Really, we shouldn't have to make that kind of choice.
The real flaw in the system, IMHO, is the way the candidates
move up through the ranks and get nominated.
Most Americans aren't a part of that process. That seems
to be handled by party insiders. Who decides, for example, the
keynote speaker at conventions? That's just one feature of this
insider process that happens.
Don't tell me to get involved with the party either. That
solution doesn't scale. I'd just end up being one of the insiders.
Great for me, same crap for everybody else. We need to open up
the process that gets candidates on the ballot, and open it up in
a way that's accessable and convenient for most voters.
It doesn't have to be totally dumbed down. It needs to be
somewhere between American Idol and what we have now.
The other problem is that 3rd party candidates are effectively
locked out. You might feel fine about that, since most 3rd parties
are quite fringe; but they might not be so fringy if they were actually
a part of the process. In other words, if everybody knew that 3rd
parties had a chance, they might attract more "normal" people.
If McCain won, we wouldn't have to read your post.
His "campaign finance reform" would have made casual
blogging subject to the same restrictions as professional
campaigning. You probably wouldn't have filled out
the paperwork and/or paid fees just to retain your right
to mention candidates on the Internet.
I like to think SCOTUS would have tossed it out; but I'm
glad we didn't have to go through that.
Because it would taste like an ashtray? OK, maybe not
like an ahstray; but if it was any good I think it would have
been done by now. People have smoked tea believe it or not, and
it's said to give a "nasty caffeine buzz" if done properly; but
since caffeine isn't known for its rush, smoking doesn't make
sense for that drug. Come to think of it, there are a few herbs
that are smoked, but most are made into a tea of some kind.
I guess the bottom line is, if quick delivery enhances the
expeience, and if its practical, people will smoke it.
Thus, cocaine has smokeable forms, but LSD doesn't... at least
not as far as I'm aware.
I hope we can come up with better alternatives
than that. While what gets reported by the MSM might
be selective, at least most of the facts aren't in dispute.
I have no desire to wade through the "news" trying to figure
out who has a scoop and who simply forgot to take their
meds. Alex Jones??? I think I'm gonna puke.
Yes. They're called traders. Ticker symbol RSH.
You could short the stock, but that doesn't seem like
such a bright idea since they have a PE of less than 10
and are even paying a modest dividend. They seem to have
done a smart job over the years of changing with the times--
selling the infamous "trash 80" back in my youth, always selling
consumer and hobby electronics, and now selling cel phones.
FWIW, I think the name change is a dumb idea though.
It sounds like it was pitched by the same consultant that
wants to rebrand Pizza Hut to "The Hut". Every few years
it seems like there's a re-naming fad. 10 years ago it was
the neologism fad that gave us "Verizon", "Altria", and another
one that use to be Anderson Consultants. I can still remember
Anderson Consultants, but for the life of me I can't remember what
they call themselves now.
Seriously though, who wants to fly 100 mph, except for
short hops?
They should have a different contest, for a 10% increase
over the state-of-the-art (whatever it is) for various classes
of commercial craft. Of course, since companies like Boeing
and Airbus are probably doing everything they can to get better
fuel economy without compromising safety, and since
a lot more than $1.5 million is being spent by those companies,
I don't see a whole lot of benefit in such a contest.
I think that'd be the easy part. A camera with Image processing
for lane alignment and the same image every time. The lane alignment
was actually my senior thesis--in 1993. It was just software,
and I only tested it with one test set, so I have no idea how reliable
it would have been. It was nowhere near real time either. I had no
access to digital video. I had to rely on one test set, and I have no
idea how they got the digitized frames. I imagine the reliability of
the image processing has advanced; but I know the cost of digital capture devices
has certainly come way down.
At present, I tend to share the "what could possibly go wrong" sentiment;
but at some point in the future we may find automated systems to be more
reliable than humans. Before we put it on cars though, we should get it working
on trains. In theory, that's an easier problem; but we still have problems with
automated trains.
I don't have data to back it up; but it seems like more
train accidents are happening in manual mode now. In particular, an Amtrak accident
last year (operator texting) and a recent San Francisco muni crash (operator had put
train in manual). The last time I recall hearing about a train accident in automatic
was on DC's metro system. It was during a snowstorm. IIRC, The operator was attempting
to put the train in manual,
but the system wouldn't allow it.. It was out of service,
and the operator was the only fatality. That was in 1996 though.
We were touring the research reactor.
The topic came up of how many students
were majoring in Nuclear Engineering (or maybe
it was just a specialization; not sure if it
was actually a major). It was noted that
there was exactly ONE student. Some people
thought it was a strange major, since no plants
were being built. Somebody else gave their $0.02
that the guy would be very much in demand--experts
would be needed to dismantle plants.
I see your point. It did come off
like I preferred unsafe highways.
I don't have any data one way or the other
on the Beltway vs. CA freeways. The Beltway
*appears* unsafe because of the aggression
and high speeds. Whether or not it's really
unsafe, I don't know. I should have perhaps
said that I preferred the *appearance* of danger,
because all driving is dangerous. When it looks
safe, it can lull you into complacency.
The biggest thing I've noticed since I moved out here
is that Californians (the Bay Area, to be specific, I understand LA is another world)
have awful lane discipline.
I wish I had a dime for everytime I've been on 101 and there are 4 cars
in front of me all going 65 (the limit) with nothing in front of them. Nobody seems
to understand that the passing lane is for passing. As a result, you get
trapped behind these rolling roadblocks of cars going at or below the limit.
This is not only more jam-prone, it's more dangerous. Don't drive side-by-side
people! Leave an opening so that other people have a chance to pass, thus getting
a longer following distance. Slowing down behind a rolling roadblock isn't practical
either, because you have to drop well below the limit and become a hazard yourself.
People will just pass you and get stuck behind the same idiots.
It's not rocket science, people: 1. Pull left. 2. Pass. 3. Get right.
This is in stark contrast to my home town: the Washington DC metro area.
On the Beltway, everybody is in a contest to pass the other guy. The thing is
a f'n racetrack and it's so dangerous I think the cops are afraid to pull people
over; but at least you don't get stuck behind idiots all driving side-by-side. They'd
be T-boned off the highway, or some guy in a Porsch would slide between them like
slalom skiiing and they'd get the message. I may have been scared a bit more often
on the Beltway, but I was never as frustrated.
I'm watching the demo now. Obviously it can't stop
spam when it's used as regular e-mail. However, it appears
that once the wave is established, conversation can be limited
to whoever you invite. Also Bob and Alice may know my e-mail
address, but they don't know that I'm having a conversation
with Cathy, or where I'm having it. There's probably some
potential there too. It seems like it would be difficult
to spam a conversation which has a lifetime of perhaps a few
days.
I thought metamoderation was supposed
to solve this problem. I have to admit though,
I know next to nothing about Slashdot moderation.
I only post and don't moderate. Maybe I should
re-enable moderation and pitch in. There never
seemed to be a shortage of people who enjoy moderating,
and until now they did a pretty decent job.
Once they fix this moderation problem, maybe they
can do something about the fact that Reply to This links
randomly fail to render properly. The textarea and other
items are all waaaaaay over on the right side of the screen,
scrunched too small to use. If I keep opening the Reply to This
link in a new window, it eventually becomes useable.
Ditto here. When I got my first "modern" PC, a Pentium 75
I wanted to learn how to program on it and got Microsoft's compiler.
The books that came with it actually did a pretty good job of
teaching C++. I wrote a fairly large program in C++--A program
for editing VRML. I had to link in libraries
for JPEG and PNG. When I saw how elegant and cross-platform these
libraries were, I realized what a mess C++ was. I also realized how
Object-Oriented Programming tended to paint people into a corner.
I ended up having to instantiate Foo in order to access function Bar,
when I should have simply written all the functions as stand-alone
functions, using only the structures they needed.
By the time I was done messing around with VRML (which does in
fact model well as a class hierarchy) I had come to the conclusion
that maybe 10% of the problems out there require an OOP language.
Now I tend to think it's an even lower number, and I would just
as soon work around it when necessary by rolling my own objects
in C (function pointers, yay!).
I wrote more and more C. I haven't written C++ for myself,
or professionally, in 10 years.
I know this is controversial; but I think OOP has polluted and
hopelessly corrupted the minds of an entire generation of programmers.
I find myself taking an interest in FORTH lately, and to a lesser extent,
Lisp.
I don't know. My last post got modded Troll too,
and I came away with the same "they have no idea what
a troll is" feeling too. My point was political, but then,
so was the article. If you don't like my politics, that's
what debate is for, not mod points.
It seems there has been a sharp rise in abuse of Troll
moderation lately. You're not the first person to point
it out.
Most people didn't have a phone and thus couldn't
call emergency services. Many had no electricity.
There was no cure for polio. Cancer was an absolute death
sentance. Blacks rode the back of the bus and got lynched.
Women couldn't vote.
In other words, let's not use nostalgia as a tool to advance
reform.
Such a tactic would fit in all too well with the paleoconservative
and populist
movement that's threatening to give "new" direction to the Republican
party. That movement already advocates a laissez-faire attitude towards
certain things, based on the idea that it's "the way things were meant
to be". They conveniently leave out that returning to the hands-off
approach is objectively anti-labor and racist.
...it makes you smack yourself on the head and go "why
hasn't everybody been doing this for years?".
The idea is simple, and reminds me of something I learned
in school regarding signals. Some operations are easy to
perform in the frequency domain, so you do the Fourier transform,
perform the operation, and then transform back.
This is really just the same idea applied to the problem
of patches. They're small in source; but big in binary. It
seems so obvious that you could apply a transform,patch,reverse
process... but only when pointed out and demonstrated.
It's almost like my favorite invention: the phonograph.
The instructions for making an Edison phonograph could have
been understood and executed by any craftsman going back thousands
of years. Yet, it wasn't done until the late 19th century.
Are the inventors that brilliant, or are we just that stupid.
As others have pointed out, stamp prices are quite
reasonable. They've even solved the hassle of makeup
stamps by issuing the "forever" series. Why would I want
to buy any other kinf of stamp?
No, if there's one thing that bothers me about the
USPS, it's bulk mail. I send all of it straight to the
recycling bin, often without even opening. It's a horrible
waste.
Of course, without bulk mail the stamps would cost even
more since apparently bulk is a proft center. I'd be willing
to pay extra for 1st class if I could opt out of bulk though.
I use the IE security settings. Yes. It works.
The only real problem with it, is that they are a bit
convoluted for ActiveX. I had to slow down and think
before I got what I wanted, which is essentially to have
any web site that wants to run ActiveX prompt me, and then
I can choose to accept (but virtually never do).
Notice to web developers: If your site requires ActiveX,
and it's not an absolutely essential service from a company
that I can yell at, I will go someplace else. IIRC, I have
one online financial service that fits that category.
Otherwise, I DON'T NEED ACTIVEX. NOBODY REALLY DOES.
ANYTHING WORTH DOING CAN BE DONE WITHOUT IT.
And yes, that's shouting. It needs to be shouted loud
enough for these people to hear it. It needs to be shouted
again, and again. ActiveX belongs with IE6. Actually, it should
have been killed off many revs before that. It should have been
shot down by somebody who countered the suggestion at the very
first meeting where it was discussed. Maybe somebody had the
flu that day.
That's actually serious, since pilots
trying to make retirement could use it to pass. I imagine
they've thought of that before. At least I hope they have,
and are mixing up several versions of the test. Since we
all have printers now, they could even print a unique one
for each exam if it's something that critical.
For my own stuff at one point, I automated the version
numbering based on dates. I would set the first year
as the "epoch" for 1.0 and munge the day into the
minor number. This was before I started working
in an environment with a revision control system.
Later, I would have my programs output their revision
numbers. (There are Subversion hacks combined with your
makefiles that make this fairly easy).
Of course, in the corporate world there is always some
agreed-upon version number that has nothing to do with the
svnversion of your component. In my code, for an application
named foo, I'd have the svnversion defined as FOO_SVN_VERSION and
the other number would be FOO_MARKETING_VERSION.
If you ran foo --help, you got something lik:
Foo version 2.1, (C) 2007 Fubar Company. Revision 2345.
If I unplug the ethernet cable on my
Windows machine, I can still get work done.
It makes no sense to make things dependant
on the network when they are inherently non-network
functions. Or, as I've been saying for the past
10 years regarding this issue:
I can't use my word processor, the network is down.
If you don't understand what's wrong with that,
you either have no clue, or you're a shill for some business
that wants to force us into the SAAS model.
Why do so many programmers love to re-invent the wheel constantly? To un-solve the solved problem? To write their own instead of using the one that Javascript, or C++, or.net, or whatnot provides in a single freakin' line of code? Ugh
Because sometimes the library version sucks. One example I read about
was from Id Software. They discovered that the library memcpy routine
that came with their compiler wasn't optimized well at all. They wrote their
own in assembly and sped it up 4 times or something.
Now, of course this approach doesn't work in Java if you want to keep it
portable. Certainly, knowing when to do this in a work situation is important.
However, I believe good programmers want to know how things work under the hood,
and will sometimes find better ways to make the engine run better. The easiest
way to do that is try another approach and see if it makes a difference.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, we shouldn't have to make that kind of choice. The real flaw in the system, IMHO, is the way the candidates move up through the ranks and get nominated.
Most Americans aren't a part of that process. That seems to be handled by party insiders. Who decides, for example, the keynote speaker at conventions? That's just one feature of this insider process that happens.
Don't tell me to get involved with the party either. That solution doesn't scale. I'd just end up being one of the insiders. Great for me, same crap for everybody else. We need to open up the process that gets candidates on the ballot, and open it up in a way that's accessable and convenient for most voters.
It doesn't have to be totally dumbed down. It needs to be somewhere between American Idol and what we have now.
The other problem is that 3rd party candidates are effectively locked out. You might feel fine about that, since most 3rd parties are quite fringe; but they might not be so fringy if they were actually a part of the process. In other words, if everybody knew that 3rd parties had a chance, they might attract more "normal" people.
If McCain won, we wouldn't have to read your post. His "campaign finance reform" would have made casual blogging subject to the same restrictions as professional campaigning. You probably wouldn't have filled out the paperwork and/or paid fees just to retain your right to mention candidates on the Internet.
I like to think SCOTUS would have tossed it out; but I'm glad we didn't have to go through that.
This could be the next big thing.
wonder why there's never been a tobacco tea?
Because it would taste like an ashtray? OK, maybe not like an ahstray; but if it was any good I think it would have been done by now. People have smoked tea believe it or not, and it's said to give a "nasty caffeine buzz" if done properly; but since caffeine isn't known for its rush, smoking doesn't make sense for that drug. Come to think of it, there are a few herbs that are smoked, but most are made into a tea of some kind.
I guess the bottom line is, if quick delivery enhances the expeience, and if its practical, people will smoke it.
Thus, cocaine has smokeable forms, but LSD doesn't... at least not as far as I'm aware.
I hope we can come up with better alternatives than that. While what gets reported by the MSM might be selective, at least most of the facts aren't in dispute. I have no desire to wade through the "news" trying to figure out who has a scoop and who simply forgot to take their meds. Alex Jones??? I think I'm gonna puke.
Anyone wanna take that bet?
Yes. They're called traders. Ticker symbol RSH. You could short the stock, but that doesn't seem like such a bright idea since they have a PE of less than 10 and are even paying a modest dividend. They seem to have done a smart job over the years of changing with the times-- selling the infamous "trash 80" back in my youth, always selling consumer and hobby electronics, and now selling cel phones.
FWIW, I think the name change is a dumb idea though. It sounds like it was pitched by the same consultant that wants to rebrand Pizza Hut to "The Hut". Every few years it seems like there's a re-naming fad. 10 years ago it was the neologism fad that gave us "Verizon", "Altria", and another one that use to be Anderson Consultants. I can still remember Anderson Consultants, but for the life of me I can't remember what they call themselves now.
Trebuchet.
Seriously though, who wants to fly 100 mph, except for short hops?
They should have a different contest, for a 10% increase over the state-of-the-art (whatever it is) for various classes of commercial craft. Of course, since companies like Boeing and Airbus are probably doing everything they can to get better fuel economy without compromising safety, and since a lot more than $1.5 million is being spent by those companies, I don't see a whole lot of benefit in such a contest.
I think that'd be the easy part. A camera with Image processing for lane alignment and the same image every time. The lane alignment was actually my senior thesis--in 1993. It was just software, and I only tested it with one test set, so I have no idea how reliable it would have been. It was nowhere near real time either. I had no access to digital video. I had to rely on one test set, and I have no idea how they got the digitized frames. I imagine the reliability of the image processing has advanced; but I know the cost of digital capture devices has certainly come way down.
At present, I tend to share the "what could possibly go wrong" sentiment; but at some point in the future we may find automated systems to be more reliable than humans. Before we put it on cars though, we should get it working on trains. In theory, that's an easier problem; but we still have problems with automated trains.
I don't have data to back it up; but it seems like more train accidents are happening in manual mode now. In particular, an Amtrak accident last year (operator texting) and a recent San Francisco muni crash (operator had put train in manual). The last time I recall hearing about a train accident in automatic was on DC's metro system. It was during a snowstorm. IIRC, The operator was attempting to put the train in manual, but the system wouldn't allow it.. It was out of service, and the operator was the only fatality. That was in 1996 though.
We were touring the research reactor. The topic came up of how many students were majoring in Nuclear Engineering (or maybe it was just a specialization; not sure if it was actually a major). It was noted that there was exactly ONE student. Some people thought it was a strange major, since no plants were being built. Somebody else gave their $0.02 that the guy would be very much in demand--experts would be needed to dismantle plants.
I wonder what that guy is doing now.
I see your point. It did come off like I preferred unsafe highways. I don't have any data one way or the other on the Beltway vs. CA freeways. The Beltway *appears* unsafe because of the aggression and high speeds. Whether or not it's really unsafe, I don't know. I should have perhaps said that I preferred the *appearance* of danger, because all driving is dangerous. When it looks safe, it can lull you into complacency.
The biggest thing I've noticed since I moved out here is that Californians (the Bay Area, to be specific, I understand LA is another world) have awful lane discipline.
I wish I had a dime for everytime I've been on 101 and there are 4 cars in front of me all going 65 (the limit) with nothing in front of them. Nobody seems to understand that the passing lane is for passing. As a result, you get trapped behind these rolling roadblocks of cars going at or below the limit. This is not only more jam-prone, it's more dangerous. Don't drive side-by-side people! Leave an opening so that other people have a chance to pass, thus getting a longer following distance. Slowing down behind a rolling roadblock isn't practical either, because you have to drop well below the limit and become a hazard yourself. People will just pass you and get stuck behind the same idiots.
It's not rocket science, people: 1. Pull left. 2. Pass. 3. Get right.
This is in stark contrast to my home town: the Washington DC metro area.
On the Beltway, everybody is in a contest to pass the other guy. The thing is a f'n racetrack and it's so dangerous I think the cops are afraid to pull people over; but at least you don't get stuck behind idiots all driving side-by-side. They'd be T-boned off the highway, or some guy in a Porsch would slide between them like slalom skiiing and they'd get the message. I may have been scared a bit more often on the Beltway, but I was never as frustrated.
I'm watching the demo now. Obviously it can't stop spam when it's used as regular e-mail. However, it appears that once the wave is established, conversation can be limited to whoever you invite. Also Bob and Alice may know my e-mail address, but they don't know that I'm having a conversation with Cathy, or where I'm having it. There's probably some potential there too. It seems like it would be difficult to spam a conversation which has a lifetime of perhaps a few days.
I thought metamoderation was supposed to solve this problem. I have to admit though, I know next to nothing about Slashdot moderation. I only post and don't moderate. Maybe I should re-enable moderation and pitch in. There never seemed to be a shortage of people who enjoy moderating, and until now they did a pretty decent job.
Once they fix this moderation problem, maybe they can do something about the fact that Reply to This links randomly fail to render properly. The textarea and other items are all waaaaaay over on the right side of the screen, scrunched too small to use. If I keep opening the Reply to This link in a new window, it eventually becomes useable.
No matter how silly the movie is, they'll at least get my money for sheer nostalgia.
This is why Hollywood does so many re-makes, sequels, and CGI inserts/remasters. Please stop it. Thank-you.
Ditto here. When I got my first "modern" PC, a Pentium 75 I wanted to learn how to program on it and got Microsoft's compiler. The books that came with it actually did a pretty good job of teaching C++. I wrote a fairly large program in C++--A program for editing VRML. I had to link in libraries for JPEG and PNG. When I saw how elegant and cross-platform these libraries were, I realized what a mess C++ was. I also realized how Object-Oriented Programming tended to paint people into a corner. I ended up having to instantiate Foo in order to access function Bar, when I should have simply written all the functions as stand-alone functions, using only the structures they needed.
By the time I was done messing around with VRML (which does in fact model well as a class hierarchy) I had come to the conclusion that maybe 10% of the problems out there require an OOP language.
Now I tend to think it's an even lower number, and I would just as soon work around it when necessary by rolling my own objects in C (function pointers, yay!).
I wrote more and more C. I haven't written C++ for myself, or professionally, in 10 years.
I know this is controversial; but I think OOP has polluted and hopelessly corrupted the minds of an entire generation of programmers. I find myself taking an interest in FORTH lately, and to a lesser extent, Lisp.
Parent is not a troll. Please fix. If you don't agree with him, the proper thing to do is argue with him, not moderate him.
I don't know. My last post got modded Troll too, and I came away with the same "they have no idea what a troll is" feeling too. My point was political, but then, so was the article. If you don't like my politics, that's what debate is for, not mod points.
It seems there has been a sharp rise in abuse of Troll moderation lately. You're not the first person to point it out.
Most people didn't have a phone and thus couldn't call emergency services. Many had no electricity. There was no cure for polio. Cancer was an absolute death sentance. Blacks rode the back of the bus and got lynched. Women couldn't vote.
In other words, let's not use nostalgia as a tool to advance reform.
Such a tactic would fit in all too well with the paleoconservative and populist movement that's threatening to give "new" direction to the Republican party. That movement already advocates a laissez-faire attitude towards certain things, based on the idea that it's "the way things were meant to be". They conveniently leave out that returning to the hands-off approach is objectively anti-labor and racist.
...it makes you smack yourself on the head and go "why hasn't everybody been doing this for years?".
The idea is simple, and reminds me of something I learned in school regarding signals. Some operations are easy to perform in the frequency domain, so you do the Fourier transform, perform the operation, and then transform back.
This is really just the same idea applied to the problem of patches. They're small in source; but big in binary. It seems so obvious that you could apply a transform,patch,reverse process... but only when pointed out and demonstrated.
It's almost like my favorite invention: the phonograph.
The instructions for making an Edison phonograph could have been understood and executed by any craftsman going back thousands of years. Yet, it wasn't done until the late 19th century.
Are the inventors that brilliant, or are we just that stupid.
As others have pointed out, stamp prices are quite reasonable. They've even solved the hassle of makeup stamps by issuing the "forever" series. Why would I want to buy any other kinf of stamp?
No, if there's one thing that bothers me about the USPS, it's bulk mail. I send all of it straight to the recycling bin, often without even opening. It's a horrible waste.
Of course, without bulk mail the stamps would cost even more since apparently bulk is a proft center. I'd be willing to pay extra for 1st class if I could opt out of bulk though.
I use the IE security settings. Yes. It works. The only real problem with it, is that they are a bit convoluted for ActiveX. I had to slow down and think before I got what I wanted, which is essentially to have any web site that wants to run ActiveX prompt me, and then I can choose to accept (but virtually never do).
Notice to web developers: If your site requires ActiveX, and it's not an absolutely essential service from a company that I can yell at, I will go someplace else. IIRC, I have one online financial service that fits that category.
Otherwise, I DON'T NEED ACTIVEX. NOBODY REALLY DOES. ANYTHING WORTH DOING CAN BE DONE WITHOUT IT.
And yes, that's shouting. It needs to be shouted loud enough for these people to hear it. It needs to be shouted again, and again. ActiveX belongs with IE6. Actually, it should have been killed off many revs before that. It should have been shot down by somebody who countered the suggestion at the very first meeting where it was discussed. Maybe somebody had the flu that day.
That's actually serious, since pilots trying to make retirement could use it to pass. I imagine they've thought of that before. At least I hope they have, and are mixing up several versions of the test. Since we all have printers now, they could even print a unique one for each exam if it's something that critical.
For my own stuff at one point, I automated the version numbering based on dates. I would set the first year as the "epoch" for 1.0 and munge the day into the minor number. This was before I started working in an environment with a revision control system.
Later, I would have my programs output their revision numbers. (There are Subversion hacks combined with your makefiles that make this fairly easy).
Of course, in the corporate world there is always some agreed-upon version number that has nothing to do with the svnversion of your component. In my code, for an application named foo, I'd have the svnversion defined as FOO_SVN_VERSION and the other number would be FOO_MARKETING_VERSION.
If you ran foo --help, you got something lik:
Foo version 2.1, (C) 2007 Fubar Company. Revision 2345.
If I unplug the ethernet cable on my Windows machine, I can still get work done. It makes no sense to make things dependant on the network when they are inherently non-network functions. Or, as I've been saying for the past 10 years regarding this issue:
I can't use my word processor, the network is down.
If you don't understand what's wrong with that, you either have no clue, or you're a shill for some business that wants to force us into the SAAS model.
Why do so many programmers love to re-invent the wheel constantly? To un-solve the solved problem? To write their own instead of using the one that Javascript, or C++, or .net, or whatnot provides in a single freakin' line of code? Ugh
Because sometimes the library version sucks. One example I read about was from Id Software. They discovered that the library memcpy routine that came with their compiler wasn't optimized well at all. They wrote their own in assembly and sped it up 4 times or something.
Now, of course this approach doesn't work in Java if you want to keep it portable. Certainly, knowing when to do this in a work situation is important. However, I believe good programmers want to know how things work under the hood, and will sometimes find better ways to make the engine run better. The easiest way to do that is try another approach and see if it makes a difference.