March 11, 2012
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote in message news:mailman.446.1331424217.4860.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 05:16:15PM -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Which reminds me, I still need to figure out what domain it contacts to check whether or not to incessently nag me about *cough* "upgrading" *cough*, so I can ban the damn thing via my hosts file.
>
> Umm... you *could* just point Opera at opera:config, then search for "Disable Opera Package AutoUpdate", y'know...
>

Ugh. If the authors of a GUI program can't be bothered to put an option in their own options menus, then that option may as well not exist. Why can't they learn that? I searched every inch of Opera's options screens and never found *any* mention or reference to any "Disable AutoUpdate" or "opera:config". What the fuck did they expect? Clairvoyance? Omniscience?

Thanks for the tip, though.

>
>> > And people keep talking about web apps and the browser as a "platform".  Sigh.
>>
>> Yea. There's even an entire company dedicated to pushing that moronic agenda (*and* tracking you like Big Brother). They're called "Microsoft Mark 2"...erm...wait...I mean "Google".
>
> lol...
>

Heh :) I really do see modern Google as "the new microsoft" though, but just with less respect for personal privacy. (Heck, aren't half their employees former MS employees anyway?) I don't care how much they chant "Don't be evil", it's actions that count, not mantras.

Hell, that's what happened to MS and Apple, too. *They* used to be the "Google" to IBM's "evil", and then they themselves became the new IBMs. That famous Apple II commercial is so depressingly ironic these days. Success changes corporations.

>
> [...]
>> > We get a kickback from our hardware manufacturers and we sell more software without actually adding any new features! It's a win-win situation!"
>> >
>>
>> That's one of the reasons I despise the modern-day Epic and Valve: *Complete* graphics whores (not to mention Microsoft sluts, particularly in Epic's case), and I don't believe for a second that what you've described isn't the exact nature of...what does Epic call it? Some sort of "Alliance" with NVIDIA and ATI that Epic was so *publically* proud of. Fuck Cliffy, Sweeny, "Fat Fuck" Newell, et al. Shit, and Epic actually used to be pretty good back in their "Megagames" days.
> [...]
>
> I root for indie games. That's where the real creativity's at. Creativity has died in big-budget games years ago.
>

Absolutely. And it's not just from the gamer's side, but from the developer's side too. I grew up wanting to join an id or an Apogee, Sierra, Sega, etc., but when I got to college twelve years ago, I looked at the state of the industry and decided "If I'm going to do games, it's going to be as an indie." I hate the web dev I do, yet I still vastly prefer it to joining an EA or "yet another group of 'developers' who are really just trying to get into Pixar" or any of the smaller houses that Bobby Kodick and Activision are holding by the balls.


March 11, 2012
"Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> wrote in message news:jjgtjn$1aqm$1@digitalmars.com...
> "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote in message news:mailman.446.1331424217.4860.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
>>
>> I root for indie games. That's where the real creativity's at. Creativity has died in big-budget games years ago.
>>
>
> Absolutely. [...]
>

There are some rare but notable exceptions, though:

The first three Splinter Cells are among my favorite games ever.

As much as I hate Valve, I have to admit, both Portal games are phenomenal (although Portal itself is ultimately rooted in indie-land via Narbacular Drop).

And Japan can still be relied on as much as ever to produce some very good games: MegaMan 9, Kororinpa, No More Heroes, Resident Wiivil 4, probably half the games Atlus publishes like 3D Dot Game Heroes, etc. (Although I guess many of those aren't really "big-budget". But they're not strictly indie either.)


March 11, 2012
On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 08:01:11PM -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote in message news:mailman.446.1331424217.4860.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
> > On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 05:16:15PM -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> >> Which reminds me, I still need to figure out what domain it contacts to check whether or not to incessently nag me about *cough* "upgrading" *cough*, so I can ban the damn thing via my hosts file.
> >
> > Umm... you *could* just point Opera at opera:config, then search for "Disable Opera Package AutoUpdate", y'know...
> >
> 
> Ugh. If the authors of a GUI program can't be bothered to put an option in their own options menus, then that option may as well not exist. Why can't they learn that? I searched every inch of Opera's options screens and never found *any* mention or reference to any "Disable AutoUpdate" or "opera:config". What the fuck did they expect? Clairvoyance? Omniscience?

Yay! I'm clairvoyant! :-P

Seriously though, I suspect the reason for opera:config is to hide "dangerous" options for the "end users", but keep it available to geeks like you & me who like to tweak stuff most people don't even know exists. I can just imagine somebody filing an Opera bug that auto update stopped working, when they were the ones who turned it off themselves.

Can't say I agree with this approach, but that's the way things are, sad to say.


[...]
> Heh :) I really do see modern Google as "the new microsoft" though, but just with less respect for personal privacy. (Heck, aren't half their employees former MS employees anyway?) I don't care how much they chant "Don't be evil", it's actions that count, not mantras.
> 
> Hell, that's what happened to MS and Apple, too. *They* used to be the "Google" to IBM's "evil", and then they themselves became the new IBMs. That famous Apple II commercial is so depressingly ironic these days. Success changes corporations.
[...]

Here's a quote for you:

	"Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in
	power we would behave very differently from those who now hold
	it---when, in truth, in order to get power we would have to
	become very much like them." -- Unknown


T

-- 
Recently, our IT department hired a bug-fix engineer. He used to work for Volkswagen.
March 11, 2012
>> Ugh. If the authors of a GUI program can't be bothered to put an
>> option in their own options menus, then that option may as well not
>> exist. Why can't they learn that? I searched every inch of Opera's
>> options screens and never found *any* mention or reference to any
>> "Disable AutoUpdate" or "opera:config". What the fuck did they expect?
>> Clairvoyance? Omniscience?

I found it in a minute. First I tried opera help and it directed me to details about auto-update, which showed how to disable it. It is in the normal UI place for such stuff.

  Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Security -> Auto-Update.


-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
March 11, 2012
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote in message news:mailman.449.1331429962.4860.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
>
> Seriously though, I suspect the reason for opera:config is to hide "dangerous" options for the "end users", but keep it available to geeks like you & me who like to tweak stuff most people don't even know exists.

Yea, that's what buttons labeled "Advanced Options" are for. :/


March 11, 2012
"Derek" <ddparnell@bigpond.com> wrote in message news:op.wazmllu534mv3i@red-beast...
>>> Ugh. If the authors of a GUI program can't be bothered to put an option in their own options menus, then that option may as well not exist. Why can't they learn that? I searched every inch of Opera's options screens and never found *any* mention or reference to any "Disable AutoUpdate" or "opera:config". What the fuck did they expect? Clairvoyance? Omniscience?
>
> I found it in a minute. First I tried opera help and it directed me to details about auto-update, which showed how to disable it. It is in the normal UI place for such stuff.
>
>   Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Security -> Auto-Update.
>

They stuck it under "Security"? No wonder I couldn't find it. That's like putting "blue" under "shapes". :/


March 11, 2012
On Saturday, 10 March 2012 at 19:54:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

> LOL. I'm the complete opposite. I seem to end up upgrading my computer every 2
> or 3 years. I wouldn't be able to stand being on an older computer that long.
> I'm constantly annoyed by how slow my computer is no matter how new it is.

No matter how much hardware you throw at it, somehow it gets slower and slower.
New hardware can't keep up with (ever increasing) writing bad software.

http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=9


March 11, 2012
On 3/10/2012 1:20 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> It's no fun at all if you had to wait 2 hours just to
> find out you screwed up some parameters in your test render. Imagine if
> you had to wait 2 hours to know the result of every 1 line code change.

2 hours? Man, you got good service. When I submitted my punched card decks, I'd be lucky to get a result the next day!

(Yes, I did learn to program using punch cards. And to be fair, the programs were trivial compared with the behemoths we write today.)
March 11, 2012
On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:41:48PM -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 3/10/2012 1:20 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >It's no fun at all if you had to wait 2 hours just to find out you screwed up some parameters in your test render. Imagine if you had to wait 2 hours to know the result of every 1 line code change.
> 
> 2 hours? Man, you got good service. When I submitted my punched card decks, I'd be lucky to get a result the next day!
> 
> (Yes, I did learn to program using punch cards. And to be fair, the programs were trivial compared with the behemoths we write today.)

And also today, the complexity of the compile/link process can lead to dainbramaged makefiles that sometimes fail to recompile a changed source, and the linker picks up leftover junk .o's from who knows how many weeks ago, causing heisenbugs that don't exist in the source code but persistently show up in the binary until you rm -rf the entire source tree, checkout a fresh copy from the repos, reapply your changes, and rebuild the whole thing from scratch. (And that's assuming that in the meantime somebody didn't check in something that doesn't compile, or that introduces new and ingenious ways of breaking the system.)

So perhaps the turnaround time has improved, but the frustration level has also increased. :-)


T

-- 
The best way to destroy a cause is to defend it poorly.
March 11, 2012
"so" <so@so.so> wrote in message news:pzghdzojddybajuguxwa@forum.dlang.org...
> On Saturday, 10 March 2012 at 19:54:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>
>> LOL. I'm the complete opposite. I seem to end up upgrading my computer
>> every 2
>> or 3 years. I wouldn't be able to stand being on an older computer that
>> long.
>> I'm constantly annoyed by how slow my computer is no matter how new it
>> is.
>
> No matter how much hardware you throw at it, somehow it gets slower and
> slower.
> New hardware can't keep up with (ever increasing) writing bad software.
>
> http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=9
>

That is a *FANTASTIC* article. Completely agree, and it's very well-written.

That's actually one of reasons I like to *not* use higher-end hardware. Every programmer in the world, no exceptions, has a natural tendancy to target the hardware they're developing on. If you're developing on high-end hardware, your software is likely to end up requiring high-end hardware even without your noticing. If you're developing on lower-end hardware, your software is going to run well on fucking *everything*.

Similar thing for server software. If your developing on a low-end local machine, it's going to run that much better under heavier loads.

I think it's a shame that companies hand out high-end hardware to their developers like it was candy. There's no doubt in my mind that's significantly contributed to the amount of bloatware out there.