Channel 9 - Discussions by jsrfc58

Coffeehouse - Blender Tutorials/Books

jsrfc58 — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:18:28 GMT

If you can find a copy, you might want to pick up The Blender Book. It's a little bit dated now, and bits of the UI have changed, but there is still a lot of useful information in it. If you are into character animation, there's Introducing Character Animation with Blender. I have a copy, but I haven't gone through it yet. There's also more tutorials at BlenderArt.

Coffeehouse - XAML/WPF Usage

jsrfc58 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:05:41 GMT

Are any developers using XAML seriously yet? Are you shipping any products with WPF functionality? I'm curious to see what people have come up with, beyond the typical MS examples/demos I've seen.

Coffeehouse - Apple getting a clue?

jsrfc58 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:53:56 GMT

Rossj wrote:

Have Apple finally realised that developers are actually useful? Will they stop releasing products that kill products written by small indie developers? Is it just all about Sales. I suspect the latter, but isn't it the case with all companies? Isn't 'developers, developers, developers' all about Sales as well?

Back in the Apple ][ days, they *seemed* to care a lot more about developers. The "indie" industry also seemed to be a lot more devoted...and there were several third party development houses around...Beagle Bros., Br0derbund, Sierra Software and many others. It was a lot of fun. You could write code that would work on an Apple IIc, II+, IIe and a IIGS (with expanded abilities of course on that machine). But when the Macintosh came along, it seemed like there was a major shift, and I gave up at that point. I haven't found a reason to go back.

Coffeehouse - awesome thread by jsrfc58, Mike, and Sven

jsrfc58 — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:18:38 GMT

Wow...er, thanks. I was just trying to bounce ideas off of the very helpful people here after spending weeks doing through Google searches.

More ideas I bounced off of people:

Data Structures and Timing
3-D Code Tools
Off the Wall Questions About Data Structures
Looking Glass, 3-D Environments

There is a method to the madness of the questions I was asking, because I had lots of interesting "ideas" for an IDE and a language. I haven't worked on it in a few months (going through a divorce kind of throws off your concentration a bit), but one thing I was (and still am) trying to figure out is "which platform". As in, Linux or Windows. After reading about what might happen to OpenGL performance under Vista and re-familiarizing myself with Knoppix last weekend, I'm leaning towards Linux now. Plus, I had a couple of office application ideas, and well, I don't think Microsoft/Windows needs any help at this point.

I didn't get very far through some of the compiler books, but that is more of a personal-learning-style issue because one of the books worked really well for me (Louden's I think). I understand the concepts for the most part. Problem was, I had to return it to the library (who in turn returned it to the university) and only got through the chapter on "Non-Deterministic Finite State Automata".

Besides, for something as big as I am envisioning, I'm still trying to decide whether I want to commit the time to it.

Coffeehouse - awesome thread by jsrfc58, Mike, and Sven

jsrfc58 — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:18:09 GMT

Coffeehouse - Does persistence pay off when getting a job with Microsoft?

jsrfc58 — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:51:19 GMT

blowdart wrote:

Charles wrote:

blowdart wrote:

Charles wrote: When would persistence not make sense when trying to accomplish something that's non-trivial?

C

When on balance the thing you are trying to accomplish isn't actually worth the effort?

That's a reasonable answer. When else?

When you're a child and your idea of presistance is "But I need it" repeated every minute.

There is a point where the results of persistance just sour the whole experience for you; well it did for me anyway.

There are also other things in life that are a little bit more important than your "job" (family, kids, etc.).

It's kind of like when I got through a C Primer book, and then went and picked up a Unix book and sort of said "gee, that's it? This isn't difficult." In some ways, I think a lot of dev jobs at Microsoft aren't actually that difficult once you really dig into them, and have access to appropriate study materials (at least not for me). The question really then becomes, are you, as an organization willing to spend the time teaching somebody or do you want "instant rock stars" to only apply? That seems to be the mode that your company is in right now (maybe I'm wrong). Plus, I don't believe in "sacrificing everything" just for the sake of a career at this company. That's just plain unrealistic, and if and when you guys ever have layoffs, you'll know what I mean. That sort of attitude is great for young salespeople, but in the end it makes for hollow personalities.

Coffeehouse - Does persistence pay off when getting a job with Microsoft?

jsrfc58 — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 02:21:19 GMT

petknep_home wrote:

I interviewed twice for interning, turned down both times. Got some industry experience doing real win32 work then applied for a full time and got it.

My tips: Know how COM works, be able to debug it, understand how to make objects script accessible, etc. Be able to write apps w/ GDI calls.

I applied a handful of times to your organization...never got an interview, though. I know some technologies cold, however, but unfortunately, they are not Microsoft related. It's not that I couldn't learn how COM works on a deep level, and do all the things you list, but for some weird reason I get the feeling that all the effort I would put into learning such technologies would just be a waste of time because I didn't know anybody on the inside. The sheer volume of resumes pouring in just doesn't help. Plus, it would be my experience to be interviewed and get asked obscure questions that I probably would not have an answer to...and yes you could say it is the "thinking process" that really counts, but I'm sure there would be enough other candidates out there that would know the answer, and therefore I would get knocked out. Although I'm very good at thinking out of the box, fwiw.

Coffeehouse - IE Market Share Drops to Lowest Level in Years

jsrfc58 — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:18:11 GMT

Rossj wrote:

He does - there is a link to Sven's stuff on there too The others point to the codeproject articles. This seeming to be the most popular.

So much for that link for now...

"The ASP engine on this server (IIS 5) is prone to crashing under high load."

Coffeehouse - IE Market Share Drops to Lowest Level in Years

jsrfc58 — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:16:34 GMT

AndyC wrote:

Yeah they have the super secret version of MSDN. It's not like it's all documented in the normal one anywhere....

Great. It sounds like you really know what you are talking about here and have worked a great deal with this particular issue. Care to share your experiences with the rest of us?

Or not?

Coffeehouse - IE Market Share Drops to Lowest Level in Years

jsrfc58 — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:58:29 GMT

ZippyV wrote:

I tried to find some information to write an extension for IE to block ads but I couldn't find anything besides complicated C++ samples. I give up, no .net, no javascript extension. Extending IE = crap.

Thanks for mentioning this...I used to think I was the only one having this problem. I'm guessing that certain software houses (i.e. Adobe) must get more inside information on how to do this (as opposed to the rest of us).

Coffeehouse - How Long Have You Been in Tech?

jsrfc58 — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 18:18:27 GMT

How long? Too many years, that's how long.

thumbtacks wrote:

10 GR
20 POKE-16368,0
30 FOR C=1 TO 10000
40 A=INT(RND(1)*3)+1
50 ON A GOSUB 100,150,200,250
60 IF PEEK (-16384)>127 THEN END
70 NEXT C
80 END

I have a suggestion for this code. On line 60, you check to see if the user if pressing a key (as a means of escape). Then, if they are pressing a key with an ASCII value greater than 127, it ends. That leaves the user with a lo-res screen in the middle of a "wipe". Shouldn't you rewrite it like this?

60 IF PEEK (-16384)>127 THEN TEXT: HOME: END

The same thing should probably be added to line 80.

Coffeehouse - Microsoft to lock pirates out of Vista PCs

jsrfc58 — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 18:13:55 GMT

MrTorvalds wrote:

Hmmmm... it sounds like I may need to hold off from testing Vista. My cousin will likely be quite pleased with this.

Wait...Mr. Torvalds, which desktop do you prefer? KDE or Gnome?

Or is it better not to pick sides on this subject...

P.S. Have you seen anything from the Plasma team yet? Has anybody?

Coffeehouse - We Should Unban Beer

jsrfc58 — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 15:54:24 GMT

staceyw wrote:

footballism wrote: if we can unban Eagle, then why not Beer?

Sheva

No, because it is just too easy to simulate beer. All they have to do is create an AutoBot that just replies to every post with "Windows stinks, Linux is better...". What do we learn?

That's not true. Some of Beer's replies I did not always understand at first, but later on I referred back to them once I became familiar with a Linux distro or two. I'm not saying that he was always correct in his assessments, but in several cases he made some very good points. Yes, the legal issues were a little over the top, and I'm still unclear as to what those accomplished.

Coffeehouse - VS2005 SP1 Testers: Is it faster?

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:30:12 GMT

phreaks wrote:

In my experience so far with SP1 beta, not only do designers load faster, but the footprint of VS.Net has improved immensly.

My Average footprint was 200+ megs, it is now only consuming about 32 megs.

whipiee!

Just out of curiousity, is that a memory footprint? Also, how big is Visual Studio on a disc?

Coffeehouse - new operating system

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:28:04 GMT

Stoo wrote:

I was sitting at my desk today and in the peak of my boredom, I started pondering... My thoughts turned to operating systems, the current operating systems in existance.

They all seem to be focused around the same old stale metaphors. Its almost like they are so far down one path that there is no REAL innovation. Its seems like current OS's are in a lazy rut.

I was wondering, would it be too late for a new comer OS, one that perhaps was radically different in the way it approached information flow and user input? One that would be more "human" and cognitive. One that watched you and learned your working habits and adapted accordingly?

I think it depends a bit on the hardware you intend to target with your OS. If you are aiming at the desktop market, you would have to learn a lot of deep down details (multitasking, graphics, etc.). It is not as simple as it used to be, unless you are going to incorporate some pre-built components. But yes, the desktop metaphors have been stale for a while. I did work on a kernel for the Apple IIc many years ago, where I ripped out large parts of the file manager system on Dos 3.3 and reduced the code down to the disk read/write routines (down to the RWTS only). From there I started to rebuild the OS and was able to get it to boot on its own. I never finished it, but I learned a lot and spent the entire time coding in assembly language/machine code without the benefit of a nice assembler. That's not the most efficient way to go about things, but it was cool to have it boot on its own. I was also in the process of redesigning file structures/catalog structures, but then I shifted to other projects.

It probably wasn't overly user friendly either because after it booted it left you at the * prompt (monitor prompt), although I did have a text intro screen. And to format a disk you would have to type something like:

* A040G

Fun.

I did learn a lot about sector interleaving as a means of accelerating file access through software, though.

Coffeehouse - I think I know why Zune won't succeed this year...

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:18:52 GMT

JKelley wrote:

On the FM Transmitter / Receiver thing...

The FM receiver is built in, so you can listen to normal radio stations, or as I think the target is more likely, at the gym where they broadcast the audio for a bank of TV's over FM and tell you what station to tune into. Most decent MP3 players that I know of have one, except for that one that starts with an i... I don't remember its name.

The transmitter on the other hand is usually an accessory you can buy that plugs into your device (I have one that works through the headphone jack) and lets you then listen to whatever you're playing on a nearby radio. This is kind of the more modern equivalent of the old cassette adapters you could buy for your portable CD player to listen in the car. The one I have works alright, I actually bought it so I could beam my PC's MP3 collection across my apartment to my stereo. I don't know if one that were built specifically for a particular device and used a dock connector would offer any better quality than the headphone jack version. I think you end up being limited by the quality of an FM transmission anyway so its probably not a big deal.

Okay...thanks for the explanation. That helps. I wonder if they let you adjust what frequency it transmits at? And, if you have more than one Zune in the room, would they interfere with each other if they are at the same frequency.

Also, could you come up with some type of podcast, store it on your Zune, and broadcast it to other cars as you pass them in traffic?

Edge cases, I guess.

Coffeehouse - VS2005 SP1 Testers: Is it faster?

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:59:53 GMT

Dr Herbie wrote:

Not really, it's pragmatic. You know, doing what must be done to get something to market by a given deadline?

VS is a complex product, but the software that it produces is often less complex. Therefore while VS might have issues, the output won't. Seems pretty logical to me.

I can see your point...am perhaps those issues will be addressed in a service pack down the road. I remember that uninstalling Borland Builder was sometimes a strange experience because my system was usually never quite the same afterwards. I know they are under immense pressure to put out their products, however.

Coffeehouse - VS2005 SP1 Testers: Is it faster?

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:50:51 GMT

linux_guru wrote:

Question: Does it work? According to this, Visual Studio 2005 will have Vista compatibility issues out of the box and Visual Studio 2003/2002 will not even be supported on Vista (though VB6 will for some reason). With backwards compatibility like this, you've got to ask yourselves why so many here believe that Vista is going to be such a slam dunk. If they have to replace all of their applications anyway... why not free yourself of those Microsoft shackles and go Linux?

I'm actually glad I never bought Visual Studio version [pick a year]. So I wonder if this will also break SharpDevelop, and I can only imagine that my Borland C++ Builder 6.0 wouldn't even work at all.

Wow. I'm sure lots of IT departments across the nation would love to shell out more money for new versions of Visual Studio.

That Blog wrote:

You can continue to use Visual Studio .NET 2002 or 2003 on Windows XP to develop applications that can run on Windows Vista.

Does anybody else thing that is a really whacked way of doing things?

Coffeehouse - I think I know why Zune won't succeed this year...

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:43:45 GMT

W3bbo wrote:

I think the article's author meant "FM Receiver", since unlicensed FM transmitters are illegal in many places.

That's was going to be my next question...the FCC in the States is battling little "pirate" FM transmitter stations that keep appearing all over the place, but only broadcast short distances (like a couple of miles). Unless the Zune is set up like the ol' Mr. Microphone that Ronco used to sell.

The receiver part would make more sense...

Coffeehouse - I think I know why Zune won't succeed this year...

jsrfc58 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:35:36 GMT

Zune Vs. iPod War

ThisIsLondon wrote:

It also will feature a 3-inch screen and a built-in FM transmitter, and will come loaded with about 25 songs and other content. The rectangular device has a simple look and feel similar to the iPod.

Why would such a device need an FM transmitter? I don't own an iPod...do iPods do this too or do they plug into your car's audio system? I'm assuming it will be able to broadcast short distances to your car radio or something...?

Coffeehouse - Windows DRM cracked. Again.

jsrfc58 — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:58:15 GMT

More info...

News.com wrote:

The copyright lawsuit was filed in Seattle federal court last Friday, without a name attached. Just as in the recording industry's many lawsuits against accused file swappers, it targets an unknown individual or individuals, whose true identity will be sought in the course of the case.

Coffeehouse - Windows DRM cracked. Again.

jsrfc58 — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:00:05 GMT

This is exactly why I dread having to do anything security related as a job...essentially, you never really win. But this pattern has been around for decades and will probably never change until they develop hardware that employs a true sense of randomization (and I don't mean by depending on a clock cycle or whatever). As I have stated before, the only truly random input will have to come from nature.

Maybe.

I'm not sure if they rely on prime numbers for their algorithms or what. I do remember seeing some diagrams (on here or a blog I think) that kind of explained the dizzying amount of steps involved in playing anything DRM related.

Yet with more and more "cores" being added to chips, won't computational power increase? I'm sure at some point we'll start to see more algorithms fail, more DRM get broken, etc. Empirically, it's merely a game where the programmer tries to throw out enough encryption and security roadblocks in a bid to stall for time (usually). Sometimes that "time" is in years, sometimes it is in weeks.

Coffeehouse - Why are we still writing code?

jsrfc58 — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:14:21 GMT

Massif wrote:

If you want a better argument as to why we aren't using graphical languages, then you hit the nail yourself when talking about Abstraction.

Any graphical language is going to be a big abstraction away from the hardware, and as such will inevitably suffer according to Joel's law of leaky abstractions. (If you believe Joel, which on this issue I do.)

I agree, but only to a certain point. There has always been some level of abstraction in programming, however, whether you are using assembly language, C, C++, or using Javascript (lots of abstraction there). And yes, the more clever you try to get with your abstractions, the bigger the chance that you will come up with code/visuals that suffer performance losses. Of course, what also comes with it is what someone else mentioned above...an abundance of the old "everybody is a programmer!" mentality.

Subroutines and functions can be represented graphically...perhaps by spacing them off into blocks/panels of code and showing the interconnections between them. Right now, this is usually done by color changes and indentation in the code, but showing the actual connections between functions is not done very well (if at all).

Coffeehouse - Why are we still writing code?

jsrfc58 — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:50:41 GMT

One of the things I always wanted to develop was a "visual parser". I find that although most compiler technology is highly optimized these days, it still plods along, scanning a character at a time (and then tries to turn those into tokens, etc.). It's time to rethink that methodology, because when it comes to debugging, several environments tend to act incredibly stupid when confronted with something as simple as a missing semicolon. The parser should be able to scan the code from the end to the beginning and in the traditional way, or in a completely different way altogether.

I've thought a great deal about visual programming languages, and even drafted up several ideas at one point. The problem is not so much that it is not possible, but that you have to make a compromise at some point. For instance, if you have an equation like "x²+ y² = z²", how do you represent that visually? You really can't, although perhaps you could have a visual component and then overlay the text on top of that.

Coffeehouse - iWoz: The Book

jsrfc58 — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:37:07 GMT

Co-founder tells his side of Apple story

Reuters wrote:

In a book titled "iWoz" published this week, Wozniak seeks to tell the engineer's side of the story and set a few things in the record straight.

I can't wait to read this...