Yes, but they can't patent something that has prior art... and they won't be able to stop emulation of the GBA with patents. It is far too late for that.
By the way, you better not be using a PC, otherwise you are a hypocrit. Oh, and your Nintendo-fanboyism is really obvious. Tone that down a notch, ok? Nintendo took forever to give us inferior emulation to stuff we already had for years. Screw Famicom minis. Nintendo is too little, too late.
WRONG! PocketNES existed far before Nintendo's trading card emulator. It does a better job at emulating the NES on the GBA than any of Nintendo's crap.
I disagree. The main reason to program in a functional language instead of a imperative language is because you want a program that is easier to statically analyze and verify properties. If you don't have purity, you effectively throw away this benefit of functional languages... so why not just program in C if you are going to give up purity?
I want a stable system, yet have a few cut-off restrictions where I need certain things to be at least version X... having a later version is nice, but not a necessity - as stability is a necessity.
Will KDE 3.2.x make it into Sarge? I am thinking about converting to Debian, from Fedora, this summer, and if KDE 3.2 makes it into Sarge I will definitely convert!
Actually gameplay can change due to slight timing changes in the emulated version. So people that spent decades playing a specific game will be able to "feel" the difference in the gameplay.
The original GTA was 3D, with the exception of vehicles and people. Some aspects of the game required driving motorcycles up ramps fast enough to launch yourself onto other buildings, islands, etc... too slow and you slam into the side of whatever you were aiming at. Play the game, it is clearly 3D. In fact, compare GTA3 in the bird's eye camera view to the original GTA.
The improved graphics and sound are not what made GTA3 a classic. What makes GTA3 and the rest of the series great is the open-ended gameplay. If gamers really wanted the best graphics and sound they would watch a modern action movie. Surely the cars and people look more realistic in movies than they do in modern video games. The thing is that gamers are playing games first and foremost because of the interactivity. The GTA series has loads of it: hence the open-ended gameplay.
Also, I disagree that GTA3 had a better story than GTA. They are nearly the same. The Liberty City part of the original GTA, and GTA3 have the same story and tell it in the same way. Now, GTA3 Vice City, definitely improved upon the story and continuity of the game, and I think it paid off. Lets face it, you didn't feel like an important part of the story in either GTA or GTA3, but in GTA3:VC you felt like you were the story.
However, many a reviewer dogged GTA3:VC has being too derivative... yet the same reviewers claimed that GTA3 was "revolutionary". Anybody that was there with the series from the begining knows that the series has mostly made evolutionary improvements with each release (barring such things as removing multiplayer).
Maybe the critics have a very short memory? I think the more probable case is that most gamers were introduced to the series with GTA3.
It is all relative. The original GTA was NOT considered to be a great game by many people, especially the professional game reviewers. I distinctly remember reading professional reviews claim that GTA was a gimmic to sell games as you state about BMX XXX.
At the time of GTA's release, I couldn't believe how the critics couldn't see the brilliance of GTA.
Maybe society and culture changes to the point where stuff like GTA becomes acceptable enough to be considered a good game as was the case with the transition from GTA to GTA3.
GTA and GTA3 are nearly the same exact game, with the main exceptions being lack of multiplayer and the presence of better graphics and sound in GTA3. Also the physics model was improved in GTA3 by going from a 4 point model to an 8 point model. Hence cars could roll in addition to spin out. Other than those relatively evolutionary improvements, the 1st and 3rd in the series are exactly the same game. The both have the same theme, open-ended gameplay, violence, parody, etc...
Yet the first was a "gimmic" while the third is a "classic"? So society is definitely fickle.
Don't some companies already self-enforce such practices? Id Software, for example, releases the source code for their games about 5 years after they initially went commercial. It seems pretty reasonable, as Id Software makes lots of money, and by the time one of their games is released under the GPL... Id Software has already sold at least one sequal and is working on selling another.
What would be the point of Linux if it was all closed source? For many people, "open" is why they use software like Linux, and they want to minimize the amount of closed technology they use.
If you visualize your program as an Lamport style optimal sharing graph, then lazy evaluation is simply reducing the first redex on the leftmost path from the root of the program. Hence it is always sequential and always deterministic.
You are right, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for developers to have a broader understanding of programming languages. We need to improve the industry as a whole over the long term.
Category Theory for the Working Mathematicians has a huge list of prerequisites that most Slashdotters can't meet. It might be the canonical text on the topic, but a better more tractable text would be "Category Theory for Computing Science".
"Terrorist" and "terrorism" are the two most overused words... they have become nearly meaningless as they are basically used to describe stuff that somebody doesn't like.
For algorithms that are sequential, only make use of heirarchical data structures, and are not very interactive, functional programming is typically a good choice.
However, if your algorithm involves allot of interaction, multiple threads of execution, or anarchical data structures (e.g. cyclic structures)... then functional programming isn't the best tool for the job.
Another note, if there is no good algorithm for your problem, that is, it basically involves brute force searching of some sort... then consider a Logic programming language.
Who pissed in your Cherrios? What "huge web of rationalizations" are you talking about? I mearly pointed out that your claim that fewer assumptions makes your beliefs better is something that you have been conditioned to believe. You have no justification, no proof, that your claim is correct.
Oh, and on your tidbit about knowing anything about philosophy and science and no such thing as absolute proof. You are wrong. Mathematical proof is absolute proof.
Also, mathematical theorems require absolute proof... but maybe you are too stupid to understand mathematics. Wannabe-scientists are often the worst mathematicians.
Monadic programming is a fancy name for a pretty common sense design pattern used by functional programmers far before the theory of Monads was created. Basically you want a function that executes a list of commands, but the problem is that functions can only evaluate to pure values. So what you do is your function evaluates to a value that represents the list of commands you wanted to execute.
So the design pattern consists of using functions that pass a state value in and out of each function, in addition to possibly other values. The pattern enforces some restrictions, one of which is: each state value can only be used once.
So executing one command and then another involves each command being defined as a function that takes the world's state and returns the world's state after modification. Sequencing the two commands then consists of composing the functions such that the state is passed from one function to the next.
There are additional properties required for something to be considered a Monad... and it turns out that this "design pattern" is a mathematical construct known from a branch of mathematics known as Category Theory, and that category theory construct is called a "Monad".
A side note: category theory is basically the study of mathematical design patterns. Its more than that, but thats a good intuition for computer scientists to take when they study category theory.
Functional programs are both easy to debug and easy to reason about due to properties such as strong static type safety, confluence, and referential transparency. These properties imply that you can reason about a program directly in the language of the program through the use of arbitrary evaluation.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but they can't patent something that has prior art... and they won't be able to stop emulation of the GBA with patents. It is far too late for that.
By the way, you better not be using a PC, otherwise you are a hypocrit. Oh, and your Nintendo-fanboyism is really obvious. Tone that down a notch, ok? Nintendo took forever to give us inferior emulation to stuff we already had for years. Screw Famicom minis. Nintendo is too little, too late.
WRONG! PocketNES existed far before Nintendo's trading card emulator. It does a better job at emulating the NES on the GBA than any of Nintendo's crap.
I disagree. The main reason to program in a functional language instead of a imperative language is because you want a program that is easier to statically analyze and verify properties. If you don't have purity, you effectively throw away this benefit of functional languages... so why not just program in C if you are going to give up purity?
The source code is perfectly legal. So just distribute that and let the end user compile it one way or another.
I want a stable system, yet have a few cut-off restrictions where I need certain things to be at least version X... having a later version is nice, but not a necessity - as stability is a necessity.
Will KDE 3.2.x make it into Sarge? I am thinking about converting to Debian, from Fedora, this summer, and if KDE 3.2 makes it into Sarge I will definitely convert!
Actually gameplay can change due to slight timing changes in the emulated version. So people that spent decades playing a specific game will be able to "feel" the difference in the gameplay.
No doubt, I have the real thing when it comes to my favorite games... and for lesser games I emulate.
Not if the boot loader is password protected, as well as the filesystems being encrypted.
The original GTA was 3D, with the exception of vehicles and people. Some aspects of the game required driving motorcycles up ramps fast enough to launch yourself onto other buildings, islands, etc... too slow and you slam into the side of whatever you were aiming at. Play the game, it is clearly 3D. In fact, compare GTA3 in the bird's eye camera view to the original GTA.
The improved graphics and sound are not what made GTA3 a classic. What makes GTA3 and the rest of the series great is the open-ended gameplay. If gamers really wanted the best graphics and sound they would watch a modern action movie. Surely the cars and people look more realistic in movies than they do in modern video games. The thing is that gamers are playing games first and foremost because of the interactivity. The GTA series has loads of it: hence the open-ended gameplay.
Also, I disagree that GTA3 had a better story than GTA. They are nearly the same. The Liberty City part of the original GTA, and GTA3 have the same story and tell it in the same way. Now, GTA3 Vice City, definitely improved upon the story and continuity of the game, and I think it paid off. Lets face it, you didn't feel like an important part of the story in either GTA or GTA3, but in GTA3:VC you felt like you were the story.
However, many a reviewer dogged GTA3:VC has being too derivative... yet the same reviewers claimed that GTA3 was "revolutionary". Anybody that was there with the series from the begining knows that the series has mostly made evolutionary improvements with each release (barring such things as removing multiplayer).
Maybe the critics have a very short memory? I think the more probable case is that most gamers were introduced to the series with GTA3.
It is all relative. The original GTA was NOT considered to be a great game by many people, especially the professional game reviewers. I distinctly remember reading professional reviews claim that GTA was a gimmic to sell games as you state about BMX XXX.
At the time of GTA's release, I couldn't believe how the critics couldn't see the brilliance of GTA.
Maybe society and culture changes to the point where stuff like GTA becomes acceptable enough to be considered a good game as was the case with the transition from GTA to GTA3.
GTA and GTA3 are nearly the same exact game, with the main exceptions being lack of multiplayer and the presence of better graphics and sound in GTA3. Also the physics model was improved in GTA3 by going from a 4 point model to an 8 point model. Hence cars could roll in addition to spin out. Other than those relatively evolutionary improvements, the 1st and 3rd in the series are exactly the same game. The both have the same theme, open-ended gameplay, violence, parody, etc...
Yet the first was a "gimmic" while the third is a "classic"? So society is definitely fickle.
Don't some companies already self-enforce such practices? Id Software, for example, releases the source code for their games about 5 years after they initially went commercial. It seems pretty reasonable, as Id Software makes lots of money, and by the time one of their games is released under the GPL... Id Software has already sold at least one sequal and is working on selling another.
What would be the point of Linux if it was all closed source? For many people, "open" is why they use software like Linux, and they want to minimize the amount of closed technology they use.
I especially enjoy the worms that Outlook makes possible
If you visualize your program as an Lamport style optimal sharing graph, then lazy evaluation is simply reducing the first redex on the leftmost path from the root of the program. Hence it is always sequential and always deterministic.
You are right, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for developers to have a broader understanding of programming languages. We need to improve the industry as a whole over the long term.
Category Theory for the Working Mathematicians has a huge list of prerequisites that most Slashdotters can't meet. It might be the canonical text on the topic, but a better more tractable text would be "Category Theory for Computing Science".
"Terrorist" and "terrorism" are the two most overused words... they have become nearly meaningless as they are basically used to describe stuff that somebody doesn't like.
Lazy evaluation does not reorder execution. Lazy evaluation is sequential and deterministic.
I have to wonder if there are other Categorical "design patterns" for functional programming.
For algorithms that are sequential, only make use of heirarchical data structures, and are not very interactive, functional programming is typically a good choice.
However, if your algorithm involves allot of interaction, multiple threads of execution, or anarchical data structures (e.g. cyclic structures)... then functional programming isn't the best tool for the job.
Another note, if there is no good algorithm for your problem, that is, it basically involves brute force searching of some sort... then consider a Logic programming language.
Who pissed in your Cherrios? What "huge web of rationalizations" are you talking about? I mearly pointed out that your claim that fewer assumptions makes your beliefs better is something that you have been conditioned to believe. You have no justification, no proof, that your claim is correct.
Oh, and on your tidbit about knowing anything about philosophy and science and no such thing as absolute proof. You are wrong. Mathematical proof is absolute proof.
Also, mathematical theorems require absolute proof... but maybe you are too stupid to understand mathematics. Wannabe-scientists are often the worst mathematicians.
I think being a newbie to any type of programming makes understanding code that is not yours extremely difficult.
Monadic programming is a fancy name for a pretty common sense design pattern used by functional programmers far before the theory of Monads was created. Basically you want a function that executes a list of commands, but the problem is that functions can only evaluate to pure values. So what you do is your function evaluates to a value that represents the list of commands you wanted to execute.
So the design pattern consists of using functions that pass a state value in and out of each function, in addition to possibly other values. The pattern enforces some restrictions, one of which is: each state value can only be used once.
So executing one command and then another involves each command being defined as a function that takes the world's state and returns the world's state after modification. Sequencing the two commands then consists of composing the functions such that the state is passed from one function to the next.
There are additional properties required for something to be considered a Monad... and it turns out that this "design pattern" is a mathematical construct known from a branch of mathematics known as Category Theory, and that category theory construct is called a "Monad".
A side note: category theory is basically the study of mathematical design patterns. Its more than that, but thats a good intuition for computer scientists to take when they study category theory.
Functional programs are both easy to debug and easy to reason about due to properties such as strong static type safety, confluence, and referential transparency. These properties imply that you can reason about a program directly in the language of the program through the use of arbitrary evaluation.