Yes, Common Lisp and its myriad dialects^Wvendors just never die.
It would be nice if the Lisp community would finally stop with their tomfoolery and come up with one decent variant that is used and supported by everyone. Common things like threads, sockets, threads, connecting to databases, calling foreign functions... a less elistist and knee-jerk defensive community would help too.
You'd think the Lisp world would have figured this out by watching Perl, Python, and now Ruby; garden-variety Lispers pride themselves on their brilliance after all.
Re:what a hard-nosed skeptic you are
on
Oceans Empty By 2048?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't like that kind of reasoning: it has always been like this, therefore it always will be like this.
Just because you've survived several rounds of Russian Roulette until now does not mean the next one won't leave your brains on the wall.
Of course, this entirely ignores that we might have survived prior predicted dooms because (gasp) we might have modified our behaviour as a result of those predictions. However, even if this isn't true, the above reasoning is still suspect, and really not worthy of an intelligent citizen.
It looks like we might have a problem. I'd rather not find out the hard way.
And the size of the installable package I am currently downloading from the opera site is 5.1mb not 4.6mb
Compare apples to apples. I'm not certain what your point is.
not as interesting as the memory footprint or actual disk space used after installation
I agree with this, but such metrics are not as simple to acquire, and nobody seems to have made a histogram of it. Interestingly enough, the size of the installation package is useful to determine the amount of novel code or data, because variations on a theme are compressed better. So they've done a remarkable job working with what's already there.
An API for extentions would mean it can be made even leaner since you can effectively strip off functionality that is not used often and put it into an extension for those who need it.
I'm curious what the point of that is though? The English install is 4.6MB, and you'll find this of interest: http://my.opera.com/FataL/blog/show.dml/298429. If you ignore the multi-language installer, Opera's install size has increased about 500kb over the past five years.
I'd like to point out that such a degree of integration allows a sharing of code that isn't possible with extensions. That's why the size increase has been so tiny despite the significant difference in featuresets between 6.0 and 9.0.
or the fact that we have a more compliant rendering engine.
Really? Is this a bit like the claim on getfirefox.com that you can browse faster, when Firefox is actually one of the slowest of the major browsers?
There doesn't seem to be a big difference between gecko and presto (or KHTML): CSS engine comparison. So what do you mean by "more compliant"?
I'd like to know who cares about XUL other than the Firefox devs too. There are better kits out there. I can feel the UI lag even on a modern machine. And SpiderMonkey? That's so slow only small and thin applications can be written in javascript.
Firefox has been a bit of a disappointment to me. It was originally supposed to be a light replacement to the Mozilla suite. And what did we get? An overengineered mess! XUL is just one symptom of the mentality of NIV and lack of KISS. Firefox could have been so much better...
I often see the comment that X is slow, something I've never understood. I too ran linux and X on a 486. Specifically, I was running XFree86 3.3.3 (or 3.3.6?) with linux 2.0.35 (yes, I had that 486 for ages) on a 486 66MHz with 16MB ram.
You know what? It was roughly comparable to running Windows 95. I didn't think "my God, this is slow", I thought "this is rather similar to 95". FYI, running 95 on that 486 felt just like running XP on my Athlon 2Ghz, for comparison.
Of course, I was running WindowMaker on top of X, not something like KDE or GNOME. Perhaps that accounts for some people thinking X is slow, I have no idea. In any case, I _still_ don't run KDE or GNOME, even on my Athlon. They really are horribly slow, and I can't say I've missed their added functionality. Maybe my usage patterns are just different.
But no, if someone claims that X itself is slow, they either aren't being specific enough, or they're mildly ignorant of what's going under the hood.
Not to excuse GNOME or KDE. Egads, they make XP look fast on my machine, and XP really sucks.
In any case, I welcome another contender in the X arena. Keith sure knows what he's doing, and his work looks veeeery promising.
There is a small problem that nobody here seems to have noticed. I'm not certain if the press release is wrong, or if everybody is assuming the wrong thing.
Weta DIGITAL are the people who do CG and special effects.
Weta WORKSHOP make costumes and physical objects used by actors.
The press release says Weta Workshop. If true that means there won't be CG effects by Digital. Also, I know that Jackson intends to do a King Kong movie next, and it'll be using Weta Digital resources.
So. Digital CG by Weta or not. You decide. I hope so, but it doesn't look like it. I suppose we'll need to know more.
Actually, you _can_ fix a monitor after holding a magnet to it. Where I used to work we'd just hold the side of a gun-type soldering iron to the screen face and circle it a couple of times.
I guess you're bored when you place magnets on screens to see the pretty colors, then fix them up afterwards before returning them to customers.:-)
X-Plane costs less $60 US... it's right there on the web-site.
However, if your are interested in accurate physics (at least in space), you ought to try Orbiter. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet.
The physics there are the most accurate I've seen for a PC space game. The graphics are spectacular, and accurate (at least for those space bodies where such data exists). For some bodies there are 8192*8192 bitmaps (heh, you'll _need_ a good graphics card if you choose that option!). Best of all, it's free.
The only downside is it is not open source, nor does it run in anything but Windows.
I really recommend it to anyone who likes all the nice physics stuff, and the eyecandy, but isn't scared off by a _steep_ learning curve. At least go take a look at the purty screenshots.
Well, I'm sure there are possible uses for it. Actually, having a whole group of air conditioners controlled by computers certainly would be useful. I'm sure we can all imagine situations, like large buildings, etc.
On the other hand, this reminds me of one of the more unusual books I've read, Wyrm by Mark Fabi. Essentially, it's about an AI, bent on creating world armageddon, that evolved from computer viruses. In one part it tries to fry a bunch of people by locking all the doors in a high-security building, and then turning the knob up high.
As I said, one of the really whacked books I've read, by a psychologist who has waaaay too much time on his hands. Not that it's bad book (just the opposite). It's just most people wouldn't imagine a scenario where you had to defeat a near omnipotent AI/distributed virus which controls the worlds nuclear arsenal using MUD's.
Don't be too quick. There is an ARM chip out there that can run Java bytecode (native). If it can run it native, why bother with runtime?
However, I'd still say C. Judging by the tone of the question, it seems the person already has decided on C, so adding a few yeahs is superfluous. Besides, C is has a lot less overhead. If you're running an ARM, you probably don't have much memory to bask in, and you'll need a fair deal of it for voice processing.
A final comment is that C also gives you more control, but at the cost of more complexity. If you don't have much time, Java probably is the way to go. If you just like control (don't we all?;-) go with C. Besides, which language are you more familiar with?
You make your move.
Slashdot Mirror
It's 2007, and cargo cults are alive and well.
Yes, Common Lisp and its myriad dialects^Wvendors just never die.
It would be nice if the Lisp community would finally stop with their tomfoolery and come up with one decent variant that is used and supported by everyone. Common things like threads, sockets, threads, connecting to databases, calling foreign functions... a less elistist and knee-jerk defensive community would help too.
You'd think the Lisp world would have figured this out by watching Perl, Python, and now Ruby; garden-variety Lispers pride themselves on their brilliance after all.
I don't like that kind of reasoning: it has always been like this, therefore it always will be like this.
Just because you've survived several rounds of Russian Roulette until now does not mean the next one won't leave your brains on the wall.
Of course, this entirely ignores that we might have survived prior predicted dooms because (gasp) we might have modified our behaviour as a result of those predictions. However, even if this isn't true, the above reasoning is still suspect, and really not worthy of an intelligent citizen.
It looks like we might have a problem. I'd rather not find out the hard way.
And the size of the installable package I am currently downloading from the opera site is 5.1mb not 4.6mb
Compare apples to apples. I'm not certain what your point is.
not as interesting as the memory footprint or actual disk space used after installation
I agree with this, but such metrics are not as simple to acquire, and nobody seems to have made a histogram of it. Interestingly enough, the size of the installation package is useful to determine the amount of novel code or data, because variations on a theme are compressed better. So they've done a remarkable job working with what's already there.
Opera is relatively fast but not the fastest
Compared to what? http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
An API for extentions would mean it can be made even leaner since you can effectively strip off functionality that is not used often and put it into an extension for those who need it.
I'm curious what the point of that is though? The English install is 4.6MB, and you'll find this of interest: http://my.opera.com/FataL/blog/show.dml/298429. If you ignore the multi-language installer, Opera's install size has increased about 500kb over the past five years.
I'd like to point out that such a degree of integration allows a sharing of code that isn't possible with extensions. That's why the size increase has been so tiny despite the significant difference in featuresets between 6.0 and 9.0.
So what's wrong with the Opera beta?
or the fact that we have a more compliant rendering engine.
Really? Is this a bit like the claim on getfirefox.com that you can browse faster, when Firefox is actually one of the slowest of the major browsers?
There doesn't seem to be a big difference between gecko and presto (or KHTML): CSS engine comparison. So what do you mean by "more compliant"?
I'd like to know who cares about XUL other than the Firefox devs too. There are better kits out there. I can feel the UI lag even on a modern machine. And SpiderMonkey? That's so slow only small and thin applications can be written in javascript.
Firefox has been a bit of a disappointment to me. It was originally supposed to be a light replacement to the Mozilla suite. And what did we get? An overengineered mess! XUL is just one symptom of the mentality of NIV and lack of KISS. Firefox could have been so much better...
Hey, is it just me, or is it a bit hot here?
You were eaten by a kogal... >.>
I often see the comment that X is slow, something I've never understood. I too ran linux and X on a 486. Specifically, I was running XFree86 3.3.3 (or 3.3.6?) with linux 2.0.35 (yes, I had that 486 for ages) on a 486 66MHz with 16MB ram.
You know what? It was roughly comparable to running Windows 95. I didn't think "my God, this is slow", I thought "this is rather similar to 95". FYI, running 95 on that 486 felt just like running XP on my Athlon 2Ghz, for comparison.
Of course, I was running WindowMaker on top of X, not something like KDE or GNOME. Perhaps that accounts for some people thinking X is slow, I have no idea. In any case, I _still_ don't run KDE or GNOME, even on my Athlon. They really are horribly slow, and I can't say I've missed their added functionality. Maybe my usage patterns are just different.
But no, if someone claims that X itself is slow, they either aren't being specific enough, or they're mildly ignorant of what's going under the hood.
Not to excuse GNOME or KDE. Egads, they make XP look fast on my machine, and XP really sucks.
In any case, I welcome another contender in the X arena. Keith sure knows what he's doing, and his work looks veeeery promising.
Yes, well, we can wish.
There is a small problem that nobody here seems to have noticed. I'm not certain if the press release is wrong, or if everybody is assuming the wrong thing.
Weta DIGITAL are the people who do CG and special effects.
Weta WORKSHOP make costumes and physical objects used by actors.
The press release says Weta Workshop. If true that means there won't be CG effects by Digital. Also, I know that Jackson intends to do a King Kong movie next, and it'll be using Weta Digital resources.
So. Digital CG by Weta or not. You decide. I hope so, but it doesn't look like it. I suppose we'll need to know more.
Actually, you _can_ fix a monitor after holding a magnet to it. Where I used to work we'd just hold the side of a gun-type soldering iron to the screen face and circle it a couple of times.
:-)
I guess you're bored when you place magnets on screens to see the pretty colors, then fix them up afterwards before returning them to customers.
.
X-Plane costs less $60 US... it's right there on the web-site.
However, if your are interested in accurate physics (at least in space), you ought to try Orbiter. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet.
The physics there are the most accurate I've seen for a PC space game. The graphics are spectacular, and accurate (at least for those space bodies where such data exists). For some bodies there are 8192*8192 bitmaps (heh, you'll _need_ a good graphics card if you choose that option!). Best of all, it's free.
The only downside is it is not open source, nor does it run in anything but Windows.
I really recommend it to anyone who likes all the nice physics stuff, and the eyecandy, but isn't scared off by a _steep_ learning curve. At least go take a look at the purty screenshots.
Well, I'm sure there are possible uses for it. Actually, having a whole group of air conditioners controlled by computers certainly would be useful. I'm sure we can all imagine situations, like large buildings, etc.
On the other hand, this reminds me of one of the more unusual books I've read, Wyrm by Mark Fabi. Essentially, it's about an AI, bent on creating world armageddon, that evolved from computer viruses. In one part it tries to fry a bunch of people by locking all the doors in a high-security building, and then turning the knob up high.
As I said, one of the really whacked books I've read, by a psychologist who has waaaay too much time on his hands. Not that it's bad book (just the opposite). It's just most people wouldn't imagine a scenario where you had to defeat a near omnipotent AI/distributed virus which controls the worlds nuclear arsenal using MUD's.
Don't be too quick. There is an ARM chip out there that can run Java bytecode (native). If it can run it native, why bother with runtime?
;-) go with C. Besides, which language are you more familiar with?
You make your move.
However, I'd still say C. Judging by the tone of the question, it seems the person already has decided on C, so adding a few yeahs is superfluous. Besides, C is has a lot less overhead. If you're running an ARM, you probably don't have much memory to bask in, and you'll need a fair deal of it for voice processing. A final comment is that C also gives you more control, but at the cost of more complexity. If you don't have much time, Java probably is the way to go. If you just like control (don't we all?