but programmers are supposed to be intelligent detail-oriented people who after a few years of training can instinctively and deliberately avoid bugs both the subtle and the egregious
I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent, I've been told I'm detail-oriented, I have a few years training and 11 years commercial experience building on a few years worth of hobbyist experience in a wide variety of languages, though most of those 11 years have focussed on Java and C#, with a couple of years of C/C++ thrown in at the start.
Somehow, I still fail to manage to write 100% bug-free code, as does every other programmer I've ever worked with.
There is no silver bullet, and that includes just being that damn ninja.
Would Larry prove its intent to totally screw Java
I'm not sure quite what you mean by "totally screw", but if you mean "kill off" that's not going to happen any time soon. Oracle has a huge amount of middleware that is either written in or depends heavily on Java and the JVM. At worst, they'll make it painful or expensive for other people to use - but then that would be exceedingly foolish, as driving developers away from your products isn't good business...
Well, yes - dealing with authoritarian governments is at best expensive and difficult and at worst may end up with you dead; dealing with some community run TV site is much easier and safer.
She then spends a few hours listening to them. This is all pure loss for Alice, in economic terms.
Unless Alice was precluded from earning money during that time because she was instead listening to music, then the act of listening to the albums most certainly does not represent an economic loss.
Time = money only if you would otherwise have sold the time and are prevented from doing so.
Britain should know better than to ask for such an idiotic thing in the first place.
This is politics. If you don't make the request, it's your fault for not making it. If you do make the request even in the full knowledge that it cannot be complied with it's the other guy's fault for refusing.
I postulate there are very few legitimate uses for document.cookie
A site I am currently working on uses it to set a cookie from the client-side in order to store view preferences on an otherwise static site. This lets users change font size and colour contrast settings (all handled by JS and/or CSS) without need for any server-side processing.
(Making the entire site static HTML was mandated for performance reasons)
If you want to take somebody else's code and do something with it (modify it, build something on top of it, etc.) they have the right to request you treat their code in the way that they wish.
Only if you distribute it. You're free to take as much GPLed code as you want and change it, copy it, etc as much as you want, as long as you don't give the binaries to anyone else. If you do, then you also have to make the source available.
If IE was a normal application, like every other browser, then you would be able to run IE 6 on Windows 7 along side IE 8 in a fully supported manner without any fancy hacks or virtualization.
Prove that the problem isn't due to the IE6 installer (can you even download it (legally) any more?) doesn't expect certain specific versions of Windows and refuse to run if the version string doesn't match.
But, of course, when Windows 9 comes out, people will still be stuck on Windows 7 and IE 8.
I'm running IE9 beta on my Windows 7 machine at home.
To be fair, I agree with the central point of your argument (code to standards, don't force upgrade unnecessarily) but your arguments don't hold water.
We know this, but we don't care because we care more about our friend count.
I don't give a shit about my friendship count. I do however care about what my friends are doing - those that are overseas (on holiday or permanently), those that I knew from school/college but lost touch with for years, etc.
Seriously, I don't understand the hate that Slashdot pours on social networking sites.
Not to mention, if that all seems like too much hassle (to people who will happily spend hours configuring their own machines just so?), just don't post the more private stuff on Facebook.
I have some friends I'll tell anything to, and do, and others I'd rather not know that sort of thing. Guess what - that sort of stuff doesn't end up in my Facebook status. Duh. Worried about photos? Don't do it in public. (And to fend off the obvious retorts, hell yes I get drunk, and any employer/future partner/etc who would object to that is saving me time and effort by pre-selecting themselves out of the running)
You don't use Facebook because of the number of people you've added as friends not based on some level of familiarity and/or trust? Seems to be a PEBKAC to me...
Slashdot Mirror
Firefox doesn't sound ridiculous to you?
It only makes sense if you know the history, and 99% of people don't.
but programmers are supposed to be intelligent detail-oriented people who after a few years of training can instinctively and deliberately avoid bugs both the subtle and the egregious
I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent, I've been told I'm detail-oriented, I have a few years training and 11 years commercial experience building on a few years worth of hobbyist experience in a wide variety of languages, though most of those 11 years have focussed on Java and C#, with a couple of years of C/C++ thrown in at the start.
Somehow, I still fail to manage to write 100% bug-free code, as does every other programmer I've ever worked with.
There is no silver bullet, and that includes just being that damn ninja.
"Is Java making me money?"
Yes, it is.
Would Larry prove its intent to totally screw Java
I'm not sure quite what you mean by "totally screw", but if you mean "kill off" that's not going to happen any time soon. Oracle has a huge amount of middleware that is either written in or depends heavily on Java and the JVM. At worst, they'll make it painful or expensive for other people to use - but then that would be exceedingly foolish, as driving developers away from your products isn't good business...
Well, yes - dealing with authoritarian governments is at best expensive and difficult and at worst may end up with you dead; dealing with some community run TV site is much easier and safer.
Today you can click yes. Tomorrow, perhaps the content is just gone.
She then spends a few hours listening to them. This is all pure loss for Alice, in economic terms.
Unless Alice was precluded from earning money during that time because she was instead listening to music, then the act of listening to the albums most certainly does not represent an economic loss.
Time = money only if you would otherwise have sold the time and are prevented from doing so.
Other than that I agree with you.
Britain should know better than to ask for such an idiotic thing in the first place.
This is politics. If you don't make the request, it's your fault for not making it. If you do make the request even in the full knowledge that it cannot be complied with it's the other guy's fault for refusing.
Well, if you take him at his word, that will be fine (assuming there are no security holes in his browser's HTML 5 implementation, of course).
Some snake oil still gets through
Well he did say "less likely to be", not "guaranteed not to be".
I postulate there are very few legitimate uses for document.cookie
A site I am currently working on uses it to set a cookie from the client-side in order to store view preferences on an otherwise static site. This lets users change font size and colour contrast settings (all handled by JS and/or CSS) without need for any server-side processing.
(Making the entire site static HTML was mandated for performance reasons)
Paranoia, and scaremongering media hell-bent on increasing readership/viewership (and thus advertising revenue).
If you want to take somebody else's code and do something with it (modify it, build something on top of it, etc.) they have the right to request you treat their code in the way that they wish.
Only if you distribute it. You're free to take as much GPLed code as you want and change it, copy it, etc as much as you want, as long as you don't give the binaries to anyone else. If you do, then you also have to make the source available.
If IE was a normal application, like every other browser, then you would be able to run IE 6 on Windows 7 along side IE 8 in a fully supported manner without any fancy hacks or virtualization.
Prove that the problem isn't due to the IE6 installer (can you even download it (legally) any more?) doesn't expect certain specific versions of Windows and refuse to run if the version string doesn't match.
But, of course, when Windows 9 comes out, people will still be stuck on Windows 7 and IE 8.
I'm running IE9 beta on my Windows 7 machine at home.
To be fair, I agree with the central point of your argument (code to standards, don't force upgrade unnecessarily) but your arguments don't hold water.
Yeah, they must be kicking themselves for having already been paid once, and possibly having been paid again to port their apps over to IE7+...
Business PCs come with Windows 7 Business or Ultimate, so this is not a consideration.
(I would also dispute "most", given how many PCs the corporates get through)
You forget that this is Slashdot, where anything even vaguely critical of Micro$oft is very much a story...
Billions of dollars are not being made off my info. If they're extremely lucky, just enough money is being made off my info to pay for the service.
Given the aggressive AdblockPlus settings and Greasemonkey scripts I have, they sure as hell aren't making much in advertising.
Guess what? Shit ain't free! Don't like it, stfu and don't use it.
We know this, but we don't care because we care more about our friend count.
I don't give a shit about my friendship count. I do however care about what my friends are doing - those that are overseas (on holiday or permanently), those that I knew from school/college but lost touch with for years, etc.
Seriously, I don't understand the hate that Slashdot pours on social networking sites.
Not to mention, if that all seems like too much hassle (to people who will happily spend hours configuring their own machines just so?), just don't post the more private stuff on Facebook.
I have some friends I'll tell anything to, and do, and others I'd rather not know that sort of thing. Guess what - that sort of stuff doesn't end up in my Facebook status. Duh. Worried about photos? Don't do it in public. (And to fend off the obvious retorts, hell yes I get drunk, and any employer/future partner/etc who would object to that is saving me time and effort by pre-selecting themselves out of the running)
You don't use Facebook because of the number of people you've added as friends not based on some level of familiarity and/or trust? Seems to be a PEBKAC to me...
I'm curious as to how that would work - do you envisage Mozilla running a (farm of) proxy server(s) that you connect to over HTTPS?
Or just left-click the tab and tear it off the window; just did it (and back again) in Firefox 3.6, and I know it's been able to do it for a while.
Yes they do; but how many OEMs put them in their machines?
Really, two weeks? I'm a bit envious of those who have enough free time for reading to reliably finish books in only two weeks...
You're envious of my 3 hours/day round trip for work? Really?