I've contributed code to TMDA, a python implementation of this idea that's been around for over two years. The earliest I know of though is a C implentation called mapson. It was abandonware for a while, but it's apparently been resurrected on sourceforge. I _think_ the original version dates from the '90s.
BTW, mailblocks.com isn't free; it's $10/yr. However, that's still only half what fastmail.fm charges annually for their spam filtering service (with SpamAssasin).
The 40% number does *not* mean that 40% of developers worldwide are focusing primarily on Linux, nor does Evans represent it that way. It means 40% of the [400] developers Evans surveyed, and those developers were pre-selected by their use of Linux.
The study itself seems sound. But, is this admittedly limited study sufficient justification for the prediction [from the original linuxworld article] that "In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Windows to become the main focus for developers?"
In a word... no. The study only looked at developers who had already moved at least partway to linux. You are justified in drawing absolutely NO conclusions about how soon other developers may start making the same move! To do so is mere sensationalistic handwaving.
At some level, Nick realizes this:
Here is the question answered by the data: Among those developers who now focus primarily on Linux, which did more of them have as their primary focus beforehand -- Windows or Unix?
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to stop him from drawing further, unwarranted conclusions.
they're counting on $3000 IA-64 chips to preserve their profit margin, but if 64 bit catches on in the mainstream, they're going to have to follow AMD with x86-64 at much lower margins.
is jdk 1.4.1 (currently available from apple's software update). this is BIG to java developers -- I had one friend sell his powerbook 6 months ago b/c he got tired of it coming out "any day now." But it's not vapor anymore, finally.
given apple's history of siccing lawyers on sites that dare to post pics of the latest & greatest before they're officially unveiled, the only surprising thing is that it lasted this long...
if the/. authors could code their way out of a paper bag, they would put something nontrivial to defeat on the account creation page. the current "type this" challenge is a joke.
obviously the words "branching factor" mean nothing to you:(
short version: computing every possible chess move is computationally intractable, even with computers billions of times more powerful than those we have.
long version: look up some past threads on this subject in rec.games.chess on groups.google.com...
you'd have to have a hell of a lot better evaluation function to overcome calculating 1/100 as many positions per second, and deep blue's eval was miles better than fritz's back in '97. from what I've read on rec.games.chess, fritz may have CAUGHT UP in the eval department but it's not 100 times better for sure.
if you're interested in computer chess, check out "behind deep blue," by IBM's team lead. most interesting book I've read in a long time. One part I didn't know was that IBM's move generator & eval function were done in hardware, which is the main reason that even with 6 years of moore's law under its belt, deep fritz can't touch it for sheer power. I always got the impression from the general media that deep blue was just a software program on a massive RS/6000 box but no, it had hundreds of these custom chess boards in it, too.
re kasparov's claims of cheating, remember there's two sides to every story and you're only getting one. For his part, Hsu says that he tried to get garry's team to agree to a rematch both with IBM and after he left, and kasparov's team basically dodged while complaining loudly and pubicly that Hsu was running away from him. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between, but given the obvious huge size of garry's ego I'd take what he says with a correspondingly large grain of salt.
The overwhelmingly most likely reasons/. created a totally different project are:
1) they didn't know cmu's project existed 2) they really aren't very good programmers
I'd lean towards 1), but there's ample evidence for 2). Look at/.'s "captcha," for crying out loud. All I would have to do to defeat it would be to mask out all but the black pixels. What a joke. It's like one of those "this house protected by..." signs when the closest you've come to installing an alarm system was hanging up on a telemarketer. (although some of cmu's systems also use gratuitous color changes that add nothing to security, at least they do have some genuinely challenging methods besides.) Did it really take them months to come up with this? You've got to be kidding.
I have looked at CMU's code and it's by no means an impenetrable mess -- especially when you consider they were handicapped by using perl:) -- so I'm not sure why you're getting all snotty about it. I can't imagine it taking more than a couple days, much less months, to integrate it.
Professional/. programmers. heh. Look at the code before you diss it based on what someone else of dubious ability says. Understanding other peoples' code takes practice to be good at, and not just because of sturgeon's law.:/
cringley claims p4 is somehow worse because it achieves less instructions per clock. obviously real performance comes from I/clock * clock. so increasing i/c OR c is a valid approach. the alpha basically smoked everyone else back in the day by focusing on clock over hyper-deep pipelines like the other designers. the p4 is taking the same approach.
never mind his woefully inaccurate summaray of yamhill...
actually, it only crashes in MS's VM... totally stable in Sun's.
for an online game that can handle slashdot
on
LOTR: The Two Towers
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
try Carnage Blender. Sorry, it's not explicitly tolkein based, except to the extent that all modern fantasy is influenced by him. But it does have mithril.:)
But your choices aren't limited to perl & oracle. Postgres, contrary to what's-his-name's post, is very much in the same league as Sybase et al., and it's just as easy to set up and start using as mysql. Just because you CAN do subselect, write triggers, etc., doesn't mean you HAVE to -- you're perfectly welcome to limit yourself to the same feature set mysql has. But it doesn't force you into bad habits when you start to outgrow those.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, mailblocks.com isn't free; it's $10/yr. However, that's still only half what fastmail.fm charges annually for their spam filtering service (with SpamAssasin).
In a word... no. The study only looked at developers who had already moved at least partway to linux. You are justified in drawing absolutely NO conclusions about how soon other developers may start making the same move! To do so is mere sensationalistic handwaving.
At some level, Nick realizes this:
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to stop him from drawing further, unwarranted conclusions.they're counting on $3000 IA-64 chips to preserve their profit margin, but if 64 bit catches on in the mainstream, they're going to have to follow AMD with x86-64 at much lower margins.
thinking, "They couldn't have come up with a worse name if they'd TRIED." :/
is jdk 1.4.1 (currently available from apple's software update). this is BIG to java developers -- I had one friend sell his powerbook 6 months ago b/c he got tired of it coming out "any day now." But it's not vapor anymore, finally.
that's even sillier, though... I'd rather try one song first before going for a 30MB d/l, even with broadband.
You get what, an extra 1% compression? Sheesh.
given apple's history of siccing lawyers on sites that dare to post pics of the latest & greatest before they're officially unveiled, the only surprising thing is that it lasted this long...
Xbox came out a year _after_ the ps2.
I had one guy who wanted me to make carnage blender render better on his newton. Heh. I barely have time to get IE and NN working. :P
if the /. authors could code their way out of a paper bag, they would put something nontrivial to defeat on the account creation page. the current "type this" challenge is a joke.
obviously the words "branching factor" mean nothing to you :(
short version: computing every possible chess move is computationally intractable, even with computers billions of times more powerful than those we have.
long version: look up some past threads on this subject in rec.games.chess on groups.google.com...
stupid slashcode :(
are fritz's PR people :(
you'd have to have a hell of a lot better evaluation function to overcome calculating 1/100 as many positions per second, and deep blue's eval was miles better than fritz's back in '97. from what I've read on rec.games.chess, fritz may have CAUGHT UP in the eval department but it's not 100 times better for sure.
if you're interested in computer chess, check out "behind deep blue," by IBM's team lead. most interesting book I've read in a long time. One part I didn't know was that IBM's move generator & eval function were done in hardware, which is the main reason that even with 6 years of moore's law under its belt, deep fritz can't touch it for sheer power. I always got the impression from the general media that deep blue was just a software program on a massive RS/6000 box but no, it had hundreds of these custom chess boards in it, too.
re kasparov's claims of cheating, remember there's two sides to every story and you're only getting one. For his part, Hsu says that he tried to get garry's team to agree to a rematch both with IBM and after he left, and kasparov's team basically dodged while complaining loudly and pubicly that Hsu was running away from him. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between, but given the obvious huge size of garry's ego I'd take what he says with a correspondingly large grain of salt.
you must have missed this node and possibly this one as well
The overwhelmingly most likely reasons /. created a totally different project are:
/.'s "captcha," for crying out loud. All I would have to do to defeat it would be to mask out all but the black pixels. What a joke. It's like one of those "this house protected by ..." signs when the closest you've come to installing an alarm system was hanging up on a telemarketer. (although some of cmu's systems also use gratuitous color changes that add nothing to security, at least they do have some genuinely challenging methods besides.) Did it really take them months to come up with this? You've got to be kidding.
:) -- so I'm not sure why you're getting all snotty about it. I can't imagine it taking more than a couple days, much less months, to integrate it.
/. programmers. heh. Look at the code before you diss it based on what someone else of dubious ability says. Understanding other peoples' code takes practice to be good at, and not just because of sturgeon's law. :/
1) they didn't know cmu's project existed
2) they really aren't very good programmers
I'd lean towards 1), but there's ample evidence for 2). Look at
I have looked at CMU's code and it's by no means an impenetrable mess -- especially when you consider they were handicapped by using perl
Professional
cringley claims p4 is somehow worse because it achieves less instructions per clock. obviously real performance comes from I/clock * clock. so increasing i/c OR c is a valid approach. the alpha basically smoked everyone else back in the day by focusing on clock over hyper-deep pipelines like the other designers. the p4 is taking the same approach.
never mind his woefully inaccurate summaray of yamhill...
actually, it only crashes in MS's VM... totally stable in Sun's.
try Carnage Blender. Sorry, it's not explicitly tolkein based, except to the extent that all modern fantasy is influenced by him. But it does have mithril. :)
and use a database written by people who didn't spend years denying that these features were useful, much less desirable...
trying one last post before mailing in a bug report... ignore pls
mysql vs postgresql scalability
in that it breeds bad habits.
But your choices aren't limited to perl & oracle. Postgres, contrary to what's-his-name's post, is very much in the same league as Sybase et al., and it's just as easy to set up and start using as mysql. Just because you CAN do subselect, write triggers, etc., doesn't mean you HAVE to -- you're perfectly welcome to limit yourself to the same feature set mysql has. But it doesn't force you into bad habits when you start to outgrow those.
-1 troll :/
vacuum has always run w/o having to take the DB down.