The reason I feel C is a good programming language (besides my own subjective preferences) is that it turned out to work so well within the niche it was created to be used for. Maybe I should look around some more, but I can't think of any programming language that can achieve the task it was created for as well. (Although, perhaps Python may become known as a tour de force scripting language).
I realize that a basic C compiler is one of the easiest to write. In my experience, much of the programming language theory is taught using Common Lisp. Although when it comes time to write an actual compiler, C is most likely to be written.
I understand that C is sometimes extended past the point of its usefulness. Sometimes I feel that the C++ language is an example of this. (Though I'd like to try learning some Objective C some time).
Just because an OS can be written in Pascal doesn't mean it should. C is very low-level by its very nature. It makes the bare minimum number of assumptions on the functioning of your generic processor and no more. This offers a lot of control for programmers and a pretty efficent compiled program while preserving a great deal of source code portability. If you were to relax the syntax of Pascal enough to do as well a job then what you'd end up with would be a piss-poor form of Pascal which was twisted to fit a niche already filled perfectly well by other languages.
Funny that you mentioned university support for programming languages. When I was an undergrad majoring in CS, Pascal was the primary programming language we used. It was because of Pascal's failure in so many real-world development situations that it is no longer taught as frequently. In my opinion, it would have been nice if Delphi replaced Visual Basic as the primarily language used for RAD, though.
I think a language should be chosen more based on needs than personal programming style. The more languages you're used to, the easier time you'll have finding the proper language to use for whatever tool you need to build. If I'm using C to do a task that can be easily done by a scripting language and speed isn't the issue, then I'm wasting my time.
It is high time managers and programmers get real and start using languages designed to do what they want. COBOL, Pascal, Smalltalk, Lisp... each in their niche, they are better than C or BASIC and their overextended derivatives.
Pascal? PASCAL???! Your argrument is that languages should be used to do the jobs they were designed to do and yet you cite Pascal, a programming language created to teach people to learn how to write well-structured code, as a good language for application development? It is because of what Pascal was developed for that it's structure is far too inflexible for a lot of serious software development.
C was created to write portable operating systems. If you can name one language that can fit this niche better then I'd love to hear it.
What if someone decides to use your network to download their own library of kiddy porn without your knowledge? Couldn't that be traced back to you and potentially land you in deep doo-doo even though you did nothing wrong?
Great point. Chances are that if you hate your job then you're not going to do well at it and you will eventually be replaced by someone who does have a passion for the position. Let them have it and try to find the position that's right for you.
At my last big job I wanted to do nothing more than to develop software. But then there eventually came this big push from the top that resulted in the saying, "Everyone is a salesman." Well, no I'm not. I never asked the salesman to develop software so why should I have to do thier fucking jobs on top of my own? No thanks. Time to go to grad school.
In case you're still interested, you can read the whole thing here.
Knock yourself out, oh great one.
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Just read the fucking thing, OK sparky? Then you have all these other options to prove how superior you are.
Though it's not original, I'd still prefer the Pryor/fire reference of mc chris's than the 3 you referenced. "Faster than Pryor" is cool because it's more in sync with his stand-up routine where he describes running like hell after he accidentally set himself ablaze. The internal rhyme scheme is better as well.
As I said before, no shit about the Run DMC thing.
Re:How are opinions informative?
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Sucker MC's...hmmm...where have I heard that before? Do you know? I guess it's OK to be a little derivitive, huh.
Well, duh. That line's been all over the place. I just thought it was pretty funny considering the context, that's all. Really though, read the whole thing and see what you think. It's almost Eminem quality lyrics-wise.
I imagine the Pat Boone reference is right on. I wouldn't compare this guy to KRS-One, Naz or Eminem for that matter. Maybe Weird Al? He's complex, creative and good after all.
I'd say the Pat Boone reference is way off, myself. Weird Al is a little closer. In no way am I suggesting that mc chris should be consider some rap legend like KRS-One, Public Enemy, Run DMC or whatever. Just that he's good at what he does and it's worth a listen.
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Those are your opinions, and you're welcome to them, but I have no idea how you could say he's not a good lyricist. Everyone here who likes to jump on the bandwagon of "I never heard of him, therefore he must suck" and "The only rap songs I hear are the ones shoved down my throat by popular radio, therefore all rap sucks" should just look up the lyrics to Fette's Vette somewhere and read them. Now imagine yourself trying to write a goofy song with the same complexity of rhythm, rhyme scheme, story-telling and humor.
This verse alone is pure genius...
Call me master, 'cause I'm faster than Pryor on fire I no longer have to hot-wire I'm a hunter for hire with no plans to retire And all you sucker MCs can call me sire.
Just because something sounds goofy doesn't mean it's not complex, creative or even good.
(The more I learn about quantum computing, the less likely I think it is and the more I wonder what all the fury is about. I expect this will collapse in about two years and be remembered right next to the "great" AI era of the 80's. Hey, maybe I'm wrong... and hey, maybe 80's style AI programming really is the path to strong AI and we just didn't try hard enough... but I'm not holding my breath and the burden of proof remains on the researchers.
It reminds me of FTL or teleportation; with every little "advance" physics fanboys crow about how much "closer" we are, whereas I see an ever-refined understanding of why the thing we are looking for is still impossible and the potential loopholes slamming shut.
You should try learning more because you have no idea what you're talking about.
Small-scale quantum computing has been happening for a while now. The only problem now is overcoming physical challenges to scale them up for solving larger-scale problems. And more strides are being made to overcome them all of the time.
FTL is crap because the "things" that are cited as travelling faster than light cannot be used to send information faster than light. How QC reminds you of FTL is beyond me since the situations are completely different.
It wouldn't take a "physics fanboy" (whatever that is) to mod you down. Just someone fond of facts and reason would suffice.
Franklin didn't discover electricity. What he did establish with his famous kite-flying experiment was that lightning was made of electricity. Big difference.
Entitlements come at the expense of rights. So tell you what: you and everyone else who wants socialized healthcare and education, get together and for a nice pretty socialist society for yourselves. The rest of us will participate in a free-market capitalist society. See which crumbles first.
Errrrrr... wouldn't you consider the public school system to be a "socialist education?"
Both a total socialist society and a total free-market capitalist society will fail miserably. (And even if the socialist society did "succeed", it wouldn't be worth living in anyways.) For any government to be functional and competitive it needs to contain elements of both. A pure socialist government is unable to aniticpate unexpected changes and needs while a pure free-market society kills off better long-term ideas with more profitable short-term ones. (For example, the Internet might not have survived if it were not developed under the aegis of the government program known as the military). Why do so many people have to insist on either one extreme or the other?
OK, so let's throw out "observation" and replace it with "physical collision". What would make certain properties of a sub-atomic particle to be considered collapsed in certain parts of the universe and not others? How are the borders between where in the universe some sub-atomic particles properties are collapsed and uncollapsed drawn, especially if we eliminate that whole troublesome concept of intelligence completely from our considerations?
The way I heard the double-slit experiment, it was electrons travleing with photons bounced off of them. Once a photon hit the electron right, it acted like a particle. If we try to avoid affecting the path of the electron by using a less intense light-source, and therefore using less photons, electrons would be missed. At that exact point, they revert to their wave nature. If we use less energetic light, the resulting bounced light pulse we see is so spread out that we can't tell which of the slits the electron went through. Again, at this exact same point is where the electrons revert to their wave nature.
I read about this from one of Richard Feynman's "Easy Pieces" books I believe. He might have given a simplified version of the experiment to make a point, though.
These states, while separated in probability space are nearby in real space... and can actually interact with each other... at least if you draw on the two-slit experiments as your analog. In those experiments the particles travel through BOTH slits and actually create an interference pattern in the probability waves which affects the probabilities of striking different locations on the target, a pattern only explained by a wave going through two paths and interfering with itself. If you observe which slit the particle goes through, the interference pattern goes away.
The way your observe which slit the particle goes through is by bouncing a different particle off of it and seeing what happens. If you leave a macine to pepper the particles with photons or something, would you say that a conscious being has to be in the room to see it for them to choose one slit or another? Why?
A little later you say that it becomes fixed when an action happens from which an observer can deduce the state in question, but this still seems to assign a special role to an intelligent observer. I thought from your earlier question that you were trying to get away from that. Or does deducibility-of-state coincide with some other condition to which an intelligent observer is irrelevant?
I just meant to say that the action would be an event that would quantify a property of some quantum particle which was not well-defined before. For example, we do a double-slit experiment with a bunch of electrons (beta radiation). At first, it looks like each electron is coming through both slits at the same time as if they exist as waves. To see what is actually going on, we bounce other particles off of the electrons to observe what path each electron is taking. When we do this, each electron now goes through only one slit at a time, acting as particles. Their positions have become fixed, I believe.
The question is, would the position of the electrons at the time of bouncing the particles off of them been fixed even though someone's not in the room to see it? My answer would be, of course.
A definitive quantity regarding each electron has been forced out of them. If I'm not there to see it, it doesn't mean I exist in some universe where the collapse never happened than other's who happened to observe it. It would mean that there is only one universe where the collapse happened where some are ignorant of the fact and others are not.
"Every time I hear about Schroedinger's Cat, I reach for my gun." -Stephen Hawking
I think there is a mistaken idea out there that observation alone fixes certain information about sub-atomic particles while the particle is in several states simultaneously beforehand. The problem is with dependence on observation for collapsing the wave form. If this were true, the only cause was observation, then what would count for an observation? How intelligent would the thing causing the collapse have to be to be considered an observer? Can an ape collpase a wave-form? How about a cat? Does it have to be a living thing at all?
Yes the particle holds many states simultaneously at certain times, yes it becomes fixed when an action happens from which an observer can deduce the state in question (whether or not said observer is there to witness it), but no, an actual observer doesn't have to be there to see it at the time for the wave-form to collapse. That's what's ridiculous about Schroedinger's Cat. Once the quantum event which may or may not kill the cat happens, the sucker is alive or dead - period. We just don't happen to know which until we look.
I'm no physicist but that's the impression I get from what I've read. Anyone want to comment?
I thought the exact same thing when I read the comic. "Hmmmmm... so the man is given a choice of cutting through his ankle with a hack saw and certain death. Yup, seen this before."
The Watchmen is a very complex comic, I've often discussed with some of my film major friends about how a good Watchmen movie could prove to be impossible. It lies in the fact that a lot of plot development is presented in pure text as a preface to a chapter, a police report here. A newspaper story there. That and the pirate comic within the comic,...
I love Watchmen, but can anywone explain to me what the fuck the pirate comic was in there for? As far as I can tell, it did nothing to advance the plot or provide any insights whatsoever. If I were dumb enough to attempt to make a movie of Watchmen, I could take the whole pirate thing out completely without an issue.
I honestly consider it to be the only weakness of the book.
Well according to the book I mentioned, Stephan Chemicals is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola. And yes it has armed guards and is monitored by US federal authorities. The coca flavoring is referred to as "Merchandise Number 5".
What are some current legitimate uses of pure cocaine as a pharmaceutical? The only one I saw cited was when it was used to numb the eye for eye surgery, but there are other drugs that can do that instead.
Well, if you're really interested in this sort of thing, look for a book called "Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography" by Dominic Sreatfield.
I'm not sure if the deal is specifically with Bolivia or not, but Coca-Cola does buy coca with a license. The leaves are just for taste; Coca-Cola developed a process to remove all traces of cocaine from the leaves. Since they're the only company with the license it works out well for them seeing as how other soft drink makers cannot reproduce the taste coming from the coca leaves.
The way natives chew coca leaves, with the addition of a base and some of their own saliva, is quite harmless. But the pure cocaine that is extracted for consumption in the illegal markets is quite nasty.
Ya know, it's typical - I have mod points for a few days with nothing going on and the day I see something worthy to mod up I lose them.
This is exactly right. I can remember listening to Howard from Rochester and putting up with his raves of Bush and the war on Iraq. Then, (hallelujah!) he's come back from a vacation saying that he's read and loved Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and he's now one of those anybody-but-Bush guys. Shortly afterwards, he is dropped from the Rochester market from Clear Channel - Bush cheerleaders extraordaire. Thank goodness he's back on the air here.
He's voted to weaken the second amendment every chance he's gotten, then his national election rolls around and he's suddenly an avid hunter.
My dad's a pretty avid hunter himself. (Growing up in Pennsylvania will do that.) I can ask him if he ever had a need to use assault rifles to kill deer, game birds, etc. - but I kinda doubt it.
He voted for the Iraq war, and said it would be irresponsible to leave the troops stranded without funding. He then voted to do just that.
I've heard this charge before about voting against the $87 billion. What a lot of people don't know about this is that Kerry was fine with funding the troops, but he didn't like the way it was financed, thinking that the people in the country with the bigger salaries shuold be more responsible for paying for it than the middle-class. Knowing that his 1 vote wouldn't change the funding, he voted against it as a protest.
Now let's compare this to how Bush handled it. He threatened to veto the bill for the funding at least 3 (I think it might have even been 5) times if an amendment was made to repeal taxes on the top earners to support it. A veto would do much more to stop support to the troops than a single protest vote.
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Acutally, the logic was flawless. It's the assumptions that were flawed.
If murder was defined as "Killing a person other than oneself", the problem would have been avoided.
An excellent post, and I don't have much to add.
The reason I feel C is a good programming language (besides my own subjective preferences) is that it turned out to work so well within the niche it was created to be used for. Maybe I should look around some more, but I can't think of any programming language that can achieve the task it was created for as well. (Although, perhaps Python may become known as a tour de force scripting language).
I realize that a basic C compiler is one of the easiest to write. In my experience, much of the programming language theory is taught using Common Lisp. Although when it comes time to write an actual compiler, C is most likely to be written.
I understand that C is sometimes extended past the point of its usefulness. Sometimes I feel that the C++ language is an example of this. (Though I'd like to try learning some Objective C some time).
Just because an OS can be written in Pascal doesn't mean it should. C is very low-level by its very nature. It makes the bare minimum number of assumptions on the functioning of your generic processor and no more. This offers a lot of control for programmers and a pretty efficent compiled program while preserving a great deal of source code portability. If you were to relax the syntax of Pascal enough to do as well a job then what you'd end up with would be a piss-poor form of Pascal which was twisted to fit a niche already filled perfectly well by other languages.
Funny that you mentioned university support for programming languages. When I was an undergrad majoring in CS, Pascal was the primary programming language we used. It was because of Pascal's failure in so many real-world development situations that it is no longer taught as frequently. In my opinion, it would have been nice if Delphi replaced Visual Basic as the primarily language used for RAD, though.
I think a language should be chosen more based on needs than personal programming style. The more languages you're used to, the easier time you'll have finding the proper language to use for whatever tool you need to build. If I'm using C to do a task that can be easily done by a scripting language and speed isn't the issue, then I'm wasting my time.
Pascal? PASCAL???! Your argrument is that languages should be used to do the jobs they were designed to do and yet you cite Pascal, a programming language created to teach people to learn how to write well-structured code, as a good language for application development? It is because of what Pascal was developed for that it's structure is far too inflexible for a lot of serious software development.
C was created to write portable operating systems. If you can name one language that can fit this niche better then I'd love to hear it.
What if someone decides to use your network to download their own library of kiddy porn without your knowledge? Couldn't that be traced back to you and potentially land you in deep doo-doo even though you did nothing wrong?
Great point. Chances are that if you hate your job then you're not going to do well at it and you will eventually be replaced by someone who does have a passion for the position. Let them have it and try to find the position that's right for you.
At my last big job I wanted to do nothing more than to develop software. But then there eventually came this big push from the top that resulted in the saying, "Everyone is a salesman." Well, no I'm not. I never asked the salesman to develop software so why should I have to do thier fucking jobs on top of my own? No thanks. Time to go to grad school.
Knock yourself out, oh great one.
Just read the fucking thing, OK sparky? Then you have all these other options to prove how superior you are.
Though it's not original, I'd still prefer the Pryor/fire reference of mc chris's than the 3 you referenced. "Faster than Pryor" is cool because it's more in sync with his stand-up routine where he describes running like hell after he accidentally set himself ablaze. The internal rhyme scheme is better as well.
As I said before, no shit about the Run DMC thing.
Well, duh. That line's been all over the place. I just thought it was pretty funny considering the context, that's all. Really though, read the whole thing and see what you think. It's almost Eminem quality lyrics-wise.
I imagine the Pat Boone reference is right on. I wouldn't compare this guy to KRS-One, Naz or Eminem for that matter. Maybe Weird Al? He's complex, creative and good after all.
I'd say the Pat Boone reference is way off, myself. Weird Al is a little closer. In no way am I suggesting that mc chris should be consider some rap legend like KRS-One, Public Enemy, Run DMC or whatever. Just that he's good at what he does and it's worth a listen.
Those are your opinions, and you're welcome to them, but I have no idea how you could say he's not a good lyricist. Everyone here who likes to jump on the bandwagon of "I never heard of him, therefore he must suck" and "The only rap songs I hear are the ones shoved down my throat by popular radio, therefore all rap sucks" should just look up the lyrics to Fette's Vette somewhere and read them. Now imagine yourself trying to write a goofy song with the same complexity of rhythm, rhyme scheme, story-telling and humor.
This verse alone is pure genius...
Call me master, 'cause I'm faster than Pryor on fire
I no longer have to hot-wire
I'm a hunter for hire with no plans to retire
And all you sucker MCs can call me sire.
Just because something sounds goofy doesn't mean it's not complex, creative or even good.
It reminds me of FTL or teleportation; with every little "advance" physics fanboys crow about how much "closer" we are, whereas I see an ever-refined understanding of why the thing we are looking for is still impossible and the potential loopholes slamming shut.
You should try learning more because you have no idea what you're talking about.
Small-scale quantum computing has been happening for a while now. The only problem now is overcoming physical challenges to scale them up for solving larger-scale problems. And more strides are being made to overcome them all of the time.
FTL is crap because the "things" that are cited as travelling faster than light cannot be used to send information faster than light. How QC reminds you of FTL is beyond me since the situations are completely different.
It wouldn't take a "physics fanboy" (whatever that is) to mod you down. Just someone fond of facts and reason would suffice.
Franklin didn't discover electricity. What he did establish with his famous kite-flying experiment was that lightning was made of electricity. Big difference.
Errrrrr... wouldn't you consider the public school system to be a "socialist education?"
Both a total socialist society and a total free-market capitalist society will fail miserably. (And even if the socialist society did "succeed", it wouldn't be worth living in anyways.) For any government to be functional and competitive it needs to contain elements of both. A pure socialist government is unable to aniticpate unexpected changes and needs while a pure free-market society kills off better long-term ideas with more profitable short-term ones. (For example, the Internet might not have survived if it were not developed under the aegis of the government program known as the military). Why do so many people have to insist on either one extreme or the other?
OK, so let's throw out "observation" and replace it with "physical collision". What would make certain properties of a sub-atomic particle to be considered collapsed in certain parts of the universe and not others? How are the borders between where in the universe some sub-atomic particles properties are collapsed and uncollapsed drawn, especially if we eliminate that whole troublesome concept of intelligence completely from our considerations?
The way I heard the double-slit experiment, it was electrons travleing with photons bounced off of them. Once a photon hit the electron right, it acted like a particle. If we try to avoid affecting the path of the electron by using a less intense light-source, and therefore using less photons, electrons would be missed. At that exact point, they revert to their wave nature. If we use less energetic light, the resulting bounced light pulse we see is so spread out that we can't tell which of the slits the electron went through. Again, at this exact same point is where the electrons revert to their wave nature.
I read about this from one of Richard Feynman's "Easy Pieces" books I believe. He might have given a simplified version of the experiment to make a point, though.
The way your observe which slit the particle goes through is by bouncing a different particle off of it and seeing what happens. If you leave a macine to pepper the particles with photons or something, would you say that a conscious being has to be in the room to see it for them to choose one slit or another? Why?
It's the exact same situation with the cat.
I just meant to say that the action would be an event that would quantify a property of some quantum particle which was not well-defined before. For example, we do a double-slit experiment with a bunch of electrons (beta radiation). At first, it looks like each electron is coming through both slits at the same time as if they exist as waves. To see what is actually going on, we bounce other particles off of the electrons to observe what path each electron is taking. When we do this, each electron now goes through only one slit at a time, acting as particles. Their positions have become fixed, I believe.
The question is, would the position of the electrons at the time of bouncing the particles off of them been fixed even though someone's not in the room to see it? My answer would be, of course.
A definitive quantity regarding each electron has been forced out of them. If I'm not there to see it, it doesn't mean I exist in some universe where the collapse never happened than other's who happened to observe it. It would mean that there is only one universe where the collapse happened where some are ignorant of the fact and others are not.
"Every time I hear about Schroedinger's Cat, I reach for my gun." -Stephen Hawking
I think there is a mistaken idea out there that observation alone fixes certain information about sub-atomic particles while the particle is in several states simultaneously beforehand. The problem is with dependence on observation for collapsing the wave form. If this were true, the only cause was observation, then what would count for an observation? How intelligent would the thing causing the collapse have to be to be considered an observer? Can an ape collpase a wave-form? How about a cat? Does it have to be a living thing at all?
Yes the particle holds many states simultaneously at certain times, yes it becomes fixed when an action happens from which an observer can deduce the state in question (whether or not said observer is there to witness it), but no, an actual observer doesn't have to be there to see it at the time for the wave-form to collapse. That's what's ridiculous about Schroedinger's Cat. Once the quantum event which may or may not kill the cat happens, the sucker is alive or dead - period. We just don't happen to know which until we look.
I'm no physicist but that's the impression I get from what I've read. Anyone want to comment?
Hey, here's a quarter. Go buy yourself a sense of humor.
I thought the exact same thing when I read the comic. "Hmmmmm... so the man is given a choice of cutting through his ankle with a hack saw and certain death. Yup, seen this before."
I love Watchmen, but can anywone explain to me what the fuck the pirate comic was in there for? As far as I can tell, it did nothing to advance the plot or provide any insights whatsoever. If I were dumb enough to attempt to make a movie of Watchmen, I could take the whole pirate thing out completely without an issue.
I honestly consider it to be the only weakness of the book.
Well according to the book I mentioned, Stephan Chemicals is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola. And yes it has armed guards and is monitored by US federal authorities. The coca flavoring is referred to as "Merchandise Number 5".
What are some current legitimate uses of pure cocaine as a pharmaceutical? The only one I saw cited was when it was used to numb the eye for eye surgery, but there are other drugs that can do that instead.
Well, if you're really interested in this sort of thing, look for a book called "Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography" by Dominic Sreatfield.
I'm not sure if the deal is specifically with Bolivia or not, but Coca-Cola does buy coca with a license. The leaves are just for taste; Coca-Cola developed a process to remove all traces of cocaine from the leaves. Since they're the only company with the license it works out well for them seeing as how other soft drink makers cannot reproduce the taste coming from the coca leaves.
The way natives chew coca leaves, with the addition of a base and some of their own saliva, is quite harmless. But the pure cocaine that is extracted for consumption in the illegal markets is quite nasty.
Ya know, it's typical - I have mod points for a few days with nothing going on and the day I see something worthy to mod up I lose them.
This is exactly right. I can remember listening to Howard from Rochester and putting up with his raves of Bush and the war on Iraq. Then, (hallelujah!) he's come back from a vacation saying that he's read and loved Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and he's now one of those anybody-but-Bush guys. Shortly afterwards, he is dropped from the Rochester market from Clear Channel - Bush cheerleaders extraordaire. Thank goodness he's back on the air here.
My dad's a pretty avid hunter himself. (Growing up in Pennsylvania will do that.) I can ask him if he ever had a need to use assault rifles to kill deer, game birds, etc. - but I kinda doubt it.
I've heard this charge before about voting against the $87 billion. What a lot of people don't know about this is that Kerry was fine with funding the troops, but he didn't like the way it was financed, thinking that the people in the country with the bigger salaries shuold be more responsible for paying for it than the middle-class. Knowing that his 1 vote wouldn't change the funding, he voted against it as a protest.
Now let's compare this to how Bush handled it. He threatened to veto the bill for the funding at least 3 (I think it might have even been 5) times if an amendment was made to repeal taxes on the top earners to support it. A veto would do much more to stop support to the troops than a single protest vote.