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Link to X-Cutioner's Song without the referral link.

Honestly, it's fucking pathetic that you're trying to make money by spamming Slashdot with referral links. I hope you get hit by a fucking bus.

Indeed, and if you look at Watchmen, you can see how obviously dated plots relating to current events can become in twenty years. I think the most lastingly enjoyable comics miniseries are those which have nothing to do with what's going on in contemporary politics, and everything to do with the writers' creative fancy. For example, I love the X-Men miniseries X-Cutioner's Song . It's got time travel, battles on the Moon, people being sucked into alternate dimensions, etc. What more could you ask for? And it's still enjoyable today when Watchmen just makes one depressed with its 1980s "the end is nigh" fearmongering.

You should really read Unit Testing in Java: How the Tests Drive the Code. XP is about small, direct steps, and when these are done with tests first, they greatly improve the quality of the code. You can draw all the big, fancy, pie-in-the-sky diagrams you want, and still get sloppy code.

While I am loath to criticize the wisdom of another member of the Eric Conspiracy, I respectfully disagree.

El Presidente Bush II, despite all he has done to support the slow erosion of civil liberties and the increase of Presidential executive privilege in the US, is not the only one to blame here.

Arthur Scheslinger wrote The Imperial Presidency about the use of power by American Presidents since the beginning of the US. Especially since FDR, Presidents have steadily increased their powers and influence to a degree unimaginable by the Founding Fathers. This is just a tiny piece of that.

The 1990s and the Clinton years brought us political correctness, the rise of litigation culture and the other half of this problem - increasing desire for ratings and "protecting the children" on behalf of government and industry. Remember Tipper Gore?

It's certainly gotten worse since Bush was sworn in at the beginning of 2001, but he's not the guy who started these problems. Given their history, I don't think Mr Gore (or Mr Kerry for that matter) would have made a huge difference as President in this regard.

The NSA already has plenty of the business opportunities that especially irk us here at Slashdot: patents. Read any introduction to the NSA's work like Bamford's The Puzzle Palace or Body of Secrets , and you'll see the NSA develops plenty of interesting technologies which they then patent. Cryptome often reports on new NSA patents.

The NSA already has plenty of the business opportunities that especially irk us here at Slashdot: patents. Read any introduction to the NSA's work like Bamford's The Puzzle Palace or Body of Secrets , and you'll see the NSA develops plenty of interesting technologies which they then patent. Cryptome often reports on new NSA patents.

A dirty little secret for Perl has been Test::Devel. As you write your tests in Perl collects stats on what has been called in your tests, and has what not. An excellent book for learning about Perl testing can be found here Perl Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook

Steve Vai is still not amused by the new name

In fact, I love advertisements so much, you can tattoo me and inject electrodes into my head so all I do is think about Microsoft and how badly I want the XBox 360. Yes, I would finally be able to die happy!

Yeah, but how do you *really* feel?

Years ago I stopped listening to commercial radio, stopped watching commercial television, and make it a point to avoid places, people and things that offer up any sort of commercially-inspired stimulus. I'd like to think myself progressive, but since T-shirts and clothing adorned with company logos are now all the rage, I think I must be either ahead of the times, or well behind them. Hell, I wonder if my license plate is too bare without the gratuitous car dealer information.

At any rate, I doubt the average person notices. Or cares. Whether it's the proverbial pebble in the shoe, the 60Hz flicker in the fluorescent lighting, the drone of cheap background music over even cheaper speakers at the supermarket or gas station, or the billboard on the freeway, the effects are too subliminable to raise a fuss. I'd even go so far as to suggest it's the only colour people have in their lives and may welcome it. A content-free web page without a cheerful ad is just too ... empty. And in a consumer-oriented culture, not being encouraged buy something takes the fun out of things in much the same way as slows economic growth, the spread of democracy, and hinders the war on terrorism.

Or something like that.

$ ftp ftp.microsoft.com
Connected to ftp.microsoft.com.
220 Microsoft FTP Service
Name (ftp.microsoft.com:value_added): anonymous
331 Anonymous access allowed, send identity (e-mail name) as password.
Password:
230-Welcome to FTP.MICROSOFT.COM. Where do you want to go today? Visit http://www.amazon.com/
230 Anonymous user logged in.
Remote system type is Windows_NT.
ftp> quit
221 Thank you for using Microsoft products. Remember, Vons is value. Play hard. Do evil. Tastes great and less filling. This message brought to you by Fox News.

Flash ads in Outlook? No problem.

If you implement theoretically secure designs, but they suffer from usability problems, you'll end up with a system which is neither secure nor usable.

If, on the other hand, you design your security/authentication mechanisms with usability as a key concern, you'll end up with usable, secure systems.

Actually, all this Rapture, Beast and Apocolypse stuff was dreamed up in the 19th century and is largely an American/Anglican product. It has nothing to do with the Christianity that has been taught for 20 centuries or with how Christianity is taught in the civilized world. Revelations is one of many books that were written in the Apocolyptic style in the first century. It was the only one of this style that was considered canonical. A good book on this is here. Don't take this modern American/Anglican madness for normal Christianity.

Yeah, but does the PSP play New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, or the top selling Brain Age?

While homebrew is a big plus for the PSP, the lack of decent games is a bigger minus. Add to that the fact most people don't want to hack their hardware to use it and you can see why Sony's sales are behind Nintendo's.

Since the publication of Richard Miniter's book, Disinformation http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895260069, a lot of people on the far right have been harping on about how WMDs really were found in Iraq in 2004. The reality is that not even the Bush administration believes that line. Read the relevant section of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction's March 31, 2005 report to the president here: http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html#chapter1.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932100385/104-65 24352-2072744?v=glance&n=283155

Amazon has it about $10 cheaper than BN.

Save yourself $14.80 by buying the book here: Head Rush Ajax. And if you use the "secret" A9.com Instant Reward discount, you can save an extra 1.57%! That's a total savings of $15.20, or 38.58%!

Save yourself $14.80 by buying the book here: Head Rush Ajax. And if you use the "secret" A9.com Instant Reward discount, you can save an extra 1.57%! That's a total savings of $15.20, or 38.58%!

I can't say enough about it.

Diseases that occur in a statistically reliable fashion can be insured, but you have to have a huge population to do it. A large problem with american health coverage is that it isn't insurance. Dental care, new contact lenses, fashionable glasses, none of these things are insurable, but we want our 'insurance' to cover them.

As far as free markets go, the reason a free market doesn't exist is not because some things aren't profitable to treat(a free market wouldn't treat them), but because the decisions regarding spending are not made locally. So yeah, it probably isn't real desireable to have health care be a free market, that market would let people die all the time.

Tim Hartford makes some interesting guesses about the difference in effectiveness between british and american health care in The Undercover Economist:

http://www.timharford.com/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195189779/103-53 21114-3043046?v=glance&n=283155

Aspirin doesn't seem to have the same effect on people in England. If you haven't read Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, I highly suggest you do. It talks about how strong the mind is in regards to personal health and getting sick. From the book:

"The placebo effect may also be affecting is in far vaster ways then we realize, as is evidenced by a recent and extremely puzzling medical mystery. If you have watched any television at all in the last year or so, you have no doubt seen a blitzkreig of commercials promoting aspirin's ability to decrease the risk of heart attack. There is a good deal of convincing evidence to back this up, otherwise television censors, who are real sticklers for accuracy when it comes to medical claims in commercials, wouldn't allow such copy on the air. This is all well and good. The only problem is that aspirin doesn't seem to have the same affect on people in England. A six-year study of 5,139 British doctors revealed no evidence that aspirin reduces the risk of heart attack... Whatever the case, don't stop believing in the prophylactic benefits of aspirin. It still may save your life."

I'm not sure what this says directly about Americans, but using this data it seems very apparent to me how powerful beliefs can be when it comes to affecting personal health. Whether it be commericals showing us people sneezing and coughing because of allergy season, or someone not getting enough sleep, the mind can be very powerful in convincing the body it needs these medicines in order to get better.

I highly suggest anyone read more about the powerful effects of placebos. That will change your ideas about getting sick.

If it weren't for NDAs, they could probably publish a top selling book with all that rumor-mill information they've got stored away.

I have the book, you can have it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743228626/103-53 65480-9092665?v=glance&n=283155

It is excellent, scary, and amusing all at the same time. I can't tell you how its just filled with page after page about how X company got Y*100 million in VC, and in Z days/years they were bust. One company had over $300mil in VC money, and Philip Kaplan said, "If they merely partied and blew the money at $1mil/year they would have been in business for over 300 years", yet they went broke in a year or two.

Amazing.

Speaking of "Amazons of the Grocery Business" (though, not exactly what you meant): you can actually order groceries (yes, including actual perishable goods, with things like frozen food packed in dry ice and express shipped to you) from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gristedes... Technically, it's coming from Gristedes Supermarkets of New York, but all the ordering and payment is via Amazon... (And, yes, I've ordered from them, and would highly recommend them for anyone too lazy to go to an actual grocery store... ;-))

Rick Mayes' Universal Coverage is a good book to pick up if you are curious on why the U.S. is among the only first-world countries with no universal healthcare. It should be available in any good university library. Unfortunately, the book is quite a downer, and sees little solution to the bureaucratic mire that Medicare and Social Security have created. After reading this book, you'll have a strong desire to emigrate.

Had President Clinton not appointed his wife over the issue just over a decade ago, we might have made some progress. Hillary has her talents, but she was so controversial that the entire matter of national healthcare became taboo for years afterward.

I must agree. I use LaTeX now for everything, big or small, and I could never go back to a word processor. The system is designed for high-quality typesetting of manuscripts, and it excels in that, but one can use it for other things as well. If I just need a quick note, I can just use the article document class with no \settitle, and it works just like a word-processor. I find the letter document class very nice too, regardless of what some naysayers might say.

The only problem with marketing LaTeX to (tech-savvy) everyday users is that the available print documentation is rarely up-to-date. For example, LaTeX is now capable of handling UTF-8 input, which means a variety of scripts can be typeset in the same document with little problem. There's no reason to use older encodings like ISO-8859-1. Yet, even recent books like the second edition of The LaTeX Companion still talk as if we are stuck in the dark ages of limited encodings.

iSmell? I thought that was the smelloscope, able to smell anything from far away in the galaxy....come to think of it, i dont think it will be invented for another 1000 years, give or take a few (thanks professor farnsworth!)

The smelloscope Prof Farnsworth displayed in Futurama presumably was receiving those smells millions of years after their creation. After all, scopes have that light speed limit (although the rest of the show doesn't). I don't know, smelling things long dead just seems creepy.

Done.

Java Concurrency in Practice
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321349601/
http://www.campusi.com/isbn_0321349601.htm/

Btw, the real cover has shiny white bullet trains on it -- much sweeter than the one currently shown (even though I do love bees).

Thanks...

You're welcome.

How well would this work with non-Mozilla-based browsers (such as Opera or Internet Explorer)?

If you know your users are going to be using a bunch of different browsers, it'd probably make sense to build your system around XULRunner. That way it'd be pretty much like a stand-alone app, but you (as the developer) would still get the advantages of having a built-in system to handle HTML, XML, CSS, RDF, etc. and the user would be none the wiser (although it'd be pretty almost trivially easy to provide a browser-like interface for the user, reducing learning curves for your app). You should be able to make it so they could even run it directly off the CD / DVD by just double-clicking an icon. They wouldn't really even need to install anything.

What sort of performance would this give for data access? Comparable to database? And would this allow for arbitrary text string searches in any of the lyrics or annotated fields in a reasonably efficient way?

I've personally not used it in this way for my own apps so I can't give you a straight answer with the certainty of one who's directly done it (my own work with RDF data stores in Mozilla has pretty much been just for user preferences and the like). However, I can say that:

1. It's the system that Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, etc. all use and they seem reasonably fast.

2. The new SQL option mentioned by T-Ranger definitely won't weaken any of the platform's existing capabilities in this department, but it could conceivably make things quite a bit better for you if you find that the performance isn't currently what you'd want.

3. RDF's capabilities in the way of metadata may lead you down some interesting paths that you've not yet considered regarding methods of indexing / searching lyrics beyond the straight raw text search.

I think it'll do everything you need and then some. You'll probably even be able to find some existing Mozilla-based programs that will get you part of the way there. You should be able to view the source of all of the products on Mozilla Add-ons to find sample code to do all manner of things.

Finally, since I am not at all up on the Mozilla platform, RDF, XUL, CSS, etc., what would be a good resource (or resources) for me to start learning this?

There's a ton of good info for free online for all of these topics. The Mozilla Developer Center will provide you with lots of tips and an invaluable reference to the Mozilla platform, XUL, RDF, JavaScript, XML, XULRunner, etc. The W3C will provide you with probably all you'll need to know about CSS, as well as further information on RDF, XML, and HTML. There are also loads of books out there; I've personally read and found Rapid Application Development with Mozilla and Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide to be pretty much all I needed to start writing Mozilla apps, but a quick glance through Amazon brings up entries like

Thanks...

You're welcome.

How well would this work with non-Mozilla-based browsers (such as Opera or Internet Explorer)?

If you know your users are going to be using a bunch of different browsers, it'd probably make sense to build your system around XULRunner. That way it'd be pretty much like a stand-alone app, but you (as the developer) would still get the advantages of having a built-in system to handle HTML, XML, CSS, RDF, etc. and the user would be none the wiser (although it'd be pretty almost trivially easy to provide a browser-like interface for the user, reducing learning curves for your app). You should be able to make it so they could even run it directly off the CD / DVD by just double-clicking an icon. They wouldn't really even need to install anything.

What sort of performance would this give for data access? Comparable to database? And would this allow for arbitrary text string searches in any of the lyrics or annotated fields in a reasonably efficient way?

I've personally not used it in this way for my own apps so I can't give you a straight answer with the certainty of one who's directly done it (my own work with RDF data stores in Mozilla has pretty much been just for user preferences and the like). However, I can say that:

1. It's the system that Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, etc. all use and they seem reasonably fast.

2. The new SQL option mentioned by T-Ranger definitely won't weaken any of the platform's existing capabilities in this department, but it could conceivably make things quite a bit better for you if you find that the performance isn't currently what you'd want.

3. RDF's capabilities in the way of metadata may lead you down some interesting paths that you've not yet considered regarding methods of indexing / searching lyrics beyond the straight raw text search.

I think it'll do everything you need and then some. You'll probably even be able to find some existing Mozilla-based programs that will get you part of the way there. You should be able to view the source of all of the products on Mozilla Add-ons to find sample code to do all manner of things.

Finally, since I am not at all up on the Mozilla platform, RDF, XUL, CSS, etc., what would be a good resource (or resources) for me to start learning this?

There's a ton of good info for free online for all of these topics. The Mozilla Developer Center will provide you with lots of tips and an invaluable reference to the Mozilla platform, XUL, RDF, JavaScript, XML, XULRunner, etc. The W3C will provide you with probably all you'll need to know about CSS, as well as further information on RDF, XML, and HTML. There are also loads of books out there; I've personally read and found Rapid Application Development with Mozilla and Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide to be pretty much all I needed to start writing Mozilla apps, but a quick glance through Amazon brings up entries like

Would you make the same argument if they called it Nintendo Poo?

Only Disney would release a video game product called Pooh.

there actualy is a c like alternative for the OLD mindstorms system called NQC or not quite c. It is very simiar to C with specific commands developed specificly for the mindstorms system. http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nqc/ is the homepage and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590590635/103-49 88931-3277469?v=glance&n=283155 is a great guide book written by the creator of the language that comes with all the software and a couple of different compilers.

synchronized(objectToModify)
{
    if(objectToModify.getX() == myObj.getX()) objectToModify.setY(myObj.getY());
}

2006 -- True Artificial Intelligence

2009 -- Human-Level AI

2011 -- Cybernetic Economy

2012 -- Superintelligent AI

2012 -- Joint Stewardship of Earth

Don't worry, I already ripped it from my 4 cd Sony Classic: Great Performances music collection !!!

MS's market share in Web browsers was 8% once too, before they started bundling it with the OS.

Except that's not true. Microsoft achieved nearly 40% market share BEFORE IE was ever bundled with Windows. People switched to IE because, at the time, it was BETTER than Netscape. Simple as that.

I suggest you read David Bank's Breaking Windows. It has a lot of great information about the browser wars and what really happened, as apposed to the popular myths and misinformation proffered on Slashdot.

Yeah, as long as this is still as profitable as it is, you'll never see your backlog of Lost episodes online in any legal (US) and free format.

Of course, far out theories can be fun. I think my favorite crackpot theory book was Richard Noone's "5/5/2000: Ice The Ultimate Disaster". It was pretty crazy. Some of the worst put together, misunderstood, crackpot, pseudo-science ever committed to paper. It was great fun until it got to the "dinosaurs were used as beasts of burden to built the pyramids" part. Then the shit got too deep for even me, and I throw it against the wall. But, at night I occasionally think about it and laugh. If you go to the Amazon page for it you'll find all kinds of people justifying the missed date for the end of the world.

Wow, how this discussion hearkens back memories. By your post, our about a year younger than I: was born in '72.

First PC was a Timex Sinclair 1000. Then C=64. Dabbled with Apple ]['s at school. My parents got me my first IBM-compatible the summer between Jr. & Sr. high. (No hard drive, nor modem; upgraded the motherboard, N20 processor, full 640 **K** of ram, 1200 bps modem, 20 **MB** hard drive [was considered defective by the district's tech guy, but I low-leveled it and it chugged away for many years until I replaced my entire system :], and EGA [ATI EGA Wonder, no less] my sophomore or junior year, thanks to the computer teacher.)

Anyway, sorry to blather. The book series you mention, perhaps the "Basic Fun" books? Loved those, too! And, specifically, on the text adventure where you're a CIA operative - you know, and the "bad guy" is a Rusky. This one was "Basic Fun With Adventure Games", if I'm correct. (See Amazon for a cover pic: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380874865)

Cheers! -Larz

I once read Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock which explored in depth the theory that ancient civilizations are linked by a possible master race. It is a very loose theory in that I ended the book more confused than anything and doubting not only Hancock but also the conventional history I learned in school. Whether that's good or bad, I can't really say.

What I can say is that even if they were half baked theories they certainly were outside the box.

In it, the position and building of massive structures (like pyramids) are very important to his theories. He linked the Egyptian and Incan/Pima cultures via structures and similarities in creation stories (the latter being quite weak). The worst part is that at the end he alludes to a possible alien influence in the matter of building these massive structures (because we can't understand what technology they used).

With this (possibly) even larger structure, I'm certain that this will give him more ammo for another book.

If you're interested in things like this, it's a good read. You can take pieces of it like the famous Pirie Ries maps that were coverd by Charles Hapgood. A similar theory is the also famous 1421 Theory. Be warned that many of these theories are unverifiable and can amount to simply someone's imagination running wild. They rely on events thousands of years old--a time darker than the the dark ages.

Be caution that most of the links below Hancock's Wikipedia page are just rebuttles disproving him as much of his work is a bit hard to swallow.

We have all come to know and love the "BSD is dying" jokes, but I'm noticing so much publishing going on in the BSD world, with O'Reilly offering a BSD security guide and Addison-Wesley releasing a guide to BSD's design. Clearly enough people are using it and continuing to get the most out of it if it is still profitable for tech publishers to offer documentation. If BSD were really sinking, we'd start noticing more BSD-to-Linux migration guides.

We have all come to know and love the "BSD is dying" jokes, but I'm noticing so much publishing going on in the BSD world, with O'Reilly offering a BSD security guide and Addison-Wesley releasing a guide to BSD's design. Clearly enough people are using it and continuing to get the most out of it if it is still profitable for tech publishers to offer documentation. If BSD were really sinking, we'd start noticing more BSD-to-Linux migration guides.

Indeed, and since CentOS is RHEL, you can use quality RHEL docs like Wiley's Enterprise Linux 4 Bible instead of relying on the dubious tutorial here, which requires ISP Config.

I'm not driving him to the airport!

(For the clueless, it's a reference to the season three episode "The Boyfriend".)

it has been alleged that that already occasionally occurs. Read "Chatter : Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400060346/qid=11 46413923/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5544017-36798 64?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

"Secrecy is a maverick element," Keefe writes, in this critical analysis of American intelligence-gathering. His book examines the history of America's spy programs and those of its allies and--using little investigation and no classified sources--unveils much of the inner workings of the National Security Agency (a hundred satellites, thirty thousand eavesdroppers, a six-billion-dollar budget). Keefe also worries about the self-defeating effects of keeping so much from the public: secrecy might be essential to the success of spy missions, but it can also conceal privacy violations, abuses of power, and, perhaps worst of all, operational failure. Keefe writes with frustration that, facing allegations of malfeasance or incompetence, the N.S.A. or the C.I.A. will simply stonewall. "Trust us," the agency will say. "We can't tell you why you should trust us. But trust us."

Do you have any thoughts on if the US should do anything to prevent Al Qaeda from attaining its stated goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans?

OK. Lets do some research here. Here is some info about Paul Marshall. He's a scary looking American white dude. He is in "frequent demand" to tell people what they should here on such fringe "news" outlets like ABC Evening News; CBS Evening News; CNN; Fox; PBS; the BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and South African Broadcasting Corporation. His work has been the subject of articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, Weekly Standard, First Things, New Republic, Globe and Mail, Christianity Today, Decision, Reader's Digest and several hundred other newspapers and magazines. Not a very impressive list, eh? He also heads this place. Notice the other scary looking American white dude in the middle there.

Paul Marshall also wrote this book, which the book description says, "In an age when the relationship between politics and religion is becoming ever more important--and ever more blurred--both in America and beyond, God and the Constitution is an indispensable guide for Christians interested in exploring how they can interject their religious convictions into their political actions."

Oh, and the 4,000,000 link mentions a guy named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. In case you don't know who he is, look here. Paul Marshall, in the pursuit of journalism objectiveness failed to mention anything beyond his scary name.

Oh, and the picture of the little girl was touching. I'm sure that its worse than any from what good old scary white Americans have done to people in Afghanistan, Iraq, not to mention Abu Ghraib, or Guitmo.

People like this, and this terrify me and others throughout the world. I've never had a beef with an Arab.

The word "terrestrial" comes from the Latin word terra "Earth" (in turn from PIE *ters- "dry [ground]", see Sihler's New Comparative Grammar ). While arguing from etymology is not always valid, I daresay that in this case if one simply says "terrestrial gravity", it's logical to assume to refers to the Earth's gravity, and not that of the moon or other planets, which have their own appropriate adjectives.

Money For Content and Your Clicks For Free : Turning Web Sites, Blogs, and Podcasts Into Cash Written by J.D Frazer creator of UserFriendly.

I think part of the reason kids don't program is because programming, especially for large projects, is very hard and complex to tackle. Take, for example, your average computer game from 2006. Most of them will have 3d graphics, physics engines, fancy shaders or whatever new 3d card feature is popular at the moment. Making a modern computer game is extremely hard and requires advanced programming and math (e.g. linear algebra) to program.

Now, what does that have to do with being motivated to program? Well, kids are inspired by the software they use and play with. While kids play video games they eventually decide they want to go off and make their own games. However, they can be discouraged by the immense complexity and difficulty in accomplishing that task.

This applies to non-game software too. A kid might look at some cool open source software, say Firefox, and want to start making his own web browser. Or maybe he'll be fascinated by editors and want to make his own text editor. But where should he start?

I've been programming since I was ten, and even I stumble on these issues. There are lots of cool projects I have in mind, but I don't know where to start. I've found that the only way to get around this is to pick up experience building small programs and reading good textbooks (I like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman and Software Tools by Kernighan), but that's hard for an impatient teenager who wants to get a lot done.

Every minute a student spends with Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is one less minute spent learning how to program, and one more minute spent learning how to use Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition. Microsoft IDEs are enormously complex tools. They're quite useful in the hands of professionals who know how to use them, but they're an impediment to actually learning how to program. Students need to learn how the nuts and bolts of programming work before they start using a Microsoft IDE, which attempts to write code for them.

The Kids Programming Language might be nice, but I can't see how it would be better than Python. Python is free and available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. There are great beginner books available for it, like Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner. Best of all, Python eliminates layer upon layer of abstraction that's in any IDE so that the student learns the logic that is programming.

Kids should learn how to program. Understandably though MS would rather have kids learn how to use Microsoft interfaces, the same way kids learn MS Word. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is not about teaching kids to program; it's about giving them crippleware to hook them on the MS way.

I'm afraid to take a programming class because I might be terrible at it. The last thing I want is to screw up my GPA just to learn some programming skills.

Did it occur to you go out and buy an introductory book on programming? Learn it in your spare time? All those kids programming their VIC-20s, C-64s, TRS-80s & Apple ][s sure didn't learn to do it in school. (This sounds harsh, but is not meant to be.)

I'm partial to Python, not Ruby, and there are many good books on learning to program with Python. This is supposed to be an excellent beginners book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592000738/sr=1-5 /qid=1146283164/ref=sr_1_5/102-8465430-7454541?_en coding=UTF8&s=books