There were actual reasons that COBOL was more used than, say, ALGOL, although they both became available at the same time, and ALGOL was the better language.
JavaScript is a medium-quality language, with less utility but roughly the same number of flaws as C. What makes it so terrible are the broken tools, broken and old browsers, amateur coders, dumb DOM, and so on.
And what makes all of this worse is the inescapable monopoly it has over client-side web coding.
Consumers buying desktops have brand loyalty to Windows because they know how to operate it. But they don't like it. Those same consumers buying phones aren't going to jump in because the phone runs some version of Windows. So it's just a cost.
What MS might do well, though, is integrate the phone with their game platform, Xbox. But that's a marketing gamble. The biggest selling apps for smartphones are music/entertainment, and games. There's no platform loyalty there, and only a little game loyalty. No lock-in for developers or consumers. It will never be the cash cow that Office and Windows have been. Likewise with maps and directions based on GPS.
There's a high-price market for a PDA+phone that helps the busy people schedule, manage contacts, and shop, but outside that market, it's all very cost sensitive.
The way ears and fingers are constructed, there isn't much of a market for a phone with a full keyboard, splitting the market. And voice input is still not capable of bridging the gap.
I think in the long run, hardware costs will dominate, software features will converge thru imitation, and it's the wristwatch business all over again.
MFC is bad, and C# is good, for opposite sides of the same reasons.
MFC is a C++ wrapper around the Window API intended to "Give access to the API". BUT: Any really good C++ programming framework for Windows programming would also be a system where the applications would be portable to another OS! Oh Heavens! There are good C++ frameworks that allow that sort of portability. GTK and QT come to mind. They avoid being Stamped with the Windows API. No baloney about "Giving access to the API".
Enter C# and.NET: Here, quality is not the enemy of Microsoft, but the friend, since only minimal development of C# apps can work on outside of Windows. It's very nearly a captured system. So they produced a very nice language and a very nice set of runtimes. The quality binds the coders to the OS, and the code is nearly as unportable as MFC: The best of both worlds, for Microsoft.
If you're a young software developer, go with Ruby, it will improve your mind. Either that or Erlang, to master concurrent, multi-core programming.
But if you need to make more money in your current career path, perhaps your wife is pregnant; take courses in management instead.
Most disciplines describe current as flowing from positive to negative, but the physical current is made of electrons flowing the other way. Sometimes it matters, other times not.
Before I start experimenting (on my neighbors cat?) I want to know which way the current flowed, for sure.
Lots of real-time and embedded code is life-critical and has the requirements you talked about. Of course, social networking websites are the opposite. But aircraft, satellites, military, medical equipment, telecom, and so on are just as critical. Look at the reliability inside your laser printer software. This software are made in the Silicon Valley and other tech centers on the west coast, from LA to Seattle.
LastPass will log you in to all your websites once you have logged into LastPass. Just one master password to get to LastPass from anywhere. But you have to have the LastPass add-on in your browser. Since you can't install add-ons in Internet Cafes, it's a limitation.
But see LastPass.com for yourself.
Managers control the part they understand. They farm out the parts they don't. The Pentagon managers (Air Force generals, I suppose) don't understand software. They do understand aviation and bomb targeting. And they probably understand combat and intra-service rivalry.
You need to tell us more about what you use the computer for.
Speech recognition tends to be GUI-only and not cross platform. This is because the anticipated market is the disabled, who are usually users of only one machine. For most of the disabled, more than one machine is just a burden. You probably won't have more than one in the lab, either.
Controlling the computer (click that button, switch windows) is a different challenge than text input because the speech-to-text vocabulary is much larger.
In tech stuff like research, you are probably using a lot of words that are not even in the program's dictionary. And that matters a great deal for speech-to-text. Good speech2text products know that 'yes sir' makes a lot more sense than 'yes fur', so they keep track of what words go next to what else. Markov chains and all of that. Commercial software won't distinguish 'de-ionized reagent' from 'the lionized Regent'. That is, until after you train it for several days. You can train it.
Learning to use speech software is easier than learning to type. But you already know how to type, so learning speech software seems harder. You've had a dozen years of typing, already.
That said, the best speech-to-text software is from Dragon Systems, despite the unfamiliar name. All their competitors smartly gave up in face of the competition.
"The U.S. telecommunications firms haven't invested," said Earl Zmijewski, vice president and general manager for Internet data services at Renesys. "The rest of the world has caught up. I don't see the AT&T's and Sprints making the investments because they see Internet service as a commodity."
Is the article just a plea for more money and less neutrality, or is it documenting the result of over-regulation?
I've had a few cars in my life. I've also lived in cities with excellent public transport. Public transport cannot compete with cars for convenience. All it can do is help with commuting.
If you want to go shopping, you need to be able to stop at a few places and put your stuff in the trunk. Buses and subways don't allow that. If the transport doesn't go there, you can't go without a car.
I've also used park-n-ride systems where you put your car in a lot and take transport downtown. Very slow, multiple waits, too far for me to walk, and the transport doesn't run well, or at all, after about 10 PM. You've really got to travel in rush hour to get decent service (standing up!). Terrible for people with arthritis, etc.
Nobody who's used both will prefer public transport.
You asked a question about the jargon "Warfighter". It's part of a terminology system that uses the word "Soldier" to refer only to members of the US Army. That is the reason for needing a more inclusive term like "Warfighter".
You're not obligated to use any of these words, of course. That's one of the good things about freedom.
I've worked with my own code and the code of others, both male and female. For many decades. Newbies code like newbies. Masters code like masters. I haven't seen a gender difference. There are some people who provide better comments, a roadmap, others who don't.
If there's a gender difference it's awfully subtle.
Back in the day, Microsoft Java used to generate some machine code now and then. I'll bet that right now any speedups for interpreters are going into the DLR. There used to be some noise about JavaScript.NET from MS but I haven't heard anything in a long time. I would guess that by IE9 they'll respond to the competitive pressure and come out with something better.
That particular kind of anger is something I've seen before. It's when volunteers realize they really aren't getting paid. Or anything. I saw it in a volunteer organization a few years ago and it has a particular taste.
Mr. Shaw is in financial distress despite having written some very good software. The best financial strategy for open source contributors (besides being wildy famous) is writing books. Tim O'Reilly makes more than many good open source coders.
In addition, Mr. Shaw is facing a loss of freedom, going from free development to the corporate world.
In the US, a Registered Nurse makes significantly more money than a CS grad. So why bother with all that math? Just so you can work sitting down?
Ye Olde Coder
Everybody is different. Some of us are really different. To generate useful advice we need to know more about your background, goals, talents, fears, and weaknesses. Tell us more about you. Otherwise everybody gets the same advice -- and you know that can't be right...
If the 670-page book is about nothing but HTML then either HTML is a design failure or the book is a writing failure. HTML is clearly a market success.
If you need a 536 page book to "Master" such a trivial part of web development as page and text formatting then CSS is a failure. Are there any wysiwyg "Html editors" that produce portable CSS? If so, then the book is obsolete.
As any Word(tm) user knows, page layout and text formatting should be done Visually. I don't code in assembler any more. And I shouldn't have to write text-formatting codes. Troff was obsolete years ago! CSS is just Troff on steroids.
CSS is such a pain in the butt we should all go back to using tables. I really think it's easier.
Slashdot Mirror
There were actual reasons that COBOL was more used than, say, ALGOL, although they both became available at the same time, and ALGOL was the better language.
JavaScript is a medium-quality language, with less utility but roughly the same number of flaws as C. What makes it so terrible are the broken tools, broken and old browsers, amateur coders, dumb DOM, and so on.
And what makes all of this worse is the inescapable monopoly it has over client-side web coding.
Consumers buying desktops have brand loyalty to Windows because they know how to operate it. But they don't like it.
Those same consumers buying phones aren't going to jump in because the phone runs some version of Windows. So it's just a cost.
What MS might do well, though, is integrate the phone with their game platform, Xbox. But that's a marketing gamble. The biggest selling apps for smartphones are music/entertainment, and games. There's no platform loyalty there, and only a little game loyalty. No lock-in for developers or consumers. It will never be the cash cow that Office and Windows have been. Likewise with maps and directions based on GPS.
There's a high-price market for a PDA+phone that helps the busy people schedule, manage contacts, and shop, but outside that market, it's all very cost sensitive.
The way ears and fingers are constructed, there isn't much of a market for a phone with a full keyboard, splitting the market. And voice input is still not capable of bridging the gap.
I think in the long run, hardware costs will dominate, software features will converge thru imitation, and it's the wristwatch business all over again.
MFC is bad, and C# is good, for opposite sides of the same reasons. MFC is a C++ wrapper around the Window API intended to "Give access to the API". BUT: Any really good C++ programming framework for Windows programming would also be a system where the applications would be portable to another OS! Oh Heavens! There are good C++ frameworks that allow that sort of portability. GTK and QT come to mind. They avoid being Stamped with the Windows API. No baloney about "Giving access to the API". Enter C# and .NET: Here, quality is not the enemy of Microsoft, but the friend, since only minimal development of C# apps can work on outside of Windows. It's very nearly a captured system. So they produced a very nice language and a very nice set of runtimes. The quality binds the coders to the OS, and the code is nearly as unportable as MFC: The best of both worlds, for Microsoft.
If you're a young software developer, go with Ruby, it will improve your mind. Either that or Erlang, to master concurrent, multi-core programming.
But if you need to make more money in your current career path, perhaps your wife is pregnant; take courses in management instead.
Most disciplines describe current as flowing from positive to negative, but the physical current is made of electrons flowing the other way. Sometimes it matters, other times not. Before I start experimenting (on my neighbors cat?) I want to know which way the current flowed, for sure.
It's because of Vint Cerf that it's called "Web Cerfing".
Lots of real-time and embedded code is life-critical and has the requirements you talked about. Of course, social networking websites are the opposite. But aircraft, satellites, military, medical equipment, telecom, and so on are just as critical. Look at the reliability inside your laser printer software. This software are made in the Silicon Valley and other tech centers on the west coast, from LA to Seattle.
LastPass will log you in to all your websites once you have logged into LastPass. Just one master password to get to LastPass from anywhere. But you have to have the LastPass add-on in your browser. Since you can't install add-ons in Internet Cafes, it's a limitation. But see LastPass.com for yourself.
Managers control the part they understand. They farm out the parts they don't. The Pentagon managers (Air Force generals, I suppose) don't understand software. They do understand aviation and bomb targeting. And they probably understand combat and intra-service rivalry.
The Real Problem is the paranoids. They're all in it together and they're out to get the rest of us.
You need to tell us more about what you use the computer for.
Speech recognition tends to be GUI-only and not cross platform. This is because the anticipated market is the disabled, who are usually users of only one machine. For most of the disabled, more than one machine is just a burden. You probably won't have more than one in the lab, either.
Controlling the computer (click that button, switch windows) is a different challenge than text input because the speech-to-text vocabulary is much larger.
In tech stuff like research, you are probably using a lot of words that are not even in the program's dictionary. And that matters a great deal for speech-to-text. Good speech2text products know that 'yes sir' makes a lot more sense than 'yes fur', so they keep track of what words go next to what else. Markov chains and all of that. Commercial software won't distinguish 'de-ionized reagent' from 'the lionized Regent'. That is, until after you train it for several days. You can train it.
Learning to use speech software is easier than learning to type. But you already know how to type, so learning speech software seems harder. You've had a dozen years of typing, already.
That said, the best speech-to-text software is from Dragon Systems, despite the unfamiliar name. All their competitors smartly gave up in face of the competition.
Yeah, but first you've got to load in the Java VM, the debugger...
The Virustotal list doesn't show ZoneAlarm Antivirus at all. So does ZoneAlarm find the virus or not?
We'll all need tinfoil hats every 8 minutes...
Is the article just a plea for more money and less neutrality, or is it documenting the result of over-regulation?
Only ceiling cat can reach it.
I've had a few cars in my life. I've also lived in cities with excellent public transport. Public transport cannot compete with cars for convenience. All it can do is help with commuting.
If you want to go shopping, you need to be able to stop at a few places and put your stuff in the trunk. Buses and subways don't allow that. If the transport doesn't go there, you can't go without a car.
I've also used park-n-ride systems where you put your car in a lot and take transport downtown. Very slow, multiple waits, too far for me to walk, and the transport doesn't run well, or at all, after about 10 PM. You've really got to travel in rush hour to get decent service (standing up!). Terrible for people with arthritis, etc.
Nobody who's used both will prefer public transport.
You asked a question about the jargon "Warfighter". It's part of a terminology system that uses the word "Soldier" to refer only to members of the US Army. That is the reason for needing a more inclusive term like "Warfighter". You're not obligated to use any of these words, of course. That's one of the good things about freedom.
I've worked with my own code and the code of others, both male and female. For many decades. Newbies code like newbies. Masters code like masters. I haven't seen a gender difference. There are some people who provide better comments, a roadmap, others who don't. If there's a gender difference it's awfully subtle.
Back in the day, Microsoft Java used to generate some machine code now and then. I'll bet that right now any speedups for interpreters are going into the DLR. There used to be some noise about JavaScript.NET from MS but I haven't heard anything in a long time. I would guess that by IE9 they'll respond to the competitive pressure and come out with something better.
That particular kind of anger is something I've seen before. It's when volunteers realize they really aren't getting paid. Or anything. I saw it in a volunteer organization a few years ago and it has a particular taste.
Mr. Shaw is in financial distress despite having written some very good software. The best financial strategy for open source contributors (besides being wildy famous) is writing books. Tim O'Reilly makes more than many good open source coders.
In addition, Mr. Shaw is facing a loss of freedom, going from free development to the corporate world.
Best of luck, Zed Shaw
In the US, a Registered Nurse makes significantly more money than a CS grad. So why bother with all that math? Just so you can work sitting down? Ye Olde Coder
This argument is the strongest if you can back it up.
Ye Olde Coder
If the 670-page book is about nothing but HTML then either HTML is a design failure or the book is a writing failure. HTML is clearly a market success.
If you need a 536 page book to "Master" such a trivial part of web development as page and text formatting then CSS is a failure. Are there any wysiwyg "Html editors" that produce portable CSS? If so, then the book is obsolete.
As any Word(tm) user knows, page layout and text formatting should be done Visually. I don't code in assembler any more. And I shouldn't have to write text-formatting codes. Troff was obsolete years ago! CSS is just Troff on steroids.
CSS is such a pain in the butt we should all go back to using tables. I really think it's easier.