One thing that helped me was learning that all the error messages are in the Camel Book.
your program should start:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
After that you should receive good error messages. When I look them up in the Camel book I'd say 90% of the time the book explains exactly what I had done wrong.
It's wonderful compared to the horrific error messages and stack trace spam that java gives me.
When filling out an application after college, I encountered the field asking for "Special Accomplishments". While there may be some college student out there that has brokered an armistice in an ongoing civil war, this field is generally pure BS. I figured my answer should reflect my personality:
"I once drew a perfect circle with an etch-a-sketch."
My reasoning was that I should answer the questions like they were being asked by the person I *want* to work for. That way if they like it and hire me, then I'm working for at least one good person. I play golf with the same plan, always aim at the hole in case it's a good shot, then I'll have at least one good shot to talk about.
If you google for Barclay wood blocks, you should find a site that sells some good blocks. Their site is humorous and they clearly know how people (big and small) really use blocks.
They use Soft Maple, so that's what I bought. It has a nice feel to it. Although it is called "soft maple", it is still a hardwood. This is important because soft woods will splinter.
I bought 8/4 soft maple in random widths and lengths.
rip then plane it down to 1 3/8". Then just cut the remaining board in units of 1 3/8's so that a typical block is 1 3/8" x 2 3/4" x 2 3/4". Make some longer ones.
Originally I was going to route the edges along the grain but instead I bought a bench grinder and I just hold the edge against it for a second. While a bit more inconsistent, it results in a nice soft edge.
Next time I might go with 6/4 soft maple and use 1.25" as my unit just so there isn't so much wasted wood.
If you have a bit more money, you can get the wood already planed to your exact width.
The planer works wonders. Planed wood doesn't need to be sanded along the faces.
If I were doing it over again, I might buy a mitre saw that could be adjusted to rip instead of a table saw. The mitre would be better at cutting lengths of blocks than the table saw. Then again, a table saw is a real workhorse for other projects.
I don't do the letters or anything too fancy. I'm really not handy with power tools and rectangles are my specialty:)
I bought a planer, a bench sander and a table saw. I'm producing enough blocks to make a large fort. It works out to about 1/3 the cost of buying wooden blocks. They don't really come into their own until you have a 1 year old walking around like godzilla, smashing buildings.
Oh, and the trebuchet is operational. I just need to make a smaller one or lob something much heavier because it's throwing things about 80 feet right now. This is not good for indoor use.
I've basically given up on prepackaged sets for blocks, legos, whatever and I'm making my own stuff now. It's so much more satisfying to see a little one playing with something you made. Oh, and if you do need some special pieces, you can always get exactly what you want.
What I get out of this is that the Democrats can't stand to have their own thoughts see the light of day. They are clearly ashamed to be seen for what they are.
It's near impossible for a company that is merely profitable to beat gains of a company that grows. For instance. Let's say McDonald's finally got a restaurant on every corner. It would be profitable and bring good dividends but wouldn't have growth. Then some guy would get the bright idea that they could use their big stack of cash to start a chik-fil-a competitor and *double* the size and income of the company.
Wall Street suffers from comparisons. How well you did doesn't matter as long as you did better than the person you're compared against.
Not that I think the current way is right. I'd be all for a company that makes 10+% profit a year and returns it to the shareholders. That plan leaves no room for error because of a lack of diversification.
As to your second paragraph, yes there are a lot of companies doing just that. Most of them don't go public though since you have to answer to shareholders who may have a different view of shareholder value (short term of course). A lot of private companies don't like to talk or be heard from and often don't want anyone to know they are in fact profitable.
That reminds me of my first dinner in Italy. We had just pulled into port in Naples. I was with 8 other Marines as we sat down to dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant. Being our first port call on this little cruise, several asked if they had Budweiser. I pointed out that they were about to pay imported prices for a bud light when they could get something European at a local price.
Heeding my advice, they all immediately switched to Heineken and I gave up trying.
We use big guns mounted to the vehicle to facilitate a quick exit.
Seriously though, parking military vehicles in civilian areas is much less common in the US than it is in Europe. In my experience in the Marines, I can't recall ever parking anywhere but in a field or the motor pool.
If it is something where a quick exit may be needed, we'd probably park on the road.
Truly, I was mocking the controller and not the people playing video games. I certainly play enough computer games to qualify as someone that needs to play fewer games. Then again, it's a clean healthy hobby compared to that meth lab I had going a while back.
I can see where maybe you thought I was one of those holier-than-though "I don't watch TV" guys. Trust me, that's not it. I think the controller is the right idea wrong implementation and the only good it will do is if a mother wants their son playing fewer games, she installs it and throws out the regular controllers.
I suppose I could have just said, "it looks like it sucks."
Nobody ever takes into consideration the cost of getting a lawyer. This is why geeks aren't in management.
Do a cost-benefits analysis on getting a lawyer. If it costs more to hire one than you hope to get in return then don't hire one.
If I were shorted $1000 on some freelance work, I would try to work it out with the company. Maybe even their legal dept. I sure wouldn't hire a lawyer to try to recoup $1k.
If this guy just wants the satisfaction of someone playing well nicely, hiring someone that will charge him by the hour isn't necessarily a good move. Sure his chances may be better with a lawyer but his chances aren't exactly zero without one.
A very small minority of people that are obese actually have medical problems that caused them to gain weight. Some do have problems which make it very difficult to stay slim, but there are certain laws of the universe that govern the conservation of mass which imply that if they eat less, they weigh less.
Most people will just finish the portions they are served.
Stop being an apologist for all those poor fat people that have everything stacked against them. If they are 5'3" and 270lbs from eating at McDonald's every day, it's not the fault of McDonald's, it's the fault of the person that didn't figure it out when they were 200lbs, then 210, 230, 250, etc...
Hell, I'm overweight because I sit on my ass all day and eat too much. I finish all my fries even after I'm no longer hungry.
I read a study once that fat people don't remember what they've eaten as well as thin people.
I realize you're being humorous, essentially calling the author one of them.
I'll defend him though saying that he's not one of them and is showing that anyone can use those techniques, thereby proving that those techniques do not qualify as a "skill".
In short, anyone can sling BS but it doesn't make its worth any greater.
If you can't get things right, only the soft field is accessible to you.
If you can get things right then the sciences are wide open to you but you'll still have the same fight as anyone else in the "arts".
In college, I consistently received C's for my English papers (I was a math major taking some English courses.) I had to explain some of the issues of the Vietnam War to a friend (since they don't seem to learn about it on their own). She turned in her paper having written what I said verbatim and received and A, with several notes complementing her excellent points. It should be noted that she was an English major.
In college, History majors reguarly received higher grades for inferior work in the History dept. It was a lot like watching the empire building that goes on in corporations.
Anyhow, it's the academic types that prosper in college in this fashion that go on to be the literary critic. Then again maybe I'm just bitter because I'm a white male and therefore don't have anything to contribute but lies and oppression.
There a tons of things where Python is plenty fast. I'm writing something in Python right now. All it has to do is read a line that I type, parse it, work with the db and prompt me for another line. Well over 99% of the time is spent waiting on me to type a line.
Python waits for input just as fast as all the other languages.
Development and benchmarking of 1 million human typed lines is left as an exercise for the reader.
Oh, and my parsing recognizes verbs, nouns, objects and pronouns. All of this is easily optimized to run fast enough in Python. I'm sure it could eventually be made faster in C but I won't even explore that.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing that helped me was learning that all the error messages are in the Camel Book.
your program should start:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
After that you should receive good error messages. When I look them up in the Camel book I'd say 90% of the time the book explains exactly what I had done wrong.
It's wonderful compared to the horrific error messages and stack trace spam that java gives me.
When filling out an application after college, I encountered the field asking for "Special Accomplishments". While there may be some college student out there that has brokered an armistice in an ongoing civil war, this field is generally pure BS. I figured my answer should reflect my personality:
"I once drew a perfect circle with an etch-a-sketch."
My reasoning was that I should answer the questions like they were being asked by the person I *want* to work for. That way if they like it and hire me, then I'm working for at least one good person. I play golf with the same plan, always aim at the hole in case it's a good shot, then I'll have at least one good shot to talk about.
What/where is your store?
:)
I have no website detailing it.
If you google for Barclay wood blocks, you should find a site that sells some good blocks. Their site is humorous and they clearly know how people (big and small) really use blocks.
They use Soft Maple, so that's what I bought. It has a nice feel to it. Although it is called "soft maple", it is still a hardwood. This is important because soft woods will splinter.
I bought 8/4 soft maple in random widths and lengths.
rip then plane it down to 1 3/8".
Then just cut the remaining board in units of 1 3/8's so that a typical block is 1 3/8" x 2 3/4" x 2 3/4".
Make some longer ones.
Originally I was going to route the edges along the grain but instead I bought a bench grinder and I just hold the edge against it for a second. While a bit more inconsistent, it results in a nice soft edge.
Next time I might go with 6/4 soft maple and use 1.25" as my unit just so there isn't so much wasted wood.
If you have a bit more money, you can get the wood already planed to your exact width.
The planer works wonders. Planed wood doesn't need to be sanded along the faces.
If I were doing it over again, I might buy a mitre saw that could be adjusted to rip instead of a table saw. The mitre would be better at cutting lengths of blocks than the table saw. Then again, a table saw is a real workhorse for other projects.
I don't do the letters or anything too fancy. I'm really not handy with power tools and rectangles are my specialty
I was playing MegaWars III online in the early 80's on Compuserve. There were definite rankings there.
Does anyone know if MegaWars still exists in any format?
I bought a planer, a bench sander and a table saw. I'm producing enough blocks to make a large fort. It works out to about 1/3 the cost of buying wooden blocks. They don't really come into their own until you have a 1 year old walking around like godzilla, smashing buildings.
Oh, and the trebuchet is operational. I just need to make a smaller one or lob something much heavier because it's throwing things about 80 feet right now. This is not good for indoor use.
I've basically given up on prepackaged sets for blocks, legos, whatever and I'm making my own stuff now. It's so much more satisfying to see a little one playing with something you made. Oh, and if you do need some special pieces, you can always get exactly what you want.
What I get out of this is that the Democrats can't stand to have their own thoughts see the light of day. They are clearly ashamed to be seen for what they are.
I was in fact aiming to get them to try a house wine. But the switch to heineken was so quick and decisive I knew it was a lost cause.
It's near impossible for a company that is merely profitable to beat gains of a company that grows. For instance. Let's say McDonald's finally got a restaurant on every corner. It would be profitable and bring good dividends but wouldn't have growth. Then some guy would get the bright idea that they could use their big stack of cash to start a chik-fil-a competitor and *double* the size and income of the company.
Wall Street suffers from comparisons. How well you did doesn't matter as long as you did better than the person you're compared against.
Not that I think the current way is right. I'd be all for a company that makes 10+% profit a year and returns it to the shareholders. That plan leaves no room for error because of a lack of diversification.
As to your second paragraph, yes there are a lot of companies doing just that. Most of them don't go public though since you have to answer to shareholders who may have a different view of shareholder value (short term of course). A lot of private companies don't like to talk or be heard from and often don't want anyone to know they are in fact profitable.
That reminds me of my first dinner in Italy. We had just pulled into port in Naples. I was with 8 other Marines as we sat down to dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant. Being our first port call on this little cruise, several asked if they had Budweiser. I pointed out that they were about to pay imported prices for a bud light when they could get something European at a local price.
Heeding my advice, they all immediately switched to Heineken and I gave up trying.
We use big guns mounted to the vehicle to facilitate a quick exit.
Seriously though, parking military vehicles in civilian areas is much less common in the US than it is in Europe. In my experience in the Marines, I can't recall ever parking anywhere but in a field or the motor pool.
If it is something where a quick exit may be needed, we'd probably park on the road.
Truly, I was mocking the controller and not the people playing video games. I certainly play enough computer games to qualify as someone that needs to play fewer games. Then again, it's a clean healthy hobby compared to that meth lab I had going a while back.
I can see where maybe you thought I was one of those holier-than-though "I don't watch TV" guys. Trust me, that's not it. I think the controller is the right idea wrong implementation and the only good it will do is if a mother wants their son playing fewer games, she installs it and throws out the regular controllers.
I suppose I could have just said, "it looks like it sucks."
I almost wrote "except Iceland".
I'm currently studying Icelandic. Anyone know of a good site that might list/review some utilities for Icelandic?
Please, oh please, name the country that was not built upon the burned bodies of its previous inhabitants.
Sheesh. For that last time, Emacs is not an editor. It's a lifestyle.
I would agree with your placement of the blame if people actually followed the advice of nutritionists.
It's my observation that they behave like smokers. They know what they are doing is self-destructive but they do it anyway.
People like eating, smoking, drinking, driving fast, gambling, spending money, dating two women at once, etc...
Nobody ever takes into consideration the cost of getting a lawyer. This is why geeks aren't in management.
Do a cost-benefits analysis on getting a lawyer. If it costs more to hire one than you hope to get in return then don't hire one.
If I were shorted $1000 on some freelance work, I would try to work it out with the company. Maybe even their legal dept. I sure wouldn't hire a lawyer to try to recoup $1k.
If this guy just wants the satisfaction of someone playing well nicely, hiring someone that will charge him by the hour isn't necessarily a good move. Sure his chances may be better with a lawyer but his chances aren't exactly zero without one.
This controller might have one good use:
Getting people to stop playing so many video games. Then maybe they'll exercise...
A very small minority of people that are obese actually have medical problems that caused them to gain weight. Some do have problems which make it very difficult to stay slim, but there are certain laws of the universe that govern the conservation of mass which imply that if they eat less, they weigh less.
Most people will just finish the portions they are served.
Stop being an apologist for all those poor fat people that have everything stacked against them. If they are 5'3" and 270lbs from eating at McDonald's every day, it's not the fault of McDonald's, it's the fault of the person that didn't figure it out when they were 200lbs, then 210, 230, 250, etc...
Hell, I'm overweight because I sit on my ass all day and eat too much. I finish all my fries even after I'm no longer hungry.
I read a study once that fat people don't remember what they've eaten as well as thin people.
These are all companies that make money off computing. The word they have in common, but which isn't very marketable is "profitable" computing.
These compnaies aren't talking about lots of computers always talking to each other. What they are talking about is "selling a ****load of computers."
Dude, with today's modern communications technology you can just use a DVD that displays a fireplace.
Why don't we just pollute the planet until it warms up enough to sustain life?
I'd like to see a debate between the reality-is-perception camp and Mike Tyson defending cold-hard-reality-doesn't-care-what-you-think-abou t-it.
I realize you're being humorous, essentially calling the author one of them.
I'll defend him though saying that he's not one of them and is showing that anyone can use those techniques, thereby proving that those techniques do not qualify as a "skill".
In short, anyone can sling BS but it doesn't make its worth any greater.
If you can't get things right, only the soft field is accessible to you.
If you can get things right then the sciences are wide open to you but you'll still have the same fight as anyone else in the "arts".
In college, I consistently received C's for my English papers (I was a math major taking some English courses.) I had to explain some of the issues of the Vietnam War to a friend (since they don't seem to learn about it on their own). She turned in her paper having written what I said verbatim and received and A, with several notes complementing her excellent points. It should be noted that she was an English major.
In college, History majors reguarly received higher grades for inferior work in the History dept. It was a lot like watching the empire building that goes on in corporations.
Anyhow, it's the academic types that prosper in college in this fashion that go on to be the literary critic. Then again maybe I'm just bitter because I'm a white male and therefore don't have anything to contribute but lies and oppression.
There a tons of things where Python is plenty fast. I'm writing something in Python right now. All it has to do is read a line that I type, parse it, work with the db and prompt me for another line. Well over 99% of the time is spent waiting on me to type a line.
Python waits for input just as fast as all the other languages.
Development and benchmarking of 1 million human typed lines is left as an exercise for the reader.
Oh, and my parsing recognizes verbs, nouns, objects and pronouns. All of this is easily optimized to run fast enough in Python. I'm sure it could eventually be made faster in C but I won't even explore that.