| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 09:11AM -0400 > >mobile is the future. > Sure it is. All development and other types of content creation will one day > be done on a pokey 3 inch screen and a virtual keyboard. Right. quite a bit already is created entirely on tablets or phones and that's only going to increase. a modern smartphone is more powerful than what sat on people's desks 5-10 years ago. |
| boltar@cylonHQ.com: Jun 14 01:51PM On Thu, 14 Jun 2018 09:11:16 -0400 >> be done on a pokey 3 inch screen and a virtual keyboard. Right. >quite a bit already is created entirely on tablets or phones and that's >only going to increase. ITYM video has been recorded on them before being downloaded to a proper computer to do the rest. >a modern smartphone is more powerful than what sat on people's desks >5-10 years ago. The CPU isn't the problem - the I/O is. Anyone who thinks a device with a small screen, touch interface and a virtual keyboard is suitable for serious work has obviously never done any. |
| "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com>: Jun 14 10:03AM -0400 On 6/13/2018 4:17 PM, Ian Collins wrote: > for developers like me with clients running multiple OS versions. All I had > to do was build on the oldest supported version and know my stuff would work > on all. The more I learn about Solaris the more impressed I am. Is the code base from Solaris (before it was closed up by Oracle) still available? I was never involved or interested in Sun Microsystems back in the day. I tried to install their OS at one point, but my hardware was not compatible so I gave up on it. I wish now I would've spent more time learning the architecture and ecosystem. Why did Sun sell it? It seems like they had such a good thing going. What happened in the final year(s)? -- Rick C. Hodgin |
| "Mayayana" <mayayana@invalid.nospam>: Jun 14 10:11AM -0400 "Char Jackson" <none@none.invalid> wrote | Personally, I used a Windows 10 laptop for work for about a year and it | would have been fine if everyone I met also used Windows 10. That way, | they'd know about its issues and they'd fully understand when I'm ready | to work but *it* is not. Other people running Windows 10 totally get | that That's a gem: Win10 being broken wouldn't be a problem if only everyone would lower their expectations and expect Windows to be broken. I can't think of any other field where someone could even think that thought: "I wouldn't mind that my XYZ car won't start half the time if it weren't for the fact that other peoples' cars do start. It makes my car look bad." :) |
| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 10:16AM -0400 > >only going to increase. > ITYM video has been recorded on them before being downloaded to a proper > computer to do the rest. 'the rest' not only can be done, but *is* done on a phone or tablet, including 4k videos. and it isn't just videos. people are doing quite a bit more on mobile devices, and in many cases, things not possible on what you ignorantly are calling a 'proper computer'. the number of tasks that *require* a desktop computer is shrinking, and shrinking fast. > >a modern smartphone is more powerful than what sat on people's desks > >5-10 years ago. > The CPU isn't the problem - the I/O is. i didn't say the cpu. i said a modern smartphone is more powerful, which means the entire package. > Anyone who thinks a device with a small > screen, touch interface and a virtual keyboard is suitable for serious work has > obviously never done any. you clearly haven't and you aren't the arbiter of what qualifies as serious work either. long ago, people said similar things about laptops, that they weren't as capable as desktops. they were wrong. laptops have outsold desktops for many years and users are significantly more productive using them. |
| "Mayayana" <mayayana@invalid.nospam>: Jun 14 10:22AM -0400 <boltar@cylonHQ.com> wrote | I suspect if Apple reduced their absurd prices to a sensible level they'd | probably clean up in the desktop market and with a bit of effort they could | re-enter the server market with OS/X. The problem with Apple isn't only price. They want to sell devices, not software. They want their devices locked down. They want their market to be consumer entertainment, not "productivity". Their software development system isn't as open. So if you could buy a Mac for $400 you'd still have the problem that it's a restricted, ninny-headed system with limited software and almost no hardware flexibility. You'd get a more attractive GUI (except for the obnoxious kiddie icons) but give up the reasons that you use a computer for anything beyond photo editing or online consumer services. I think of iPods as the epitome of Apple. People lauded Jobs's genius for guessing what people wanted. But he never guessed what anyone wanted. He guessed what they were susceptible to. He gave them a drug: constant musical entertainment with no hassle. Tim Cook is a fullscale disciple of Jobs. He gushes about Apple's superiority and noble intentions while he's building more diddle-devices with slave labor and perfecting the art of tax evasion. I don't think Apple is the place to look for anything healthy or useful in the future. |
| Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>: Jun 14 02:34PM > BTW, anonymous coward "nospam@nospam.invalid" ... you should not be > anonymous. It removes credibility away from your statements and > claims. It makes you a troll at best. +1 (on all points) nospam has no clue about how real production systems are (not) run. He thinks that 'app' (hint, hint) developers should continuously 'update' their 'apps' with 'new' and 'better' 'functionality'. Yeah right! I.e. the same way that Microsoft adds 'new' and 'better' 'functionality' to Windows, which got us in this mess in the first place. What about writing a spec, writing, testing, debugging, etc. and releasing an 'app', which then happily runs ever after? Nah, can't do in nospam's parallel universe. FHI, we've been using unchanged 'apps' (unchanged binaries) for over two decades, while the platform/OS on which they were run was updated/ upgraded over all that time. They probably would still run today, after 35 years. And I'm running software on Windows which is 15 years old, without any change. |
| Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>: Jun 14 02:39PM > On 14/06/18 03:49, nospam wrote: [...] > the OS and good for developers like me with clients running multiple OS > versions. All I had to do was build on the oldest supported version and > know my stuff would work on all. Same with HP's HP-UX. Binary backward compatibility for decades. Breaking binary backward compatibility wasn't up for discussion. |
| Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>: Jun 14 03:04PM > want to sell devices, not software. They want > their devices locked down. They want their market > to be consumer entertainment, not "productivity". Consumer entertainment is indeed their main focus, but Macs are used in a lot of "productivity" areas, such a newspapers, photography, etc.. For example we're currenly have a doco series about the New York Times (and Trump). All Macs as far as the eye can see. A very close relative is a photographer in an advertizing company. Wall to wall Macs. (And yes, their admin runs on Windows.) > perfecting the art of tax evasion. > I don't think Apple is the place to look for > anything healthy or useful in the future. Agreed. So what remains is for us to choose the best out of a set of flat tyres! :-) |
| boltar@cylonHQ.com: Jun 14 03:29PM On Thu, 14 Jun 2018 10:16:45 -0400 >> computer to do the rest. >'the rest' not only can be done, but *is* done on a phone or tablet, >including 4k videos. Sure, if you only want to do simple jobs. Now go away and try and edit an entire TV program on a phone just by prodding your finger. Or maybe try and follow a page full of stock market movements on your phone. Or given this is a C++ forum, try using vi in a shell or eclipse on a phone. You'll soon get sick of it and wish for a large screen and a mouse. Guess what? There's a reason some people have 32 inch monitors, sometimes 2 or 3 of them to do their jobs. >and it isn't just videos. people are doing quite a bit more on mobile >devices, and in many cases, things not possible on what you ignorantly >are calling a 'proper computer'. No possible? Really? Give some examples. >the number of tasks that *require* a desktop computer is shrinking, and >shrinking fast. Sure, when sold to people who only ever surf the web or send the occasional email. For the rest of us a proper machine is vital. >i said a modern smartphone is more powerful, which means the entire >package. Then you're wrong. Its just a computer with a small screen, poor input facilities and a camera. There's nothing powerful about it. >> obviously never done any. >you clearly haven't and you aren't the arbiter of what qualifies as >serious work either. So, of course not. I only worked in the financial markets for 10 years. What would I know? I'm sure I could have done my job on a smartphone sitting in a coffee bar. Not. >long ago, people said similar things about laptops, that they weren't >as capable as desktops. they were wrong. laptops have outsold desktops They weren't. >for many years and users are significantly more productive using them. And have you noticed how much bigger they've got? Compare screen sizes to what was being offered 15 years ago. Notebook sized laptops flopped, perhaps ask yourself why. |
| boltar@cylonHQ.com: Jun 14 03:32PM On Thu, 14 Jun 2018 10:22:43 -0400 >fullscale disciple of Jobs. He gushes about Apple's Cook is Jobs without the vision and single mindedness. He reminds me of the supply teachers who fill in when your kids real teacher is on holiday or ill, capable but a long way from being the best. Apple has been treading water since jobs died. |
| scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal): Jun 14 03:43PM >> on all. >The more I learn about Solaris the more impressed I am. Is the code >base from Solaris (before it was closed up by Oracle) still available? Backwards binary compatability was a feature of all major Unix variants. Most of them also offered a backward compatible driver API (driver development kit). The Solaris codebase was always closed. There is an OpenSolaris fork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris |
| "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com>: Jun 14 12:16PM -0400 On 6/14/2018 11:43 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote: > The Solaris codebase was always closed. There is an OpenSolaris > fork. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris Thank you, Scott. -- Rick C. Hodgin |
| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 02:50PM -0400 In article <9jf2idhklihkh7kl5030osbece2vaofml8@4ax.com>, SilverSlimer > Some people want to pay more for a computer with the expectation that > the model will be lighter, more powerful, have better battery life or > simply look prettier true. that's why there's a wide range of products in a wide range of prices. no single product is ideal for everyone. > but that is the smaller amount of people. not true. > >nevertheless, 15 years ago, they released a $499 mac mini. > Which is basically useless if you don't pay additional money for the > monitor, keyboard and mouse. that's no different than for windows systems. very few windows pcs are all-in-one imac style. most pcs a box where the user needs to add a display, keyboard and mouse. the microsoft surface studio is an all-in-one, comes with a large pivoting display and *starts* at $3000, nearly *twice* that of a similar size imac: <https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-studio/8xcw9bbpvfv9?activetab =pivot%3aoverviewtab> imacs start at $1800 for a 27" (similar size to the surface studio) or $1100 for a 21". not everyone needs a giant display. is a large pivoting display worth the extra $1200? for some people yes, for others no. choice is good. > >mobile is the future. > Agreed, and Apple does very well in that category despite being > _functionally_ inferior to its competition. except that it's *not* functionally inferior. > needs the customization options of Android and simply wants a machine > which does everything they need to do on a daily basis... e-mail, > browsing, media playback. of course, not everyone is aware of what can be done with apple products, blindly believing the myths. |
| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 02:50PM -0400 In article <tog2idla2rgtqbd6mk2c553erlci5ofnq4@4ax.com>, SilverSlimer > >nothing on the android side comes anywhere close to an ipad pro with an > >apple pencil. > Yet a Surface with pen does as good if not a better job. no it definitely doesn't. although latency with surface is pretty good, it's noticeably higher than an apple pencil, plus surface have significant reliability issues. <https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/10/16125294/microsoft-su rface-consumer-reports-hardware-freezing-shutdowns-problems> In a survey of 90,000 tablet and laptop owners, Consumer Reports found that roughly 25 percent of Surface users have encountered łproblems by the end of the second year of ownership.˛ Those problems include freezing, unexpected shutdowns, and touchscreen response issues. Reuters reported on the latest Consumer Reports reliability study, which was published on Thursday. |
| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 02:50PM -0400 In article <fodcfiFne66U2@mid.individual.net>, Ian Collins > Neither is rebuilding every application if you choose to upgrade your > OS. Neither is being unable to upgrade to a supported OS version > because of legacy applications. users don't rebuild apps. developers do, which is part of the price you pay for quality software. updating apps is easy, with many apps automatically updating themselves. the user doesn't need to do much, if anything. if the app hasn't been updated and no alternative exists, then whatever that app did was not in high demand. > the OS and good for developers like me with clients running multiple OS > versions. All I had to do was build on the oldest supported version and > know my stuff would work on all. your apps are the lowest common denominator across all platforms. that may work in certain cases but definitely not all. most people do *not* have a wide variety of platforms and want to take full advantage of everything their hardware can do. |
| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 02:50PM -0400 In article <pfrf3e$3mh$1@dont-email.me>, Rick C. Hodgin > >> to maintain backward compatibility. > > nope. that is simply wrong. > I disagree with you top to bottom, front to back, side to side. i see that, and you're still wrong. > that's discovered that is actually damaging, such as a fundamental flaw > in the memory allocation unit in use in the app, then there is no reason > to ever have to recompile software that's written, debugged, and deployed. only if the app is incredibly simple and doesn't do much. apps *will* need to be rewritten to take full advantage of new apis, multicore processors, offloading to the gpu, hi-dpi displays and other hardware, internet connectivity, as well as taking advantage of newer programming languages and compilers and certainly new processors. > It's probably good business to do so, but it's not a requirement. it is if the software developer wants to stay in business. > The > same accounting software written in the 1980s on DOS still runs today > if you don't have newer fancy things you need to keep track of. the same can be said for a calculator and paper. what you're advocating is to remain in the 1980s. the world has moved beyond that with *far* more capable software and hardware, letting users do all sorts of things that were thought to be impossible back in the 1980s. for instance, modern accounting apps can connect to banks and sync transactions automatically, including paying bills without the need to mail a paper check. stock portfolios are updated in real time. a dos app can't do that. nor can dos apps edit 4k videos, whose sizes are orders of magnitude larger than anything a dos system can ever hope to handle, taken and edited entirely on a device that fits in a pocket. > That's a business model and the choices you're advocating follow that > model, but it's wrong to require that of people. I'm genuinely sad > for you that you feel otherwise. nobody is requiring anything. a company is free to release an app and never update it. ever. it won't be a successful product and for good reason. it's the ultimate disrespect for their users, but it's their choice to do so. meanwhile, their competitors will release better products, fix bugs and add features based on customer feedback. > BTW, anonymous coward "nospam@nospam.invalid" ... you should not be > anonymous. It removes credibility away from your statements and > claims. It makes you a troll at best. ad hominem attacks show just how weak your argument is. |
| nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid>: Jun 14 02:50PM -0400 In article <pfttpg$euj$1@dont-email.me>, Mayayana > The problem with Apple isn't only price. They > want to sell devices, not software. completely false, but so what? there is nothing wrong with selling devices and not software. a lot of companies do exactly that. > They want > their devices locked down. except that they aren't locked down. it was *microsoft* who came out with windows 10s, which can only run store apps. no such version of macos exists that *only* runs store apps. > They want their market > to be consumer entertainment, not "productivity". nonsense. numerous studies show mac users to be more productive. > Their software development system isn't as open. wrong again. not only is it more open, but it's based on open source software. > have the problem that it's a restricted, ninny-headed > system with limited software and almost no > hardware flexibility. more ignorant bullshit. > give up the reasons that you use a computer for > anything beyond photo editing or online consumer > services. nonsense. > lauded Jobs's genius for guessing what people > wanted. But he never guessed what anyone > wanted. he guessed a lot better than most people did. > superiority and noble intentions while he's > building more diddle-devices with slave labor and > perfecting the art of tax evasion. nonsense. > I don't think Apple is the place to look for > anything healthy or useful in the future. clearly. |
| Daniel <danielaparker@gmail.com>: Jun 14 03:31AM -0700 On Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 3:16:28 AM UTC-4, Paavo Helde wrote: > the user convenience, would become: > 13.4 13.5 13.4 > So what? From where does the number like 13.449999999999999 come? It's a test value. You know about test values? :-) I chose this value because it will reveal a problem with cumulative errors in naive floating point conversion. In addition, it has 17 digits of precision, so it is representable in a double, and a correct implementation should round trip. > If it is user input, > then it is originally in string form, so store it in string form if it > needs to be json-ed or whatever. No round-trip problems. Well, you can do that if you want, with your json thing, if you have one. However, none of the popular commercial or open source json things do that, rather, they typically unpack the json string into a custom variant value, where json fraction values are converted into double values. One or two json things check for fraction values that have precision outside of what a double can preserve, and convert those differently, but that's atypical. By convention people interested in data interchange don't store json fraction values with precision greater than what can be represented in a double, because they can't rely on there being processors that can handle that. If they have a need for storing values with more precision, such as money values, they typically encode those as strings, e.g. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/json/current/msg04318.html. > If it is a result of calculations then it might deviate from its exact > value by a number of other reasons so the last digits do not really matter > and discrepancies in the end results are to be expected. If string format > is needed, just print them with enough precision to not lose the signal in > the noise. Users are funny about that, they tend to think that if they put fraction values into a json file with a precision within the allowed range of a double value, that if a processor takes that file and reeimits it, they want the same values back. You could make your argument for your json thing, if you had one, but users would probably just switch to another json thing that demonstrably did not have that issue. > > GNU also failed some round trip tests, but today you can be certain that > > they get that right. > Then it seems fortunate that I am using strtod_l() in my code Indeed, although the _l versions are unfortunately not standard, so cross platform json things have to do some work to undo the gift of locales. The reverse conversion function snprintf has some issues, though. One of them is that floating point numbers can have more than one representation, and generally the one with the fewest number of digits that will round trip is preferred. There is a modern algorithm girsu that will almost always produce the one with the fewest digits, but snprintf doesn't have that. json things that are careful about this, e.g. cjson, convert the number first with 15 digits of precision (numeric_limits<double>::digits10), see if that round trips, if so use it, if not use 17 digits of precision (numeric_limits<double>::max_digits10). This adds a cost, of course. > have had our own fights with test results coming out 13.4 on one machine > and 13.5 on another. The trick is to not round them up and to compare > them with an epsilon. Nonsense :-) Of course you can do whatever you like in your own world, but no json thing that had competitors and faced benchmarks could do that. > > floating point conversions did not round trip, users would report defects in > > the issues log (like they have for sajson, for example), and there's no way to fix a naive converter. Bad to have that in the issues log. > A perfect round trip would be nice, but not really essential. For open source json things, round trip is considered an essential "quality of implementation feature", and json things that did not support that would be at a big disadvantage. Competition in free software is fierce. > I can easily see in some situations one could prefer performance instead. Actually, round trip by itself can be implemented with negligible cost by retaining the precision of the input variables, provided it's under 17 (numeric_limits<double>::max_digits10.) The biggest issue for performance is that even the C functions strtod and snprintf are very slow compared to the dtoa and strtod implementations on netlib by David Gay (http://www.netlib.org/fp/dtoa.c), which are generally regarded as safe implementations. Of course Gay's implementations have flags that have to be set for IEEE_8087 or IEEE_MC68k or Honor_FLT_ROUNDS or whatever the floating point implementation, but a compiler vendor would have that, and should provide as efficient an implementation. Gay's implementations even do mallocs (which can easily be removed.) And of course no open source json things could use streams for floating point conversion, because streams faithfully follow the C++ "infinite overhead abstraction" and the "you get what you don't need" principle. My own view is that it's better for an open source json thing to work around the issues of strtod and snprintf, and accept the fact that it's going to score poorly on performance benchmarks compared to json things that implement their own. I admire what Milo Yip has done with RapidJson, but even that project still has the odd conversion issue reported - this is hard. There's not much to admire about the projects that have gone with naive floating point conversion, though. Daniel |
| Daniel <danielaparker@gmail.com>: Jun 14 03:55AM -0700 On Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 1:02:43 AM UTC-4, James Kuyper wrote: > about which messages you're talking about, it's always possible that > other people will only locate messages in which a more reasonable point > of view is being expressed. Can I ask you a question? What is your understanding of what TDD is? What books have you read about TDD, if any? Have you read Kent Beck's Test- Driven Development: By Example? Have you read Robert Martin's books and articles on Extreme Programming and Test Driven Development? Did you follow the usenet sites, especially comp.software.extreme-programming, around the years 2000 when TDD was being evangelized? Have you ever worked on a project that was run as a TDD project (specifically using the TDD terminology)? The reason I ask is that my impression from your posts is that you are a highly competent software professional with an engineering perspective, a deep knowledge of the software process and a thorough appreciation for how to test computer software, but no background whatsoever in what TDD actually is, and how it came to be one of the great hyped methodologies at the turn of the century. I think you're using your own understanding of specifications and testing and reading that into TDD, simply because it has the term "test" in it. Am I wrong? Best regards, Daniel |
| Paavo Helde <myfirstname@osa.pri.ee>: Jun 14 02:12PM +0300 On 14.06.2018 10:16, Paavo Helde wrote: > And the last line, when printed out in the rounded form with "%.1f" for > the user convenience, would become: > 13.4 13.5 13.4 Maybe I should have mentioned that I am a physicist by training. In physics, every (non-integer) number has an error margin. And the numbers 13.4 and 13.5 are equal if this error margin is at least 0.1. |
| Daniel <danielaparker@gmail.com>: Jun 14 04:36AM -0700 On Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 7:12:19 AM UTC-4, Paavo Helde wrote: > Maybe I should have mentioned that I am a physicist by training. In > physics, every (non-integer) number has an error margin. And the numbers > 13.4 and 13.5 are equal if this error margin is at least 0.1. Makes no difference to the argument. A json thing can't assume that the values in a json file have less than 17 significant digits if the values in the file have that many digits, that's not its business. Besides, the users have probably gotten rather fond of those particular digits, and would like to see them again when they come out the other end. They can use tolerances when they're working in their own space, and performing operations on the data. Daniel |
| James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu>: Jun 14 12:06PM -0400 On 06/14/2018 01:04 AM, Ian Collins wrote: > On 14/06/18 14:24, Daniel wrote: ... >> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/comp.software.extreme-programming/robert$20martin$20specification%7Csort:date/comp.software.extreme-programming/AWHY1EkwFvw/-IwaWj7nJ0EJ ... > Isn't that what I and others have been saying? The tests are "very low > level and very detailed specifications", they are not the only > specification. No, to say that they are "the true requirements" implies that any other description of the requirements must not be "true", whatever that means. ... > None of the above claims TDD test to be the one and only specification. "*the* true requirements". |
| James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu>: Jun 14 02:50PM -0400 On 06/14/2018 06:55 AM, Daniel wrote: > turn of the century. I think you're using your own understanding of > specifications and testing and reading that into TDD, simply because it has > the term "test" in it. Am I wrong? No, I'm not reading anything from my own experience about testing into TDD, about which I know very little, and have never claimed otherwise. I'm trying, with relatively little success, to post messages designed to encourage people to address each other's points directly, so I can learn something about TDD from the discussion other than the fact that some of you strongly believe in it, and the others do not. You've repeatedly claimed that people who I presume are founders of TDD have made extreme statements about what TDD is, which other people have denied. They asked you to back up your claim with specific citations, to which you responded with a vague hand-wave at an entire newsgroup full of discussions by the people in question. You didn't provide a properly specific response until you responded to my message - prompting you to do something like that was the purpose of that message. |
| red floyd <dont.bother@its.invalid>: Jun 14 09:53AM -0700 On 6/14/2018 2:55 AM, Rosario19 wrote: > } > and the sys not automatic call it... this can be useful for doing > arrays of type T using malloc ** *READ* ** the link that Chris gave you. It gives you the proper syntax for placement new and delete. |
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