Given the long notice on Windows XP end of life, why is this just being considered now? I would expect vendors to announce they have completed or have started their migration to a newer platform. And Linux is a very reasonable choice for this, and it was years ago. QNX, VxWorks was as well. It's not like Linux became a reasonable embedded OS just this year, but it seems like the companies are thinking that. "Oh, hey, maybe Linux isn't too bad after all." Weird.

And, there is Windows 7 embedded, if you want to upgrade not port. I understand being conservative, but this just seems like bad crisis planning at the last minute. Also, with the new card standards coming up, it seems the industry knew there was a need for new systems in plenty of time to create and implement a migration plan.

Part of the problem is that research and development funding in this country is plummeting. Heck, you can't hire more engineers to work on cures for cancer, better healthcare systems if those scientists that are creating the innovations are fighting for (and losing) grants and jobs. You want people to do meaningful work, you need to support meaningful research. This whole "academics are useless" refrain is getting old. You know, that useless PhD did prove that they are capable of original thought and self-directed exploration. Seriously, the state of computer science and engineering research is appalling in the US and other fields have the same problems. Industrial research and development is under attack as well in the few places it still exists. And don't get me started about the long term threats to "liberal arts" and humanities education.

It's amazing how many people are under the spell of economic gain as the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is a better, educated and thoughtful society. When the focus is too much on wealth and wealth accumulation, history shows us that time and time again, it ends up badly. Popular uprising can be very, very unpleasant for all involved.

Refactoring changed the IDE equation. Now, using a tool that understands that code is code, not text is needed to support Refactoring. Given that, you might as well throw in auto completion (Intellsense) for objects, classes, namespaces, etc. Part of the value of the Java, C++ and .Net ecosystems is great tools. And, my hats of to IntelliJ, which brings some IDE tools to Ruby and Python and even JavaScript. Worth the license fees to me.

One can become too dependent on anything. But there's no reason to use a better tool. I'm developing in .Net land now, and VS + Resharper makes me more productive without question. It presents me the information I need in context, quickly and effectively. Nothing wrong with that.

But, OOXML is (for better or worse) a ECMA and ISO standard, just like ODF. Each has it's own set of tradeoffs, advantages and disadvantages.

So, not why not a list of accepted common formats? ODF, OOXML, PDF is a fine list. Why "one format to rule them all?" Let people use the tools that work best for them, and base the decisions on a real cost-benefit analysis. Or just say we don't want to pay for Microsoft Office and deal with the fallout from that.

Don't wrap it up by picking a favorite format and making it a mandate by law. It doesn't work out well. There's people making a ton of money making software to parse X12 messages for US health care institutions because the HIPPA law demanded that specific format. And, guess what? Technology moved on and it's a total mess. Lots of great things in the HIPPA law, but that was not one of them. You can regulate without making specific technology decisions.

This is an excellent point. It doesn't pick any particular paradigm to be structured around.

Languages like C# and Java have added functional features, but they integrate with their primary object oriented focus. Compare this to Scheme/LISP, whose object oriented features were integrated with its primary functional focus.

JavaScript is showing the signs of it's hasty development. Things like programming language semantics, type theory and more exist for a reason. Programming language benefit from careful design and analysis of tradeoffs.

Looking forward to the posts from males dismissing her experience because it doesn't match what they believe about the industry and how it works.

Well, not really.

Seems HTML and CSS is creaking from the load. I always though the whole point of CSS what to influence how HTML (and/or XML) content was be presented.

Seems like proper text flowing would be a big boon to that. Not that CSS Regions is the best solution, but that why you have a process to discuss and work towards a workable standard. It's clear that Google is more interested in web applications than layout, and removing this code goes along with that.

I don't subscribe to this point of view. I see HTML/CSS as a poor foundation for UI applications. I'd much rather see a new model for application markup and have HTML and CSS focus on static content layout that can be embedded in the application or standalone as a plain web page. But the HTML5/Web2.0 train just keeps rolling along.

So, Windows has voice recognition. There's Nuance too. In Windows, when you are using the feature, there's clear application on the top that shows you that it is listening. It works okay with a bit of training if you need that kind of thing.

This trend by Google to replace more and more features of an desktop OS is really annoying. Notification features in the OS? Nah, just make a really small window in the corner that doesn't go away and just pops up not and then. Of course, the Microsoft voice recognition doesn't send every bit of audio to Google servers to be stored and used for training, so for Google, that's a feature, not a bug.

I wish Google would realize that even if they don't like (or aren't good at) at desktop development on Windows, Mac, Linux isn't a excuse to put everything in Chrome.

Take a stack of cards with a word on them. Split them in half. Continue to do so until you have a lot of piles with two cards.

Starting at the first two piles, make sure both the piles are in order, by switching the cards if needed.

Now, merge the first two piles. To do this, look at each card in the second piles. Insert the card into the first pile so the pile is still ordered. This will give a new pile of three or four cards.

Do this for the next two piles of two cards. When you reach the end of the two card piles, start at the beginning and do the same thing with the bigger piles. Continue until you get one pile.

My eye is twitching from some strange reason.

One of the hallmarks of a clinical trail is that a random group of humans will respond about the same to a given intervention (or lack thereof). And for things like drugs or a medical treatment it's an assumption you want to hold up for safety's sake. It doesn't always, of course. There is a drug on the market that is targeted specifically for African Americans, as it works really well in that population.

However, that assumption just don't hold for a random group of developers. Not even close.

For the mindful, considerate subset of your thoughts you want to share with the world.

Yep, I couldn't make it through that sentence with out laughing either. Carry on, internet masses.

Simple as that. Not every random thought you have is worth Tweeting, Facebooking, or whatever brand name to verb is out there.

And to those that were outraged enough to tweet just how outraged you were: just consider actually doing something useful, or saying nothing. Not every little thing affects you personally. Not every racist, sexist, homophobic or just plain dumb comment deserves outrage and shaming by the trolls, err, masses. In fact, most if not all don't.

Sure, if you know somebody in person and you were offended by their remarks then talk to them. Educate them. Make them deal with you as a person. Real life consequences are what matter.

This behavior drives wedges in society and does nothing to actually address the real issues. Having real, personal conversations in our community does. I know it is easy to think of online social networks as communities, but they are not. It's where people live and interact on a daily basis is where real change happens.

Agreed, the barriers are political, not technical. And yea, the DOM could be replaced as well.