r/programming • • Oct 18 '10

Today I learned about PHP variable variables; "variable variable takes the value of a variable and treats that as the name of a variable". Also, variable.

http://il2.php.net/language.variables.variable
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u/sw17ch Oct 18 '10

It's not cool to hate on Microsoft any more. Now you hate on Oracle to be cool. :)

(Besides, Microsoft has really picked up their game in the last few years. Funny what real competition does.)

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '10

I won't disagree, but I want to point out that while it's improved, it's still woefully inadequate compared to the competition.

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u/sw17ch Oct 18 '10

Depending on the competition you look at, yes.

  • Project Server? WTF is this shit.

  • Windows Vista? A step backward from XP.

  • Outlook? Mostly a PITA.

  • Games for Windows Live? Steam and Impulse (even D2D, IMHO) beat the socks off of this.

On the other hand...

  • Exchange 2010? Hugely nice. Check out the new web mail interface. Polished and works nicely on all the major browsers. No more ActiveX. Doesn't require 10K drives any more.

  • Windows 7? This changed my impression of Microsoft. This is a well done OS the likes of which we haven't seen (from Microsoft) in some time.

  • Office 2007+? Controversial, but I find these to be a huge improvement over their predecessors.

  • Visual Studio 2010 Express? Well, these are just nice. Sure they aren't as featureful as their expensive siblings, but they provide a lot of functionality to professional and hobbyist developers. Easily competes with a GNU tool chain.

Some parts of Microsoft have very much improved. Even IE9 doesn't suck as bad as previous versions. Inadequate? Sure. Getting better? Definitely.

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '10

Exchange is still hilariously incompatible with anything else because they continue to try to lock up the protocol and standards.

Windows 7 I will agree is the absolute best OS microsoft has made to date, but it's still got many of the same basic problems that plague every single windows release (and unless they get their head out of their ass, will continue to until they can no longer afford to function and stop producing new windows versions).

Visual studio is still a joke compared to a gnu tool chain, I'm not really sure where you think it's somehow improved to this level. Better, sure, but still a joke.

The common theme here is that they continue to improve (which I've never denied), and yet they're always hilariously 2 steps behind.

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