Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment The difference isn't the card. (Score 3, Funny) 502

People who know and value quality audio are willing to buy discrete audio cards even though it costs them more money.

However, they don't realize that the improvement they see is because they are also willing to pay more money for quality cables. It's the solid gold Monster Cables that they buy because the salesperson at Fry's recommends them that is really the source of the improved audio quality.

Comment De river, she is deep (Score 2) 608

"Complex" is not for laymen. There is only so much that you can do with any "appliance". Beyond that, you actually have to know what you are doing. This "problem" has nothing to do with programming.

This. Thinking about the web apps I've written, most of them required fairly deep knowledge in the area of the app -- auroras, photography, specialized group management, history, genealogy, measuring instruments, Chinese, retail procedure -- all areas an interested party could potentially bring to the table.

But the tools to instantiate, manipulate and present those ideas? Those simply don't exist in "amateur" form -- I had to create them. And in doing so, I used knowledge starting with HTML and CGI and CSS, but which extended well into Python, (replaced Perl), C, SQL, a fair bit about the underlying structure of the host OS(s), knowledge of how to structure an application in the first place, and to wrap it all together, a fairly deep knowledge of what's efficient and what isn't.

Now I will admit that I am particularly resistant to Other People's Code, partially because I am unwilling to be subject to other people's bug fix schedules (or lack thereof), and permissions (or lack thereof) and functinonal choices (or lack thereof); and partially because the more stuff I write, the more handy tools of my own I have to bring to bear on the next problem that depend on no one but myself and the host language(s) -- which frankly is quite enough dependency for me anyway. Plus it's been writing all this stuff that's made me a decent programmer in the first place. So even if there *were* a library out there to generate general purpose readout dials, I wouldn't have used it; the result would have been the same. All my own code. Not the least bit reluctant to reinvent the wheel.

Still, the idea of making all that stuff both available and trivially usable (and that's what we're talking about here, because a non-programmer will have to hit this at a trivial level) seems to me to have been tried multiple times in multiple venues, and to have failed every time. Personally, I think it's because as programmers, we underestimate the complexity because we've internalized so much; we can't see the actual level of difficulty very well, because it starts out relative to our own skills. This has resulted in quite a few attempts to "make it easy", and none of them have hit any serious stride. The best any of these can boast is a small following making very limited applications, if you really want to stretch what "application" means.

I don't think the idea is ready to fly. The only context I can visualize this actually working is where you have some *very* smart software that can take an abstract description and write code *for* you. That software would have to be (a) very damned smart and (b) conversant with an enormous range of general human knowledge. Right now, as far as I know, that's the precise description of a competent applications programmer. And nothing else.

Comment Re:Normal? (Score 1) 608

Ideas don't arrive in convenient order. Interruptions occur. The world is not a smooth surface, it's full of bumps, pits and detours. Sometimes (as here) there are even reasons to top post. Such as, so someone will actually see it. So get over it. Notably, the AC comment you're objecting to contributed more to the conversation than yours (or mine) does. There's a lesson there.

Comment Re:Misused? Murder is intrinsic in communism. (Score 1) 530

The problem with your assessment is that everyone wants to do music, art, entertainment, science, research and experimentation... nobody wants to clean the bathrooms, haul trash, unclog the shit in the sewers... we need all those people, too. What's their "motivation?" Let's face it, MOST jobs are shit. People might find it rewarding to create new serums, materials, hardware or software, music and entertainment... who finds it rewarding to flip burgers?

Comment Re:Consciousness (Score 1) 284

They will probably always remain inherently beyond the reach of scientific evidence.

Yes. that's because they are 100% made-up. Just as Santa Claus is inherently beyond the reach of scientific evidence.

You will never find evidence, that is, anything manifesting as objective reality, for a wholly illusory concept. You can, of course, drown yourself in delusion. We appear to be well designed for exactly that exercise, we even practice it most nights during REM sleep. And it's perfectly acceptable, socially speaking. Imagine away.

Slashdot Top Deals

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

Working...