I always check for updates before starting The Witcher 3. I seldom use Windows for something else and when I do it is in Parallels. Any update problem can be easily solved by suspending the VM.

Re 1, the OS cannot be really checked unless the device is booted from something else which is considered to be impossible with iDevices. The security chip in iPhone adds complications. They might be instructed to search for a bad app to be purged from the store first and help the customer second, unpleasant but understandable. Normally it is assumed that if the OS is reset it is OK now and anything else is above the level of a genius. Why they did not recognize a hardware problem immediately is beyond me, as well as how they dared to let a customer with a hardware battery problem to go away and potentially return with burns and attorneys. Re 2, I guess you just hit not the brightest genius. I do not think Apple has gone in wrong direction, they are just going. Being under extreme pressure after 2 bad quaters, they may do something really supid righ now, hope they will not. A committee that follows and chases can be OK for a while, but thinking that iPhone SE 16 GB is the best $400 phone in line with the "we are making the best" mantra is not OK, iOS cannot compensate for everything. They should upgrade 16 GB models to 32 GB immediately, we will see in a month.

I like such posts because they mark the level of existing problems. I find it to be low. With Android you are on your own completely after a year. A 4 year old iPhone 5 is better than nothing so you can wait until iPhone 7 or what it will be.

There must be venture capitalists and romantic people founding companies like Ubuntu, but the rest are like you describe for a very good reason. They are controlled by managers who easily migrate from one company to another and thus think only about the bottom line. Even worse, they think only about the tomorrow bottom line at best.

All that looks accurate enough but IMHO is the symptoms side view. Fitting code into few bytes was a technicality, the task at hand was to investigate a subject and write down the findings so that both a computer and a man can read them. Whenever a computer undertook an illogical action that was considered to be a bug in the code. Existing code was reused if and only if it fitted perfectly, otherwise it was either enhanced or something new was developed from scratch. The main delivery expected from by a programmer was a library. That was time when programmers were members of larger teams solving bigger problems. Next, commercialization came and all software started to turn into crap proportionally to the successes of brainwashing the public. Now many apparently sane people believe that there is no conspiracy, one multicore over gigahertz smart phone is just naturally snappier than another. They do not remember how fast KDE 3 on Celeron 500 used to be. Programmers accommodated to the new needs of fast writing crap. Now the public is considered to be ready for the next step. The boundary between OSes, hardware, and applications is being destroyed, people should happily buy "devices" that provide them with "experience" according to how they were "differentiated" by the masters of this Universe. No wonder programmers have to accommodate again. However, the above is just Plan B. The real dream is to deprive the public of all computing power, to undo the PC. It is called The Cloud and, pretty frankly, The Post PC Era. No guns no PC no privacy, Citizen. New programmers are emerging right now, do not worry. Thus I agree there are 4 generations of programmers.

I do not see how learning Linux is harder when you are 50 than when you are 30 or 70. Unfortunately, the Linux desktop is dead (almost) and does not show (currently) any signs of revival. So, if you want something different and still (for how long, is another question) better than Window for personal use, I recommend a Mac, especially MacMini (just do not forget to buy their Magic Trackpad, it is absolutely necessary to get fun). If you want some practical Linux, I would recommend Arch or Slackware for a server and some USB distro like Slax for a Windows rescue kit, just verify that it does not insist on taking all of the USB for itself. If you want to see what was offered to the World and rejected, go Ubuntu. If you want to know what problems contributed to the rejection, go Gentoo.

If you do not get it then you do not need it. However, people are likely to do what they should not. Some other people see that as a business opportunity, not a nuisance. This is why there are so many "sites offering basic guidance". Is is OK and even advisable to visit that sites for 2 reasons. First, if your circumstances change and you need something like GIT, you will know where to get it. Second, GIT is based on a set of ideas that may be used differently elsewhere and ideas are digested subconsciously as soon as you see them. Unfortunately, many sites offer recipe based advice which is virtually useless.

In a sense, yes, it is that pile. When I started using GIT I created a 3 repository model of the real project and tried commands there first. We also had few developers, but thanks to the lack of coordination and frequent changes in specs and overall project direction GIT payed for itself. I guess that was what a much larger and better organized team would experience.

It looks like you just do not need it. JIT has just 2 strong points - distributed architecture and conflict resolution. You use "I" and not "we" in the post, so it is unlikely that you can benefit from either. Besides these 2 advantages, GIT still retains its nature of a quick hack. I guess this happens because the focus is still on making things possible as opposed to making them easy or forgiving.

Code can and should to be self documenting, thus the comments explaining what it does are both unnecessary and harmful. The problem is that claiming that does not automatically make the code self documenting. However, comments explaining why the code does what it does are absolutely necessary. The code itself is not the best place for such comments, they are easier to use when placed into a separate document. Thus, if nothing but "code is self documenting" is said about comments, it is likely the coder does not understand the job. The "provided by specification" part makes me think that is the fact here since specification cannot answer the why. The big WHY is being understood while coding.

I guess you are using Windows because the very best money co clients love Windows. If not, just use Linux. It makes no sense to use a parody of a server OS if you do not want to use ASP .NET and the rest of Microsoft technologies, which indeed have enough unique features to justify Windows, but only if you really need them.

It may be a new Microsoft idea or a temporary condition or a Microsoft reaction to the "mediacenter key" Windows 8 installation hack and the like. Right now there is the "rename account" link just below the email that reports "the email account cannot be changed". It is too illogical to be permanent. Anyway, the right thing to do is to use a Microsoft Mail (Hotmail?) for the Microsoft Account. It will not go away prior to Microsoft and Windows 8. It is always possible to do that, but all bonuses like additional Sky Drive space will be lost. In the beta Windows times I have configured several Windows 8 machines. Now I have exactly one real Windows 8 machine and my language settings still occasionally change on their own. The worst inconvenience is that programs either see or not the Ctrl+Shift+0 shortcut.

Nice review. When Linux had got dynamically pluggable modules, that is long ago, HURD had lost its single advantage. Since it was equally possible not to make modules pluggable, Linux was more flexible and had, even theoretically, better performance. No wonder nobody wanted HURD, a solution in search for a problem. The only real difference between Linux and HURD is that HURD makes it easier for everybody to be a kernel hacker - something the process of Linux kernel development have proven to be fatal. Mr. Stollman thought that loosely organized crowds can do everything and was wrong. Linux has one digit percent penetration on the desktop just because the quality bar for poorly organized crowds in not too high. Mr. Stallman thought that what looks like a better design actually is a better design and was wrong. An experimental proof is always necessary. Finally, Mr. Stallman wanted GNU/Linux revealing his zero understanding of the idea of a trade mark. Tools have no right to claim products, if he was blinded by his ideas enough not to see that, no wonder Linus provided developers with better toys.

Have you actually tried it? I ask because you ask something that is absolutely valid when starting MFC/CPP, but sounds a bit strange when talking PHP. You can read the whole php_manual.chm in about half a day and you probably should do so since PHP is evolving. A weekend is enough to read the manual and try out everything that catches your attention. PHP is tiny and amateurish, so compared to MVC/CPP the CPP part is super easy. The problem is the MFC part since there are very many PHP frameworks and each has a problem it solves best. It is very hard to find the best framework for a task and weight its advantages against the disadvantages of adding yet another framework. There can be no generic advice here. While MFC/CPP is 99% Visual Studio, the choice of IDE for CPP is much wider and each IDE has particular type of people and, to the minor extend, tasks it suits best. Again, no generic advice here.

My guess: initially you will be a bit unhappy with the Atom processor and the screen resolution, but will adjust the way you work to that and be happy enough later. You will not do enough development to really suffer from the performance degradation caused by the absence of a HDD. If you are also an artist, the stylus will be a killer feature, among other things, killing all the desire to develop on holidays.

System AND browser? Maybe just browser? If so, which one of the 2 IEs?

You may be right. I am very much against Microsoft. I watch them and have to deal with their projects from the very beginning. Actually I manage to handle their products, but what makes me so anxious is that they break my hopes. Constantly creating new marginally better technologies and abandoning existing ones. Making Windows 8... I do not want to say it is really bad as is, but it might be so much better I cannot think about them calm.

It is and has been known for ages that Windows cannot neither install nor uninstall programs reliably. Nothing to wonder here. All "installers" are just tools to fool "common users" and the real pain is that MS treats developers as such. The sad news is that those without a recent backup deserve that treatment. One must have the OS partition backup and all installers run after it was made handy at all times. If it takes you more than 4 hours to reinstall everything you are not doing that right. Paranoid souls may also use Ashampoo uninstaller or equivalent, this is also necessary if you care about what installers do to your system. This is why healthier communities offer ZIP installers and portable programs. The "guess reading the log" part suggests that either the tech support has been suboptimal or you are not using Windows 7 or newer - you can just order installed software by date in the uninstall dialog there. VS 2012 is not designed for XP. It is also well known that MS does not design software that works. It designs that which works in the most of cases. Nothing new here. Microsoft can do nothing about that since doing something means huge shifts of power and influebce between execs at best, and possibly MS is already free of competent execs. Their errors started ti pile up with the C: drive...

I am not getting it. Last time I checked, Windows 8 bcdedit still had the bootsect option, so it must be trivial to double boot any Linux, especially if it uses GRUB. If you want to have only Linux and boot it securely, you have to move your a... and adopt to the new technology. Windows 8 or Microsoft has proofed that UIEF Secure Boot is working OK, nothing else. Just use it. If you want to take a machine that somebody have build to run Windows and install Linux on it, then you may have problems, but I do not care since you just should not do that. All this UEFI buzz resembles Start Screen buzz and both resemble orchestrated media bashing.

Looking at the specs, yes on Pro, provided a monitor is connected. Surface is not upgradeable or reparable like any other tablet, but if the battery is easy to replace and it has enough pressure levels so that it is good for drawing, I will consider it as my next main PC.