He's considered by many to be one of the pioneers of cyberpunk, and Neuromancer certainly did help popularise the genre. And that definitely is something. Cyberpunk ties in very closely with the hacker culture, and adding Gibson is a nice way of saying Thank You.
shouldn't he be winning literary or SF prizes then? i mean, even Azimov invented satellite communication... that's something. "Cyberspace" is just a lame word used in advertisements.
I'm looking to get an Apple notebook in about 6 months but I don't want to have a big jump like the G4 to G5 be released a few months later when I could've gone without it for a little longer and then got the G5.
really, realistically, you'll want to wait for the second release of whatever G5 portable comes out. the first release of apple's stuff has a history of having sort of congenital defects.
Scientists have savaged the new movie The Day After Tomorrow, which depicts global warming causing a new ice age and freezing New York solid.
i for one can't wait for THAT to happen... i happen to live in New York, and let me tell you, it's a real b!tch to live in a city that's in a gaseous state.
dude, did anyone wonder what would happen if the humans violated that edict from 2010? like would a bunch of monoliths come and start smacking people over the head with themselves or something? or try to ram themselves up our asses?
and there was nothing covert about it. i was given 1/2 an hour after the doors were locked at the donut shop i worked at to clean the whole place and set things up for the next shift. if i took longer than that, the time was taken away from me. which meant that i had to do some of these duties while still open. which meant that sometimes i had to piss people off. if someone came in at 11:50 PM looking for donuts, sometimes they'd all already be thrown away (along with the coffee, too) so i could do the dishes before the doors closed.
tough shit... if the company's not going to pay me to do my job properly, the customer's going to suffer. not me...
i had a job as an admin of a inventory control and POS system. the ordering people were given the job of adding all the inventory types and items before i got there. they put our retail prices in, but didn't enter in the markup over wholesale. unfortunately, once you started entering in some of the retail prices, you could no longer batch update the markup percentage by vendor. i guess they didn't want you to clobber your data, but there was just no option.
so i had to go in and do it all by hand... thousands and thousands of items. i'd do a search by vendor, bring up that column in the editor, and it was 4 5 downarrow 4 5 downarrow repeat repeat repeat.
that lasted several days... i'd break for lunch or the end of the day, and my forearms and wrists would be on fire.
to top it off, i didn't have a real desk at that place, just a board over two sawhorses (not kidding). and there was a chair shortage, so if someone nabbed your chair while you weren't looking, you were stuck with a n unpadded stool. AND i had just returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic, where i picked up a nasty intestinal parasite that meant that i needed unfettered access to the bathroom every hour or so.
The parent is right. Other languages don't become fractured.
here, i have a dare for you. go to http://xml.apache.org and try to build Xalan-C++ and use it to run an XML transformation on a file. note the time it took to do that. and also note all the tweaks and hoops you had to jump through to get there. i tried to do this recently for a machine that didn't have java installed on it and gave up, to tell you the truth.
now go to the same address and do the same thing with the Java version. you should be up in under 5 minutes, if that.
.../NextStep/Cocoa? it works from Apple. Objective-C already compiles in GCC, and it's less than trivial to use preexisting C/C++ code in Obj-C, making it an easy migration path.
i was thinking the same thing.. can i be your lieutenant? i figure we'll have to move to a country with no extradition or mutual enforcement treaties with whatever country is allowing people to deface the sky and mount our attack from there. space ad people, i will be your Max Zorin!!!!
Once a week, my mom clicks an icon that reboots her machine and restores a ghost image from a DVD.
When the PC reboots again, she presses "1" to start windows, and all her email and stuff is where she left it, on the BSD machine.
i don't know why, but that reminds me of those guides you can find to teach your cat how to use the toilet...:)
Think that's bad? Imagine how you would be treated as a lawyer! Once they find out you're a lawyer many doctors will run ten times as many tests as they otherwise would. It pays to keep your mouth shut (or even lie) about your profession.
Um, good? In other words, doctors will exercise more diligence and generally do things to avoid getting sued, namely screwing up. I think I'll tell them all I'm a lawyer, thanks for the good idea!
well, what if those extra tests involve your doctor shoving their hand up your ass?
granted, lawyers must be used to this, as they must do that to everyone else every day.:)
Switch carriers. TDMA is the BEST cell phone standard in the United States. You can get coverage virtually ANYWHERE. Because TDMA is so much older, it has longer range and better sound quality. Switching from a TDMA phone to a GSM phone is OF COURSE A DOWNGRADE.
I have TDMA service through Cellular One in Oregon and I LOVE it. I've made phone calls on Mt Hood, South Sister and lots of other strange, way away from civilization places you wouldn't expect a phone to work.
newsflash: GSM uses TDMA. it's just a particular implementation of TDMA. all TDMA is is a way to multiplex calls based on a time-dependent protocol. and for long distance range (over 10 miles), CDMA actually tops TDMA/GSM.
i say all of the above being an unabashed GSM user. i just hate Verizon and like the features of GSM phones.
and a hint for at&t people getting "upgrades": you're probably eligible for a customer retention upgrade. skip all this crossgrade nonsense and call at&t and say you want a new phone for being a long-term customer. i got a T616 for my T68i for free like this. you'll end up getting whatever prices a new subscriber would get, so check on at&t's website before you call.
*I* was discussing this like a rational person, and being diplomatic. you were being a fanboy were saying "Perl HAS TEH BEST DOCO EVAR!!" and wouldn't admit other languages could possibly have feature parity. and then i apparently stepped on your toes by suggesting that Perl might be difficult to read. newsflash: perl has that reputation. google "perl ugly syntax" and see how many results you get.
*then* you ask me to "prove" my claim. talk about picking nits... i'm obviously not using the term 'obfuscation' in it's mathematically provable sense but it's plain old dictionary one. excuse me for speaking the plain english language in an arena where it could be confused with pedantic jargon. this is silly.
Again, I was not talking about your feelings about the language or its developers. You said, "there's less obfuscation possible in java syntax". That is incorrect, as far as I know... but feel free to PROVE that wrong.
at least a causal proof? what more could there be than a causal proof?
the most you're going to get out of me is that there's an obfuscated Perl contest and no counterpart for Java... that says something about both Perl (operators often have side effects, there are arcane variables like $[ that can blow everything you normally assume about the language out of the water, etc.) as well as the community that uses Perl (there's sort of a celebration of difficult to read code going on).
you don't *have* to write hard-to-read code by any means, however.
Bottom line: there are 6752 modules on CPAN. I invite you to tour them and evaluate the quality of documentation relative to that available for all of the Java stuff...
i have, and i've been quite frustrated by important things i've felt are omitted sometimes. i was having a hell of a time with DBI a while back and had to experiment to find out what i needed... i haven't had problems like that with JDBC. but i'm sure things go the other way sometimes, too. a win for java, i think, is that since there's less obfuscation possible in java syntax, a peruse of the source often reveals a lot of answers, too. if someone decided to play Perl golf one day and didn't provide comments, you're stuck. actually, in my case, even with the comments, i'm stuck if someone played Perl golf.:)
it's a stark contrast the depth and clarity that you get when you don't force people into a box. If you don't see the box, that's cool... carry on.
i'm still missing the part where you conclusively pointed to the box. all i'm getting so far is that you like the syntax better and the ability to intersperse comments throughout the file. but those seem to me to be personal preference issues. otherwise, it seems to me that both are equally capable and have expansive toolsets that utilize them.
Sure that too, or PDFs or command-line extraction form installed modules or whatever. There should be no difference. Docs are docs, and it should all come from the same source, no?
yes, and that's why there are a whole suite of tools at places like doclet.com to do just that. XML, RTF, PDF, etc.
Ok, start with the fact that there's embedded HTML. Mistake. HTML makes it bulky to write docs. HTML is also not abstract enough to easily convert into, say, TeX or PS without a full rendering engine to get it right.
HTML is easy... among programmers, who can't manage a <PRE> tag? and that stuff isn't necessary at all... the text can be formatted or not, as you see fit. and tools to create different types of documentation have already been written, so you never have to worry about parsing it.
Second, it's not free-form, so my doc might not fit into the Way that Javadoc wants me to approach such things.
what's not free-form about it? you just type/** and whatever you want to say, and then */. if you want more structure, it's there for you. if you just want to blatt something out, that's fine, too.
Are you seeing the differences here?
other than the fact that it's at the bottom of the document rather than on top of the thing it actually describes and that that syntax is more verbose, not really...
You also mentioned Jakarta, which while very cool, is a sort of rebelious subculture within the whole of the Java community
that's sort of an uncharitable assessment of the stewards of the java servlet api and reference implementation, isn't it?
But it's ALWAYS been a race to the cheapest resources. This is nothing new. It's a fundamental law of economics!
well, if we're talking capitalism, it's "Race to Equilibrium," not the bottom. but it can't really be said that the U.S. is capitalist anymore... it hasn't been since the Great Depression. instead, we're a mix of capitalism, halfassed, closet socialism (that's being rolled back by the Bush government), and growing facisim (the military-industrial complex, and a lot of other things as markets like media and communications consolidate further).
'Race to the bottom' is something we're alll guilty of, that $499 PC is part of it, just like that $4.99 sweater but you bought it anyway because it was CHEAPER.
i actually don't own either of those things...
We can either be protectionist and get creamed in a few decades, or we can participate on the global markets and sustain at least part of what we have now.
sounds like a winning plan. we can either a. do nothing and die, or b. bend over and accept it. why isn't there a third option there?
And in the meantime, we've got to implement some more wealth distribution (universal baseline health care anyone?) or something because the cost of living is nipping at the heels of the average wages. In the 1960s my Dad managed a McDonalds and paid rent, bills, his car, and some private college on it. I make three times the minimum wage today and can barely afford to pay rent, gas, and eat.
i'm with you there. i think the first step is to admit there's a problem, though. it's not right that we demand of publicly traded companies that they make a profit at any cost (when usually the cost is our livelihood, environment, standard of living, etc.). it's not right that we grant subsidies and exclusive patents to corporations that then offshore all their profits and don't pay taxes or wages. it's not right that we let the food industry pump us full of saturated fats and hydrogenated oils that make us all morbidly obese and more likely to get cancer. etc. etc. etc.
Documentation is far and away the thing that sets Perl apart from other languages. There are some bad things you can say about Perl's documentation, but most of them are criticisms that you can't even begin to make of other programming languages because they simply aren't in the same ballpark.
I blame POD for this
are you kidding? have you not seen Javadoc? it does precisely what you describe... and with XDoclet, you can do full-blown code generation right from your documentation, which is conveniently embedded right in your source.
Slashdot Mirror
talk about falling on your sword... :)
dude, did anyone wonder what would happen if the humans violated that edict from 2010? like would a bunch of monoliths come and start smacking people over the head with themselves or something? or try to ram themselves up our asses?
tough shit... if the company's not going to pay me to do my job properly, the customer's going to suffer. not me...
so i had to go in and do it all by hand... thousands and thousands of items. i'd do a search by vendor, bring up that column in the editor, and it was 4 5 downarrow 4 5 downarrow repeat repeat repeat.
that lasted several days... i'd break for lunch or the end of the day, and my forearms and wrists would be on fire.
to top it off, i didn't have a real desk at that place, just a board over two sawhorses (not kidding). and there was a chair shortage, so if someone nabbed your chair while you weren't looking, you were stuck with a n unpadded stool. AND i had just returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic, where i picked up a nasty intestinal parasite that meant that i needed unfettered access to the bathroom every hour or so.
ah, to be young again. :)
now go to the same address and do the same thing with the Java version. you should be up in under 5 minutes, if that.
if cyclops chicks with purple hair aren't your thing, you're SOL.
.../NextStep/Cocoa? it works from Apple. Objective-C already compiles in GCC, and it's less than trivial to use preexisting C/C++ code in Obj-C, making it an easy migration path.
or maybe ideally, someone *steals* the hardware and hacks it. :)
i was thinking the same thing.. can i be your lieutenant? i figure we'll have to move to a country with no extradition or mutual enforcement treaties with whatever country is allowing people to deface the sky and mount our attack from there. space ad people, i will be your Max Zorin!!!!
granted, lawyers must be used to this, as they must do that to everyone else every day. :)
i say all of the above being an unabashed GSM user. i just hate Verizon and like the features of GSM phones.
and a hint for at&t people getting "upgrades": you're probably eligible for a customer retention upgrade. skip all this crossgrade nonsense and call at&t and say you want a new phone for being a long-term customer. i got a T616 for my T68i for free like this. you'll end up getting whatever prices a new subscriber would get, so check on at&t's website before you call.
*then* you ask me to "prove" my claim. talk about picking nits... i'm obviously not using the term 'obfuscation' in it's mathematically provable sense but it's plain old dictionary one. excuse me for speaking the plain english language in an arena where it could be confused with pedantic jargon. this is silly.
the most you're going to get out of me is that there's an obfuscated Perl contest and no counterpart for Java... that says something about both Perl (operators often have side effects, there are arcane variables like $[ that can blow everything you normally assume about the language out of the water, etc.) as well as the community that uses Perl (there's sort of a celebration of difficult to read code going on).
you don't *have* to write hard-to-read code by any means, however.