I don't know if I'd go that far. I would say don't worry about optimizing non-critical code. As for the critical parts, if it's that time-critical, it should probably be in assembly language.
Err, umm, err. Oh, never mind. I could say something unkind about the readability of Smalltalk, but I know there are people who say the same about Lisp, the single most readable, understandable, and beautiful language ever made. So I'll keep my mouth shut.
I find it interesting that you still like your first language. I hate mine. But then, my first language was BASIC...
... er, and void functions hardly ever return 1. Damn, I'm on a roll:-)
These errors are perfectly understandable. I've frequently noted that I'll type into web edit boxes or email bits of code I would NEVER type if I were actually entering real code into Emacs. I don't know why. I suspect I'm not perfectly modeless -- my C-mode syntax checker only functions while Emacs is also in C-mode.
Well, that was obviously a contrived example, but the techniquie you're using can help make C code more maintainable. Develop on the idea you're exploiting, and you'll see the only real advantage of C++ is that it offers multiple inheritance, where when writing object oriented C code, only single inheritance is possible (without going through contortions).
Why do you say that's C++? Because of the "post.first()"? That's perfectly legal in C, assuming "post" is a structure that contains an element named "first" which is a function pointer.
One of the great lies of the 20th century was that C doesn't support polymorphism. Absolutely untrue.
Of course, he will get a compile error, but only due for calling printf with no parentheses.
Also, I'm going to be contrarian and say that I think themability is a really, really, bad idea, and may ultimately be the single largeest contributing factor inhibiting Linux from making large-scale inroads against Windows. Why not do one interface really well, instead of 500 that are ugly, confusing, sick jokes?
This is a logical falacy known as a false dilemma, where you suggest one must make an "either this or that" (XOR) choice when in fact it is not the case. The fact that 500 people are working on ugly, confusing interfaces in no way prevents anyone from doing one interface really well. Why not do one interface really well, and allow 500 alternatives for people who prefer them?
But I've never, ever understood the ``Motif is ugly and GTK is beautiful'' argument, because they look the same to me. Seriously! Can someone explain to me why one of these is ugly and the other is beautiful:
Exhibit A Exhibit B
Because I just don't see it. Except for the default font sizes, those look damned near identical to me.
Haha! That was pretty funny!
You were joking, right? Right? Jamie? Please tell us you were joking...
I mean you're right, aside from the fact that Exhibit A is butt-ugly and Exhibit B is beautiful, there isn't that much difference...
Maybe fortran wasn't the best example, but it pretty much is a niche language now.
All the best languages are niche languages. One should always try to use the appropriate tool for the job. This quest for the "universal hammer" (i.e. the one perfect programming language) is silly...
And the QPL and Troll Tech's statements about it always leave a lingering doubt about licensing issues for both free and commercial software development.
I'm interested in just whereabouts this "native system library" clause is in the GPL. I can't find anything of the sort.
And I quote:
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
"Olle Hällnäs wrote in to tell us that XMMS (the premiere GUI MP3 player for Linux these days"
Do you have any idea how hard it is to undo this? Any Linux user who may be thinking about trying other Unices will take this to mean that XMMS isn't "for" _insert_other_unix_system_here_. It's not intentional I know, and the message is completely subliminal.
No, it's not true that any Linux user will read that as meaning it's only available for Linux. Only those with poor reading comprehension skills.
If someone reads the correct statement "Netscape is the most popular web browser for Linux these days" as meaning "Netscape is only available for Linux", they have poor reading skills. Likewise, if someone read the quoted statement as meaning XMMS is only available for Linux, they too have poor reading skills.
How do we undo this? Better education in the schools, perhaps? I don't know. But I don't think refraining from making accurate and factual statements because they might be misinterpretted is the answer.
Actually, UI's should be designed for the intended users. The question is, who is the intended user? The article began by saying Linux was designed by geeks for geeks. As such, I believe it's the most successful example of user-interface design to date. Psychologists might, after many years of study, be able to make a half-assed attempt at something that gets the job done as well as we have, but the results would be nowhere near as good.
Now, if you're going to change the premise and claim Linux was designed for the average Joe, then yes, it has not been an entirely successful in the UI arena. But that would be silly. How successful a UI is depends very much on which U the I is designed for!
...the Ship of Theseus that Theseus is still sailing around in is the real Ship of Theseus, even though all the planks have been replaced over the years.
In retrospect, I should probably clarify this.
The story goes, Theseus sails his ship around for many years. Every time he comes to port in Athens, he has repairs done. Certain planks are pulled out and replaced with new ones. After so many years, eventually every plank has been replaced.
During this time, one of the dockworkers has been collecting all the planks removed from Theseus's ship. Eventually, he builds a new ship from the discarded planks of Theseus's ship.
The question is, which one of these is the true Ship of Theseus? The one Theseus has been sailing around all this time, or the one made of all the original planks?
The answer, of course, is the one Theseus has been sailing around. To verify, simply go to the Athenian Port Registry and ask them to point out which ship is Theseus's ship. They'll point out which ship actually belongs to Theseus, and it's the one he's been sailing around in.
The reason why this is the case is because we're asking which ship belongs to Theseus, and that's actually a legal issue, not a philosophical one. Without question, Theseus's ship is the one Athenian law says it his ship.
Note that this example counters something you implied earlier. Because Theseus's ship is a legalistic entity, it is not simply the sum of its parts, but note that we do not have to posulate the existence of a soul in order to note that Theseus's ship is not simply the sum of the parts it's constructed out of.
So, simply assuming there is no soul does not tell us that both Rikers are the original. It still leaves the question wide open.
Whether a soul exists has nothing to do with what you're describing. Yeah it would, of course, be murder if you disintegrated someone. My question was, would the guy on the other side of the transporter be "you". Well, if you don't believe that humans are anything more than the sum of their parts (i.e. no soul) then, for all intents and purposes, the newly cloned person *is* "you". He's just not the only you.
Well, if we are to say an individual is unique (which is kind of implicit in the word "individual"), then there can't be two of "you". The two people on opposite sides of the transport are not the same person. They may be identical in every detectable way except for their location, but space hasn't folded onto itself -- this isn't one person co-located into two different locations. They immediately differ, if in no other way, than at least in the property of their spatial coordinates. So they aren't truly identical.
Which really doesn't answer the question you're asking. [sigh]
In the case of Riker's transportation mishap, we ask ourselves (if we actually care enough about Star Trek to even hypothesize this far) "Who is Riker?" Both of them? If one Riker is just the same as another, then I guess they are both Riker.
They're both individuals named Riker, but they aren't the same person. The question you're getting at is, I think, which one of them is the same person as the Riker that existed before the transport.
I don't know, but part of me wants to say, neither one is. This part of me is the same part that's inclined to say "I'm not the man I used to be" and mean it literally. I'm certainly not the same person I was 10 years ago (actually, I frequently joke that I'm version 3.3 of me -- although I'm planning on following Slackware's lead and making my next major revision 7.0).
On the other hand, part of me wants to say the one who didn't transport is. The new one is a copy of the original. Note, this is true even without transporter accidents!
On the gripping hand, part of me wants to say the one that "successfully transported" is the real Riker, for the same reason that the Ship of Theseus that Theseus is still sailing around in is the real Ship of Theseus, even though all the planks have been replaced over the years.
Ugh. I know one thing -- until I'm sure of an answer on this one, I'm not using any transporters...:)
Lets just drop irrational stuff like 'god', 'soul' and 'consciousness' from our language, OK? These words don't actually mean something (try to define them, you won't make much sense) they stand for things we cannot define.
Some things can't be defined reductively, but that doesn't mean they're irrational or that they don't mean anything. Things can be defined by reference (e.g. "That is yellow.") without being able to be defined in other terms (you'll never be able to define yellow so that someone who's never seen yellow can understand it and recognize it when they see it for the first time, unlike, say, a unicorn, which you can define in such a way that people who've never seen one nevertheless understand what one is and would know one if they saw one).
There are simple and complex words in any language. Complex definitions can be broken down, they're defined in terms of other words. Simples cannot. They are meaningful but undefined terms. If you purge them from the language, words defined in terms of them become undefined. If you keep this up, you eventually eliminate the entire language.
Thus, you suggestion is unworkable. If we eliminate undefined terms from the language, we eventually eliminate the language in its entirety.
I'd recommend reading some of G.E. Moore's writings about definitions and meaning.
that mechanical computing devices back to Hollerith's tabulator and the theoretical performance of Babbage's engine do fit on the Moore's Law curve extrapolated back to 1900-1910.
The problem with this being Babbage did his work fifty years before that and we actually have no idea what "the theoretical performance of Babbage's engine" would be in 1900 since such a machine never existed and never will. You'll excuse me if the made up performance of a made up machine doesn't exactly rank high on my list of pieces of good evidence for something.
You don't like it? Don't do it. You possess no specialness to sit and decide what's best for others.
Erm, you need to work on your reading comprehension skills. The original poster made no attempt to decide what's best for others. All he did was express his feelings about what would happen to him if he did it. Why do you feel others shouldn't be allowed to feel differently than you? Or do you simply feel they shouldn't be allowed to say it?
I guess it depends on whether you believe in a soul or not.
In what way does it depend on this?
This reminds me of my friend's "Paranoia Transporter" (Paranoia refering to a particular role-playing game). The Computer builds transporters, but with a special "safety" feature because the transporters aren't 100% reliable (oops, I think I just gained a Treason point for sayint that). So, someone steps onto the transporter and says "Energize". The transporter chief activates the transporter. It scans the person and creates an exact duplicate at the other end. The transporter chief at the other end signals that the transport went okay. The transport chief at this end then pulls out his gun and distintegrates the poor sod still standing on the transporter pad saying "Hey, what happened, why am I still here?" The newly created clone at the other end goes about his business, fooled by his memories into thinking he's the old clone (who's currently pleading with the transporter chief not to disintegrate him).
Now, explain to my why whether this poor sod has a soul or not in any way affects the fact that he's about to die and is not in fact living on, a copy of him is? I don't see how whether souls exist or not is relevant to this...
Incidently, it was shortly after coming up with the Paranoia Transporter that we noticed that the transporter rooms on the Enterprise-D are soundproofed. And we almost died laughing at one episode where Chief O'Brian expresses some reluctance to let someone else beam him somewhere...:)
Thanks dude for your unnecessary personal attack. Microsoft, btw, had a small % of the browser market when the made IE free and subsequently took over the market.
You're completely missing the point. Microsoft had an overwhelming majority in the OS market, and used its position to take over the browser market. Sun is not in the same position by a long shot. That's like comparing Sun offering StarOffice for a free download to Microsoft offering Microsoft Word free with your OS. How long would it be before what remains of WordPerfect's market share evaporated under those circumstances?
At least get your facts straight if you have the balls to insult somebody.
His facts were perfectly accurate. Yours are too, but they're utterly beside the point...
Many/. readers happen to be of much higher intelligence than this idiot. We happen to enjoy the nerdy science articles. We haven't been seeing Einstein's glorious head enough lately. Good work Rob...
Of course not, that's why I voted for him.:) He used to stop by a little computer store in Brooklyn Park from time to time back when he was mayor (the owner of which was also active in city politics). He's a smart man with good ideas. He just lacks the political savy he needs. Hopefully he'll gain that as time goes by...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if I'd go that far. I would say don't worry about optimizing non-critical code. As for the critical parts, if it's that time-critical, it should probably be in assembly language.
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Err, umm, err. Oh, never mind. I could say something unkind about the readability of Smalltalk, but I know there are people who say the same about Lisp, the single most readable, understandable, and beautiful language ever made. So I'll keep my mouth shut.
I find it interesting that you still like your first language. I hate mine. But then, my first language was BASIC...
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These errors are perfectly understandable. I've frequently noted that I'll type into web edit boxes or email bits of code I would NEVER type if I were actually entering real code into Emacs. I don't know why. I suspect I'm not perfectly modeless -- my C-mode syntax checker only functions while Emacs is also in C-mode.
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Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
thats C++ my friend.
You got a compile error!
Why do you say that's C++? Because of the "post.first()"? That's perfectly legal in C, assuming "post" is a structure that contains an element named "first" which is a function pointer.
One of the great lies of the 20th century was that C doesn't support polymorphism. Absolutely untrue.
Of course, he will get a compile error, but only due for calling printf with no parentheses.
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This is a logical falacy known as a false dilemma, where you suggest one must make an "either this or that" (XOR) choice when in fact it is not the case. The fact that 500 people are working on ugly, confusing interfaces in no way prevents anyone from doing one interface really well. Why not do one interface really well, and allow 500 alternatives for people who prefer them?
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Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Because I just don't see it. Except for the default font sizes, those look damned near identical to me.
Haha! That was pretty funny!
You were joking, right? Right? Jamie? Please tell us you were joking...
I mean you're right, aside from the fact that Exhibit A is butt-ugly and Exhibit B is beautiful, there isn't that much difference...
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All the best languages are niche languages. One should always try to use the appropriate tool for the job. This quest for the "universal hammer" (i.e. the one perfect programming language) is silly...
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Such as?
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And I quote:
For further information, see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
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Do you have any idea how hard it is to undo this? Any Linux user who may be thinking about trying other Unices will take this to mean that XMMS isn't "for" _insert_other_unix_system_here_. It's not intentional I know, and the message is completely subliminal.
No, it's not true that any Linux user will read that as meaning it's only available for Linux. Only those with poor reading comprehension skills.
If someone reads the correct statement "Netscape is the most popular web browser for Linux these days" as meaning "Netscape is only available for Linux", they have poor reading skills. Likewise, if someone read the quoted statement as meaning XMMS is only available for Linux, they too have poor reading skills.
How do we undo this? Better education in the schools, perhaps? I don't know. But I don't think refraining from making accurate and factual statements because they might be misinterpretted is the answer.
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Now, if you're going to change the premise and claim Linux was designed for the average Joe, then yes, it has not been an entirely successful in the UI arena. But that would be silly. How successful a UI is depends very much on which U the I is designed for!
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In retrospect, I should probably clarify this.
The story goes, Theseus sails his ship around for many years. Every time he comes to port in Athens, he has repairs done. Certain planks are pulled out and replaced with new ones. After so many years, eventually every plank has been replaced.
During this time, one of the dockworkers has been collecting all the planks removed from Theseus's ship. Eventually, he builds a new ship from the discarded planks of Theseus's ship.
The question is, which one of these is the true Ship of Theseus? The one Theseus has been sailing around all this time, or the one made of all the original planks?
The answer, of course, is the one Theseus has been sailing around. To verify, simply go to the Athenian Port Registry and ask them to point out which ship is Theseus's ship. They'll point out which ship actually belongs to Theseus, and it's the one he's been sailing around in.
The reason why this is the case is because we're asking which ship belongs to Theseus, and that's actually a legal issue, not a philosophical one. Without question, Theseus's ship is the one Athenian law says it his ship.
Note that this example counters something you implied earlier. Because Theseus's ship is a legalistic entity, it is not simply the sum of its parts, but note that we do not have to posulate the existence of a soul in order to note that Theseus's ship is not simply the sum of the parts it's constructed out of.
So, simply assuming there is no soul does not tell us that both Rikers are the original. It still leaves the question wide open.
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Thanks.
Whether a soul exists has nothing to do with what you're describing. Yeah it would, of course, be murder if you disintegrated someone. My question was, would the guy on the other side of the transporter be "you". Well, if you don't believe that humans are anything more than the sum of their parts (i.e. no soul) then, for all intents and purposes, the newly cloned person *is* "you". He's just not the only you.
Well, if we are to say an individual is unique (which is kind of implicit in the word "individual"), then there can't be two of "you". The two people on opposite sides of the transport are not the same person. They may be identical in every detectable way except for their location, but space hasn't folded onto itself -- this isn't one person co-located into two different locations. They immediately differ, if in no other way, than at least in the property of their spatial coordinates. So they aren't truly identical.
Which really doesn't answer the question you're asking. [sigh]
In the case of Riker's transportation mishap, we ask ourselves (if we actually care enough about Star Trek to even hypothesize this far) "Who is Riker?" Both of them? If one Riker is just the same as another, then I guess they are both Riker.
They're both individuals named Riker, but they aren't the same person. The question you're getting at is, I think, which one of them is the same person as the Riker that existed before the transport.
I don't know, but part of me wants to say, neither one is. This part of me is the same part that's inclined to say "I'm not the man I used to be" and mean it literally. I'm certainly not the same person I was 10 years ago (actually, I frequently joke that I'm version 3.3 of me -- although I'm planning on following Slackware's lead and making my next major revision 7.0).
On the other hand, part of me wants to say the one who didn't transport is. The new one is a copy of the original. Note, this is true even without transporter accidents!
On the gripping hand, part of me wants to say the one that "successfully transported" is the real Riker, for the same reason that the Ship of Theseus that Theseus is still sailing around in is the real Ship of Theseus, even though all the planks have been replaced over the years.
Ugh. I know one thing -- until I'm sure of an answer on this one, I'm not using any transporters...
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Some things can't be defined reductively, but that doesn't mean they're irrational or that they don't mean anything. Things can be defined by reference (e.g. "That is yellow.") without being able to be defined in other terms (you'll never be able to define yellow so that someone who's never seen yellow can understand it and recognize it when they see it for the first time, unlike, say, a unicorn, which you can define in such a way that people who've never seen one nevertheless understand what one is and would know one if they saw one).
There are simple and complex words in any language. Complex definitions can be broken down, they're defined in terms of other words. Simples cannot. They are meaningful but undefined terms. If you purge them from the language, words defined in terms of them become undefined. If you keep this up, you eventually eliminate the entire language.
Thus, you suggestion is unworkable. If we eliminate undefined terms from the language, we eventually eliminate the language in its entirety.
I'd recommend reading some of G.E. Moore's writings about definitions and meaning.
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The problem with this being Babbage did his work fifty years before that and we actually have no idea what "the theoretical performance of Babbage's engine" would be in 1900 since such a machine never existed and never will. You'll excuse me if the made up performance of a made up machine doesn't exactly rank high on my list of pieces of good evidence for something.
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Erm, you need to work on your reading comprehension skills. The original poster made no attempt to decide what's best for others. All he did was express his feelings about what would happen to him if he did it. Why do you feel others shouldn't be allowed to feel differently than you? Or do you simply feel they shouldn't be allowed to say it?
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In what way does it depend on this?
This reminds me of my friend's "Paranoia Transporter" (Paranoia refering to a particular role-playing game). The Computer builds transporters, but with a special "safety" feature because the transporters aren't 100% reliable (oops, I think I just gained a Treason point for sayint that). So, someone steps onto the transporter and says "Energize". The transporter chief activates the transporter. It scans the person and creates an exact duplicate at the other end. The transporter chief at the other end signals that the transport went okay. The transport chief at this end then pulls out his gun and distintegrates the poor sod still standing on the transporter pad saying "Hey, what happened, why am I still here?" The newly created clone at the other end goes about his business, fooled by his memories into thinking he's the old clone (who's currently pleading with the transporter chief not to disintegrate him).
Now, explain to my why whether this poor sod has a soul or not in any way affects the fact that he's about to die and is not in fact living on, a copy of him is? I don't see how whether souls exist or not is relevant to this...
Incidently, it was shortly after coming up with the Paranoia Transporter that we noticed that the transporter rooms on the Enterprise-D are soundproofed. And we almost died laughing at one episode where Chief O'Brian expresses some reluctance to let someone else beam him somewhere...
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You're completely missing the point. Microsoft had an overwhelming majority in the OS market, and used its position to take over the browser market. Sun is not in the same position by a long shot. That's like comparing Sun offering StarOffice for a free download to Microsoft offering Microsoft Word free with your OS. How long would it be before what remains of WordPerfect's market share evaporated under those circumstances?
At least get your facts straight if you have the balls to insult somebody.
His facts were perfectly accurate. Yours are too, but they're utterly beside the point...
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It doesn't say that.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
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Robin: Who the FUCK cares?
I really want to know.
Many
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Of course not, that's why I voted for him.
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