First: There would be no private members. That is information that does not exist in the compiled code. Everything would be public, or just declared as a struct.
Second: The sequence starting from int x; going to j: would be optimized away to just:
f.d(1);
f.d(2);
f.d(3);
Third: Since class a, is a global name (which you can find by looking at the name-mangled a.b() and a.d(), the decompiler should be able to come up with the correct name.
Fourth: It might be too hard for the compiler to correctly guess the layout of class a, given that it has not virtual member functions (thus doesn't need a vtable), the default constructor is simple enough to be inlined, and that no heap allocation of a-objects occur. If the two member functions uses both g and h it should be able to find them both, but there might be friend functions elsewhere that uses more members, and that is again information that would be hard to infer from the binary code. It should guess this correctly, but it should also insert some warning that it wasn't really sure...
Uh, no. Compilation produces assembly, and then the (sometime integrated) assembler assembles it into machine language (not binary). Forget what switch it is, but gcc even let's you see what asm code it is generating.
No, that's not right. While a compiler could produce assembly as it's final stage (as e.g. lcc), gcc, and most other compilers do not. Just because gcc and most other compilers are able to produce assembly code in the same way they produce object code, does not mean that that is what they usually do!
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong in generating assembly code, and I would probably use that approach if I were to write a native-code compiler myself (something that seems less and less likely the more I learn about it...)
Basically, it went
into a cardboard box where I keep O/S'es I'm not using,
Yeah, I can see how that could be useful. Do you also have a cardboard box for productivity apps you are never using? One for server apps you are never using? One for development tools you are never using? And one for games you are never using?
Personally, I have only one box. It is for empty CD-covers...
I dont really understand how they can impact Linux buy "saving SCO." SCO is expensive unix, not entirely aimed at the
same market. I suppose it does offer competition in the server market...hmmm
#1: They aren't interested in SCO anyway. Microsoft already has a product aiming at the same market as SCO. It's called Windows 2000 Server. While it's possible that in an alternative universe, microsoft would be interested in doing a unix, that unix would not be the crappy stuff SCO makes. It would most likely be something really heavy (to capture that market as well), or something like OS X.
#2: It might be that SCO is expensive. It is, however aimed at exactly the same market as linux. And for (almost?) any purpose, it is inferior to it. This is also the reason why SCO is not exactly selling well these days.
Licensing the code also allows Microsoft to do with it what others can't: Make changes and keep them secret.
Ehh, yes, they are allowed to use the old unix code-base. Not that even Microsoft would even consider using it for anything, these days...
It let's them take a piece of Linux and incorporate it into their own products, without releasing their source code.
No, it doesn't. Just as if I licensed that code from Caldera^H^H^HSCO then I can't take Microsoft's code and do what I want with it.
Let's get this clear. Despite whatever SCO claims, there is nothing in linux that comes from the original unix codebase. There might be pieces of of code coming from Caldera back when they cared about linux, but this is already GPL'd or LGPL'd.
I can't imagine it as being a very large piece of Linux, though, given that the kernel has so many contributors.
About dumb movies, goofy food, useless sports, ugly clothes, and which boss slept with which intern. Hardly worth the Badge of Nastalgia in my book.
No, because today we can post instead. About "in soviet russia"-jokes, beowulf, natalie portman, and duplicated stories. Not to mention troll, or complain about moderators. Surely the quality of our discussions have improved much`with the advent of the Internet, don't you think?
How many times have you met an interesting person, who happened to check out the same book in the library, or listen to the same music as you do?
Eh, to be precise: NEVER!
I meet people in a number of ways, but not by my shopping habits (unless you count beer). Can anyone seriously say that they have met a friend by choosing the same item in a shop (or library, etc...)
Researchers from University of Chicago suggest that it would be kinda cool if you could find like-minded people by analyzing the queries submitted to a Web search engine
Yeah, I would love that, if people could contact me based on my searching habits. The people who would do that would surely be really interesting people, and must live a fun life!
Or simply, never never never buy a game at all. They are all crap. They cost too much money, and take too long to play through. And they almost never work perfectly on my (or anybody elses) computer.
If you absolutely need some games, download them from kazaa. The games that are easiest to find there, are the most popular ones, and therefore likely to be better than anything you pick up in the shop after reading a few reviews. Besides, they are more likely to be running at all, since they are cracked versions.
We all need to patch our systems facing the Internet faster. Because, as we all know, patching itself never creates problems. Especially when it's automated....
It's no wonder this comes from someone at an anti-virus corporation, whose main purpose is to patch the holes left in unsecure operating systems. Now, if he had suggested the correct solution, making the systems at least somewhat resilient to attacks in the first place, he would also suggest that his company shouldn't really need to exist, making shareholders unhappy.
I can't imagine a worse nightmare than having to rely on insecure systems going through automated updates with a frequency as low as 15 minutes. Do you think all those patches are going to work? That they are actually tested? That they don't create as many new holes as they tighten? That they don't change your carefully tuned setup which wasn't vulnerable for what the patches are supposed to fix anyway?
Please give me some design and forethought instead...
I thought it was a TV-channel of some kind. Or maybe some website. Oh no, now I remember, it was that extra icon that came with Windows 98 nobody used... Is that the client that is now ported to Mac OS X? I guess they'll be raving about it then... Lucky mac-users...
Before you start feeling too superior about it, take some time to consider this:
This is an english language discussion, in a forum for english speaking people (native or not).
No matter what word you are speaking about, surely there is a language where that word has a different meaning
Even if the word is borrowed from another language, it might mean something else in the other language
A word can mean more than one thing even in the same language (as discussed about with the regards to the word "hacker").
In english, negro is used to describe the race of people having origins in Africa (as opposed to, say, people from india or australian natives, who also have a brown skin-color, but are not negroes).
Another word with similar meaning is nauro, but then nobody would know what you are speaking about.
Thus, despite it's politicial incorrectness, it is also a useful word to describe a group of people. A black man can be from India, a negro can not (well, he or his family can of course have moved to India in recent times...)
Your best bet is to have planned for this, and made sure that there are always at least 2 programmers that have a good overall picture of each large product.
Your next best bet, is to make sure he doesn't feel that you have a grudge against him, and that you are willing to let him go. At least then, you can probably ask him about something later, if a specific problem pops up.
Yes, both harddrive and CPU are good favourites used to describe a PC by idiots. And also, what is the capacity of the computer? As if you could just take some numbers, say, clock frequency, harddrive size, harddrive platter speed, ram size, CD-rom speed, and watt-usage, add them together, and get a meaningful capacity. I've always wondered why marketers haven't caught onto it...
But then again, if you are one of those who will call whatever is under the hood of a car the engine you are just as bad (since I am aware of it, I am only almost as bad)...
Yes, the pedagog was the slave that took care of your children. In some cases this really meant education, in most cases, probably not, just as it is today... To see how the word has drifted in usage, I'm quite sure that you would not call a nanny a pedagog today, although it is probably closest to it's original meaning...
And you would hardly find a judge explaining that jurys are supposed to consist of idiots (well, at least publicly).
but wouldnt it be a good idea to take the time that we have now to research the consequences of creating such a thing?
What makes you think that academics aren't already boring us with endless diatribes about that.
Wouldnt it be better to be prepared for what the creation of an AI would bring? what are the religious and political ramifications?
Nah, sounds boring and useless to me. Do you think the inventor of fire would be able to predict global warming? Plane-crashes?
Is the world as it stands now, ready for an AI?
Who cares, the question is meaningless anyway. Sure, the world is ready for, say an AI car autopilot. No, the world is not ready for SkyNet. So what was your question again?
"The worst fad has been these stupid little robots," said Minsky. "Graduate students are wasting 3 years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking."i>
Yeah, and if Minsky has used 20 years of his life to write AI software instead of talking and talking and talking and talking about it, maybe we would have some real progress...
Um, negro=black in spanish thus contradicting at least some of your statement.
No, it doesn't contradict it at all. You see, I was talking about the english language, not the spanish. But if you feel better about it, you can use the slightly more artificial "negroid".
If people want to be called by something, call them that. It's called respect. Also it's not for you to decide. If everybody started calling you "the insensitive wonder" would that change your name? Nope.
And if you insisted on being called dubious9 I would not call you that, if I knew your real name. You might call it lack of respect. So would I, if you had known your real name, and you insisted that I'd call you that.
Why should 'hackers' be any different?
Because hackers are not a weak minority group that have been suppressed by white europeans through centuries, which has suddenly got some awareness about their situation.
If there was a large movement of cab-drivers that insisted on being called "private or small-group short-distance transportation engineers", nobody would have cared either. And if there was a group of highly trained shoe makers that used "pothead" as an emblem of pride, neither would society redefine their interpretation of pothead.
1. You read and are a registered member of Slashdot, therefore your intelligence is likely at least 40 points above the average population
Ha, ha ha!
At once, it might have been true that slashdot-readers had an average IQ of, say 110-115 (average person taking or having taken academic education would typically lie around 120). But 140, don't make me laugh...
But today, I believe we are about as average as it possibly can be, if not a little below... Just look around, buddy!
2. This "successful movie formula" is geared for the masses, i.e., people with an IQ of approximately 100 or so.
I doubt their script-makers are smart enough to say, "ok, this might look stupid to someone with 150 in IQ, but to the average movie-goer with IQ around 100, it will feel just fine". I find it much more likely that they simply base their stories on "research" like this, focus groups, trends, fashion, and of course also what they want to make themselves.
4. Recognize that you're at least somewhat "gifted" and have an avenue to discuss your point of view in a geek forum.
Well, a lot of so called "gifted" people are also unemployed, without a girl(boy)friend, without any kind of social intelligence, etc... If it makes you feel better, go brag about your IQ, but don't expect us to sympathize much...
Did anyone else feel it was an insult to those with intelligence that plot took only an 8% grab?
No, just a statement of fact. It's those movies I feel are an insult to people with intelligence, on the other hand, I do understand that they sell well...
Gee, I guess that means the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is a tremendous flop, doomed to failure; it's got the whole thing backwards!
What, you mean it has a plot. Let's see. Take ring, long journey, throw it into Mordor. Fill in with special effects scenes based on the book.
Contrary to popular opinion in geek-circles, the LotR is not the greatest literature that is. Now, most literates have probably read it, but they have also read a lot of other stuff (yes, the kind of literature that is not labelled as fantasy or scifi), and much of it is better (and much of it worse).
But however you classify LotR as great or mediocre literature, it is very well adapted for a movie. It has no essential plot (bah, good vs evil, furry creatures, etc,...), it has lot's of potential for action scenes and special effects, and it is ridicoulusly long, so you can pick and choose the most interesting scenes. The main reason it hasn't been done so far, is probably that it also has a large fan-base who would complain if it wasn't really really well adapted to movie.
Guess which definition is listed first over at Merriam Webster [m-w.com]?
Hmm, the ESR definition is at #3, and then the mainstream media at #4. Before those come everything non-computer-related. And this tells you what? That we should only use definition #3 and ignore #4?
In fact all the vast majority of all the 'hackers' I know are of the licit variety.
In fact, so are all mine. But we are not here discussing what kind of friends we have, but whether we should let ESR dictate our language usage.
If a population insists being called something else then its popular name then do it.
No, why should we? This is one of the stupidest ideas to ever have entered the mainstream. A negro is still a negro, no matter what you call him, and there is no reason to feel insulted by that. I can understand people feeling insulted by nigger, but no, if you get insulted by being negro, it is your own problem.
So instead we should call him/her: black (although they in reality are brown), coloured (as opposed to transparent?), or the stupidest of all, afro-american (so what do you call a negro who is not american, is he an afro-european, afro-asian, afro-australian, or simply african? and if you are white and from Africa, would you be a euro-african?)
We call eskimos Inuits. We call indians Native Americans.
No, we do not!
If the majority of the population that considers themselves a hacker take the definition of "an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer", the popular defintion is wrong and should be changed.
May I suggest a bit of reality. The reason we (as a society) have put up with the crap about afro-americans and native americans is because of guilt. We have generally not been particulary nice to them, and felt the need to cut them some slack. But "hackers" (in M-W meaning #3) is not a group that the society cares enough for to be politically correct about it. And neither should it.
Slashdot Mirror
First: There would be no private members. That is information that does not exist in the compiled code. Everything would be public, or just declared as a struct.
Second: The sequence starting from int x; going to j: would be optimized away to just:
f.d(1);
f.d(2);
f.d(3);
Third: Since class a, is a global name (which you can find by looking at the name-mangled a.b() and a.d(), the decompiler should be able to come up with the correct name.
Fourth: It might be too hard for the compiler to correctly guess the layout of class a, given that it has not virtual member functions (thus doesn't need a vtable), the default constructor is simple enough to be inlined, and that no heap allocation of a-objects occur. If the two member functions uses both g and h it should be able to find them both, but there might be friend functions elsewhere that uses more members, and that is again information that would be hard to infer from the binary code. It should guess this correctly, but it should also insert some warning that it wasn't really sure...
No, that's not right. While a compiler could produce assembly as it's final stage (as e.g. lcc), gcc, and most other compilers do not. Just because gcc and most other compilers are able to produce assembly code in the same way they produce object code, does not mean that that is what they usually do!
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong in generating assembly code, and I would probably use that approach if I were to write a native-code compiler myself (something that seems less and less likely the more I learn about it...)
No, that's not a new evolution. It has been this way forever...
Hmm, does anybody know anything more about interix. Is it like cygwin, or is it more like user-mode-linux running on NT? Or something else?
Yeah, I can see how that could be useful. Do you also have a cardboard box for productivity apps you are never using? One for server apps you are never using? One for development tools you are never using? And one for games you are never using?
Personally, I have only one box. It is for empty CD-covers...
#1: They aren't interested in SCO anyway. Microsoft already has a product aiming at the same market as SCO. It's called Windows 2000 Server. While it's possible that in an alternative universe, microsoft would be interested in doing a unix, that unix would not be the crappy stuff SCO makes. It would most likely be something really heavy (to capture that market as well), or something like OS X.
#2: It might be that SCO is expensive. It is, however aimed at exactly the same market as linux. And for (almost?) any purpose, it is inferior to it. This is also the reason why SCO is not exactly selling well these days.
Ehh, yes, they are allowed to use the old unix code-base. Not that even Microsoft would even consider using it for anything, these days...
It let's them take a piece of Linux and incorporate it into their own products, without releasing their source code.
No, it doesn't. Just as if I licensed that code from Caldera^H^H^HSCO then I can't take Microsoft's code and do what I want with it.
Let's get this clear. Despite whatever SCO claims, there is nothing in linux that comes from the original unix codebase. There might be pieces of of code coming from Caldera back when they cared about linux, but this is already GPL'd or LGPL'd.
I can't imagine it as being a very large piece of Linux, though, given that the kernel has so many contributors.
See above.
But what does actually "coed" mean. And why has it become so much used in pornography and nowhere else?
About dumb movies, goofy food, useless sports, ugly clothes, and which boss slept with which intern. Hardly worth the Badge of Nastalgia in my book. No, because today we can post instead. About "in soviet russia"-jokes, beowulf, natalie portman, and duplicated stories. Not to mention troll, or complain about moderators. Surely the quality of our discussions have improved much`with the advent of the Internet, don't you think?
Eh, to be precise: NEVER!
I meet people in a number of ways, but not by my shopping habits (unless you count beer). Can anyone seriously say that they have met a friend by choosing the same item in a shop (or library, etc...)
Researchers from University of Chicago suggest that it would be kinda cool if you could find like-minded people by analyzing the queries submitted to a Web search engine
Yeah, I would love that, if people could contact me based on my searching habits. The people who would do that would surely be really interesting people, and must live a fun life!
If you absolutely need some games, download them from kazaa. The games that are easiest to find there, are the most popular ones, and therefore likely to be better than anything you pick up in the shop after reading a few reviews. Besides, they are more likely to be running at all, since they are cracked versions.
Or just buy a TV-console system...
It's no wonder this comes from someone at an anti-virus corporation, whose main purpose is to patch the holes left in unsecure operating systems. Now, if he had suggested the correct solution, making the systems at least somewhat resilient to attacks in the first place, he would also suggest that his company shouldn't really need to exist, making shareholders unhappy.
I can't imagine a worse nightmare than having to rely on insecure systems going through automated updates with a frequency as low as 15 minutes. Do you think all those patches are going to work? That they are actually tested? That they don't create as many new holes as they tighten? That they don't change your carefully tuned setup which wasn't vulnerable for what the patches are supposed to fix anyway?
Please give me some design and forethought instead...
I thought it was a TV-channel of some kind. Or maybe some website. Oh no, now I remember, it was that extra icon that came with Windows 98 nobody used... Is that the client that is now ported to Mac OS X? I guess they'll be raving about it then... Lucky mac-users...
Exactly which problem are you referring to?
That people will try to attack you in court if they think there is money to get?
Do you have an operating system that could get rid of jealousy as well?
Before you start feeling too superior about it, take some time to consider this:
Your next best bet, is to make sure he doesn't feel that you have a grudge against him, and that you are willing to let him go. At least then, you can probably ask him about something later, if a specific problem pops up.
But then again, if you are one of those who will call whatever is under the hood of a car the engine you are just as bad (since I am aware of it, I am only almost as bad)...
And you would hardly find a judge explaining that jurys are supposed to consist of idiots (well, at least publicly).
What makes you think that academics aren't already boring us with endless diatribes about that.
Wouldnt it be better to be prepared for what the creation of an AI would bring? what are the religious and political ramifications?
Nah, sounds boring and useless to me. Do you think the inventor of fire would be able to predict global warming? Plane-crashes?
Is the world as it stands now, ready for an AI?
Who cares, the question is meaningless anyway. Sure, the world is ready for, say an AI car autopilot. No, the world is not ready for SkyNet. So what was your question again?
Thanks, finally some sanity from someone who was old enough to be there. Thanks!
Yeah, and if Minsky has used 20 years of his life to write AI software instead of talking and talking and talking and talking about it, maybe we would have some real progress...
Um, negro=black in spanish thus contradicting at least some of your statement.
No, it doesn't contradict it at all. You see, I was talking about the english language, not the spanish. But if you feel better about it, you can use the slightly more artificial "negroid". If people want to be called by something, call them that. It's called respect. Also it's not for you to decide. If everybody started calling you "the insensitive wonder" would that change your name? Nope.
And if you insisted on being called dubious9 I would not call you that, if I knew your real name. You might call it lack of respect. So would I, if you had known your real name, and you insisted that I'd call you that.
Why should 'hackers' be any different?
Because hackers are not a weak minority group that have been suppressed by white europeans through centuries, which has suddenly got some awareness about their situation.
If there was a large movement of cab-drivers that insisted on being called "private or small-group short-distance transportation engineers", nobody would have cared either. And if there was a group of highly trained shoe makers that used "pothead" as an emblem of pride, neither would society redefine their interpretation of pothead.
Ha, ha ha!
At once, it might have been true that slashdot-readers had an average IQ of, say 110-115 (average person taking or having taken academic education would typically lie around 120). But 140, don't make me laugh...
But today, I believe we are about as average as it possibly can be, if not a little below... Just look around, buddy!
2. This "successful movie formula" is geared for the masses, i.e., people with an IQ of approximately 100 or so.
I doubt their script-makers are smart enough to say, "ok, this might look stupid to someone with 150 in IQ, but to the average movie-goer with IQ around 100, it will feel just fine". I find it much more likely that they simply base their stories on "research" like this, focus groups, trends, fashion, and of course also what they want to make themselves.
4. Recognize that you're at least somewhat "gifted" and have an avenue to discuss your point of view in a geek forum.
Well, a lot of so called "gifted" people are also unemployed, without a girl(boy)friend, without any kind of social intelligence, etc... If it makes you feel better, go brag about your IQ, but don't expect us to sympathize much...
No, just a statement of fact. It's those movies I feel are an insult to people with intelligence, on the other hand, I do understand that they sell well...
Gee, I guess that means the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is a tremendous flop, doomed to failure; it's got the whole thing backwards!
What, you mean it has a plot. Let's see. Take ring, long journey, throw it into Mordor. Fill in with special effects scenes based on the book.
Contrary to popular opinion in geek-circles, the LotR is not the greatest literature that is. Now, most literates have probably read it, but they have also read a lot of other stuff (yes, the kind of literature that is not labelled as fantasy or scifi), and much of it is better (and much of it worse).
But however you classify LotR as great or mediocre literature, it is very well adapted for a movie. It has no essential plot (bah, good vs evil, furry creatures, etc, ...), it has lot's of potential for action scenes and special effects, and it is ridicoulusly long, so you can pick and choose the most interesting scenes. The main reason it hasn't been done so far, is probably that it also has a large fan-base who would complain if it wasn't really really well adapted to movie.
Hmm, the ESR definition is at #3, and then the mainstream media at #4. Before those come everything non-computer-related. And this tells you what? That we should only use definition #3 and ignore #4?
In fact all the vast majority of all the 'hackers' I know are of the licit variety.
In fact, so are all mine. But we are not here discussing what kind of friends we have, but whether we should let ESR dictate our language usage.
If a population insists being called something else then its popular name then do it.
No, why should we? This is one of the stupidest ideas to ever have entered the mainstream. A negro is still a negro, no matter what you call him, and there is no reason to feel insulted by that. I can understand people feeling insulted by nigger, but no, if you get insulted by being negro, it is your own problem.
So instead we should call him/her: black (although they in reality are brown), coloured (as opposed to transparent?), or the stupidest of all, afro-american (so what do you call a negro who is not american, is he an afro-european, afro-asian, afro-australian, or simply african? and if you are white and from Africa, would you be a euro-african?)
We call eskimos Inuits. We call indians Native Americans.
No, we do not!
If the majority of the population that considers themselves a hacker take the definition of "an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer", the popular defintion is wrong and should be changed.
May I suggest a bit of reality. The reason we (as a society) have put up with the crap about afro-americans and native americans is because of guilt. We have generally not been particulary nice to them, and felt the need to cut them some slack. But "hackers" (in M-W meaning #3) is not a group that the society cares enough for to be politically correct about it. And neither should it.