Re:It's ironic as hell that a Mac user said it.
on
Is UNIX An OS?
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· Score: 1
> has the best UI around
That's a fundamentally pointless statement. You can have the best networking stack, for example... but interface is so subjective as to make your sentence meaningless.
For me, and many people, a decent shell is the best interface for almost any task. For people who don't know what they're doing, pretty pictures help (apparently).
But obviously not enough to know that half the people there don't *want* to be "set free"?
>great understanding of the US
Tell me, oh great one, what have I misunderstood about the US? Could it be that you're one of the deluded ones who think they won the Vietnam war? Or was it the donkey-saving you were taking objection to?
Yeah, that's right, the Americans saved our asses in World War One and Two, apparently. I'm not quite sure what those people who didn't have donkeys got, but there you go.
It's a good job they didn't just pop along near the end and kill a few people then go home, otherwise where would the American film industry be?
> Familiarity is efficiency
No, familiarity is *part* of efficiency. You're going to be much more efficient if you can adapt the system and interface to your needs and/then/ become familiar.
> cultural thing
Are you trying to imply I'm an American? Please don't do that:-)
People need to *grow up* as far as technology is concerned. Going back to the tired old car analogy, you don't buy a car having had no driving lessons and then bitch to the manufacturer that it's too difficult to drive.
And the chances are, $SECRETARY will be given a "default" option or will quickly choose one (possibly at random). That doesn't mean we should take the choice away.
Oh for fucks sake... do we have to answer this one every time? I'll use small words and short sentences.
Choice is good.
No choice is bad.
Get it yet? If you use a computer for a reasonable proportion of your time, familiarity doesn't matter a toss. What matters is efficiency. Which means having your system configured in the way you want it, because everybody is different.
Well, exactly. Did your guns help you with that? Nope.
Face it, "citizens must have the right to bear arms to protect themselves from the government" is a stupid anachronism, plain and simple.
Incidentally, do you not realise how/stupid/ it is to justify the right to bear arms with "Look, it says on this bit of paper called the Constitution that I can have a gun"...
I'd personally be tempted to give it up as a bad job and start again, but luckily for me computers were invented and so I'm a computer scientist rather than a physicist;-)
> language constrains thought
I would certainly agree with this. The thing is, the language doesn't necessarily have to be recognised as such: it could be a highly individualised, highly specific "language" that don't even get fully consciously expressed.
Thought *is* language: it's just manipulation of symbols, whether that manipulation is conscious or subconscious.
> if a language doesn't change the way you think about programming then it isn't worth learning
Kind of obvious, really. The only reason for using different languages is that they're good at solving different problems; and therefore that they cause you to think about problems in a way that makes those problems; and therefore that it changes the way you think.
Well, the obvious conclusion to me would be that a Universe with black holes/isn't/ a closed system. Things "leak out" into a space that isn't part of our universe.
Saying "Look, entropy! There, see!" means that entropy describes the behaviour in most conditions quite well, but what is the evidence that it holds for odd conditions like black holes?
(These are all honest questions, by the way: I assume I'm probably wrong, I want to know why:-)
But it turned out that velocities approaching c made some newtonian physical "laws" invalid (for that case); why shouldn't black holes make this physical law invalid (for that case)?
And what would you suggest happen? Make something up? Perhaps you know the answers? "My mate John down the pub, he knows a bit about physics"? Perhaps the scientists should stop doing physics and wait till a simpler explanation drops into their lap?
It might very well turn out you're right, but finding easy answers isn't that easy...
So why don't we just abandon the second law of thermodynamics? What evidence do we have that entropy always decreases, rather than "entropy pretty much always seems to decrease"?
> Using regexes for everything, even though there are built-in functions
Well, there's nothing wrong with regexes. They're a neat, efficient, powerful solution. Okay, you can overuse them... occasionally
> more obfuscated approach of a break, continue or exit
That can often be the clearest and most natural way of doing it; you just have to clear the rigid "textbook" thinking out of your mind.
> Excessive use of globals, Meaningless variable names
Well, they're not really perl specific... and besides, *sometimes* a "meaningless" variable name is better (whatever your language). "i" is often better than "loop_counter", for example...
> Perl causes brain damage
Or people who don't understand Perl properly think it looks brain damaged?
Slashdot Mirror
> has the best UI around
That's a fundamentally pointless statement. You can have the best networking stack, for example... but interface is so subjective as to make your sentence meaningless.
For me, and many people, a decent shell is the best interface for almost any task. For people who don't know what they're doing, pretty pictures help (apparently).
But obviously not enough to know that half the people there don't *want* to be "set free"?
>great understanding of the US
Tell me, oh great one, what have I misunderstood about the US? Could it be that you're one of the deluded ones who think they won the Vietnam war? Or was it the donkey-saving you were taking objection to?
Yes, it seems he was right, and that you don't know a thing about Northern Ireland.
Didn't you hear? The Americans won that one.
/tried/ to keep a straight face.
*laugh* Sorry, I
Yeah, that's right, the Americans saved our asses in World War One and Two, apparently. I'm not quite sure what those people who didn't have donkeys got, but there you go.
It's a good job they didn't just pop along near the end and kill a few people then go home, otherwise where would the American film industry be?
> Familiarity is efficiency /then/ become familiar.
:-)
No, familiarity is *part* of efficiency. You're going to be much more efficient if you can adapt the system and interface to your needs and
> cultural thing
Are you trying to imply I'm an American? Please don't do that
People need to *grow up* as far as technology is concerned. Going back to the tired old car analogy, you don't buy a car having had no driving lessons and then bitch to the manufacturer that it's too difficult to drive.
And the chances are, $SECRETARY will be given a "default" option or will quickly choose one (possibly at random). That doesn't mean we should take the choice away.
> ooh, ooh, choice, can't cope
Oh for fucks sake... do we have to answer this one every time? I'll use small words and short sentences.
Choice is good.
No choice is bad.
Get it yet? If you use a computer for a reasonable proportion of your time, familiarity doesn't matter a toss. What matters is efficiency. Which means having your system configured in the way you want it, because everybody is different.
Is your post a joke, a troll, or misguided? I'm having trouble working it out...
/really/ matters...
As if the shape of the checkbox
> restrictions on strong crypto ... Carnivore ...
/stupid/ it is to justify the right to bear arms with "Look, it says on this bit of paper called the Constitution that I can have a gun"...
Well, exactly. Did your guns help you with that? Nope.
Face it, "citizens must have the right to bear arms to protect themselves from the government" is a stupid anachronism, plain and simple.
Incidentally, do you not realise how
I think you're more likely to find that it has more to do with Slashdot being a predominantly American forum...
> replace the word "Guns" in that sentence
What, like:
"Bananas will only lead to more deaths, in times of peace and in times of unrest"?
"Wristwatches will only lead to more deaths, in times of peace and in times of unrest"?
*chuckle*
:-)
Americans are so funny sometimes
Not as far as I'm concerned it's not.
:-p
I'm not (and never will be) European.
So there
Furry nuff :-)
;-)
I'd personally be tempted to give it up as a bad job and start again, but luckily for me computers were invented and so I'm a computer scientist rather than a physicist
> language constrains thought
I would certainly agree with this. The thing is, the language doesn't necessarily have to be recognised as such: it could be a highly individualised, highly specific "language" that don't even get fully consciously expressed.
Thought *is* language: it's just manipulation of symbols, whether that manipulation is conscious or subconscious.
> if a language doesn't change the way you think about programming then it isn't worth learning
Kind of obvious, really. The only reason for using different languages is that they're good at solving different problems; and therefore that they cause you to think about problems in a way that makes those problems; and therefore that it changes the way you think.
> 2nd law DOES hold, for a closed sytem
/isn't/ a closed system. Things "leak out" into a space that isn't part of our universe.
:-)
Well, the obvious conclusion to me would be that a Universe with black holes
Saying "Look, entropy! There, see!" means that entropy describes the behaviour in most conditions quite well, but what is the evidence that it holds for odd conditions like black holes?
(These are all honest questions, by the way: I assume I'm probably wrong, I want to know why
But it turned out that velocities approaching c made some newtonian physical "laws" invalid (for that case); why shouldn't black holes make this physical law invalid (for that case)?
And what would you suggest happen? Make something up? Perhaps you know the answers? "My mate John down the pub, he knows a bit about physics"? Perhaps the scientists should stop doing physics and wait till a simpler explanation drops into their lap?
It might very well turn out you're right, but finding easy answers isn't that easy...
So why don't we just abandon the second law of thermodynamics? What evidence do we have that entropy always decreases, rather than "entropy pretty much always seems to decrease"?
Because Redundant isn't the same thing as Repeated?
Yeah? What's he doing these days, anything interesting?
:-)
Attempt to drag us back to some semblance of on-topicness: Llamas, Camels; is Larry Wall really just a pseudonym for Jeff Minter?
Or perhaps Attack of the Mutant Camels, another Minter classic.
Jeff Minter is easily the greatest computer game creator the world has ever seen.
One of the entries is a "wc"[1] programme that will work both in Perl and C... Makes my teeth itch :-)
[1]Word count, rather than Water Closet, of course.
> Using regexes for everything, even though there are built-in functions
Well, there's nothing wrong with regexes. They're a neat, efficient, powerful solution. Okay, you can overuse them... occasionally
> more obfuscated approach of a break, continue or exit
That can often be the clearest and most natural way of doing it; you just have to clear the rigid "textbook" thinking out of your mind.
> Excessive use of globals, Meaningless variable names
Well, they're not really perl specific... and besides, *sometimes* a "meaningless" variable name is better (whatever your language). "i" is often better than "loop_counter", for example...
> Perl causes brain damage
Or people who don't understand Perl properly think it looks brain damaged?