I agree, however I think the issue of which language is best for learning programming depends on what you consider to be important in programming. If you think bit twiddling is the be-all-and-end-all of programming then you'll gravitate towards assembly/C/C++, conversely, if you consider developing algorithms and structured solutions to be important you'll gravitate towards higher-level languages (OO/functional/logical.)
Certainly it couldn't hurt to know a little of everything, but personally I think it's easier to optimize a well-structured program than to try to add structure to a hack, hence we should start with languages that promote structured solutions and put off bit-twiddling until the courses on compiler implementation and operating systems.
You somehow have it in your mind that a perceived danger to human lives is fundementally different from a perceived danger to profitability. In practice human lives have finite monetary value. DeCSS threatens control (in the form of licensing, region coding, etc.) over a commodity, probably more in the precident it sets than in actual usage. Loss of control reduces ability to profit. Given the power that big business has to write the laws in most industrialized countries is it surprising that not only the right to life, but also the right to profit supercede the right to free speech when they are in conflict?
Quite true. It's nice to see the Gnome project putting some effort in to UI. There is a disturbing trend in the KDE project to use Windows keybindings instead of standard unix bindings. This is unfortunate for two reasons, first the Windows keybindings tend to penalize proficient typists, its far easier to do Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E from the home row than Home and End, for example. Second it leads to inconsistency of interface, which is a big no-no. I know the KDE people are trying to create K versions of every unix program in existence, but until this happens the users will be confused when one program behaves in the unix style and another behaves in the Windows style.
A lot of effort is being put into developing good code, it would be nice if some effort where put into investigating HCI literature and putting some of these principles to practice. I don't mean a radical departure from the WIMP interface, just a refinement. I'm not saying Gnome and KDE are horrible, in fact I use KDE extensively on my home computer. I'm just saying that a little effort spent thinking about the UI (copying existing UIs where they are good and using different solutions when they are better) could make a very make the Linux desktop a thing of beauty.
> But come on already, enough is enough! Can anyone point me to any study or theory that says Virtual Reality deaths may cause you to die? I doubt it.
Perhaps not in a violent, gory way, but just imagine if (when?) Microsoft gets into the neural interface VR business. Sure, it made perfect sense to allow the software to interface directly with primitive brain functions, after all, so long as you use our APIs your VR experience is guaranteed to be non-fatal (Note: use of Microsoft DirectNeuron invalidates all expressed or implied guarantees). I would be impossible to reverse engineer the DirectNeuron interface since we have used the sophisticated, state of the art Ceasar's cypher to encode all interactions. Any reported cases of general central nervous system faults (GCNSF) are likely due to the use of substandard, third-party biological organs.
I'm not sure what (if anything) you are trying to get at here but note that KDE is a desktop environment, not an operating system. For the linux distributions that I am aware of one can choose to install KDE, netscape, neither or both. On the other hand one does not have the choice to install IE or not (nor to remove it at a later date) with Windows. If the Konqueror source where merged into the kernel and glibc source and KDE/linux was owned exclusively by a for-profit company with a market monopoly then these two situations would be more similar.
Having components of an application or a group of applications which work well together (e.g. KDE, GNOME, netscape navigator/messanger/composer) can be very convenient. Tying these applications into the operating system is much more questionable.
(Note: I will avoid the whole issue to attempting to define where the operating system stops and applications begin.)
I'd have to disagree. I was hoping for a good counterpoint but I felt that ENM was by far inferior to GEB. Obviously the subject they tackle is very involved and both spend a good deal of time setting up the intuitions however I found that most of ENM was irrelevant to the main point (or at least the connection was not made clear at all.) The conclusion I got from ENM was that if Penrose's oddball (by his own admission) quantum theory is correct than there is a faint possibility that the strong AI conjecture is false. Its an awful lot of book for such a weak argument.
The one point in ENM's favour is that it is the first argument I've seen against strong AI which is not directly based on circular definitions (ie definitions of intelligence which include the requirement that the subject must be human, amongst other things.) Unfortunately I don't think the case was made well.
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I agree, however I think the issue of which language is best for learning programming depends on what you consider to be important in programming. If you think bit twiddling is the be-all-and-end-all of programming then you'll gravitate towards assembly/C/C++, conversely, if you consider developing algorithms and structured solutions to be important you'll gravitate towards higher-level languages (OO/functional/logical.) Certainly it couldn't hurt to know a little of everything, but personally I think it's easier to optimize a well-structured program than to try to add structure to a hack, hence we should start with languages that promote structured solutions and put off bit-twiddling until the courses on compiler implementation and operating systems.
You somehow have it in your mind that a perceived danger to human lives is fundementally different from a perceived danger to profitability. In practice human lives have finite monetary value. DeCSS threatens control (in the form of licensing, region coding, etc.) over a commodity, probably more in the precident it sets than in actual usage. Loss of control reduces ability to profit. Given the power that big business has to write the laws in most industrialized countries is it surprising that not only the right to life, but also the right to profit supercede the right to free speech when they are in conflict?
Quite true. It's nice to see the Gnome project putting some effort in to UI. There is a disturbing trend in the KDE project to use Windows keybindings instead of standard unix bindings. This is unfortunate for two reasons, first the Windows keybindings tend to penalize proficient typists, its far easier to do Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E from the home row than Home and End, for example. Second it leads to inconsistency of interface, which is a big no-no. I know the KDE people are trying to create K versions of every unix program in existence, but until this happens the users will be confused when one program behaves in the unix style and another behaves in the Windows style.
A lot of effort is being put into developing good code, it would be nice if some effort where put into investigating HCI literature and putting some of these principles to practice. I don't mean a radical departure from the WIMP interface, just a refinement.
I'm not saying Gnome and KDE are horrible, in fact I use KDE extensively on my home computer. I'm just saying that a little effort spent thinking about the UI (copying existing UIs where they are good and using different solutions when they are better) could make a very make the Linux desktop a thing of beauty.
> But come on already, enough is enough! Can anyone point me to any study or theory that says Virtual Reality deaths may cause you to die? I doubt it.
Perhaps not in a violent, gory way, but just imagine if (when?) Microsoft gets into the neural interface VR business. Sure, it made perfect sense to allow the software to interface directly with primitive brain functions, after all, so long as you use our APIs your VR experience is guaranteed to be non-fatal (Note: use of Microsoft DirectNeuron invalidates all expressed or implied guarantees). I would be impossible to reverse engineer the DirectNeuron interface since we have used the sophisticated, state of the art Ceasar's cypher to encode all interactions. Any reported cases of general central nervous system faults (GCNSF) are likely due to the use of substandard, third-party biological organs.
I'm not sure what (if anything) you are trying to get at here but note that KDE is a desktop environment, not an operating system. For the linux distributions that I am aware of one can choose to install KDE, netscape, neither or both. On the other hand one does not have the choice to install IE or not (nor to remove it at a later date) with Windows. If the Konqueror source where merged into the kernel and glibc source and KDE/linux was owned exclusively by a for-profit company with a market monopoly then these two situations would be more similar.
Having components of an application or a group of applications which work well together (e.g. KDE, GNOME, netscape navigator/messanger/composer) can be very convenient. Tying these applications into the operating system is much more questionable.
(Note: I will avoid the whole issue to attempting to define where the operating system stops and applications begin.)
I'd have to disagree. I was hoping for a good counterpoint but I felt that ENM was by far inferior to GEB. Obviously the subject they tackle is very involved and both spend a good deal of time setting up the intuitions however I found that most of ENM was irrelevant to the main point (or at least the connection was not made clear at all.) The conclusion I got from ENM was that if Penrose's oddball (by his own admission) quantum theory is correct than there is a faint possibility that the strong AI conjecture is false. Its an awful lot of book for such a weak argument.
The one point in ENM's favour is that it is the first argument I've seen against strong AI which is not directly based on circular definitions (ie definitions of intelligence which include the requirement that the subject must be human, amongst other things.) Unfortunately I don't think the case was made well.