MySQL's time-to-market was better than PostgreSQL. People who have mysql working now are naturally hesitant to switch to something else. Secondarily, mysql (outside of Debian) was easier to install last I checked. This may have changed.
you lose tail-call optimizations, since the security model
depends on the stack
Could you say more about this? Discussion on comp.lang.scheme said that the CLR does support tail calls, though support for continuations is not there.
Work at a Microsoft shop for at least a few months and you'll be a zealot too.
Yes! Use the debian testing distribution.
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Debian 2.2r5 Released
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· Score: 3, Informative
I used to run debian stable, but switched to testing several months ago. I think testing is the dist for most users. Too bad newbies get steered toward stable. The testing dist is stable enough for just about everybody.
See Kent Pitman's interview for more information on Lisp. Scheme is a similar language or a Lisp dialect. It's very easy to learn if you're coming at it with no prior programming experience, but its syntax is different from what most programmers are used to. That's why it has a hard-to-learn reputation among programmers. Also because it's typically used in Computer Science courses where difficult concepts are taught.
It comes up first only because the JavaScript code for that page has no provision for ties.
Agreed. People choosing flash should read Jakob Nielsen's column, Flash: 99% Bad. Among other problems, he mentions the way it breaks web fundamentals:
The "Back" button does not work. If you navigate within a Flash object, the standard backtracking method takes you out of the multimedia object and not, as expected, to the previous state.
Link colors don't work. Given this, you cannot easily see where you've been and which links you've yet to visit. This lack of orientation creates navigational confusion.
The "Make text bigger/smaller" button does not work. Users are thus forced to read text in the designer-specified font size, which is almost always too small since designers tend to have excellent vision.
Flash reduces accessibility for users with disabilities.
The "Find in page" feature does not work. In general, Flash integrates poorly with search.
Internationalization and localization is complicated. Local websites must enlist a Flash professional to translate content. Also, text that moves is harder to read for users who lack fluency in the language.
that's why the event didn't take place on slashdot
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Lightweight Languages
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· Score: 2, Funny
Agreed. Jane Healy's book, "Failure to Connect" should be required reading before buying software for young children. For a toddler, a much better activity would be those flat wooden puzzles where the pieces have little handles, and each fits into its own individually-shaped hole.
All I ever run is twm. One of these days I'll get around to trying one of the newer window mgrs. I have plenty of memory; it's just that I don't usually work with more than 3 or so windows, and twm does the job just fine.
He says that GNOME will have only part-way met its goals if it is used mainly in conjunction with proprietary software. The mere existence of projects that put GNOME in a proprietary environment does not constitute failure according to what RMS said.
Who appointed Stallman God? In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates
I am absolutely INCENSED that you are trying to dictate to ME what comparison I should make between Stallman and Bill Gates. When I post to slashdot, _I_ should have control as to how I portray those two people. How DARE you try to control my thoughts by expressing your own opinion!
Software companies would be doing that already
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Freedom or Power?
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· Score: 2
The impoverished languages you're accustomed to using require 2-5x the amount of code to get the same functionality as in Scheme or Lisp. You have to slow down and stop scanning large blocks of code to see what trival task is being accomplished. Instead, take it one keyword at a time.
You are right, though, that blind LISP masters can't tell you what code will do at a glance. They have to wait for their screen readers.
It's easy to point to a survey and make "somewhat valid" objections to the results. Survey numbers are generally not scientific measurements. The right question to ask is, what do these numbers tell you?
Non-MSFT web servers are not an obscure corner of the market.
Just because MSFT monopolizes many users' desktops, doesn't mean it monopolizes all other markets.
If you look at what software is running on major web sites (e.g. yahoo, google, CNN, nytimes) it usually isn't MSFT. (This is a useful learning for people even if the non-MSFT software is proprietary.)
In summary, a lot of people need to learn that choosing something other than MSFT on a web server does not put them outside the mainstream.
Without getting into whether or not this is a good thing, large businesses want to use what everybody else is using. It is generally assumed that everybody is using Microsoft. You should correct this misconception by citing the netcraft survey.
Please do mention that while the more prevalent free server-side web technologies are scripting languages designed for people with a Unix/C programming background, they aren't the only options. My Beautiful Report Language is easy to pick up for anyone who knows HTML and SQL. The syntax is conceptually similar to HTML/XML, but less verbose and easy to visually distinguish from markup.
Taking the questionable step of inserting a fact into what will likely be a flamacious thread: RMS' insistence on "GNU/Linux" relates to entire distributions. He doesn't complain about "Linux" referring to just the kernel.
In the 1980s, the speed and compactness you could get out of C was worth the extra coding time. But with today's hardware, languages are coming out of the woodwork that are much less efficient, but still successful. For example, a number of successful web sites have been written in PHP. Not as slow as ASP, but still a horribly slow language. Yet those sites are still successful, because the hardware can handle it. FWIW, my JVM-based implementation of BRL was 3-4x faster than PHP in a simple benchmark. (Incidentally, developers don't need to know C or Java to learn BRL. See the learnbrl.war demo/tutorial.)
Slashdot Mirror
MySQL's time-to-market was better than PostgreSQL. People who have mysql working now are naturally hesitant to switch to something else. Secondarily, mysql (outside of Debian) was easier to install last I checked. This may have changed.
I created a little voicexml app with voxeo's free test network. Aside from having to call northern california to test it, the process was fun.
With PostgreSQL, you must escape backslashes in strings. In standard SQL you must not. This is one point where PostgreSQL is as bad as MySQL.
Yes, that's what I meant. I don't do C anymore, but I still get bit by off-by-one errors. :-)
update posts set mod=mod-1 where pid=($2) and mod >= -1;
Then look at the row count and only deduct a moderator point if there's at least one row updated.
I agree that begin/commit is important; it's just that you can do without it in this instance so long as an individual update is atomic.
Could you say more about this? Discussion on comp.lang.scheme said that the CLR does support tail calls, though support for continuations is not there.
Work at a Microsoft shop for at least a few months and you'll be a zealot too.
I used to run debian stable, but switched to testing several months ago. I think testing is the dist for most users. Too bad newbies get steered toward stable. The testing dist is stable enough for just about everybody.
Everybody knows there are 365 days in a year, so the 10-year anniversary must have been 2002-01-07, 3650 days after the 1992-01-10 announcement. :-)
See Kent Pitman's interview for more information on Lisp. Scheme is a similar language or a Lisp dialect. It's very easy to learn if you're coming at it with no prior programming experience, but its syntax is different from what most programmers are used to. That's why it has a hard-to-learn reputation among programmers. Also because it's typically used in Computer Science courses where difficult concepts are taught.
It comes up first only because the JavaScript code for that page has no provision for ties.
[see subject]
Agreed. Jane Healy's book, "Failure to Connect" should be required reading before buying software for young children. For a toddler, a much better activity would be those flat wooden puzzles where the pieces have little handles, and each fits into its own individually-shaped hole.
All I ever run is twm. One of these days I'll get around to trying one of the newer window mgrs. I have plenty of memory; it's just that I don't usually work with more than 3 or so windows, and twm does the job just fine.
He says that GNOME will have only part-way met its goals if it is used mainly in conjunction with proprietary software. The mere existence of projects that put GNOME in a proprietary environment does not constitute failure according to what RMS said.
I am absolutely INCENSED that you are trying to dictate to ME what comparison I should make between Stallman and Bill Gates. When I post to slashdot, _I_ should have control as to how I portray those two people. How DARE you try to control my thoughts by expressing your own opinion!
Given the amount of money the BSA thinks is being lost to software piracy, they would have implemented such measures already if it were practical.
Side note: Wisely, the BSA runs its web site using free software.
The impoverished languages you're accustomed to using require 2-5x the amount of code to get the same functionality as in Scheme or Lisp. You have to slow down and stop scanning large blocks of code to see what trival task is being accomplished. Instead, take it one keyword at a time.
You are right, though, that blind LISP masters can't tell you what code will do at a glance. They have to wait for their screen readers.
It's easy to point to a survey and make "somewhat valid" objections to the results. Survey numbers are generally not scientific measurements. The right question to ask is, what do these numbers tell you?
In summary, a lot of people need to learn that choosing something other than MSFT on a web server does not put them outside the mainstream.
Without getting into whether or not this is a good thing, large businesses want to use what everybody else is using. It is generally assumed that everybody is using Microsoft. You should correct this misconception by citing the netcraft survey.
Please do mention that while the more prevalent free server-side web technologies are scripting languages designed for people with a Unix/C programming background, they aren't the only options. My Beautiful Report Language is easy to pick up for anyone who knows HTML and SQL. The syntax is conceptually similar to HTML/XML, but less verbose and easy to visually distinguish from markup.
I hadn't actually heard of the incident you refer to. Even if it did happen, RMS' stated position is that the kernel is called Linux.
Somebody thinks that a talk ESR was going to give on the topic of CML2 is off-topic re. CML2. Go figure.
Taking the questionable step of inserting a fact into what will likely be a flamacious thread: RMS' insistence on "GNU/Linux" relates to entire distributions. He doesn't complain about "Linux" referring to just the kernel.
In the 1980s, the speed and compactness you could get out of C was worth the extra coding time. But with today's hardware, languages are coming out of the woodwork that are much less efficient, but still successful. For example, a number of successful web sites have been written in PHP. Not as slow as ASP, but still a horribly slow language. Yet those sites are still successful, because the hardware can handle it. FWIW, my JVM-based implementation of BRL was 3-4x faster than PHP in a simple benchmark. (Incidentally, developers don't need to know C or Java to learn BRL. See the learnbrl.war demo/tutorial.)
ESR was previously going to be talking about this at the Lightweight Languages Workshop, but he's not on the agenda now. What happened?