(a) You are wasting RAM as each binary loads its own version of all the commonly used libraries.
To a limited extent, but, a lot of programs do not need all of those libraries. Rememeber Windows does not have the "million and one small tools to complete a task" mentality that *nix has. The disadvantage is, tons of things that can be done at a *nix command line may need to be done by hand, advantage is, small crap is just included in with code!
Seriously, many of the applications I use do not use external statically linked libraries, and those that do tend to use the different sets of libraries anyways, so having 5 shared libraries in memory would just mean having one application using each shared library and netting me zero efficency gain.
Seriously, about the most common library is Zlib, and umm, not too often do I run multiple applications that handle zip files at the same time.
Actually I don't think I ever do.
MS provides the GUI shared libraries, OpenGL and DirectX are shared, I fail to see what other shared libraries I could possibly use.
that is by far the most ignorant thing i've ever read... you think there arn't executable binaries in linux?
Stand alone executables, read the comment right above yours.
I have a slew of applications that are either just a stand alone executable, or a stand alone executable with some supporting data files in the directory.
So
Damn
Simple.
I go to the directory name (which is also the program's name! Hey how about that!) and I type in the program's name.
The program runs.
Or I use a GUI to go to the directory the program is in, I click on the program's executable.
The program runs.
Seriously, I don't have to know anything about any particular system, I can sit down at any Windows box and in a matter of minutes have mapped out exactly what is on that particular system just by browsing around a bit.
but it's not that hard to do "./configure; make all; make install;
Two questions:
Why should my Grandmother have to compile her own programs;
Why the hell should I have to compile my own programs! I don't GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT COMPILING MY OWN PROGRAMS THAT TAKES TIME
Half the shit I get off of the web I just open right from the website, hell some convienent utilities that are small (under 100k or so) I just type in the damn URL to when ever I need to use them! Yah its not safe, but I trust the app vender, so I don't care!
Fundemental principle:
INSTALLING AN APPLICATION SHOULD TAKE LESS THAN TEN SECONDS OF MY TIME AND THE FIRST 8 OF THOSE SHOULD BE SPEND ON DOWNLOADING.
If I am trying to find a new audio editing app, within an hour I want to have tested out at least eight or nine different applications.
Or more.
Click, Run, Done.
98% of everything is crap, open source or not, I want to sift through the crap as fast as possible.
It is really quite funny that Windows didn't ship with unzip
I'd gather either stupidity, or they just didn't want to bother licencing the algorithm.
Who knows, there is likely some software industry politics behind it, or maybe MS was just being stupid. Heck MS has always tried to push one of their own inane compression systems during each release of Windows (to almost zero success), but I doubt they ever considered these apps to be real competition to mainstream compression utilities.
Quite frankly XPs built in zip support absolutely bits, and I wish there was some way for me to disable it from the OS itself.
You must spend a lot of time keeping track of security vulernabilities if you plan on keeping all your software up to date manually.
Winamp, SmartFTP, AIM, umm, a few others perhaps.
Most of the apps are either large enough that they have a built in check-on-run updater that pops a big "Yo Security Error!" message box on my screen when something is seriously wrong (upon which I then go to the website and check) or that security issues with them get posted to at least a few of the main tech news sites.
Not being in a server enviroment, most of my applications either not hooked up to the net, or not hooked up to the net in a fashion that gets them near executable code (or hopefully any buffer overflows!)
Strangly enough, it isn't an issue.
Seriously. The two pieces of software I have to update the most are Firefox and IE.
(1) Locking you down on base libraries, and having a slow upgrade cycle on those.
Actually it is more like a base API, the various libraries constantly go through upgrades and such, more of a feature lock.
On one hand this is a bad thing, Windows did not even have a (decent!) built in dearchiver until Windows XP, but on the other hand it is also a good thing, as the free market allowed a number of competing (and ultimately superior) archival formats to come forth and not have to fight against any one single OS-supported format.
Neither is a very efficient solution for either disk space, or more importantly RAM (which is where shared libraries really start to earn their keep).
A key question becomes, on client workstations, are shared libraries REALLY all that much more efficient, a good trade off for the hassle that they cause?
Honestly, a good HTML renderer, sure, Windows software has found a million and one ways to make use of that (A good portion of Visual Studio.NET's UI is basically a fancy IE window from what I can figure out, at least it behaves like one!), and other things like built in sound and video acceleration are (of course) handy to have around, but honestly, how often is some huge shared library really going to be used?
Lets see, if I have a 3D modeling app open, Winamp playing tunes in the background, and my browser of choice (Firefox or IE which ever) up and running, what use are shared libraries to me?
The UI, sure, but Windows has that, granted the options kind of blow, Win32 or.NET (suck up programmer time or suck up system resources), HTML renderer? Got that, my 3D program in the least is going to be using it for its help system and likely also for parts of its UI.
A standard image manipulation library? If I install a new image manipulation program I want something revolutionary, something different, from it. Heck, $400+ painting programs sell specifically because the programmers have developed some kick'in libraries that are limited just to that program. Besides, I don't want a shared library that specializes in doing a Physics Simulation of paint on paper!
Games? Sure, to some extent I guess, but how many games am I going to be having running at once? Honestly? 2 tops, even that is rare, most likely, just, well, 1.
On server and application server environments, shared libraries are a blessing, but for a client environment, flexibility and the capability to rapidly deploy applications to the end user seems to be higher priority.
by be-fan (61476) on Saturday January 15, @02:03PM (#11375444) In what alternate reality can you run a program without using the installer? Aside from a few tiny utilities (putty.exe), nearly all Windows programs require an installer.
Depends upon the competency level of the programmer.
Older versions of Photoshop (5.5 and maybe 6.0) did not require an install to run, and neither does Firefox!
Whatever version of SmartFTP I am running does not, and neither do a good deal of my games or other applications.
A well written app either does not use the Windows Registry, or simply checks for needed registry entries upon first run and adds in any that are missing.
Pissy written applications crash and complain if any registry entries are missing.
Many Windows programs either do not use shared libraries, or keep a copy of any shared libraries around in their local program directory in case someone or something else decides to mess with the system32 directory.
I just got done reinstalling Windows 2003, without reformatting the HD, some apps work, others don't.
Heck Nero works without complaint (reenter CD key tis all!)
Hey, my fractal applications still work!
Seriously, the only issue I typically have is applications that either:
Hard code their own directory into the registry and then get stupid when they cannot find themselves.
Applications that use some stupid form of copy protection (that is why the newer versions of Photoshop have issues).
Applications programmed by dunderheads.
As I said, shared libs are not an issue, since most apps just package in their own preferred library version.
Yes I know that this is not "proper" practice, but darnit, it makes life SO much easier!
Just to bad you can't upgrade all your Windows applications with a command or two.
Why would I want to? Most software I own is not updated that often (surprise surprise!) and often times I do not want the latest greatest themable UI that sucks up another 4 or 5 megs of memory.
As a rule I only download a new version when security issues appear.
Also, Windows people are a bit more paranoid about updaters, they tend to get disabled VERY quickly. What ensures your trust of a one click update that downloads from multiple sources? Sure you may trust most of the sources, but I would not want to download an update from a company such as, say, RealNetworks, without hand inspecting every last little bit of it first.
Seriously though, just being able to click on a link, save to a directory, and run a program, is such a nice thing. I don't care how it is bundled up, just make the darn thing run!
You spend X dollars on kit from a small vendor, your money went into paying for vendors profit + the hardware.
You spend X dollars on kit from a large vendor like Dell, your money went into paying for
Magazine Ads TV ads Newspaper Ads Corporate Offices Corporate Staff A huge fancy database backed website Vendor profits
and oh yah, also, your hardware.
Now after deductions for all those other bits and pieces are made, how much do you think is going to be left for quality hardware? Granted when buying extremely high level kit from vendors, you do get what you pay for,
barely.
On the other hand, most major name brand equipment uses the cheapest yum-cha equipment money can buy. I would trust a power supply I picked out myself long before I trust one some marketing executive picked out as the cheapest they could get their hands on.
Hey, if I install WindowsXP on any new computer, it won't recognize half the hardware either!...
Check which release version you are using, (stable releases tend to not have all the latest goodies in them, some drivers may need to be downloaded separatly, the same as for WindowsXP!)
so what exactly processes HTML in windows again? Some third party plugin? No... IE? ahhh... what a shame... and here I thought that there was no need to do anything to IE as it is so perfect...
The purpose of using IE is that it enables Windows to have a single HTML renderer loaded up into memory for a wide variety of tasks. By switching over to HTML based help, Microsoft has consolidated various rendering engines into one (HTML, specifically IE), all while reducing the overall memory footprint used up by the system.
Now this is all good and fine, and should work perfectly, just so long as the system properly maintains what security level a given file is in.
This is a key issue, apparently MS keeps screwing this up...
Aside from that (doh!), IE integrated into the system is very convenient.
VERY convenient! With a sufficiently fast Internet connection, the difference between the Internet and one's own computer is quickly blurred.
in favor of the remedial math and history classes assigned to me.
Remedial math is there so you can understand the higher-level math. If you get a CS degree from an accredited university, that means the University has put their name behind you in saying you are capable of living up to the expectations of a CS graduate, which include knowing higher mathematics, a variety of branches of science, and having at least a passing familiarity with your own nation's, and the world's, history.
Oddly enough this stuff is useful. They all consist of different patterns of thinking, different paths of logic and exploration.
Maybe on your own you can do all of this by yourself, self taught, good for you. A degree certifies that (at least in theory) you have been taught all this stuff.
Like most geeky people reading this, I would go home and program after school.
A true geek/nerd is interested in knowledge of all types, and does not have the ego to think that their own profession is the best one isolated from all others, or that only programming has meaning.
Solving equations, or learning about how historic peace treaties were hammered out, are all valuable skills.
Yes, knowing how to learn about something is a skill. Learning history is different than learning to paint is different than learning the piano is different than learning mathematics.
If you get assigned a job where you are working with one or more vastly different cultures than your own, you might want to know how to do a Google lookup of data about different cultures. What phrases to use, what search terms to look up, who wrote books on different topics. I guess that "stupid" liberal arts course in communications could have come in handy.
If your hired to write a historic battle simulation game, history class might be nice. Sure you can look it up on your own, but things go a lot faster if you have already has prior exposure to the material, even if it was years ago, the pathways are still lying dormant somewhere in your brain.
The overall point here is, college has many topics seemingly "unrelated" to CS for good reasons, a Computer Scientist, (or Engineer, or Electrical Engineer, etc) may be expected to work in a wide variety of situations, and must be equipped to not necessarily completely handle those situations, but be able to teach him/her-self how to handle those situations.
Also you wouldn't have to take remedial math if you'd paid attention the first time around. (I made the same mistake! oops!) Mathematics does has a ton to do with programming, and learning CS and Mathematics together is a very valuable experience that changes the way you think about how to approach problems.
Taking a Differential Equations course and a Functional Programming course together at the same time, you begin to realize that they are both talking about the same (or at least similar) things, in DQ you study functions that take in functions, functions that take in functions and a constant, functions that take in multiple functions, and functions that take in multiple functions and constants,
then you walk on over to your next class, and do the same darn thing on a computer.
All of a sudden those math courses don't seem so useless anymore.
All those remedial math course are because everybody needs to be speaking the same language, going at at least the same minimal speed. When the Professor writes out a two line equation on the board, and next to it simplifies it to half the size, you have to have followed along in your head that he rearranged the terms, factored some of them out, wrote some terms as one over their reciprocal, and then canceled those out, and so on and so forth.
You have to have done it many times over, until it is second nature to you, because that is the only way for the classes to go at a reasonable pace.
I do agree that Algebra is a bit over taught in schools, but heck, you need to know it, need to get used to it, and need to be able to do it insanely fast, just to keep up in the higher math courses!
Also I've heard Firefox starts much faster than Mozilla in Windows
HUGE difference. Moz can take 30+ seconds, sometimes over a minute if too many extensions are installed, Firefox comes up in less than 10, around 20 with extensions.
Older releases (back when it was Firebird) were a LOT faster, but umm, apparently, ironically enough, Firefox has gotten more and more bloated with each new release. (I tried out some really early Firebid releases and wow they started up fast!)
I'll switch when it is either under 2 seconds, or they write a very small preloader for it that lets me get it up and running fast and the preloaded takes up less than a meg of RAM.
(Firefox actually IS a better browser than IE, just I am so used to hitting windowkey-E...)
There's definitely still a lot of entrenched teachers who are thinking "Why bother?" when it comes to computers, as there may be relucatnace to learn something new, and also the benefits from bothering to learn it are slim to none - i.e. they've been teaching for 20 years, and it's worked so far, why switch now?
*sigh*
Indeed, WHY BOTHER? For some activities (ie learning a foreign language, typing papers) computers can be GREAT aids, but computers in the classrooms are, in general, a VERY piss poor idea. Seriously, been there, seen that, it does NOT work.
The reason why is quite simple: Teaching consists of the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. It is a direct and personal interaction (even in a classroom full of students, it is a personal interaction, overcrowding reduces this effect but that is a completely separate story), involving not only the teacher telling the students new material, but also the teacher demonstrating how to use that new knowledge to the student.
Think of a math class.
Now think of a math class taught with Power Point.
Now stop screaming for a minute and come back down off of the ceiling.
In order to be effectively taught, a student must be able to see their newfound knowledge in use. Computers do NOT encourage this, as one thing a computer is EXCELLENT at is having a data set entered into it once, and then recalling that same data set many times over, very rapidly.
Go to a intro level CS class. Draw a stack on the board, explain memory allocation, explain pointers, DRAW the pointers, you will have an educated class.
Go to an intro level CS class, bring up a Power Point slide that shows a stack, have little pointers slide onto the screen, you will have a very CONFUSED class.
I remember back in elementary school using computers to play math games on, completely useless. We just played what we wanted, and the smarter of us just broke into the teacher's option screen and fiddled around, either that or watched the pretty Apple II (whatever model we had) debug screen after jamming enough keys down.
Some of the countries with the BEST mathematics education have the LEAST amount of computer aid.
Heck my math is going to be borked for the longest time because I "merely" used a graphing calculator (TI-89) throughout my calculus class to simplify equations and solve crud for me.
I'd solve it the first few times on my own, but then I'd figure "why do I need to keep doing this, it is so repetitive?
That is the crux of it folks, the repetition IS the learning.
Sure, us Nerds may UNDERSTAND it easy, and we don't see why the instructor spent two days jumping around the classroom over dramatizing some seemingly trivial topic, but, when three or four years later, you still remember the stuff you had to sit (and work!) through day after day of, and you have forgotten the material you just "automated away", well then,
you begin to realize, almost everyone needs repetition in order to learn.
(I even support making T-Charts by hand, not only does it strengthens basic arithmetic skills, it also gives students an intuitive feel for what is going to happen next!)
They might be something worth marshalling up for the math geeks to play with, but for most people they're just baggage they don't need.
You know, in countries where not everyone can afford a calculator, these tricks ARE commonly taught to children.
Now compare this to my experience in school, where a teacher once told me it was impossible to calculate square roots without a calculator! (of course since then I have learned that most primary school teachers only take up to Algebra I in college so....)
oh wait, it's not designed at all. it's pretty much all crap. and intelligent design. even in private schools and grad schools, no one ever is taught to really think for themselves as a part of the curriculum.
You know I used to half way believe this, until I got some friends who came over from the Asian schooling system.
Americans are INCREDIBLE at taking story problems and real life scenarios and doing mathematical modeling on them.
Heck just yesterday I saw a Seasame Street game that was basically an introduction to Venn diagrams! That is at the pre-school level, once you actually get into the schooling system, well, here are just a FEW of the things American school children know about that seem common place to us, but are complete mysteries to others!
The planets, names, sizes, that they even EXIST.
Atoms, molecules, etc.
Anything dealing with biology.
(Please note, this list may not be applicable in the southern states.)
The American Educational System needs an overhaul, for sure, our basic mathematical and linguistic education bites, but when it comes to finding creative, or just worldly, solutions to problems, well, we at least have that covered fairly well.
Re:Not very scientific
on
Killer Ozone?
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· Score: 1
here in belgium
Remember, United States.
The state of Florida was having almost weekly hurricans, I haven't seen a winter with a good (meaning it lasts for more than a day or two!) snow in the last 12 years up here in Seattle Washington,
and,
oh yah,
THE FREAKING POLAR ICE CAPS ARE MELTING.
(yes yes always are, but at a rather rapid rate now!)
and just now, JUST now, the current administration says that there MIGHT be something worth looking into.
Higher learning curve? I'm 15, and got the hang of it fairly quickly.
I'm not exactly an experienced user, but I have always found it easier to use than Photoshop, which to me is a bitch to work with, but still, I like it better than PSP.
Well, for me Photoshop is a breeze the use, the interface is VERY intuitive for me, and The Gimp is an absolute pain, I can't figure out how to do anything.:-P
Different people learn different toolsets with varying amounts of ease.
Slashdot Mirror
To a limited extent, but, a lot of programs do not need all of those libraries. Rememeber Windows does not have the "million and one small tools to complete a task" mentality that *nix has. The disadvantage is, tons of things that can be done at a *nix command line may need to be done by hand, advantage is, small crap is just included in with code!
Seriously, many of the applications I use do not use external statically linked libraries, and those that do tend to use the different sets of libraries anyways, so having 5 shared libraries in memory would just mean having one application using each shared library and netting me zero efficency gain.
Seriously, about the most common library is Zlib, and umm, not too often do I run multiple applications that handle zip files at the same time.
Actually I don't think I ever do.
MS provides the GUI shared libraries, OpenGL and DirectX are shared, I fail to see what other shared libraries I could possibly use.
No it does not. I just got done reinstalling Windows 2003, and my Firefox installation still works fine.
Stand alone executables, read the comment right above yours.
I have a slew of applications that are either just a stand alone executable, or a stand alone executable with some supporting data files in the directory.
So
Damn
Simple.
I go to the directory name (which is also the program's name! Hey how about that!) and I type in the program's name.
The program runs.
Or I use a GUI to go to the directory the program is in, I click on the program's executable.
The program runs.
Seriously, I don't have to know anything about any particular system, I can sit down at any Windows box and in a matter of minutes have mapped out exactly what is on that particular system just by browsing around a bit.
Two questions:
Why should my Grandmother have to compile her own programs;
Why the hell should I have to compile my own programs! I don't GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT COMPILING MY OWN PROGRAMS THAT TAKES TIME
Half the shit I get off of the web I just open right from the website, hell some convienent utilities that are small (under 100k or so) I just type in the damn URL to when ever I need to use them! Yah its not safe, but I trust the app vender, so I don't care!
Fundemental principle:
INSTALLING AN APPLICATION SHOULD TAKE LESS THAN TEN SECONDS OF MY TIME AND THE FIRST 8 OF THOSE SHOULD BE SPEND ON DOWNLOADING.
If I am trying to find a new audio editing app, within an hour I want to have tested out at least eight or nine different applications.
Or more.
Click, Run, Done.
98% of everything is crap, open source or not, I want to sift through the crap as fast as possible.
I'd gather either stupidity, or they just didn't want to bother licencing the algorithm.
Who knows, there is likely some software industry politics behind it, or maybe MS was just being stupid. Heck MS has always tried to push one of their own inane compression systems during each release of Windows (to almost zero success), but I doubt they ever considered these apps to be real competition to mainstream compression utilities.
Quite frankly XPs built in zip support absolutely bits, and I wish there was some way for me to disable it from the OS itself.
Winamp, SmartFTP, AIM, umm, a few others perhaps.
Most of the apps are either large enough that they have a built in check-on-run updater that pops a big "Yo Security Error!" message box on my screen when something is seriously wrong (upon which I then go to the website and check) or that security issues with them get posted to at least a few of the main tech news sites.
Not being in a server enviroment, most of my applications either not hooked up to the net, or not hooked up to the net in a fashion that gets them near executable code (or hopefully any buffer overflows!)
Strangly enough, it isn't an issue.
Seriously. The two pieces of software I have to update the most are Firefox and IE.
Wish I was kidding...
Actually it is more like a base API, the various libraries constantly go through upgrades and such, more of a feature lock.
On one hand this is a bad thing, Windows did not even have a (decent!) built in dearchiver until Windows XP, but on the other hand it is also a good thing, as the free market allowed a number of competing (and ultimately superior) archival formats to come forth and not have to fight against any one single OS-supported format.
A key question becomes, on client workstations, are shared libraries REALLY all that much more efficient, a good trade off for the hassle that they cause?
Honestly, a good HTML renderer, sure, Windows software has found a million and one ways to make use of that (A good portion of Visual Studio.NET's UI is basically a fancy IE window from what I can figure out, at least it behaves like one!), and other things like built in sound and video acceleration are (of course) handy to have around, but honestly, how often is some huge shared library really going to be used?
Lets see, if I have a 3D modeling app open, Winamp playing tunes in the background, and my browser of choice (Firefox or IE which ever) up and running, what use are shared libraries to me?
The UI, sure, but Windows has that, granted the options kind of blow, Win32 or
A standard image manipulation library? If I install a new image manipulation program I want something revolutionary, something different, from it. Heck, $400+ painting programs sell specifically because the programmers have developed some kick'in libraries that are limited just to that program. Besides, I don't want a shared library that specializes in doing a Physics Simulation of paint on paper!
Games? Sure, to some extent I guess, but how many games am I going to be having running at once? Honestly? 2 tops, even that is rare, most likely, just, well, 1.
On server and application server environments, shared libraries are a blessing, but for a client environment, flexibility and the capability to rapidly deploy applications to the end user seems to be higher priority.
by be-fan (61476) on Saturday January 15, @02:03PM (#11375444)
In what alternate reality can you run a program without using the installer? Aside from a few tiny utilities (putty.exe), nearly all Windows programs require an installer.
Depends upon the competency level of the programmer.
Older versions of Photoshop (5.5 and maybe 6.0) did not require an install to run, and neither does Firefox!
Whatever version of SmartFTP I am running does not, and neither do a good deal of my games or other applications.
A well written app either does not use the Windows Registry, or simply checks for needed registry entries upon first run and adds in any that are missing.
Pissy written applications crash and complain if any registry entries are missing.
Many Windows programs either do not use shared libraries, or keep a copy of any shared libraries around in their local program directory in case someone or something else decides to mess with the system32 directory.
I just got done reinstalling Windows 2003, without reformatting the HD, some apps work, others don't.
Heck Nero works without complaint (reenter CD key tis all!)
Hey, my fractal applications still work!
Seriously, the only issue I typically have is applications that either:
As I said, shared libs are not an issue, since most apps just package in their own preferred library version.
Yes I know that this is not "proper" practice, but darnit, it makes life SO much easier!
Why would I want to? Most software I own is not updated that often (surprise surprise!) and often times I do not want the latest greatest themable UI that sucks up another 4 or 5 megs of memory.
As a rule I only download a new version when security issues appear.
Also, Windows people are a bit more paranoid about updaters, they tend to get disabled VERY quickly. What ensures your trust of a one click update that downloads from multiple sources? Sure you may trust most of the sources, but I would not want to download an update from a company such as, say, RealNetworks, without hand inspecting every last little bit of it first.
Windows has had this for ages,
....
we call them EXEs.
Seriously though, just being able to click on a link, save to a directory, and run a program, is such a nice thing. I don't care how it is bundled up, just make the darn thing run!
One good reason to avoid buying name brand.
You spend X dollars on kit from a small vendor, your money went into paying for vendors profit + the hardware.
You spend X dollars on kit from a large vendor like Dell, your money went into paying for
Magazine Ads
TV ads
Newspaper Ads
Corporate Offices
Corporate Staff
A huge fancy database backed website
Vendor profits
and oh yah, also, your hardware.
Now after deductions for all those other bits and pieces are made, how much do you think is going to be left for quality hardware? Granted when buying extremely high level kit from vendors, you do get what you pay for,
barely.
On the other hand, most major name brand equipment uses the cheapest yum-cha equipment money can buy. I would trust a power supply I picked out myself long before I trust one some marketing executive picked out as the cheapest they could get their hands on.
Hey, if I install WindowsXP on any new computer, it won't recognize half the hardware either! ...
Check which release version you are using, (stable releases tend to not have all the latest goodies in them, some drivers may need to be downloaded separatly, the same as for WindowsXP!)
I see the need for HTML in e-mail, just not a full subset of HTML. HTML 2.0 or so should do just fine.
The purpose of using IE is that it enables Windows to have a single HTML renderer loaded up into memory for a wide variety of tasks. By switching over to HTML based help, Microsoft has consolidated various rendering engines into one (HTML, specifically IE), all while reducing the overall memory footprint used up by the system.
Now this is all good and fine, and should work perfectly, just so long as the system properly maintains what security level a given file is in.
This is a key issue, apparently MS keeps screwing this up...
Aside from that (doh!), IE integrated into the system is very convenient.
VERY convenient! With a sufficiently fast Internet connection, the difference between the Internet and one's own computer is quickly blurred.
Of course, a hoe is not a ho', which is why his answer was, while funny, not valid. They are two different words, unlike rake.
I have never heard anyone use the term "rake" to describe a ho before.
Or is it hoe, beats me. How often do people actually need to spell those words?
Actually this is a dupe from a few weeks ago....
COLLEGE STUDENTS
Yah, those most able to afford overpriced crap-ware!
Remedial math is there so you can understand the higher-level math. If you get a CS degree from an accredited university, that means the University has put their name behind you in saying you are capable of living up to the expectations of a CS graduate, which include knowing higher mathematics, a variety of branches of science, and having at least a passing familiarity with your own nation's, and the world's, history.
Oddly enough this stuff is useful. They all consist of different patterns of thinking, different paths of logic and exploration.
Maybe on your own you can do all of this by yourself, self taught, good for you. A degree certifies that (at least in theory) you have been taught all this stuff.
A true geek/nerd is interested in knowledge of all types, and does not have the ego to think that their own profession is the best one isolated from all others, or that only programming has meaning.
Solving equations, or learning about how historic peace treaties were hammered out, are all valuable skills.
Yes, knowing how to learn about something is a skill. Learning history is different than learning to paint is different than learning the piano is different than learning mathematics.
If you get assigned a job where you are working with one or more vastly different cultures than your own, you might want to know how to do a Google lookup of data about different cultures. What phrases to use, what search terms to look up, who wrote books on different topics. I guess that "stupid" liberal arts course in communications could have come in handy.
If your hired to write a historic battle simulation game, history class might be nice. Sure you can look it up on your own, but things go a lot faster if you have already has prior exposure to the material, even if it was years ago, the pathways are still lying dormant somewhere in your brain.
The overall point here is, college has many topics seemingly "unrelated" to CS for good reasons, a Computer Scientist, (or Engineer, or Electrical Engineer, etc) may be expected to work in a wide variety of situations, and must be equipped to not necessarily completely handle those situations, but be able to teach him/her-self how to handle those situations.
Also you wouldn't have to take remedial math if you'd paid attention the first time around. (I made the same mistake! oops!) Mathematics does has a ton to do with programming, and learning CS and Mathematics together is a very valuable experience that changes the way you think about how to approach problems.
Taking a Differential Equations course and a Functional Programming course together at the same time, you begin to realize that they are both talking about the same (or at least similar) things, in DQ you study functions that take in functions, functions that take in functions and a constant, functions that take in multiple functions, and functions that take in multiple functions and constants,
then you walk on over to your next class, and do the same darn thing on a computer.
All of a sudden those math courses don't seem so useless anymore.
All those remedial math course are because everybody needs to be speaking the same language, going at at least the same minimal speed. When the Professor writes out a two line equation on the board, and next to it simplifies it to half the size, you have to have followed along in your head that he rearranged the terms, factored some of them out, wrote some terms as one over their reciprocal, and then canceled those out, and so on and so forth.
You have to have done it many times over, until it is second nature to you, because that is the only way for the classes to go at a reasonable pace.
I do agree that Algebra is a bit over taught in schools, but heck, you need to know it, need to get used to it, and need to be able to do it insanely fast, just to keep up in the higher math courses!
HUGE difference. Moz can take 30+ seconds, sometimes over a minute if too many extensions are installed, Firefox comes up in less than 10, around 20 with extensions.
Older releases (back when it was Firebird) were a LOT faster, but umm, apparently, ironically enough, Firefox has gotten more and more bloated with each new release. (I tried out some really early Firebid releases and wow they started up fast!)
I'll switch when it is either under 2 seconds, or they write a very small preloader for it that lets me get it up and running fast and the preloaded takes up less than a meg of RAM.
(Firefox actually IS a better browser than IE, just I am so used to hitting windowkey-E...)
Uneven eyesight = lack of depth perception.
*sigh*
Indeed, WHY BOTHER? For some activities (ie learning a foreign language, typing papers) computers can be GREAT aids, but computers in the classrooms are, in general, a VERY piss poor idea. Seriously, been there, seen that, it does NOT work.
The reason why is quite simple: Teaching consists of the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. It is a direct and personal interaction (even in a classroom full of students, it is a personal interaction, overcrowding reduces this effect but that is a completely separate story), involving not only the teacher telling the students new material, but also the teacher demonstrating how to use that new knowledge to the student.
Think of a math class.
Now think of a math class taught with Power Point.
Now stop screaming for a minute and come back down off of the ceiling.
In order to be effectively taught, a student must be able to see their newfound knowledge in use. Computers do NOT encourage this, as one thing a computer is EXCELLENT at is having a data set entered into it once, and then recalling that same data set many times over, very rapidly.
Go to a intro level CS class. Draw a stack on the board, explain memory allocation, explain pointers, DRAW the pointers, you will have an educated class.
Go to an intro level CS class, bring up a Power Point slide that shows a stack, have little pointers slide onto the screen, you will have a very CONFUSED class.
I remember back in elementary school using computers to play math games on, completely useless. We just played what we wanted, and the smarter of us just broke into the teacher's option screen and fiddled around, either that or watched the pretty Apple II (whatever model we had) debug screen after jamming enough keys down.
Some of the countries with the BEST mathematics education have the LEAST amount of computer aid.
Heck my math is going to be borked for the longest time because I "merely" used a graphing calculator (TI-89) throughout my calculus class to simplify equations and solve crud for me.
I'd solve it the first few times on my own, but then I'd figure "why do I need to keep doing this, it is so repetitive?
That is the crux of it folks, the repetition IS the learning.
Sure, us Nerds may UNDERSTAND it easy, and we don't see why the instructor spent two days jumping around the classroom over dramatizing some seemingly trivial topic, but, when three or four years later, you still remember the stuff you had to sit (and work!) through day after day of, and you have forgotten the material you just "automated away", well then,
you begin to realize, almost everyone needs repetition in order to learn.
(I even support making T-Charts by hand, not only does it strengthens basic arithmetic skills, it also gives students an intuitive feel for what is going to happen next!)
You know, in countries where not everyone can afford a calculator, these tricks ARE commonly taught to children.
Now compare this to my experience in school, where a teacher once told me it was impossible to calculate square roots without a calculator! (of course since then I have learned that most primary school teachers only take up to Algebra I in college so....)
You know I used to half way believe this, until I got some friends who came over from the Asian schooling system.
Americans are INCREDIBLE at taking story problems and real life scenarios and doing mathematical modeling on them.
Heck just yesterday I saw a Seasame Street game that was basically an introduction to Venn diagrams! That is at the pre-school level, once you actually get into the schooling system, well, here are just a FEW of the things American school children know about that seem common place to us, but are complete mysteries to others!
(Please note, this list may not be applicable in the southern states.)
The American Educational System needs an overhaul, for sure, our basic mathematical and linguistic education bites, but when it comes to finding creative, or just worldly, solutions to problems, well, we at least have that covered fairly well.
Remember, United States.
The state of Florida was having almost weekly hurricans, I haven't seen a winter with a good (meaning it lasts for more than a day or two!) snow in the last 12 years up here in Seattle Washington,
and,
oh yah,
THE FREAKING POLAR ICE CAPS ARE MELTING.
(yes yes always are, but at a rather rapid rate now!)
and just now, JUST now, the current administration says that there MIGHT be something worth looking into.
and that they'll get around to it.
When ever they feel like it.
I'm not exactly an experienced user, but I have always found it easier to use than Photoshop, which to me is a bitch to work with, but still, I like it better than PSP.
Well, for me Photoshop is a breeze the use, the interface is VERY intuitive for me, and The Gimp is an absolute pain, I can't figure out how to do anything.
Different people learn different toolsets with varying amounts of ease.
May I be the first to say;
WTF is a hiptop?