The concept of intelligence can get messy inherently, that's true. However, I think you'd find that most philosophers would say it is wrong to claim a program "designed" something—it can only produce that thing according to a design which it looks up, no matter how complex the look up process may be. To actually say a programming is designing something would be anthropomorphizing it.
Joking aside, Windows 8 is poorly designed, not designed without intelligence. Unless you want to make the argument that it wasn't designed at all, in which case I would say it was, and that you should save those kinds of remarks for Vista. A lot of very smart people spent a great deal of time designing Windows 8, they just never realised anyone would ever have to use it.
...Well, technically design has to be performed by an intelligence, but I couldn't figure out the term for the figure of speech that means "ascribing the properties of an actor to his or her actions." (I guess some things slip through the cracks.)
However, yes, and if you think otherwise, let me introduce you to the terms "poor design" and "good design." Notice that these do not imply the presence or absence of intelligence.
Intelligent design is not an oxymoron, it is a tautology; design by definition is intelligent. To qualify as an oxymoron the words themselves would have to be contradictory, like in the classic example "military intelligence," where it is to be assumed that the military is unintelligent. Living dead. Guest host. Deafening silence. The word itself means "sharp dull."
Unfortunately, there isn't a term for "a euphemism that reveals the speaker is a bag of arses," so we will have to settle for calling it unintentional irony. The Greeks and Romans didn't live in a relativistic enough world for the abuse of language by the unimaginative to be a problem worth talking about.
ODT is also XML in a ZIP, so it's equally undiffable. Users want WYSIWYG whether you like it or not, and that means an interface that integrates version tracking.
could compel potential customers to buy more often and in larger amounts.
Gee, wasn't spam supposed to do that? Businesses who go after impulse purchases like this are a danger to the foolish and an annoyance to everyone else. A credit card company should not be trying to create economic activity, only to facilitate pre-existing activity or pre-existing needs that are encumbered by technological and social boundaries. This crosses the line into monstrous.
Track changes. It's almost always track changes. Whenever anyone starts an argument about StarOffice derivatives versus Microsoft Office, the show-stopper is track changes.
If you involve teaching in the analogy you have to make it symmetrical, at which point it's no longer an analogy at all: you're paying people who teach pickpockets to teach you instead of them. Doesn't really have the original ring to it, y'know? The important part is "paying bad people not to do bad things for profit."
I think his point was more that it's sad that rewards have to figure into this at all, since some (not all) of the people claiming the rewards might be amoral and simply go for the highest bidder. A little like paying pickpockets not to rob people, y'know?
How do you know that's what he meant? I, for one, fully intend to join a ship's crew as soon as possible. Nothing gets results like holding yachters hostage.
Well, let's see. I counted a dozen of them commonly used in programming language keywords and function names. Most of these are also irregular in French and Italian.
The presence of irregular verbs does matter, though, since we're discussing the suitability of a natural language to be used for a programming language. The more complex and irregular the vocabulary of that language, the more difficult it is for a non-speaker to guess keywords.
Accents are bad primarily because we don't have the tools to deal with them in programming properly. If you leave them out, then that's violating the orthography of the language (and possibly confusing), which is not ideal. If you make them optional, then you can't use search and replace reliably. If you make them mandatory, then where do they go on the keyboard? The US-International layout uses deadkeys to insert accented letters, i.e. you press shift+' and then A to get a-diaresis. But no character appears until the a is typed. That means, to insert a quotation mark into pre-typed code, you need to type shift+' and then space. A similar problem occurs if you want to start a quoted message with a vowel; you need to put in an extra space to avoid the accented character.
Key point: none of those other irregular verbs commonly occur in programming. With the (now rather awkward) exception of 'open', you have "have", "has", "is", and "been" making up the majority of irregular sightings. (And no questions about accents.)
Sorry, it's not the grammar that's being treated as a black box, but the entire usage of English in this case. To a non-English-speaking programmer, the function names might as well be arbitrary unless some familiar Latin roots peek through. You're certainly right about natural language learning, though; I do constructed languages as a hobby and I've really re-evaluated my understanding of English as a result of all of the background material I've learned. (Conclusion: it should have been wiped out by the French when they had a chance.)
...good point. However, we could replace "is file open" with "is file opened"... which would be more regular than French with its 3+ different regular verb inflections.
From the perspective of someone coming up with programming language keywords, they most certainly are. Not in syntax necessarily, but definitely in declension: the verb forms in particular are much simpler.
For example, in particular, the imperative and infinitive are identical. In English, "is file open" and "open file" use the same word for "open". In French you'd use "ouvert" for the first case and "ouvre" for the second, from the infinitive "ouvrir". And these endings aren't consistent across verbs—only very rarely do you see irregular English verbs in code; "to be" almost always appears as "is". Having to use separate keywords for function names (actions) and properties (predicative clauses and adjectives) puts a substantial cognitive load on the programmer.
I've heard anecdotes that speakers of some languages (e.g. French) actually prefer programming languages written in English, because (a) the more regular grammar results in more predictable/compact function/keyword names, and (b) more transparent syntax... or at least a foreign language that abstracts away all of the questions about how to decline the verb in a function name.
For many languages, something as obtuse as Perligata would be required to generate a coherent mapping to their native tongue; with English, native speakers simply accept the broken grammar and move on, and non-native speakers just treat the grammar as a black box, like an English speaker regards the Italian terms embedded in music notation.
If you swap out Explorer on Windows 8 with a Windows 7 one (possibly slightly modified; I haven't tried it), you'll get a Windows 7 experience. The other differences between 7 and 8 are infinitesimal. Metro completely disappears. (Except for things like the session manager, which are really just decorated to look like Metro.) This is what (at least some of) the "third party start menus" actually do, which is why you can't keep the ribbon in Explorer if you install them.
The result is really best described as Windows 7 SP2. Not an inferior product in any sense, although working around the modified files may require a bit of effort when it's time to update.
Of course. Ye olde "with great power comes great responsibility" situation. When you have the ability to reshape the world, you become responsible for using that safely. The economy of their country (and possibly others) ought to be their tribe. That's what healthy people—the less corrupt politicans, for example—do.
If you really think that, you need to take a break from your current lifestyle. It's... really only the case when money controls people's lives, and we can say safely these people are sick: humans aren't wired that way naturally; at the very least, primitive people care about their family and tribe. That's what evolution has taught us to do; not even bacteria are as selfish as you describe.
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...you're right; I meant they don't seem to have left us a term of art for it. Sophism, perhaps.
The concept of intelligence can get messy inherently, that's true. However, I think you'd find that most philosophers would say it is wrong to claim a program "designed" something—it can only produce that thing according to a design which it looks up, no matter how complex the look up process may be. To actually say a programming is designing something would be anthropomorphizing it.
Joking aside, Windows 8 is poorly designed, not designed without intelligence. Unless you want to make the argument that it wasn't designed at all, in which case I would say it was, and that you should save those kinds of remarks for Vista. A lot of very smart people spent a great deal of time designing Windows 8, they just never realised anyone would ever have to use it.
...Well, technically design has to be performed by an intelligence, but I couldn't figure out the term for the figure of speech that means "ascribing the properties of an actor to his or her actions." (I guess some things slip through the cracks.)
However, yes, and if you think otherwise, let me introduce you to the terms "poor design" and "good design." Notice that these do not imply the presence or absence of intelligence.
It's quite clear that the respondent in this case is a habitual cannabis user, and has parsed the question as well as can be expected.
Intelligent design is not an oxymoron, it is a tautology; design by definition is intelligent. To qualify as an oxymoron the words themselves would have to be contradictory, like in the classic example "military intelligence," where it is to be assumed that the military is unintelligent. Living dead. Guest host. Deafening silence. The word itself means "sharp dull."
Unfortunately, there isn't a term for "a euphemism that reveals the speaker is a bag of arses," so we will have to settle for calling it unintentional irony. The Greeks and Romans didn't live in a relativistic enough world for the abuse of language by the unimaginative to be a problem worth talking about.
ODT is also XML in a ZIP, so it's equally undiffable. Users want WYSIWYG whether you like it or not, and that means an interface that integrates version tracking.
could compel potential customers to buy more often and in larger amounts.
Gee, wasn't spam supposed to do that? Businesses who go after impulse purchases like this are a danger to the foolish and an annoyance to everyone else. A credit card company should not be trying to create economic activity, only to facilitate pre-existing activity or pre-existing needs that are encumbered by technological and social boundaries. This crosses the line into monstrous.
Track changes. It's almost always track changes. Whenever anyone starts an argument about StarOffice derivatives versus Microsoft Office, the show-stopper is track changes.
If you involve teaching in the analogy you have to make it symmetrical, at which point it's no longer an analogy at all: you're paying people who teach pickpockets to teach you instead of them. Doesn't really have the original ring to it, y'know? The important part is "paying bad people not to do bad things for profit."
Mumble mumble political statement. Also, that would be immoral.
I think his point was more that it's sad that rewards have to figure into this at all, since some (not all) of the people claiming the rewards might be amoral and simply go for the highest bidder. A little like paying pickpockets not to rob people, y'know?
Shortages? May want to leave that part out. Just focus on the black markets. And the pirates. Lots and lots of scurvy-ridden, peg-legged pirates.
Whoops; forgot the happy emoticon indicating insincerity.
How do you know that's what he meant? I, for one, fully intend to join a ship's crew as soon as possible. Nothing gets results like holding yachters hostage.
Well, let's see. I counted a dozen of them commonly used in programming language keywords and function names. Most of these are also irregular in French and Italian.
The presence of irregular verbs does matter, though, since we're discussing the suitability of a natural language to be used for a programming language. The more complex and irregular the vocabulary of that language, the more difficult it is for a non-speaker to guess keywords.
Accents are bad primarily because we don't have the tools to deal with them in programming properly. If you leave them out, then that's violating the orthography of the language (and possibly confusing), which is not ideal. If you make them optional, then you can't use search and replace reliably. If you make them mandatory, then where do they go on the keyboard? The US-International layout uses deadkeys to insert accented letters, i.e. you press shift+' and then A to get a-diaresis. But no character appears until the a is typed. That means, to insert a quotation mark into pre-typed code, you need to type shift+' and then space. A similar problem occurs if you want to start a quoted message with a vowel; you need to put in an extra space to avoid the accented character.
Key point: none of those other irregular verbs commonly occur in programming. With the (now rather awkward) exception of 'open', you have "have", "has", "is", and "been" making up the majority of irregular sightings. (And no questions about accents.)
Sorry, it's not the grammar that's being treated as a black box, but the entire usage of English in this case. To a non-English-speaking programmer, the function names might as well be arbitrary unless some familiar Latin roots peek through. You're certainly right about natural language learning, though; I do constructed languages as a hobby and I've really re-evaluated my understanding of English as a result of all of the background material I've learned. (Conclusion: it should have been wiped out by the French when they had a chance.)
...good point. However, we could replace "is file open" with "is file opened"... which would be more regular than French with its 3+ different regular verb inflections.
From the perspective of someone coming up with programming language keywords, they most certainly are. Not in syntax necessarily, but definitely in declension: the verb forms in particular are much simpler.
For example, in particular, the imperative and infinitive are identical. In English, "is file open" and "open file" use the same word for "open". In French you'd use "ouvert" for the first case and "ouvre" for the second, from the infinitive "ouvrir". And these endings aren't consistent across verbs—only very rarely do you see irregular English verbs in code; "to be" almost always appears as "is". Having to use separate keywords for function names (actions) and properties (predicative clauses and adjectives) puts a substantial cognitive load on the programmer.
I've heard anecdotes that speakers of some languages (e.g. French) actually prefer programming languages written in English, because (a) the more regular grammar results in more predictable/compact function/keyword names, and (b) more transparent syntax... or at least a foreign language that abstracts away all of the questions about how to decline the verb in a function name.
For many languages, something as obtuse as Perligata would be required to generate a coherent mapping to their native tongue; with English, native speakers simply accept the broken grammar and move on, and non-native speakers just treat the grammar as a black box, like an English speaker regards the Italian terms embedded in music notation.
If you swap out Explorer on Windows 8 with a Windows 7 one (possibly slightly modified; I haven't tried it), you'll get a Windows 7 experience. The other differences between 7 and 8 are infinitesimal. Metro completely disappears. (Except for things like the session manager, which are really just decorated to look like Metro.) This is what (at least some of) the "third party start menus" actually do, which is why you can't keep the ribbon in Explorer if you install them.
The result is really best described as Windows 7 SP2. Not an inferior product in any sense, although working around the modified files may require a bit of effort when it's time to update.
Well, the GP got the quote's origin wrong. It's from 1899, and (you may be happy to hear) was widely believed to have been uttered by someone trying to close the patent office... but, alas, it was actually satirical.
Of course. Ye olde "with great power comes great responsibility" situation. When you have the ability to reshape the world, you become responsible for using that safely. The economy of their country (and possibly others) ought to be their tribe. That's what healthy people—the less corrupt politicans, for example—do.
If you really think that, you need to take a break from your current lifestyle. It's... really only the case when money controls people's lives, and we can say safely these people are sick: humans aren't wired that way naturally; at the very least, primitive people care about their family and tribe. That's what evolution has taught us to do; not even bacteria are as selfish as you describe.