While I get the point you were making, the notion that excess global variables are always "bad" is an amusing one, and shows how little serious coding you actually did back then. In compiled languages, global variables are usually defined in program space, and that translates to "the binary will not load if not enough memory is available to load it" instead of "oops this broke because we ran out of stack space".
Thanks for the personal attack, you almost sounded like a grownup. In your rush to assert your authority, you started talking about how a compiler works, rather than coding style, which was the topic at hand. There's a great book called "Code Complete" you might want to read if you you like this subject, it covers modern language coding style and is quite useful. Anyway, to your point about my point: there are plenty of reasons for not scoping variables as close to the procedure as possible, but almost all beginner programmers won't be writing device drivers or embedded code with severely limited resources; it is a much likelier scenario they will be benefit from scoping style. So while compilers in the old days may have run out of local heap space during compilation, that really isn't relevant for most first-year programming jobs today (again, except for the most severely restricted embedded environments, but those aren't first-year jobs).
Bullshit. What bad habits are you imagining? I'm willing to bet that you're just parroting nonsense, and that you don't actually know.
Yes, I agree that it is much simpler to do "10 PRINT "HELLO, WORD!" and type RUN. The first time I taught C classes in highschool in the late 80's, most kids were coming off the aforementioned hardware, and the idea of having to compile and link was a big obstacle. As was the lack of line numbers, and ambiguity of goto/gosub in C (or lack thereof), even the limited scoping of if/then.
The "bad" habits I saw were the establishing of a paradigm (linear procedure code) that made it extremely difficult to transition to a more abstract language. All the C code looked like BASIC, massively monolithic. The notion of how to proceduralize took a lot of effort. They were literally offended by having to scope and typecase variables: everything was just globals. Clearly you can agree that monolithic non-procedural code with all global variables is a "bad" habit in the modern world, unless you're just dinking with an Arduino and don't have to worry about writing real-world code that people rely on.
Kinda like how C programmers tend to fail on an epic scale when trying to program LISP: once you've been raised on one paradigm, it is very hard to start thinking another way.
I don't think it is "Bad", per se, it just makes it harder to abstract for some people. But then again, there are very few good programmers out there, and there are far more bad habits picked up than starting with BASIC..
I agree with all the python folks. I would have recommended LISP, but the vast majority of Intro to LISP texts treat it like C, unless you go to MIT. I also would have recommended PASCAL, but I didn't want to get run out of town by the angry mob...
As per your "millions of people got started," I never saw BASIC used for anything but hobbyists. When I installed/repaired minis and micros in the early 80's, COBOL and Fortran77 were what corporate clients were programming with. In my two summers of dealing with dozens of customers for office and industry (payroll, inventory, automation), none of them used BASIC. I'd like to know more about where BASIC was used to round out my knowledge, as my evidence is largely anecdotal.
Ah, I remember being in the "fuck everybody" category. Seemed like the best way to go when confronted by nutjobs from both sides. The only problem is that your implied neutrality isn't symmetric. One side is (largely) motivated by profit, the other side is (largely) motivated by a desire to advance the health of society.
Second: safety trials? WTF are you talking about? There's no such thing as a "safety" trial? Who is going to pay for them? Who is going to regulate them? Who is going to enforce them? THese companies are patenting genes at a breakneck pace, many that haven't even been created in the real world. There's (barely) no oversight, and the only institution that could possibly provide oversight is the government, and they have neither time, resources, or expertise to manage this tsunami of untested GM products. Sadly, we are all test subjects for the handful of companies that control food production.
Assuming the crops produce seeds. Many Monsanto products have "terminator seed" genes, which means they are sterile, so there is no seed to save for next year, thus undoing 40,000 years of agricultural tradition (and possibly even redefining the term "agriculture".) I don't know how they even do this, but it is fucking evil to the core.
The flurry of international tablet lawsuits seems much more rigorous than I remember for any past technology. Was it always this bad?
Smart phones didn't sue each other this badly. Nor did DVD manufacturers. AMD & Intel went at it hard during the 80's & early 90's. Sony & Betamax sorta duked it out. But the tablet wars seem to be nutso.
That's a good point, as I was a kiss fan when I was 10 but only because my +6 year older cousin and sister were into KISS. And my grandmother would enjoy watching us jump around their albums. Lol. Even she was into it, so I guess they were uber lame. At the time I remember Cooper was for the burnouts that cut class to smoke or get high, kiss was for the wannabees. Further, listening to them as I got older (much older!) I think Cooper was a real musician struggling to get his music out of his head, with theatrics. KISS was all theatrics. Cooper's music is still listen-able today, a wee bit grandiose: 'billion dollar babies' and 'love it to death' are still in rotation on my iPhone. I think that's what I'll listen to today.
to really understand the success of KISS, you had to be around in the 1970's. black sabbath was still "underground" (far too scary for the masses), and music was still harmless, sappy, and/or depressing. kiss comes along and every 14-18 year old suddenly had a raging hard on to terrify their parents. sad to look at it this way, but KISS were the badasses of pop metal. and even the term metal is a stretch: their music was too melodic and "bluesy" to qualify. of course, when i see posters for slipknot i don't think we've come very far, but pre 1980's new wave, KISS was THE way to freak out parents.
today, with a generation raised on 2-girls-1-cup, KISS looks like a trite bunch of pussies.
I think the fact that you put "stability" at #1 means you've probably never owned an iPhone. I've had a 3GS since the week it came out and stability has never even crossed my mind: it just works. The only time I think about stability is when I'm playing Words with Friends and it crashes and vanishes.
Stability shouldn't even be an issue. No one bought Bakelite phone in the 1960's based on stability: it was correct by construction _already_. I think iPhone nailed that. Of course, I've never owned an Android (used 'em plenty and don't mind 'em one bit), but I would expect "stability" to never enter my conscious thought with Android phones either.
I just wish the bar was set higher so that absolutely no one would feel compelled to include "stability" on a list of important features.
It's like saying, "I'm shopping for a car, and my #1 important feature is that it doesn't spontaneously burst into flames." We shouldn't have to even think about that.
So what is that annoying thing that Eddie Vedder always does, where he tries to sing from the back of his throat to sound deeper / more menacing, but sounds like a twit instead? Wait, is anyone here old enough to remember Pearl Jam?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, because they certainly do NOT confiscate knives on planes. ;-)
This is so stupid. I'm a lefty eco groovy person, but this is just pathetic. Almost as sad as Heston's "From my cold dead hands" battlecry.
It just puts emphasis on the moonbats on the left, and ammo for Faux News, rather than addressing the issues in a non sensationalist way.
Sigh.
I don't think that will happen. UV completely destroys the DNA of micro organisms.
On a macro scale, it's like suggesting shooting finches with a minigun means eventually finches will become bulletproof.
While I'd love to see that, it is far too destructive to allow for selection pressure.
Jimmy Carter
Damn kids don't even know history.
+1
While I get the point you were making, the notion that excess global variables are always "bad" is an amusing one, and shows how little serious coding you actually did back then. In compiled languages, global variables are usually defined in program space, and that translates to "the binary will not load if not enough memory is available to load it" instead of "oops this broke because we ran out of stack space".
Thanks for the personal attack, you almost sounded like a grownup. In your rush to assert your authority, you started talking about how a compiler works, rather than coding style, which was the topic at hand. There's a great book called "Code Complete" you might want to read if you you like this subject, it covers modern language coding style and is quite useful. Anyway, to your point about my point: there are plenty of reasons for not scoping variables as close to the procedure as possible, but almost all beginner programmers won't be writing device drivers or embedded code with severely limited resources; it is a much likelier scenario they will be benefit from scoping style. So while compilers in the old days may have run out of local heap space during compilation, that really isn't relevant for most first-year programming jobs today (again, except for the most severely restricted embedded environments, but those aren't first-year jobs).
Hear hear! /golfclap/
Bullshit. What bad habits are you imagining? I'm willing to bet that you're just parroting nonsense, and that you don't actually know.
Yes, I agree that it is much simpler to do "10 PRINT "HELLO, WORD!" and type RUN. The first time I taught C classes in highschool in the late 80's, most kids were coming off the aforementioned hardware, and the idea of having to compile and link was a big obstacle. As was the lack of line numbers, and ambiguity of goto/gosub in C (or lack thereof), even the limited scoping of if/then.
The "bad" habits I saw were the establishing of a paradigm (linear procedure code) that made it extremely difficult to transition to a more abstract language. All the C code looked like BASIC, massively monolithic. The notion of how to proceduralize took a lot of effort. They were literally offended by having to scope and typecase variables: everything was just globals. Clearly you can agree that monolithic non-procedural code with all global variables is a "bad" habit in the modern world, unless you're just dinking with an Arduino and don't have to worry about writing real-world code that people rely on.
Kinda like how C programmers tend to fail on an epic scale when trying to program LISP: once you've been raised on one paradigm, it is very hard to start thinking another way.
I don't think it is "Bad", per se, it just makes it harder to abstract for some people. But then again, there are very few good programmers out there, and there are far more bad habits picked up than starting with BASIC..
I agree with all the python folks. I would have recommended LISP, but the vast majority of Intro to LISP texts treat it like C, unless you go to MIT. I also would have recommended PASCAL, but I didn't want to get run out of town by the angry mob...
As per your "millions of people got started," I never saw BASIC used for anything but hobbyists. When I installed/repaired minis and micros in the early 80's, COBOL and Fortran77 were what corporate clients were programming with. In my two summers of dealing with dozens of customers for office and industry (payroll, inventory, automation), none of them used BASIC. I'd like to know more about where BASIC was used to round out my knowledge, as my evidence is largely anecdotal.
Bzzzt. Wrong.
The idea of profit is a fairly recent invention on the scale of human civilization.
But thanks for trying.
Run along now, little troll.
Ah, I remember being in the "fuck everybody" category. Seemed like the best way to go when confronted by nutjobs from both sides. The only problem is that your implied neutrality isn't symmetric. One side is (largely) motivated by profit, the other side is (largely) motivated by a desire to advance the health of society.
Second: safety trials? WTF are you talking about? There's no such thing as a "safety" trial? Who is going to pay for them? Who is going to regulate them? Who is going to enforce them? THese companies are patenting genes at a breakneck pace, many that haven't even been created in the real world. There's (barely) no oversight, and the only institution that could possibly provide oversight is the government, and they have neither time, resources, or expertise to manage this tsunami of untested GM products. Sadly, we are all test subjects for the handful of companies that control food production.
Assuming the crops produce seeds. Many Monsanto products have "terminator seed" genes, which means they are sterile, so there is no seed to save for next year, thus undoing 40,000 years of agricultural tradition (and possibly even redefining the term "agriculture".) I don't know how they even do this, but it is fucking evil to the core.
Yay, nuclear. We'll NEVER run out of uranium. /s
Lol! That is a fantastic graph. Thanks!
Good point(s). Yeah, I totally forgot about AC vs DC / Tesla vs Edison. Whew.
Doh. Thanks for the correction. :-)
Wrong Syndicate. Damn.
The flurry of international tablet lawsuits seems much more rigorous than I remember for any past technology. Was it always this bad?
Smart phones didn't sue each other this badly. Nor did DVD manufacturers. AMD & Intel went at it hard during the 80's & early 90's. Sony & Betamax sorta duked it out. But the tablet wars seem to be nutso.
At least the economy for lawyers is booming...
putting aside allegiances for a moment and looking at this from a purely engineering standpoint: bad ASS!!
That's a good point, as I was a kiss fan when I was 10 but only because my +6 year older cousin and sister were into KISS. And my grandmother would enjoy watching us jump around their albums. Lol. Even she was into it, so I guess they were uber lame. At the time I remember Cooper was for the burnouts that cut class to smoke or get high, kiss was for the wannabees. Further, listening to them as I got older (much older!) I think Cooper was a real musician struggling to get his music out of his head, with theatrics. KISS was all theatrics. Cooper's music is still listen-able today, a wee bit grandiose: 'billion dollar babies' and 'love it to death' are still in rotation on my iPhone. I think that's what I'll listen to today.
bahahahahaha!
to really understand the success of KISS, you had to be around in the 1970's. black sabbath was still "underground" (far too scary for the masses), and music was still harmless, sappy, and/or depressing. kiss comes along and every 14-18 year old suddenly had a raging hard on to terrify their parents. sad to look at it this way, but KISS were the badasses of pop metal. and even the term metal is a stretch: their music was too melodic and "bluesy" to qualify. of course, when i see posters for slipknot i don't think we've come very far, but pre 1980's new wave, KISS was THE way to freak out parents.
today, with a generation raised on 2-girls-1-cup, KISS looks like a trite bunch of pussies.
i think gene simmons is a gigantic douche, but script kiddies are even worse.
seriously, a DDoS? all that b/w wasted sucks for everyone. lame.
laziness. i want the government to push my mute button for me. /s
You illuminate an interesting subtext:
I think the fact that you put "stability" at #1 means you've probably never owned an iPhone. I've had a 3GS since the week it came out and stability has never even crossed my mind: it just works. The only time I think about stability is when I'm playing Words with Friends and it crashes and vanishes.
Stability shouldn't even be an issue. No one bought Bakelite phone in the 1960's based on stability: it was correct by construction _already_. I think iPhone nailed that. Of course, I've never owned an Android (used 'em plenty and don't mind 'em one bit), but I would expect "stability" to never enter my conscious thought with Android phones either.
I just wish the bar was set higher so that absolutely no one would feel compelled to include "stability" on a list of important features.
It's like saying, "I'm shopping for a car, and my #1 important feature is that it doesn't spontaneously burst into flames." We shouldn't have to even think about that.
man can't affect the world's climate...
paraphrased.
So what is that annoying thing that Eddie Vedder always does, where he tries to sing from the back of his throat to sound deeper / more menacing, but sounds like a twit instead? Wait, is anyone here old enough to remember Pearl Jam?