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Warp wrote:
> *All* online games I have tried so far have been like that. These
> include all online multiplayer arena/tournament-type FPS shooters (such
> as Quake3 and Team Fortress 2), team-based online shooters (Counter-Strike)
> and MUDs (such as batmud).
I must admit, playing CSS against bots is usually downright boring. In
fact, even playing it against human players is generally not very exciting.
Playing it against my clanmates when we're all using VoIP to talk to
each other is anothe matter... suddenly running around killing people
becomes a really rather social experience. Weird, eh?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> Phone - " Sorry, I'm not interested in anyting you have to sell.
>> Goodbye"
>
> Add "Stop calling me, because you will never win business from me by
> being annoying/persistent".
Thanks for the tips, guys...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Warp wrote:
> At least you have heard of nethack, haven't you? You must have.
Sure. I've heard of it. I have no concept of what it *is*, but I
recognise the name...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> This constant need that some members here have to continue to put Andy
> down *must* stop. I'm not going to name names - you know who you are.
> Knock it off already.
I think you'll have to speak louder than that, but anyway...
PS. Bukkakke.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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nemesis <nam### [at] gmail com> wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > The problem is that much of our "modern" software includes features that
> > no sane user wants to use.
> it's not just feature bloat: the sheer number of code libraries and multiple
> layers of indirection given modern programming environments is a huge factor
> for slowness. Thus, hardware gets faster and faster and software bloated and
> bloated. For us, it's always about the same.
It may be a factor for slowness, but it doesn't mean that software is
actually slower in modern hardware than it was in ancient hardware.
Another factor is that today you can do much more and at much larger
scales than back then. There's also better interactivity between programs,
especially in Windows (where you can, for example, embed an object from
one program into the document of another, and edit it in-situ). "Multiple
layers of indirection" is not always a bad thing.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
>>> Yes. A few weeks ago, Toshiba announced they lost and are no longer
>>> manufacturing HD DVD players.
>
>> So yeah. Blu-ray didn't win. HD-DVD gave up :)
>
> Fortunately the Blu-Ray format is the (slightly) better of the two
> anyways.
So which one has the most psychopathic DRM system?
[Presumably both of them were loaded to the hilt...]
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Warp wrote:
> You seem to refuse to accept that modern software *does more* than 10
> years old software. You always talk as if they did the *exact same thing*,
> just much more slowly.
OK, so can anybody name anything that Word can do now that it couldn't
before?
Hmm, let me see.
- It has grammer checking now.
- It does mail merge.
- It has macros.
- Er... WordArt?
- Erm... no, I'm done here.
Not sure why any of those things should make it so vastly slower...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Tim Cook wrote:
> 1993, surfing the web was *not* generally faster. The web was this
> strange new thing, people used gifs more often than jpegs, *didn't* use
> img size tags so the browser (if it had the ability, given the
> attributes) would know how to do page layout so you didn't see anything
> until the page finished loading, had background images on every page
> whether it was useful or not, loaded MIDI or wav files to play at full
> volume, and not split their site into useful subsections so you just had
> one long long page...
>
> ...great heavens, I just described the average MySpace page.
>
> *bangs head against wall*
I almost want to frame this post and put it on my wall...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Warp wrote:
> The main point is whether you were able to run X with it or not.
> To simply use the console you could use a microwave oven. ;)
...and somewhere there's probably a consumer microwave oven that *runs*
Linux. (Hey, the ADSL modem I bought runs Linux, why not a nicrowave oven?)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> a écrit dans le message de news:
47d4bd0f@news.povray.org...
> It's not a question of "so many features *I* don't need to use", but "so
> many features that *most* users don't need to use".
But this is where the fallacy is! Unless you know "most people" your
knowledge of what they use is limited to your acquaintances, which may or
may not be representative. Obviously noone uses every available feature, but
the point is that given the sheer number of Excel users, all the features
end up being used by a significant number of people who are dependent of
them for their work. Possibly, only a limited percentage of Excel users use
the solver or VBA for instance, but those who do *** really *** use them,
because they're fundamental business tools.
> I don't know that 1-2-3 would be completely useless by modern standards -
> I think a lot of tasks that people use Excel for these days aren't much
> beyond what 1-2-3 was capable of.
And 1-2-3, in spite of having a large user base and being a fantatisc
product in its own right, was killed by Excel. People switched in droves,
for very good reasons. After Excel came, we looked at our crummy 1-2-3
graphs and reports, at our painfully obfuscated 1-2-3 macros, and switched.
Overnight.
You're vastly underestimating users and what regular people - and
particularly business users - are able to do with office software and what
they expect from their spreadsheets, word processors, databases etc. I
understand that there's this curious myth about business users being
clueless drones who just write a letter once in a while and occasionally use
a spreadsheet to make an addition and then put the result in Powerpoint
using Comic Sans, but that's just that, a myth.
G.
--
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters
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And lo on Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:24:00 -0000, Nicolas Alvarez
<nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> did spake, saying:
> Darren New escribió:
>> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>>> I don't know anyone (personally, and in the same country as me) who is
>>> geeky enough to know about D&D anyway. So even if it sounded
>>> interesting to me (which it doesn't), who would I play with?
>> That's why WoW is such a hit, methinks. All the asocial nerds who'd
>> otherwise be playing D&D can now WoW with folks in other countries.
>
> Well, I *have* tried MMORPGs. And I didn't like them. I consider the
> "Massively Monotonous Online Repetitive Perpetual Gaming" backronym to
> be somewhat accurate.
>
> And WoW isn't even free...
The problem, I think, with MMORPGs is they lack the RP part. Oh sure
you're pretending to be a dwarf or dark elf, but unless you can find a
server that specifically states it's for role-play then it descends to
grind to a new level and score phat loot while comparing DPS and demanding
buffs; what your character is doesn't real matter any more. Comparing
'proper' D&D style role-play with MMORPGs is like comparing rugby and
soccer.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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And lo on Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:55:32 -0000, Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull>
did spake, saying:
>>> Hmm, and I'll bet you've met a lot of salepeople in your line of work
>>> too. ;-)
>> None if I can help it.
>
> TELL ME YOUR SECRET!! >_<
>
> I am *so* fed up of that Russian girl trying to sell me AV licenses...
"So, are you single?"
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Invisible escribió:
> Warp wrote:
>
>> You seem to refuse to accept that modern software *does more* than 10
>> years old software. You always talk as if they did the *exact same
>> thing*,
>> just much more slowly.
>
> OK, so can anybody name anything that Word can do now that it couldn't
> before?
>
> Hmm, let me see.
>
> - It has grammer checking now.
>
> - It does mail merge.
>
> - It has macros.
>
> - Er... WordArt?
>
> - Erm... no, I'm done here.
>
> Not sure why any of those things should make it so vastly slower...
>
WordArt sure was slow as hell on the 33MHz computers we had at school
(rendering speed looked like it was raytracing the damn things), but
nope, I see no reason why it would make other things slower if you
*don't* use that feature.
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Invisible escribió:
> Warp wrote:
>
>> The main point is whether you were able to run X with it or not.
>> To simply use the console you could use a microwave oven. ;)
>
> ...and somewhere there's probably a consumer microwave oven that *runs*
> Linux. (Hey, the ADSL modem I bought runs Linux, why not a nicrowave oven?)
>
http://www.netbsd.org/changes/2005.html#toaster
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And lo on Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:18:22 -0000, Gail Shaw sa dot com>
<"<initialsurname"@sentech> did spake, saying:
>
> "Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
> news:47d28245@news.povray.org...
>> Gail Shaw <initialsurname@sentech sa dot com> wrote:
>> > > Tell me about it. I thought "dungeons and dragons" was a TV
>> series...
>>
>> > Well, there is a spin-off cartoon series (ok) and 2 movies (terrible)
>>
>> I'm not completely sure how they can say that a TV series or a movie
>> is
>> based on D&D,
>
> Apart from the fact they were both named "Dungeons and Dragons"?
>
> In the cartoon, there were 4 people that were identical to the character
> classes. Right down to naming. Also, if I recall they were children from
> this world pulled into a fantasy world. Been a while since I watched
> them.
Let's see I recall a blonde chap who was an ranger, the coward warrior,
the black acrobat, the red-head thief, the useless magician,... oh yeah
and the young barbarian. They were transported while on a fairground ride
by the Dungeon Master, whom I recall was a red-robed midget and spoke in
riddles, to fight some pale-skinned guy representing the forces of evil,
oh and there was a dragon in it to; I prefered Dangermouse.
> As for the movies, they were named Dungeons and Dragons: The movie. Other
> than that, not really. they were also really, really, really bad.
Oh I don't know the scenes with Kristen Wilson or Zoe McLellan had some
small appeal, and anything starring Richard O'Brien can't be competely bad
:-)
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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>> TELL ME YOUR SECRET!! >_<
>>
>> I am *so* fed up of that Russian girl trying to sell me AV licenses...
>
> "So, are you single?"
Mmm, yes, no possibility of THAT backfiring epically, no sir! ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> ...and somewhere there's probably a consumer microwave oven that
>> *runs* Linux. (Hey, the ADSL modem I bought runs Linux, why not a
>> nicrowave oven?)
>
> http://www.netbsd.org/changes/2005.html#toaster
Hmm. Let me file that along with the implementation of TCP/IP over Avian
Carrier...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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And lo on Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:15:37 -0000, Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull>
did spake, saying:
>>>> Sometimes you really do give the impression that you live under a
>>>> rock.
>>>
>>> Why? Because I don't follow every tiny twist and turn of modern
>>> technology with bated breath?
>> Do you read no tech-related news? Any news at all?
>> The end of HD-DVD was fairly big news, and was at least mentioned by
>> mainstream media.
>
> Generally, no.
>
> The mainstream news seems to only be interested in telling you about all
> the BAD news. It's damn depressing to watch.
Except for the fun stories at the end with the skateboarding ducks and
talking dogs.
> Most "technical news" is of the form "company X says they're going to do
> Y and some analyst things that's a dumb idea". I mean, like I care.
Try http://www.eurogamer.net it's obviously slanted to games, but it does
deal with the tech behind it too.
> It's annoying really - there are things I *do* care about. But it seems
> difficult to find any news about them.
>
>>> And while we're on the subject... I gather that all this "HD" stuff is
>>> only slightly better quality than what's already there. It's not like
>>> anybody is going to notice a huge increase in picture quality.
>> The increase in picture quality can be quite noticeable, but only if
>> you have equipment that can display it properly.
>
> Well, two things:
>
> 1. It has 2x the spatial resolution in both directions. That doesn't
> sound particularly earth-shattering, even on paper.
625 lines to 1080 lines max, if you want to know the difference trying
changing your monitor settings from roughly one to the other.
> 2. I saw two displays side-by-side in a shop. The one marked HD was
> certainly clearer. But it didn't make me go "wow, that's AMAZING!"
> Actually it just made me go "oh, OK, so it's 10% more crisp. And you
> want HOW MANY thousand pounds for this one??"
Well as I've mentioned elsewhere (blog-push) I've only seen a few shops
have an HD set hooked up correctly to an HD player via an HDMI cable, the
el-cheapo ones are using a standard aerial input and the mid-range ones
component. Likewise the ones that are set up correctly are normally
playing a demo video set-up to show all the good bits and hide the bad.
>>> And that makes it hard for me to get excited about it...
>> A lot of people are of the opinion that selling movies on optical
>> media is obsolete anyway.
Yeah well Microsoft and Apple can kiss my arse :-P
> What, you mean like how magnetic tape is "obsolete" today? ;-)
Yeah and vinyl.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
> The problem, I think, with MMORPGs is they lack the RP part. Oh sure
> you're pretending to be a dwarf or dark elf, but unless you can find a
> server that specifically states it's for role-play then it descends to
> grind to a new level and score phat loot while comparing DPS and demanding
> buffs; what your character is doesn't real matter any more.
Reading some online stories about (A)D&D playing, it doesn't sound too
different from that. ;)
--
- Warp
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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:47d531fe@news.povray.org...
> Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
> > The problem, I think, with MMORPGs is they lack the RP part. Oh sure
> > you're pretending to be a dwarf or dark elf, but unless you can find a
> > server that specifically states it's for role-play then it descends to
> > grind to a new level and score phat loot while comparing DPS and
demanding
> > buffs; what your character is doesn't real matter any more.
>
> Reading some online stories about (A)D&D playing, it doesn't sound too
> different from that. ;)
Depends what kind of group you have. A bad group, with all the players just
after the xp and the loot - very boring.
A group that enjoys cooperative gaming and roleplaying - much, much fun.
I've played one MMORPG - Guild wars. Bored the hell out of me after a couple
weeks.
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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:41:22 -0000, Gail Shaw sa dot com>
<"<initialsurname"@sentech> did spake, saying:
>
> "Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
> news:47d531fe@news.povray.org...
>> Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> > The problem, I think, with MMORPGs is they lack the RP part. Oh sure
>> > you're pretending to be a dwarf or dark elf, but unless you can find a
>> > server that specifically states it's for role-play then it descends to
>> > grind to a new level and score phat loot while comparing DPS and
> demanding
>> > buffs; what your character is doesn't real matter any more.
>>
>> Reading some online stories about (A)D&D playing, it doesn't sound too
>> different from that. ;)
>
> Depends what kind of group you have. A bad group, with all the players
> just
> after the xp and the loot - very boring.
> A group that enjoys cooperative gaming and roleplaying - much, much fun.
Which is what the RP stands for, otherwise it's just a pencil and paper
co-operative FPS (or TPS with miniatures). The difference is a DM can
penalise players for not roleplaying and reward those who do; how do you
do that in a MMORPG without extensive monitoring?
> I've played one MMORPG - Guild wars. Bored the hell out of me after a
> couple weeks.
That's 'cos you were brung up on the proper stuff ;-)
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:25:45 -0000, Gilles Tran
<gil### [at] agroparistechfr> did spake, saying:
> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 47d4bd0f@news.povray.org...
>
>> It's not a question of "so many features *I* don't need to use", but "so
>> many features that *most* users don't need to use".
>
> But this is where the fallacy is! Unless you know "most people" your
> knowledge of what they use is limited to your acquaintances, which may or
> may not be representative. Obviously noone uses every available feature,
> but the point is that given the sheer number of Excel users, all the
> features
> end up being used by a significant number of people who are dependent of
> them for their work. Possibly, only a limited percentage of Excel users
> use the solver or VBA for instance, but those who do *** really *** use
> them,
> because they're fundamental business tools.
But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral to
the programme? We've chastised Andy for not knowing about Styles in Word,
but how many home users do? Yet there the code sits taking up space,
poised for use.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> a écrit dans le message de
news: op.t7s2zm10c3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
> removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral to
> the programme? We've chastised Andy for not knowing about Styles in Word,
> but how many home users do? Yet there the code sits taking up space,
> poised for use.
My point is only that one cannot claim that some features are useless when
they are actually used intensively by parts of the user base. Is MS supposed
to make styles optional because Andy couldn't figure them out? User
requirements are real. Lots of people who are serious about using a word
processor need styles and collaboration tools. Lots of people who are
serious about using spreadsheets need automation. Lots of people who work
with presentation software need to embed video.
There's no denying that there's a bloat issue with many major applications.
Word 2003 had 31 toolbars and 1500 commands... Even Adobe plans a thorough
cleanup of the Photoshop interface. Still the solution is not to assume that
"most users" are a bunch of dummies who don't need better than what was
available in 1990. And about home users, my 75-year-old dad may not use
styles, but he still enjoys Word's ability to work flawlessly with bilingual
documents with parts written in different character sets. Is he an
exception? I don't think so.
G.
--
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:25:45 +0100, Gilles Tran wrote:
> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 47d4bd0f@news.povray.org...
>
>> It's not a question of "so many features *I* don't need to use", but
>> "so many features that *most* users don't need to use".
>
> But this is where the fallacy is! Unless you know "most people" your
> knowledge of what they use is limited to your acquaintances, which may
> or may not be representative.
But yours is? You can't use the same logic to disprove my point and
prove yours at the same time. ;-)
> Obviously noone uses every available
> feature, but the point is that given the sheer number of Excel users,
> all the features end up being used by a significant number of people who
> are dependent of them for their work. Possibly, only a limited
> percentage of Excel users use the solver or VBA for instance, but those
> who do *** really *** use them, because they're fundamental business
> tools.
Well, not for me they're not. Not for most of the people I work with -
and I work in an office that consists of both technical and non-technical
people. Most of my closest coworkers are not technical, but quite a few
are. It used to be the other way around - I almost never dealt with the
non-technical people, being an IT person myself.
>> I don't know that 1-2-3 would be completely useless by modern standards
>> - I think a lot of tasks that people use Excel for these days aren't
>> much beyond what 1-2-3 was capable of.
>
> And 1-2-3, in spite of having a large user base and being a fantatisc
> product in its own right, was killed by Excel. People switched in
> droves, for very good reasons. After Excel came, we looked at our crummy
> 1-2-3 graphs and reports, at our painfully obfuscated 1-2-3 macros, and
> switched. Overnight.
Most of the reason for 1-2-3's demise was similar to the reason
WordPerfect was killed off - Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive
practices when it came to releasing API information for creating
applications for the first Windows platform. Everyone "had to have" the
Windows environment for some reason, and WordPerfect and Lotus were late
to the game *because* Microsoft didn't release the APIs externally (and
changed some of them between beta and RTM, just to *really* fsck-up their
competition).
This is not conjecture on my part - this is well-documented fact.
> You're vastly underestimating users and what regular people - and
> particularly business users - are able to do with office software and
> what they expect from their spreadsheets, word processors, databases
> etc. I understand that there's this curious myth about business users
> being clueless drones who just write a letter once in a while and
> occasionally use a spreadsheet to make an addition and then put the
> result in Powerpoint using Comic Sans, but that's just that, a myth.
I have spent a fair amount of time over the years working with the
business end of businesses. My first job out of college was with a
company where the MIS department was still part of the Finance
department. I've seen accounting spreadsheets that would make most
people's heads hurt for days on end.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:18:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> Isn't that how you get cheap programmes, though? If you reuse code and
> generic solutions combined with not testing fully the production costs
> are kept low (ish).
Well, yes, code reuse is an important aspect of development today. But
there's nothing that says that reusable code must be sloppy or non-
optimised. :-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
>
> Yeah, but for $50, you can add another 2 GB of memory to the machine, so
> why not?
Possibly. At work that would mean changing both 1GiB modules to 2GiB
modules, which are SODIMM (yep, my workstation's a laptop), so I'm not
so sure about the price, but basically yes.
> One of the reasons for Microsoft's success in the industry is their huge
> programs. Hardware vendors *loved* Microsoft in the early days, because
> in order to use the software, you had to buy the biggest, baddest, *most
> expensive* machine they could sell you.
Yyyyep :).
> im
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 04:23:08 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> 20 years ago, I could run WordPerfect for DOS on a DOS machine that was
>> an 8086 or 80286 and got decent performance - instant responses and
>> whatnot.
>
> Was WordPerfect for 8086 wysiwyg? I doubt so.
Having used WP51 a fair bit, no, it wasn't WYSIWYG (but for many
programs, it's not WYSIWYG, but WYSIWYHYG) - but most users of WP could
predict with a staggering amount of accuracy what the page would look
like when it was printed. The earliest WYSIWYG word processors often did
unexpected things due to font selection or other factors, resulting in a
lot of frustration on the part of users of those early programs.
> The programs are doing different things. If you want to compare
> software
> on equal terms, compare it to LaTeX.
Um, no, I didn't have to learn what is essentially a semantic language in
order to use WP. That's a ridiculous comparison.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:30:10 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> Phone - " Sorry, I'm not interested in anyting you have to sell.
>>> Goodbye"
>>
>> Add "Stop calling me, because you will never win business from me by
>> being annoying/persistent".
>
> Thanks for the tips, guys...
Actually, I've got a situation with one of my instructors in the field
bugging a partner like this - the partner's too nice to say "go away"; he
thinks the guy is not a good instructor, but is willing to give him a
teach just to shut him up.
The guy has been calling almost non-stop begging for an opportunity to
teach (we require at least one class per year to remain in the program),
and also stopping by the office to beg in person.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:32:44 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> I think you'll have to speak louder than that, but anyway...
Well, it's got to start somewhere.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:32:05 +0200, Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, but for $50, you can add another 2 GB of memory to the machine,
>> so why not?
>
> Possibly. At work that would mean changing both 1GiB modules to 2GiB
> modules, which are SODIMM (yep, my workstation's a laptop), so I'm not
> so sure about the price, but basically yes.
Well, yeah - I've got 2 laptops and three desktop machines at home (and
another low-end desktop in the office). I was thinking from the
standpoint of a desktop machine - I think I paid about $50 for 1.5 GB of
RAM for my newest desktop.
Jim
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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:17:07 -0000, Gilles Tran
<gil### [at] agroparistechfr> did spake, saying:
> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> a écrit dans le message
> de
> news: op.t7s2zm10c3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>
>> But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
>> removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral
>> to
>> the programme? We've chastised Andy for not knowing about Styles in
>> Word,
>> but how many home users do? Yet there the code sits taking up space,
>> poised for use.
>
> My point is only that one cannot claim that some features are useless
> when they are actually used intensively by parts of the user base.
They're useless for a given value of uselessness, do I add this feature in
that's used by 25% of our customer base as an installed feature or as an
optional component? If it's plonked in as a base feature then 75% of
customers will have it sitting there taking up space and never being used.
> Is MS supposed to make styles optional because Andy couldn't figure them
> out? User
> requirements are real.
I'm using Firefox at times, I've added in an ad-blocker, flash blocker and
session manager, plus a few other things that come with Opera as standard.
Do I think Opera should make these optional - no because they integrate
with the browser so well and the executable + main library stands at under
3.2Kb. Now if it made Opera big and fat they'd yes they should be optional.
> Lots of people who are serious about using a word
> processor need styles and collaboration tools. Lots of people who are
> serious about using spreadsheets need automation. Lots of people who work
> with presentation software need to embed video.
Yes and am I saying those options shouldn't be there? No I'm not what I'm
asking is does the program dynamically load in the "embed video" library
when such an action is attempted or is it just loaded on principle?
> There's no denying that there's a bloat issue with many major
> applications.
> Word 2003 had 31 toolbars and 1500 commands... Even Adobe plans a
> thorough
> cleanup of the Photoshop interface.
But that's not bloat unless there's a duplication of actions; unless
you're counting memory usage to display all the toolbars and menus.
> Still the solution is not to assume that
> "most users" are a bunch of dummies who don't need better than what was
> available in 1990. And about home users, my 75-year-old dad may not use
> styles, but he still enjoys Word's ability to work flawlessly with
> bilingual
> documents with parts written in different character sets. Is he an
> exception? I don't think so.
No and I'm not saying users are dummies (ignorant perhaps), what is being
said is that the core functionality of the program is being expanded at
the expense of memory when the majority of users may not be using the
majority of the functions.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Phil Cook escribió:
> Do I think Opera should make these optional - no because they
> integrate with the browser so well and the executable + main library
> stands at under 3.2Kb. Now if it made Opera big and fat they'd yes they
> should be optional.
3.2Kb? Hello world is bigger than that on my machine... Nice
optimization work the Opera guys did, huh :)
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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> a écrit dans le message de news:
47d56173$1@news.povray.org...
> On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:25:45 +0100, Gilles Tran wrote:
> Well, not for me they're not. Not for most of the people I work with -
> and I work in an office that consists of both technical and non-technical
> people. Most of my closest coworkers are not technical, but quite a few
> are. It used to be the other way around - I almost never dealt with the
> non-technical people, being an IT person myself.
Well I'm in the feed industry, not an IT person and not knowing IT people
(except to hire them...). I guess that folks who feed cows and pigs are
special then ;) Not really kidding: it's an industry based on operational
research, so crunching numbers is a normal way of life. Lots of these people
actually live within Excel. Right now, we got a bunch of them downstairs
being lectured about the joys of linear programming (and linear programming
modelisation) and exporting data to and from MS Office and automating the
whole processes. And they sure do know what they need.
> applications for the first Windows platform. Everyone "had to have" the
> Windows environment for some reason, and WordPerfect and Lotus were late
> to the game *because* Microsoft didn't release the APIs externally (and
> changed some of them between beta and RTM, just to *really* fsck-up their
> competition).
> This is not conjecture on my part - this is well-documented fact.
And it doesn't change the fact that Lotus had become obsolete and that Excel
was a superior product with features that people had been expecting (and not
getting) from Lotus for a while. Here, Excel was the reason we switched
gradually to Windows, not the other way round. It's not like Windows was
actually useful for anything else back then. (I did play tic-tac-toe with
Windows 1 though).
> department. I've seen accounting spreadsheets that would make most
> people's heads hurt for days on end.
Oh I've seen that too, no arguing necessary. And the Comic Sans
presentations too.
G.
--
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters
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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:53:31 -0000, Nicolas Alvarez
<nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> did spake, saying:
> Phil Cook escribió:
>> Do I think Opera should make these optional - no because they integrate
>> with the browser so well and the executable + main library stands at
>> under 3.2Kb. Now if it made Opera big and fat they'd yes they should be
>> optional.
>
> 3.2Kb? Hello world is bigger than that on my machine... Nice
> optimization work the Opera guys did, huh :)
Opera.exe 79,360 bytes
Opera.dll 3,276,288 bytes
K's M's what the difference... a magnitude of about 1000.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> a écrit dans le message de
news: op.t7s7rzxyc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> No and I'm not saying users are dummies (ignorant perhaps), what is being
> said is that the core functionality of the program is being expanded at
> the expense of memory when the majority of users may not be using the
> majority of the functions.
The Excel solver is optional. And it's kind of annoying when you have to
send a file to someone assuming it's installed when it's not... Ditto for
any application that require plugins. Modular applications are nice but when
one has to share documents (which is the norm in many working environments)
it can be problematic. Also, the process itself of finding, adding and
removing modules adds to the complexity (where's that friggin video library)
and when software operation becomes dependent on the compatibility between
modules and the main application it can cause serious issues. Everyone would
like to have lean and clean software with all the features that we
(personally) need immediately available (and only those), but in the real
world things works differently, particularly when other people - colleagues,
customers - are involved.
G.
--
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:03:03 +0100, Gilles Tran wrote:
> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 47d56173$1@news.povray.org...
>> On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:25:45 +0100, Gilles Tran wrote:
>
>> Well, not for me they're not. Not for most of the people I work with -
>> and I work in an office that consists of both technical and
>> non-technical people. Most of my closest coworkers are not technical,
>> but quite a few are. It used to be the other way around - I almost
>> never dealt with the non-technical people, being an IT person myself.
>
> Well I'm in the feed industry, not an IT person and not knowing IT
> people (except to hire them...). I guess that folks who feed cows and
> pigs are special then ;) Not really kidding: it's an industry based on
> operational research, so crunching numbers is a normal way of life. Lots
> of these people actually live within Excel. Right now, we got a bunch of
> them downstairs being lectured about the joys of linear programming (and
> linear programming modelisation) and exporting data to and from MS
> Office and automating the whole processes. And they sure do know what
> they need.
My first job out of college was in the manufacturing industry (as one of
the IT guys) - lots of engineering work, lots of finance/inventory
control work. Different needs for different folks.
>> applications for the first Windows platform. Everyone "had to have"
>> the Windows environment for some reason, and WordPerfect and Lotus were
>> late to the game *because* Microsoft didn't release the APIs externally
>> (and changed some of them between beta and RTM, just to *really*
>> fsck-up their competition).
>> This is not conjecture on my part - this is well-documented fact.
>
> And it doesn't change the fact that Lotus had become obsolete and that
> Excel was a superior product with features that people had been
> expecting (and not getting) from Lotus for a while. Here, Excel was the
> reason we switched gradually to Windows, not the other way round. It's
> not like Windows was actually useful for anything else back then. (I did
> play tic-tac-toe with Windows 1 though).
Maybe for you, but I am fairly certain that it met the needs for a
significant portion of the user base. But it wasn't "new", it wasn't
"shiny", and it didn't run on Windows. And then when it did, it sucked
because the UI didn't work right (ie, consistently with other Windows
programs).
If the developers at Lotus hadn't had to screw around with broken/
incomplete API documentation and try to get the UI working properly, they
might've been able to add a few new features that were being requested.
But from having sold Lotus 1-2-3 (and books on it) as well as the
Microsoft products (also used to work in software sales once upon a
time), I do know what people were generally buying in the late 80's and
the reasons they were buying it. It was kinda my job. ;-)
>> department. I've seen accounting spreadsheets that would make most
>> people's heads hurt for days on end.
>
> Oh I've seen that too, no arguing necessary. And the Comic Sans
> presentations too.
Yeah. The latter drive me nuts. Those types of presentations also tend
to be fairly "busy" - too much going on on the screen - "hey look, I can
do stupid animations on the screen!" ;-)
Jim
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On 10 Mar 2008 11:29:07 -0500, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:18:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Isn't that how you get cheap programmes, though? If you reuse code and
>> generic solutions combined with not testing fully the production costs
>> are kept low (ish).
>
>Well, yes, code reuse is an important aspect of development today. But
>there's nothing that says that reusable code must be sloppy or non-
>optimised. :-)
>
>Jim
As you say :)
Regards
Stephen
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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:37:47 -0000, Gilles Tran
<gil### [at] agroparistechfr> did spake, saying:
> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> a écrit dans le message
> de
> news: op.t7s7rzxyc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>
>> No and I'm not saying users are dummies (ignorant perhaps), what is
>> being
>> said is that the core functionality of the program is being expanded at
>> the expense of memory when the majority of users may not be using the
>> majority of the functions.
>
> The Excel solver is optional. And it's kind of annoying when you have to
> send a file to someone assuming it's installed when it's not... Ditto for
> any application that require plugins. Modular applications are nice but
> when
> one has to share documents (which is the norm in many working
> environments)
> it can be problematic. Also, the process itself of finding, adding and
> removing modules adds to the complexity (where's that friggin video
> library)
> and when software operation becomes dependent on the compatibility
> between
> modules and the main application it can cause serious issues.
I agree locating third-party plugins is annoying and tiresome, except
we're not talking about a third-party here; the program should know where
it has put its own stuff. If I send you a spreadsheet that uses ACCRINT
Excel should know that requires the Anayls32.xll and Funcres.xla and just
load them up as needed.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Set it to something like "download but ask me before installing". Then
> whenever you're ready to reboot, you install them and reboot.
Or, if you get caught, just go into the services panel and stop the
service, but leave it set to automatic. Then when you reboot, it comes back.
Note that if you have it set to "load but don't install", it'll even
prompt you to install when you turn off the machine, so you don't even
take any of your own time.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> And when the automated updates screw the machine up, the user is
> basically screwed.
That's what System Restore is for. Which Linux doesn't have, to my
chagrin. :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> A lot of the bloat comes from inefficient coding - after all, I can put
> 32 GB of memory in a machine nowadays, so why do I need to worry about
> optimisation?
Hey Warp! This is the kind of comment I was talking about when I was
being amused by having a >32meg boot partition on Linux. "Oh, for the
good old days, when your boot loader would fit on the biggest hard drive
you could buy!" :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:06:42 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> And when the automated updates screw the machine up, the user is
>> basically screwed.
>
> That's what System Restore is for. Which Linux doesn't have, to my
> chagrin. :-)
I've tried using System Restore in the past; nice idea, but I could never
get it to work properly.
My solution is to use VMware and take a snapshot before doing something
potentially bad. No fuss, no muss.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> It's not a question of "so many features *I* don't need to use", but "so
> many features that *most* users don't need to use".
A lot of the bloat comes from features you use without knowing it.
A lot of the bloat in Windows, for example, comes from domain services,
remote management, and so on. None of that gets used by the home user.
A lot of the bloat in Excel, for example, is including the ability to
write macros in any .NET language and link them into the spreadsheet,
and talking to a SQL server from your spreadsheet. Do you do that? No.
Does the accounting department of a 10,000 person company use that? Sure
thing.
> I don't know that 1-2-3 would be completely useless by modern standards -
> I think a lot of tasks that people use Excel for these days aren't much
> beyond what 1-2-3 was capable of.
99% of *my* use is exiting CSV files. I'm hardly typical either, tho.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Phil Cook wrote:
> But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
> removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral
> to the programme?
Look at the installer. The one for office has dozens and dozens of
sub-packages.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Phil Cook wrote:
> an optional component? If it's plonked in as a base feature then 75% of
> customers will have it sitting there taking up space and never being used.
Last disk I bought cost less than $0.02 per megabyte. So if you have a
feature that takes ten meg on disk, it costs you less than a quarter to
store it over the lifetime of the disk.
They don't take up space in memory. We have demand paging, remember?
That's why you can't delete or write to an executable file while it's
running. (Which is true on Linux, too, for that matter.)
> Yes and am I saying those options shouldn't be there? No I'm not what
> I'm asking is does the program dynamically load in the "embed video"
> library when such an action is attempted or is it just loaded on principle?
It's demand loaded when it's paged in. Virtual memory was invented back
in VAX days, remember? There's no distinction between "loaded on
principle" and "loaded when I branch to the code."
> No and I'm not saying users are dummies (ignorant perhaps), what is
> being said is that the core functionality of the program is being
> expanded at the expense of memory when the majority of users may not be
> using the majority of the functions.
*Virtual* memory. It's loaded off the disk into RAM when you jump to it.
It's not even taking up swap space, let alone RAM, if you're not
actively working with it. That's why they call it a working set.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Most of the reason for 1-2-3's demise was similar to the reason
> WordPerfect was killed off
No it isn't. Jazz sucked. Lotos killed off 1-2-3 themself.
> - Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive
> practices when it came to releasing API information for creating
> applications for the first Windows platform.
Is it still bad when Apple does the same thing? :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New escribió:
> Note that if you have it set to "load but don't install", it'll even
> prompt you to install when you turn off the machine, so you don't even
> take any of your own time.
Yep, that's a very useful feature. Too bad it has an "install and
shutdown" button but no similar thing for rebooting. It makes no
sense... I actually tried it. I clicked reboot while updates were
waiting to be installed, it rebooted and then told me the updates were
still waiting! I then clicked Shutdown instead, it logged me out,
installed the updates, and finished shutting down.
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Saying "people don't restart the app all the time, so startup times
> don't matter" is just like saying "computers are fast nowadays, so
> optimization doesn't matter".
The first mainframe I worked on had swapping, not paging. The OS was
organized that you had one page (Job Information Table) that stored all
the important things about your process - credentials, quotas, etc.
When you got swapped out (rather, when you allocated pages), the OS
looked for a space on the swap disk that would hold your process. But
the way it did it was to first find a page for your JIT, calculate how
many sectors would pass under the heads of the swap disk while it
rewrote the channel program in the JIT to include the right memory
locations, and then swapped out the rest of the pages, again rewriting
the channel program to put them in a time-optimal order.
When you got swapped in, the system read the JIT, allocated the memory,
and stored into the JIT the instructions for the disk drive as to where
to load each block of disk into memory, and handed it to the IO
processor just as the first sector was coming under the head.
Nowadays, you have disk drives that don't even tell you what the layout
of the sectors on the disk are. And the processor actually takes
interrupts for every block transferred. It's impossible to figure out
how many instructions the processor will execute while any given sector
passes under the heads.
Programmers these days, they just don't know how to write efficient code.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New escribió:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> And when the automated updates screw the machine up, the user is
>> basically screwed.
>
> That's what System Restore is for. Which Linux doesn't have, to my
> chagrin. :-)
That never did anything useful for me... Or for dozens of people who had
system fuckups.
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Warp wrote:
> The main point is whether you were able to run X with it or not.
> To simply use the console you could use a microwave oven. ;)
I worked on a diskless solaris machine with 4M of RAM at one point,
swapping over the ethernet. It ran. It took about 10 minutes to switch
focus on the windows, but it ran. ;-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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