Not relevant to Lisp, but the article contains a blatantly inaccurate statement that Yahoo does not have server-side Java code.
I find this rather amusing, considering that I work for Yahoo as a server-side Java programmer, and I've been here for years. My team has probably over a hundred thousand lines of server-side Java code at the moment.
Disclaimer: I work for Yahoo!, albiet not in the Store group. My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Okay, with that out of the way -- yes, we have a little bit of Lisp code here. No, this was not a good idea, and no it is not a good way to get rich in the future. I have it on good authority that every single scrap of Lisp code we have is quickly being rewritten from scratch in C++, because there are so few engineers competent in Lisp here (read: zero).
I realise the hype is that you have free choice of languages and can write code in whatever works best. The sad reality is that there is a hell of a lot more to languages than just a different syntax, and it represents a tremendous investment of resources to become truly competent in a language.
Just as you would be irritated with your web site designers for dropping into Spanish because "Spanish had a better idiom for saying that -- hey, what's the big deal? It's just a different language", use of programming languages in the Real World is often tightly constrained by the fact that not everybody knows every language.
Usually when you have some lone rebel writing code in Lisp, it's because, well, he was a lone rebel. He could have written it in Sanscrit if he wanted to, but that doesn't make it a good idea. And, even though he got lucky, it wasn't a good idea -- because, as I said, all the code is being scrapped.
Take this article with a *very* large grain of salt, please.
Thank goodness somebody else sees this. I think somewhere on the collective open-source-community consciousness is written the words "linux: good - anything produced by a Big Company: bad".
JXTA may or may not be a Good Thing, and it may or may not make a difference in the world. But at least read a little something about it before slamming it, folks.
Ummm... no. You didn't read the article. The device converts heat to electricity, not sunlight to electricity (rather, sunlight produces electricity indirectly by generating heat which generates electricity).
All they're saying is that if you heat one cm^2 of this stuff to 1000 degrees C, it should produce 10W. They don't address whether or not they intend to actually run the things at that temperature (which, as you say would involve solar collectors).
So, by your argument, I should be able to labor for a year in my garage, write a really good book using some neat plot devices, and then prevent anybody else from using those plot devices for seventeen years?
I would love to see what would have happened to the book industry had the literary technique of foreshadowing been patented. Or if Tolkien had obtained a patent on Elfs, or on the use of magic rings which turn you invisible. It's ridiculous, to think about, isn't it?
The same is true of software, IMHO, and I say this as a professional software engineer. Let software be protected by copyright, just as books are, but patents are unnecessary and limiting. If someone can duplicate my work that easily, without stealing my code, it's just proof that what I did wasn't really that interesting in the first place.
The New Scientist article on supercavitation specifically mentioned the Shkval and the fact that "Shkval is a straight shooter," says Kam Ng, of the ONR. "There are no control capabilities whatsoever." So much effort had gone into stabilising the projectile that it can only travel in a straight line.
If that's correct (and it certainly seems plausible), there's no possible way that this could have happened.
Slashdot Mirror
Not relevant to Lisp, but the article contains a blatantly inaccurate statement that Yahoo does not have server-side Java code.
I find this rather amusing, considering that I work for Yahoo as a server-side Java programmer, and I've been here for years. My team has probably over a hundred thousand lines of server-side Java code at the moment.
Disclaimer: I work for Yahoo!, albiet not in the Store group. My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Okay, with that out of the way -- yes, we have a little bit of Lisp code here. No, this was not a good idea, and no it is not a good way to get rich in the future. I have it on good authority that every single scrap of Lisp code we have is quickly being rewritten from scratch in C++, because there are so few engineers competent in Lisp here (read: zero).
I realise the hype is that you have free choice of languages and can write code in whatever works best. The sad reality is that there is a hell of a lot more to languages than just a different syntax, and it represents a tremendous investment of resources to become truly competent in a language.
Just as you would be irritated with your web site designers for dropping into Spanish because "Spanish had a better idiom for saying that -- hey, what's the big deal? It's just a different language", use of programming languages in the Real World is often tightly constrained by the fact that not everybody knows every language.
Usually when you have some lone rebel writing code in Lisp, it's because, well, he was a lone rebel. He could have written it in Sanscrit if he wanted to, but that doesn't make it a good idea. And, even though he got lucky, it wasn't a good idea -- because, as I said, all the code is being scrapped.
Take this article with a *very* large grain of salt, please.
[disclaimer: I am a professional Java developer]
Thank goodness somebody else sees this. I think somewhere on the collective open-source-community consciousness is written the words "linux: good - anything produced by a Big Company: bad".
JXTA may or may not be a Good Thing, and it may or may not make a difference in the world. But at least read a little something about it before slamming it, folks.
Ummm ... no. You didn't read the article. The device converts heat to electricity, not sunlight to electricity (rather, sunlight produces electricity indirectly by generating heat which generates electricity).
All they're saying is that if you heat one cm^2 of this stuff to 1000 degrees C, it should produce 10W. They don't address whether or not they intend to actually run the things at that temperature (which, as you say would involve solar collectors).
So, by your argument, I should be able to labor for a year in my garage, write a really good book using some neat plot devices, and then prevent anybody else from using those plot devices for seventeen years?
I would love to see what would have happened to the book industry had the literary technique of foreshadowing been patented. Or if Tolkien had obtained a patent on Elfs, or on the use of magic rings which turn you invisible. It's ridiculous, to think about, isn't it?
The same is true of software, IMHO, and I say this as a professional software engineer. Let software be protected by copyright, just as books are, but patents are unnecessary and limiting. If someone can duplicate my work that easily, without stealing my code, it's just proof that what I did wasn't really that interesting in the first place.
The New Scientist article on supercavitation specifically mentioned the Shkval and the fact that "Shkval is a straight shooter," says Kam Ng, of the ONR. "There are no control capabilities whatsoever." So much effort had gone into stabilising the projectile that it can only travel in a straight line. If that's correct (and it certainly seems plausible), there's no possible way that this could have happened.