Everyone comes up with this idiotic code obfuscation argument.
What stops lawyers to write completely braindead legal text now?
Like "In this document, after this sentence, every instance of the word no is to be interpreted as some, and all instances of some interpreted as no if they are preceded with a no at most thirteen letters apart" -- or something like that. No judge would accept this. Also, no BUYER/INVESTOR would sign such a contract.
Just that programming languages are not perfect for specification does not imply they are worse than natural languages for that task.
So what? The exact same problem exists with legalese. But you can't just run legalese. You can't expreiment with it. You cannot sweep trough input parameters plotting the output. You cannot observe it in a debugger.
But these code pieces provide a common API. You can just sweep over inputs and plot the outcome. Also, nothing stops you from running it in a debugger. And, if the code looks particularily nasty, then you just don't buy that asset. Just like with an overcomplicated or smelly legalese.
I despise pseudo-code. You can shamelessly hide computational complexity by using mathematical notations. Have you ever tried to code any algo expressed in pseudo-code? Eye opening experience.
I think the most obvious would be for Adobe to open up the Flash Player source code. They earn no money from player installation, they sell the tools for producing swf.
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This is the clearest explanation yet, that any layperson could understand!
It's sad that I do not have any mod points.
Everyone comes up with this idiotic code obfuscation argument.
What stops lawyers to write completely braindead legal text now?
Like "In this document, after this sentence, every instance of the word no is to be interpreted as some, and all instances of some interpreted as no if they are preceded with a no at most thirteen letters apart" -- or something like that. No judge would accept this. Also, no BUYER/INVESTOR would sign such a contract.
Just that programming languages are not perfect for specification does not imply they are worse than natural languages for that task.
So what? The exact same problem exists with legalese. But you can't just run legalese. You can't expreiment with it. You cannot sweep trough input parameters plotting the output. You cannot observe it in a debugger.
But these code pieces provide a common API. You can just sweep over inputs and plot the outcome. Also, nothing stops you from running it in a debugger. And, if the code looks particularily nasty, then you just don't buy that asset. Just like with an overcomplicated or smelly legalese.
I despise pseudo-code. You can shamelessly hide computational complexity by using mathematical notations. Have you ever tried to code any algo expressed in pseudo-code? Eye opening experience.
It is still better than natural language -- I can run it with a debugger.
He can't. Because he is wrong. The fact that we even _debate_ about morality shows that it is somehow evolutionally beneficial.
Don't give up, there are only a few pixels left!
I think the most obvious would be for Adobe to open up the Flash Player source code. They earn no money from player installation, they sell the tools for producing swf.
"The obvious conclusion was given. Playing games, no matter how educational, don't make you smarter. At most, they will further your education."
Now that's what I dispute. I do not beleive that 6 weeks of ANYTHING (games, education, reading, etc...) will change your cognitive abilities.
I think Adobe should open source their player. That would be a smart move, and costs nothing to them -- they do not sell it anyway.
Are you able to use the touchscreen features from HTML+JS applications?
Now that would be some amazing turn of events!!
Or rather:
uPwnd
And the SWF Specs are available freely:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/pdf/swf_file_format_spec_v10.pdf
"Father Steve, you have spoken your wish. We shall obey.."
Because We Love Our Jobs!
*shivers*
"All these people use Adobe software all the time as they're photographers videographers or graphic designers."
It is even more funny, that many of these designers are designing Flash media.
For gods sake... A six weeks experiment? This is bullshit!
"There are PLENTY of Chinese that could take over their government and resolve the censorship problem tomorrow if they wanted to."
Yeah, like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956
This is what we are tempted to think, but there could be surprises.
When will browsers go away? Will they be replaced by something else?
My C favourite is when I checked the laboratory work of a student and pointed out an error:
- Hey you should NOT send a message here!
- OK!
Then he modified "send()" to "!send()" ...
This is true, but a lot of researchers play it to the other extreme. The metric of importance is still very dependent on the quantity of papers.
Fakes, originals -- they all come from China.