Recent Comments

• Mark on Wanted: Americans to join Al Qaeda This reading is surprisingly accurate: “By speaking directly to potential followers in the United States, the Bush Administration and others are able to control their message, suppress dissent, and offer a hateful worldview that dictates, based on a perversion of the Christian faith, that violence is the only remedy to rectify perceived wrongs.”
• Transcontinental on The best things… Well, the picture is a thing, written words are things, expression is a thing. Best things in life aren't things, but without things, how to share them?
• John Sinteur on From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X Developers have a choice–if they have existing Win32 code Developers don't have a choice if they have existing win32 code, that's the whole problem. Microsoft should start the gnashing of teeth of these developers (or rather, their pointy haired bosses), just like Apple did with Classic and Carbon. Many applications were available for classic Mac OS, OS X on PowerPC and are now on OS X on Intel, without Apple having a messy OS that has kludges up the wazoo to support the old way of doing things. And I bet an Apple developer that started out on classic Mac OS would likely continue to code new applications against that API, because that what he knows and is familiar with, instead of switching to cacao and objective-c. But he can't, because Apple made a choice that Microsoft seems unable to make.
• Maarten on From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X That’s the problem right there: if your statement were true, the win32 API would not work any longer. I don't follow your logic here, John. Even if all new applications were written using .NET after 2003, Msft still could not throw away the old API support, because they want to support existing binaries. But the continuing availability of Win32 entry points doesn't complicate new app development based on .NET. Developers have a choice--if they have existing Win32 code, Msft does its best to keep those APIs working and keep binaries running; if they want a legacy-free dev environment, they can get that too.
• Gene on Americans are switching to smaller cars from SUVs What amazes me is how stupid many Americans can be. The price of gas goes up, “Oh no, I need a car with better mileage!” Then the price goes down (when we all know it will eventually go back up) and they start buying bigger cars again.
• Steven Zalesch, New Haven, CT on Hillary Reportedly Will Hold No Public Events Tomorrow But, then again, you've thought that for a few months now, so it's not really a new thing.
• Roland Hesz on From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X They are sort of breaking with backward compatibility in Windows 7, or what will be the name. I am curious, that would be a big change, and the way the plan to do it will actually make Windows faster. There will be some backward compatibility changes. Maybe Transport Tycoon won't run on it - MS implemented an "if TransportTycoon calls this" part, so it will be able to run after Win98 if I remember the version well, and tell me MS does not care about people - but well, such is life. They tried to accomodate too many different needs, too many people. I agree that regular updates and breaks keep developers on their toes, but unfortunately that's not what companies who buy the enterprise softwares want. The relatively low quality of Windows based business applications is partly the result of the problems described above, but mostly the general business requirements: 1) Stupid and inplausible deadlines 2) Developers working on 23 projects where the priority changes every minute 3) Bad, really bad software development habits - except for the ISO, everyone is perfect on paper 4) The myth of efficiency - with 100% efficiency, if there is no time to improve, you will do what you always did. and so on. And when these same companies develop for Linux they got the same quality, so it is not about the Windows. Does the fact that Windows keeps some outdated techniques alive contribute to this? Sure. But not by preventing improvement, but by letting people skip improvement. It is not the developers who need to be kept on the upgrade treadmills, it is the management who needs to be persuaded to pay for the reinvention of the wheel time and again. And that is a hard task.
• Wilma on $300 WATER BILL?!?!? Where the hell did that water go ?!!!
• John Sinteur on From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X Um, no one has used the win32 API since 2003. That's the problem right there: if your statement were true, the win32 API would not work any longer. Yet it does, for the simple reason that people do use it - if you don't, congratulations to you. The problem is that Microsoft cannot remove it, and that is causing a lot of people a lot of problems. You are lucky that you don't have them.
• Developer on From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X Um, no one has used the win32 API since 2003. Windows development is primarily done with .net which is very simple and easy to use. Certainly easier than Cocoa. I am a professional developer who has used both, and quite honestly cocoa is coveluted and still uses some features inherited from Pascal. The event handling model is horible and its generally over complicated. In fact the article that you link to is about why .net was needed. So what is the point of picking out this quote to illustrate a completely outdated point.
• Roland Hesz on Vodafone scores first deal to sell Apple’s iPhone I hope in Hungary it won't be Vodafon. They are the worst mobile operators I ever saw. Rude, sneaky customer service, with crappy phone service and a couple of cases where they broke the law, including illegal wiretapping and monitoring of people.
• Roland Hesz on Magic trick costs teacher job I mean, sorry? Wizardry? Accused? If they really believe he is a wizard, they should grab him and make him magic away the Iraq problem, the economics problems and give him a huge salary.
• Mark on Who Will Tell the People? It is supposed to be the job of a free press to "tell the people" what is going on. The absence of any such activity in mainstream media is a damning indictment of what that media has become. Thank God for the intarwebs....
• John Sinteur on Hard numbers: The economy is worse than you know Inflation is just a natural part of the economy because taxes go up every years *cough*
• Chief on Hard numbers: The economy is worse than you know The economy is in great shape. There was never a mortgage crisis due to the fact that less than 2% of overall home loans where involved. The international investments our domestic business and private investors have shown that there is still plenty of American Greenbacks floating around. Our employment numbers are fine as the unemployed need to go out there and get the millions of jobs available. Inflation is just a natural part of the economy because taxes go up every years. To deal with those rising prices, people just need to demand a bigger part of the extra cash companies are making. So to the passive people, things seem so horrible, but if you are aggressive, things couldn't be any better!