That's a really interesting point. In the minds of the Framers, the press was literally that - the printing press, an object. Certainly Thomas Paine (who published Common Senseanonymously) didn't have a journalism degree, nor ascribe to the other journalistic criteria the judge in this case is enumerating.
OF COURSE it's all bloggers. Our legal system operates on precedents; well, here's a precedent. Expect every lawyer with an axe to grind against a blogger to cite this case. Expect some lawyer out there to at least float this against a freelance journalist published in a 'real' publication.
Who says Slashdot doesn't change with the times? See how the (sometimes twice) daily "New remote execution flaw in Windows" articles have been replaced by "New egregious privacy violation found in Facebook" stories?
I guess it's really a question of design philosophy. Microsoft has always been from the "never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle" school, leading to lots and lots of buffer overrun type problems or just plain application crashes. The other side is to have tests you "really don't need". Say for example you have a switch statement where you "just know" (have verified elsewhere/input comes from a trusted source, etc.) that you have a lower-case letter that you want to process, so the code ends up looking something like:
switch (c) { case 'a': whatever('a'); break; case 'b': whatever('b'); break; ... case 'z': whatever('z'); break;
default:// AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT assert("c is not a letter!!"); }
Microsoft code would typically leave out the assert, and happily stumble along. At least with the assert, you know what AND WHERE the Bad Thing (TM) happened, and have a clue as to where to look to fix it.
I can see this is going to be a long thread full of trolls about open source, but the fact of the matter is that an application "crashing" (really ABENDing) due to an assertion failure is actually a sign of software doing what it was designed to do. Assert statements are used to check for "impossible" conditions, and have the program scream and die if one is found. So what we have here is a careful programmer's backstop doing its job.
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That's a really interesting point. In the minds of the Framers, the press was literally that - the printing press, an object. Certainly Thomas Paine (who published Common Sense anonymously) didn't have a journalism degree, nor ascribe to the other journalistic criteria the judge in this case is enumerating.
OF COURSE it's all bloggers. Our legal system operates on precedents; well, here's a precedent. Expect every lawyer with an axe to grind against a blogger to cite this case. Expect some lawyer out there to at least float this against a freelance journalist published in a 'real' publication.
Jumping up and down, clapping his hands and giggling with glee.
Jesus; I got Bingo just reading the question.
Who says Slashdot doesn't change with the times? See how the (sometimes twice) daily "New remote execution flaw in Windows" articles have been replaced by "New egregious privacy violation found in Facebook" stories?
Maybe the Russian scientists didn't see that documentary.
Sure, because the science deniers are swayed by evidence.
You forgot ULTRIX, although why anyone would want a computer in their home is beyond me.
Fail. That's:
1 + Forth-sightful.
Who do you suppose gets picked come layoff time, the 'C' player who gets seen every day, or the 'B' player who nobody ever sees?
Dear EU,
Can you point out to Slashdot moderators the difference between copyright and patents?
Thanks
You can almost hear his hysterical laughter, can't you?
Microsoft code would typically leave out the assert, and happily stumble along. At least with the assert, you know what AND WHERE the Bad Thing (TM) happened, and have a clue as to where to look to fix it.
Your understated discretion just takes my breath away.
I can see this is going to be a long thread full of trolls about open source, but the fact of the matter is that an application "crashing" (really ABENDing) due to an assertion failure is actually a sign of software doing what it was designed to do. Assert statements are used to check for "impossible" conditions, and have the program scream and die if one is found. So what we have here is a careful programmer's backstop doing its job.
Oh for fuck's sake, it's an assertion error. Get over yourself.
Yours is quite possibly the best Slashdot sig EVAR. Cheers!
Riiiiiight... I'm sure the oil and drilling companies will jump all over cooperating with that study.
I know, right? Don't you wish these fucking Brits spoke English like normal people?
Does it make a whooshing sound?
I'm not interested in owning a Nook unless it uses proprietary file formats and locks me into getting ALL my content from Barnes & Noble.
Well, I guess now that Ken Olsen has weighed in, the rest of us can go home.
So if I get my undies in a bunch I have to call Banglore?
That was WAY funnier than it got credit for.
Actually, I got modded "troll", which gave me a pretty good LOL.