Once you are an experienced Python programmer it isn't a problem, but it can be a pain dealing with white space sensitivity while you are learning. The biggest problem is that the Python code will *look* right, but not execute.
As an experienced programmer prior learning Python it only caused me mild heartache. I don't know how easy or hard it would be for a total newcomer to programming. If they are some of the people that were in my early CS classes, I'd say they'll never get past it without help.
What problems in Ruby are you referring to that a newcomer will experience? In general, I wouldn't expect someone who is just learning to program to run into any serious difficulties with Ruby or Python (other than significant whitespace).
You simply have no justification for making that claim. There are tons of free open AP's all over the place. Most people make the assumption that open, broadcast SSID networks are free for public use. The same way that people assume open, non-password protected websites are available to be browsed. The online standard requires at least some attempt to protect the resource before it's considered private.
In the U.S. the street is public property and is not owned by the landowner. In fact even though the landowner owns the land under the sidewalks, there is a easement that allows public access to them. Anyone has just as much right to use them as the landowner.
"1.upto(5) do |number|
puts number end 1 2 3 4 5 "
This is not an example of a closure, but an example of a block. Of course this is compounded by the fact that closures are enabled by blocks. You probably don't need to worry about closures in order to pick up Ruby, but if you don't know what they are, they are well worth learning. The C equavalent to this particular code is a for loop:
int i; for (i = 1; i =5; ++i) {
printf("%s", i) }/* I believe this is syntactically correct, but I'm too lazy to compile it to check:-p */
So the news in this article is that MIT, Cal-Tech etc don't churn out the most CS degrees? Did anyone even think that? Top tier schools have never been known for quantity, they are known for quality. That's what has always separated them from other schools, not how many graduates they produce. High quantity schools generally don't have a good reputation, why do you think the MCSE is worth so little, because everyone has it. So the fact that DeVry is churning out more graduates than MIT is hardly news worthy imo.
Next they are comparing the number of people entering CS in 2000 to the number entering now? That comparison is farcical at best. In the year 2000 there were still many people entering the CS field because of the boom years, when working in the IT industry was the equivalent of the gold rush. Of course there are less people entering now than in the year 2000. A more legitimate comparison would have looked at the number of people entering CS during the pre-boom years rather than during the boom years.
While I agree that we should encourage more people to enter IT related fields, I don't agree that using misguided statistics is the best way to go about it.
I think requiring companies to pay is a big time mistake, and to me, it hails back to the days of the old BSD style licenses. The GPL works so well now, precisely because it is unobtrusive. My company runs GPL'd software because we are able to use it and make modification without either redistributing the source code and we aren't required to pay for that ability.
Requiring people to open all their changes or pay for them will put a lot of businesses off when it comes to dealing with GPL'd software. I don't think that is a good trade off to make, and I don't think it will be healthy for the open source community in general.
A move like this will make the newer BSD style licenses and / or licenses like the Python license much more attractive imo. Now that open source is finally turning the corner, and solid technologies are finally moving into the enterprise, why would we even entertain making changes that will certainly hamper open source adoption?
This isn't a consistent position in my opinion. If you are developing free software, it should remain free. The idea that you can get someone hooked on software, and then pull the rug out from under them and start charging them is ludicrous. If this were to happen, I can honestly see a major fork in the GPL happening.
Seriously if I had a dime for everytime someone predicted the demise of the desktop, I'd have a couple of bucks.
Here is the problem I have with her theory. Her points were all logical and well laid out, essentially that most people aren't system administrators and that they don't back their data up, don't secure it etc. While that is true, it doesn't necessarily lead to people giving up the desktop in favor of a thin client. Giving up your desktop is an emotional decision, and there are a lot of factors that weigh against that.
In the long run, maybe ten, fifteen or even twenty years in the future, this type of service may be much more prevalent. But I don't think something like this will change over night. Think about how much computer systems have really changed in the last ten years. Not that much if you really stop to think about it. What she is predicting is a *massive* paradigm shift to say the least. Microsoft didn't have the clout to pull it off, probably because no one trusts them enough. Do you trust Google enough to give them *all* of your data? I'm not sure I trust *anyone* that much.
I am a python programmer, and I have spend quite a bit of time with Zope. Zope is nowhere near as efficient as Rails. Zope has a ton of configuration files, and a lot of little nit picky details to deploy objects. I was really impressed to see how easy it is to crank out a database back ended site with Rails. Don't even try to compare putting out a Zope web site that uses the Z Database. Try actually connecting to a production grade RDBMS from Zope, it is *not* easy.
This is not AI. The music companies are using clustering technology.
The basic idea is that you measure certain characteristics of a song, such as voice quality, cadence, etc. I'm sure the actual characteristics used are much more complicated, but the idea is the same. Once you have your characteristics you can build a three dimensional vector out of a song. After you have your three dimensional vector, you can then use many different algorithms, one such is the Bi-secting K-means algorithm to group the songs together. After you have built your cluster, you take a new song, run it through the process and check to see how close it falls to a "hit" cluster.
We use this same process for document classification at my work, and I don't think it bears any relation on AI. As I stated above, it's a rather simple grouping technique.
There is a downside to this technology though. By measuring how close a song is to previous hits, you are guaranteeing that all new songs will be similar to old hits. This type of system tends to minimize or eliminate fresh new types of music.
I vaguely remember reading that you can put semicolons to do multiple statements, but because it's considered such poor python style I've never used it. However I stand corrected on that point.
I disagree that tuple unpacking is multiple statements though. That's the equivalent to saying that the function call do_some_operations() is carefully hiding multiple statements. Underneath the hood of python yes, tuple unpacking is multiple statements, but in python itself its nothing more than a variable assignment. What I was addressing were the cases where you would normally have a multiline expression such as a def, and compacted it to a single line. Whereas a tuple unpacked statement is typically written on a single line.
You can get a nifty little utility for Python called Py2Exe which converts Python code into a native executable file. It will extact all of the relevant libraries and build a fully working stand alone exe file. Seems like it would be pretty easy to build a network this way, people wouldn't even need python to run it.
I think you are missing the point. The point isn't that you can write a library called p2p and write a a two line python program:
import p2p
p2p.run()
the point is that using standard built in libaries of these languages you can build a fully working p2p system in a very short amount of code.
I do agree though that 15 lines is a bit misleading, although the python program is not putting multiple statements on one line, you can't do that in python. Instead he has removed all whitespace, put all defs and the following body on one line etc.
Again though, the point *isn't* trying to make a program that is highly "pythonic", it isn't. The point is that using basic libraries that have been in Python for years, you can roll a p2p server in 20 minutes.
I'm not sure how this qualifies as a vulnerability. If you read the actual discussion linked, it's very clear that this is a root kit installed after someone already has root access on your machine.
How did it suddenly become a vulnerability that if you have root access to someones machine, you can write a script that will automatically install a bunch of malware? If this were a self propagating system, or if it were packaged up as a program that users might install by accident I could see the point. As it stands now, it's a script that you have to run *after* you have root access.
Common sense should apply here. On *any* system, if you run untrusted code with root level access, it could do *bad* things to your system.
Unfortunately, I think the "I didn't do it, my computer did" defense will be all too common. How can you hold people responsible for holes in their system while microsoft produces software with numerous holes in it, but is not held responsible.
An interesting analogy is gun crimes. If someone owns a gun, and it is proven conclusively that the gun committed a crime, but it cannot be proven conclusively that the owner of the gun is the one who pulled the trigger (opportunity), then it is difficult to establish a case.
I think a similar idea will work itself out with computer crime. The fact that your computer did something isn't enough, you have to be a willing participant in the incident.
Perhaps there should be laws to punish people who leave unpatched, unprotected computers sitting on the internet. There are laws that punish irresponsible gun owners, should we also punish negligent computer owners? What about negligent programmers?
As an aside, in the last court case I was involved in, e-mail was admissible in court. The only thing I had to do was produce some e-mail correspondence between myself and the other party. The lawyers and the judges all accepted them without a word. While the e-mails were in fact real, and the transmission could be verified by isp records, the simple fact that the opposing council didn't so much as raise an eyebrow shows me just how ignorant the legal system still is when it comes to technology. This happened less than a year ago.
This is a typical problem, that was discussed a few days ago. People are confusing microsoft's success in general with Technological superiority.
I find it interesting that *anyone* would care what Bill Gate's opinion is on security. The volume of critical problems reported, and of actual viruses and worms that have spread across the internet lately should've been enough to indicate that microsoft doesn't have a good understanding of security in general.
His argument is an interesting point of view though. It sounds to me like he's saying microsoft doesn't need perfect code because people can just install firewalls. What if the code in the firewalls in turn isn't perfect though? Doesn't that leave us in an insecure position again? What about the e-mail scanning software? What if it misses a virus? Shouldn't you have layers of protection, instead of an outer layer of protection and a soft underbelly?
Of course he is shifting the burden back to the users of the software again. If only they had our firewall product and a good e-mail scanning software package, and if they kept their software up to date none of this would've happened.
Of course if they didn't ship their software with nearly every service turned on by default, and everyone running as root this wouldn't have happened either, but let's not trifle with details.
I really liked the part at the end where he comments that all the viruses and attacks on microsoft's os are really a compliment.
Interestingly he's not referring to Hackers as the term is commonly applied.
He is referring to the original sense of Hacker.
Read his articles: How to be a Hacker A brief history of hackerdom.
I think the logo is a great idea. Yes a lot of people who don't deserve to have the logo will display it, but then that won't change anything from how it is today.
Who We Are We are academics, hackers, and professionals. None of us were born in the computing analog of Ken Pier's East Africa. We have all experienced much more advanced, usable, and elegant systems than Unix ever was, or ever can be. Some of these systems have increasingly forgotten names, such as TOPS-20, ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing System), Multics, Apollo Domain, the Lisp Machine, Cedar/Mesa, and the Dorado. Some of us even use Macs and Windows boxes. Many of us are highly proficient programmers who have served our time trying to practice our craft upon Unix systems. It's tempting to write us off as envious malcontents, romantic keepers of memories of systems put to pasture by the commercial success of Unix, but it would be an error to do so: our judgments are keen, our sense of the possible pure, and our outrage authentic. We seek progress, not the reestablishment of ancient relics.
I have seen some of the demos of ITS, TOPS 20 and Multics. These really were *incredible* systems. Because someone has seen systems better than Unix doesn't automatically imply they like Microsoft. Maybe one day we can get production of Lisp Machines back on track.:)
That's just what we need, another patent case gone wrong. This whole concept of allowing patents on a concept is crazy. Whatever happened to the american dream of building a better mouse trap? In this day an age it seems someone could patent the idea of catching mice, and if you attempt to build a better one, you better watch out.
I find it suprising that a judge would say "credit card sized" doesn't really mean "credit card sized", he actually agreed with E-Pass that it's simply a generic term for a small computer!!
Somehow, the country needs to be mobilized against this more expansive more generic term of patents. It used to be that your device had to be 20% different than a patented device. It seems now though, it just has to be vaguely the same as the concept patented, and you could be infringing. Of course the judge didn't specifically rule in favor of E-Pass, rather he just said the District judge was incorrect when he threw out the case based on size. So it seems like now there is caselaw that allows you to argue that a very specific wording in your patent like "credit card sized" can instead be applied generically to small.
I suspect that you are just trolling, but I'll bite.
I find it odd that you would make this claim. One of the major themes in 1984 was that the government knew your location at all times, clearly there were others (i.e. continual propaganda, one minute of hate, perpetual war, thought control, revisionist history, and prohibition against individual expression) however Orwell was vigorously against the idea that the government would know where you were at all times and what you were doing. To say that creating and proliferating a technology that will allow continual and near instantaneous tracking of people isn't Orwellian is to show a deeply misguided understanding of Orwell's work. He clearly expresses this thought when Winston finds the bedroom over the shop in the Prole quarters. He goes on at great length about the freedom that Winston feels being away from the search eyes of the government.
It isn't so much that I'm against the natural advance in technology or even against the government using that technology to catch criminals. Rather I think that each technological advance gives the government greater and greater control and power in our lives. As their power expands, the transparency of the process to ordinary citizens must increase (which it is not), otherwise I believe we will ultimately end up enslaved.
Thomas Jefferson once said something to the effect that "Government is like fire, a great servant, but a fearful master." Words to ponder if you care at all about your freedom.
<paraphrase> This device isn't really for spying, it's more to allow parents to spy on their children, and employers to spy on their employees. </paraphrase>
They of course fail to mention that if the technology were available, a judge could easily grant a warrant to allow authorities to observe your movements without notifying you.
In many ways this is worse than Orwellian, because at least in Orwell's vision, you could still hide from the cameras or escape to places that didn't have cameras on them. With this device if you had it on (assuming it works as well as they claim (doubtful)) they could pinpoint your location all the time. I guess you could just leave it in your office while you went to play that round of golf and say you were in a meeting.;)
Still this technology is simply a herald of more instrusive technology to come. Move over Orwell, the future may be worse than you imagined. As someone said in an earlier story, doubleplusungood.
I really like the second version he's come up with. I think the first version was just way too risky legally. This version sounds really solid though IMO.
I would love to see this cross-apply to different industries as well. Essentially it's just a digital library. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be legal to operate snapster 2.0.
I totally second that. I've become really fascinated with Lisp through reading Paul Graham's web site. It's interesting to note that his views seem to be widely held by many respected computer scientists. Lisp may be difficult to read compared to a standard imperative language, but the power and flexibility it offers are unparalleled IMO.
Since my company will *never* standardize on Lisp, it looks like we are going to standardize on Python, which isn't as powerful but is certainly more readeable for the masses. I will say that Python is very impressive, it is very cleanly designed, extrememly powerful and amazingly fast.
I bought your book _Text Processing in Python_, I must say it is excellent so far (although I'm not too far into it). I've read Appendix A, which does provide a very good intro to the Python language (I've been using it at work for about six months solid now), and I'm wading through chapter one. There is a lot of material to digest in a short period in the first few sections. I have some background with Functional Programming from Lisp, but it's nice to see it covered in Python (as I have much more chance to apply it with Python). I particularly liked the introduction to Generators (new in Python 2.3) as I've already used them a couple of times.
I got the recommendation for your book here on slashdot, and I went to your site (the similarity to that troll link not withstanding). I was really impressed that you offered the full text of your book online, so I purchased it for several reasons: 1) it really is a well written book, which I got to really see by browsing through the chapters as opposed to the table of contents. 2) I want to support authors who are willing to make the text available online 3) I really did need a good Text Processing book, we process *a lot* of text at my job.
Thank you for this excellent Tome, I can already tell it's going to be used extensively at my workplace. Already several other copies are going to be purchased.
This reminds me of watching a Dallas Cowboys vs. Oakland Raiders game. The only thing I can root for is injuries.
I detest this concept of overly broad patents, I only dislike Microsoft extremely. I can't say I really want to see Microsoft win, but I *definately* don't want to see the mis-application of patents continue.
Ultimately I think overly broad patents and the mis-use of the patent system constitute a far greater threat to Linux and Open Source than anything Microsoft could do. In fact they constitute a huge threat to the entire concept of freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you are an experienced Python programmer it isn't a problem, but it can be a pain dealing with white space sensitivity while you are learning. The biggest problem is that the Python code will *look* right, but not execute.
As an experienced programmer prior learning Python it only caused me mild heartache. I don't know how easy or hard it would be for a total newcomer to programming. If they are some of the people that were in my early CS classes, I'd say they'll never get past it without help.
What problems in Ruby are you referring to that a newcomer will experience? In general, I wouldn't expect someone who is just learning to program to run into any serious difficulties with Ruby or Python (other than significant whitespace).
You simply have no justification for making that claim. There are tons of free open AP's all over the place. Most people make the assumption that open, broadcast SSID networks are free for public use. The same way that people assume open, non-password protected websites are available to be browsed. The online standard requires at least some attempt to protect the resource before it's considered private.
In the U.S. the street is public property and is not owned by the landowner. In fact even though the landowner owns the land under the sidewalks, there is a easement that allows public access to them. Anyone has just as much right to use them as the landowner.
"1.upto(5) do |number|
/* I believe this is syntactically correct, but I'm too lazy to compile it to check :-p */
puts number
end
1
2
3
4
5
"
This is not an example of a closure, but an example of a block. Of course this is compounded by the fact that closures are enabled by blocks. You probably don't need to worry about closures in order to pick up Ruby, but if you don't know what they are, they are well worth learning. The C equavalent to this particular code is a for loop:
int i;
for (i = 1; i =5; ++i) {
printf("%s", i)
}
So the news in this article is that MIT, Cal-Tech etc don't churn out
the most CS degrees? Did anyone even think that? Top tier schools
have never been known for quantity, they are known for quality.
That's what has always separated them from other schools, not how many
graduates they produce. High quantity schools generally don't have a
good reputation, why do you think the MCSE is worth so little, because
everyone has it. So the fact that DeVry is churning out more
graduates than MIT is hardly news worthy imo.
Next they are comparing the number of people entering CS in 2000 to
the number entering now? That comparison is farcical at best. In the
year 2000 there were still many people entering the CS field because
of the boom years, when working in the IT industry was the equivalent
of the gold rush. Of course there are less people entering now than
in the year 2000. A more legitimate comparison would have looked at
the number of people entering CS during the pre-boom years rather than
during the boom years.
While I agree that we should encourage more people to enter IT related
fields, I don't agree that using misguided statistics is the best way
to go about it.
I think requiring companies to pay is a big time mistake, and to me, it
hails back to the days of the old BSD style licenses. The GPL works
so well now, precisely because it is unobtrusive. My company runs
GPL'd software because we are able to use it and make modification
without either redistributing the source code and we aren't required
to pay for that ability.
Requiring people to open all their changes or pay for them will put a
lot of businesses off when it comes to dealing with GPL'd software. I
don't think that is a good trade off to make, and I don't think it
will be healthy for the open source community in general.
A move like this will make the newer BSD style licenses and / or
licenses like the Python license much more attractive imo. Now that
open source is finally turning the corner, and solid technologies are
finally moving into the enterprise, why would we even entertain making
changes that will certainly hamper open source adoption?
This isn't a consistent position in my opinion. If you are
developing free software, it should remain free. The idea that you
can get someone hooked on software, and then pull the rug out from
under them and start charging them is ludicrous. If this were to
happen, I can honestly see a major fork in the GPL happening.
Seriously if I had a dime for everytime someone predicted the demise
of the desktop, I'd have a couple of bucks.
Here is the problem I have with her theory. Her points were all
logical and well laid out, essentially that most people aren't system
administrators and that they don't back their data up, don't secure it
etc. While that is true, it doesn't necessarily lead to people giving
up the desktop in favor of a thin client. Giving up your desktop is
an emotional decision, and there are a lot of factors that weigh
against that.
In the long run, maybe ten, fifteen or even twenty years in the
future, this type of service may be much more prevalent. But I don't
think something like this will change over night. Think about how
much computer systems have really changed in the last ten years. Not
that much if you really stop to think about it. What she is
predicting is a *massive* paradigm shift to say the least. Microsoft
didn't have the clout to pull it off, probably because no one trusts
them enough. Do you trust Google enough to give them *all* of your
data? I'm not sure I trust *anyone* that much.
I am a python programmer, and I have spend quite a bit of time with Zope. Zope is nowhere near as efficient as Rails. Zope has a ton of configuration files, and a lot of little nit picky details to deploy objects. I was really impressed to see how easy it is to crank out a database back ended site with Rails. Don't even try to compare putting out a Zope web site that uses the Z Database. Try actually connecting to a production grade RDBMS from Zope, it is *not* easy.
This is not AI. The music companies are using clustering technology.
The basic idea is that you measure certain characteristics of a song,
such as voice quality, cadence, etc. I'm sure the actual
characteristics used are much more complicated, but the idea is the
same. Once you have your characteristics you can build a three
dimensional vector out of a song. After you have your three
dimensional vector, you can then use many different algorithms, one
such is the Bi-secting K-means algorithm to group the songs together.
After you have built your cluster, you take a new song, run it through
the process and check to see how close it falls to a "hit" cluster.
We use this same process for document classification at my work, and I
don't think it bears any relation on AI. As I stated above, it's a
rather simple grouping technique.
There is a downside to this technology though. By measuring how close a
song is to previous hits, you are guaranteeing that all new songs will
be similar to old hits. This type of system tends to minimize or
eliminate fresh new types of music.
(why the word wrapping? Emacs auto-fill-mode)
I vaguely remember reading that you can put semicolons to do multiple statements, but because it's considered such poor python style I've never used it. However I stand corrected on that point.
I disagree that tuple unpacking is multiple statements though. That's the equivalent to saying that the function call do_some_operations() is carefully hiding multiple statements. Underneath the hood of python yes, tuple unpacking is multiple statements, but in python itself its nothing more than a variable assignment. What I was addressing were the cases where you would normally have a multiline expression such as a def, and compacted it to a single line. Whereas a tuple unpacked statement is typically written on a single line.
You can get a nifty little utility for Python called Py2Exe which converts Python code into a native executable file. It will extact all of the relevant libraries and build a fully working stand alone exe file. Seems like it would be pretty easy to build a network this way, people wouldn't even need python to run it.
I think you are missing the point. The point isn't that you can write a library called p2p and write a a two line python program:
import p2p
p2p.run()
the point is that using standard built in libaries of these languages you can build a fully working p2p system in a very short amount of code.
I do agree though that 15 lines is a bit misleading, although the python program is not putting multiple statements on one line, you can't do that in python. Instead he has removed all whitespace, put all defs and the following body on one line etc.
Again though, the point *isn't* trying to make a program that is highly "pythonic", it isn't. The point is that using basic libraries that have been in Python for years, you can roll a p2p server in 20 minutes.
I'm not sure how this qualifies as a vulnerability. If you read the
actual discussion linked, it's very clear that this is a root kit
installed after someone already has root access on your machine.
How did it suddenly become a vulnerability that if you have root
access to someones machine, you can write a script that will
automatically install a bunch of malware? If this were a self
propagating system, or if it were packaged up as a program that users
might install by accident I could see the point. As it stands now,
it's a script that you have to run *after* you have root access.
Common sense should apply here. On *any* system, if you run untrusted
code with root level access, it could do *bad* things to your system.
Unfortunately, I think the "I didn't do it, my computer did"
defense will be all too common. How can you hold people
responsible for holes in their system while microsoft produces
software with numerous holes in it, but is not held responsible.
An interesting analogy is gun crimes. If someone owns a gun,
and it is proven conclusively that the gun committed a crime,
but it cannot be proven conclusively that the owner of the gun
is the one who pulled the trigger (opportunity), then it is
difficult to establish a case.
I think a similar idea will work itself out with computer
crime. The fact that your computer did something isn't enough,
you have to be a willing participant in the incident.
Perhaps there should be laws to punish people who leave
unpatched, unprotected computers sitting on the internet. There
are laws that punish irresponsible gun owners, should we also
punish negligent computer owners? What about negligent
programmers?
As an aside, in the last court case I was involved in, e-mail
was admissible in court. The only thing I had to do was produce
some e-mail correspondence between myself and the other party.
The lawyers and the judges all accepted them without a word.
While the e-mails were in fact real, and the transmission could
be verified by isp records, the simple fact that the opposing
council didn't so much as raise an eyebrow shows me just how
ignorant the legal system still is when it comes to technology.
This happened less than a year ago.
This is a typical problem, that was discussed a few days ago. People
are confusing microsoft's success in general with Technological
superiority.
I find it interesting that *anyone* would care what Bill Gate's
opinion is on security. The volume of critical problems reported, and
of actual viruses and worms that have spread across the internet
lately should've been enough to indicate that microsoft doesn't have a
good understanding of security in general.
His argument is an interesting point of view though. It sounds to me
like he's saying microsoft doesn't need perfect code because people
can just install firewalls. What if the code in the firewalls in turn
isn't perfect though? Doesn't that leave us in an insecure position
again? What about the e-mail scanning software? What if it misses a
virus? Shouldn't you have layers of protection, instead of an outer
layer of protection and a soft underbelly?
Of course he is shifting the burden back to the users of the software
again. If only they had our firewall product and a good e-mail
scanning software package, and if they kept their software up to date
none of this would've happened.
Of course if they didn't ship their software with nearly every service
turned on by default, and everyone running as root this wouldn't have
happened either, but let's not trifle with details.
I really liked the part at the end where he comments that all the
viruses and attacks on microsoft's os are really a compliment.
You keep telling yourself that Bill.
Interestingly he's not referring to Hackers as the term is commonly applied.
He is referring to the original sense of Hacker.
Read his articles:
How to be a Hacker
A brief history of hackerdom.
I think the logo is a great idea. Yes a lot of people who don't deserve to have the logo will display it, but then that won't change anything from how it is today.
The Unix haters handbook was written by:
:)
Who We Are
We are academics, hackers, and professionals. None of us were born in the computing analog of Ken Pier's East Africa. We have all experienced much more advanced, usable, and elegant systems than Unix ever was, or ever can be. Some of these systems have increasingly forgotten names, such as TOPS-20, ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing System), Multics, Apollo Domain, the Lisp Machine, Cedar/Mesa, and the Dorado. Some of us even use Macs and Windows boxes. Many of us are highly proficient programmers who have served our time trying to practice our craft upon Unix systems. It's tempting to write us off as envious malcontents, romantic keepers of memories of systems put to pasture by the commercial success of Unix, but it would be an error to do so: our judgments are keen, our sense of the possible pure, and our outrage authentic. We seek progress, not the reestablishment of ancient relics.
You can find that here:
Unix Haters Preface
I have seen some of the demos of ITS, TOPS 20 and Multics. These really were *incredible* systems. Because someone has seen systems better than Unix doesn't automatically imply they like Microsoft. Maybe one day we can get production of Lisp Machines back on track.
That's just what we need, another patent case gone wrong. This whole
concept of allowing patents on a concept is crazy. Whatever happened
to the american dream of building a better mouse trap? In this day
an age it seems someone could patent the idea of catching mice, and
if you attempt to build a better one, you better watch out.
I find it suprising that a judge would say "credit card sized"
doesn't really mean "credit card sized", he actually agreed with
E-Pass that it's simply a generic term for a small computer!!
Somehow, the country needs to be mobilized against this more
expansive more generic term of patents. It used to be that your
device had to be 20% different than a patented device. It seems now
though, it just has to be vaguely the same as the concept patented,
and you could be infringing. Of course the judge didn't specifically
rule in favor of E-Pass, rather he just said the District judge was
incorrect when he threw out the case based on size. So it seems like
now there is caselaw that allows you to argue that a very specific
wording in your patent like "credit card sized" can instead be
applied generically to small.
More fun times with the legal system.
" It's not orwellian, it's not even close.
You've never read the mans work, obviously."
I suspect that you are just trolling, but I'll bite.
I find it odd that you would make this claim. One of the major themes in 1984 was that the government knew your location at all times, clearly there were others (i.e. continual propaganda, one minute of hate, perpetual war, thought control, revisionist history, and prohibition against individual expression) however Orwell was vigorously against the idea that the government would know where you were at all times and what you were doing. To say that creating and proliferating a technology that will allow continual and near instantaneous tracking of people isn't Orwellian is to show a deeply misguided understanding of Orwell's work. He clearly expresses this thought when Winston finds the bedroom over the shop in the Prole quarters. He goes on at great length about the freedom that Winston feels being away from the search eyes of the government.
It isn't so much that I'm against the natural advance in technology or even against the government using that technology to catch criminals. Rather I think that each technological advance gives the government greater and greater control and power in our lives. As their power expands, the transparency of the process to ordinary citizens must increase (which it is not), otherwise I believe we will ultimately end up enslaved.
Thomas Jefferson once said something to the effect that "Government is like fire, a great servant, but a fearful master." Words to ponder if you care at all about your freedom.
I find the wording of the press release ironic.
;)
<paraphrase>
This device isn't really for spying, it's more to allow parents to spy
on their children, and employers to spy on their employees.
</paraphrase>
They of course fail to mention that if the technology were available, a judge
could easily grant a warrant to allow authorities to observe your
movements without notifying you.
In many ways this is worse than Orwellian, because at least in
Orwell's vision, you could still hide from the cameras or escape to
places that didn't have cameras on them. With this device if you had
it on (assuming it works as well as they claim (doubtful)) they could
pinpoint your location all the time. I guess you could just leave it
in your office while you went to play that round of golf and say you
were in a meeting.
Still this technology is simply a herald of more instrusive technology
to come. Move over Orwell, the future may be worse than you imagined.
As someone said in an earlier story, doubleplusungood.
I really like the second version he's come up with. I think the first version was just way too risky legally. This version sounds really solid though IMO.
I would love to see this cross-apply to different industries as well. Essentially it's just a digital library. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be legal to operate snapster 2.0.
I for one would join for certain.
I totally second that. I've become really fascinated with Lisp through reading Paul Graham's web site. It's interesting to note that his views seem to be widely held by many respected computer scientists. Lisp may be difficult to read compared to a standard imperative language, but the power and flexibility it offers are unparalleled IMO.
Since my company will *never* standardize on Lisp, it looks like we are going to standardize on Python, which isn't as powerful but is certainly more readeable for the masses. I will say that Python is very impressive, it is very cleanly designed, extrememly powerful and amazingly fast.
David,
I bought your book _Text Processing in Python_, I must say it is excellent so far (although I'm not too far into it). I've read Appendix A, which does provide a very good intro to the Python language (I've been using it at work for about six months solid now), and I'm wading through chapter one. There is a lot of material to digest in a short period in the first few sections. I have some background with Functional Programming from Lisp, but it's nice to see it covered in Python (as I have much more chance to apply it with Python). I particularly liked the introduction to Generators (new in Python 2.3) as I've already used them a couple of times.
I got the recommendation for your book here on slashdot, and I went to your site (the similarity to that troll link not withstanding). I was really impressed that you offered the full text of your book online, so I purchased it for several reasons:
1) it really is a well written book, which I got to really see by browsing through the chapters as opposed to the table of contents.
2) I want to support authors who are willing to make the text available online
3) I really did need a good Text Processing book, we process *a lot* of text at my job.
Thank you for this excellent Tome, I can already tell it's going to be used extensively at my workplace. Already several other copies are going to be purchased.
No, no, you can root for an asteroid to land at the 50 yard line...
See, that's exactly my point...that would cause injuries!
This reminds me of watching a Dallas Cowboys vs. Oakland Raiders game. The only thing I can root for is injuries.
I detest this concept of overly broad patents, I only dislike Microsoft extremely. I can't say I really want to see Microsoft win, but I *definately* don't want to see the mis-application of patents continue.
Ultimately I think overly broad patents and the mis-use of the patent system constitute a far greater threat to Linux and Open Source than anything Microsoft could do. In fact they constitute a huge threat to the entire concept of freedom.