Many years ago I got pulled into a scam around speed reading. A good friend (at the time) was in the thrall of a conman with an interesting proposal. The elevator pitch went something like this: "Imagine a system that flashes words at you subliminally and when it detects you haven't understood a word (via a biofeedback mechanism) it then flashes the dictionary definition of that word. You could read an entire book in minutes and have complete understanding of the content."
Even though I was young I still could smell bullshit. A small group of similarly-minded people tried to pop the bubble, but when the true believers had invested so much time and emotional energy there was no turning them around. The was more to it than this: crazy mind games, a three-car pile up and other weirdness (including an impromptu cover of "The Rainbow Connection" in an upmarket restaurant), but I won't bore you with the details. The end-point is it soured a friendship which never recovered.
Maybe I'm biased by that experience, but any technology that promises to solve problems by getting people to read faster - instead of, say, with better comprehension - leaves me with the taste of snake-oil in my mouth.
By explaining that those extra supersymmetrical particles are actually packed away in really tiny dimensions that the LHC can't touch. Prove it aint so!
Just compile your Dart to JS (https://www.dartlang.org/docs/dart-up-and-running/contents/ch04-tools-dart2js.html). Then you can debug the generated code on ALL platforms:)
Oh, you're no fun.. why can't we get all jihaddy from time to time. "The sports team from my general geographical location is better than yours" works for the general public. What's wrong with a bit of rough and tumble over each other's favourite programming language?
Why pick one when you can pick all three in the same application?:)
No, you're absolutely right - being able to choose a mode of programming is neat and Java does lend itself to doing neat things. But it still feels like a language that someone quickly hacked together. And the freedom to pick a paradigm means your fellow coders get to pick whatever happens to be in their clue bucket for the day. At least with a language that focuses on imperative or functional coding you can be reasonably sure that the guy sitting next to you has a similar view of reality as you do. "Multi-paradigm" is a bit like saying "post modern", with all the positive and negative connotations. I prefer my languages neo-classical:)
In my 35 years of professional programming, getting good at dozens of languages, I've only run across 2 I've actively disliked. Javascript is one of them (tcl was the other).
JS is a crap language that IMHO can't be fixed. If they ever add an honest garbage collector to the base language then most programs will delete themselves upon execution.
Lol. And the garbage collector would then send out an email to every web designer who says "I know how to code in Java" when they mean Javascript and clean up that confusion once and for all.
I've been forcing myself to get good at writing JS lately (if only because Node looks like it'll make all my other skills irrelevant in the web development market). It.. just.. feels.. wrong. Nothing in the language lends itself to building architectured solutions. Maybe the testing tools have caught up with other languages now, but you're still testing ugly code.
Javascript is the smallpox of coding languages. Maybe once it's finally eradicated Brendan Eich will only be remembered for this, the equally damaging Rust language and attempting to remove the marriage rights of same-sex couples in California. Hey, did I just politicise Javascript there? Flame on.
Well.. as everyone knows in this country, drop bears are if anything MORE aggressive during heatwaves. You rarely get reports of attacks during the winter months, but there's been a spate of deaths in the areas outside of Brisbane this summer - again, mostly visiting tourists who never seem to take the danger seriously.
It's not the desert you schmuck. The city I live in was the hottest city on the planet yesterday. Air-conditioning was failing under the heat - not from lack of power but from the basic heat differential between outside and in. Trains had to run on reduced schedules, transport staff were handing out free water bottles so no-one dehydrates. It's crazy. The bush fire season has started in earnest, and houses near cities have been destroyed. This affects day-to-day living of people living in large cities (millions of people).
Obviously I prefer Ruby and to touch on the meta-programming aspect (whether good or evil), IMHO Ruby does a better job in this area. Mutable classes might give some people the heebie-jeebies, but it's saved my bacon several times. Ruby's Smalltalk-like message passing is sweet. Writing DSLs in Ruby is much more straightforward than in Python. There are many things to like.
Python gives you a nice sense of structure, but that can be a curse as well as it feels quite rigid. Most of the people I know who code in Python come from an engineering background, and that kinda makes sense to me. It feels like an engineering language. Ruby on the other hand is more fluid. It lends itself to more organic styles of coding.
The original AC post about "Ruby adds nothing to the existing languages" is clearly a troll, though I'd say the poster is right in a way. Ruby doesn't necessarily introduce anything new - it just puts it all together in the one place. Plus it's a joy to code in.
Ah... but in my team we have a basic catch-cry: "Be nice to your future self". Plus all code is reviewed by other team members. So if you feel like doing something weird, someone will tap you and ask "what's all this mean?". But yes, thank you for the fix.
Meta-programming done poorly can drive your co-workers to drink, especially if you've taken to using some clever-clever idiomatic re-use of common methods or operators that's not apparent to anyone outside your own head (possibly what your college prof. was taking issue with). Some legacy code that I've had to deal with in Ruby overloaded the << operator for an array, silently filtering out objects you were pushing in based on obscure criteria. And the comment left by the previous coder? "Magic goes here". Thank you, prick.
But I agree, using meta-programming to be "cute" should be frowned upon. I think of it as spice in your food. A sprinkle is good, too much will ruin your meal.
Python is a great language. I wouldn't want to fan the flames of the Ruby vs. Python debate as the intent behind both languages is essentially the same. Matz designed the language to be human-centric, following the "principle of least surprise". Python is similarly very friendly to coders. That's what I love about Ruby. When I started out coding in the language and had to figure out how to do something new it was often a matter of asking what's the most obvious way. And usually that worked. Plus you have all the best bits of PERL, Smalltalk and Lisp in a clean, easily readable syntax.
As an aside, I'm surprised the "meta-programming" reference got targeted over "programmer joy".
Ruby adds nothing to the existing languages, which already have the plus of having zillions of libraries and modules developed.
Wasted effort.
Screw it, you're right. Why people don't just code in C I don't know? I mean, you can do anything in that language. You can even simulate "classes", make use of those so-called "design patterns". Even Ruby's meta-programming model could be done with a bit of hackery with pointers. Who gives a toss over how readable a language is, or whether the language is optimised for "programmer joy"? What nonsense. I'm with you bro, if people can't learn to code in a real language they should just get off the bus.
You may be able to get some assets out using swftools (http://www.swftools.org/). It's not the easiest thing to use, but handy. Have used it in the past, but you need the compiled.swf, not the.fla. Fla files you can probably just use Adobe's tools (commercial, but you might be able to pick up an old copy from somewhere).
Yes, definitely. I've found Markdown an excellent tool for writing. Pandoc (combined with Apple's TextUtil) has proven useful for converting older documents, to a certain degree, but I find I only use Markdown for serious writing. Am currently in the process of building a toolchain that converts Markdown writing into a variety of format, blogging about it here:
Slashdot Mirror
Many years ago I got pulled into a scam around speed reading. A good friend (at the time) was in the thrall of a conman with an interesting proposal. The elevator pitch went something like this: "Imagine a system that flashes words at you subliminally and when it detects you haven't understood a word (via a biofeedback mechanism) it then flashes the dictionary definition of that word. You could read an entire book in minutes and have complete understanding of the content."
Even though I was young I still could smell bullshit. A small group of similarly-minded people tried to pop the bubble, but when the true believers had invested so much time and emotional energy there was no turning them around. The was more to it than this: crazy mind games, a three-car pile up and other weirdness (including an impromptu cover of "The Rainbow Connection" in an upmarket restaurant), but I won't bore you with the details. The end-point is it soured a friendship which never recovered.
Maybe I'm biased by that experience, but any technology that promises to solve problems by getting people to read faster - instead of, say, with better comprehension - leaves me with the taste of snake-oil in my mouth.
It seems more optimised for smaller devices. Read fine on the phone, harder on a regular screen.
So... we can both make pop references to String Theory? Win-win! Though yes, yours is more pithy.
By explaining that those extra supersymmetrical particles are actually packed away in really tiny dimensions that the LHC can't touch. Prove it aint so!
Just compile your Dart to JS (https://www.dartlang.org/docs/dart-up-and-running/contents/ch04-tools-dart2js.html). Then you can debug the generated code on ALL platforms :)
Oh, you're no fun.. why can't we get all jihaddy from time to time. "The sports team from my general geographical location is better than yours" works for the general public. What's wrong with a bit of rough and tumble over each other's favourite programming language?
You are wise and correct. A master programmer understands his place within the Tao.
http://www.canonical.org/~krag...
"Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained.''
Yeah.. wassup with that? The mobile version of slash seems to have gone away the last few days. Apologies for remaining off topic.
Did I say Java? Sorry.. Javascript. Ah.. so easy to get them confused. Damn you Netscape Marketing Division - you got me again.
The fact that there is a need for a book like this: http://shop.oreilly.com/produc...
:) Still haven't found a "C - Just the Good Parts" book, but still looking.
Maybe?
Why pick one when you can pick all three in the same application? :)
:)
No, you're absolutely right - being able to choose a mode of programming is neat and Java does lend itself to doing neat things. But it still feels like a language that someone quickly hacked together. And the freedom to pick a paradigm means your fellow coders get to pick whatever happens to be in their clue bucket for the day. At least with a language that focuses on imperative or functional coding you can be reasonably sure that the guy sitting next to you has a similar view of reality as you do. "Multi-paradigm" is a bit like saying "post modern", with all the positive and negative connotations. I prefer my languages neo-classical
In my 35 years of professional programming, getting good at dozens of languages, I've only run across 2 I've actively disliked. Javascript is one of them (tcl was the other). JS is a crap language that IMHO can't be fixed. If they ever add an honest garbage collector to the base language then most programs will delete themselves upon execution.
Lol. And the garbage collector would then send out an email to every web designer who says "I know how to code in Java" when they mean Javascript and clean up that confusion once and for all.
I've been forcing myself to get good at writing JS lately (if only because Node looks like it'll make all my other skills irrelevant in the web development market). It.. just.. feels.. wrong. Nothing in the language lends itself to building architectured solutions. Maybe the testing tools have caught up with other languages now, but you're still testing ugly code.
Javascript is the smallpox of coding languages. Maybe once it's finally eradicated Brendan Eich will only be remembered for this, the equally damaging Rust language and attempting to remove the marriage rights of same-sex couples in California. Hey, did I just politicise Javascript there? Flame on.
Well.. as everyone knows in this country, drop bears are if anything MORE aggressive during heatwaves. You rarely get reports of attacks during the winter months, but there's been a spate of deaths in the areas outside of Brisbane this summer - again, mostly visiting tourists who never seem to take the danger seriously.
You might want come up with a better term than "sheeple" - it makes you come across like a group-think zombie.
It's not the desert you schmuck. The city I live in was the hottest city on the planet yesterday. Air-conditioning was failing under the heat - not from lack of power but from the basic heat differential between outside and in. Trains had to run on reduced schedules, transport staff were handing out free water bottles so no-one dehydrates. It's crazy. The bush fire season has started in earnest, and houses near cities have been destroyed. This affects day-to-day living of people living in large cities (millions of people).
I'd prefer an authentication system that forces you to play a variant of Zork.
In respect to our Python-coding brothers and sisters, both Python and Ruby are very developer-friendly. Anyway, here is a nice comparison of the two languages' features: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1113611/what-does-ruby-have-that-python-doesnt-and-vice-versa
Obviously I prefer Ruby and to touch on the meta-programming aspect (whether good or evil), IMHO Ruby does a better job in this area. Mutable classes might give some people the heebie-jeebies, but it's saved my bacon several times. Ruby's Smalltalk-like message passing is sweet. Writing DSLs in Ruby is much more straightforward than in Python. There are many things to like.
Python gives you a nice sense of structure, but that can be a curse as well as it feels quite rigid. Most of the people I know who code in Python come from an engineering background, and that kinda makes sense to me. It feels like an engineering language. Ruby on the other hand is more fluid. It lends itself to more organic styles of coding.
The original AC post about "Ruby adds nothing to the existing languages" is clearly a troll, though I'd say the poster is right in a way. Ruby doesn't necessarily introduce anything new - it just puts it all together in the one place. Plus it's a joy to code in.
Ah... but in my team we have a basic catch-cry: "Be nice to your future self". Plus all code is reviewed by other team members. So if you feel like doing something weird, someone will tap you and ask "what's all this mean?". But yes, thank you for the fix.
Python is a great language aside from the whitespace.
But did you know you can add braces using the future module?
Next major release of Python will include braces, so you can get ready by doing this in your code:
>>> from __future__ import braces
Neat. Did not know this. Thanks for the clue.
It's like any tool. Meta-programming, done well, lends to more readable code and neat shortcuts. See http://patshaughnessy.net/2010/2/20/getting-started-with-ruby-metaprogramming for an example.
Meta-programming done poorly can drive your co-workers to drink, especially if you've taken to using some clever-clever idiomatic re-use of common methods or operators that's not apparent to anyone outside your own head (possibly what your college prof. was taking issue with). Some legacy code that I've had to deal with in Ruby overloaded the << operator for an array, silently filtering out objects you were pushing in based on obscure criteria. And the comment left by the previous coder? "Magic goes here". Thank you, prick.
But I agree, using meta-programming to be "cute" should be frowned upon. I think of it as spice in your food. A sprinkle is good, too much will ruin your meal.
You mispelled LISP
Gold! Wish I had mod points to give you.
Python is a great language. I wouldn't want to fan the flames of the Ruby vs. Python debate as the intent behind both languages is essentially the same. Matz designed the language to be human-centric, following the "principle of least surprise". Python is similarly very friendly to coders. That's what I love about Ruby. When I started out coding in the language and had to figure out how to do something new it was often a matter of asking what's the most obvious way. And usually that worked. Plus you have all the best bits of PERL, Smalltalk and Lisp in a clean, easily readable syntax.
As an aside, I'm surprised the "meta-programming" reference got targeted over "programmer joy".
Ruby adds nothing to the existing languages, which already have the plus of having zillions of libraries and modules developed. Wasted effort.
Screw it, you're right. Why people don't just code in C I don't know? I mean, you can do anything in that language. You can even simulate "classes", make use of those so-called "design patterns". Even Ruby's meta-programming model could be done with a bit of hackery with pointers. Who gives a toss over how readable a language is, or whether the language is optimised for "programmer joy"? What nonsense. I'm with you bro, if people can't learn to code in a real language they should just get off the bus.
You may be able to get some assets out using swftools (http://www.swftools.org/). It's not the easiest thing to use, but handy. Have used it in the past, but you need the compiled .swf, not the .fla. Fla files you can probably just use Adobe's tools (commercial, but you might be able to pick up an old copy from somewhere).
Yes, definitely. I've found Markdown an excellent tool for writing. Pandoc (combined with Apple's TextUtil) has proven useful for converting older documents, to a certain degree, but I find I only use Markdown for serious writing. Am currently in the process of building a toolchain that converts Markdown writing into a variety of format, blogging about it here:
http://rubyredbricks.com/blog/2013/10/09/ruby-pub-part-1-toolchains/
and here:
http://rubyredbricks.com/blog/2013/10/02/ruby-and-hpub/