No sense arguing with this type of person- unless you're on this list you're not "Unix." Silly trademark issue. Apple hasn't paid the assload of money to get certified, nor as OpenBSD. So they're not "Unix." I say, who cares if it's called a car or an auto, still does the same damned thing.
Which is quite bizarre; science is the study of what is and was and will be. From a Christian perspective, God has created all that there is and was and will be. So for a Christian to attempt to explain away our observation of God's creation seems awfully backwards to me.
In any of my attempts to get references to or explanations of evidence from creationists about the "science" behind creationism, that is about the best they've given me.
Science isn't infallible nor is it all knowing. Any one who claims it is isn't doing science, creationists base their entire debunkage of science on the claim that science pretends to know everything. If we don't know how eyes work, god must have created it! If there are zany creationists reading this out there, please do feel free to email me links or give me better arguments via email. I've had this invitation open for years, but no one has given me anything other than b.s. so far.
I mean, shit- even the Pope hisself and heads of various Jewish sects have declared that evolution can't be bunk, following this logic:
Fact: There is a mountain of evidence for evolution.
Conclusions: Either 1. God is doing an enormous mount of work trying to trick us into believing the lies of Satan, and is planting evidence; or 2. Evolution happens.
From Conclusion 1, we can further reason that if God is going to such lengths to trick humans into buying into evolution, nothing in nature or human culture (including the Bible, and other prophecy) can be trusted as any sort of sign, signal, or communication from God. The Christian and Jewish religions believe the Bible to be the word of god, and not a trick. Generally, to be trusted. If god isn't out to get us and is setting traps in her free time, then we should just get over it and trust what he shows us. E.g., all the evidence for evolution.
Nope. He can't do that. He is such a wuss, that he could only have created earth and the universe 6,000 years ago, and He's such a blabbering idiot, that almost all of His ramblings are incoherrent and contradicts itself.
That's exactly what the gnostics said. They were one of the earlier secs of Christianity, actually listening to the words of the person people mistakenly call Jesus (Yeshua ben Yosef), unlike modern "Christians." Gnosticism has roots in other religions and philosophies before it, like any other belief system.
That blabbering idiot truly is the YHVH of the Jews and the "God" of the Christians. The True Creator lies beyond that, and the real salvation is ascending YHVH. The book of Genesis never states that the serpend in the garden was Satan, like many modern Christians like to believe. The Gnostics believe that the serpent was in fact Yeshua (Jesus), freeing Adam and Eve from the prison that the God of the Hebrews put them in, giving them the knowledge to transcend his lame trickery. And lame it was- all they had to do was eat some fruit. Incompetence, indeed.
We already have talking dolphins. They may speak in frequencies that we can't hear, but that's our deficiency, not theirs.
Dolphins have reportedly been able to learn some English, and use it in the right contexts, but again, speaking it in frequencies we don't natively hear. Incredible stuff.
A couple years back, I read an interesting article about this parrot point. It can very well go beyond mimicry.
Couldn't find the original SciAm article, but this looks like an interview with the same researcher. read this.
Now, I believe this parrot is pretty old, and has been trained for years by Ms. Pepperberg. But Alex (the parrot) isn't just responding on cue, it is doing some abstract and symbolic thought.
The article doesn't purport that having the ability to create our human languages led to culture, but a combination of our traits. Without the ability to have complex languages, we wouldn't have ended up with "civilizations." This mutation opened something up for the rest of our population- for our thinking brains and our tool-making hands.
This gene, integrated into populations of bonobos could most definately lead to cities of humping primates. That talk.
Mutation created the gene. Genetic drift saw to it's spread and dominance. Together, it is part of our evolution- genetic drift isn't outside of evolution, it's a mechanism for it. Chances are that this gene was advantageous, so natural selection was at work and not just genetic drift.
Genetic drift usually occurs in small populations. 200k years ago, there were more than a couple hundred humans. Genetic drift can occur in huge populations (even as large as we are now), but it's very improbable.
Spend your time coding, not lobbying. Stay in your place. Don't bother having an opinion on anything other than the design of your software- just leave it to the politicians to know what is good for you. Stay in your place- there's no way a coder could know anything about politics, nor should she be able to have an opinion.
Which is utter bullshit. I'm not going to listen to some schmuck tell me to hold back my ideas just because I'm paid to do something other than be a politician. Just because I get paid to code, it doesn't mean that's all I'm capable of. A lame attempt at putting these socially aware "geeks" "in their place." when you classify you divide.
I don't know about you, but I'm not eating the bullshit-burger with a side order of lies. RISE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, take back the freedoms which we have a birthright to uphold- the world would be better run by geeks than layers (the profesion from which most politicians come) anyway.
I've used a Newton and more recently a Jornada 720 for taking all of my notes and a lot more at school. I would love to have electronic versions of my textbooks rather than sticking with the expensive and bulky papers ones I have now. Where can I get e-textbooks instead of regular ones? What do they cost? Do they have a decent selection?
That's exactly my point. There's nothing inherent to cross-platform languages that would make it slow- perhaps it's not a good example, but Smalltalk applications usually perform better from an end user perspective. They don't "feel" sluggish. They do poorer than Java in numerical benchmarks, but as we all know, benchmarks are rubbish.
However, due to the very costly effort to get a native-code cross platform language that performs as well as C++ which was written without regard to portability is possible. Very portable C++ code tends to be slower than if it were written against some "native" API, because there are additional layers to produce compatibility.
It wouldn't be so much of an issue if the platforms in question were just different hardware (CPU) platforms running the same OS. OpenStep is a great example of this. very strictly controlled API between different versions of the OS targeted for CPUs- SPARC, x86 and 68k. Just a series of checkboxes for what CPUs you wish to compile.
It could be true with Linux as well, however running Linux/PowerPC I've encountered quite a few problems recompiling just C or C++ applications that are supposed to be portable. Poorly written, yes, not intrinsic to C/C++. With a system like OpenStep though there is a lot more thought and control of the API between platforms.
There are versions of SMalltalk which compile to the native hardware, but like Java you stand to loose certain dynamic features of the language. There are ways around these problems though. And quite a few Common Lisp implementations- just as dynamic as Smalltalk- do get around them.
Java is "slow" because it's cross-platform. That, and it's poorly designed. It's possible to have a fast Java-like langauge (they exist, but they're not Java!), but Java itself won't be until maybe this fabled java 3 comes out.
That's because Java retains a huge amount of idea-cruft that exists in C++. You still do things very much the same way- compile-run-debug. Wait, wait, wait. Get more coffee. Is it done compiling? Almost!
Contrast this to languages like Smalltalk or Common Lisp- you don't have to recompile in the same way. You don't exit and start applications when you change a couple methods. Changes take effect then and there. With systems like these, you could easily increase your productivity.
Java on the other hand, is C++ with garbage collection. A big deal to some C/C++ers who have been living in a hole for the last 30 years, but nothing that will double your producivity.
Like anyone says about any benchmark, they are rubbish. There are people out there who do a lot of straight-up numerical computing with Java. But for the majority of us who just use Java apps, real-world application performance is abysmal. That is the real benchmark. You can spout numbers all week, but it's still manages to be slow by the time it reaches the user.
It's a good day to be a Java programmer, but a bad time to be a LimeWire user!!
There already exist Java->Native code compilers. Like GCJ. It's GNU, baby. However, compiling to native code has its drawbacks as well, like breaking compatibility with certain dynamic "features" of the language.
If you want a "faster," not cross platform language use C or Objective-C. Java isn't what you want.
I know I'm probably in the minority, but I'd *love* to have either a MCC-based computer or an OQO to replace my iBook+Jornada 720 combination now. The thought of being able to carry around my entire operating environment, the same one I use on my iBook running just as fast as it does now is very appealing. the current generation of 206 MHz StrongARMs definately aren't bad, but I must admit, having a 1 GHz Transmeta CPU in a PDA-type device with the ability to simple take it wherever I go gets me all wet.
The MCC is also an incredible idea, however with it I'm more concerned about the higher price to get a real use out of it- for my needs. That is, you have different 'shells' for the MCC, and I doubt the PDA shell is as full featured as the OQO shell, and as a result, I'd need to get either the laptop shell or the docking shell, so I could hook up USB and VGA.
I've been half-planning for a while to sell my iBook and Jornada 720 and buy an OQO a few months after they come out. Wish they would!
No need to dis Smalltalk, I wasn't (meaning) to dis Python. It's too bad there is no Python IDE akin to what you get even with a free Smalltalk system, like Squeak. The first language that I really god excited about was Python, but when I discovered Squeak, it marked the end of my Python days. While the language has a lot of appealing aspects to me, the environment was a big thing too.
Oh yes, Zope, good fun there. Zope is interesting- they're basically attempting to recreate a Smalltalk environment for Python, but in a much bigger- in both good and bad.
Then you can use Pascal, judging by your comments, you're a big fan. You're allowed C if you really want to impress your friends.
What is wrong about using OOP? I like it. It works great for me. I find I can organize code much more logically. Also, sending messages to entities is a more natural way of getting something done, for me. \
You remind me of the atheist who thinks every x-ian to be some preaching asshole. I'm not interested in "converting" you to the "one true way" of OOP, so why do the same to me?
What has science to do with this? Liking OOP rather than procedural programming is a matter of preference, not science. I probably could out-code you if there was some rule about OOP; what that make OOP better? You could probably outcode me if we were doing procedural style. Does that make PP better? Nope.
If you look hard enough, you'll find similar arguments against all other programming techniques, languages, and frameworks. When it comes down to it, programming at all is just another waste of time.
There's a lot more to OOP than lies and FUD. If it's too hard for you to grasp, that's fine, you can continue using BASIC, no one will mind.
IBM's VisualAge for Java has features similar to many Smalltalk environments. Surprise, surprise- it was written in Smalltalk.:)
I personally do development in Smalltalk (using Squeak), and I love it. One of my projects over the last few years was enhancing the IRC client built into Squeak. I was adding the ability to have bots. In a couple days of hacking, I didn't have to restart the application once- all objects of the classes being changed had the updated methods as soon as I saved them. Then, I wasn't a newbie anymore, but it still amazed me then, and still does now. I shudder to think how much time extra it would take to have to recompile and restart after every insigificant change of code.
And I'll be building even better applications via a web, telnet, or regular GUI interface at runtime in a much better language, Smalltalk.:)
But yeah, you're very right. There are many options other than.NET and Java. I know there isn't much for Python, but there are a few companies (IBM, Cincom, GemStone) that provide real commercial support for their web app server products.
I'm afraid I don't follow you. Eclipse is an IDE. Like JBuilder or NetBeans, not an application server. Sure, you could build web applications from scratch or using a more primitive product using Eclipse or any other IDE or editor, but Eclipse doesn't replace Weblogic Server any more than emacs.
Maybe the support people don't follow you either, because you don't have a handle on what you're talking about? Maybe it seems overpriced because you're buying a web app server to do the job of an editor? Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but just some ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
No sense arguing with this type of person- unless you're on this list you're not "Unix." Silly trademark issue. Apple hasn't paid the assload of money to get certified, nor as OpenBSD. So they're not "Unix." I say, who cares if it's called a car or an auto, still does the same damned thing.
So very true. If the billion people who claim to be Christian actually attempted to imitate Christ, the world would be a much different place.
Never thought about that TNG episode parrallel, but I've seen it.
Good stuff in the world's modern religions if you dig past the surface. Unfortunately, most adherents are interesting only in the surface.
Paul is bullshit. If I were Christian, I would definately not be buying into his BS. Nothing but human prejudices there.
Which is quite bizarre; science is the study of what is and was and will be. From a Christian perspective, God has created all that there is and was and will be. So for a Christian to attempt to explain away our observation of God's creation seems awfully backwards to me.
In any of my attempts to get references to or explanations of evidence from creationists about the "science" behind creationism, that is about the best they've given me.
Science isn't infallible nor is it all knowing. Any one who claims it is isn't doing science, creationists base their entire debunkage of science on the claim that science pretends to know everything. If we don't know how eyes work, god must have created it!
If there are zany creationists reading this out there, please do feel free to email me links or give me better arguments via email. I've had this invitation open for years, but no one has given me anything other than b.s. so far.
I mean, shit- even the Pope hisself and heads of various Jewish sects have declared that evolution can't be bunk, following this logic:
Fact: There is a mountain of evidence for evolution.
Conclusions:
Either
1. God is doing an enormous mount of work trying to trick us into believing the lies of Satan, and is planting evidence; or
2. Evolution happens.
From Conclusion 1, we can further reason that if God is going to such lengths to trick humans into buying into evolution, nothing in nature or human culture (including the Bible, and other prophecy) can be trusted as any sort of sign, signal, or communication from God.
The Christian and Jewish religions believe the Bible to be the word of god, and not a trick. Generally, to be trusted. If god isn't out to get us and is setting traps in her free time, then we should just get over it and trust what he shows us. E.g., all the evidence for evolution.
Nope. He can't do that. He is such a wuss, that he could only have created earth and the universe 6,000 years ago, and He's such a blabbering idiot, that almost all of His ramblings are incoherrent and contradicts itself.
That's exactly what the gnostics said. They were one of the earlier secs of Christianity, actually listening to the words of the person people mistakenly call Jesus (Yeshua ben Yosef), unlike modern "Christians." Gnosticism has roots in other religions and philosophies before it, like any other belief system.
That blabbering idiot truly is the YHVH of the Jews and the "God" of the Christians. The True Creator lies beyond that, and the real salvation is ascending YHVH. The book of Genesis never states that the serpend in the garden was Satan, like many modern Christians like to believe. The Gnostics believe that the serpent was in fact Yeshua (Jesus), freeing Adam and Eve from the prison that the God of the Hebrews put them in, giving them the knowledge to transcend his lame trickery. And lame it was- all they had to do was eat some fruit. Incompetence, indeed.
We already have talking dolphins. They may speak in frequencies that we can't hear, but that's our deficiency, not theirs.
Dolphins have reportedly been able to learn some English, and use it in the right contexts, but again, speaking it in frequencies we don't natively hear. Incredible stuff.
W E R D.
A couple years back, I read an interesting article about this parrot point. It can very well go beyond mimicry.
Couldn't find the original SciAm article, but this looks like an interview with the same researcher. read this.
Now, I believe this parrot is pretty old, and has been trained for years by Ms. Pepperberg. But Alex (the parrot) isn't just responding on cue, it is doing some abstract and symbolic thought.
The article doesn't purport that having the ability to create our human languages led to culture, but a combination of our traits. Without the ability to have complex languages, we wouldn't have ended up with "civilizations." This mutation opened something up for the rest of our population- for our thinking brains and our tool-making hands.
This gene, integrated into populations of bonobos could most definately lead to cities of humping primates. That talk.
Kind of.
Mutation created the gene. Genetic drift saw to it's spread and dominance. Together, it is part of our evolution- genetic drift isn't outside of evolution, it's a mechanism for it. Chances are that this gene was advantageous, so natural selection was at work and not just genetic drift.
Genetic drift usually occurs in small populations. 200k years ago, there were more than a couple hundred humans. Genetic drift can occur in huge populations (even as large as we are now), but it's very improbable.
longer form of the short version:
Spend your time coding, not lobbying. Stay in your place. Don't bother having an opinion on anything other than the design of your software- just leave it to the politicians to know what is good for you. Stay in your place- there's no way a coder could know anything about politics, nor should she be able to have an opinion.
Which is utter bullshit. I'm not going to listen to some schmuck tell me to hold back my ideas just because I'm paid to do something other than be a politician. Just because I get paid to code, it doesn't mean that's all I'm capable of. A lame attempt at putting these socially aware "geeks" "in their place." when you classify you divide.
I don't know about you, but I'm not eating the bullshit-burger with a side order of lies. RISE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, take back the freedoms which we have a birthright to uphold- the world would be better run by geeks than layers (the profesion from which most politicians come) anyway.
I've used a Newton and more recently a Jornada 720 for taking all of my notes and a lot more at school. I would love to have electronic versions of my textbooks rather than sticking with the expensive and bulky papers ones I have now. Where can I get e-textbooks instead of regular ones? What do they cost? Do they have a decent selection?
That's exactly my point. There's nothing inherent to cross-platform languages that would make it slow- perhaps it's not a good example, but Smalltalk applications usually perform better from an end user perspective. They don't "feel" sluggish. They do poorer than Java in numerical benchmarks, but as we all know, benchmarks are rubbish.
However, due to the very costly effort to get a native-code cross platform language that performs as well as C++ which was written without regard to portability is possible. Very portable C++ code tends to be slower than if it were written against some "native" API, because there are additional layers to produce compatibility.
It wouldn't be so much of an issue if the platforms in question were just different hardware (CPU) platforms running the same OS. OpenStep is a great example of this. very strictly controlled API between different versions of the OS targeted for CPUs- SPARC, x86 and 68k. Just a series of checkboxes for what CPUs you wish to compile.
It could be true with Linux as well, however running Linux/PowerPC I've encountered quite a few problems recompiling just C or C++ applications that are supposed to be portable. Poorly written, yes, not intrinsic to C/C++. With a system like OpenStep though there is a lot more thought and control of the API between platforms.
There are versions of SMalltalk which compile to the native hardware, but like Java you stand to loose certain dynamic features of the language. There are ways around these problems though. And quite a few Common Lisp implementations- just as dynamic as Smalltalk- do get around them.
Don't tell me, tell the guy who said you weren't more productive. :)
Java is "slow" because it's cross-platform. That, and it's poorly designed. It's possible to have a fast Java-like langauge (they exist, but they're not Java!), but Java itself won't be until maybe this fabled java 3 comes out.
:)
I hope GCJ is everything you hoped it to be.
That's because Java retains a huge amount of idea-cruft that exists in C++. You still do things very much the same way- compile-run-debug. Wait, wait, wait. Get more coffee. Is it done compiling? Almost!
Contrast this to languages like Smalltalk or Common Lisp- you don't have to recompile in the same way. You don't exit and start applications when you change a couple methods. Changes take effect then and there. With systems like these, you could easily increase your productivity.
Java on the other hand, is C++ with garbage collection. A big deal to some C/C++ers who have been living in a hole for the last 30 years, but nothing that will double your producivity.
Like anyone says about any benchmark, they are rubbish. There are people out there who do a lot of straight-up numerical computing with Java. But for the majority of us who just use Java apps, real-world application performance is abysmal. That is the real benchmark. You can spout numbers all week, but it's still manages to be slow by the time it reaches the user.
It's a good day to be a Java programmer, but a bad time to be a LimeWire user!!
There already exist Java->Native code compilers. Like GCJ. It's GNU, baby. However, compiling to native code has its drawbacks as well, like breaking compatibility with certain dynamic "features" of the language.
If you want a "faster," not cross platform language use C or Objective-C. Java isn't what you want.
I know I'm probably in the minority, but I'd *love* to have either a MCC-based computer or an OQO to replace my iBook+Jornada 720 combination now. The thought of being able to carry around my entire operating environment, the same one I use on my iBook running just as fast as it does now is very appealing. the current generation of 206 MHz StrongARMs definately aren't bad, but I must admit, having a 1 GHz Transmeta CPU in a PDA-type device with the ability to simple take it wherever I go gets me all wet.
The MCC is also an incredible idea, however with it I'm more concerned about the higher price to get a real use out of it- for my needs. That is, you have different 'shells' for the MCC, and I doubt the PDA shell is as full featured as the OQO shell, and as a result, I'd need to get either the laptop shell or the docking shell, so I could hook up USB and VGA.
I've been half-planning for a while to sell my iBook and Jornada 720 and buy an OQO a few months after they come out. Wish they would!
Aaron
No need to dis Smalltalk, I wasn't (meaning) to dis Python. It's too bad there is no Python IDE akin to what you get even with a free Smalltalk system, like Squeak. The first language that I really god excited about was Python, but when I discovered Squeak, it marked the end of my Python days. While the language has a lot of appealing aspects to me, the environment was a big thing too.
Oh yes, Zope, good fun there. Zope is interesting- they're basically attempting to recreate a Smalltalk environment for Python, but in a much bigger- in both good and bad.
Then you can use Pascal, judging by your comments, you're a big fan. You're allowed C if you really want to impress your friends.
What is wrong about using OOP? I like it. It works great for me. I find I can organize code much more logically. Also, sending messages to entities is a more natural way of getting something done, for me. \
You remind me of the atheist who thinks every x-ian to be some preaching asshole. I'm not interested in "converting" you to the "one true way" of OOP, so why do the same to me?
What has science to do with this? Liking OOP rather than procedural programming is a matter of preference, not science. I probably could out-code you if there was some rule about OOP; what that make OOP better? You could probably outcode me if we were doing procedural style. Does that make PP better? Nope.
Heh.
If you look hard enough, you'll find similar arguments against all other programming techniques, languages, and frameworks. When it comes down to it, programming at all is just another waste of time.
There's a lot more to OOP than lies and FUD. If it's too hard for you to grasp, that's fine, you can continue using BASIC, no one will mind.
IBM's VisualAge for Java has features similar to many Smalltalk environments. Surprise, surprise- it was written in Smalltalk. :)
I personally do development in Smalltalk (using Squeak), and I love it. One of my projects over the last few years was enhancing the IRC client built into Squeak. I was adding the ability to have bots. In a couple days of hacking, I didn't have to restart the application once- all objects of the classes being changed had the updated methods as soon as I saved them. Then, I wasn't a newbie anymore, but it still amazed me then, and still does now. I shudder to think how much time extra it would take to have to recompile and restart after every insigificant change of code.
Aaron
And I'll be building even better applications via a web, telnet, or regular GUI interface at runtime in a much better language, Smalltalk. :)
.NET and Java. I know there isn't much for Python, but there are a few companies (IBM, Cincom, GemStone) that provide real commercial support for their web app server products.
But yeah, you're very right. There are many options other than
I'm afraid I don't follow you. Eclipse is an IDE. Like JBuilder or NetBeans, not an application server. Sure, you could build web applications from scratch or using a more primitive product using Eclipse or any other IDE or editor, but Eclipse doesn't replace Weblogic Server any more than emacs.
Maybe the support people don't follow you either, because you don't have a handle on what you're talking about? Maybe it seems overpriced because you're buying a web app server to do the job of an editor? Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but just some ideas.