Google Chrome

[VectraMan]

I asked him, in his world, should planes just have a big red button called "Fly" and that anyone could use them. He agreed it was a great idea and would do away with costly pilots.

Aeroplanes have been flying themselves for a while. In fact the Eurofighter goes one step further: it can't be flown by a human. The human is only there to guide it and operate the weapons.

Making things better doesn't equate to dumbing down. And with software, it should be obvious. If you ever have to read instructions on how to use software, then it's been badly designed.

And as for browsers, if you were really clever you'd be using telnet, typing in HTTP commands an interpreting the HTML in your head, not using a browser like any idiot.

[NickFitz]

...if you were really clever you'd be using telnet, typing in HTTP commands an interpreting the HTML in your head, not using a browser like any idiot.

I do that sometimes, but only for testing purposes... honest

[NickFitz]

I hope to be - but haven't heard back from them. May have registered too late.

Bummer

FWIW I applied the first day registration opened, and didn't get a reply for several weeks, so all may not be lost. (I think they have an actual human dealing with it, rather than an algorithm.)

[bogeyman]

How do I write a browser in FORTRAN IV again?



Me too... so that's gas & stick welding, with a bit of MIG thrown in...

Doesn't work quite so well with wood, but I'm slowly getting better.

Haven't got a FORTRAN one but I have a nice COBOL one but it needs to print out every page you visit using ASCII (errr EBCDIC) art, on greenline fanfold paper.

To click, you highlight the link with a fluorescent yellow Stabilo pen and send it to the punch girls down the hall.

Wood welding never really took off did it. Too much trouble sanding off the scorch marks.

p.s. somebody has apparently made a browser in cobol.net

[Dark Black]

When you say 'old school', I think what you really mean to say is: -

"Look! I've spend years of my life learning this crap, and, even if the crap I know is now largely redundant, I resent anybody being able to achieve exactly the same result, without knowing all the redundant crap I had to learn."

EVERYTHING gets dumbed down.

There's a name for it. It's called 'technological advancement'.

An aeroplane with a 'fly' button would be ideal (in fact already exists, nearly).

A car with a 'drive' button would be even better, and safer, if the technology was up to it (and it will be in a few years time).

Do you buy your own crockery rather than making it on a potter's wheel and firing it in your own kiln? I expect a master potter would say that was 'dumbing down'.

I'm a pretty technical sort of hands-on chap, but even I can appreciate that not everyone has the time or desire to learn arcane skills and knowledge just to be able to accomplish everyday tasks.

Call them stupid and lazy if you like, but you just sound like someone who's jealously guarding their hard won, but obsolete and useless, knowledge.

These days I find I want to learn real-world, practical skills (like woodworking) rather than studying the latest .NET or Java techniques.

No, you are wrong - it has nothing to do with being jealous or resentful.

Nor does it have to do with arcane skills - I believe in the right skills for the job, regardless of them being old or the very latest technology.

What I don't believe in is technology for the sake of it. .NET is a case in point there, My background is C/C++. Java came along and did everything that C++ should have done in the first place but didn't quite manage so it added something to the industry and I love it to bits. .NET in the otherhand is a bloated, ill-conceived attempt by MicroS**t to take over over the development industry as a result I won't touch it with a barge pole and leave it to the script kiddies.

My point being that just because something is new or as "you" put it - 'technological advancement' doesn't necessarily make it better.

Do you really want to live in a world where everything is done by a single button push, where everyone has the same skill level?

Because I really don't... thanks.

[VectraMan]

What I don't believe in is technology for the sake of it. .NET is a case in point there, My background is C/C++. Java came along and did everything that C++ should have done in the first place but didn't quite manage so it added something to the industry and I love it to bits.

I have to disagree with your assessment of Java. Java offered much as a tidied up version of C++, but by tying it to a third party runtime rather than let it produce native code, it was never going to take the place of C++. Indeed if you look at the hype around Java when it first came out, you can only conclude that Java failed in all its objectives.

That was technology for the sake of it. It seems to have made a bit of a comeback in recent years, but perhaps only because universities started teaching it as an easier alternative to C++.

[Board Game Geek]

Do you really want to live in a world where everything is done by a single button push, where everyone has the same skill level?

Because I really don't... thanks.

That sums it up nicely.

I'd call it the homogonisation of effort and initiative, sacrificed at the altar of apathy and self-abandonment.

[bogeyman]

No, you are wrong - it has nothing to do with being jealous or resentful.

Nor does it have to do with arcane skills - I believe in the right skills for the job, regardless of them being old or the very latest technology.

What I don't believe in is technology for the sake of it. .NET is a case in point there, My background is C/C++. Java came along and did everything that C++ should have done in the first place but didn't quite manage so it added something to the industry and I love it to bits. .NET in the otherhand is a bloated, ill-conceived attempt by MicroS**t to take over over the development industry as a result I won't touch it with a barge pole and leave it to the script kiddies.

My point being that just because something is new or as "you" put it - 'technological advancement' doesn't necessarily make it better.

Do you really want to live in a world where everything is done by a single button push, where everyone has the same skill level?

Because I really don't... thanks.

I was kind of with you up until the MicroS**t (LOLZ) rant. Then I though 'oh god another foaming-at-the-mouth MS hater'. Your arguments from that point on were pretty much void.

[NickFitz]

I was kind of with you up until the MicroS**t (LOLZ) rant. Then I though 'oh god another foaming-at-the-mouth MS hater'. Your arguments from that point on were pretty much void.

He's right though... about the MS stuff.

.NET is pretty shoddy technology as currently implemented, despite all the attempts to patch it up. I realise that they were initially stuck with building it as a hack on top of the Win32 API, and therefore it couldn't be expected to be perfect in the first iteration. The problem is that they thought it would replace the Win32 API very rapidly, yet nearly a decade later, it's still reliant on, guess what... the Win32 API.

So it's still very much a hack. A much more polished hack, but it's still better conceptually than as implemented. The various shiny bits added to the C# language specification can't detract from the fact that ultimately, you're probably hitting COM somewhere down the line.

[voodooflux]

He's right though... about the MS stuff.

No he's not. Although he is right about some of the other stuff

.NET is pretty shoddy technology as currently implemented, despite all the attempts to patch it up.

I think that's very, very unfair. The .NET environment is the best development platform I've used on an M$ platform, and I've used most of them since Windows 3.0 (VB, C/C++, Java, etc.). It's not perfect, and it may be bloated in places, but shoddy it is not.