Linked by Eugenia Loli on Mon 11th Jan 2010 08:10 UTC
I followed the hype: Reddit, Slashdot's front page, months of thumbs up on my blog and various video forums by Linux users for OpenShot. Given that I'm longing for a usable Linux video editor since 2003, and given that OpenShot version 1.0 had just been released, I naturally gave it a go, by also downloading its provided dependencies on my Ubuntu Linux 9.10.
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RE: it was right to dub it 1.0
by Thom_Holwerda on Mon 11th Jan 2010 10:31
in reply to "it was right to dub it 1.0"
Member since:2005-06-29
This is wrong. Very, very wrong.
I recall a time when open source developers - rightfully so - pointed out that proprietary software vendors abused version numbers to push new versions of their software down people's throats. Higher = teh bettr.
Recently, it seems like open source developers have started doing the same thing: a project to 1.x status waaaaay before it's ready, with a lame excuse such as "hey, this way we get attention". KDE is of course the biggest offender.
This is not how it's done, and heck, it's not even needed. Check Boxee - an open source project based on XBMC. They've been in alpha for a long time, and yet, they had no shortage of users, and no problem getting attention. They released a beta a few days ago, and lots of major sites reported on it.
These version number shenanigans just lead to situations like this: harsh reviews that will turn people off the project. It happened to KDE, and it will happen to this project too.
RE[2]: it was right to dub it 1.0
by winter skies on Mon 11th Jan 2010 23:35
in reply to "RE: it was right to dub it 1.0"
Member since:2009-08-21
This is wrong. Very, very wrong. [...]
Recently, it seems like open source developers have started doing the same thing: a project to 1.x status waaaaay before it's ready, with a lame excuse such as "hey, this way we get attention". KDE is of course the biggest offender.
Recently, it seems like open source developers have started doing the same thing: a project to 1.x status waaaaay before it's ready, with a lame excuse such as "hey, this way we get attention". KDE is of course the biggest offender.
Even I, with my limited knowledge of the English language, I had perfectly understood that KDE 4.0 was meant to be more of a technology preview than a production-general public release. And I tried it knowing this.
No, please, give up repeating this tale about how KDE lied to us by announcing a 4.0 release which was not complete or ready for production. NetBSD has still both KDE 3.5.10 and 4.3.1 in its pkgsrc. Guess why? They provided an older, stable alternative better suited to conservative users and production environments. I cannot recall of any new distribution using KDE 4.0 by default. Even Kubuntu let out a "remix" version of Hardy for brave users/testers, clearly separating it from the officially supported one.
So it seems pretty much everyone (I know, hyperbole) had understood what KDE 4.0 was meant to be.
I don't GaF about the ".0" thing as long as they tell me "It's just to say out loud that we have reached a milestone on our path". And don't tell me it was not clear.
These version number shenanigans just lead to situations like this: harsh reviews that will turn people off the project. It happened to KDE, and it will happen to this project too.
Great attitude. A bit too arrogant to be a fortune teller, I'd say.
RE[2]: it was right to dub it 1.0
by lemur2 on Tue 12th Jan 2010 04:23
in reply to "RE: it was right to dub it 1.0"
Member since:2007-02-17
News
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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2009-12-14
it may be very poor quality-wise at the moment. but that might be due to not enough publicity, and that's what making an official release is for. and 1.0 draws more attention than, say, 0.1 :]
that means that at least the developer is more likely to get a lot of useful bug reports. if he gets lucky, maybe somebody will even contribute some code.