Yeah, this got me really appreciating Bitcoin. I think if we all start doing business withe people using BitCoins then it'll really fix the whole problem.

One of the reasons I moved from Perl to Ruby was Bundler and Capistrano. These really fix the problem of instant multi-server deployment AND upgrades. It's a beautiful thing! http://gembundler.com/ https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano

I once got in trouble with my boss for going to a porn site: Freashmeat.net

Yeah, I think P did stand for Perl. Believe me, I was once a huge Perl fan. I went into PHP because the market went that way, not because I liked it. All the big commercial frameworks I've written were written for mod_perl, not PHP. It's just, as nasty and unreadable and ... horrible as PHP code is, it's faster to develop than mod_perl. In my opinion. Rails is the first system I've used that does not lead to nasty, unreadable spaghetti code. Everything about it encourages separation of logic and code in a way that benefits the programmer, instead of hinders. I think that Prudence is another great framework. There's plenty of others out there. But at the moment Rails seems to have the most momentum.

-1 Troll

Rails is dead? Ruby is "just perl with less powerful syntax"? I think we have someone here who has never learned Rails (or any other new language or framework, for that matter.) The thing Rails did was brought together MVC, ORM and "meta-programming" into a well integrated framework. I've written or been on teams writing several commercial frameworks. I've used nearly all of the open source frameworks and CMS products in my development career. Including the Rails rip-offs like CakePHP. Nothing is as good as Rails. There's a reason why Rails drives people into Ruby development, it's wonderfully elegant, effective and allows for flexibility and nearly instant development. Normally you can have one or the other.

I know it's a pain to keep up with the constantly moving world of web development. However, it is necessary. I started with Perl CGI (in 1998), then moved to PHP and LAMP and now I've moved to Ruby. The improvement is really just as big as the move from Perl/CGI.pm to PHP. This video demonstrates the improvement I'm talking about, he doesn't pick Rails as his choice. I disagree with him of course. But it does show just how big the imporvement is.

Apple has made software compatibility ideological. Anyone who unlocks their iPhone is now a political dissident. Anyone who leaves Apple and jumps ship is now a defector. Remember, they're censoring A MAGAZINE because of the content! Can you imagine Microsoft preventing Word and Publisher from writing articles that criticize Microsoft? Or hooking the printer driver from preventing them from being printed? This is where this is going, don't think Apple wouldn't do it if it could.

As a refugee from the Amiga, I remember Microsoft in the 90s. Never forgot or forgave them for their behavior either. And yes, Microsoft has put the screws to any PC manufacturer who dared sell PCs without Windows pre-installed. I.e. the Microsoft tax. This was nowhere near as menacing or anti-competitive as Apple has become.

I think you're overplaying Apple's coolness. The bloom has faded on the rose. I have more hipster friends with Android devices than with iPhones now. iPhones are soooooo 2006. Now it's the me-too followers who buy iPhones.

It would be more like designing Chevy vehicles to drive only on roads that Chevy approves of. Then banning all roads that go near Ford dealerships.

What Apple is doing is unconscionable. I have always been anti-Microsoft, in this regard I was always pulling for Apple. But it's important to realize WHY I was anti-Microsoft. Namely because of their anti-competitive and asshole behavior. A set of behavior that Apple has perfected and made even more grotesquely anti-consumer, anti-choice and ultimately insulting to all intelligent customers of their products. At least Microsoft had enough respect for you to give you a choice. Now you have nanny-Apple deciding what you can and cannot install on the device you purchased and now legally own.

This level of anti-competitive and just... asshole behavior has probably never been seen before, not even with Microsoft. How can Apple ever hope to become a serious part of community infrastructure when they display this level of disrespect for their customers? Is the fear that some bumbling iPhone user might accidentally install the Android magazine app and have a sudden flash of inspiration that iPhone is inferior? Why do we, as customers, take this? Not even Microsoft had the greedy foolishness to prohibit its competitor's software from running on their platform. Why don't we demand control of the devices that we have purchased? Lets hope that MeeGo can deliver a genuinely open phone experience. Ubuntu and Linux Mint both show how an app store could be done.

*whoosh*

My post was tongue-in-cheek, and it was coming from a Java programmer (me) of several years.

You're right, C++ sucks for enterprise application programming. Which is why it shouldn't ever be used for it. And for the same reasons that Java should never be used for it. Java and C++ suck at user interfaces. A person can only know this if they've both used Java and other more modern tools to create enterprise applications. See the link in my previous post for more details. It is the opposite of fast turn-around and rapid development. There are better, faster and less headache inducing ways now. Just look at how much Java IDEs suck at this, despite thousands of man-hours and great talent developing them. This is not the fault of the developers, this is the fault of the language. And it's time people begin progressing away from Java, in the same way we should avoid writing things in COBOL or APL.

The reaction to my post is kind of why I made it in the first place. Why be so upset when somebody criticizes your language? It seems to me to be a kind of fundamentalism. And the more crappy the religion the more angry and vicious are its fundamentalists.

Here we observe the later stage of the life cycle of the ancient javan fanboicus extremis. Scientists believe that the first of the species was born in the Sun Microsystems booth at a Comdex convention in the mid 1990s (reportedly from a fling between Grace Murray Hopper and James Gosling.) From there the species propagated by its strange inter-species relationship with management. Similar to the tape worm reproductive cycle (Taenia solium), the javan first infects the management of the organization by later stage infected programmers (salesmen) who have been infected coming in contact with management of the organization. Usually promises are made and buzzwords (the mating call of management) are dropped. Similar once again to the tapeworm life cycle the infection of a new host is caused by cysts being eaten. However, in this case those in the management cycle force feed the cysts to the programmer cycle. At first the new programmer recoils in disgust at the Javan experience. This is followed by the first sign of infection; browsing infective books and as the disease progresses - buying them. As the infection commences the programmer is told to like the experience, overriding any natural senses and instinct. In the second stage the programmer still has a mild distaste and at some basic level realizes they shouldn't be having the feelings they're feeling. In final stage infection the programmer can be seen tossing and turning in bed saying "pure java..... it .... must... be in .... pure java..." and things like that. During this stage it is common for programmers to begin writing everything in Java. Shortly afterward they begin reproducing by attempting to create other Java programmers. Although their chances of actual sexual reproduction go down significantly after infection.

It's easy to be immunized against javan infection, but no instant cure is now known. And immunize those you know and love. It's important to remember that ultimately this is a parasitic infection. Java causes many reams of code to be written in Java that should never be. It adds a minimum of 30% to development time. And contrary to typical management mating calls, because of the thousands more lines of code Java takes to express ideas, it costs many times more for long term support. Like COBOL before it, it rarely dies until the host dies. So the infection can only be prevented, not cured. Keep safe, and always use a prophylaxis.

I kind of like Javascript, I have written and maintained HUGE applications in many languages. To be honest, the worst was Java, not Javascript. Javascript is light, easy to understand, highly extensible (see JQuery or mootools) and once something is written to the standards it usually runs EVERYWHERE there is a reasonably modern web browser. Something which is not true of Flash or Java. Just look at how many people use it and write in it! Talk about a successful language! I'm fluent in Ruby, Python, Perl, Java and UNIX/Linux standard C. I've used C++, C#, AS3 and even Scheme on various professional jobs before. And I think I like Ruby best, but not by much. Javascript has a certain simple elegance that even Ruby doesn't have. It's what Java could have been. If Gosling hadn't been so strict type happy.

I'll probably buy a whole new gaming computer just to play this game. And I will probably only play the game once some nice cracker cracks it. Because I don't support gaming companies that support DRM.

Wow, big word "jingoist". That's impressive. -1 Troll. Where are the moderators? If you use a big word like "jingoist" and then follow it with "you ignorant fuck" then apparently all sense is lost.

Unions are like any other special interest group in this country, they never know when to quit. They cut off workers at the knees, imposing unreasonable dues and ridiculous work requirements. They are a true, government enforced dictatorship. Everywhere they go jobs are lost. Welcome to America, the country that used to have manufacturing jobs - thanks to the unions. GM, for example, has to add $3,000 for each vehicle they sell, just to pay insane union pensions. Do unions care that GM can't sell cars because of this? No. Is it ever suggested that maybe worker wages should go down so the company can stay in business? No.

Intelligent people don't join unions. This is because intelligent people don't fall for the sucker-dream of unbiased advocates who are "on my side". We happen to be our own advocates, thank you very much. As long as we don't live in a dictatorship that requires people to buy things then union advocates will be powerless to help. A union can force a company to pay an employee a certain rate, but it cannot force the market to pay the company.

I bought a Wii ONLY because it could be cracked. We wanted a way to watch Netflix and could've afforded the PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii. I bought the Wii because it was easy to crack - no hardware needed. I haven't bought a console before this since.... the super nintendo (really.) Me and my wife just don't play games (we're twenty somethings, not old fogies.) We bought the Wii for Netflix. The fact that I cracked it and burned some games I don't own doesn't hurt any game studio. Because we NEVER WOULD HAVE BOUGHT THE GAME OR THE SYSTEM in the first place. If anything it might turn us non-gamers who would never spend money on something into gamers.