Due diligence in case you're not trolling:
What looks inferior about fonts in modern X11? I haven't found any deficiencies in font rendering over the five and a half years that I've been using Ubuntu on my primary laptop. If it's the selection of fonts, then the same fonts you buy in Windows will work if you install them in GNU/Linux.
I refuse to believe that downloading ROM dumps digitally identical to [your own] cartridges are piracy - regardless of what Nintendo's lawyers believe.
Nintendo's lawyers have nothing to do with it. The case law in the United States is UMG v. MP3.com .
I also do not understand, those people still using MSIE
I gather many of them are people at work who lack privileges to install other browsers or to run executables from writable directories. This is reportedly common on government PCs that need to connect to IE-only intranet apps.
anything that is repeated over and over again with known rules can be programmed
The rules change for each other system with which your system has to integrate.
sites that were built by the lowest bidder who often only work on Windows and only works on IE
All supported Windows desktop operating systems can run IE 9 or later. Besides, whether and why government employees on government equipment and government time would be watching your video still depends on what the video is of. It might be better in a specific case to download the video to watch in a native, non-web application, or to have the IT department authorize installation of a second browser for "general interest" web sites.
If you want to create something fun with simple tools THEN FREAKING DO IT! There is nothing in this world holding you back unless all you are willing to work on is what someone is paying you to do.
Then how does one "create something fun with simple tools" and still eat? Besides, even if you have an unrelated day job, how does one "create something fun with simple tools" if the tools have to interoperate with other tools that are made available only to established companies, as in the case of developing games and other applications that run on devices commonly connected to TVs?
In DOS I had to manually draw every UI element.
Only in your first couple projects. By your third DOS project, you probably would have built up your own UI library.
But the big thing that DOS did better than Windows back in the early to mid 1990s was using all the features of the VGA. DOS applications could run in low definition (Mode 13h, Mode Y, and Mode X, with resolution of 320x200 to 320x240). This allowed updating the whole screen before Windows finished updating half of a 640x480 standard-definition screen. DOS could also use hardware scrolling to pan over a large virtual area without having to do the bit shifting bullcrap that plagued standard VGA mode back then. Both of these became less relevant, however, as CPU speeds and bus speeds rose and especially as graphics cards began to incorporate 3D rasterizers.
Most tools have their own APIs and many have their own DSLs. You either must learn a new sub-language or you have to program them. In every direction, complexity is an insistent reality poised to take you away from the core development activity: coding.
Here you might say that your little coding projects and hacks need to be linked properly to these various systems and that can be a pain in the ass. But again... why are you doing that manually? Write a program or a script that automatically creates the links.
The problem here is that once "a program or a script" reaches some level of generality, configuring it becomes almost as hard as just creating the links yourself. Hence the reference to application programming interfaces (APIs) and domain-specific languages (DSLs) in the article.
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones
