Have you seen the Perl FAQs ? They give a good insight into what is wrong with Perl.
FAQs like...
"how do I pass an array into a function",
"how do I use a reference as a hash key"
"how do I create a 'static' variable"
-- SNIP --
These questions are in the FAQ because they get asked alot in newsgroups. Duh!!!
The answers to these questions should be obvious, and most likely are obvious, to anyone with a CompSci degree or a year or more experience with C-like languages.
These questions are asked because Perl, in spite of the general consensus that it's not a good teaching language, somehow manages to be the first language that many novice developers learn, or at least the second right after VB.
The "obvious" answer to the first two questions involve references.
The interesting thing about Perl is all the functionality that an amateur can squeeze out of it without even know what the h*ll a reference is!
At some point, the eager amateur thinks to him/herself "Wouldn't it save me alot of typing if I could pass a whole array into a function rather than iterating through it?" The aspiring developer then turns to the newsgroups for an answer, where he/she is immediately flamed for not checking the faqs.
Angered and embarrased, the newbie then checks the faqs, and eventually learns what references are and what they are good for.
The fact that these FAQs exist is not a sign that there is something wrong with the language. The fact that these FAQs exist is a sign that Perl is a language that many developers cut their teeth on, and that there is something oh-so-right about the language.
Unless you have a vested interest in pointing out the security to your almost-a-client, I wouldn't bother alerting them.
Rather, remember - and document to the extent the laws (yecch!) and ethics allow - then use it as ammo to take down the competitor in future competition.
Make sure you present the case as the competitor offering a shoddy product, rather than the competitors being a bunch of dorks. This is a diplomatic maneuver.
This is both cunning and doing future clients a favor.
Your sentiments are quite illustrative of the typically selfish, uncaring, and infantile libertarian mentality so popular these days. Libertarian policies toward opiates reflect the fact that their entire world-view is but a incoherent pipe dream.
Selfish and uncaring? How is that a desire for peaceful co-existence is either of these?
Infantile? The desire to be taken care of is infantile. Pulling at
my heart strings and/or accusations of meanness/selfishness are infantile. The desire
to take care of others (politically) is a desire to place those who are to be taken care of
in a controlled, infantile state. Rationality and placing other into a state where they can fulfill their own needs seems pretty adult
to me.
"so popular these days"? What planet are you living on? It seems much more
popular for people to affiliate themselves with policatal groups that wish to engage in social
engineering, either passively(conservatives) or actively(liberals), who hopefully will create
a new society that will favor themselves.
"Libertarian policies toward opiates reflect the fact that their entire world-view
is but a incoherent pipe dream." I'm not sure if a generalization
can be derived from a non sequitur, but I can hit back - Your policies, whatever they are, seem rooted in a
fear-control cycle... a self-feeding nightmare world of reaction, reaction to reactions, and eventual escalation to an apocalypse.
Name-calling doesn't invalidate my suggestions. Nothing that I said invalidated any of yours, but that's
a moot point since you didn't actually offer any.
All narcotics, mood-alterers, psychadelics, alchohol, cigarettes, etc. are
recreational drugs. The import and export of them shall not be regulated
and persons who produce, possess, or use them shall not be subject to punishment.
If you do them and render yourself useless, then die. Nobody else should
be required to contribute money to fund you. (Don't even get me started on
health insurance and/or welfare.)
If you use the substances and hurt or kill someone else due to impaired judgement, you should
be fed to the rats. You do have a responsibility to not cause direct harm
to others or cause others to come to harm through malicious or gross negligence.
If you can do them and remain responsible for yourself, more power to you.
Your use of drugs doesn't contribute much of anything to the world, but then again
very few things that people do contribute much of anything to the world.
If you screw up, I don't want to hear about how you started taking drugs
because your life was all messed up, or you were sad, or you were poor. People
like you would probably screw up even without the drugs.
Minors are an extension of their parents. As such, parents have the
right to prevent their children from using these substances if they feel
that they are harmful. Parents may discipline their children to prevent
the use of these substances and to take appropriate, legal actions against
those who provide them with these substances against the parents wishes. Minors can
provide neither explicit or implicit consent in the consumption of these
substances, so the provider can and shall be held liable as appropriate.
Other people shall not be required to associate with you, hire you, or
allow you to join private organizations if they don't like the fact that you use
any of these substances. And vice-versa for any habits of theirs that you
may not like. Freedom is, after all, a double-edged sword.
This is not a perfect solution to the world's problems, but it does involve much less herding and violence.
>Heck, as much as I despise the syntax of ASP
>(BASIC), I'd be surprised if you can't do REs
>fairly easily in that Microsoftish language
>(please, someone - surprise me!!!)
It depends...
If you use JScript for the server language in ASP then you get Javascripts implementation of regex.
If you use VBScript then you will use the Regular Expressions object in the Scripting Runtime. It seems like a real dog and not as complete as the Javascript implementation.
Of course, if you use PerlScript, then you get Perl regex.
In spite of the talking-down of ASP in general occuring on the page, I've found ASP w/ Perlscript to be an excellent combination.
I've done a hell of a lot of Perl but Python has been taking over alot more lately. Why? It's got a a milder learning curve, which is important for the other people on my team, should I be hit by a truck tomorrow. It also seems alot better for larger-scale projects.
Don't get me wrong, though... I'd still rather use good 'ol Perl rather than VB any day of the week.
Maybe the solution to reducing bullying and harrassment it to figure out why out why most (of course, not all) of this behavior is gone by the time individuals enter "adult" life.
Could it be because the majority of associations between adults are voluntary? Adults aren't quite herded into buildings with people they don't know, don't want to know, and don't like quite as often as kids are.
Could it be that adults aren't shielded from the consequences of their shitty behavior any where near as often as kids are?
It's rational in a strange, un-Protestant-Work-Ethic sort of way.
Currency is valuable because of its velocity and/or intertia, not so much because of what it represents. In other words, its valuable because it trades hands.
This is very democratic. It makes currency worth what people think it is worth.
The evolution/de-evolution of precious-metal coinage to electronic account numbers actually helps make the exchange of currency easier (though more screw-up prone), thus increasing the velocity of the currency, thus slightly increasing the perception of value.
We may be better off with currency that's not valued by redemption with something tangible such as gold, rice, weapons, etc. (Though its fun to think about what would happen if currency were valued by the orgasm.) The velocity of the currency is then effected by the supply of whatever the currency is redeemed for in a capricious manner.
What's really worthy of note is that the bee (Eric), who did the cross-pollinating could be held liable under patent laws, possibly even the DMCA.
It's probably important to note that the juries, lawyers & judges involved will probably find poor Eric responsible for damages payable to Monstanto.
Poor Eric's dirt-bag lawyer would probably recommend that he try to place responsibility on the hive. After all, poor Eric was acting in the service of the hive and the queen bee. He was just an unpaid laborer and the hive wasn't even witholding Social Security taxes for him.
Erics dirt-bag lawyer will take to his Public Relations Weasel, who will quickly note that Eric and, in fact, all worker bees are female. He will quickly turn this into a political issue.
The Nation Organization of Women will note that the feminist-social-collective bee hive is battling against the evil patriarchal Monsanto Corporation, and send a small army of lawyers to assist poor Eric. They will file a counter-suit against Monstanto for civil-rights violations.
Meantime, Monsanto Corporation will be busy distributing bribes("education") to legislators, attempting to make property-owners responsible for the actions of any bees that live on their property.
The regional chain of "Giant Eagle" grocery stores conspired... err... decided to install "automated" check-out lines in their stores. They are of the touch-screen-scanner-scale sort.
I was immensely pleased with the automated lines. I can zip through them much faster than a normal line. But... It seems that I am always stuck behind someone who can't figure the dang things out. Always!
Does this require a variation of Murphy's Law?
Art_XIV's Corollary - An indivdual's gains from technical aptitude will always be offset by another individual's technical ineptitude.
As an agnostic, I truly don't know whether I believe or disbelieve Scientology.
The thetan/alien stories seem as credible to me as any other of the relious milieus.
An invididual's view on religions is colored by the memes that he/she has accepted or been saddled with.
So what if they have levels of initiation? If you are disturbed by this, it's more than likely that you are
used to religions with only one level of initiation.
So what if they want money from followers? That makes them like pretty much every other religion in the world.
So what if it was a religion dreamed up by L-Ron? All religions, except the "One, True" one (if it
even exists) were dreamed up by someone.
According to Dr. I. Snivvel of Carnegie Mellon University, the selection of a database, and any software for that matter, should be based upon the CRUD (Conspiracies, Rich Republicans, Ulcers, Da Money) criteria.
Conspiracies: Needs no explanation. Just look at Microsoft and Sun. It has, in fact, been proven that the Windows NT/2000 kernels are built around PROMIS software.
Rich Republicans: Simply take a look at the software to see how many rich people it has helped create. A significant number of rich people can indicate that the software is widely adopted by business and government, which is usually de facto proof that the software must be crappy. A piece of software is only as smart as the dumbest person capable of using it.
Ulcers: How close will you come to a mental disorder or suicide while trying implement, customize, or develop with the software? Software that pretends to be easy to install and implement often is, but can be insidiously difficult to manipulate to the users desires. Take a look at the documentation for the software package -- Is it full of warm and fuzzy screen shots that explain how to right-click the mouse? Or is loaded with LISP references? Is LISP mentioned at all?
Da Money: This subject requires an alert wariness on the part of the individual acquiring the software. Software vendors will often try to obfuscate the crappiness of their software by charging large buckets of money for it. Their marketing personnel often exploit the behavioral principles revealed by North Korean researchers shortly after World War II: That people seem to think that they get something better because they pay more for it. The purchasers will readily adopt 'Sweet Lemon' rationalizations to explain their purchases. On the most occult purchasers realize that something free is always 100% cheaper than something you pay for.
Software Engineer: A person who talks about programming, but seem to never actually do any. A person who knows what the "Booch Method" is. Often hired by non-software companies to create impediments to software creation.
Programmer: An individual who knows how to make operating systems do stuff with arcase "programming languages". May or may not have a degree. Often "fell into" the profession from another field.
Web Developer: A person who knows HTML and some Javascript. May or may not know a wee bit of Perl or how to make an applet. Possibly knows VBscript. Almost never knows what an associative array/hash is or what it is good for.
Developer: A web developer who has been fired several times. Now knows what linked lists are. Can possibly do Java Servelet, COM objects, or use mod_perl or PHP.
Project Manager: That man/woman who keeps telling you what to work on next. Most likely has experience as a Developer or Programmer.
Senior Developer/Programmer: As above, but gets to go out to lunch with clients every now and then.
Systems Administrator/Network Eng.: Person who takes care of the network. May or may not have technical degree. Almost never around when really needed. Adept at explaining why firewalls are a good thing. Will either refuse to allow Linux/BSD systems on the network or will be trying to replace all systems with *NIXes.
Web Designer: Pains in the *ss. Often don't even know HTML. Really know his/her way around Photoshop/Gimp.
DBA: Makes "schemas". Often creates stored procedures. Knows what "Third Normal Form" is.
iotw...
It's -often- more cost-effective to have a developer create an application that takes 60% of the time to create and runs at only 80% of the speed. The lost 20% can be made up at less cost by faster processors, more memory, RAID hard drives, etc, especially in server-centric, web-related projects.
The quality of software as it relates to stability is another issue all together -- It has only a little to do with the language and much more to do with the commitment, general experience, and familiarity of the developer(s).
Money can't buy me love, so I guess I'll just have to rent it. - Weird Al
What Micro$oft and others really want is for us to RENT software. "subscription" is a semantic-games/marketing-weasel term.
I find it strange and odd that a company wants us to rent software. The reason that I normally rent/lease items is that they are too costly for me to purchase out of hand. I am accustomed to renting/leasing cars, apartments, etc.
But software? This seems to me to be a left-handed way of getting people to (pay for the updates and patches that either shouldn't be necessary in the first place) or (given away for free so that people don't think your software is crappy, even if it is).
I expect that the RENT-based model will be a big success for Micro$oft and others, but that's because I can always bank on the vast majority of consumers being dumb & lazy.
Because languages like Java and C++ let me bring home the bacon! Thank You, OOP!
Let's face it, all programming languages and paradigms mostly suck. I gave up on searching for truth and beauty (at least with programming) years ago. I'm sick of companies that want their projects implemented in Java/ASP/JSP/C++/COM/VB/Oracle/SQL Server/etc. without really knowing why they want it done that way, other than having been impressed with a sales rep.
But... Programming for 60K+/yr will always be better than having a real job, especially one that involves manual labor.
Slashdot Mirror
All I have to say irt The Tick is :Spoon!
FAQs like...
"how do I pass an array into a function",
"how do I use a reference as a hash key"
"how do I create a 'static' variable"
-- SNIP --
These questions are in the FAQ because they get asked alot in newsgroups. Duh!!!
The answers to these questions should be obvious, and most likely are obvious, to anyone with a CompSci degree or a year or more experience with C-like languages.
These questions are asked because Perl, in spite of the general consensus that it's not a good teaching language, somehow manages to be the first language that many novice developers learn, or at least the second right after VB.
The "obvious" answer to the first two questions involve references.
The interesting thing about Perl is all the functionality that an amateur can squeeze out of it without even know what the h*ll a reference is!
At some point, the eager amateur thinks to him/herself "Wouldn't it save me alot of typing if I could pass a whole array into a function rather than iterating through it?" The aspiring developer then turns to the newsgroups for an answer, where he/she is immediately flamed for not checking the faqs.
Angered and embarrased, the newbie then checks the faqs, and eventually learns what references are and what they are good for.
The fact that these FAQs exist is not a sign that there is something wrong with the language. The fact that these FAQs exist is a sign that Perl is a language that many developers cut their teeth on, and that there is something oh-so-right about the language.
Unless you have a vested interest in pointing out the security to your almost-a-client, I wouldn't bother alerting them.
Rather, remember - and document to the extent the laws (yecch!) and ethics allow - then use it as ammo to take down the competitor in future competition.
Make sure you present the case as the competitor offering a shoddy product, rather than the competitors being a bunch of dorks. This is a diplomatic maneuver.
This is both cunning and doing future clients a favor.
That thou'st pager does not page whilst ""The Sopranos" are on.
Your sentiments are quite illustrative of the typically selfish, uncaring, and infantile libertarian mentality so popular these days. Libertarian policies toward opiates reflect the fact that their entire world-view is but a incoherent pipe dream.
Selfish and uncaring? How is that a desire for peaceful co-existence is either of these?
Infantile? The desire to be taken care of is infantile. Pulling at my heart strings and/or accusations of meanness/selfishness are infantile. The desire to take care of others (politically) is a desire to place those who are to be taken care of in a controlled, infantile state. Rationality and placing other into a state where they can fulfill their own needs seems pretty adult to me.
"so popular these days"? What planet are you living on? It seems much more popular for people to affiliate themselves with policatal groups that wish to engage in social engineering, either passively(conservatives) or actively(liberals), who hopefully will create a new society that will favor themselves.
"Libertarian policies toward opiates reflect the fact that their entire world-view is but a incoherent pipe dream." I'm not sure if a generalization can be derived from a non sequitur, but I can hit back - Your policies, whatever they are, seem rooted in a fear-control cycle... a self-feeding nightmare world of reaction, reaction to reactions, and eventual escalation to an apocalypse.
Name-calling doesn't invalidate my suggestions. Nothing that I said invalidated any of yours, but that's a moot point since you didn't actually offer any.
My anarcho-libertarian drug policy:
This is not a perfect solution to the world's problems, but it does involve much less herding and violence.
>(BASIC), I'd be surprised if you can't do REs
>fairly easily in that Microsoftish language
>(please, someone - surprise me!!!)
It depends...
If you use JScript for the server language in ASP then you get Javascripts implementation of regex.
If you use VBScript then you will use the Regular Expressions object in the Scripting Runtime. It seems like a real dog and not as complete as the Javascript implementation.
Of course, if you use PerlScript, then you get Perl regex.
In spite of the talking-down of ASP in general occuring on the page, I've found ASP w/ Perlscript to be an excellent combination.
>if (x == 4) { x = 10; }
>y = 6;
In Python =
if (x == 4):
x = 10
y = 6
>or
>if (x == 4) {
>x = 10; y = 6;
>}
In Python =
if (x == 4):
x = 10
y = 6
So where's the problem?
I've done a hell of a lot of Perl but Python has been taking over alot more lately. Why? It's got a a milder learning curve, which is important for the other people on my team, should I be hit by a truck tomorrow. It also seems alot better for larger-scale projects.
Don't get me wrong, though... I'd still rather use good 'ol Perl rather than VB any day of the week.
Maybe the solution to reducing bullying and harrassment it to figure out why out why most (of course, not all) of this behavior is gone by the time individuals enter "adult" life.
Could it be because the majority of associations between adults are voluntary? Adults aren't quite herded into buildings with people they don't know, don't want to know, and don't like quite as often as kids are.
Could it be that adults aren't shielded from the consequences of their shitty behavior any where near as often as kids are?
ROFLMAO
It's rational in a strange, un-Protestant-Work-Ethic sort of way.
Currency is valuable because of its velocity and/or intertia, not so much because of what it represents. In other words, its valuable because it trades hands.
This is very democratic. It makes currency worth what people think it is worth.
The evolution/de-evolution of precious-metal coinage to electronic account numbers actually helps make the exchange of currency easier (though more screw-up prone), thus increasing the velocity of the currency, thus slightly increasing the perception of value.
We may be better off with currency that's not valued by redemption with something tangible such as gold, rice, weapons, etc. (Though its fun to think about what would happen if currency were valued by the orgasm.) The velocity of the currency is then effected by the supply of whatever the currency is redeemed for in a capricious manner.
What's really worthy of note is that the bee (Eric), who did the cross-pollinating could be held liable under patent laws, possibly even the DMCA.
It's probably important to note that the juries, lawyers & judges involved will probably find poor Eric responsible for damages payable to Monstanto.
Poor Eric's dirt-bag lawyer would probably recommend that he try to place responsibility on the hive. After all, poor Eric was acting in the service of the hive and the queen bee. He was just an unpaid laborer and the hive wasn't even witholding Social Security taxes for him.
Erics dirt-bag lawyer will take to his Public Relations Weasel, who will quickly note that Eric and, in fact, all worker bees are female. He will quickly turn this into a political issue.
The Nation Organization of Women will note that the feminist-social-collective bee hive is battling against the evil patriarchal Monsanto Corporation, and send a small army of lawyers to assist poor Eric. They will file a counter-suit against Monstanto for civil-rights violations.
Meantime, Monsanto Corporation will be busy distributing bribes("education") to legislators, attempting to make property-owners responsible for the actions of any bees that live on their property.
Etc...
In what ways should Windows become more like the *NIXes?
In what ways should the *NIXes become more like Windows?
The regional chain of "Giant Eagle" grocery stores conspired... err... decided to install "automated" check-out lines in their stores. They are of the touch-screen-scanner-scale sort.
I was immensely pleased with the automated lines. I can zip through them much faster than a normal line. But... It seems that I am always stuck behind someone who can't figure the dang things out. Always!
Does this require a variation of Murphy's Law?
Perl == Good
Pyhon == Good
If you Python and Perl people don't quit yer fighting, I'm gonna force you all to use nothing but Visual Basic!
If you don't stop it right now, I'm turning this bus around and we're all going back to Microsoft!
Mad about writings
on Slashdot, seems as though my
thetans are still here.
As an agnostic, I truly don't know whether I believe or disbelieve Scientology.
The thetan/alien stories seem as credible to me as any other of the relious milieus.
An invididual's view on religions is colored by the memes that he/she has accepted or been saddled with.
So what if they have levels of initiation? If you are disturbed by this, it's more than likely that you are used to religions with only one level of initiation.
So what if they want money from followers? That makes them like pretty much every other religion in the world.
So what if it was a religion dreamed up by L-Ron? All religions, except the "One, True" one (if it even exists) were dreamed up by someone.
First, poor people learned to read and write...
Now they're learning to use the Internet.
So much for pathos.
According to Dr. I. Snivvel of Carnegie Mellon University, the selection of a database, and any software for that matter, should be based upon the CRUD (Conspiracies, Rich Republicans, Ulcers, Da Money) criteria.
Conspiracies: Needs no explanation. Just look at Microsoft and Sun. It has, in fact, been proven that the Windows NT/2000 kernels are built around PROMIS software.
Rich Republicans: Simply take a look at the software to see how many rich people it has helped create. A significant number of rich people can indicate that the software is widely adopted by business and government, which is usually de facto proof that the software must be crappy. A piece of software is only as smart as the dumbest person capable of using it.
Ulcers: How close will you come to a mental disorder or suicide while trying implement, customize, or develop with the software? Software that pretends to be easy to install and implement often is, but can be insidiously difficult to manipulate to the users desires. Take a look at the documentation for the software package -- Is it full of warm and fuzzy screen shots that explain how to right-click the mouse? Or is loaded with LISP references? Is LISP mentioned at all?
Da Money: This subject requires an alert wariness on the part of the individual acquiring the software. Software vendors will often try to obfuscate the crappiness of their software by charging large buckets of money for it. Their marketing personnel often exploit the behavioral principles revealed by North Korean researchers shortly after World War II: That people seem to think that they get something better because they pay more for it. The purchasers will readily adopt 'Sweet Lemon' rationalizations to explain their purchases. On the most occult purchasers realize that something free is always 100% cheaper than something you pay for.
Software Engineer: A person who talks about programming, but seem to never actually do any. A person who knows what the "Booch Method" is. Often hired by non-software companies to create impediments to software creation.
Programmer: An individual who knows how to make operating systems do stuff with arcase "programming languages". May or may not have a degree. Often "fell into" the profession from another field.
Web Developer: A person who knows HTML and some Javascript. May or may not know a wee bit of Perl or how to make an applet. Possibly knows VBscript. Almost never knows what an associative array/hash is or what it is good for.
Developer: A web developer who has been fired several times. Now knows what linked lists are. Can possibly do Java Servelet, COM objects, or use mod_perl or PHP.
Project Manager: That man/woman who keeps telling you what to work on next. Most likely has experience as a Developer or Programmer.
Senior Developer/Programmer: As above, but gets to go out to lunch with clients every now and then.
Systems Administrator/Network Eng.: Person who takes care of the network. May or may not have technical degree. Almost never around when really needed. Adept at explaining why firewalls are a good thing. Will either refuse to allow Linux/BSD systems on the network or will be trying to replace all systems with *NIXes.
Web Designer: Pains in the *ss. Often don't even know HTML. Really know his/her way around Photoshop/Gimp.
DBA: Makes "schemas". Often creates stored procedures. Knows what "Third Normal Form" is.
Programmers == $total_dollars_spent++;
iotw... It's -often- more cost-effective to have a developer create an application that takes 60% of the time to create and runs at only 80% of the speed. The lost 20% can be made up at less cost by faster processors, more memory, RAID hard drives, etc, especially in server-centric, web-related projects.
The quality of software as it relates to stability is another issue all together -- It has only a little to do with the language and much more to do with the commitment, general experience, and familiarity of the developer(s).
Windows ruins all
My kernel module won't load
Stop and fill timesheet
Money can't buy me love, so I guess I'll just have to rent it. - Weird Al
What Micro$oft and others really want is for us to RENT software. "subscription" is a semantic-games/marketing-weasel term.
I find it strange and odd that a company wants us to rent software. The reason that I normally rent/lease items is that they are too costly for me to purchase out of hand. I am accustomed to renting/leasing cars, apartments, etc.
But software? This seems to me to be a left-handed way of getting people to (pay for the updates and patches that either shouldn't be necessary in the first place) or (given away for free so that people don't think your software is crappy, even if it is).
I expect that the RENT-based model will be a big success for Micro$oft and others, but that's because I can always bank on the vast majority of consumers being dumb & lazy.
Bacteria, Nothin'! It's much more difficult to face humans who are trying to prevent me from mating!
Why do i like OOP?
Because languages like Java and C++ let me bring home the bacon! Thank You, OOP!
Let's face it, all programming languages and paradigms mostly suck. I gave up on searching for truth and beauty (at least with programming) years ago. I'm sick of companies that want their projects implemented in Java/ASP/JSP/C++/COM/VB/Oracle/SQL Server/etc. without really knowing why they want it done that way, other than having been impressed with a sales rep.
But... Programming for 60K+/yr will always be better than having a real job, especially one that involves manual labor.