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* Posts by KKaria

6 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2011

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?

KKaria
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Facepalm

Missed the point

@Titus Technophobe

I think you missed the point. Online selling is a channel, yes, but a very improtant one. The media industry has had many years to adapt to it. There was a point when not selling online was an option but not any more. Companies still have free choice, but if they don't chose to sell online / make the media available more easily, freetards will resort to piracy. I don't support it but it is simply the common outcome. So the media companies go after the freetards should just use blanket legistation like SOPA or PIPA. If your business is under threat find a way to handle it without causing problems for the rest of the world. Go after pirates, but don't attack the freedom of the Internet. Basically GROW UP and learn to compete in the current market which is now mostly online.

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Acer, Samsung, Lenovo line up behind Nvidia Tegra 3

KKaria

I too am waiting for the Transformer Prime. Personally, I have not invested in a table so far because I was waiting for the software / hardware to mature. I think ICS is the going to work well on a tablet as powerfull as the Prime and it should be worth the money. Lets see the price it is released at.

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Nervous Samsung seeks Android Plan F. Or G, H ....

KKaria
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Joke

Bada

Bada Bing Bada Bing? (In a New York accent)

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Google admits Android 'both open and closed'

KKaria
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Managing a commercial environment around opensource

I understand both sides of the story here. Purists don't want Google to say that Android is "Open" whilst others say that although the management style of Google for the project is not "Open" the platform eventually is. The only reason people have a problem with Honeycomb is that Motorola released hardware. Had it still been in development and there are other vendors that are still developing for it, the situation would be different.

If a developer working on an open source project does not commit his/her work to the source tree it is ok because they are still "developing" and may not have the code ready or it may break the trunk. This is how all open source development happens. The problem is that if that developer starts shipping their "version" of the project without commiting their code to the trunk, other developers and service providers shout foul. This is what has happened to Android.

My take on this whole thing is that Google has used their dominance and size to muscle into the mobile OS arena. They want to do it via the open source method but if you check the current landscape of open source OS for mobile devices you will realise that this is the only credible attempt. Others have lagged behind or died on the way. Yes Google is right up close to the line when it comes to "Do no Evil", but in this case they have taken the decision to do this to get to market and create space for themselves.

Lets face it, all device manufacturers now have the ability to come to market with their hardware and at least compete with Apple. Who made that possible and with who's money? You may be a version behind / ahead based on how close you are to Google, that to me is a bad business practice but other than forcing device manufacturers to follow a strict set of guidelines do you see a way to keep an open platform from fragmenting. To me it has already fragmented more than it should have.

Also please put this in context with everything else Google has done in the past. Google have helped open source initiatives around the world in many ways. They have broken down the barriers to entry to help small teams take on incumbent companies. I will therefore give them the benefit of the doubt and wait to see if they release the source code for Honeycomb.

If I am a device manufacturer I can still use Gingerbread to get my device to market. Honeycomb is just a major upgrade and merge project to get all Andriod development into a single tree. I can wait for it when it has stabilised.

Flame on, its your right.

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Ruskie Java coder lifts inaugural Facebook Hacker Cup

KKaria
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The balance in language

@maccy: Your statement is concise but yet lacks meaning. Clearly aimed at flaming an argument or may be you just could not be bothered to illuminate others with WHY you can't do anything in JAVA. Do you know how to code in Java? If you do and STILL can't do anything in it then CAN you really code in Java? Such a statement is just BULL. Check the banking sector to see how much code is written in Java.

Now to the real point about comparing languages. Firstly it is like comparing apples and oranges. I say this because each language sets out to fulfil certain gaols.

In the case of C it was speed and the need to replace Assembly with something more natural to write, etc. This was followed by C++ to aim at high abstraction (hence object orientation etc.)

In the case of Java it was yet more abstraction and the need to remove some of the pitfalls of coding to make it more productive such as the removal of pointers (powerfull as they are, they are not needed with higher levels of abstration with the RAM capacity / CPU speed increases over time you can afford to be more abstract in code and lenient on resource usage).

Java, as the coder said, is harder to make a mistake in. It lacks confusing / error prone concepts like pointers and memory management while making other concepts easier to implements such as threading, exception handling and I/O. You can get the same results in Java as in C / C++ with a variation on time to code, time to debug / test, speed of execution, etc. So basically it depends on your problem. What do you need more execution speed or shorter time to market?

On the other hand, Java is not as capable when it comes to some concepts which other languages are fulfilling much more easilynow (such as Closure, Scala, et al.)

In summary, C / C++ will survive a long time and will remain the best launguages where resources are limited and execution speed is of the essence. Similarly Java will be around for a long time too suited to its problem domain.

All in all, I admire the analytical minds of these competitors. If anything they help encorage others to improve themselves. If what you need for a job is an analytical mind then these candidates have certainly highlighted themselves.

Just my 2 cents (or may be I just its $2 looking at the size of the post :) )

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Android malware attacks show perils of Google openness

KKaria
Coat

What does openness mean to you?

The discussion on whether open is good or bad is irrelevant. The problem is that the masses have lost the ability to think for themselves. If we take this as a differenciator we find that those people who would rather want the manufactorer of their mobile device to be in control are simply giving up their ability to make decisions by trusting who they consider an "expert".

On the flip side it is not easy to know who to trust. If someone can convince the masses that they have built a application store that can be trusted (good marketing always wins the masses for reference check the status of the food industry) then that individual / organization can take control of user's free choice.

What we are likely to see here is "safe" markets appear for android. Which means that organizations will create processes where they vet apps and certify them as fit for purpose or "safe". I say that in quotes because you can never really be 100% safe. There are always updates, glitches and bugs to deal with. How do you think the iPhone got jail broken. All it requires is that a user trust an app they downloaded and it can replace the OS on the device!

Bottom line is that if you try to make something fool proof you just end up making better fools. This is an old quote and people should be pretty familiar with it. I personally prefer openness. I like choice. What Android means to me is that I have a choice on which hardware I want (small screen or large? real keyboard or virtual? SD cards or no extra storage, flash or no flash, etc.....)

I also get a choice on who I trust to write software for me.

If I use my device for business / productivity then I would not download and install fart apps willy nilly. I have to have some sense. Therefore when the previous poster @wathend says:

"Sure Android is open and fun but for businesses and serious users who do banking and most other things on their phones these days the Apple App Store is the safest as far as Im concerned."

I feel that the point is being missed. If you need safety and you have sensitive data on your device then BE CAREFULL AND DON'T DO ANYTHING RISKY.

I have a daughter and I am very careful on making sure the environment she lives in. I don't control what she does, I make sure that the things around her are safe for her to deal with. This is the mentality most users of computers have not entered where they are the children and the software/hardware manufacturers are parents. Get over it. If you are an adult then take adult decisions on what to do. Learn to understand what trust is, how to build it / give it to others.

Disclaimer: I have an iPhone 3G but I will not be upgrading. I am also a developer and have been developing for over 10 years.

Here is a quote:

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Henry David Thoreau

Source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fool.html#ixzz1FcYTWBvl

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