What you're really relying on is the selfishness of the hardware. If the hardware itself did something different, then the people that bought them would live with that. Case in point is ethernet devices.
Each of these has an altruistic collision avoidance method: when a collision happens, stop sending and wait a random amount of time before sending again. A selfish ethernet device would always immediately attempt to send under the assumption that the other device would be waiting, and it would get to go first. But of course, that's very bad for the network, so it's not done.
The fact that we've got selfish routers is not a sign that they're selfish, per se, but that selfish routing is somewhere near the most effective a means of communication that they could think of at the time when they where invented.
Re:What is an example that can't run in parallel?
on
Forget Moore's Law?
·
· Score: 1
Ehh...no. That depends upon the size of the matrix. For sufficiently large matrices, the GAUSSIAN (not gausen) approximation approach is quite parallelizable.
This post is a terrific example of a straw man argument, which is a logical fallacy. In the real world, it's just not this simple - all IT people don't think that end-users are morons, and a computer is not the same as a simple tool to get work done even if you think of it that way (because it's a very sophisticated tool compared to most tools).
And I think, also, that sometimes we have a third party to blame. If we have to compete in the Microsoft industry, we have to do things a way that Microsoft wants. If we have a time crunch on our development of internal software, we might require the end-user to do something that a 40 line script could do (like typing in the name and location of their workstation) - that would be boss dictated.
To put another angle on the problem, in every program I have made there is a tradeoff between ease of use and development time - I can make it easier, and easier, but at the expense of time I spend working on it. Conversely, I could sometimes spend 3 minutes showing the end-user that I had to get rid of button "X" (because it had feature "Z" which conflicted with some new aspect of the program that I was ordered to include). Sure, it might make the end users feel bad for a bit, but in the end it might save the company more money to have them learn the new way than to have me make the new program like the old.
Working with end-users have taught me one thing: they often start VERY inflexible in the way they think - only able to do things one way - but, just like everyone else, they CAN generalize if given enough practice. So while the first change in UI might be confusing, the fifth one isn't for those who are learning.
We had a computer in every classroom at my school...which sat there doing absolutely nothing (these where all Apple IIEs, and most of them didn't work).
I was fortunate enough to have one teacher who saw my lust for the knowledge about computers and let me do a workbook about computers for extra credit in the fifth grade. When I had a question, the teacher would let me go see the assistant principal, who was the most knowledgable person in the school in math and technical fields (small elementary school, about 20 teachers, and 3 administrators). So I did the workbook and learned flowcharts, order of operations, and Apple BASIC (on paper), and of course all that silly basic stuff, like what all the "modern" peripherals where (keyboard, tape drive, floppy drive, joystick, printer, monitor, koala pad, and cartridge). Absolutely NOT the learning by playing around with the boxes.
That summer I joined a program where we had access to actual computers, and I was WAY ahead of the curve. If you want to know something badly enough, any gem of knowledge will be sought preciously, no matter how it is gained. Still...I wonder how much I'd know now if I'd had an actual computer back then when I wanted to know about them more than I wanted anything else.
As I said I have decided that the age of the console is over. That is, I'm done with them because they don't offer more than my computer can. It has nothing to do with anyone else's decision to waste their money on a console that does exactly as much as their PC can.
Back in the early nineties there was a "game" called workboy for the original gameboy which was basically a PDA. It even came with a keyboard.
Of course, that was a flop at the time. But I think that one of the big problems with game consoles today (as opposed to before) is that you can get pretty enough throughput (which is the most important feature of graphical applications) with a general purpose CPU as you can with a gaming CPU.
So perhaps branching into the markets of their general use counterparts may allow them to be justified (well, I could get a PDA to use at work which plays games sometimes, or a gameboy...).
I know that I have pretty much decided that the age of the console is over. For me it's PC and PDA games from now on.
I intend to do something similar: I love computers, and I hope to work in computers until the day I die.
What this probably means is that I'll die penniless - a broken man - and that my genius will only be discovered 200 years later after my death (when corporations are overthrown by the starving masses, declared illegal, and their suppressed documents are released, causing a second renaissance and pulling all the world out of the second dark ages).
I have wondered for a while how many diseases and afflictions mankind suffers because treatment is more profitable than the cure... Of course, I think that if there is a cure, the public eventually finds out about it, but not until a great many people have suffered a life not quite as fullfilling.
On very specific case I'm thinking of is in dealing with headaches and ulcers. The best (and by best I mean fastest and with the highest degree of relief) way of dealing with these isn't with drugs, it's with muscle relaxation techniques.
Someone who is properly trained can "turn off" a stress-related headache and turn down the stomach acid in a matter of minutes (depending on the severity; most headaches are mild enough that a few seconds is probably enough). Yet we have "maximum strength" (and harmful, if taken in large enough doses) pain-killers to deal with the problems.
In fact, many problems related to pain can be dealt with mentally far more effectively than physically using techniques that any child can learn (it's much more difficult for most adults because the initial stages of use require a strong imagination). Considering the pervasiveness of pain as part of life, shouldn't it be considered as something that every child learns?
But then, what would Tylenol do in 60 years when none of the adults have ever taken one?
I can only think of a few reasons people look forward to the day they can fight for their country. 1) Prove their worth. "My father fought. My grandfather fought. It's my turn to become a Man."
2) Honor and glory. There's a lot of propaganda about that. Most of it, actually. Fight for honor and glory. Of course, there are people who have pointed out flaws in that thinking, too. At worst you are the murderer when you kill, and at best the dispenser of justice - a hangman of nations. There is no honor in that.
3) To bring our viewpoints to other nations. I've heard this one a lot. We need to "teach" those ignorant morons about life by killing some of them.
4) To dispense justice. A nation is doing horrible things to itself, our nation, or other nations who can't defend themselves, and we must stop it from happening.
Actually, I've never heard anyone actually SAY the last one and hope for war. It's not a very good reason to hope for. Numbers 1-3 are selfish reasons. But I think that explains most of it.
Let me say, though, that everyone that I know who is in the military and DOESN'T want to kill people or go to war has given me reason #4 for why they might have to eventually.
You can get to a root prompt in Linux. You can do so in BSD as well. Solaris, also.
Apparently, these are all actually the same thing - they're all running Linux, underneath it all. And because it's that simple, it's just marketing - since the product is free - Solaris is just hyping it up so that people will use CDE.
Lets go further. Also, you can find a brain inside every animal. Cats have brains.
That only tells you who is going to go there and do that, and its a rather slow indication of the popularity of a distro because of how popularity takes hold. Also, some distros are going to have more zealots than others ("Everybody! Go to linuxcounter and prove to the world that our distro is the most popular!").
A faster indication is from distrowatch. The difference here is that the number of people INTERESTED in the distro determine the popularity.
Here's their actual stats (and though I hate to admit it, Lindows is holding strong at #9).
I have a theory that money only helps so much when fighting legally. If both sides have a certain amount, then the side that is right is most likely to win.
Of course, this isn't true if the issue in question matters to the judge or his constituents, but I don't think most judges care much about most software companies.
Maybe every CDR disk YOU buy is taxed, but I buy data CDRs, not Music CDRs, which aren't. Music CDRs are the only kind that will work in many standalone based CDRW drives, and are used solely for recording.
Perhaps you've noticed them? They're the once that are much more expensive at the store but don't seem to offer any extra value. I only know one guy who buys them and he doesn't have a computer.
I can't be absolutely certain what you're claiming he didn't answer because you used commas instead of periods in your last sentence, and none of the other necessary punctuation marks. Sometimes you need to use actual grammer rules to get your point across. He did explain what the benefit of the technology is.
It can be used to uniquely identify a particular computer with a low amount of computation. It's a glorified MAC address system, but with an encryption system based upon this as well.
I don't even see how this is even bad by itself. Is MAC bad? In addition, the only way it's going to be permanently encrypting data is if you put software on it that does that.
If that's what you want - data that is restricted to one machine - then just make an encryption scheme that combines serial numbers of all of the components in a machine to make a hash and use that. Is TCPA a technology that enables unique identification? Yeah, but so is a friggin' turing machine.
I won't accept a system that keeps my data from being portable. I won't use any XP product because when they're no longer supported, you won't be able to register them, and then even having the software won't mean you can use it. I won't use any DRM software that limits my rights to my files or is not portable among operating systems.
But if I can get a coprocessor that does encryption for free when I buy my board, and I don't have to be quite so paranoid in figuring out who is who because they have one too, I'm all for it. Maybe this'll help knock out the screwed up digital certificate market.
One small change from your scenario: instead of guns, make them magical elven guns - ones that always hit the intended target, since you can easily guarantee that you're killing the right process (kill the one that's shooting at you).
So you won't be killing your neighbor.
Then we're at the same moral quandry as before. May you kill the thief who is not victimizing your home?
We also get the same realization out of this as with killing malicious processes: you've done something to save your neighbor's house.
It's about a humble farmer dude who is told to leave his home by a great and powerful old wizard so that he can fulfill his destiny of destroying an evil phantom-like wizard, something which can only be done with the help of a magical artifact (this case it's a sword, not a ring).
Other intersting points in the story: the king of one group of people is having his judgement clouded by a wicked chancellor who is actually working for the evil one. This is undone by the heroes, and the king helps defend against the onslaught of the army of evil orcs.
That army of orcs almost breaks through the inner part of the castle by going through the only available opening: the sewers. They know about this because the chancellor escaped and told them.
The epic battle to seize the castle encompasses four waves - three inner battlements are conquered, and a fourth when the orcs are defeated by a reenforcement force.
Sound familiar? 'Cause I had to keep checking the title to make sure I wasn't reading Two Towers.
Rule #1 when creating technical terms is "Don't reuse a term that is already in use in a similar domain."
This is pretty much exactly what Microsoft did. Putting a "." before a three letter word has become synonymous with meaning the webpage that displays the product. It is likely that some managers heard of visual studio.net and immediately checked "visualstudio.net" to find out what the name of the latest version of visual studio was.
Plus, "net" is short for internet. That's nuts. We live in a world where a great many people don't know the difference between a webbrowser and an operating system. There's no way these people would be able to distinguish an internet api called "internet" from the internet.
Its probably because they weren't really getting their corporate message across to consumers. I hear that the new API that they're building into all of their products is to be called "Owns You!"
And the problem with the "I need to write it all down" is that when you have small sites or sections that don't require collaboration, you're spending a significant portion of design time on something that isn't going to help you. Even if you get hit by a bus, someone else can figure out what you do with a small site.
This is quite applicable since most companies in the world are sole proprietorships. That means that there is a significant number of people who derive little benefit from site maps.
Larger sites with more than one designer are perhaps a different story, except, as I said, in the case that the web-app interface provides structure by its very nature.
Source code comments are not a replacement for good design and communication. Agreed. Programming language design has evolved, however, so that, for instance, UML or flowcharts are unnecessary for many languages. Structure is separated from implementation in many modern languages, such as C++ and Java.
I speak from experience here: having started out trying to keep structure in my head and working in C, I moved to keeping everything in the class definitions and working in C++. After passing 10,000 lines, it was still easy to keep track of everything in C++, but C was another story (since then all further C writing will be done with documented structure).
Keep in mind that one of the greatest composers of all time, Mozart, kept the entire symphony in his head.
It's a lot less difficult to keep a site map in one's head than that, especially if it's organized well. While it is true that a good design requires a plan, it is not always true that it requires one written down, especially if the total number of types of pages is less than 10 - almost anybody can keep that much information in their head.
Just as with software engineering, sometimes the product itself offers inherent design methodology. For example, in C++, you specify what everything is going to do in header files before you write your code (or you do it that way if you are smart and actually plan BEFORE making the apps). You might even make it doxygen friendly and produce documentation on the various parts before you write it. Similarly, Zope offers the chance to make the site heirarchial if you design it correctly so that its easy to navigate.
Re:How to decide if something is immoral
on
Google vs. Evil
·
· Score: 2
I don't think that definition works. Here are some operational conclusions:
-going to the bathroom is immoral
-having sex (with spouse) is immoral
-demonstrating computer stuff is immoral (wouldn't do it in front of parents/kids because they'd be bored)
These are things I would want my children to do, at least eventually (except maybe #3). Why don't we that if it's wrong to do it then it's immoral?
It's not like this is open to interpretation, despite the fact that our country gives us the right to pretend that it is.
People want PIANOs that can produce a wide range of sounds. That's why synths exist. Here are some features on modern day keyboard that prove my point: weighted keys: so that it feels the same as a piano. You can't feel the hammers hitting the strings, you can only feel how hard it is to press the keys. Modern synths have this. touch sensitivity:Harder hit means more sound...like a piano. 88 keys:There's no reason that a synth should have so many keys, since it is usually portable, and thre isn't a lot of synth-only music (meaning that the range could be dictated by the instrument). Unless, of course, its a replacement for the piano.
This doesn't apply to all keyboards because all of these features are rather expensive. But most good keyboard players get their keyboards with all of these features. Saying they're not the same is like saying that a piano wasn't a replacement for the harpsichord (which could only play one volume).
Interesting how we name our keyed instruments - based upon whatever feature they have that the previous instrument didn't. Pianos where originally called "forte-pianos," and synths...
Slashdot Mirror
What you're really relying on is the selfishness of the hardware. If the hardware itself did something different, then the people that bought them would live with that. Case in point is ethernet devices.
Each of these has an altruistic collision avoidance method: when a collision happens, stop sending and wait a random amount of time before sending again. A selfish ethernet device would always immediately attempt to send under the assumption that the other device would be waiting, and it would get to go first. But of course, that's very bad for the network, so it's not done.
The fact that we've got selfish routers is not a sign that they're selfish, per se, but that selfish routing is somewhere near the most effective a means of communication that they could think of at the time when they where invented.
Ehh...no. That depends upon the size of the matrix. For sufficiently large matrices, the GAUSSIAN (not gausen) approximation approach is quite parallelizable.
This post is a terrific example of a straw man argument, which is a logical fallacy. In the real world, it's just not this simple - all IT people don't think that end-users are morons, and a computer is not the same as a simple tool to get work done even if you think of it that way (because it's a very sophisticated tool compared to most tools).
And I think, also, that sometimes we have a third party to blame. If we have to compete in the Microsoft industry, we have to do things a way that Microsoft wants. If we have a time crunch on our development of internal software, we might require the end-user to do something that a 40 line script could do (like typing in the name and location of their workstation) - that would be boss dictated.
To put another angle on the problem, in every program I have made there is a tradeoff between ease of use and development time - I can make it easier, and easier, but at the expense of time I spend working on it. Conversely, I could sometimes spend 3 minutes showing the end-user that I had to get rid of button "X" (because it had feature "Z" which conflicted with some new aspect of the program that I was ordered to include). Sure, it might make the end users feel bad for a bit, but in the end it might save the company more money to have them learn the new way than to have me make the new program like the old.
Working with end-users have taught me one thing: they often start VERY inflexible in the way they think - only able to do things one way - but, just like everyone else, they CAN generalize if given enough practice. So while the first change in UI might be confusing, the fifth one isn't for those who are learning.
We had a computer in every classroom at my school...which sat there doing absolutely nothing (these where all Apple IIEs, and most of them didn't work).
I was fortunate enough to have one teacher who saw my lust for the knowledge about computers and let me do a workbook about computers for extra credit in the fifth grade. When I had a question, the teacher would let me go see the assistant principal, who was the most knowledgable person in the school in math and technical fields (small elementary school, about 20 teachers, and 3 administrators). So I did the workbook and learned flowcharts, order of operations, and Apple BASIC (on paper), and of course all that silly basic stuff, like what all the "modern" peripherals where (keyboard, tape drive, floppy drive, joystick, printer, monitor, koala pad, and cartridge). Absolutely NOT the learning by playing around with the boxes.
That summer I joined a program where we had access to actual computers, and I was WAY ahead of the curve. If you want to know something badly enough, any gem of knowledge will be sought preciously, no matter how it is gained. Still...I wonder how much I'd know now if I'd had an actual computer back then when I wanted to know about them more than I wanted anything else.
As I said I have decided that the age of the console is over. That is, I'm done with them because they don't offer more than my computer can. It has nothing to do with anyone else's decision to waste their money on a console that does exactly as much as their PC can.
Back in the early nineties there was a "game" called workboy for the original gameboy which was basically a PDA. It even came with a keyboard.
Of course, that was a flop at the time. But I think that one of the big problems with game consoles today (as opposed to before) is that you can get pretty enough throughput (which is the most important feature of graphical applications) with a general purpose CPU as you can with a gaming CPU.
So perhaps branching into the markets of their general use counterparts may allow them to be justified (well, I could get a PDA to use at work which plays games sometimes, or a gameboy...).
I know that I have pretty much decided that the age of the console is over. For me it's PC and PDA games from now on.
The visitors just didn't know how to use the three seashells. :)
I intend to do something similar: I love computers, and I hope to work in computers until the day I die.
What this probably means is that I'll die penniless - a broken man - and that my genius will only be discovered 200 years later after my death (when corporations are overthrown by the starving masses, declared illegal, and their suppressed documents are released, causing a second renaissance and pulling all the world out of the second dark ages).
Or I'll just do something else that I'm good at.
I have wondered for a while how many diseases and afflictions mankind suffers because treatment is more profitable than the cure...
Of course, I think that if there is a cure, the public eventually finds out about it, but not until a great many people have suffered a life not quite as fullfilling.
On very specific case I'm thinking of is in dealing with headaches and ulcers. The best (and by best I mean fastest and with the highest degree of relief) way of dealing with these isn't with drugs, it's with muscle relaxation techniques.
Someone who is properly trained can "turn off" a stress-related headache and turn down the stomach acid in a matter of minutes (depending on the severity; most headaches are mild enough that a few seconds is probably enough). Yet we have "maximum strength" (and harmful, if taken in large enough doses) pain-killers to deal with the problems.
In fact, many problems related to pain can be dealt with mentally far more effectively than physically using techniques that any child can learn (it's much more difficult for most adults because the initial stages of use require a strong imagination). Considering the pervasiveness of pain as part of life, shouldn't it be considered as something that every child learns?
But then, what would Tylenol do in 60 years when none of the adults have ever taken one?
I can only think of a few reasons people look forward to the day they can fight for their country.
1) Prove their worth. "My father fought. My grandfather fought. It's my turn to become a Man."
2) Honor and glory. There's a lot of propaganda about that. Most of it, actually. Fight for honor and glory. Of course, there are people who have pointed out flaws in that thinking, too.
At worst you are the murderer when you kill, and at best the dispenser of justice - a hangman of nations. There is no honor in that.
3) To bring our viewpoints to other nations.
I've heard this one a lot. We need to "teach" those ignorant morons about life by killing some of them.
4) To dispense justice.
A nation is doing horrible things to itself, our nation, or other nations who can't defend themselves, and we must stop it from happening.
Actually, I've never heard anyone actually SAY the last one and hope for war. It's not a very good reason to hope for. Numbers 1-3 are selfish reasons. But I think that explains most of it.
Let me say, though, that everyone that I know who is in the military and DOESN'T want to kill people or go to war has given me reason #4 for why they might have to eventually.
Mothra destroy Australia with his fire-breath ray! And he destroy students' homes!
He knock out the observatory so that we cannot use it to summon Godzilla! And students homes are now gone!
What we do?!?!!
specifically, what a premise.
Let me start thinking that way.
You can get to a root prompt in Linux. You can do so in BSD as well. Solaris, also.
Apparently, these are all actually the same thing - they're all running Linux, underneath it all. And because it's that simple, it's just marketing - since the product is free - Solaris is just hyping it up so that people will use CDE.
Lets go further. Also, you can find a brain inside every animal. Cats have brains.
So, deep down, we're all cats, right*?
*Really old, bad movie quote
That only tells you who is going to go there and do that, and its a rather slow indication of the popularity of a distro because of how popularity takes hold. Also, some distros are going to have more zealots than others ("Everybody! Go to linuxcounter and prove to the world that our distro is the most popular!").
A faster indication is from distrowatch. The difference here is that the number of people INTERESTED in the distro determine the popularity.
Here's their actual stats (and though I hate to admit it, Lindows is holding strong at #9).
What? Double jeopardy?
They already won the name fight.
I have a theory that money only helps so much when fighting legally. If both sides have a certain amount, then the side that is right is most likely to win.
Of course, this isn't true if the issue in question matters to the judge or his constituents, but I don't think most judges care much about most software companies.
Maybe every CDR disk YOU buy is taxed, but I buy data CDRs, not Music CDRs, which aren't. Music CDRs are the only kind that will work in many standalone based CDRW drives, and are used solely for recording.
Perhaps you've noticed them? They're the once that are much more expensive at the store but don't seem to offer any extra value. I only know one guy who buys them and he doesn't have a computer.
I can't be absolutely certain what you're claiming he didn't answer because you used commas instead of periods in your last sentence, and none of the other necessary punctuation marks. Sometimes you need to use actual grammer rules to get your point across. He did explain what the benefit of the technology is.
It can be used to uniquely identify a particular computer with a low amount of computation. It's a glorified MAC address system, but with an encryption system based upon this as well.
I don't even see how this is even bad by itself. Is MAC bad? In addition, the only way it's going to be permanently encrypting data is if you put software on it that does that.
If that's what you want - data that is restricted to one machine - then just make an encryption scheme that combines serial numbers of all of the components in a machine to make a hash and use that. Is TCPA a technology that enables unique identification? Yeah, but so is a friggin' turing machine.
I won't accept a system that keeps my data from being portable. I won't use any XP product because when they're no longer supported, you won't be able to register them, and then even having the software won't mean you can use it. I won't use any DRM software that limits my rights to my files or is not portable among operating systems.
But if I can get a coprocessor that does encryption for free when I buy my board, and I don't have to be quite so paranoid in figuring out who is who because they have one too, I'm all for it. Maybe this'll help knock out the screwed up digital certificate market.
One small change from your scenario: instead of guns, make them magical elven guns - ones that always hit the intended target, since you can easily guarantee that you're killing the right process (kill the one that's shooting at you).
So you won't be killing your neighbor.
Then we're at the same moral quandry as before. May you kill the thief who is not victimizing your home?
We also get the same realization out of this as with killing malicious processes: you've done something to save your neighbor's house.
The game is incredibly easy for the most part. The hard part is play control.
Any puzzle game that makes play control the biggest challenge isn't much of a puzzle game. It's a play control game.
To me, there are just four words to describe such games: not worth my time.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345 314255/103-9283348-9273448?vi=glance
.
Sword of Shannara.
It's about a humble farmer dude who is told to leave his home by a great and powerful old wizard so that he can fulfill his destiny of destroying an evil phantom-like wizard, something which can only be done with the help of a magical artifact (this case it's a sword, not a ring).
Other intersting points in the story:
the king of one group of people is having his judgement clouded by a wicked chancellor who is actually working for the evil one. This is undone by the heroes, and the king helps defend against the onslaught of the army of evil orcs.
That army of orcs almost breaks through the inner part of the castle by going through the only available opening: the sewers. They know about this because the chancellor escaped and told them.
The epic battle to seize the castle encompasses four waves - three inner battlements are conquered, and a fourth when the orcs are defeated by a reenforcement force
Sound familiar? 'Cause I had to keep checking the title to make sure I wasn't reading Two Towers.
Rule #1 when creating technical terms is
.net and immediately checked "visualstudio.net" to find out what the name of the latest version of visual studio was.
"Don't reuse a term that is already in use in a similar domain."
This is pretty much exactly what Microsoft did. Putting a "." before a three letter word has become synonymous with meaning the webpage that displays the product. It is likely that some managers heard of visual studio
Plus, "net" is short for internet. That's nuts. We live in a world where a great many people don't know the difference between a webbrowser and an operating system. There's no way these people would be able to distinguish an internet api called "internet" from the internet.
Its probably because they weren't really getting their corporate message across to consumers. I hear that the new API that they're building into all of their products is to be called "Owns You!"
There are four case fans in the computer which is right next to my bed.
:)
I use the white noise to fall asleep.
It pays to sleep this way in the computer industry.
And the problem with the "I need to write it all down" is that when you have small sites or sections that don't require collaboration, you're spending a significant portion of design time on something that isn't going to help you. Even if you get hit by a bus, someone else can figure out what you do with a small site.
This is quite applicable since most companies in the world are sole proprietorships. That means that there is a significant number of people who derive little benefit from site maps.
Larger sites with more than one designer are perhaps a different story, except, as I said, in the case that the web-app interface provides structure by its very nature.
Source code comments are not a replacement for good design and communication. Agreed. Programming language design has evolved, however, so that, for instance, UML or flowcharts are unnecessary for many languages. Structure is separated from implementation in many modern languages, such as C++ and Java.
I speak from experience here: having started out trying to keep structure in my head and working in C, I moved to keeping everything in the class definitions and working in C++. After passing 10,000 lines, it was still easy to keep track of everything in C++, but C was another story (since then all further C writing will be done with documented structure).
Keep in mind that one of the greatest composers of all time, Mozart, kept the entire symphony in his head.
It's a lot less difficult to keep a site map in one's head than that, especially if it's organized well. While it is true that a good design requires a plan, it is not always true that it requires one written down, especially if the total number of types of pages is less than 10 - almost anybody can keep that much information in their head.
Just as with software engineering, sometimes the product itself offers inherent design methodology. For example, in C++, you specify what everything is going to do in header files before you write your code (or you do it that way if you are smart and actually plan BEFORE making the apps). You might even make it doxygen friendly and produce documentation on the various parts before you write it. Similarly, Zope offers the chance to make the site heirarchial if you design it correctly so that its easy to navigate.
I don't think that definition works. Here are some operational conclusions:
-going to the bathroom is immoral
-having sex (with spouse) is immoral
-demonstrating computer stuff is immoral (wouldn't do it in front of parents/kids because they'd be bored)
These are things I would want my children to do, at least eventually (except maybe #3). Why don't we that if it's wrong to do it then it's immoral?
It's not like this is open to interpretation, despite the fact that our country gives us the right to pretend that it is.
People want PIANOs that can produce a wide range of sounds. That's why synths exist. Here are some features on modern day keyboard that prove my point:
weighted keys: so that it feels the same as a piano. You can't feel the hammers hitting the strings, you can only feel how hard it is to press the keys. Modern synths have this.
touch sensitivity:Harder hit means more sound...like a piano.
88 keys:There's no reason that a synth should have so many keys, since it is usually portable, and thre isn't a lot of synth-only music (meaning that the range could be dictated by the instrument). Unless, of course, its a replacement for the piano.
This doesn't apply to all keyboards because all of these features are rather expensive. But most good keyboard players get their keyboards with all of these features. Saying they're not the same is like saying that a piano wasn't a replacement for the harpsichord (which could only play one volume).
Interesting how we name our keyed instruments - based upon whatever feature they have that the previous instrument didn't. Pianos where originally called "forte-pianos," and synths...