>This looks like a pretty cool project, but anyone else concerned that we'll now have folks training it to recognize all sorts of 4 letter words?
That would be silly. I don't think the mouse is actually trained by the soundfiles people send in. Otherwise it would be completely spoiled in a short time. The mouse can recognize one now, and it is this version of the mouse that people can try to figure out, not some random changed version.
I think this is a very cool project. We know that the solution is pretty simple. Biologists can apply their normal methods to it. If they can't figure it out, maybe that would say something about the methods.
I haven't actually had time to read the paper yet, so maybe I'm being more nonsensical than I think.
As an 18 year old, this sounds like it'd be fun for a month (but not much more).
Bah. No cold beer. No fresh food. Supermarkets are highly electronic and would probably collapse. The lift stops working and I live on the tenth floor. People won't visit me since the door bell doesn't work, I won't know someone is there. Alarm systems fail, plundering starts. No money machines, can't pay electronically, no money. No cold beer! Can't play music at the parties. My fish will die. Of course, no computer, no 'net, no TV, but that is fun for a while. NO COLD BEER!
I don't think I'd manage to live like that for a month, let alone have fun...
I'm always confused reading this sort of discussion. I am an Open Source devotee, agree mostly with everything GNU says, refuse to use non-Free software, etc. On the other hand, I don't agree with ESR's other politics at all. I'm all for government control. Libertarianism, Anarchy, not my cup of tea at all. Government regulation protects the people from big companies. I like to live in democracy, not bigcompanicy.
So why do they always seem to belong together in discussions like this? Isn't ESR promoting his own politics on other issues too much while promoting Open Source? Or am I the odd one out and is it true that all of you out there agree with those politics?!
There is a program that *comes with Python* (pindent.py) that looks for things like 'endif' and formats your Python correctly, then deletes them. Maybe it can handle { } too.
I've never heard of anyone who used it, and I've never seen code that used it. I wonder why.
And before someones suggests that mixing spaces and tabs should be illegal - if you use the -t option, that will give you a warning. Use -tt if you want an error.
The O'Reilly Python books could be better. Generally, most people seem to like Learning Python, and dislike Programming Python - that book is just too chaotic. But a new edition is coming up soon (it's 5 years old or so), who knows, maybe it'll be a lot better.
But the online documentation is good! It's not as *big* as Perl's, but Perl's is ridiculous:-). See http://www.python.org/doc/current/ or something like that. Follow the links to other doc pages as well.
I really don't know why Python programmers reject the concept of bracket characters (or words as in languages like Pascal).
One reason I haven't seen mentioned yet is that it saves vertical screen space. A } or 'endif' will usually be on a line of its own.
Studies have shown that pieces of code become harder to understand as they become longer[1] - with a steep increase when the code becomes longer than a page, regardless of the length of the page. You have to scroll up and down to see it all.
One number I've heard is that a big (few hundred thousand lines) Modula project (Modula uses 'end') had 1 in 6 lines that only had 'end' on them. That means that a Python function can be around 20% longer than the same function in a language that uses end marks, for the same readability.
Btw, most of those 'confused cases' where the programmer uses an odd indentation scheme are simply a syntax error in Python. Yes, if he moves some line a complete indent to the left or right, it may be actually legal sometimes, and mean something else. That can only happen on the last line of a block. Then you have a bug. You get bugs with misplaced braces as well.
-- Remco
[1] Although I'm checking this in Steve McConnell's Code Complete now, and the studies *he* cites say it's no problem. I still like them smaller than a page, myself. Besides, Linus' CodingStyle agrees, and this is Slashdot.
At least I know the author. David Harel wrote
Algorithmics: the Spirit of Computing
and I really liked that book. I read it in the first semester of my first CS year, so that's the level you should think of.
It explains what algorithms are, what complexity and the "big-O" notation are, and has a good discussion of P vs NP, and decidability.
Given this background, I suppose this book also covers the "computers can't do everything" from that angle.
> If *YOU* don't like a site or find something offensive, then sue the human who MADE the post/site.
Or rather, if you are offended looking at a particular web site, DON'T DO THAT THEN! You can't make a good website that isn't going to offend anyone. Nor should you try.
Slashdot Mirror
>This looks like a pretty cool project, but anyone else concerned that we'll now have folks training it to recognize all sorts of 4 letter words?
That would be silly. I don't think the mouse is actually trained by the soundfiles people send in. Otherwise it would be completely spoiled in a short time. The mouse can recognize one now, and it is this version of the mouse that people can try to figure out, not some random changed version.
I think this is a very cool project. We know that the solution is pretty simple. Biologists can apply their normal methods to it. If they can't figure it out, maybe that would say something about the methods.
I haven't actually had time to read the paper yet, so maybe I'm being more nonsensical than I think.
That's Free as in *speech*, dammit. Quit bringing free beer into it.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies!
Bah. No cold beer. No fresh food. Supermarkets are highly electronic and would probably collapse. The lift stops working and I live on the tenth floor. People won't visit me since the door bell doesn't work, I won't know someone is there. Alarm systems fail, plundering starts. No money machines, can't pay electronically, no money. No cold beer! Can't play music at the parties. My fish will die. Of course, no computer, no 'net, no TV, but that is fun for a while. NO COLD BEER!
I don't think I'd manage to live like that for a month, let alone have fun...
At least the alarm clock wouldn't work :-)
I'm always confused reading this sort of discussion. I am an Open Source devotee, agree mostly with everything GNU says, refuse to use non-Free software, etc. On the other hand, I don't agree with ESR's other politics at all. I'm all for government control. Libertarianism, Anarchy, not my cup of tea at all. Government regulation protects the people from big companies. I like to live in democracy, not bigcompanicy.
So why do they always seem to belong together in discussions like this? Isn't ESR promoting his own politics on other issues too much while promoting Open Source? Or am I the odd one out and is it true that all of you out there agree with those politics?!
I'm European though. That could be it.
I've never heard of anyone who used it, and I've never seen code that used it. I wonder why.
And before someones suggests that mixing spaces and tabs should be illegal - if you use the -t option, that will give you a warning. Use -tt if you want an error.
But the online documentation is good! It's not as *big* as Perl's, but Perl's is ridiculous :-). See http://www.python.org/doc/current/ or something like that. Follow the links to other doc pages as well.
One reason I haven't seen mentioned yet is that it saves vertical screen space. A } or 'endif' will usually be on a line of its own.
Studies have shown that pieces of code become harder to understand as they become longer[1] - with a steep increase when the code becomes longer than a page, regardless of the length of the page. You have to scroll up and down to see it all.
One number I've heard is that a big (few hundred thousand lines) Modula project (Modula uses 'end') had 1 in 6 lines that only had 'end' on them. That means that a Python function can be around 20% longer than the same function in a language that uses end marks, for the same readability.
Btw, most of those 'confused cases' where the programmer uses an odd indentation scheme are simply a syntax error in Python. Yes, if he moves some line a complete indent to the left or right, it may be actually legal sometimes, and mean something else. That can only happen on the last line of a block. Then you have a bug. You get bugs with misplaced braces as well.
-- Remco
[1] Although I'm checking this in Steve McConnell's Code Complete now, and the studies *he* cites say it's no problem. I still like them smaller than a page, myself. Besides, Linus' CodingStyle agrees, and this is Slashdot.
> 2. I'm missing IE and Outlook Express.
For an Outlook replacement, the following is cool: http://www.tarball.net/postoffice/
It works like Outlook, but it knows what standards are, what a clue is, and so on.
Missing IE? Well, any good graphical browser would be nice... Netscape sucks, Mozilla needs like 700M diskspace if you want to compile it, ...
It explains what algorithms are, what complexity and the "big-O" notation are, and has a good discussion of P vs NP, and decidability.
Given this background, I suppose this book also covers the "computers can't do everything" from that angle.
Or rather, if you are offended looking at a particular web site, DON'T DO THAT THEN! You can't make a good website that isn't going to offend anyone. Nor should you try.