thousands of quests all of which can interact with each other in thousands * thousands of ways.
There's no support in Bethesda's development tools for unit testing of quests. There's no support for fuzz-testing of quests.
They don't have the tools to make a bug-free complex game, and they haven't bothered to make them.
They did however waste tons of time writing a custom BASIC-esque scripting language (which is itself incomplete and buggy) instead of just glomming-on some JS or Lua.
I used to think the problem was simply complexity, like you. Since Bethesda has released their dev tools to the public, now I'm thinking it's 90% incompetence.
That wouldn't even be a feature on windows, it would be a disaster, because my 70 year old aunt would accidentally remove something important, not be sure what it was, and call me to find out how to fix it.
Remember those couple versions of Office that had "everything is a toolbar, even the menus"? And users would accidentally either drag their menu bar out-of-position or manage to hide it? And there was no trivial way to get them back?
It was an unmitigated disaster.
So yes, I agree with you 100%. There's nothing wrong with customizability, but a lot of time it impacts usability.
Ok the way you ship does mitigate the risk. We wouldn't be having this debate if you has mentioned that in the first place. I would still pick the non-Java choice, all else being equal.
If you think "looks native" has ANYTHING to do with usability, you are entirely unqualified to judge the usability of an app. So I stand by my statement that your app is an unusable mess.
Ignoring for a moment Eclipse's awful UI, its entirely broken in Windows because of the way it handles (or rather, fails to handle) per-user special folders. Last time I installed it, it basically engaged in a DoS attack against every other app trying to use named folders.
Look, Java's been shit for a decade. It's not new. Your application is the reason that JVM is installed on all those computers, so your application is contributing to risk from this 0-day. You don't think that's a problem? Because I do.
Besides, there's no way your UI "definitely does not suck". It's in Java. It has to suck.
What you should stop using is Java IN A BROWSER. If you're buying GoToMeeting for your employees? Stop. They use Java. They're encouraging this kind of shit. Use Group Policy to prevent the Java plug-in from working in browsers.
And if you're using Java to write desktop applications, migrate off it. Stop. Java's awful. It's slow, bloated, buggy. Your UI sucks. Your users hate it. Write your app in something else, anything else would be better.
Java's only useful on servers. There's still a few idiots who are like "oh write once, run everywhere"... no, that failed. That failed horribly. That failed horribly years and years ago. Get over it.
Did NASA ever have a rocket explode and kill 48 of the Engineers?
Not due to superior American-ism, but due to: 1) learning from Russian mistakes (they went first almost every time), 2) better luck.
NASA killed plenty of people, in space and on the ground. Space exploration is dangerous-- in the 50s and 60s space exploration was insanely dangerous-- for every country attempting it. That's just a fact.
You also have to remember that during pretty much the shuttle era, Russian space travel was on average far more safe than US space travel.
I will say that the Russians seemed to lose a lot more automated probes due to stupid mistakes (giving bad instructions, bad change control, etc.) But those were just robots. And the US has lost probes due to stupid mistakes, too.
What kind of weird-ass alternate universe is Slashdot in where everyone constantly has Microsoft Bob running through their heads at all times? It was in stores for like 6 months, 20 years ago. Get over it already.
That aside, see my reply to the OTHER poster who inexplicably brought up Microsoft Bob for a less insulting reply.
There are a shit load of skeumorphic Windows programs out there.
Wanna give an example? I don't know of any.
And how else would you describe Microsoft Bob?
Bob fits, but it was sold for about 6 months 20 years ago so I don't see it being particularly relevant to the here and now. But yes, I guess if you mention IBM RealX products, it's fair to mention Bob, since they're roughly the same age.
The biggest problem, IMO, is that Apple had a bunch of programs that were normal, then they went and fucked them up by turning them into skeumorphs. It sucks, it's stupid, and utterly pointless.
That's why I personally left the platform when OS X came along. Apple had already been going in that direction (with Quicktime Player being the 'vanguard'), but with OS X they dove head first right in it, forget everything they'd spent 15 years learning about spatial computing, and made Macs a lousy clone of Windows. (From my perspective.) Well, if I have a choice of two platforms, neither of which has a spatial UI, but one of which is cheaper and has more software-- I go to the cheaper one.
If only Apple had been able to add in all the technical underpinnings in OS X without screwing up the UI, I'd probably still be using it.
The entire point of the version number is that it'll continue to behave like version 9, even when running on DX10/11/whatever. So... you're kind of arguing against your own point.
Slashdot Mirror
Oop, the SecurityWeek article specially mentions that IE7 and IE8 on XP *are* affected and exploits them were spotting in the wild.
This means:
IE7, IE8 on XP = definitely vulnerable
IE7, IE8, IE9 on Vista/7 = probably vulnerable but no exploit seen in the wild
IE9 only runs on Vista, 7 and Server 2008. So XP isn't affected assuming IE8 also isn't. (Since they didn't mention IE8, I assume you're safe?)
Bitcoin is useless from a PRACTICAL standpoint. Why?
1) Transactions aren't instant, you have to wait potentially for hours for your transaction to go through and the value in your account to change. (Even transactions between two accounts you own, because Bitcoin isn't smart enough to handle that.)
2) Every device using Bitcoin needs a copy of the Bitcoin database. As of about a year ago, this was 700 MB of data. Every device needs a copy of this. Every device needs to go through this file and parse it. Including your low-power cellphone.
I'm not against the concept of Bitcoin, but the implementation stinks.
Yeah I didn't read your post carefully enough before replying, sorry.
But I do honestly believe Valve has zero interest in Linux-as-a-PC-OS, they only care about Linux-as-a-console-OS. That you get the first is a side-effect of them developing the second.
Frozen Bubble is just a port of bust-a-move. You can buy it on every platform under the sun. Hell, I've seen at least 3 DIFFERENT ports of it on iPad alone. (None of which give credit to the original, of course.)
If Frozen Bubble is your best selling point, you got problems.
No; they're doing it so they have an OS for their upcoming set-top box product.
The fact that, due to the OS chosen being Linux, it just happens to run on PCs to? Just a side-effect. Whether they continue to support Linux-on-PCs after the set-top-box succeeds or fails is really the best indicator, but we won't know that for years.
Seriously, this post is the very definition of "penny-wise, pound foolish".
$1000 is, what, like one flight's worth of fuel? It's like... maybe half of one month of one employee's health benefits? It's nothing.
Your time is worth far, far more.
So the solution there is to ship BIG EXPANSIVE libraries with the OS, and keep on top of them so new stuff is supported by those libraries ASAP. You don't have 75 copies of zlib.dll, you have one-- and it's owned and updated by the OS.
Take Microsoft's .net for example. The library covers pretty much everything you can imagine wanting to do with a computer, and it's constantly updated as new file formats/etc arrive. But since there's only ONE .net, the library is still one holistic thing that can be updated when security problems arise without breaking anything.
That's not to say that .net is the perfect solution to all problems, but it's definitely worth examining how other vendors solve the problems in Linux.
For what it's worth, I come from Mac Classic, a platform that never had DLLs in the first place (but did have a huge expansive built-in library). Frankly, I've never been convinced that shared libraries were a good idea, even when HD space was expensive. But that's just me.
To give you an idea, Skyrim has thousands of quests all of which can interact with each other in thousands * thousands of ways.
There's no support in Bethesda's development tools for unit testing of quests. There's no support for fuzz-testing of quests.
They don't have the tools to make a bug-free complex game, and they haven't bothered to make them.
They did however waste tons of time writing a custom BASIC-esque scripting language (which is itself incomplete and buggy) instead of just glomming-on some JS or Lua.
I used to think the problem was simply complexity, like you. Since Bethesda has released their dev tools to the public, now I'm thinking it's 90% incompetence.
Seattle does pretty well, and our weather's even worse. I don't think weather is much of a factor.
BTW to all Californians reading this: don't move up here. Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation.
Remember those couple versions of Office that had "everything is a toolbar, even the menus"? And users would accidentally either drag their menu bar out-of-position or manage to hide it? And there was no trivial way to get them back?
It was an unmitigated disaster.
So yes, I agree with you 100%. There's nothing wrong with customizability, but a lot of time it impacts usability.
I haven't tried IntelliJ, but Netbeans can't even render a font in the correct size. Seriously. It's that awful.
If "manages to stay fairly stable" is literally the best thing you can say about it, it's shit.
Ok the way you ship does mitigate the risk. We wouldn't be having this debate if you has mentioned that in the first place. I would still pick the non-Java choice, all else being equal.
If you think "looks native" has ANYTHING to do with usability, you are entirely unqualified to judge the usability of an app. So I stand by my statement that your app is an unusable mess.
Ignoring for a moment Eclipse's awful UI, its entirely broken in Windows because of the way it handles (or rather, fails to handle) per-user special folders. Last time I installed it, it basically engaged in a DoS attack against every other app trying to use named folders.
Ok? You win kudos points?
Look, Java's been shit for a decade. It's not new. Your application is the reason that JVM is installed on all those computers, so your application is contributing to risk from this 0-day. You don't think that's a problem? Because I do.
Besides, there's no way your UI "definitely does not suck". It's in Java. It has to suck.
Yeah, Lotus Notes "runs" also. Lots of shitty software "runs". My minimum bar isn't "runs" but is "not shitty".
It's more accurate to say that Java shouldn't be used on the desktop. And ESPECIALLY not in a browser.
On the server, Java's not bad. (I'd still prefer something else, but I wouldn't fault someone for picking Java.)
On the desktop, I've yet to see a single application written in Java that didn't have huge flaws, even if you ignore the huge flaws in the JRE itself.
What you should stop using is Java IN A BROWSER. If you're buying GoToMeeting for your employees? Stop. They use Java. They're encouraging this kind of shit. Use Group Policy to prevent the Java plug-in from working in browsers.
And if you're using Java to write desktop applications, migrate off it. Stop. Java's awful. It's slow, bloated, buggy. Your UI sucks. Your users hate it. Write your app in something else, anything else would be better.
Java's only useful on servers. There's still a few idiots who are like "oh write once, run everywhere"... no, that failed. That failed horribly. That failed horribly years and years ago. Get over it.
Not due to superior American-ism, but due to: 1) learning from Russian mistakes (they went first almost every time), 2) better luck.
NASA killed plenty of people, in space and on the ground. Space exploration is dangerous-- in the 50s and 60s space exploration was insanely dangerous-- for every country attempting it. That's just a fact.
You also have to remember that during pretty much the shuttle era, Russian space travel was on average far more safe than US space travel.
I will say that the Russians seemed to lose a lot more automated probes due to stupid mistakes (giving bad instructions, bad change control, etc.) But those were just robots. And the US has lost probes due to stupid mistakes, too.
They were never legally allowed to buy or play WOW in the first place. Blizzard's just changing the enforcement to be more proactive.
What kind of weird-ass alternate universe is Slashdot in where everyone constantly has Microsoft Bob running through their heads at all times? It was in stores for like 6 months, 20 years ago. Get over it already.
That aside, see my reply to the OTHER poster who inexplicably brought up Microsoft Bob for a less insulting reply.
But seriously: get over it.
Wanna give an example? I don't know of any.
Bob fits, but it was sold for about 6 months 20 years ago so I don't see it being particularly relevant to the here and now. But yes, I guess if you mention IBM RealX products, it's fair to mention Bob, since they're roughly the same age.
That's why I personally left the platform when OS X came along. Apple had already been going in that direction (with Quicktime Player being the 'vanguard'), but with OS X they dove head first right in it, forget everything they'd spent 15 years learning about spatial computing, and made Macs a lousy clone of Windows. (From my perspective.) Well, if I have a choice of two platforms, neither of which has a spatial UI, but one of which is cheaper and has more software-- I go to the cheaper one.
If only Apple had been able to add in all the technical underpinnings in OS X without screwing up the UI, I'd probably still be using it.
There are tools that do that-- RealBasic/RealStudio used to be very healthy a few years ago-- just nobody uses them.
The entire point of the version number is that it'll continue to behave like version 9, even when running on DX10/11/whatever. So... you're kind of arguing against your own point.