Thread: There's no such thing as free lunch... (yea, I'm pointing at you FOSS)

  1. #16
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by g4j31a5
    The bad thing about open source is you have to build it based on its dependencies.
    ... if a suitable build is not already available for your use.

    Quote Originally Posted by g4j31a5
    Just my two cents about open source.
    You may be better off giving your two cents about "Simulation Core and Delta 3D", since you seem to consistently misrepresent "open source" as if it were a single entity with the claimed characteristics.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

  2. #17
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    For most personal projects open source works fine but most companies want and/or require 3rd party vendor support. After all the reason you are using the library is so you do not have to maintain and you do not have to spend development time creating it. If the open source solution requires you to still do most of that then it is not a viable solution and offers nothing for your project.

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  4. #19
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by g4j31a5 View Post
    The bad thing about open source is you have to build it based on its dependencies. If the dependencies are deep enough, you'll probably gonna hit an error here and there.
    That does not follow at all (in fact, it does not make sense because one library's dependence on another has zero to do with whether or not it is open source).

    I could list hundreds and hundreds of free software libraries I've installed and/or built from source, on dozens of systems (some commercial), often including long dependency chains, and occasionally there are problems, but those are the exception, and they are usually obscure things. Libraries that have a large user base are, as a rule, pretty stable, and that includes there dependency chain. Libraries that do not can be anything. I suppose something which is defective to start with might be more likely to end up as open source (perhaps the developers are hoping for help, etc) but build problems like this (if they are real) are traits of obscure and unstable (you mentioned svn...and some new experimental add-on: what do you think that means?) libraries of any kind and not simply "open source" software in general.

    It seems to me like you have entered the arena here with some (silly) political biases and are looking for problems so you can "blame the system" for your own misfortune or incompetence. Nb, that the only person who will suffer the consequences of that attitude is you, because rather than examining the real and specific issue (from which you might learn something*), you are attributing it to some fantasy derived from the political rhetoric ("The bad thing about open source is you have to build it based on its dependencies." -- again, false to the point of being nonsensical).

    * "...build problems like this (if they are real) are traits of obscure and unstable (you mentioned svn...and some new experimental add-on: what do you think that means?) libraries of any kind..." Make sense?
    Last edited by MK27; 07-03-2010 at 09:11 AM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  5. #20
    In the Land of Diddly-Doo g4j31a5's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    That does not follow at all (in fact, it does not make sense because one library's dependence on another has zero to do with whether or not it is open source).

    I could list hundreds and hundreds of free software libraries I've installed and/or built from source, on dozens of systems (some commercial), often including long dependency chains, and occasionally there are problems, but those are the exception, and they are usually obscure things. Libraries that have a large user base are, as a rule, pretty stable, and that includes there dependency chain. Libraries that do not can be anything. I suppose something which is defective to start with might be more likely to end up as open source (perhaps the developers are hoping for help, etc) but build problems like this (if they are real) are traits of obscure and unstable (you mentioned svn...and some new experimental add-on: what do you think that means?) libraries of any kind and not simply "open source" software in general.

    It seems to me like you have entered the arena here with some (silly) political biases and are looking for problems so you can "blame the system" for your own misfortune or incompetence. Nb, that the only person who will suffer the consequences of that attitude is you, because rather than examining the real and specific issue (from which you might learn something*), you are attributing it to some fantasy derived from the political rhetoric ("The bad thing about open source is you have to build it based on its dependencies." -- again, false to the point of being nonsensical).

    * "...build problems like this (if they are real) are traits of obscure and unstable (you mentioned svn...and some new experimental add-on: what do you think that means?) libraries of any kind..." Make sense?
    Well, I'm sorry if you've got that impression. As I said, I'm just letting off some steam here. FYI, when I first got my hands on the project and was ordered to research 3D engines, actually my first targets were open source ones because I am pretty satisfied with the 2 libraries I've worked with, SDL and OGRE. But because we needed something that has more features, we decided on Delta 3D with the more advanced Simulation Core on top of it. They were actually nice enough to give us the precompiled dependencies inside the repo. Except that one of them didn't work. I tried building the failed dependency again from the source and now it can be built. However, I can't get the demos working now. The demos that can show what this library can do, and probably my starting point to it. They crashed due to a reference to a null pointer. And they all said that it's lovey dovey using their precompiled dependencies. I understand if it's some code error from the unstable version, but from the dependency that they said will work? And no, it's not because the dependency was built with another version of compiler. I'm using their version of VS2005 dependencies with my VC++ 2005.

    I certainly have followed every step on the manual. This is kinda suck. I mean I can actually traced every errors if I wanted to. Heck, I have even put my own hack into the dependency to check for NULL-ness. But time is of the essence here so I won't do that any further. If it were a personal project, I would be happy to do that though because I'll certainly learn something new. But not now.

    Now with my experience with Torque, I can just installed it and start developing with it out from the box. All has been set up. The demos worked fine. Although the support is kind of semi-community based, still it's better IMHO.

    I understand that all projects use dependencies one way or the other. Maybe I didn't use my words right. What I'm trying to say is open source projects usually have heavy reliance to its dependencies, which they didn't have direct hand over the development. And the behaviour would be undefined because of it (IMHO). As for a commercial one, the dependencies are internal. So they can manage their own dependencies and in the end can also support them.

    I agree with Bubba now that a commercial ones with better support is more viable for me now. And it would shorten the development time quite a bit.

    Sorry if I bash open source in general. I was one of the supporter for open source actually. But after I got hit by this issue with one library, I got a second opinion. Maybe it's not my call to bash the entire open source community over one obscure situation, but like I said, I'm just trying to get this out of my head.
    Last edited by g4j31a5; 07-03-2010 at 10:26 AM.
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  6. #21
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    You are saying you shouldn't be held responsible for your words because you are "just trying to get this out of [your] head".

    That's great. Just don't do it on a forum. That is a very irresponsible thing to do. Do it on a piece of paper and burn it afterwards.

    It's like saying -

    I got robbed by a [insert your favourite ethnicity] guy today. All [insert your favourite ethnicity] people are worthless pieces of crap.

    Oh I'm just trying to get this out of my head.

  7. #22
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    The reason why open source libraries often have more dependencies is that's just how the community works.

    They build on top of each others' work to give you amazing stuff without duplicating the work other people have done.

    They cannot do that in closed source world. So they have to re-invent many wheels, and waste a lot of time writing code other people have written already. That's why they have fewer dependencies.

  8. #23
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    They cannot do that in closed source world. So they have to re-invent many wheels, and waste a lot of time writing code other people have written already. That's why they have fewer dependencies.
    Also probably why yer typical MS windows system uses 2-3 times as much memory as the open source based linux, to do to the same things.

    I don't really think dependency trees are disadvantagous anyway -- again, one or two examples paired off against each other here is simply "anecdotal" and not meaningful. Logically/deductively, shared dependencies should produce fewer inconsistencies, not more, since the further up the tree you go, the larger the user base, and some other obvious reasons mentioned already. Taking one anecdotal case to imply something else, empirically, is just flawed reasoning.

    Quote Originally Posted by g4j31a5 View Post
    As I said, I'm just letting off some steam here.
    Well -- I'm sure we've all cursed and scowled over the work of other developers (open source or no) at some point. Just don't let your frustration lead you to an erroneous (but emotionally satisfying ) conclusion.
    Last edited by MK27; 07-03-2010 at 11:13 AM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  9. #24
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    You are saying you shouldn't be held responsible for your words because you are "just trying to get this out of [your] head".

    That's great. Just don't do it on a forum. That is a very irresponsible thing to do. Do it on a piece of paper and burn it afterwards.
    LOL! As if forums where some kind of moral higher ground. Get real!
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  10. #25
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    No they aren't.

    But some people have higher moral standards for themselves. I was hoping g4j31a5 is one of them.

    I, for one, won't post anything on forums that I wouldn't say in real life.

    If he doesn't, that's fine. But I'm just showing the way.

  11. #26
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I think you would. Just like any normal person would. In fact, I accuse of you of worse: An ad hominem attack at a honest mea culpa as seen on the OP's last post. And that's very low. I'll take the OPs irrationally everyday over your hypocrisy.

    Meanwhile, "letting off some steam" implies exactly bad mouthing out of frustration. It isn't necessarily something we would actually believe in if we keep our cool. But it's a very human response. Inside your little "bubble" you never let off some steam? More power to you.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  12. #27
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    I had to look up those words, but yes, that is what I am doing.

    I am saying it's wrong to publicly bad mouth someone or something as an emotional relief. On the internet or not.

    There are 2 related but different things we are talking about here.

    1) Is it okay to publicly bad mouth (read: uninformed, irrational attack that you are not willing to back up) someone or something out of frustration?

    2) If you don't think you should do it in "real life", is it fine to do it online, hiding behind a username?

    What do you think?

    I'd say no to both.

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