Well, since the Java Virtual Machine runs bytecode, not source code, you should be able to compile any language into Java bytecode.
g++ can compile C/C++ into Java bytecode, can't it?; I'm sure it or other compilers can do the same for other languages.
Then, assuming everyone has a Java virtual machine, you're all set; except for languages like Perl which aren't compiled -- that sucks, but hey you can't blame the virtual machine for the limitations of the language.
I was under the impression, from my computer science classes, that bin packing was polynomial-time reducable to shortest path. In fact, I probably had to prove that at one point. So ants should be equally good ("good" in a CS sense) at solving all NP-complete problems (such as traveling salesman), no? Is it just not "practical"?
Re:nice, but welcome back to the real world
on
Software Aesthetics
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I've seen this comment a lot in this discussion: "well, my software works, so it's good enough". You even say that you don't get paid to make pretty software; just usable software.
I suppose that might be true, but I would venture that not everyone is in the same boat. I, for example, AM paid to write pretty code. My job is to come up with relatively simple perl scripts (modules) to solve various problems that Dartmouth's website users have. (For example, I wrote a quota module to help people verify that files they want to write to disk will fit within their alloted disk quota.)
I have NEVER turned in to my boss anything but well-documented, well-commented, readable code. I don't do this out of respect for my users; frankly, I know how to use the software and if they don't they can read my docs and try to figure it out. No, I do it for the other schmucks like me. At some point, my boss will probably tell his next lackey to add some little feature to one of my modules, as he's asked me to do with some older programmer's works. And it's DAMNED IMPOSSIBLE to wrap my head around code which is all mixed up. I comment for other programmers. People who might need to sink their hands into my code.
Paying me now to write comments and format things well is worth it for the added speed with which the software will be maintained in the future. So for me, and I'm sure most of the code jockeys on Slashdot, the "real world" is one where software is written, THEN MAINTAINED. Beauty is part of maintanence.
Kurt, I work at Dartmouth College's Experimental Computing Group. We are a support group for new technologies which might interest researchers here, or be of use to the campus.
I first learned of AtheOS on Slashdot, and mentioned it to my boss. He looked at me and asked me what benefits it might offer over other operating systems and I couldn't really give him any good answer. We use mixtures of unices (pretty much every flavor, from Red Hat and Debian to IRIX, Sun, MacOS X, you name it) along with Windows. My boss will pay me to play with fun new technology but I have to justify it. Can you give me something to take to him and say "See, this is a great product that might be useful for this reason."
No, no, no! now you're making a rookie mistake. You don't have to harken back to BBSs to remember . I mean hell, I still use it in email, doesn't everyone else, too?
Anyway, the point is that html/xml stole the computer science standard characters which denote an encoding. So saying <grin> is a textual representation of some greater description of a grin. That is, the <> characters MEAN "an encoding of what lies within". <grin> was never a TAG, it was a contextual clue suggesting a real grin on the face of the author.
xml tags must be closed. so old html tags like , which aren't normally closed (ever see a ?) must be written in self-closing fashion (in xhtml, anyway -- an xml application), with a trailing slash: so becomes />.
Anyone else notice that that machine has, total, about 10 terabytes of memory? Damn. They must have gotten one hell of a deal from tiger.com.
Re:What happens to if the Windows source is opened
on
Everything Microsoft
·
· Score: 1
I really don't think people would flee Linux for Open Windows. Think about it: doesn't it seem like all the 'next generation' OSs are somehow based on UNIX? We have Linux, we have MacOS X, *BSD, all growing in popularity. Then with a standard like POSIX developers only have to write one app and run it anywhere.
I also assume that if Windows was GPL'ed, everyone would find out that the code sucks like the Mozilla people found out.
"I wonder how (a PC vendor) can get to $200 with Windows 98. But if they can do it, that's a real PC -- that's a breakthrough," he said.
What the hell was this guy thinking when he said this? I thought it was the greatest thing in the world when the article said they were going to charge $500 for a Windows box and only $200 for a Linux box, then this idiot has to imply that a Linux box "doesn't count as a REAL PC". Arg.
I once read a news story about a guy in some sunny place (Hawaii? California?) who did something similar with his house.
He covered the entire front of his beachhouse with flat-screen monitors hooked up to video feeds from the back of his house (don't you wish you had THAT kind of money!). So there was this really neat image of him standing in front of a blue-sky house (the view over the ocean behind the house was nice and sunny and clear). It sure didn't look cloaked but it was pretty phat anyway.
My question is, can I play DOOM on his house? Hell, can I play Super Mario on his house?
IEEE1394 is free to implement? Not that I would know, but then wouldn't that nullify Apple's position? I mean, the name "FireWire" is pretty cool, and that little icon of thiers to sit next to the port is pretty snazzy, but hardly a hardware manufacturer would pay a dollar (or a quarter, is that's the price now) for that pleasure. Where did you get this information?
(And why the hell does everyone post in AC mode unless they are posting sensitive material?)
My version of Internet Explorer (4.5) has an option to turn off "Animated GIFs" or you can even just turn off the looping feature of the GIFs so that the animation will run once then stops. Nice feature.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since the Java Virtual Machine runs bytecode, not source code, you should be able to compile any language into Java bytecode.
g++ can compile C/C++ into Java bytecode, can't it?; I'm sure it or other compilers can do the same for other languages.
Then, assuming everyone has a Java virtual machine, you're all set; except for languages like Perl which aren't compiled -- that sucks, but hey you can't blame the virtual machine for the limitations of the language.
is it just me or is that comment about women strangely out of place?
I believe it! Microsoft is known for stealing (ahem, buying away) programmers from other colonies. And they've been pretty successful.
I was under the impression, from my computer science classes, that bin packing was polynomial-time reducable to shortest path. In fact, I probably had to prove that at one point. So ants should be equally good ("good" in a CS sense) at solving all NP-complete problems (such as traveling salesman), no? Is it just not "practical"?
Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.
What happened to freeboxen?
I suppose that might be true, but I would venture that not everyone is in the same boat. I, for example, AM paid to write pretty code. My job is to come up with relatively simple perl scripts (modules) to solve various problems that Dartmouth's website users have. (For example, I wrote a quota module to help people verify that files they want to write to disk will fit within their alloted disk quota.)
I have NEVER turned in to my boss anything but well-documented, well-commented, readable code. I don't do this out of respect for my users; frankly, I know how to use the software and if they don't they can read my docs and try to figure it out. No, I do it for the other schmucks like me. At some point, my boss will probably tell his next lackey to add some little feature to one of my modules, as he's asked me to do with some older programmer's works. And it's DAMNED IMPOSSIBLE to wrap my head around code which is all mixed up. I comment for other programmers. People who might need to sink their hands into my code.
Paying me now to write comments and format things well is worth it for the added speed with which the software will be maintained in the future. So for me, and I'm sure most of the code jockeys on Slashdot, the "real world" is one where software is written, THEN MAINTAINED. Beauty is part of maintanence.
I first learned of AtheOS on Slashdot, and mentioned it to my boss. He looked at me and asked me what benefits it might offer over other operating systems and I couldn't really give him any good answer. We use mixtures of unices (pretty much every flavor, from Red Hat and Debian to IRIX, Sun, MacOS X, you name it) along with Windows. My boss will pay me to play with fun new technology but I have to justify it. Can you give me something to take to him and say "See, this is a great product that might be useful for this reason."
yes. yes i am.
No, no, no! now you're making a rookie mistake. You don't have to harken back to BBSs to remember . I mean hell, I still use it in email, doesn't everyone else, too?
Anyway, the point is that html/xml stole the computer science standard characters which denote an encoding. So saying <grin> is a textual representation of some greater description of a grin. That is, the <> characters MEAN "an encoding of what lies within". <grin> was never a TAG, it was a contextual clue suggesting a real grin on the face of the author.
One so often missed...
xml tags must be closed. so old html tags like/>.
, which aren't normally closed (ever see a
?) must be written in self-closing fashion (in xhtml, anyway -- an xml application), with a trailing slash: so becomes
<physical>
<head>
<face>
<eyes color="hazel"
<nose nostrels="huge"
<skin freckles="few" type="greasy"
<chin type="protruding"
</face>
<hair color="brown"
<hairline position="receding"
</head>
<torso length="175cm">
<clothes cost="minimal>
<pants type="jeans"
<shirt type="button-down" color="white" sleeves="short"
<belt color="brown"
</clothes>
<bellybutton type="innie"
</torso>
</physical>
<emotional>
<intelligence>152</intelligence>
<religion>emacs</religion>
</emotional>
</human>
Anyone else notice that that machine has, total, about 10 terabytes of memory? Damn. They must have gotten one hell of a deal from tiger.com.
I really don't think people would flee Linux for Open Windows. Think about it: doesn't it seem like all the 'next generation' OSs are somehow based on UNIX? We have Linux, we have MacOS X, *BSD, all growing in popularity. Then with a standard like POSIX developers only have to write one app and run it anywhere.
I also assume that if Windows was GPL'ed, everyone would find out that the code sucks like the Mozilla people found out.
Peace
"I wonder how (a PC vendor) can get to $200 with Windows 98. But if they can do it, that's a real PC -- that's a breakthrough," he said.
What the hell was this guy thinking when he said this? I thought it was the greatest thing in the world when the article said they were going to charge $500 for a Windows box and only $200 for a Linux box, then this idiot has to imply that a Linux box "doesn't count as a REAL PC". Arg.
Myopic
But what I'm wondering is where I can trade in my MacOS lisence for a LinuxPPC CD: I was forced to purchase my OS, too.
Peace
Myopic
I once read a news story about a guy in some sunny place (Hawaii? California?) who did something similar with his house.
He covered the entire front of his beachhouse with flat-screen monitors hooked up to video feeds from the back of his house (don't you wish you had THAT kind of money!). So there was this really neat image of him standing in front of a blue-sky house (the view over the ocean behind the house was nice and sunny and clear). It sure didn't look cloaked but it was pretty phat anyway.
My question is, can I play DOOM on his house? Hell, can I play Super Mario on his house?
Peace
Myopic
...so they could make a geek-level living by knocking off their cash-register friends.
IEEE1394 is free to implement? Not that I would know, but then wouldn't that nullify Apple's position? I mean, the name "FireWire" is pretty cool, and that little icon of thiers to sit next to the port is pretty snazzy, but hardly a hardware manufacturer would pay a dollar (or a quarter, is that's the price now) for that pleasure. Where did you get this information?
(And why the hell does everyone post in AC mode unless they are posting sensitive material?)
My version of Internet Explorer (4.5) has an option to turn off "Animated GIFs" or you can even just turn off the looping feature of the GIFs so that the animation will run once then stops. Nice feature.
Peace
Some time ago Apple Computer included software called "Keychain" with its OS.
Keychain would keep all your passwords super-secure in a little pop-up window and you only needed to remember the one Keychain password to access it.
Keychain was great software. Unfortunately Apple is too daft to recognize a good thing and axed Keychain from the MacOS.
Pfft.
Peace