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Comment: Re:No (Score 1) 177

by DrXym (#47423345) Attached to: Will Google's Dart Language Replace Javascript? (Video)
Well JS sucks as a language to develop in so there is a benefit in developing in something else even if it ends up being machine generated into JS. However... it would be far more useful for browsers to support a low level bitcode (e.g. LLVM) with a set of APIs that tie into the gui, web, threading, local storage etc. than another high level language. Google has something already suitable for the job - PNaCl, but it should be standardized and simplified so any browser can implement it.

Dart could compile to bitcode and then it would execute at near native speeds. Even stuff like asm.js that is an optimized usecase for machine generated js is still a workaround of the fundamental issue - the lack of a lower level alternative.

Comment: The answer is called LLVM (Score 1) 69

by DrXym (#47375235) Attached to: ARM Launches Juno Reference Platform For 64-bit Android Developers
Instead of expecting developers to support some new architecture, Google, Intel and ARM need to knock heads and implement LLVM as an alternative. Then devs largely DON'T CARE what the backend is - they compile their native code to LLVM bitcode and let the system figure out how to convert it to native instructions. Conversion could even happen in the cloud so the user just downloads an apk which just happens to contain the native binary necessary for their specified device.

The weird thing is Google already support this for Renderscript, but not the NDK where it would be most useful. Encourage people to compile to LLVM and new architectures becomes much less of an issue.

Comment: A waste of time (Score 1) 126

by DrXym (#47329673) Attached to: Google Demos Modular Phone That (Almost) Actually Works
Yeah it's modular and a few years from now they'll upgrade the bus or tweak the dimensions or bump the battery requirements and now that modular phone is as obsolete as all the rest. Or worse, future modules are gimped to conform to the old standard and include circuitry to step down in some way. Either way users get a device which costs more and doesn't deliver something tangibly better.

Comment: Dealers could help themselves here (Score 2) 455

by DrXym (#47270707) Attached to: NADA Is Terrified of Tesla
People hate car dealers for a reason. They are generally deceitful, money grubbing scum who conjure all kind of fees and charges, who "negotiate" merely to upsell customers with expensive upgrades, financing and insurance policies. And then when the car needs to be serviced they'll rape the customer again for the time & parts.

That isn't to say Tesla will solve all these problems (I'd be especially worried about the cost of servicing what's essentially a computer on wheels), but at least they charge a price and you know what you're getting. No negotiations. No oily salesman pitching stuff you don't need.

Comment: Re:High dpi isn't necessarily better (Score 1) 186

by DrXym (#47270105) Attached to: 4K Monitors: Not Now, But Soon
Yes you could go for a poor man's scaling by bumping up the standard font sizes but that will do nothing for toolbars and other elements in the application. So you'd have big fonts and tiny toobar buttons. That's why 8.1 upscales the whole window surface and in doing so it uses some algorithm that blurs the contents.

Comment: High dpi isn't necessarily better (Score 1) 186

by DrXym (#47261451) Attached to: 4K Monitors: Not Now, But Soon
The DPI in some tablets / laptops is so high that applications running on desktop operating systems (Windows, OS X and Linux) render like postage stamps with tiny fonts, toolbars and other buttons. To counter this the OS can upscale any non-high-dpi-aware app's window but that makes everything looks blurry.

So that shiny new 4K monitor may end up delivering an inferior desktop experience and requires a GPU working 4x as hard. That might change as more desktop apps become high dpi aware but obviously any legacy app is never going to get fixed.

Comment: Re:Does anyone still use IE? (Score 1) 105

I use it when browsing from metro but only because none of the other browsers offers that choice. Chrome supposedly offers a metro mode but it doesn't work on high dpi devices and Firefox dropped their support. For some reason IE only enables metro mode when it is the default browser which might be for technical reasons but its still highly annoying.

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