Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th May 2008 15:15 UTC, submitted by Shlomi Fish
"Which parameters make software applications high-quality? And which parameters or methods, while desirable, are not directly 'quality'?" This is the question the author of this article asks himself. Most of his 'parameters' make a lot of sense, but be aware that the article is about what makes an open source program high quality, and not programs in general. This important bit is stated in the one-sentence 'abstract'.
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RE[3]: "The Source is Available..."
by WorknMan on Tue 6th May 2008 19:52
in reply to "RE[2]: "The Source is Available...""
Member since:2005-11-13
Please, the FOSS types are nuts because they accept a few bugs as a tradeoff for more flexible software without mysteries.
In a lot of cases though, the FOSS crowd doesn't have a choice.
The non-FOSS types are nuts because they accept steaming turd nutty quality software (How's Vista doing these days?)
Haha, don't know... don't use it. There's a lot of bad software out there, both open source and not. The difference is that most of the 'non-FOSS' crowd will use a piece of software whether it's open source or not. Just because we use propietary apps doesn't mean we're anti-FOSS. This is not a pro-choice/pro-life kind of thing. It's a 'use the best tool for the job' kind of thing
RE[4]: "The Source is Available..."
by jabbotts on Wed 7th May 2008 12:49
in reply to "RE[3]: "The Source is Available...""
Member since:2007-09-06
oh absolutely, there's enough examples of crap software on any platform. I also find the FOSS or nothing croud distastfully extreme though if I can get the needed functions from something libre, the binary blob option better have something compelling to justify itself.
(VMware Workstation is probably the next software purchase unless I have to breakdown and get a DX10 OS license - There's nothing else in Vista for my needs).
I do think that source availability leads to better software and having the option to complile source has saved me a few times but it's not a deal breaker if the closed source offering justifies itself. I'm not a trained developer so the source is as usefull too me as too any average user. Being able to find an active community of developers and see the bug reports and fixes makes a big difference though.
My objection was purely too the idea that because it's under a libre license, it's crap or that one software example is representative of the whole market. Or, because it's under a closed license, it's automatically great software. There are bad examples on all platforms just like there are some really good examples on all platforms.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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Member since:
2007-09-06
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Only in the open source world, where it seems that people are used to being stuck with a buttload of alpha/beta-quality software on Sourceforge does this make absolutely any sense.
"
yeah, because software from outside the FOSS world has never been known to be beta quality at time of purchase has it.
Please, the FOSS types are nuts because they accept a few bugs as a tradeoff for more flexible software without mysteries. The non-FOSS types are nuts because they accept steaming turd nutty quality software (How's Vista doing these days?) like it was handed down on two stones. All of it is human written software so it's all buggy crap; The FOSS types just discuss it openly instead of hiding behind closed doors fo fear of marketing image.
I do like your list of attributes though. portable, modular, customizable configuration.. I have to reread the article but I think your much closer to what makes software of high quality though I'd add peer reviewable source code as a bonus (but not a deal breaker if code quality doesn't suffer).
Edited 2008-05-06 18:36 UTC