Re:Skill and not language used?
on
The Return of Ada
·
· Score: 3, Informative
You could say it's slower to write, but it's not that slow. Ada: IF a AND b THEN
c;
d;
e; END IF;
C: if (a && b) {
c;
d;
e; }
Ada tends to use words instead of symbols. Does it take longer to type? Yeah, a little. But this doesn't make it hard or obscure. In fact, it makes it much easier for non-programmers (and new programmers) to read and understand the code.
Why would you care about non-programmers? Because in the real world, programs are written to offer real world solutions. It helps if these programs can be reviewed by engineers, scientists, accountants, etc... who may not know every language, but can figure out the basic logic if it uses words instead of symbols. Also, the improved readability makes future changes less painful.
What happens if a coworker used & instead of && in the C version? It's a lot harder to make those kinds of mistakes in Ada.
I think the complaint wasn't just that they were expensive, but that they were expensive for a "preview." You'll still need to buy the regular books later.
I voted for McCain and I support his positions. Particularly regarding fighting government waste. How many Senators are willing to oppose their own party on spending? McCain does (and takes a lot of heat for it).
I also support his immigration policy. I may not be considered a "true conservative" because I see real people here, working hard to make a life better for themselves and their families. In my opinion, the immigration law they have broken is unjust and should be changed (or at least increase the number of permits so people don't have to come illegally if they want a chance).
More on immigration: The "scapegoat politics" (blame the ) practiced by some on the far right scares me. Does it win votes? Sure. But it leads down a path of inciting hatred, burning crosses and swastikas. It is our duty as American citizens to oppose the rising tide of scapegoat politics, even if we must vote against seemingly popular (according to talk radio) opinion.
"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak," said McCain after a campaign stop at Dordt College here.
"People who have worn the uniform and had the experience know that this is a terrible and odious practice and should never be condoned in the U.S. We are a better nation than that."
However, I don't expect my monitor to have a single connection to the PC any time soon.
We PC users may not expect good design, but it would still be nice to have. I want a less cluttered computing area and I've read more than one article stating that consumers in general want less cluttered computer areas.
You leave out an important point. The roof taring guy only benefits one person/family/business at a time. Obviously he should be paid less than someone like Tiger Woods who benefits thousands of fans per tournament. Same thing with Spielberg, he benefits millions with his movies. And I don't know what Paris makes, but she entertains more people than the roofer, and besides that, her family benefited a lot of people with their hotels. Basically, a free market helps those who are efficient (benefit the most people) at the cost of the less efficient (benefit one person at a time). Also, these efficient producers pay more taxes in absolute terms than their less efficient counterpart. It's hard to say the roofer isn't being rewarded fairly.
Calling entertainment or anything else a luxury doesn't change its benefit. Besides, where should we draw the line? Should we call everything other than food or shelter a luxury? Should high quality/priced food then be a luxury? What about big houses? Or pools? Cars? Maybe everything other than a cardboard box and a bowl of rice should be considered a luxury? Point is, luxury good create wealth just as much as necessities. Would the farmer really care about feeding more than his family if he had nothing to buy with his income?
Ada is a good language, from a language point of view. Ada compilers will find several potential problems at *compile* time due to the strongly typed nature of the language. Ada's main flaw is the lack of vast user libraries that C, C++ and Java have (although one can natively interface to libraries of certain specific languages, including C, with a wrapper like construct). If you care to learn more about *why* the language was designed the way it was I highly recommend reading the Ada 95 Rationale.
Or here's a wild idea--don't trust the client.
Send the client what they need to see, and nothing more. Check their actions for legality on the server. Magically, if you do this, there's no need to check for cheating tools.
You're simplifying the situation a bit too much. Stopping cheating isn't the only concern, or even the most important. Latency and computational power (distributed vs. server only) are also involved. If you did everything on the server side, it would cause lag (not necessarily network lag, but the visual lag of trying to do something and that action actually appearing on the client). Personally I'd rather have a usable game with anti-cheating tools running (with the possibility of a few knowledgeable cheaters) than one that is impossible to cheat in yet feels so slow that I don't want to play it anyway.
Unlike many American games which are net sum (you gain by taking directly from other players)...
Is there anything better than taking from the your fellow man?
I know you meant to be funny... but it's rather ironic. Capitalism (or a free market system) is based on mutually beneficial transactions, in other words it's not a zero sum game. But Socialism by definition takes from some players to give to others.
I lost all interest the second I watched a gameplay vid where the losing team becomes unable to attack before the next round starts, allowing the winning team to frag them without resistance.
You lost all interest in a game because they give the winners 10 seconds to have some fun before the next round starts? This is the equivilant of not wanting to drive a race car because they allow the winner of the race a victory lap. It doesn't ruin the game. All it is is a special moment/reward for the victors. Besides, if you hate dieing that much you can always try to run and hide. I actually had fun as the loser when I just dodged rockets a soldier was shooting at me... then taunting him (using the rather funny in-game taunt animation, not smack talk). He switched to shotgun and finished me off, but we both got a good laugh out of it.
What the law is says nothing about what the law should be. For instance, at one time slaverly was legal. Should it have been legal? Now the debate isn't whether or not there are legal restrictions to immigration, but what should those restrictions be (if any).
Personally I view the issue as one of personal freedom. If I see an illegal alien working I'll let it go and not report it, much in the same way that if I saw a run away slave a hundred years ago I'd let it go and not report it even though both acts would have been illegal. I think our laws should be changed so that if a person can find work here, they should have legal status here (and pay taxes and be allowed to drive if they obtain insurance and pass the tests, etc...). Some on the anti-immigration side talk about the damage done to our culture. But to me our culture means individual freedom. Mass deportations and agressive limitations on immigration do not say freedom to me.
But back then, being without Internet access did not make people unemployable.
Obviously there are jobs that don't require Internet access. But even so, rural areas DO have telephone service. And you can still get access to the Internet through that. Also, you can drag your laptop to the nearest wireless hotspot and get on, even though its not 24x7. I know that some people in the Slashdot community think broadband Internet is necessary for survival... but it really isn't.
LoL, I was thinking the same thing. "Crisis" should probably be banned from Slashdot headlines after this. When I was growing up, no one had any idea "The Internet" even existed, much less access to it. Yet somehow we survived. We also only had 4 TV stations, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. Was that a "crises" too?
The problem is we really need a multi-party system...
The problem isn't the number of parties. The problem is the Federal Government has too much jurisdiction and too much power over too many issues. If the Feds had a narrow focus of making sure the states didn't go to war with one another and promoting individual freedom instead of limiting our freedom, we wouldn't have so many opportunities for corruption.
Congressmen spend too much time forcing us to spend our money (through taxes) on their pet projects and making laws favoring the interests of their largest political contributers because they have the power to do so. A multi-party system will not cure this ailment. The only cure is to remove that power. We should ammend the constitution to give the priciples of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happisness" legal foundation.
I'm not against government. I'm just against a large central government that limits our freedom and tries to do too much for too many instead of one that realizes that it should focus on a few core issues. Even issues that are best left to governments are often better handled by local governments instead of a national one.
The guys at the top had some brains and understood they had to play reasonably fair with the suckers or they wouldn't come back and the suckers had to have a "good time" while they were there. This put limits on what could and could not be done.
I don't see any limits when you move it online. How do you know if you are being cheated?
Because the guys at the top have some brains and understand that they have to play reasonably fair with the suckers or they wouldn't come back. But thats not the reason gambling should be allowed. Here is the reason:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..."
While these two Goliaths are locking horns and fighting over soon-to-be-obsolete technology, a third player will sneak behind them and steal the pot of gold.
I think interesting would be a better word to use than entertaining. Entertaining implies a start and an end, such as is the case with a movie, a TV show or a video game (even with MMOs its possible to explore all the content). But interesting implies that you can keep learning (for fun!) beyond what is presented to you.
Once again, I'm sure this will be doomed to failure. It will be riddled with DRM and have all sorts of technological (if not outright legal) hurdles to get the movies I buy to play when and where I want them.
I use Netflix, and it seems to work pretty well for me. Of course, I'm just watching them on my PC as they intended and not trying to store them for posterity because that would be dishonest.
Instead, you should see that any busy little coffeeshop that plays your songs is doing you a favor by putting your music before the public. Maybe you should be paying them.
I like live music as much as the next guy, but when's the last time you've heard a cover song that wasn't already popular? The music has already been put before the public, the public already likes it, and now the composers of the music want a piece of the action. Why should the coffee house business be exempt from paying the music business for using its music?
Not entirely true. The US government has classified certain data encryption software as munitions. It is illegal for it to be exported from the US (or it's allies) and, as far as I know, it is illegal for a US citizen to work on such software anywhere in the world except the US.
That doesn't exactly contradict what I said. Sure we may have legal restrictions on exports... but there is nothing prohibiting other countries from producing that software on their own (assuming they've got some really smart people to do it).
Very informative post. I'm a Software Engineer and I realize that software can be made anywhere in the world, regardless of immigration policies. And I know I'll have to compete with Software Engineers from other countries. My preference would be to open up immigration laws here in the United States. That way more companies (or individuals!) start up software related businesses here instead of being legally barred from coming here or choosing a different country due to our retarded restrictionist policies. The protectionist crowd is not only inconsiderate of their fellow Earthlings, but naive and acting against our own best interests as well.
Slashdot Mirror
You could say it's slower to write, but it's not that slow.
Ada:
IF a AND b THEN
c;
d;
e;
END IF;
C:
if (a && b) {
c;
d;
e;
}
Ada tends to use words instead of symbols. Does it take longer to type? Yeah, a little. But this doesn't make it hard or obscure. In fact, it makes it much easier for non-programmers (and new programmers) to read and understand the code.
Why would you care about non-programmers? Because in the real world, programs are written to offer real world solutions. It helps if these programs can be reviewed by engineers, scientists, accountants, etc... who may not know every language, but can figure out the basic logic if it uses words instead of symbols. Also, the improved readability makes future changes less painful.
What happens if a coworker used & instead of && in the C version? It's a lot harder to make those kinds of mistakes in Ada.
I think the complaint wasn't just that they were expensive, but that they were expensive for a "preview." You'll still need to buy the regular books later.
I voted for McCain and I support his positions. Particularly regarding fighting government waste. How many Senators are willing to oppose their own party on spending? McCain does (and takes a lot of heat for it). I also support his immigration policy. I may not be considered a "true conservative" because I see real people here, working hard to make a life better for themselves and their families. In my opinion, the immigration law they have broken is unjust and should be changed (or at least increase the number of permits so people don't have to come illegally if they want a chance). More on immigration: The "scapegoat politics" (blame the ) practiced by some on the far right scares me. Does it win votes? Sure. But it leads down a path of inciting hatred, burning crosses and swastikas. It is our duty as American citizens to oppose the rising tide of scapegoat politics, even if we must vote against seemingly popular (according to talk radio) opinion.
However, I don't expect my monitor to have a single connection to the PC any time soon.
We PC users may not expect good design, but it would still be nice to have. I want a less cluttered computing area and I've read more than one article stating that consumers in general want less cluttered computer areas.
You leave out an important point. The roof taring guy only benefits one person/family/business at a time. Obviously he should be paid less than someone like Tiger Woods who benefits thousands of fans per tournament. Same thing with Spielberg, he benefits millions with his movies. And I don't know what Paris makes, but she entertains more people than the roofer, and besides that, her family benefited a lot of people with their hotels. Basically, a free market helps those who are efficient (benefit the most people) at the cost of the less efficient (benefit one person at a time). Also, these efficient producers pay more taxes in absolute terms than their less efficient counterpart. It's hard to say the roofer isn't being rewarded fairly. Calling entertainment or anything else a luxury doesn't change its benefit. Besides, where should we draw the line? Should we call everything other than food or shelter a luxury? Should high quality/priced food then be a luxury? What about big houses? Or pools? Cars? Maybe everything other than a cardboard box and a bowl of rice should be considered a luxury? Point is, luxury good create wealth just as much as necessities. Would the farmer really care about feeding more than his family if he had nothing to buy with his income?
Ada is a good language, from a language point of view. Ada compilers will find several potential problems at *compile* time due to the strongly typed nature of the language. Ada's main flaw is the lack of vast user libraries that C, C++ and Java have (although one can natively interface to libraries of certain specific languages, including C, with a wrapper like construct). If you care to learn more about *why* the language was designed the way it was I highly recommend reading the Ada 95 Rationale.
Ironically, the authors of the article are employers telling Universities to produce what they want.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add, some types of cheating can work using no more information than a non-cheating player would have, such as aim-bots.
You're simplifying the situation a bit too much. Stopping cheating isn't the only concern, or even the most important. Latency and computational power (distributed vs. server only) are also involved. If you did everything on the server side, it would cause lag (not necessarily network lag, but the visual lag of trying to do something and that action actually appearing on the client). Personally I'd rather have a usable game with anti-cheating tools running (with the possibility of a few knowledgeable cheaters) than one that is impossible to cheat in yet feels so slow that I don't want to play it anyway.
I know you meant to be funny... but it's rather ironic. Capitalism (or a free market system) is based on mutually beneficial transactions, in other words it's not a zero sum game. But Socialism by definition takes from some players to give to others.
You lost all interest in a game because they give the winners 10 seconds to have some fun before the next round starts? This is the equivilant of not wanting to drive a race car because they allow the winner of the race a victory lap. It doesn't ruin the game. All it is is a special moment/reward for the victors. Besides, if you hate dieing that much you can always try to run and hide. I actually had fun as the loser when I just dodged rockets a soldier was shooting at me... then taunting him (using the rather funny in-game taunt animation, not smack talk). He switched to shotgun and finished me off, but we both got a good laugh out of it.
Oh yeah, pyro is better than ever. Especially when you hear the soldier yell out "I'm on fire!"
Personally I view the issue as one of personal freedom. If I see an illegal alien working I'll let it go and not report it, much in the same way that if I saw a run away slave a hundred years ago I'd let it go and not report it even though both acts would have been illegal. I think our laws should be changed so that if a person can find work here, they should have legal status here (and pay taxes and be allowed to drive if they obtain insurance and pass the tests, etc...). Some on the anti-immigration side talk about the damage done to our culture. But to me our culture means individual freedom. Mass deportations and agressive limitations on immigration do not say freedom to me.
Obviously there are jobs that don't require Internet access. But even so, rural areas DO have telephone service. And you can still get access to the Internet through that. Also, you can drag your laptop to the nearest wireless hotspot and get on, even though its not 24x7. I know that some people in the Slashdot community think broadband Internet is necessary for survival... but it really isn't.
LoL, I was thinking the same thing. "Crisis" should probably be banned from Slashdot headlines after this. When I was growing up, no one had any idea "The Internet" even existed, much less access to it. Yet somehow we survived. We also only had 4 TV stations, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. Was that a "crises" too?
The problem isn't the number of parties. The problem is the Federal Government has too much jurisdiction and too much power over too many issues. If the Feds had a narrow focus of making sure the states didn't go to war with one another and promoting individual freedom instead of limiting our freedom, we wouldn't have so many opportunities for corruption.
Congressmen spend too much time forcing us to spend our money (through taxes) on their pet projects and making laws favoring the interests of their largest political contributers because they have the power to do so. A multi-party system will not cure this ailment. The only cure is to remove that power. We should ammend the constitution to give the priciples of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happisness" legal foundation. I'm not against government. I'm just against a large central government that limits our freedom and tries to do too much for too many instead of one that realizes that it should focus on a few core issues. Even issues that are best left to governments are often better handled by local governments instead of a national one.
Return of Cyrix!
"Perhaps learning should be entertaining"
I think interesting would be a better word to use than entertaining. Entertaining implies a start and an end, such as is the case with a movie, a TV show or a video game (even with MMOs its possible to explore all the content). But interesting implies that you can keep learning (for fun!) beyond what is presented to you.
I use Netflix, and it seems to work pretty well for me. Of course, I'm just watching them on my PC as they intended and not trying to store them for posterity because that would be dishonest.
Funnily enough, poor people like wal-mart. It's those with a bit more income that complain.
Very informative post. I'm a Software Engineer and I realize that software can be made anywhere in the world, regardless of immigration policies. And I know I'll have to compete with Software Engineers from other countries. My preference would be to open up immigration laws here in the United States. That way more companies (or individuals!) start up software related businesses here instead of being legally barred from coming here or choosing a different country due to our retarded restrictionist policies. The protectionist crowd is not only inconsiderate of their fellow Earthlings, but naive and acting against our own best interests as well.