The problem with exceptions is that they're not so exceptional anymore. Think about it. The name implies that an exception is something that shouldn't have happened (you ran out of memory, a parameter was bad, something just totally blew up). That doesn't mean that you tried to open a file that doesn't exist -- that's not an exceptional case for a filesystem-handling object, because it happens all the time. Exceptions should be used as error handling, and nothing more. If you can clean up after an exception and try again or continue on, great. Otherwise, you should be showing/logging a useful error and bailing out. You certainly should not be basing program flow on exceptions.
Ah, but in practice, exceptions are used for just such not-so-exceptional circumstances. This is not a choice that can be made by Java applications programmers since a bajillion Java API classes work this way.
One could argue that this is a good thing, that checking for things like file not found in a catch block instead of checking return values inline can lead to cleaner code.
The Java API defines java.lang.Error (and to some extent java.lang.RuntimeException) for those "real" error cases, those cases that might require logging an error and bailing out.
I'd be interested in anyone's favorite references on when it is better to report non-success status in return codes, and when it is better to throw an exception. That is a class design issue that comes up all the time.
Maybe when we're all in our Vorlon-like encounter suits we'll have a decent understanding of the part of the universe that we can see; before then, there'll always be questions.
Nice reference, especially in this context.
How many other B5 fans out there were a bit amused when the Vorlons and the Shadows came off as such pussies when the time came to explore "past the rim?" Here B5 had spent several seasons building them up to be damn-near omnipotent, and they need that "first" guy (can't remember his name) to hold their hands when they went out of their own neighborhood (our galaxy).
Which is why serving on a jury is one of the most important things you can do.
The last time I got called for jury duty, I was dismissed because the prosecutor and judge found out I would not vote to convict if I believed the law unjust. (BTW, I did not volunteer this information. They asked direct questions to bring it out.)
Evolution just is - anything else is just a consequence of it. And people have just as much (or as little) use as animals do in the grand scheme of things.
I am assuming from this that you hold a non-theistic view of the universe and have thought a bit about its implications. Do you see any reason to value one particular set of circumstances in the universe over another, except for our own preferences hard-wired by evolution? This is not flamebait. I am honestly curious about what the foundation could be for a completely naturalistic set of morals.
There are no 'rules of the game of evolution' to follow. All we can do is consider cause and effect, and act accordingly.
On what basis do we act accordingly? Your statement implies that some effects are more desirable than others. Should we act so that the survival of our own genetic pool is made more likely? Why should we care?
I can be paranoid as the next guy, but you might want to consider whether just maybe the goal is at least partly as stated, to put down the people who want to kill us. Two airplanes hitting the twin towers had nothing to do with doublethink.
I am not worried about being tracked, but rather don't find the content of the NY Times compelling enough to bother acquiring one more username and password. On the other hand, I've registered with slashdot for the amusement of karma and to my.yahoo for the spamcatcher email account and personalized weather.
I don't complaint to slashdot, but did email NY Times and tell them such. (They graciously offered to sell me a paper subscription, no email registration required.;-)
I also don't avoid no-registration links or slashdot posts that contain copies of NY Times articles. I guess that makes me a hypocrit.
[...] Now, if we can so easily be tricked into believing water is evil, how the heck are we suppose to be aware of what is true or not? Make a professional looking page and sound smart, and the masses will follow!
Sheesh, it is really that complicated? Here are a few principles for critical internet reading:
Cross-check new "facts." If something is bogus, someone out there has probably already pointed it out. On the other hand, if it is true and significant, you can probably find the same information from many diverse sources. (Google is your friend.)
Develop some online resources you (tentatively) trust. Over time, you can sniff out and discard those web resources that publish untruths.
Give everything the smell test. If web resource claims it can make your penis grow, make you rich overnight, or get you (a slashdot geek) dates with a supermodel, then be very suspicious.;-)
It all boils down to not being lazy. The search for truth is not some arcane process that only the super-intelligent can understand, but it does take some work.
Writing code from scratch is the *only* way to go if your existing code base is too hosed.
That would fall under the category of the "exception that proves the rule" I mention in a post below. Then the question becomes is Windows too hosed? I don't know the answer to that question. But every developer I have ever worked with has a natural tendency to answer "yes" when it has to do with old crufty code he is having to support.
MS could EASILY afford a new team to start Windows from scratch, leaving the existing team in place to continue to enhance / maintain the existing code base.
Point taken. I really wasn't considering the effectively limitless cash resources of MS. They could probably pull it off if they chose. There is an exception to every rule.
However, the two most striking points for me from Joel's article still apply:
Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they've been fixed.
...and...
It's important to remember that when you start from scratch there is absolutely no reason to believe that you are going to do a better job than you did the first time.
For example, probably the most useful thing about any given version of a Windows system is the huge pile of tested device drivers it contains. If you wanted to rewrite windows, you should at least retain enough of the original so that you could re-use those. (Possibly the original author meant that all Windows API definitions would remain, but I took him to mean that he wanted to throw away all the bits that come on the Windows install CD.)
By the way, I didn't mean to come off as a Joel-Spolsky-groupie. Separate the wheat from the chaff and all that.
So here is a little thinking question...if it is simply 100% OK to admit gays into the military (and leave them in when they are discovered), is it OK to house men and women soldiers together in the same rooms? Make them use the same showers? Make them roomies?
It worked great in Starship Troopers. Did you see the way that horny bunch kicked bug ass?
Read the book. No mixing of the sexes among enlisted personnel. No women "mobile infantry" at all.
That is just one of the many ways that movie totally missed the point of the book.
(Don't you just hate hearing fans of a book whine about how bad the movie was?)
Ah, there is the rub, eh? I'm exposing myself a bit in a possibly hostile environment, but I'll bite, and give you an honest answer.
I currently have a few reasons.
One, I was taught to believe from early on by people I trusted, and to this day know people who believe, whose opinions I value. I understand this as the argument from authority it is and the weakness of it that implies.
Two, from early childhood it has never made sense to me that the universe should be here if there is no Creator. Yes, I am aware of various criticisms of the Cosmological Argument.
Three, the Moral Argument more makes me want to continue believing than it convinces me. That was the thrust of my comments in this thread. A universe without purpose, without any moral standard, is to me an ugly waste of spacetime. At the very least, if people are going to talk about "my morals" and "your morals," I feel compelled to point out that what they are really saying is that morals are meaningless.
As I have grown older the weak spots of my belief have become apparent to me, and I am reevaluating the whole shebang. I suppose I might sometime conclude I have been wrong all this time. I hope not, because IMHO it would suck to live in a universe without a Creator.
We are on the same page. One must find an objective basis for right an wrong, or admit that they don't exist.
I do believe in God as that objective basis. That doesn't get me off the hook however, because it is still my responsibility to figure out what is right and wrong within the parameters set up by the Creator. Just look disagreements among the various world religions to see that this is not a trivial task.
Of course, it is possible that I am wrong, and that there is no Creator. Then I don't see any way of defining a purpose to the Universe, or defining right and wrong. An atheist might avoid the (icky in my opinion) road to utilitarianism by appealing to some inherent value in life, or in consciousness.
BTW, my particular religious beliefs do not require me to fight a holy war with you if you do not agree with them. Your mileage may vary.
In a given situation each action you take is right or wrong depending on the context. That is, it is right and wrong within my own personal moral context, and it is also right and wrong within a societal context.
Yes and no. A correct moral code must take into account all aspects of the circumstances, but not the opinions (moral context?) of the actors. That is, morals are relative to the situation, not relative to the "moral code" of every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along.
[...] I may disagree with that law, but neither the law nor my personal belief has any bearing on some absolute definition of wrong.
That is exactly my point. Laws come and go. Societal norms come and go. But if there is such a thing as right and wrong, then completely defined, it never changes. My only claim today is that we should acknowledge that there is only one "right and wrong" or else acknowledge that we are rejecting the very notions of right and wrong. We can't have it both ways.
Slashdot Mirror
Houston Chronicle article on court case.
Novell wins one in Illinois.
The National Society of Professional Engineers doesn't want riff-raff.
IEEE Computer Society sasy NO, at least in Texas.
ACM editorial saying we shouldn't call it engineering anyhow.
One could argue that this is a good thing, that checking for things like file not found in a catch block instead of checking return values inline can lead to cleaner code.
The Java API defines java.lang.Error (and to some extent java.lang.RuntimeException) for those "real" error cases, those cases that might require logging an error and bailing out.
I'd be interested in anyone's favorite references on when it is better to report non-success status in return codes, and when it is better to throw an exception. That is a class design issue that comes up all the time.
How many other B5 fans out there were a bit amused when the Vorlons and the Shadows came off as such pussies when the time came to explore "past the rim?" Here B5 had spent several seasons building them up to be damn-near omnipotent, and they need that "first" guy (can't remember his name) to hold their hands when they went out of their own neighborhood (our galaxy).
Nope...doesn't pass the LUHN check. See LUHN Check.
For another point of view, read The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose.
Whether strong AI is possible is still an open question. It has been "coming soon" now for at least four decades.
I can be paranoid as the next guy, but you might want to consider whether just maybe the goal is at least partly as stated, to put down the people who want to kill us. Two airplanes hitting the twin towers had nothing to do with doublethink.
I am not worried about being tracked, but rather don't find the content of the NY Times compelling enough to bother acquiring one more username and password. On the other hand, I've registered with slashdot for the amusement of karma and to my.yahoo for the spamcatcher email account and personalized weather.
;-)
I don't complaint to slashdot, but did email NY Times and tell them such. (They graciously offered to sell me a paper subscription, no email registration required.
I also don't avoid no-registration links or slashdot posts that contain copies of NY Times articles. I guess that makes me a hypocrit.
Can I be considered an old-timer for remembering when Fortran 90 was still the Fortran 8X proposal?
Cross-check new "facts." If something is bogus, someone out there has probably already pointed it out. On the other hand, if it is true and significant, you can probably find the same information from many diverse sources. (Google is your friend.)
Develop some online resources you (tentatively) trust. Over time, you can sniff out and discard those web resources that publish untruths.
Give everything the smell test. If web resource claims it can make your penis grow, make you rich overnight, or get you (a slashdot geek) dates with a supermodel, then be very suspicious. ;-)
It all boils down to not being lazy. The search for truth is not some arcane process that only the super-intelligent can understand, but it does take some work.
Point taken. I really wasn't considering the effectively limitless cash resources of MS. They could probably pull it off if they chose. There is an exception to every rule.
However, the two most striking points for me from Joel's article still apply:
For example, probably the most useful thing about any given version of a Windows system is the huge pile of tested device drivers it contains. If you wanted to rewrite windows, you should at least retain enough of the original so that you could re-use those. (Possibly the original author meant that all Windows API definitions would remain, but I took him to mean that he wanted to throw away all the bits that come on the Windows install CD.)By the way, I didn't mean to come off as a Joel-Spolsky-groupie. Separate the wheat from the chaff and all that.
What you suggest would be the end of Windows (maybe not a bad thing). An ex-Microsoftie says it well here: Why you should never rewrite from scratch.
A quick search produced this. Google is your friend.
Odd, that's the same lame excuse the Architect gave in The Matrix
By the way, LoR has plenty of both, as well as plot...bonus.
That is just one of the many ways that movie totally missed the point of the book.
(Don't you just hate hearing fans of a book whine about how bad the movie was?)
Anonymous coward wasn't signing his note "Bill." He was replying to Bill (Queelix).
Q: What programming language will engineers use in 50 years?
A: I don't know, but they will call it Fortran.
Ah, there is the rub, eh? I'm exposing myself a bit in a possibly hostile environment, but I'll bite, and give you an honest answer.
I currently have a few reasons.
One, I was taught to believe from early on by people I trusted, and to this day know people who believe, whose opinions I value. I understand this as the argument from authority it is and the weakness of it that implies.
Two, from early childhood it has never made sense to me that the universe should be here if there is no Creator. Yes, I am aware of various criticisms of the Cosmological Argument.
Three, the Moral Argument more makes me want to continue believing than it convinces me. That was the thrust of my comments in this thread. A universe without purpose, without any moral standard, is to me an ugly waste of spacetime. At the very least, if people are going to talk about "my morals" and "your morals," I feel compelled to point out that what they are really saying is that morals are meaningless.
As I have grown older the weak spots of my belief have become apparent to me, and I am reevaluating the whole shebang. I suppose I might sometime conclude I have been wrong all this time. I hope not, because IMHO it would suck to live in a universe without a Creator.
We are on the same page. One must find an objective basis for right an wrong, or admit that they don't exist.
I do believe in God as that objective basis. That doesn't get me off the hook however, because it is still my responsibility to figure out what is right and wrong within the parameters set up by the Creator. Just look disagreements among the various world religions to see that this is not a trivial task.
Of course, it is possible that I am wrong, and that there is no Creator. Then I don't see any way of defining a purpose to the Universe, or defining right and wrong. An atheist might avoid the (icky in my opinion) road to utilitarianism by appealing to some inherent value in life, or in consciousness.
BTW, my particular religious beliefs do not require me to fight a holy war with you if you do not agree with them. Your mileage may vary.