I'm not trolling here, I've spent way too many years using C++ to earn a crust and am an unpreposessing Scheme junkie too. The purpose of a language is to provide an automatic mapping from our "headspace" into something the computer understands. Complex semantics make this process more prone to overt errors and much more vulnerable to subtle errors that seem to work. Simple languages lay everything on the table, there is very little buried deeply in libraries. Really good code is usually "bespoke" code which someone has thought carefully about, not the result of putting a bunch of popular object classes into a code-supercollider. Good programmers can use C as safely as they can use C++, Java, Python or any of the other rising/risen stars; arguing that C provides little protection (using whatever metaphor you like) is just trolling: C isn't a language that you *expect* to protect you -- you take extra care with it.
Pick the tools for the jobs -- there are a lot of jobs that need to be explicit, clear and easily checked: C beats the other popular imperative languages hands down here.
Bet Ron Swanson codes in C (or assembler if he wants that "hand-tooled" feel).
Too right.
Actually, the central idea behind socialism is that the economy is geared to satify social and economic need (production for utility), rather than to accumulate capital -- who actually owns/controls the means of production depends on who is interpreting the word "socialism". The Soviet Union was not socialist in this sense. Many of the modern democracies seem to employ both capitalist and socialist policies in their government of both social and economic spheres. They aren't antithetic.
First, I have a lot of sympathy with the "maths" and "maths & science" suggestions, since a good maths degree can take you anywhere, but I have to suggest blacksmithing. There is a *reason* that "Smith", "Smit", "Schmidt" and the many other variants are common. Fun, useful, relies on very little high tech resources, and even works when the grid goes down. There are a lot of people out there earning a living making beautiful ironwork, but probably still not *too many*. Tell her to strike while the iron is hot!;-)
No spoilers. I regard "Memory Blank" (John Stith) with the same sort of affection as "Chronicles of Amber".
Late posting, I know, but it's a good read, but you'll probably have to find it in the second hand shop.
Come on, cattle are much *better* work animals than horses.
Working cattle can pull much harder than horses (it's the oxen that break new fields, pull timber out of the forest, drag stone...)
cattle will not work themselves to death;
cattle are much less fussy about their food (one of the benefits of four stomachs!);
the harness (yoke) for working cattle is *much* simpler than the collar for a horse;
they have much better traction in loose or muddy soil than horses;
and
oxen are (traditionally) directed by command rather than reins.
By analogy, you can think of the difference between horses and cattle as being similar to the difference between a petrol (gasoline) engine and a diesel engine: horses have a lot of power, but cattle have a lot of torque.
I don't know it to be so, but I believe that until relatively recent times an animal's value as living muscle outweighed any value it might have had as meat (and, of course, hide, bone and sinew). Once industrialisation took hold and steam engines (and subsequently internal combustion engines) became commonplace, the value of cattle as labour decreased and they started appearing on the plate more often. Both cattle and horses seem to have been originally domesticated as reserve food, but the utility of the animal's labour, in both instances, made them much more valuable alive and in harness: cattle for muscle, and horses for speed.
The Domesday book (according to Walker (National Income in Domesday England)) puts the annual value of working livestock at about double that of non-working livestock (animals that are used for food/material). I believe that cattle comprised most the "working animal" category, which accounted for a tenth of the total number of animals. This suggests (very coarsely) that a working cow would have been something like twenty times more valuable than a beef animal.
I don't think that the economy and technology of medieval Europe was all that different to the centuries that preceded it.
Sure, horses and cows started out as ready food, but they quickly became *much* more valuable, and the equation has only slipped toward the table in recent times.
Of course I could be wrong....
The project is straightforward:
1) build the computer simulator for the core
2) write the operating environment (very simple task switching)
3) let the club loose!
They could organise as individuals, teams or both. Nothing like a gladiatorial contest and a little geeky bloodlust to fan the fires of enthusiasm.
[Negative points for gratuitous references to TRON.... apart from the lightcycle of course.]
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I'm not trolling here, I've spent way too many years using C++ to earn a crust and am an unpreposessing Scheme junkie too. The purpose of a language is to provide an automatic mapping from our "headspace" into something the computer understands. Complex semantics make this process more prone to overt errors and much more vulnerable to subtle errors that seem to work. Simple languages lay everything on the table, there is very little buried deeply in libraries. Really good code is usually "bespoke" code which someone has thought carefully about, not the result of putting a bunch of popular object classes into a code-supercollider. Good programmers can use C as safely as they can use C++, Java, Python or any of the other rising/risen stars; arguing that C provides little protection (using whatever metaphor you like) is just trolling: C isn't a language that you *expect* to protect you -- you take extra care with it. Pick the tools for the jobs -- there are a lot of jobs that need to be explicit, clear and easily checked: C beats the other popular imperative languages hands down here. Bet Ron Swanson codes in C (or assembler if he wants that "hand-tooled" feel).
Too right. Actually, the central idea behind socialism is that the economy is geared to satify social and economic need (production for utility), rather than to accumulate capital -- who actually owns/controls the means of production depends on who is interpreting the word "socialism". The Soviet Union was not socialist in this sense. Many of the modern democracies seem to employ both capitalist and socialist policies in their government of both social and economic spheres. They aren't antithetic.
First, I have a lot of sympathy with the "maths" and "maths & science" suggestions, since a good maths degree can take you anywhere, but I have to suggest blacksmithing. There is a *reason* that "Smith", "Smit", "Schmidt" and the many other variants are common. Fun, useful, relies on very little high tech resources, and even works when the grid goes down. There are a lot of people out there earning a living making beautiful ironwork, but probably still not *too many*. Tell her to strike while the iron is hot! ;-)
No spoilers. I regard "Memory Blank" (John Stith) with the same sort of affection as "Chronicles of Amber". Late posting, I know, but it's a good read, but you'll probably have to find it in the second hand shop.
Come on, cattle are much *better* work animals than horses. Working cattle can pull much harder than horses (it's the oxen that break new fields, pull timber out of the forest, drag stone...) cattle will not work themselves to death; cattle are much less fussy about their food (one of the benefits of four stomachs!); the harness (yoke) for working cattle is *much* simpler than the collar for a horse; they have much better traction in loose or muddy soil than horses; and oxen are (traditionally) directed by command rather than reins. By analogy, you can think of the difference between horses and cattle as being similar to the difference between a petrol (gasoline) engine and a diesel engine: horses have a lot of power, but cattle have a lot of torque. I don't know it to be so, but I believe that until relatively recent times an animal's value as living muscle outweighed any value it might have had as meat (and, of course, hide, bone and sinew). Once industrialisation took hold and steam engines (and subsequently internal combustion engines) became commonplace, the value of cattle as labour decreased and they started appearing on the plate more often. Both cattle and horses seem to have been originally domesticated as reserve food, but the utility of the animal's labour, in both instances, made them much more valuable alive and in harness: cattle for muscle, and horses for speed. The Domesday book (according to Walker (National Income in Domesday England)) puts the annual value of working livestock at about double that of non-working livestock (animals that are used for food/material). I believe that cattle comprised most the "working animal" category, which accounted for a tenth of the total number of animals. This suggests (very coarsely) that a working cow would have been something like twenty times more valuable than a beef animal. I don't think that the economy and technology of medieval Europe was all that different to the centuries that preceded it. Sure, horses and cows started out as ready food, but they quickly became *much* more valuable, and the equation has only slipped toward the table in recent times. Of course I could be wrong....
The project is straightforward: 1) build the computer simulator for the core 2) write the operating environment (very simple task switching) 3) let the club loose! They could organise as individuals, teams or both. Nothing like a gladiatorial contest and a little geeky bloodlust to fan the fires of enthusiasm. [Negative points for gratuitous references to TRON .... apart from the lightcycle of course.]