MFC? Visual Basic? Bastardized Java? .Net? Silverlight? Windows CE? Windows Phone? Windows RT? It seems that if you stay with Microsoft, either as a user or as a developer, you will never be able to become an expert in what you do and capitalize on your investment in software and skills. Back in the days of VB6 and IE6, Microsoft was largely untouchable because of the rich ecosystem of useful 3rd party software and libraries as well as universal user familiarity.

By killing everything that works, Microsoft is making competitors lives easy as they can make users comfortable by just keeping things the same. Objective C is still well-supported on MacOSX and iOS. Oracle is sticking with Java as server software development language. First users and developers of Android and Chromebooks will still find a familiar environment.

I hope they actually tough it out and NOT kill Metro and its charms bar. While they are highly irritating to me personally, there are still millions of users for whom this was first experience with Windows and they would rebel at yet another breaking change. Keep them as an option and well supported until and unless users truly lose interest.

The software detects weak signals from damaged nerves to usefully move fingers of the prostetic arm. This is no floppy bird. There was probably an incredible amount of difficulty to get the thing working in the first place and the issue of backup was left for later. One day these things would be both modular and not cost $70k.

How much effort does it take to create a systemd service wrapper to run init.d scripts, run sysvinit from systemd or run both independently. My guess is a week of work for a competent developer. If nobody is willing to invest this much time, people should stop grumbling and accept that minor changes like that are inevitable.

As long as the later is adequate, success of the former is immaterial. A language like Scala that runs on top of JVM can make full use of availability of the platform and libraries of existing code. For me, the biggest limitations of JVM seem to be 2^32-1 limit on array indices and no option for explicit, real time memory management. Perhaps experts greater than me can comment more. Does byte code provide enough information to support vector instructions of modern CPUS/GPUS?

Why not have all applications ship in LLVM intermediate format and then have on-device firmware translate them according to exact instruction set and performance characteristics of the CPU? By the time code is compiled to ARM instruction set, too much information is lost to do fundamental optimization, like vectorizing loops if applicable operations are supported.

One critical piece of information which is available JUST BEFORE time and not much earlier is which precise CPU/rest of device the code is running on! I don't buy that an OOO processor can do as good of a job optimizing for than in real time than a JIT compiler that has 100x time to do its work. If a processor has cache prefetch/test instructions, these can be inserted "hundreds of cycles" before memory is actually used. OOO can work around a single stall, but how about a loop that accesses 128K of RAM, with start location and size discoverable far in advance the actual access.

I think it's obvious that in the ideal world, with unlimited power and money budget, you would do both. If you have to choose, well you take your best guess and go with it.

Database access should be already restricted by firewalls and to in-house developers/administrators. This is just a way to ensure they don't routinely get exposed to private information and then leak it in e-mails, bug reports and so on. It is understood that they can get to data if they are really determined, although database queries are usually audited and most should be deterred by potential consequences.

Ordinary users would access data through middleware that will return appropriate data subsets for their roles in the company. Like, not credit cards for most employees.

We all know what kind files they will scan for next. Because MPAA/RIAA are way more important than children!

A better question is what testosterone level increases one's chances of passing on the genes TODAY. And the answer seems to be clear. Maybe evolutionary pendulum swung too far and the nature is trying to compensate.

Yes, but want to bet that the bug ONLY happens with gcc 4.9 is compiled with gcc 4.9?

Salvation army should take computers in good working order. The problem is that support and education need to go along with hardware. Your box should at least be able to run modern software and come with installation media for the same for someone to be able to support it.

Tablets are not the answer for serious learning. Chromebooks may be, with good guidance on finding educational websites.

Chromebooks are $200 new. Figure in used and people who can not afford one are in more urgent need of assistance in other areas of their lives. Once you have one, there are plenty of online tools for education, even coding.

Internet connections are a biggie. If anyone in the family has a cell plan, tethering would be an option. It would be a huge help if wireless providers donated access, even to a very limited plan with low speed and only selected educational sites.

I would consider buying a bundle outright, but I don't see for whom this is going to make sense. The whole point of Netflix is that you can continuously watch new movies and don't have to buy many from other sources. Here I will only like a portion of already small catalog and will still need to keep buying non-EA games. This kind of offering should really be done by Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft with games from many publishers.

Since you don't have a specific use for these servers, it's best to find someone who does. This could be a godsend for another small company that will be able to start it's services immediately rather than waiting for presumably more expensive new servers to arrive.