Do you have any idea how much an Oracle or MS SQL Sever/ .net unlimited cal costs? Try 100,000 per server. Ruby on rails doesnt sound so bad after all. I expect Java to require an Oracle database license soon just like Solaris.

There is no occupy Oakland or anything like that and certainly no valuation in any IPOs for web 2.0 companies. Absolutely none! Not even yachts off international waters with cheap Indians to lower wages

So you would prefer Adobe flash and having your web browser consume many gigs of ram for all the scripts and caching for each flash enabled site?

It is not Firefox, but flash that is really causing the bloat you see with hi rez graphics running in software and not on the GPU.

JS is actually not so bad. I wish MS didn't own .NET and we could use it to write scripts in more languages. ... actually that is a good thing for security come to think of it.

Chrome is working to make a whole proprietary ecosystem based on NACL and other things inside Chrome to fullfill your need to leave JS. Dart is another Chrome language as well that it will try to use to position itself in the market. I wish more slashdotters would see this as Chrome is starting to turn into the next IE 6? Just because MS is the company name does not make it bad. Look at what poor old Apple turned into once they became dominant?

  Applets inside the browser targeted for just one browser to run its own set of cloud apps is a threat that rightfully scares Mozilla. With MS out of the way in the tablet space it is a Safari vs Chrome world. I actually hope IE 9/10 mobile with Windows 8 will take marketshare. We could use some competition and I do not care who the company is.

I favor using applets in any language you want on the OS and have the gui glue underneath run HTML 5 + ajax. Not ideal but in this graphical age a standard is needed for applets gui layout and HTML 5 fullfils this nice.

The graphics on a console blow the PC away. My son laughs at World of Warcraft as his Little Big Planet on his PS 3 is nearly photo realistic. Many games on the PS 3 are thanks to crappy intel integrated video chips (not real video cards) sold in 80% of all PCs. Even the xbox 1 from 2002 has better GPU performance than most PCs. Surprise, the games then are optimized for the crappy cards as the developers prefer the power of a console that has real 3d dedicated hardware where it does not have to interrupt the CPU and wait 1,000 cycles to access the system ram.

Finally AMD is fixing it with the AMD llano but it still is not caught up with the 2007 era PS 3 by a long shot.

Why?

IE 9 has one of the fastest JS compilers around. Infact according to benchmarks it creams the sunspider.

Now if they went back to IE 6 or IE 7 or something that would be quite retarded

""World of Warcraft is based on a fantasy world where you can participate in it as time goes by. SWTOR is a world based on YOU. "

So is Wow
"

No it is not. The Lich King will die whether your guild kills him or someone elses. Deathwing comes next. Wars start whether you fight in them or not. You just have the option to participate if you want. If you kick ass it wont change things.

In SWTOR the storyline is tightly integrated with your actions and in Wow you get maybe a chain of quests that unlocks if you are friendly with a certain group of people. The quests lines, gear, and story line are radically different depending on your choices in what becomes almost like a new game. The designers mentioned that was the goal if you look at their interviews.

SWTOR I am sure will have their leaders as well.

MS does not have the market power and mindset it did 10 years ago. This is especially true compared to Google. Chrome is proprietary, dart, NACL, SPDY, and special javascript extensions, while IE 10 is the most conforment browser to date.

I would have stuck with Bing. When monopolies lose their power they became nice. When nice companies gain it they became assholes like Apple. Google is too big and a threat to Mozilla's survival. Google's ecosystem includes all their cloud apps where extensions are Chrome OS/Browser applets inside the browser and they use their search engine as a way to force it in.

Remember IBM was the big enemy in the 1980s before MS. I think Mozilla needs to rethink as MS is moving away from silveright, IE 6, and even win32 to a certain extent for mobile users.

You can dual spec sort of.

As you move to dark and light side points and accept dark or lightside quests you get different abilities and grea. A dark jedi can learn sith buffs for example and vice versa for lightside sith. This makes them almost like different characters or like a fire/frost mage same is true as you can meet another jedi counselor who has totally different advanced abilities as you.

Dont forget the quest chains are always different depending on your choices and lightside vs darkside points. Infact there are lightside and darkside quests too and then they change again if you group a lot with your guild.

You can have 4 sith inquisitors and will have a completely different story line for each one with dark/light and solo and group alts. Cool stuff

"This is wow with light sabers"

No it is not.

Disclaimer: I have not played the game yet, and my opinion is based on reviews and people who have played the beta.

World of Warcraft is based on a fantasy world where you can participate in it as time goes by. SWTOR is a world based on YOU. You are the center of attention and the choices you make constantly change the quest tree and storyline. For example you can play single player and the game will be different than if you play in groups according to www.arstechnica.com.

Another difference is your companion system is very advanced. At level 15 you have your own personal robotic servant too kind of like 3cpo who can help you do your profession gathering, and even your companion can go to the auction house for you and sell things while you are at work. The companions can eventually leave if you have enough dark side points or if you are an ass to them. They can even fill in for a raid while you wait for more players. They are much more than actual pets.

In essence Wow has more atmosphere and story with much richer environments that seem more realistic (sun, moon, nightime, weather, weeds moving in wind etc) while STWOR is an interactive movie with you as a star where there are no saves and the story keeps changing and so the quests. You can have 2 of the same jedi or sith, and depending on lightside or darkside points you will have different quests. Add that to playing ina guild and you will have 2 more different quest, gear, and talents.

Things update and the game keeps progressing. In the past you would play the game and beat it and thats it. Wait for a sequel and buy that one. With so many millions paying monthly you have extended content that is not possible otherwise

Come on moderators this is not flamebait.

Chrome does not follow the RFC standards on TCP/IP so it can have faster loading time. This can wreck havoc on some poorly configured routers, proxies, and SPDY requests with firewalls as well. IE 9 has some of the same issues but not as much as Chrome as they are imitating the same tricks with fast response and loads aka packet storm. Many corporations want to stay with IE 8 for these reasons.

Every browser has its strengths and weaknesses. I will say all IE and Chrome are improving nicely to compete agaisnt Firefox and it looks like we can finally adopt standards and stop sticking with 1 browser for 7 years like we did with IE 6. That is a good thing.

I have a few issues with Chrome myself as I found it crashes often with Flash when I watch movies online or listen to music on youtube. Firefox is HUGE and buggy, and IE lacks the addons and is a little behind with HTML 5 support. So there I bashed all of them

So I really really do not want to use Firefox at all due to security risks of Java 6.

In IE I have it disabled in the internet zone so it never executes. To my pleasant surprise Chrome does not enable it by default even if it is installed as of Chrome 16. Until that is fixed Firefox is going to stay off. I see the loading Java applet A LOT in porn sites trying to exploit my system.

Flash has many vulnerabilities too and is almost as bad. At least you can block flash a little bit or Chrome will automatically update it for you for security purposed. Unfortunately it makes it more crash prone in youtube.

So are good software engineers still cost centers rather than assets, where hiring the cheapest programmers in 3rd world countries for something like this makes sense?

The reason IE 6 dropped *FAST* between 2007-2008 was because websites stopped supporting it. IE 6 had 20% marketshare just a few years ago. Then Facebook, myspace, and other sites started displaying messages with banners to help people upgrade. Between 2001 - 2007 people kept using it as everyone kept catering too it. Business use is important yes but IE 6 is near worthless but all but a few sites by 2009 when the last batch migrated away.

So yes, leaving HTML 4 behind is pretty simply. Just display the banner and have other players stop supporting it and Chrome and Firefox migrations will continue. Infact, most of Chromes growth came from IE according to statistics. If you go to google it is advertised and many clueless users who are afraid to upgrade tried it out and WHAM free.

Corporations are terrified of this but once an intranet is an open standard they no longer have to worry about tie. That needs to end. IE 8 is decent so I do not mind it sticking for awhile. But if flash is gone HTML 5 will have to take over so it will be interesting to watch. I just do not want to be using HTML 4 still by 2019. That would blow