This is a great article! I myself am Canadian and agree with many of articles points.
Living in Toronto it's noticeable to recognize it's the financial industry runs this city, then comes marketing and advertising. Tech here in Toronto primarily just service these industries.
Now when it comes to getting people to invest in tech startups, is not a lack of money - it's the investors who have money and lack of knowledge in the tech industry. (Most of them having financial backgrounds)
In my opinion, if you are publicly posting inappropriate content and showing it at work to your co-workers and or students, then yes, there should be some consequence. However, if someone is snooping and around for personal info about a teacher or an employee, i believe there is a better approach to handling the situation. Perhaps maybe making the teacher or employee revoke public access to his or her webpage/personal info.
I can only imagine how many teachers and employees would be out of a job if all their personal and private life details dug up and investigated.
I find that in canada (toronto, ontario) programmers are not paid near the amounts of programmers in the US.
5 years ago i started at 40K (working in Hamilton). Now living in toronto, and i find that newly graduate programmers start around 50K-60K, and senior programmers make anywhere between 80K-100K.
I feel that living toronto/ontario, programmers are utilized as tradesmen, where they service the industry (corporations, banks, publications, marketing firms etc...)
I just wish there was more of a tech/startup industry in toronto, like there is in California, Boston, New York, etc..
I think there are 2 markets here that need to be separated when comparing RIM with Apple and Android.
Corporate and Consumer.
RIM dominates the enterprise/corporate market and as of recent has been trying to break into the consumer market.
Black berries where made for the corporate/work industry. Apple always has made consumer based products. So we are comparing apple to oranges.
It's like taking a car company that's focuses on building trucks and then comparing it to a car company that builds luxury cars.
They are completely different. That being said, when entering into a new market, for instance with RIM entering into the consumer market, it's going to take some time for RIM to gain market share.
Now, has RIM made some bad development platform decisions in their process? yes they have. But if you're going to compare RIM to consumer based companies, I think it's a little premature - give them another year or two.
I wouldn't say Usain Bolt is talented because he's the faster runner. Majority reason why he is so fast is because of the amount distance he can cover with his leg stretch over his opponents due to his height; not his talented ability to quickly move one foot in front of another (just like ever professional runner has)
You're right. But only to a certain extent. If you are building medium to heavy based JS web apps (without using frameworks like JQuery) JS can throw some unexpected/questioning curve balls along the way, due to the design flaws of how it was built.
Great Job - A month ago I had the thought of creating a similar cork board concept app myself, using html/js/css - today I open HN and I see your app - well done!
LandLandon, BBM is so popular for the reasons mentioned above. But the main reason is because it comes pre-installed with every blackberry - Just like Microsoft and Internet Explorer, you might as well ask the same question as to why Internet Explorer on windows is the most popular web browser in the world? when at the same time, it's the worst/most hated.
Ted Livingston worked for RIM and saw problem, a big gap that needed to be filled in. Which was, taking the best black berry app and making it accessible on every major smart phone out there.
I agree, we're definitely targeting mid-core gamers which can be challenging to introduce them to our game at times. If you keep the too simple, people get board and leave, if you keep the game to complex people get lost and leave. it's really a matter of finding the balance to teach them game skills to progress through the upcoming levels.
Mortuus, this is a great reply. Thanks for the detailed points. Choosing a character name is something i'll be adding to the game shortly.
I definitely agree with regarding the 15 minute wait for turn play. My team decided to go with 15 minutes so users don't burn through content (chapter art) too quickly.
Definitely will consider the speeding up the turn play duration.
it's inefficient because the browser has to search/loop through the DOM looking for the exact pattern of the corresponding css rules, instead of a direct pointer like:
tables are good, except when it comes to a point when you have to start nesting tables within each other to format your your layout.
explanation is below:
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people who love tables would switch over to CSS if it did what everyone(and standards) makes it out to be and actually worked and/or rendered the same in ALL browsers (css hacks don't count as css)
but no matter what you say about CSS....(and i'm all for CSS) ...CSS can't solve all design issues...and if it can...it takes way to long to figure out... and if only a 10 year veteran/css master can implement flawless layouts then CSS isn't a practical language.
in theory is CSS is awesome!
i use tables for tables (tabular data)
and i use CSS to layouts and comesic design.
think about it...if CSS rendered the same way in every browser abiding by CSS standards ...even developers who are pro tables...would switch over.
the reason why there is such conflict between tables and CSS is because many of people have tried CSS countless number of times and hours trying to make their template/layout work...however they've came across so many road blocks ...they give up.
i'm not saying tables are the ultimate design language...and i think people agree....they just use it because it works. in ALL browers!
but me say ONE LAST THING!
its not CSS the language that is problem....is the number of browsers that choose not to render CSS properly.
i've been developing in PHP for 6 years now....and i have tried many frameworks. the one i like the most in my opinion is CodeIgniter.
CodeIgniter is very flexible and not as strict when it comes to implementing your own code and (libraries/classes/plugins). It's very simple, implements great separation (in regard of its MVC archt.) which makes it easy to understand and use.
The framework has great, easy to follow documentation with great forum support and a growing community.
i say just watch one of their video tutorials of their website and you'll see how easy it is to get started on a project.
As for an IDE editor:
if you're using windows....i HIGHLY RECOMMEND PhpED (by nusphere)
I have tested every possible editor out there and this one by far is the BEST. It's fully featured in every aspect, easily customized and runs fast!.
they have definitely taken programmers needs and dumped it into this application.