Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 13th Jul 2012 23:39 UTC
Ars Technica is running an interesting article about the Mail application on Windows 8. It's one of the first party Metro applications, and Ars' conclusion is that it's really, really not up to snuff - it can't even compare favourably to the mail application on Windows Phone. The sad thing is, however - this applies to virtually all Metro applications.
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RE[6]: Too many platforms
by moondevil on Mon 16th Jul 2012 05:59
in reply to "RE[5]: Too many platforms"
Member since:2005-07-08
Windows has xp, vista, 7, 8; various servers; WinPhone 7; winphone8; now we have a seperate ARM version
Have you ever counted the amount of Linux distributions available in Distrowatch, each with different set of APIs, many ignorant of the LSB, disparate packet systems, development tools, ...?
Just today I can see around 300.
RE[7]: Too many platforms
by Soulbender on Mon 16th Jul 2012 06:44
in reply to "RE[6]: Too many platforms"
Member since:2005-08-18
RE[7]: Too many platforms - different vendors
by jabbotts on Mon 16th Jul 2012 19:29
in reply to "RE[6]: Too many platforms"
Member since:2007-09-06
I did groceries on the weekend and was shocked, SHOCKED I say, to find that there where several options to choose from in every product category.
Ok, jokes aside, if we're being honest then it's not every potential Linux based OS distribution versus X. We're comparing fragmentation to Windows; a single vendor's OS distribution. We need OS distributions which intent to compete for desktop installs.
Novell? Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop and Suse Linux Enterprise Server.
Red Hat? Red Hat Enterprise Linux (server) plus a desktop option.
Mandriva? Three versions when I was last in that world; Free, One and whatever the paid premium was.
Canonical? Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Server?
That's four major vendor options with a maximum of three product versions each? Should we look back at Microsoft's list of current version Windows OS SKU?
RE[7]: Too many platforms
by Laurence on Wed 18th Jul 2012 15:16
in reply to "RE[6]: Too many platforms"
Member since:2007-03-26
Have you ever counted the amount of Linux distributions available in Distrowatch, each with different set of APIs, many ignorant of the LSB, disparate packet systems, development tools, ...?
Just today I can see around 300.
Actually most of them (if not all) will have API compatibility. The differences between distros is largely only skin deep.
And LSB just states states what must exist, not the default. Hence why Debian is LSB despite preferring .deb over RPMs; because Debian also offers support for RPMs even if it doesn't prefer them.
The real issue between Linuxes is with API version numbers between bleeding edge distros and the older / stable-focused distros. Which is why package managers come into their own. However that's akin to compiling a .NET 3 application and then complaining that it doesn't work on .NET 2.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
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.More News »
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Member since:
2012-01-13
I am not a coder. I am a power user, and I do some sys admin and user interface work. So excuse me if I am wrong - here we go - Actually I find Windows more fragmented then Linux. Windows has xp, vista, 7, 8; various servers; WinPhone 7; winphone8; now we have a seperate ARM version (was there a lack of Windows-versions??); home/student/enterprise/professional/media/ etc versions; English/French/Spanish (Windows has seperate programs for every language - the concept of language packs was too simple I suppose?); a jungle of licenses and activations; and a general tendency to make simple things very complicated.
The linux landscape is for me (as a non-expert) much simpler. Yes, some applications requiere certain frameworks, but I never had problems with that..... might be different if you code though.
Edited 2012-07-15 14:42 UTC