Yes, it is the programmer's fault. Given the number of programmers that do this, perhaps it's time the language designers came up with a way to prevent this from being a problem, much like they did with garbage collection in Java.
First off, if error recovery is not part of your design, you are a pretty shitty-ass programmer.
There are a lot of shitty ass programmers. The language should facilitate them being able to add error recovery in a simple, elegant way.
Secondly, exceptions are much easier and cleaner to deal with than return codes.
Depends on the error. The exceptions mechanism requires a lot more typing and debugging that returning NULL if the function returns NULL. But why is the choice limitted to return codes and exceptions? Isn't there a middle ground?
So what you're saying is that if the programmer is lazy, it's no better than return values?
Well, yes, more or less, but I seem to have skipped over my key point, which is that we need a new method, that has the same flexibility as try, catch, but is a lot more terse.
I'd like them to come up with a better name. D makes it very hard to find information about it on the web. A name like "zlxrt" would be better since it would get zero hits that weren't about the language.
For the pedantic - I consider this post to be about the zlxrt language.
Wjhy do programming languages keep implementing this nasty tired interface? It's too bulky and long winded. Whereas I might just call a cleanup method if the function returns NULL, I'm actually obliged to deal with a thrown exception.
In theory this would be an ideal solution. It forces programmers to think about what they're doing. In practice, it doesn't. Coders are too busy thinking about the actual problem. Error checking gets in the way. They end up implementing the quickest way of ignoring the problem. The result is that we're no better off than if we just checked return values. The application should be doing what the user wants. Not the other way round.
ROTFL. Try going to a London station sometime and watch the trains belching out clouds of diesel smoke into the air, then tell me they're "environmentally friendly". As for "smooth", again, you've obviously never taken a British train.
Most of the lines going to London are electrified now, and the underground has been for a centruy or so. Of course, even for diesels, per-passenger pollution is a lot lower than a car with a single person in it. And the trains are about as smooth as other alternatives. Occasionally there's a shake and a rattle, but I seem to be able to stand perfectly well unaided.
Those aren't issues for maglev, though for a train to be anywhere near as convenient for a car it will need to run every five minutes, twenty-four hours a day, which will mean most of them running mostly empty. That hardly seems likely to be "enviromentally friendly" to me.
Maglev only makes sense for long distances. The sort of distances that will take at least several hours by car. You don't need a service running that regularly.
Lets suppose you sell equipment that is primarily used to facilitate a crime, and advertise it as such. Is it reasonable to assume that it is likely a large portion of your client base is comitting a crime?
Does it affect matters if the crime is committed in the privacy of your own home? Does it affect matters if no money is taken? If so, why? Note, this is not about whether it should be a crime in thge first place.
"Legal costs" is a whole area of law. There are firms that specialise in just this area. I suspect there is already plenty of case law that says exactly how much a salaried lawyer costs.
To make than theft/tools analogy more apt: it is like as if the banks kept dropping safes onto your front lawn.
Yes, but then we're getting into stupid analogy territory. Stick to the point. "bank robbery kits and tools" is an analogy to smart card programmers and "robbing banks" is an analogy to unlawful cable decrypting.
Now, if you want to debate whether or not people should have the right to decrypt signals that are being sent to them without their permission, that's fine, but I suggest you start a new thread.
As an occasional scam baiter, I can confirm that this is often the case. Quite a lot of them are in North Africa though. At least, they're often willing to meet up in Nigeria (or whichever country they're from).
and were a great fan of the idea of setting up meetings in a *different* country so their target was in a foreign country when the deal was being negotiated
Also true. They were never willing to meet up with me in England if I claimed to be English.
It seems to have been around since the early eighties
I think the basic concept of this scam has been around for centuries. The details change slightly, and the use of email spam to find victims is obviously a recent addition, but I'll bet there were a few people who offered help to get a wealthy aristocrat out of France after the French revolution.
Yes. I can probably name a few dozen exceptions. That's why I said "There are exceptions".
Of course, I don't have Dark Side of the moon in my mp3 collection, nor do I have any of my sountrack albums. I suspect a lot of ipod users feel the same way, and simply don't put albums that are dependent on the order onto their ipod.
Musucians tend not to spend too much time deciding on order. Yes, they'll put them in the order that they think is best, but, with certain exceptions, I don't think even they would claim that there's a "right" and a "wrong" order.
The guy likes his music to be predictable and formulaic right down to the order in which the tracks are played. This is perfectly fine. Just because other people don't like it that way it does not make them wrong. It's a matter of personal preference.
Probably true, but such a complicated analogy, we might as well stick with the original situation, and simply ask "Is it likely that there are cases, not covered by the DRM mechanism, where people should not be wntitled to access the data?"
Let's make one thing clear: the law as it stands makes you a criminal for possessing any video recording device whilst in a cinema, regardless of whether it's switched on off and in your backpack, or whether it's on and in your hand.
Are you sure about this? The only sources I've seen seem to be based on the story in the register. Sadly, the reg hasn't been a reliable news source for some time. Do you have the actual text of the law?
All you have to do is wait until the film is released in the UK. Our government couldn't even afford to issues enough night-vision goggles to our troops invading Iraq, never mind cinema projectionists.
The cinemas can though. They're not run by inept disorganised civil servants.
the only problem left is making sure that filems are released in the UK at the same time as the US.
For many films, the difference in release dates is fairly short these days.
I suspect the availability of pirated films on the internet may have something to do with this.
Yes... It is an exact quote. taken out of context!.
It was a quip. What he meant with his "invention" remark was that he pushed forward various initiatives that allowed business use. It was taken out of context, and he's been suffering ever since. Hence the joke.
Or are you claiming that he actually believed that he meant it the way it's been interpreted?
Usually they compress quite well (certainly better than 0.02%). There are a lot of repeated instructions. Apps typically only use a handful of the available instructions most of the time.
True, but why would they want to do that? What's the point of being rich if you're imprisoned in one of the few tinpot little countries that allow spamming?
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Yes, it is the programmer's fault. Given the number of programmers that do this, perhaps it's time the language designers came up with a way to prevent this from being a problem, much like they did with garbage collection in Java.
First off, if error recovery is not part of your design, you are a pretty shitty-ass programmer.
There are a lot of shitty ass programmers. The language should facilitate them being able to add error recovery in a simple, elegant way.
Secondly, exceptions are much easier and cleaner to deal with than return codes.
Depends on the error. The exceptions mechanism requires a lot more typing and debugging that returning NULL if the function returns NULL. But why is the choice limitted to return codes and exceptions? Isn't there a middle ground?
So what you're saying is that if the programmer is lazy, it's no better than return values?
Well, yes, more or less, but I seem to have skipped over my key point, which is that we need a new method, that has the same flexibility as try, catch, but is a lot more terse.
I'd like them to come up with a better name. D makes it very hard to find information about it on the web. A name like "zlxrt" would be better since it would get zero hits that weren't about the language.
For the pedantic - I consider this post to be about the zlxrt language.
Wjhy do programming languages keep implementing this nasty tired interface? It's too bulky and long winded. Whereas I might just call a cleanup method if the function returns NULL, I'm actually obliged to deal with a thrown exception.
In theory this would be an ideal solution. It forces programmers to think about what they're doing. In practice, it doesn't. Coders are too busy thinking about the actual problem. Error checking gets in the way. They end up implementing the quickest way of ignoring the problem. The result is that we're no better off than if we just checked return values. The application should be doing what the user wants. Not the other way round.
Yes, but that was just an analogy. I mean, DirectTV isn't a bank, so your version of the analogy still makes no sense whatsoever.
What are you talking about? I never said anything about theft.
ROTFL. Try going to a London station sometime and watch the trains belching out clouds of diesel smoke into the air, then tell me they're "environmentally friendly". As for "smooth", again, you've obviously never taken a British train.
Most of the lines going to London are electrified now, and the underground has been for a centruy or so. Of course, even for diesels, per-passenger pollution is a lot lower than a car with a single person in it. And the trains are about as smooth as other alternatives. Occasionally there's a shake and a rattle, but I seem to be able to stand perfectly well unaided.
Those aren't issues for maglev, though for a train to be anywhere near as convenient for a car it will need to run every five minutes, twenty-four hours a day, which will mean most of them running mostly empty. That hardly seems likely to be "enviromentally friendly" to me.
Maglev only makes sense for long distances. The sort of distances that will take at least several hours by car. You don't need a service running that regularly.
Fine. It's a rubbish analogy then.
Lets suppose you sell equipment that is primarily used to facilitate a crime, and advertise it as such. Is it reasonable to assume that it is likely a large portion of your client base is comitting a crime?
Does it affect matters if the crime is committed in the privacy of your own home? Does it affect matters if no money is taken? If so, why? Note, this is not about whether it should be a crime in thge first place.
"Legal costs" is a whole area of law. There are firms that specialise in just this area. I suspect there is already plenty of case law that says exactly how much a salaried lawyer costs.
To make than theft/tools analogy more apt: it is like as if the banks kept dropping safes onto your front lawn.
Yes, but then we're getting into stupid analogy territory. Stick to the point. "bank robbery kits and tools" is an analogy to smart card programmers and "robbing banks" is an analogy to unlawful cable decrypting.
Now, if you want to debate whether or not people should have the right to decrypt signals that are being sent to them without their permission, that's fine, but I suggest you start a new thread.
Apparently they're British and European.
As an occasional scam baiter, I can confirm that this is often the case. Quite a lot of them are in North Africa though. At least, they're often willing to meet up in Nigeria (or whichever country they're from).
and were a great fan of the idea of setting up meetings in a *different* country so their target was in a foreign country when the deal was being negotiated
Also true. They were never willing to meet up with me in England if I claimed to be English.
It seems to have been around since the early eighties
I think the basic concept of this scam has been around for centuries. The details change slightly, and the use of email spam to find victims is obviously a recent addition, but I'll bet there were a few people who offered help to get a wealthy aristocrat out of France after the French revolution.
Yes. I can probably name a few dozen exceptions. That's why I said "There are exceptions".
Of course, I don't have Dark Side of the moon in my mp3 collection, nor do I have any of my sountrack albums. I suspect a lot of ipod users feel the same way, and simply don't put albums that are dependent on the order onto their ipod.
True, but most of the people with ipods arent really into classical, opera, or musicals.
There are exceptions, but as a general rule for most of the music on most ipods, the order is pretty much irelevent.
Musucians tend not to spend too much time deciding on order. Yes, they'll put them in the order that they think is best, but, with certain exceptions, I don't think even they would claim that there's a "right" and a "wrong" order.
The guy likes his music to be predictable and formulaic right down to the order in which the tracks are played. This is perfectly fine. Just because other people don't like it that way it does not make them wrong. It's a matter of personal preference.
Probably true, but such a complicated analogy, we might as well stick with the original situation, and simply ask "Is it likely that there are cases, not covered by the DRM mechanism, where people should not be wntitled to access the data?"
Yep. The GPL covers distribution. Not use.
A tropical island that you're not allowed to leave.
Let's make one thing clear: the law as it stands makes you a criminal for possessing any video recording device whilst in a cinema, regardless of whether it's switched on off and in your backpack, or whether it's on and in your hand.
Are you sure about this? The only sources I've seen seem to be based on the story in the register. Sadly, the reg hasn't been a reliable news source for some time. Do you have the actual text of the law?
All you have to do is wait until the film is released in the UK. Our government couldn't even afford to issues enough night-vision goggles to our troops invading Iraq, never mind cinema projectionists.
The cinemas can though. They're not run by inept disorganised civil servants.
the only problem left is making sure that filems are released in the UK at the same time as the US.
For many films, the difference in release dates is fairly short these days. I suspect the availability of pirated films on the internet may have something to do with this.
Yes... It is an exact quote. taken out of context!.
It was a quip. What he meant with his "invention" remark was that he pushed forward various initiatives that allowed business use. It was taken out of context, and he's been suffering ever since. Hence the joke.
Or are you claiming that he actually believed that he meant it the way it's been interpreted?
Usually they compress quite well (certainly better than 0.02%). There are a lot of repeated instructions. Apps typically only use a handful of the available instructions most of the time.
If you're not allowed out, it's still a prison.
Spammers can go offshore.
True, but why would they want to do that? What's the point of being rich if you're imprisoned in one of the few tinpot little countries that allow spamming?