WAITER! There's a Flappy Bird in my Lollipop! Google's practice of leaving Easter Eggs in Android appears to have continued, with a chap spotting a Flappy Bird clone in the new version 5.0, aka Lollipop, release. Here's his video of how to invoke the game, and a look at its gameplay. That Flappy Bird aficionados among you will notice that the game scrolls from right to …
Copyright doesn't apply to game mechanics, just to the designs used in it and the game as a whole. In that sense switching it from right to left probably does cover them. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, copyright doesn't cover the ideas themselves, just the implementation
There are already about 20,000 Flappy Bird ripoffs^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclones out there. For a brief period, about two years ago, it was the choice for young developers who'd never made a phone app before and wanted to learn the ropes.
Before that it was the one with the creature that slides up and down slopes. Before that it was, I dunno, probably Angry Birds, or Sudoku. More recently it's been Candy Crush, 2048, I don't even care what else. Any game that gets a reputation nowadays instantly inspires half a gazillion clones, and there are no copyright issues with that so long as each programmer writes theri own code and creates (or buys) their own art.
Bang on the Android revision ID several time very fast in About Device tab of Settings. Then click the spinning K a couple of times. Then keep hitting the KitKat logo a few time and a weird screensaver thing starts up showing cartoons of all the previous Android versions.
There is a long standing tradition of 'Easter Eggs' in software (such as the pinball clone in older versions of Excel), which tend to be written by programmers in their spare time. In the scheme of things, these take up very little space, and I fail to see how they are going to affect the efficiency of code that they are completely unrelated to.
But then I suppose the phrase, "haters gonna hate", has to come from somewhere...
They could compromise the system though. Security and minimal attack surface are more important. I would suggest these engineers get a hobby that isn't just fucking around with their day jobs (or make a game that stands alone) and stop putting back doors in, even if they think they're robust.
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I can't get past the first pair of lollipops... but I am more of a (unemployed) network programmer(coder) than a gamer... sad I know, but my girlfriend is a very hot blonde doctor, so I must be doing something right and maybe not so sad.
Anyway, about the hidden game that I found independently of this article (or any other)... it works both ways as it randomly works in both directions... a bit like soho.
It's crapp (a crap app) much like anything in Java, as Java is a piss-poor programming (coding) language and anybody who thinks otherwise has never programmed (coded) in anything else.
Do I sound old? I'm 35! I guess that is old to script-kiddies(Java).
As a third generation language, Java is just fine. It's a 'semi-compiled' language, like many other modern programming languages (such as C#), meaning it is compiled to 'byte-code' which is executed at run-time by an interpreter. Maybe you're thinking of Javascript, not Java, if you think it is a scripted language.
There are reasons this idiom is used in modern programming, as it allows for well structured code, it is, as always, a case of using the right tool for the right job, and it is a perfectly good tool for the purpose. At the end of the day, code is either well written, or not, independent of the language it is written in.
And just for the record; I am an employed programmer, and also a gamer. One of my ex-girlfriends was a 'very hot' brunette doctor, but being 'hot' was no substitute for having a personality. I'm 37, so maybe in a few years you may settle down and realise that bragging about how 'hot' your partner is doesn't not make you look 'sad', and you may learn the difference between different programming languages with similar names, and find gainful employment as a result.
Cannot think for one minute why you are unemployed - you seem to have it all: intelligence, top of your programming game, great personality, happy & positive attitude, oh and who could forget that "very hot blonde doctor" of yours no wonder you felt the need to mention her, you tiger, you!
Oh BTW, I'm sure your minxy little plaything is also intelligent, top of her field, kind, caring, great personality yeah? I'm sure she is, but not as much as she is blonde and haaaawt!!!! eh?
Java is not JavaScript. The latter is the script-kiddie language, the former is an actual serious language.
If you're going to bash programming languages, you've got a far better target with Visual Basic.
I don't know, I have an rational hatred of Java too. Let me count the ways...
Java is beloved of the tools industry, so you get a lot of boilerplate enterprise bullshit with most bad java projects. Java is often what is taught at university, so you get lots of "developers" who think they can program because they can drag and drop controls and hook up actions.
Java runs in a VM, so you have complications sizing things for good performance. UIs built in java tend to be heavier weight, run slower and be less responsive than native UIs (I'll concede, this has got a lot better over time).
Java requires a JDK to be installed and updated; Oracle and Sun used to disallow distribution of the JDK and you had to go download it first, pop it somewhere your distro looks and install again.
Java applets. Still not forgiven.
Having said all that, there are some excellent projects and tools that I use daily that are written (ecellently) in Java - SOLR, Lucene, almost every component of the Hadoop stack. I like it best when it has no UI or a web UI and I talk JSON or XML to it :)
...this still doesn't explain why they've DOUBLED the price of the nexus line.
I was loving the cheap frills of my n4, n5 and n7. My wallet hurts. Time to return to form and run old hardware with custom software that isn't full of bloat and find that what I've got already is actually 10x more than I really need.
Hmmm... I might see if I can find a phone that just makes calls... and lasts 7days+ between charges. Actually, I might MAKE one.
Thanks google for freeing me from the bonds of greed.
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