Politics vs technology
on
Why not Ruby?
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· Score: 1
I love this type of thinking that you promote. It is what ensures that those of us who promote the proper technical solution over the politically correct one will continue to corner the market on innovation.
For an insightful writeup on this phenomenon and how it practically guaranteed one company's success, read http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html as well as the juicy followup http://www.paulgraham.com/lwba.html
If your boss doesn't let you choose the right technology for the job, get a new boss.
Spot on! I switched to Ruby out of necessity. I knew both Python and Perl very well, and am an expert in Java. I had the need to be able to be more productive when programming. Ruby has made me much more productive.
To rephrase your question, does it make me an order of magnitude more productive? Well, that depends on which base you use for numeric comparisons. I'd have a hard time saying that in base 10, I'm an order of magnitude more productive in Ruby. But I am at least two to four times more productive in Ruby than in Python or Perl (and at least 8 to 16 times more than in Java) which does add up to a few orders of magnitude in base 2! *wink*
It's a real bummer that you had to research Ruby before Dave and Andy wrote Programming Ruby. Now all the hard work has been done for you, and the experience could've been much more pleasurable.
Regarding your benchmark, no, I don't see a problem with that. I never write programs that have to increment an integer from 1 to 1_000_000, so I don't particularly care what the performance for that task is.
Re:Modern water guns suck.
on
Water Guns
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· Score: 1
If you want something that looks like a real gun, get an airsoft pellet gun, but those have to have bright orange paint on the barrel.
Interesting, but do you know of any water guns that look like a real run?
Many free OS users don't want to build their own system. I used to build boxen myself, but now I simply don't have the time for it.
I like being able to give someone my credit card number and get an assembled, configured machine in return. I save money that way, because my time is money. Even more important, when something breaks, I call the vendor and they fix it. I save even more money that way.
Too bad VA is leaving the hardware business. I'll have to go with Dell or IBM or one of those other vendors that "sort of" supports linux, on some of their machines.
The important thing about the empeg that people don't seem to take into account with most car mp3 solutions is the audio quality. Your typical PC sound card still stucks, especially when the PC is getting power from the car. The folks at empeg put a lot of work into making the empeg a professional piece of audio equipment and it kicks ass over the homebuilt systems I've heard.
Only problem is, it reproduces the sound so faithfully and clear that now I can hear all the artifacts of the MP3 compression, even at 160kbps. Sigh. Still, I've found it to be worth every penny.
By the way, empeg's customer support kicks ass! They are the one tech company I've dealt with that leaves me smiling after contacting support. You won't regret buying an empeg. Or Rio Car or whatever they're called now. They're great! Go get one! Buy buy buy!
for $1299, you can get a pretty decent x86 laptop too, which will run Linux or BSD nicely, and will also, like the iBook, weight 5 lbs. but if i want to lug around a five pound laptop, i'll take a Titanium powerbook.
the Fiva kicks ass because it weights 2.1 lbs. too bad it won't fit in my coat pocket the way my aging libretto does.
I am a great fan of OpenBSD, having supported the project through CDs, T-shirts, and cash donations. But what I would really like to donate to the OpenBSD project is pizza.
Have you considered the technical feasibility and nutritious benefits of a pizza donation form on the openbsd.org site? Perhaps powered through partnership with a local pizza joint?
No, you obviously haven't used real exception handling, like Ada, Smalltalk, or Python. The point of an exception is to send up an error
to a higher level module to be handled WITHOUT HAVING EVERY LEVEL IN BETWEEN NEEDING IT KNOW ABOUT IT.
But if not every level in between needs to know about it, than you are implying that NO level needs to know about it (I mean to say that you think the compiler should not enforce explicit exception handling). If this is the case, then we might as well be returning magic numbers as error codes, since they are just as easy to ignore.
Java treats exceptions the way that you would expect a type-safe language to treat them- by being explicit. Other languages, for example Python, plays it fast and loose with exceptions the same way that it plays fast and loose with types. It's a matter of style- if you like one half of the compile-time safety net (type safety), chances are you'll appreciate the other half (exception safety).
Last time I looked, Swing made up part of an awesome evironment for doing GUI programming. You may want to check out a newer version of the JDK for Linux, it works great for me.
But I agree that Java also makes a wonderful environment for developing on the server-side.
At that point, the use of
the right language is essential for performance/efficiency.
I've always thought that the right compiler is essential for performace/efficiency. Languages exist to make people productive. Optimizing the code to make the computer productive is a job that belongs to the compiler.
I once dropped a pentium
chip about 2 feet and the whole silicon package shattered.
Really? Wow. When I was an inexperienced and careless teenager, I dropped quite a few Pentiums (on different occasions) from desktop height and from standing height, and never had one fail. Sure, perhaps I shortened the life expectancy, but it sounds like your chip must have had other problems.
What I find interesting is that while everyone here on Slashdot hates Microsoft software, they all LOVE Microsoft
hardware.
Why is that so interesting? The company makes good hardware and shitty software. It's like the coffee shop down the street from my office- it makes good coffee but bad espresso, so I buy coffee there and get my espresso elsewhere. I'll recommend Microsoft's hardware, but I get my software elsewhere.
As an aside- the Microsoft keyboard is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to my Interfaces by Cramer keyboard. Treat yourself to a real keyboard and resist the urge to give even more money to Microsoft!
The galaxy collision is cool and all, but I guess I've simulated too many to get excited about it.
What I want to know about is the Cult3D plugin (see the Hubble model for a link). I was quite pleasantly suprised to see that they have a linux version of the plugin, so I downloaded and installed it and it shows up in about:plugins and... going to the Hubble model makes Netscape crash now.
Anyone have this working on linux? FWIW I'm running 2.4.0-test9 and Netscape 4.74
While Discovery's phrasing is odd, the statement seems to be partially correct. Scenarios 8 through 17 each have a likelihood that probably increases with global population.
And in the case of slashdot user cookies, it should be a one-way hash (an account can still be temporarily hijacked, but the password wouldn't be compromised and thus couldn't be changed).
Why couldn't a password be changed? If slashdot accepts the hash a proof of identity, then I would be able to change my password using the hash just like I would post using the hash. If you decide that you need to enter your password with any request to change your password, then you just sent the plaintext again and you've compromised your original password, which, as you pointed out, is worse than accepting the hash as proof of identity.
Now, is slashdot had all password changes go through SSL, that'd help. Wouldn't be much of a load on the server, either, as I'm sure password changes are rather infrequent.
If they were really only discounting prices, and not raising them, then shouldn't this be called the "Undercharge Experiment"?
Oh wait, I guess that wouldn't sound so evil, and therefore wouldn't stir up the masses quite as much. Great job on presenting the news in a properly slanted way, slashdot! Thanks!
If I was going to a school because of a well rated Comp Sci program this would scare me off. I think the school
should be self supporting in that regaurd.
Why should CS professors be spending their time writing intranet software? Isn't that what an IT staff is for? I'd rather have the CS profs spend their time on curriculum development and research, not writing Java applets for some database-driven web site.
violent video games
have a causal link to violent actions
Um, yeah. I'm going to have to ask you to back that one up.
I've never even seen any evidence of a correlation between violent games and violent gamers, to say nothing of a causal relationship.
However, since you seem so sure of this statement that you have made, I'm sure that you will have no trouble providing us with references to the materials that led you to this conclusion.
I left college after two years because they weren't teaching critical thinking skills
I'm sorry that your college sucked. I'm also sorry that you gave up on college altogether, rather than transferring to a better one.
The major role of k-12 schools is to
provide day care and keep kids out of trouble.
That depends on the school/neighborhood. If the mentality of the local public school is like that, then it's a parent's duty to put their kids in private school or move to a better neighborhood.
Both of these points are related. Yes, there are shitty schools out there. But there are also excellent schools out there. Attend the latter.
Slashdot Mirror
I love this type of thinking that you promote. It is what ensures that those of us who promote the proper technical solution over the politically correct one will continue to corner the market on innovation.
For an insightful writeup on this phenomenon and how it practically guaranteed one company's success, read http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html as well as the juicy followup http://www.paulgraham.com/lwba.html
If your boss doesn't let you choose the right technology for the job, get a new boss.
Spot on! I switched to Ruby out of necessity. I knew both Python and Perl very well, and am an expert in Java. I had the need to be able to be more productive when programming. Ruby has made me much more productive.
To rephrase your question, does it make me an order of magnitude more productive? Well, that depends on which base you use for numeric comparisons. I'd have a hard time saying that in base 10, I'm an order of magnitude more productive in Ruby. But I am at least two to four times more productive in Ruby than in Python or Perl (and at least 8 to 16 times more than in Java) which does add up to a few orders of magnitude in base 2! *wink*
It's a real bummer that you had to research Ruby before Dave and Andy wrote Programming Ruby. Now all the hard work has been done for you, and the experience could've been much more pleasurable.
Regarding your benchmark, no, I don't see a problem with that. I never write programs that have to increment an integer from 1 to 1_000_000, so I don't particularly care what the performance for that task is.
Many free OS users don't want to build their own system. I used to build boxen myself, but now I simply don't have the time for it.
I like being able to give someone my credit card number and get an assembled, configured machine in return. I save money that way, because my time is money. Even more important, when something breaks, I call the vendor and they fix it. I save even more money that way.
Too bad VA is leaving the hardware business. I'll have to go with Dell or IBM or one of those other vendors that "sort of" supports linux, on some of their machines.
Wait! You can have the best of both worlds-
http://www.thedaily.com/paperpalm.html
Looks like a palm, but you don't have to learn grafitti, and it's less than $5!
The important thing about the empeg that people don't seem to take into account with most car mp3 solutions is the audio quality. Your typical PC sound card still stucks, especially when the PC is getting power from the car. The folks at empeg put a lot of work into making the empeg a professional piece of audio equipment and it kicks ass over the homebuilt systems I've heard.
Only problem is, it reproduces the sound so faithfully and clear that now I can hear all the artifacts of the MP3 compression, even at 160kbps. Sigh. Still, I've found it to be worth every penny.
By the way, empeg's customer support kicks ass! They are the one tech company I've dealt with that leaves me smiling after contacting support. You won't regret buying an empeg. Or Rio Car or whatever they're called now. They're great! Go get one! Buy buy buy!
the Fiva kicks ass because it weights 2.1 lbs. too bad it won't fit in my coat pocket the way my aging libretto does.
There's a nice, if short, checklist at http://www.openbsd.org/porting.html#security
Hey, now that you mention it, I actually remember reading that a while ago. Well, that sure makes my original post sound dumb.
Have you considered the technical feasibility and nutritious benefits of a pizza donation form on the openbsd.org site? Perhaps powered through partnership with a local pizza joint?
But if not every level in between needs to know about it, than you are implying that NO level needs to know about it (I mean to say that you think the compiler should not enforce explicit exception handling). If this is the case, then we might as well be returning magic numbers as error codes, since they are just as easy to ignore.
Java treats exceptions the way that you would expect a type-safe language to treat them- by being explicit. Other languages, for example Python, plays it fast and loose with exceptions the same way that it plays fast and loose with types. It's a matter of style- if you like one half of the compile-time safety net (type safety), chances are you'll appreciate the other half (exception safety).
But I agree that Java also makes a wonderful environment for developing on the server-side.
I've always thought that the right compiler is essential for performace/efficiency. Languages exist to make people productive. Optimizing the code to make the computer productive is a job that belongs to the compiler.
Really? Wow. When I was an inexperienced and careless teenager, I dropped quite a few Pentiums (on different occasions) from desktop height and from standing height, and never had one fail. Sure, perhaps I shortened the life expectancy, but it sounds like your chip must have had other problems.
Why is that so interesting? The company makes good hardware and shitty software. It's like the coffee shop down the street from my office- it makes good coffee but bad espresso, so I buy coffee there and get my espresso elsewhere. I'll recommend Microsoft's hardware, but I get my software elsewhere.
As an aside- the Microsoft keyboard is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to my Interfaces by Cramer keyboard. Treat yourself to a real keyboard and resist the urge to give even more money to Microsoft!
What I want to know about is the Cult3D plugin (see the Hubble model for a link). I was quite pleasantly suprised to see that they have a linux version of the plugin, so I downloaded and installed it and it shows up in about:plugins and... going to the Hubble model makes Netscape crash now.
Anyone have this working on linux? FWIW I'm running 2.4.0-test9 and Netscape 4.74
While Discovery's phrasing is odd, the statement seems to be partially correct. Scenarios 8 through 17 each have a likelihood that probably increases with global population.
Why couldn't a password be changed? If slashdot accepts the hash a proof of identity, then I would be able to change my password using the hash just like I would post using the hash. If you decide that you need to enter your password with any request to change your password, then you just sent the plaintext again and you've compromised your original password, which, as you pointed out, is worse than accepting the hash as proof of identity.
Now, is slashdot had all password changes go through SSL, that'd help. Wouldn't be much of a load on the server, either, as I'm sure password changes are rather infrequent.
Oh wait, I guess that wouldn't sound so evil, and therefore wouldn't stir up the masses quite as much. Great job on presenting the news in a properly slanted way, slashdot! Thanks!
Why should CS professors be spending their time writing intranet software? Isn't that what an IT staff is for? I'd rather have the CS profs spend their time on curriculum development and research, not writing Java applets for some database-driven web site.
Um, what wonderful place do you live in? Here in the US, voting does not make you politically relevant. Campaign contributions make you political ly relevant.
Um, yeah. I'm going to have to ask you to back that one up.
I've never even seen any evidence of a correlation between violent games and violent gamers, to say nothing of a causal relationship.
However, since you seem so sure of this statement that you have made, I'm sure that you will have no trouble providing us with references to the materials that led you to this conclusion.
I'm sorry that your college sucked. I'm also sorry that you gave up on college altogether, rather than transferring to a better one.
The major role of k-12 schools is to provide day care and keep kids out of trouble.
That depends on the school/neighborhood. If the mentality of the local public school is like that, then it's a parent's duty to put their kids in private school or move to a better neighborhood.
Both of these points are related. Yes, there are shitty schools out there. But there are also excellent schools out there. Attend the latter.
Oh, come on. Who really wants to be like Bill?