Would GPL be weakened by a strict ruling on this? Would this help make their case that GPL is overly viral? Kinda worries me after the thrust of their prior attacks. Maybe this is a no-lose situation for them...
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$you = new YOU;
Re:scripting languages are a dime a dozen
on
Why not Ruby?
·
· Score: 2
the real question is why people keep reinventing the wheel.
Nah, part of building on what came before is knowing what to throw out. Perl 1 was very much a knockoff of `sh' scripting and `c' coding mixed with `awk' and `sed'. Larry Wall wanted a common interface and a more rational data model to tie them together with. From a broken but standardized scripting language to a cleaner syntax stolen from `c' and two of the best tools' tricks built directly in was athe basic plan there. Building on sh would have made it a nightmare.
And Python started out building a core OOP language with a script heart and syntax that was miles from it's closest rational starting point (Java).
...a good scripting language implementation that takes full advantage of C++.
Which language would you recommend we start from? To make it work well would require some nasty bolting-on in some languages.
The reason so many languages have become popular and why Ruby hasn't is one simple koan. "It must have a compelling reason to change."
Perls 1-4 had it (better, faster, cleaner shell scripting that was shell independent, regex). Perl 5 had it (oop and better code reuse, mush improved data model for an (by then) old standard. Python had it (clean pre-planned syntax, clean oop, death to braces). Scheme had it (throw out the old, revamp the syntax, speed up the core). C++ had it way back when (oop). Java had it (c++ ish with scriptability thanks to garbage collection, bytecode model). Javascript had it (ran in browser, simple syntax a "web programmer" could use and a real programmer didn't start crying [too much] over.) TCL had it (tk hookup, meta shell system, shell-ish syntax). Bash had it (un-borked sh, added kitchen sink).
What does Ruby really offer as a compelling reason to change? Honestly. Just a "better" perlish syntax and newer oop? Is that compelling enough? Better international support? Compelling for the Japanese users sure but for the english-speaking coders is that useful or a hinderance?
See, I love the product but trademark law is pretty clear on this sort of thing. If they had a named a toaster or a car or a haircut "Aimster" they would still have that domain. The trick to trademarks are that you can't pick a confusing name and then play in the same sandbox. Their product worked through and with AIM and they named it AIMster which does in-fact make it look like it was a related product, (which it is, of course) but in trademark terms it also makes it look like it is "blessed" by the holders of the original name. We'll all be on the other side of this when M$ decides to sell their own version of Linux and starts calling it mslinux.net =)
Heinlein made it clear in more than one interview that he was deliberately trying to walk a fine line between a Fascist state and a Democratic or Representative one. He also went out of his way to never state what the race of the main protagonist was. He knocked himself out on that book to keep it even handed. His hope was that it would ask questions of the reader that a more heavy-handed approach wouldn't. He quite expected many people to blindly label it without reading it.
And, really, limited franchise isn't all there is to Fascism. More than one modern country today requires the majority of their citizens to have served in their military. (Israel is one)
The Government in ST was a Republic much along the lines of the U.S. excepting only that office holders and voters must be veterans of voluntary military service.
The theory behind it was that one of key responsibilities we hand our governmnt is deciding when and why to make war. In the book, the vets felt that the people sending them to war didn't understand the costs. They hoped that putting veterans in charge would ensure that the people making decisions woould know what it meant to fight and maybe die for something.
some of the questions he left for you to ask yourself:
Is a republic with voluntary enfranchisement more or less free?
Is a government made up of veterans more or less likely to go to war at the right times?... the wrong times?
Does the "brotherhood" of the "fought-together" translate into patroitism or fascism when enfranchised?
Well, yeah but generally not to the "normal"'s face unless they relly ask for it. And for all the disecting, most that I know are rather non-committal on the final judgement.
Most geek types that I know tend toward the Agnostic/We'll see when we get there sort of views. OTOH they have tended to be the most tolerant of other viewpoints of the people I have worked with.
Me I believe in Exo-solipsism. This is all the head, just it must be someone elses....
Easier is doing both for me these days. Why not watch TV while surfing? Tho I have to say TV's degenerationg into tabloidism has turned me to the internet for news more so than the quality or timelyness or other internet "pro" points.
Headline news stays on 24hrs a day at work in the NOC. And I give this to Katz, he's right on the money about Comedy Central's coverage of politics. They are the best news source on tv for it right now. It's not just Al is a tree jokes, they have to get the issues straight in order to poke fun at em. Regular media always has a slant, like they couldn't help their opinion showing thru.
The best thing for news readers on the web is archives. If you want to know if something is horribly slanted, flip back a few days and read more by the same people. Do they always slant one way?
Paper news, I hope it never dies. There is something beautiful about a big hunk of dead tree that the internet has never gotten near. And that stupid M$ reader is worse not better, don't let em fool ya!
Great plan, only you have to have already bought one to ever get another... Slowly over the years, as labels show up damaged, you are whittled down to the point where the only foods you can order are canned okra, pineapple teriyaki sauce, and spam.
Exactly, head off to a museum and ask for Katz's or Cringely's job! =P Oh wait, doh! They are WRITERS. Get a real job and try and write on the side. If you can make writing pay, do so. If you don't want a real job, try and get real rich parents, or sponge off of a rich/working wife.
Not to be too rude here, look into media job if this is what interests you. I don't see much value in a historian at a company, except maybe if you can scam an ombudsman job for a support group. I figure that is the sort of job that makes the most sense in the real world, that might do what you want. Or try the writer thing for real.
Oh yeah, if you go into tech writing, get used to getting flamed on/. =)
Now I may be crazy here but as I recall part of getting your MA/MS/PHD at most schools includes writing a thesis. Don't they own it as a work for hire? Also, don't they make you sign it away as part of getting the MA/MS/PHD?
They sure own student produced works, (eg BSD anyone?)
It would be easy for these content people to get blanket permission from a few Uni's. Worse, you may not own your own work at all, or have rights to sign away to others...
"How can companies like Sega be
convinced that products that don't make them money anymore should be made GPL?"
Short Answer, you can't.
They are smarter than that. They know that
trends change back and forth. That eldritch
ROM is also a property with a character or
theme that might be resurrected if/when things
change. Did you ever in a million years think
Pong3D would ever be a real license? I sure didn't but there it is making someone money again after all these years. GPL'ing the ROM is tantamount to giving up the copyright on the concepts behind the game. They just won't give up what may one day be valuable again.
What we need to do is get WIPO declared unconstitutional and then move copyrights back to a reasonable value like 50 years from creation or 5 years after death which ever is longer. Copyrights are like patents, a period of time to control and make money off your idea, then it reverts to society as a whole.
Oh yeah and while we are at it, recind the evil Musicians work for Hire thing.
Fonts are art works. Every letter gets tweaked and mooshed and adjusted. Letter pairs are sometimes handled specially (ligatures) like the fi combination in many fonts lets the dot in the "i" smear into the "f". Most of the "copycat" fonts shoot for the same looks but are quite different when directly compared.
It is stable enough to start adding to. The APIs are quite settled on and the code is more than capable of being stretched out.
I now use mozilla on win98 about 90% of the time.
I am going to use it 100% of the time on slashdot so I can turn nested comments back on a read the dand page while it is loading. NS4.7 hangs almost 30 seconds on the 800+KB page all in one table nightmare than these long posts have become.
Actually, I'd probably call it a MUST at this point. They wrote into the contracts that way =) BTW read http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2119.html for the MUST/SHOULD definitions if you don't know what is up with all this.
Based on http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1035.html they point out that http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html should be taken into account when making mail domains since you don't want to break mail address parsers. I'd say the world is complicated enough withou changing the rules now! --
No he meant continuous. Really. The hole means that a line drawn on the surface and then slid around would have a break in it at the hole, thus non-continuous. Math sucks =) --
You're wrong. The perlcc (CPAN->B::CC) makes an optimised pre-byte-encoded binary.
In effect it saves you the startup parse step and allows you to make a "compiled binary". The CB is just a copy of the parse-tree bytecode, loader and the perl lib. It still has a full compile and interpet engine and still interpets the bytecode tree. It can still "eval" perl code so it has to have a full compile engine still.
mod_perl takes the same route by caching the post parsed code for speed gains and disk load avoidance.
Perl offers easy prototyping and quick evolutionary programming (twiddle with live code =). --
You need to get Jon to post stuff like this article HERE!
This is good stuff, the best of what I like from Jon, no pretension, no nonsense, just clear personable writing.
From now on Jon, WRITE ABOUT PEOPLE. Write about yourself, write about geeks, write about non-geeks suffering/learning tech. Don't write about technology directly EVER AGAIN. Point it at people and you become 2 - 4 TIMES the engaging writer.
Thanks, BTW.
P.S. I wasn't sure they were real geeks until they hit the first few posts on/. (and aren't AC!) --
The habit of using "!" to not the return of a function will also blow up on you at the oddest times.
Look at the return of the system() call.
C people avoid TRUE/FALSE definitions because it isn't built in. You never know when some goof ball is is going to stomp on your TRUE/FALSE definitions and some people use T/F or TR/FL or other bad things(tm). --
I think this reasonable in that it makes a "Jury Memeber" (JM) think about whether they want to post to participate or moderate. JMs, as you said, won't have that many opportunities to moderate since their point allocation will be low.
The REAL drawback is that the best moderators for a particular subject are the best clued. Now we have the ones we most want posting and moderating deciding which to do.
OTOH, limiting the points sufficiently may overcome this, the same way it overcomes the "Tyranny of the Majority" by preventing emotional votes. You don't have enough votes to be flippant with them, you have to save them for when they count. Also, I gather marking up is more important than squelching, and the moderator system is geared to that by the -1..5 system.
All in all it sounds OK to me. Especially the backing out of moderation if you just HAVE to post. That lets you moderate first and participate if no one else gets to your point. --
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure it is ONLY 71,111 diskettes. =) Which makes a stack just over 1/10 of a mile long...
--
$you = new YOU;
Nah, part of building on what came before is knowing what to throw out. Perl 1 was very much a knockoff of `sh' scripting and `c' coding mixed with `awk' and `sed'. Larry Wall wanted a common interface and a more rational data model to tie them together with. From a broken but standardized scripting language to a cleaner syntax stolen from `c' and two of the best tools' tricks built directly in was athe basic plan there. Building on sh would have made it a nightmare.
And Python started out building a core OOP language with a script heart and syntax that was miles from it's closest rational starting point (Java).
Which language would you recommend we start from? To make it work well would require some nasty bolting-on in some languages.
The reason so many languages have become popular and why Ruby hasn't is one simple koan. "It must have a compelling reason to change."
Perls 1-4 had it (better, faster, cleaner shell scripting that was shell independent, regex). Perl 5 had it (oop and better code reuse, mush improved data model for an (by then) old standard. Python had it (clean pre-planned syntax, clean oop, death to braces). Scheme had it (throw out the old, revamp the syntax, speed up the core). C++ had it way back when (oop). Java had it (c++ ish with scriptability thanks to garbage collection, bytecode model). Javascript had it (ran in browser, simple syntax a "web programmer" could use and a real programmer didn't start crying [too much] over.) TCL had it (tk hookup, meta shell system, shell-ish syntax). Bash had it (un-borked sh, added kitchen sink).
What does Ruby really offer as a compelling reason to change? Honestly. Just a "better" perlish syntax and newer oop? Is that compelling enough? Better international support? Compelling for the Japanese users sure but for the english-speaking coders is that useful or a hinderance?
(Note the .sig, I might be _bit_ biased. =)
--
$you = new YOU;
--
$you = new YOU;
And, really, limited franchise isn't all there is to Fascism. More than one modern country today requires the majority of their citizens to have served in their military. (Israel is one) The Government in ST was a Republic much along the lines of the U.S. excepting only that office holders and voters must be veterans of voluntary military service.
The theory behind it was that one of key responsibilities we hand our governmnt is deciding when and why to make war. In the book, the vets felt that the people sending them to war didn't understand the costs. They hoped that putting veterans in charge would ensure that the people making decisions woould know what it meant to fight and maybe die for something.
some of the questions he left for you to ask yourself:
--
$you = new YOU;
--
$you = new YOU;
--
$you = new YOU;
Me I believe in Exo-solipsism. This is all the head, just it must be someone elses....
--
$you = new YOU;
Headline news stays on 24hrs a day at work in the NOC. And I give this to Katz, he's right on the money about Comedy Central's coverage of politics. They are the best news source on tv for it right now. It's not just Al is a tree jokes, they have to get the issues straight in order to poke fun at em. Regular media always has a slant, like they couldn't help their opinion showing thru.
The best thing for news readers on the web is archives. If you want to know if something is horribly slanted, flip back a few days and read more by the same people. Do they always slant one way?
Paper news, I hope it never dies. There is something beautiful about a big hunk of dead tree that the internet has never gotten near. And that stupid M$ reader is worse not better, don't let em fool ya!
--
$you = new YOU;
=P
--
$you = new YOU;
Not to be too rude here, look into media job if this is what interests you. I don't see much value in a historian at a company, except maybe if you can scam an ombudsman job for a support group. I figure that is the sort of job that makes the most sense in the real world, that might do what you want. Or try the writer thing for real.
Oh yeah, if you go into tech writing, get used to getting flamed on
--
$you = new YOU;
They sure own student produced works, (eg BSD anyone?)
It would be easy for these content people to get blanket permission from a few Uni's. Worse, you may not own your own work at all, or have rights to sign away to others...
Sucky but possible
--
$you = new YOU;
"How can companies like Sega be convinced that products that don't make them money anymore should be made GPL?"
Short Answer, you can't.
They are smarter than that. They know that trends change back and forth. That eldritch ROM is also a property with a character or theme that might be resurrected if/when things change. Did you ever in a million years think Pong3D would ever be a real license? I sure didn't but there it is making someone money again after all these years. GPL'ing the ROM is tantamount to giving up the copyright on the concepts behind the game. They just won't give up what may one day be valuable again.
What we need to do is get WIPO declared unconstitutional and then move copyrights back to a reasonable value like 50 years from creation or 5 years after death which ever is longer. Copyrights are like patents, a period of time to control and make money off your idea, then it reverts to society as a whole.
Oh yeah and while we are at it, recind the evil Musicians work for Hire thing.
And I want a Pony too. (A nice Ford 5.0 pony =)
--
$you = new YOU;
Fonts are art works. Every letter gets tweaked and mooshed and adjusted. Letter pairs are sometimes handled specially (ligatures) like the fi combination in many fonts lets the dot in the "i" smear into the "f". Most of the "copycat" fonts shoot for the same looks but are quite different when directly compared.
Too good of a knockoff CAN get you sued. Adobe suit or this one Adobe again and more on that second one.
The copyright issue isn't fixed but it _is_ getting there. Shameful that we protect other things way too far and this so little.
--
What, do you have ANY idea what you are talking about? Do you know what HZ is?
OK, here it is CYCLES PER SECOND. That is it.
You can't "divide" it by HZ, that makes no sense.
There is no "size" to a HZ. It is perfectly possible someday that 98500000.2 and 98500000.3
could both be meaningful.
Don't spout off about what you don't know. mis-information is worse than ignorance
--
It is stable enough to start adding to. The APIs are quite settled on and the code is more than capable of being stretched out.
I now use mozilla on win98 about 90% of the time.
I am going to use it 100% of the time on slashdot so I can turn nested comments back on a read the dand page while it is loading. NS4.7 hangs almost 30 seconds on the 800+KB page all in one table nightmare than these long posts have become.
--
Actually, I'd probably call it a MUST at this point. They wrote into the contracts that way =)
BTW read http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2119.html for the MUST/SHOULD definitions if you don't know what is up with all this.
Based on http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1035.html they point out that http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html should be taken into account when making mail domains since you don't want to break mail address parsers. I'd say the world is complicated enough withou changing the rules now!
--
No he meant continuous. Really. The hole means that a line drawn on the surface and then slid around would have a break in it at the hole, thus non-continuous. Math sucks =)
--
You're wrong. The perlcc (CPAN->B::CC) makes
an optimised pre-byte-encoded binary.
In effect it saves you the startup parse step and allows you to make a "compiled binary". The CB is
just a copy of the parse-tree bytecode, loader and
the perl lib. It still has a full compile and
interpet engine and still interpets the bytecode tree. It can still "eval" perl code so it has to
have a full compile engine still.
mod_perl takes the same route by caching the post
parsed code for speed gains and disk load avoidance.
Perl offers easy prototyping and quick evolutionary programming (twiddle with live code =).
--
*sigh* call a dog a dog Jason, You've got them arguing the difference between EUGENICS and GENETICS.
People need to watch less StarTrek and read more Larry Niven.
(BTW, I know Jason personally and I can attest that his imperfections have made what he is today. =)
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It's nice to see a poll that really relates to my life...
20k++ aww yeah...
--
You need to get Jon to post stuff like this article HERE!
/. (and aren't AC!)
This is good stuff, the best of what I like from Jon, no pretension, no nonsense, just clear personable writing.
From now on Jon, WRITE ABOUT PEOPLE. Write about yourself, write about geeks, write about non-geeks suffering/learning tech. Don't write about technology directly EVER AGAIN. Point it at people and you become 2 - 4 TIMES the engaging writer.
Thanks, BTW.
P.S. I wasn't sure they were real geeks until they hit the first few posts on
--
The habit of using "!" to not the return of a function will also blow up on you at the oddest times.
Look at the return of the system() call.
C people avoid TRUE/FALSE definitions because it isn't built in. You never know when some goof ball is is going to stomp on your TRUE/FALSE definitions and some people use T/F or TR/FL or other bad things(tm).
--
MY thought exactly. A nice mix of styles and they have to keep it short and to the point to cram them both in.
Keep it up!
--
I think this reasonable in that it makes a "Jury Memeber" (JM) think about whether they want to post to participate or moderate. JMs, as you said, won't have that many opportunities to moderate since their point allocation will be low.
The REAL drawback is that the best moderators for a particular subject are the best clued. Now we have the ones we most want posting and moderating deciding which to do.
OTOH, limiting the points sufficiently may overcome this, the same way it overcomes the "Tyranny of the Majority" by preventing emotional votes. You don't have enough votes to be flippant with them, you have to save them for when they count. Also, I gather marking up is more important than squelching, and the moderator system is geared to that by the -1..5 system.
All in all it sounds OK to me. Especially the backing out of moderation if you just HAVE to post. That lets you moderate first and participate if no one else gets to your point.
--