I learned Perl a while ago, and love it in general. Not having to beat a language into submission in order to express my ideas is usually a good thing.
I then became interested in learning Python (after deciding that Perl didn't provide the bondage-and-discipline OO style that I want to use), and actually installed it on my Win98 system, only to discover that the included installation of Tk was somehow installed into the wrong place (re-install didn't help), and that as a result, IDLE wouldn't run.
I then went back, and took at look at the Python pages, only to discover Python 3000. While it really is a Good Thing(tm) that they're openly stating that there will be incompatibilities with current Python, it also does scare me away from learning the language somewhat...
Granted, many things were deprecated between say, Perl 1 and Perl 5, and probably more things will be changed/deprecated in the future, but the only relatively recent surge of interest and thus use of Python seems to make the language "younger" (though chronologically Python's the same age as Perl, no?) and thus more subject to radical changes.
Anyone care to clue me in on how much Python 3000 might change things? I know that it'll be a total redesign, and that probably even the design stage isn't exactly completely finished at this point, but I'm just wondering how much Python I would have to re-learn when Python3k comes out, if I learn Python 1.5x or 1.6 now?
Hardware is much less sturdy than it used to be. The 486-DX33 that we bought had a book-case topple over on top of it during the LA earthquake a few years back. The metal case is a wee bit dented on the top, but the thing runs fine to this day.
My new computer from Packard Bell? (ick, indeed) The thing's made outta plastic. They glue aluminum foil on the inside for RF shielding. I've warped the shielding so much, that I've had to rip both pieces out, which now means that I'm probably operating a FCC class A device!;p
Heh. C++ != forgiving. Just the existence of _Effective C++_ and _More Effective C++_ with non-obvious things like making sure your copy constructor doesn't clobber the object if it's getting assigned to itself convinces me of that.
Perl, on the other hand, really isn't that bad. It's intuitive, and really does have a lot of that "do what I mean, damnit!" built into it. (take the $ matching at the end of line, \n or not thing). It's rich in the 'right' way -- gives you lots of functions that do stuff, unlike C++, where you get a huge handful of words like 'virtual' 'static' 'volatile' 'register' (okay, so noone uses that anymore, but still) that all do very non-obvious things.
The syntax isn't completely consistent, but it scales well back up to C++ in many ways, and the RAD part of Perl means that kids get immediate results. So what if graphics aren't built-in? Install Tk for them, and then just tell them to put use Tk; at the top of their programs. Perl fits the ticket for a no-nonsense language that doesn't require 14 lines to print "hello world," and can do a GUI version of that in about 4.
(last time I tried GUI Hello World in C++, I ended up with about 3 screenfuls of crap from Codewarrior. Ugh!)
I realise VB is an incoherent mess, and perhaps Delphi is better (I've never used it) but the biggest advantage of VB is that you can quickly and easily produce visual applications.
Indeed. And if you're using ActivePerl, you don't even have to do much actual coding in basic. Just make a call to PerlEZ.dll and fire up an instance of that interpreter!:-)
Well, for people like me that are stuck on Windoze, and haven't yet mastered Cygwin and the assorted complement of Unix tools, an 'IDE' of sorts can be useful. (granted, Perl means I really don't need to know sed and awk, and a coupla other things, heh.)
I personally use Ultraedit 7. Not a real IDE, but more of a souped-up text editor. Has the syntax highlighting for a coupla commonly used languages, and the syntax file is pretty easy to edit, even without any documentation.
I like the idea of being able to shell out to various command-line tools with a key-combo, and have automatic arguments like the current file being edited passed to them. Makes the compile and run cycle go a lot faster.
And while it's true that IDEs are usually cumbersome, and less configurable than vi / emacs / whatever -you-use, they do tend to provide somewhat decent online docs for the language. While it's true that you could do just as well by shelling out of your text editor and going "man blah" or "perldoc blah" or whatever, integration _is_ convenient for the novice programmer.
Since Ultraedit isn't a true IDE, I usually end up having 2 command windows, a copy of Ultraedit, and 3 Opera windows open to various places in the Perl Bookshelf CD. It/would/ be nice to simply right click on a keyword or built-in function, and have the appropriate docs pop up.
All said, IMO, command-line development a la *NIX-programming is undeniably far more powerful, flexible, and configurable, and even more efficient, for the seasoned programmer.
But for people still learning a language, and needing to look up documentation occasionally (and perform other misc tasks), an IDE may be a better choice.
The government is the government, while a corporation, no matter how large, has no absolute legal power. Given that China is a soveign state, recognized as such by other countries all over the world, the government is, by definition, the end-all, be-all definition of legality, and acceptable behavior. Meaning? It is by definition correct!
Remember: France, Germany, England, Ireland, etc. do not recognize you individually. They recognize America, the country. Look at your passport: requests for safe passage are made on your behalf by the Secretary of State.
Point? You are not recognized by by other countries. China's government is. It has more-or-less absolute power over its citizens. As it should. So quit bitching! On the other hand, you are a private entity. So is Micro$oft.
If "Mike" didn't like it, he should get out of the country. (Many of us did!)
Americans don't like it when other countries point and laugh at our cheating politicians, pedophiles, whinos, drive-by shootings, etc. and many firmly believe in the it's none of your business line. How is this any different?
Sure, you can bitch and whine about human rights to free speech, freedom to congregate, freedom to carry automatic weapons and shoot each other. Whatever. It makes no difference. Given China's government's legitmacy, as supported by its recognition by countries all around the world, it is prefectly within its rights to do whatever the hell it damn well likes!
Re:"Designed from the ground up for..."
on
AtheOS
·
· Score: 1
From the programming point of view, the intersection of all feature sets certainly is the simpler approach (says Kernigan and Pike), but sometimes the union of all feature sets is required so that each system can be utilitzed to its fullest.
The technical considerations are, indeed, not insignificant. They can, however, be mitigated, IMHO. Something about having the user agree to not to misrepresent their items, and categorize them themselves as appropriate.
Given a section of Yahoo that had 'racist' or 'offensive' items of whatever sort, they could then simply block by IP.
I run a site for fan-subtitled anime, and we've been long blocking IPs from various Asian countries where the shows are commercially available, for example. (Granted, ppl who really wanted anime could use a proxy, but then they'd be actively breaking their own countries' law, and it wouldn't be our problem.)
But the point is, France is perfectly allowed to enforce its law on its citizens: they're NOT saying that Yahoo should take the items down: they're saying that French citizens should not be allowed to see them, because they are against French law. Sounds pretty reasonable to me!
We have Moore's law, which tells us that chips double in speed every 18 months. We also have Gate's law, which tells us that software from most proprietary companies (especially one who's name is an accurate description of Mr. Gates' reproductive organ... but that's getting OT) halves in speed every 18 months. If it weren't for faster chips, we'd all be going comatose waiting for our goddamn spreadsheets to recalculate!;p
In fact, we might want to think for a minute about the following: where does the right of ownership for anything come from? The objects in your dwelling. Your dwelling. The ground your dwelling is built on. The trees someone cut to build your house with. Trace the ownership of *all* of these physical objects back to their sources. You end up asking, who owns the the mountains? The air? The moon and mars? And how did a small part of one tree on the side of that mountain come to 'be yours'? I find two answers. Firstly, everything belonged to everyone in the world, collectively. Society owned it all. And little by little, for society's good, parts of it were given (in return for some compensation) to individuals. Secondly these individuals added their efforts to the 'worth' of the objects, now in private hands, and so things went, until you ended up with them, having 'obtained' them in return for some of your own efforts.
Indeed. Besides, the idea of ownership of any kind is a culture-specific concept. The right to 'own' a piece of land, much less an idea, is by no means a God-given right. There are plenty of cultures still existing (the San, or Ju'/Hoansi (sp?) come to mind as an example) where there is no such thing as private ownership. No, this has nothing to do with communism. They simply believe that things like the land, the trees, and natural resources are not things that can be owned, any more than we would believe that Alpha Centauri could be.
The idea that a copyright should be 'owned', because a person's thought processes came up with it, is patently (excuse the pun) absurd.
Remember--the old gaming platforms (and old PCs, for software based on PCs instead of consoles) were ridiculously limited by today's standards, and so the programming involved probably used a lot of nifty software hacks to squeeze every drop of performance out of those machines...
It's not so much the neato hacks and tricks that they don't want people to see (as you realize), but just the coolness of older games in terms of gameplay. It absolutely horrifies game companies to think that we'll remember how good the game play used to be, before minds were melted by geometry-accelerated, anti-aliased, 24-bit source art-ed, individually textured polygons running on our 21 inch monitors at 1200x1024 at 90 frames a second.
Current games are, in many cases, boring old hacks that beat a theme to death (actually, they beat it not only until it's dead, but more or less unrecognizable as well, but that's beside the point). Glitzy graphics don't quite cover up the bad gameplay underneath, and gamers are already restless. The idea that some might just give up, and go back to playing Contra and M.U.L.E. is pretty scary for them.
Chill, no big deal. Most all of us use banner blockers of one type or another. They're not getting a cent. But they are periodically getting flamed to a crisp and being made to look like the incompetent fools that they are.
And please don't tell me you need the WHOLE song, at CD quality, to decide if you should buy it. That's like saying a free sample you get at the grocery store isn't enough for you to "properly" sample the food, and you need to have the whole dish to see if you like it.:) That would just be silly.
I beg to differ: there are artists that I like now, that I either didn't bother to pay attention to, or, in one case even just detested the first time around. Music grows on you. I've had cases where I've listened to the MP3 of an album for a day, and then gone out and bought it. In other cases, I listened, and never bothered to listen again.
Music grows on you, and sometimes you not only need the whole song, but may need to listen to it mutiple times to decide you like it.
If the RIAA thinks that it's entitled to my $$ just because I heard their music for a day, and then decided that it wasn't worth listening to again, then they can kiss my butt!
Point. Lots of w4r3z d00dz don't give a rat's ass about legality. Heck, I'll be honest, and admit that I really don't either, for the most part, when I'm dealing with personal software / media / whatever.
Online music sharing didn't suddenly explode one fine day because some idiot law on file-sharing got repealed -- it went mainstream when the technology necessary for it (MP3 for good compression, digital ripping for quality preservation) matured. The only real way to stop piracy, would be to stop the development of more advanced technologies. And is that gonna happen? Eh, probably not anytime soon, methinks...
True, but college campuses are known as places where activities that aren't strictly "academic" are well-supported. Collegiate atheletics, for example, might be one of them. Various online-related activities may well be thought of as another.
I should also point out that, with (very high speed) internet access (vBNS or Internet2) an increasingly important consideration in choosing a school, sysadmins can't afford to be too 'bitchy' about bandwidth any longer.
Slashdot Mirror
Cute! Anyone care to set up a site? ;-)
raging.com
(seems to come up with slightly diff hits than Altavista itself, but works plenty good for me!)
I learned Perl a while ago, and love it in general. Not having to beat a language into submission in order to express my ideas is usually a good thing.
...
I then became interested in learning Python (after deciding that Perl didn't provide the bondage-and-discipline OO style that I want to use), and actually installed it on my Win98 system, only to discover that the included installation of Tk was somehow installed into the wrong place (re-install didn't help), and that as a result, IDLE wouldn't run.
I then went back, and took at look at the Python pages, only to discover Python 3000. While it really is a Good Thing(tm) that they're openly stating that there will be incompatibilities with current Python, it also does scare me away from learning the language somewhat
Granted, many things were deprecated between say, Perl 1 and Perl 5, and probably more things will be changed/deprecated in the future, but the only relatively recent surge of interest and thus use of Python seems to make the language "younger" (though chronologically Python's the same age as Perl, no?) and thus more subject to radical changes.
Anyone care to clue me in on how much Python 3000 might change things? I know that it'll be a total redesign, and that probably even the design stage isn't exactly completely finished at this point, but I'm just wondering how much Python I would have to re-learn when Python3k comes out, if I learn Python 1.5x or 1.6 now?
Hardware is much less sturdy than it used to be. The 486-DX33 that we bought had a book-case topple over on top of it during the LA earthquake a few years back. The metal case is a wee bit dented on the top, but the thing runs fine to this day.
;p
My new computer from Packard Bell? (ick, indeed) The thing's made outta plastic. They glue aluminum foil on the inside for RF shielding. I've warped the shielding so much, that I've had to rip both pieces out, which now means that I'm probably operating a FCC class A device!
You may remember the matchbox Web server Slashdotted a while back
:-)
Hmm, and again, it seems.
Yep yep. All the stuff we love to hate. But design is a necessary evil, as I'm learning the hard way. :-)
Heh. C++ != forgiving. Just the existence of _Effective C++_ and _More Effective C++_ with non-obvious things like making sure your copy constructor doesn't clobber the object if it's getting assigned to itself convinces me of that.
Perl, on the other hand, really isn't that bad. It's intuitive, and really does have a lot of that "do what I mean, damnit!" built into it. (take the $ matching at the end of line, \n or not thing). It's rich in the 'right' way -- gives you lots of functions that do stuff, unlike C++, where you get a huge handful of words like 'virtual' 'static' 'volatile' 'register' (okay, so noone uses that anymore, but still) that all do very non-obvious things.
The syntax isn't completely consistent, but it scales well back up to C++ in many ways, and the RAD part of Perl means that kids get immediate results. So what if graphics aren't built-in? Install Tk for them, and then just tell them to put use Tk; at the top of their programs. Perl fits the ticket for a no-nonsense language that doesn't require 14 lines to print "hello world," and can do a GUI version of that in about 4.
(last time I tried GUI Hello World in C++, I ended up with about 3 screenfuls of crap from Codewarrior. Ugh!)
I realise VB is an incoherent mess, and perhaps Delphi is better (I've never used it) but the biggest advantage of VB is that you can quickly and easily produce visual applications.
:-)
Indeed. And if you're using ActivePerl, you don't even have to do much actual coding in basic. Just make a call to PerlEZ.dll and fire up an instance of that interpreter!
Well, for people like me that are stuck on Windoze, and haven't yet mastered Cygwin and the assorted complement of Unix tools, an 'IDE' of sorts can be useful. (granted, Perl means I really don't need to know sed and awk, and a coupla other things, heh.)
/would/ be nice to simply right click on a keyword or built-in function, and have the appropriate docs pop up.
I personally use Ultraedit 7. Not a real IDE, but more of a souped-up text editor. Has the syntax highlighting for a coupla commonly used languages, and the syntax file is pretty easy to edit, even without any documentation.
I like the idea of being able to shell out to various command-line tools with a key-combo, and have automatic arguments like the current file being edited passed to them. Makes the compile and run cycle go a lot faster.
And while it's true that IDEs are usually cumbersome, and less configurable than vi / emacs / whatever -you-use, they do tend to provide somewhat decent online docs for the language. While it's true that you could do just as well by shelling out of your text editor and going "man blah" or "perldoc blah" or whatever, integration _is_ convenient for the novice programmer.
Since Ultraedit isn't a true IDE, I usually end up having 2 command windows, a copy of Ultraedit, and 3 Opera windows open to various places in the Perl Bookshelf CD. It
All said, IMO, command-line development a la *NIX-programming is undeniably far more powerful, flexible, and configurable, and even more efficient, for the seasoned programmer.
But for people still learning a language, and needing to look up documentation occasionally (and perform other misc tasks), an IDE may be a better choice.
*g* I'm sure a lot of hardware manufacturers shudder at the very thought of a repeat of Intel's recent performance ...
A well written troll, but a troll nonetheless. Try harder next time. You'll get it, eventually.
Difference? Simple.
The government is the government, while a corporation, no matter how large, has no absolute legal power. Given that China is a soveign state, recognized as such by other countries all over the world, the government is, by definition, the end-all, be-all definition of legality, and acceptable behavior. Meaning? It is by definition correct!
Remember: France, Germany, England, Ireland, etc. do not recognize you individually. They recognize America, the country. Look at your passport: requests for safe passage are made on your behalf by the Secretary of State.
Point? You are not recognized by by other countries. China's government is. It has more-or-less absolute power over its citizens. As it should. So quit bitching! On the other hand, you are a private entity. So is Micro$oft.
If "Mike" didn't like it, he should get out of the country. (Many of us did!)
Americans don't like it when other countries point and laugh at our cheating politicians, pedophiles, whinos, drive-by shootings, etc. and many firmly believe in the it's none of your business line. How is this any different?
Sure, you can bitch and whine about human rights to free speech, freedom to congregate, freedom to carry automatic weapons and shoot each other. Whatever. It makes no difference. Given China's government's legitmacy, as supported by its recognition by countries all around the world, it is prefectly within its rights to do whatever the hell it damn well likes!
From the programming point of view, the intersection of all feature sets certainly is the simpler approach (says Kernigan and Pike), but sometimes the union of all feature sets is required so that each system can be utilitzed to its fullest.
How much information will we allow corporations to gather about us?
Not a whole lot. Few monitoring and tracking packages survive FDISK and having *BSD or *NIX installed where they used to be.
On the other hand, the idea of Australia suing some Russian ISP for hosting nasty pr0n is kinda funny. In a word: not gonna happen.
I didnt' see any punishments mentioned for Yahoo, and I'm not sure what France could do. Could they
a) sue Yahoo in US courts? or
b) in French courts somehow?
or
c) probably just order French ISPs to block access to www.yahoo.com completely? (that'd hurt the most, methinks).
The technical considerations are, indeed, not insignificant. They can, however, be mitigated, IMHO. Something about having the user agree to not to misrepresent their items, and categorize them themselves as appropriate.
Given a section of Yahoo that had 'racist' or 'offensive' items of whatever sort, they could then simply block by IP.
I run a site for fan-subtitled anime, and we've been long blocking IPs from various Asian countries where the shows are commercially available, for example. (Granted, ppl who really wanted anime could use a proxy, but then they'd be actively breaking their own countries' law, and it wouldn't be our problem.)
But the point is, France is perfectly allowed to enforce its law on its citizens: they're NOT saying that Yahoo should take the items down: they're saying that French citizens should not be allowed to see them, because they are against French law. Sounds pretty reasonable to me!
Indeed. Witness how the act of prosecuting piracy didn't bring screams of moral outrage on Slashdot, since it was done more or less the right way. :-)
Oh come on, the answer is obvious!
... but that's getting OT) halves in speed every 18 months. If it weren't for faster chips, we'd all be going comatose waiting for our goddamn spreadsheets to recalculate! ;p
We have Moore's law, which tells us that chips double in speed every 18 months. We also have Gate's law, which tells us that software from most proprietary companies (especially one who's name is an accurate description of Mr. Gates' reproductive organ
In fact, we might want to think for a minute about the following: where does the right of ownership for anything come from? The objects in your dwelling. Your dwelling. The ground your dwelling is built on. The trees someone cut to build your house with. Trace the ownership of *all* of these physical objects back to their sources. You end up asking, who owns the the mountains? The air? The moon and mars? And how did a small part of one tree on the side of that mountain come to 'be yours'? I find two answers. Firstly, everything belonged to everyone in the world, collectively. Society owned it all. And little by little, for society's good, parts of it were given (in return for some compensation) to individuals. Secondly these individuals added their efforts to the 'worth' of the objects, now in private hands, and so things went, until you ended up with them, having 'obtained' them in return for some of your own efforts.
Indeed. Besides, the idea of ownership of any kind is a culture-specific concept. The right to 'own' a piece of land, much less an idea, is by no means a God-given right. There are plenty of cultures still existing (the San, or Ju'/Hoansi (sp?) come to mind as an example) where there is no such thing as private ownership. No, this has nothing to do with communism. They simply believe that things like the land, the trees, and natural resources are not things that can be owned, any more than we would believe that Alpha Centauri could be.
The idea that a copyright should be 'owned', because a person's thought processes came up with it, is patently (excuse the pun) absurd.
Remember--the old gaming platforms (and old PCs, for software based on PCs instead of consoles) were ridiculously limited by today's standards, and so the programming involved probably used a lot of nifty software hacks to squeeze every drop of performance out of those machines ...
It's not so much the neato hacks and tricks that they don't want people to see (as you realize), but just the coolness of older games in terms of gameplay. It absolutely horrifies game companies to think that we'll remember how good the game play used to be, before minds were melted by geometry-accelerated, anti-aliased, 24-bit source art-ed, individually textured polygons running on our 21 inch monitors at 1200x1024 at 90 frames a second.
Current games are, in many cases, boring old hacks that beat a theme to death (actually, they beat it not only until it's dead, but more or less unrecognizable as well, but that's beside the point). Glitzy graphics don't quite cover up the bad gameplay underneath, and gamers are already restless. The idea that some might just give up, and go back to playing Contra and M.U.L.E. is pretty scary for them.
Chill, no big deal. Most all of us use banner blockers of one type or another. They're not getting a cent. But they are periodically getting flamed to a crisp and being made to look like the incompetent fools that they are.
And please don't tell me you need the WHOLE song, at CD quality, to decide if you should buy it. That's like saying a free sample you get at the grocery store isn't enough for you to "properly" sample the food, and you need to have the whole dish to see if you like it. :) That would just be silly.
I beg to differ: there are artists that I like now, that I either didn't bother to pay attention to, or, in one case even just detested the first time around. Music grows on you. I've had cases where I've listened to the MP3 of an album for a day, and then gone out and bought it. In other cases, I listened, and never bothered to listen again.
Music grows on you, and sometimes you not only need the whole song, but may need to listen to it mutiple times to decide you like it.
If the RIAA thinks that it's entitled to my $$ just because I heard their music for a day, and then decided that it wasn't worth listening to again, then they can kiss my butt!
Hey man, it's all about the marketing, and the image ... Intel's been at this game for years.
Point. Lots of w4r3z d00dz don't give a rat's ass about legality. Heck, I'll be honest, and admit that I really don't either, for the most part, when I'm dealing with personal software / media / whatever.
Online music sharing didn't suddenly explode one fine day because some idiot law on file-sharing got repealed -- it went mainstream when the technology necessary for it (MP3 for good compression, digital ripping for quality preservation) matured. The only real way to stop piracy, would be to stop the development of more advanced technologies. And is that gonna happen? Eh, probably not anytime soon, methinks...
True, but college campuses are known as places where activities that aren't strictly "academic" are well-supported. Collegiate atheletics, for example, might be one of them. Various online-related activities may well be thought of as another.
I should also point out that, with (very high speed) internet access (vBNS or Internet2) an increasingly important consideration in choosing a school, sysadmins can't afford to be too 'bitchy' about bandwidth any longer.