Yeah. You roommate is in his fourth year of Computer Sci (and he very well could get the degree in Computer Sci and Engineering, since he's taken the requisite courses just for fun) and he's been programming for a rather long time, and programming for money for almost as long.
He's the one who has been helping me as I have been learning new concepts that I've never had to deal with before (writing a MUD can be a bloody headache, particularly when you're attempting to do a Graphical MUD) and one day when we were talking about optimising the C code I was using for the server of the last incarnation (a non-graphical one) he advised that I look at the assembly files generated. And I did. And it blew me away.
C is a low level language. Often you can just look at a good deal of the code and have a fairly good idea of exactly what the processor is going to do. And that's the problem with programming today, atleast how it's taught. It's a diploma mill to generate people who don't neccessarily like computers, but do like the idea of making 55 thousand dollars a year. And most of them have no idea of how things are actually achieved.
I would say that the efficiency of Unix and Linux over Windows is not due to the fact that they're written in C as opposed to C++, but due to the fact the the programmers who write them put more stock in efficient, well written, bug free code.
As I see it, Java is only good for one thing: Writing code that must work the same on many platforms all at once. However, I prefer C, and C++, to Java, one of the reasons being that it lets me use pointers. You may never need to use pointers, but it is good to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of how computers work, and one of the things that Java lacks for that is Pointers. At the local University, it's not until you get into advanced courses that deal with the nitty-gritty of how computers work that you use C or C++, and then you quickly go from those to actual machine language.
Yes. What we need now is to map the 'Proteome,' or rather, to create a dictionary of the many, many different proteins that the human body uses -- what they do, what they're made of, how they're folded, how they interact.
That's a much, much more difficult thing than simply 'mapping' the genome.
Java is useless. I'm sorry. But before you mod me down, read on.
I live in Gainesville, Flordia, four blocks north of it on W 17th Street. Here, they use Java for their Computer Science classes. It's a big mistake.
How many of you out there who are programmers use Java? Very few. Unless you're developing for very, very specific things, you generally don't use Java. C++ is a much better choice for learning, particularly at the University level. It's Object Oriented, and it's actually useful in the real world.
That's the big problem that alot of people fail to understand. There is no good reason for Average Jane and Joe to leave Windows for Linux, or any other of the Unices.
All they want are things to be easy to install, and their favorite programs to work, and, if they're the more 'adventurous' sort, to have their hardward they just put in to run without hassle.
Let's face it. I'm a slightly above average Unix user and I still have an insanely hard time installing some software packages for my NetBSD machine, and I know exactly what the hell I'm doing. I realse breaking everything up into its atoms is a good idea, but it really does something for ease of install.
And as to games on Linux/Unix, the problem is there are too many flavours. Windows has a big step ahead on this in the fact that everyone who develops for Windows knows it's going to run (with extremely few exceptions) from 95 to XP. If I write a piece a program (say, my MUD, which I should get back to work on) on NetBSD, it will not run without some modifications on RedHat. And probably not without some more on Mandriva, etc. And that's for a relatively simple program that just uses sockets. When you have graphics, it's a whole new ball game.
What Linux needs (and maybe the *BSD groups, but seperately) is a group from all the major distros who say, "Listen guys. This sucks. We're too fractured. We need to agree on one thing for all of us, to make it easier to develop and swap things around."
Basically, everone uses X11. But what about GTK, or GTK++, or the other things that go ontop of that that are neccessary for things like KDE and Gnome and some of the more 'advanced' apps?
They either need to be incorporated into X11 (which is highly doubtful, and probably not a good idea,) or we all need to agree on a standard, so that something which wasn't built on GTK can still use GTK.
That's the problem with the Linux and Unix communities. They're all about standards till it comes to their software and the way it works.
So, that makes it, what? 6, 7 years now since they've put out something actually new? Windows 2000 was the last actual Major Version Number Up-age, right?
(Thanks. It's hard to check those things when not at your Windows Box. Google was too hard. It involved moving my hands from the keyboard.)
Star Trek: Enterprise died not because it couldn't compete against reality shows, but because there are far fewer Blind, Rabid Star Trek Fan-boys than there are Star Trek Fans, and the Fans will not tolerate the kind of abuses to a series that the Fan-boys will take, just so they can get another hit of their favorite crack, no matter how badly cut with filler it is.
That is why Enterprise failed. It was a good idea, but horribly executed, like an axemen who hits the guy in the back instead of hard on the neck when he's on the block.
In other words, Enterprise was a brutal massacre of Star Trek.
GEEK: Bring out your obsolete boxen!
Bring out your obsolete boxen over here! [clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here! [clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here! [clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here! [clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here!
NETCRAFT: Ah! Good, Good! Here's one for you -- and here's your one gig of porn. *BSD: I'm not obsolete! GEEK: What? NETCRAFT: 'S Nothing -- here's your one gig of porn now. *BSD: I'm not obsolete, I'm not! GEEK: Oy, what's this here? He says he's not obsolete! NETCRAFT: Oh, Yes, Yes, he is. *BSD: I'm not! GEEK: He isn't obsolete. NETCRAFT: Yes, Well, he will be soon, you see. He's dying. *BSD: No I'm not! I'm gaining market share! NETCRAFT: Oh no, you're not -- you'll be stone dead and useless in a moment. GEEK: Oh, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations y'know. *BSD: I don't want to go in the dumpster! I don't want to go in the dumpster! NETCRAFT: Oh, don't be such a baby. It's just like being on Hibernate! GEEK: I can't take him like that. *BSD: I feel useful! I feel useful! NETCRAFT: Oh, do us a favor... c'mon. GEEK: I can't. NETCRAFT: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long. Less market-share than Punch-cards and Paper-tape. GEEK: Naaah, I really got to go on to IBM's -- they've lost OS/2 this week. NETCRAFT: Well, when is your next round, then? GEEK: Oh, I won't be back around here till next Thursday. *BSD: I think I'll go do a compile, now! NETCRAFT: You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, mate, isn't there something you can do here? *BSD: I feel useful... I feel useful. I'm just gonna do a little compile! [bzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttt] NETCRAFT: Ah, thanks very much. GEEK: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Oi! John Wayne's not dead - he's frozen. And as soon as we find the Cure for Cancer we're gonna thaw out the duke and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why? Have you ever taken a cold shower? Well multiple that by 15-million times, that's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be.
I'm gonna get the Duke and John Cassavetes...
Parent Poster: Hey.
and Lee Marvin
Parent Poster: Hey.
and Sam Pekinpah
Parent Poster: Hey!
And a case of Whiskey and drive down to Texas...
Parent Poster: Hey, you know you really are an asshole?
Father: They told me I was daft to build Windows, but I built it anyway! It was full of flaws and suffered horrible exploits.
Father: So I built another Windows! It was full of flaws and suffered horrible exploits.
Father: So I built a third Windows. It was full of flaws and suffered horrible exploits and the Remote Desktop Feature could be hijacked causing it to crash.
Father: So I built a Forth Windows! And it had DRM! And that's what you're going to be inheriting lad! The most bloated, useless feature, locked-out OS in these here lands!
Son: But mothe-
Father: I'm your father!
Son: But father... I don't want any of that.
Father: Well what do you want?!
Son: I want... something... bug free... and... fre-...
Also, as I forgot to add before I hit the submit button, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not 'mostly' civilian targets. They would be like saying Colorado Springs is a Civilian Target when it sits practically ontop of NORAD.
"At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable military significance. It contained the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops." That's straight from the wikipedia page Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a page often cited by persons arguing against the dropping of the bombs.
And Nagasaki itself was a valuable military target, quoting again the same wikipage: "The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials."
The fact was that a good deal of people were evacuated from the city before the atomic bombing due to a previous bombing on the First of August of more conventional explosive ordinance.
The US could have waited for another year, and Japan still would not have surrendered. Surrender was unthinkable. It took the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, to change the minds of the Japanese Leadership, and even then the military staged a coup.
In the end, the bombings save more lives than they cost. I claim this due to the estimates for the number of US Service Personnel who would have been casualties, along with the fact that the Japanese had, virtually to the man, fought to the death and refused surrender. When you consider the fact that women and children, and pretty much anyone else who was able to bear any other kind of make-shift weapon, was being conscripted and trained to put up resistance to the planned invasion of the Home Island, you're looking at not only the deaths of a great deal of Soldiers, US and Japanese, but of a great deal of the Japanese Civilian Population itself.
I know you're being facetious #893696, but seriously, that sounds like a really shitty world to live in.
Countries are not a bad thing. Nationalism, the blind belief that your country is better than all the others, is a bad thing.
There will always be things worth killing and dying for. Freedom. Liberty. Life. The Right to go on Living is always worth depriving someone of their life.
And religion is just a tool. Like any other tool, it can be used for good, or for ill. Many of the worlds greatest works of Art, Architecture, and Music, have been inspired by religion. And so have many of the worlds most brutal violations of the Rights of Man. The problem is not with the tool, but with the user.
Humanity as a species is rapidly reaching a point where people who are too stupid to be rational and play nice and not interfere with the lives of others without their permission are going to have to either change, or die. It's the same choice this planet has offered to every other living thing, and it's the one thing that sums up all of life: Change or Die. Adapt, or Die.
So, will you Adapt? If not, I have something to tell you:
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. You roommate is in his fourth year of Computer Sci (and he very well could get the degree in Computer Sci and Engineering, since he's taken the requisite courses just for fun) and he's been programming for a rather long time, and programming for money for almost as long.
He's the one who has been helping me as I have been learning new concepts that I've never had to deal with before (writing a MUD can be a bloody headache, particularly when you're attempting to do a Graphical MUD) and one day when we were talking about optimising the C code I was using for the server of the last incarnation (a non-graphical one) he advised that I look at the assembly files generated. And I did. And it blew me away.
C is a low level language. Often you can just look at a good deal of the code and have a fairly good idea of exactly what the processor is going to do. And that's the problem with programming today, atleast how it's taught. It's a diploma mill to generate people who don't neccessarily like computers, but do like the idea of making 55 thousand dollars a year. And most of them have no idea of how things are actually achieved.
Well, normally I stay away from anything named 'Mono,' but I'll look into it. Thank you.
I would say that the efficiency of Unix and Linux over Windows is not due to the fact that they're written in C as opposed to C++, but due to the fact the the programmers who write them put more stock in efficient, well written, bug free code.
As I see it, Java is only good for one thing: Writing code that must work the same on many platforms all at once. However, I prefer C, and C++, to Java, one of the reasons being that it lets me use pointers. You may never need to use pointers, but it is good to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of how computers work, and one of the things that Java lacks for that is Pointers. At the local University, it's not until you get into advanced courses that deal with the nitty-gritty of how computers work that you use C or C++, and then you quickly go from those to actual machine language.
Oh, come now. We all know that Hell is Exothermic.
Yes. What we need now is to map the 'Proteome,' or rather, to create a dictionary of the many, many different proteins that the human body uses -- what they do, what they're made of, how they're folded, how they interact.
That's a much, much more difficult thing than simply 'mapping' the genome.
Java is useless. I'm sorry. But before you mod me down, read on.
I live in Gainesville, Flordia, four blocks north of it on W 17th Street. Here, they use Java for their Computer Science classes. It's a big mistake.
How many of you out there who are programmers use Java? Very few. Unless you're developing for very, very specific things, you generally don't use Java. C++ is a much better choice for learning, particularly at the University level. It's Object Oriented, and it's actually useful in the real world.
That's the big problem that alot of people fail to understand. There is no good reason for Average Jane and Joe to leave Windows for Linux, or any other of the Unices.
All they want are things to be easy to install, and their favorite programs to work, and, if they're the more 'adventurous' sort, to have their hardward they just put in to run without hassle.
Let's face it. I'm a slightly above average Unix user and I still have an insanely hard time installing some software packages for my NetBSD machine, and I know exactly what the hell I'm doing. I realse breaking everything up into its atoms is a good idea, but it really does something for ease of install.
And as to games on Linux/Unix, the problem is there are too many flavours. Windows has a big step ahead on this in the fact that everyone who develops for Windows knows it's going to run (with extremely few exceptions) from 95 to XP. If I write a piece a program (say, my MUD, which I should get back to work on) on NetBSD, it will not run without some modifications on RedHat. And probably not without some more on Mandriva, etc. And that's for a relatively simple program that just uses sockets. When you have graphics, it's a whole new ball game.
What Linux needs (and maybe the *BSD groups, but seperately) is a group from all the major distros who say, "Listen guys. This sucks. We're too fractured. We need to agree on one thing for all of us, to make it easier to develop and swap things around."
Basically, everone uses X11. But what about GTK, or GTK++, or the other things that go ontop of that that are neccessary for things like KDE and Gnome and some of the more 'advanced' apps?
They either need to be incorporated into X11 (which is highly doubtful, and probably not a good idea,) or we all need to agree on a standard, so that something which wasn't built on GTK can still use GTK.
That's the problem with the Linux and Unix communities. They're all about standards till it comes to their software and the way it works.
So, that makes it, what? 6, 7 years now since they've put out something actually new? Windows 2000 was the last actual Major Version Number Up-age, right?
(Thanks. It's hard to check those things when not at your Windows Box. Google was too hard. It involved moving my hands from the keyboard.)
Professor Farnsworth: Good news, everybody!
Windows NT 6.0? So, this is a Long-horn only thing, then?
See, I'm running XP, and las time I checked it's NT 5 point something.
Star Trek: Enterprise died not because it couldn't compete against reality shows, but because there are far fewer Blind, Rabid Star Trek Fan-boys than there are Star Trek Fans, and the Fans will not tolerate the kind of abuses to a series that the Fan-boys will take, just so they can get another hit of their favorite crack, no matter how badly cut with filler it is.
That is why Enterprise failed. It was a good idea, but horribly executed, like an axemen who hits the guy in the back instead of hard on the neck when he's on the block.
In other words, Enterprise was a brutal massacre of Star Trek.
You're thinking in synch with the Ancient Greeks. They were the ones who considered Hope an Evil.
Interesting. Are you a student of Greek History and Mythology, do you have some other interest in such things, or is it just passing coincidince?
GEEK: Bring out your obsolete boxen!
Bring out your obsolete boxen over here!
[clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here!
[clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here!
[clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here!
[clang] Bring out your obsolete boxen over here!
NETCRAFT: Ah! Good, Good! Here's one for you -- and here's your one gig of porn.
*BSD: I'm not obsolete!
GEEK: What?
NETCRAFT: 'S Nothing -- here's your one gig of porn now.
*BSD: I'm not obsolete, I'm not!
GEEK: Oy, what's this here? He says he's not obsolete!
NETCRAFT: Oh, Yes, Yes, he is.
*BSD: I'm not!
GEEK: He isn't obsolete.
NETCRAFT: Yes, Well, he will be soon, you see. He's dying.
*BSD: No I'm not! I'm gaining market share!
NETCRAFT: Oh no, you're not -- you'll be stone dead and useless in a moment.
GEEK: Oh, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations y'know.
*BSD: I don't want to go in the dumpster! I don't want to go in the dumpster!
NETCRAFT: Oh, don't be such a baby. It's just like being on Hibernate!
GEEK: I can't take him like that.
*BSD: I feel useful! I feel useful!
NETCRAFT: Oh, do us a favor... c'mon.
GEEK: I can't.
NETCRAFT: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long. Less market-share than Punch-cards and Paper-tape.
GEEK: Naaah, I really got to go on to IBM's -- they've lost OS/2 this week.
NETCRAFT: Well, when is your next round, then?
GEEK: Oh, I won't be back around here till next Thursday.
*BSD: I think I'll go do a compile, now!
NETCRAFT: You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, mate, isn't there something you can do here?
*BSD: I feel useful... I feel useful. I'm just gonna do a little compile!
[bzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttt]
NETCRAFT: Ah, thanks very much.
GEEK: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Oi! John Wayne's not dead - he's frozen. And as soon as we find the Cure for Cancer we're gonna thaw out the duke and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why?
Have you ever taken a cold shower?
Well multiple that by 15-million times, that's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be.
I'm gonna get the Duke and John Cassavetes...
Parent Poster: Hey.
and Lee Marvin
Parent Poster: Hey.
and Sam Pekinpah
Parent Poster: Hey!
And a case of Whiskey and drive down to Texas...
Parent Poster: Hey, you know you really are an asshole?
Why don't you just shut-up and sing the song pal!
Father: They told me I was daft to build Windows, but I built it anyway! It was full of flaws and suffered horrible exploits.
Father: So I built another Windows! It was full of flaws and suffered horrible exploits.
Father: So I built a third Windows. It was full of flaws and suffered horrible exploits and the Remote Desktop Feature could be hijacked causing it to crash.
Father: So I built a Forth Windows! And it had DRM! And that's what you're going to be inheriting lad! The most bloated, useless feature, locked-out OS in these here lands!
Son: But mothe-
Father: I'm your father!
Son: But father... I don't want any of that.
Father: Well what do you want?!
Son: I want... something... bug free... and... fre-...
Father: Hey! Hey, now! They're be none of that!
Nurse: Are you ready to operate doctor?
Hawkeye-bot: I'd love to, but first I have to perform surgery.
Zoidberg: That's my line! I'll kill you!
Hawkeye-bot: This isn't a war, it's a murder.
Hawkeye-bot: <Maudlin>This isn't a war, it's a moider!</Maudlin>
Also, as I forgot to add before I hit the submit button, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not 'mostly' civilian targets. They would be like saying Colorado Springs is a Civilian Target when it sits practically ontop of NORAD.
"At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable military significance. It contained the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops." That's straight from the wikipedia page Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a page often cited by persons arguing against the dropping of the bombs.
And Nagasaki itself was a valuable military target, quoting again the same wikipage: "The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials."
The fact was that a good deal of people were evacuated from the city before the atomic bombing due to a previous bombing on the First of August of more conventional explosive ordinance.
The US could have waited for another year, and Japan still would not have surrendered. Surrender was unthinkable. It took the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, to change the minds of the Japanese Leadership, and even then the military staged a coup.
In the end, the bombings save more lives than they cost. I claim this due to the estimates for the number of US Service Personnel who would have been casualties, along with the fact that the Japanese had, virtually to the man, fought to the death and refused surrender. When you consider the fact that women and children, and pretty much anyone else who was able to bear any other kind of make-shift weapon, was being conscripted and trained to put up resistance to the planned invasion of the Home Island, you're looking at not only the deaths of a great deal of Soldiers, US and Japanese, but of a great deal of the Japanese Civilian Population itself.
Doctor Lector, I presume?
No, the real point is in relationships you want to avoid the 'boot' process.
In Capite Tv Bone Vir Feces Habes.
Thank you.
/me points to a very fine could of vaporised Major Kong.
There.
Says Carl E. von Kleist, IV, KSC.
Don't forget your suffix and any titles you may have gained.
I know you're being facetious #893696, but seriously, that sounds like a really shitty world to live in.
Countries are not a bad thing. Nationalism, the blind belief that your country is better than all the others, is a bad thing.
There will always be things worth killing and dying for. Freedom. Liberty. Life. The Right to go on Living is always worth depriving someone of their life.
And religion is just a tool. Like any other tool, it can be used for good, or for ill. Many of the worlds greatest works of Art, Architecture, and Music, have been inspired by religion. And so have many of the worlds most brutal violations of the Rights of Man. The problem is not with the tool, but with the user.
Humanity as a species is rapidly reaching a point where people who are too stupid to be rational and play nice and not interfere with the lives of others without their permission are going to have to either change, or die. It's the same choice this planet has offered to every other living thing, and it's the one thing that sums up all of life: Change or Die. Adapt, or Die.
So, will you Adapt? If not, I have something to tell you:
Life sucks. Die already.