what can i do with xml-rpc or soap? why is it so much better than just plain-old http post? just because it
has the correct buzzword juju for today?
Actually, XML-RPC and SOAP both fall under the
rubric of web services. Web services allow a program to make a remote procedure call to another machine using some wire protocol (ie XML-RPC or SOAP). The neat part about web services is that they are language neutral. That is, a Perl script on Linux can make remote procedure calls to an NT server running an ASP server. When the Perl script gets the data from the RPC call, the data will be available as a standard Perl datatype. If one were to simply use web pages to do this, every script would have to parse HTML just for that particular call. With web services, the programmer never needs to deal with
XML at all.
What's going on in the US economy is a financial hangover from the binge-drinking VC funding of questionable Internet startups. It's not like computers or the Internet is going away. Businesses are going to leverage network technology a lot more adroitly in the near future. Businesses exist to make money, not change society. Those ventures that forget this are soon dispatched.
While I'm uncertain if more friendly tax laws for R&D will revive the bull market, I do think that it will only take a few months of investor wound-licking before a new surge happens. Despite the machinations of Al Greenspan, economic surges are a bottom-up phenomenon.
We are in a time of correction. Consumer and VC spending will be forth coming. Unlike the recessions of the Reagan years, this economy has some very strong things going for it. Investor fear will soon diminish.
It might be a good time for techies to take a vacation before the next wave of startups locks them away from sunlight again.;-)
Although am interested in SETI, Art Bell and all things alien,
I'm far more concerned about what corporations
and the government are doing to our human rights right now.
I'm sure whatever aliens arrive will be screwed in turn, just like the natives.
My point is that free clients increase the value of their service at a small cost to themselves. Too many companies, it seems, are more interested in control rather than service. Tight control doesn't always lead to higher profits or longer life.
The more clients using their service, the more *useful* the service becomes. This is a fundamental truth about networks and p2p services. AOL is actually benefitting from the FREE work of the Gaim developers. Does AOL really think that instant messaging alone is selling its (questionable) ISP services? This is madness. Does *anyone* in today's business world look beyond his nose?
This story is much the same with the Napster. For all the "music theft," CD sales are up. In the early days of MS Windows, theft *HELPED* spread the damn OS to more machines than Microsoft's marketing department. Does this mean that while companies take a short-term "hit" from missed sales opportunities, they actually benefit in the long run from a certain level of "service theft"?
Yes.
The only reason for AOL/Microsoft/MPAA to get squirrelly about freeloading is unfettered, short-term greed (and possibly repressed a Calvinist rearing.) And, apologies to Gordon Geeko, greed is not good for long term business.
In the face of competition from open source operating systems like Linux and *BSD, Apple chose to reuse and enhance existing OSS software. With hardware prices spiralling down to sub-basement levels, shouldn't Microsoft consider scrapping win32 and adopt one of the freely available operating systems? Won't the economics of the Operating System market force Microsoft to search for cheaper ways to deliver its software services?
W32.Winux contains internal text strings. It also contains the following text: ?[Win32/Linux.Winux] multi-platform virus by Benny/29A? and ?'This GNU program is covered by GPL.?
It appears that the Free Software Foundation's message has finally reached the cracker community.
As many of the discussions to at the ol' SlashDot do, this one has devolved into ESR and XML bashing. XML-RPC isn't about conversing bandwidth or saving CPU cycles. It's about cross platform gateways. It's about using whatever language you want to get to the service you need. It's about freedom.
XML-RPC is *simple*. It is simple to use and simple to debug. There is a free XML-RPC library for ASP, so that you can finally control Windows from a linux box. Both XML-RPC and SOAP should be
strongly embraced by the Open Source community, not because of their CPU effeciencies (which are non-existent), but because of the *programmer* effeciency. It become really easy to snap together a bunch of applications (much like a pipe) using
one or both of these protocols. Yes, there is even
a C implement of XML-RPC for those that enjoy the compile-debug-edit cycle.
Do have a look at this intro that I wrote about XML-RPC.
Are thier problems with XML-RPC and SOAP? Absolutely, but nothing that clever hackers can't
fix.
Anyway, XML-RPC and SOAP are very much worth your time to look at.
One of the reasons I've gotten into web services like XML-RPC is that with them you can create platform independent and language neutral components. In a weird way, web services remind me of unix shell pipes; as long as programs agree to read from STDIN and write to STDOUT, you can string any of them together. Web services promote an Open and Documented architecture because you can easily read the communication going over the wire between clients and servers. This, for most applications, is a Good Thing (TM).
The.NET strategy from M$ seemed to me to be the best idea out of Redmond in years. It seemed like.NET would finally provide a level playfield for M$ competitors by opening up application component APIs.
I was greatly disappointed (but not really surprised) to read in this article that Corel and Microsoft see.NET as a way to charge customers more money for the same functionality that traditional desktop apps already have.
Instead of a playing field,.NET is going to be another Gated Community, where customers lose.
Frank Zappa's musical question is still relevant today.
TMBG are well known for their fractured take on modern life. Should more music embrace the absurd?
Would that add too much camp to the radio and lessen the impact of insightful comedy? Shouldn't most recording artists just lighten up?
As Dan Rather said during the presidential election coverage,
the race was "so close you couldn't put cigarette paper between
them", which provides some insight into where Rather's mind was.
Synchronistically, Comedy Central's prime time movie last night was
_Half Baked_, the charming story of New York city stoners and their
wacky, toked-up antics.
As of this writing, the new President of these United States isn't
known. The initial results of Florida's general election gave Bush
the state by only 2000 votes. Because this slim lead easily falls
within the margin of error, the home state of Mikey Mouse and German
tourist murderers is recounting the ballets -- or blown out candles
or colored marbles depending on the county. Whoever is declared the
winner there will surely go on to claim "a clear mandate from the
people". Considering the source, that mandate will likely include
Geritol and cheap stool softners for all.
The presidential race wasn't the only bit of madness happening last
evening. The population of the great state of Missouri reelected the
popular governor Robert Holden, a democrat from Jefferson City.
His adversary was the sober Republican candidate Jim Talent (that's
his real name, honest). The Show-Me state voters chose the candidate
who would best address the state's flat economy, lackluster education
and low prestige. As Newt Gingrich was fond of saying "history is the
best indicator of future performance" (which is utterly false in the
domain of probability), so Missouri went with the devil they knew.
The biggest obstruction facing the new governor is keeping voters' hopes
alive while he isn't. Bob Holden is dead. Very dead. Still, he seemed
to campaign better than Talent, so he has that going for him.
As all loyal viewers of the space opera "Babylon 5" knew, actor
Jerry Doyle (Mr. Garibaldi from the series) ran for Representative
from California's district 24. As an actor with political ambitions,
Doyle was in good company. Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee appeared
in numerous bad network TV shows in the 80s. Senator Sonny Bono, dead,
was very popular before his death was widely known. Although I'd rather,
let's not forget the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan, or mayor
Clint Eastwood. Americans love their actors, but not the ones that
have done Sci-Fi. Doyle was soundly trounced by the incumbent
Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks (really). I suppose the money and fame
can't buy you an election after all.
Let's not forget our own state Massachusetts. Once again, the bloated
and hoary friend to all DWI offenders, Ted Kennedy secured his senate seat
for another six years. As long as there's booze in the state, Kennedy
will continue to run and win elections. The more interesting story
for the Mass elections was the ballot questions. In a state known for
being pathologically democrat, it was fun to see how many republican
initiatives were supported by the ballot questions. Tax cuts, toll
rebates and no new health care policies all sound awfully much like
what George W. was stammering about during his campaign. And what would
warm old Dubba's heart more than to know that we as a state enjoy killing
grayhounds? Sure, those dogs aren't convicted prisoners being executed,
but we'll get to that.
In the end, this confused, befuddling, irritating election has served to
renew my faith in our representative democracy. Voters caused this mess,
not big businesses with political action committees. We citizens can
send the jumbled message to Washington that something unclear is
perhaps bothering us and we're not going to take it very much longer
unless we have to. It is clear that neither major party candidate
enjoys popular support. Most voters seemed to fear that the *other*
candidate would be elected. Truly, election 2000 was a contest of Lessers.
It seemed that those voting for Bush were trying to send a message
about the Clinton years. I'm not referring to the eight years of
morbidly obese economic growth, but the bald-faced manipulation that
Clinton engaged in. Even supporters of Clinton have to admit that
Slick Willy is a master confidence man. He lied on nationally televised
video tape under oath and he escape any reprimand for it. That's slick.
Gore doesn't have the charisma or the cajones of Clinton and that's
why voters are venting their spleen on him.
Just to rub it in, Clinton reminds us that he "still has 10 more
weeks to quack". Quack on, you licentious, profligate rogue. America
can't get enough of you.;-)
System.Exception: Invalid value: Hello, jjohn ---> System.FormatException: The input string wasn't in a correct format.
at System.Number.ParseInt32(System.String, System.Globalization.NumberStyles, System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo)
at System.Int32.FromString(System.String)
at System.Convert.ToInt32(System.String)
at System.String.ToInt32()
at System.Convert.DefaultToType(System.IConvertible, System.Type)
at System.String.ToType(System.Type)
at System.Convert.ChangeType(System.Object, System.Type)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ScalarFormatter.From String(System.String, System.Type)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ScalarFormatter.From String(System.String, System.Type)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ValueCollectionParam eterReader.Read(System.Web.Services.Prot ocols.HttpServerValueCollection)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.UrlParameterReader.R ead(System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpSe rverRequest)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpServerProtocol.R eadParameters()
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandler.In voke()
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandler.Co reProcessRequest()
also really dislike Perl. Perl is a badly designed mutant hybrid of bourne shell, sed, awk, and C. Python is a far better scripting language than Perl - it is far
cleaner and simpler, it promotes good programming practice, it was well designed from the start instead of being a mishappen pile of hacks, and it IMHO
just sucks. I've tried to program nontrivial programs in Perl and it was a major pain in the ass. There are a lot of things which are simple in Python which are
a pain in Perl. Object orientation in Perl is poorly designed, function syntax and handling is badly designed, error handling is badly designed, and so on.
Aw, you big lug! It sounds like you've been hurt by Perl. Maybe you need a hug.
Perl's OO is different that other languages. You clearly don't like it and you should use the tool that's best for you. Perl works very well for me even with complex programs. It doesn't put a gun to my head. It always lets me express myself in a natural way, like English. Also like english, I often have to revise and clarify Perl code because the first thing I write down isn't always the best way to say it. This isn't unique to Perl. All programming languages need editing. It's a shame that Comp Sci classes don't encourage the "one to throw away" model more enthusiastically.
Perl respects the programmer. The programmer, not the language, is responsible for source code
maintainability. Bad code isn't a Perl Problem.
Let's look at C. A perfectly respectable language. It's got stronger type checking than Perl. Clean C code should abound. Yet, it doesn't.
Perl is a whimsical language. You can create truly bizarre phrases like:
I do agree with your dislike of Global variables. Especially with the special globals,
like $_, programming can get hairy. There is talk about isolating these variable. That would be a Good Thing.
Dr. Conway is a truly delightful speaker and "cowboy" hacker. He brings to Perl not just excellent coding chops but solid development methodology. His book on Object Orient Perl gives legitimacy and respect to this often ridiculed subject. His greatest contribution to the Perl community so far has been his outstanding presentations at YAPC, the Open Source Conference and the University of Perl series.
Damian Conway is both an inspired and inspiring individual. In a profession dominated by blowhards and egotists, he's a genuinely decent human being.
If you missed it earlier, here is a recent interview with him posted on Perl.com.
Why do we care what David Every says?
on
Is UNIX An OS?
·
· Score: 1
He's a contributing editor for MacWeek. He's not Knuth. He's defining an OS from a Mac user's point of view. Clearly, he's not trying to
list the essential components of an Operating System for Comp Sci teachers.
Users don't very much care that an OS abstracts hardware to make life easier for application designers. Users care about the applications themselves. At least, this seems to be Every's point.
I understand what an OS is and what I expect from it. At the very least, I want my OS to
allocate enough memmory for my applications without manual interventionfrom me. I would like my OS to protect itself from uppity applications.
I would like my OS to have preemptive multitasking
and a solid file permissions system.
Of course, I may not be able to instantly upload pictures of my dog urinating on the carpet to my family's web site with out-of-the-box Unix,
but I'll deal.
Everyone makes mistakes. Proactively fixing this bug reflects very well on Red Hat.
However...
I recall the clammer over the win95 bug that would crash the system 50 days out. Microsoft was lambasted over this and rightly so.
Red Hat should also take heat for such a similar mistake. A code review might have caught such a stupid bug.
As the most visible icon of Linux, Red Hat should be nervously checking their releases for bugs. There is no reason why their customers won't flee to Suse, Caldera, Storm, Debian or even Slackware if Red Hat continues to deliver buggy, insecure systems (unstable compilers, piranha backdoors, etc).
I have bought Red Hat CDs in the past and continue
to use their distribution on a variety of machines. I do have to think twice before deploying a production machine with this distribution installed.
What needs to happen to get Red Hat to improve the quality of their releases? The installation is easy enough; it's the default system configuration that needs more attention.
Are you sure you're not talking about Napster?
on
EFnet Hits Turbulence
·
· Score: 2
I can't think why any decent minded person would support the use of a protocol which is used almost solely for illegal, and quite frankly disgusting, purposes.
IRC is an open protocol for distributed "real time" text conferencing and file sharing. This potent idea
continually gets reinvented.
AOL's Instant Messager and Jabber are the latest incarnations of real time conferencing.
As the original killer Internet application, email has florished as a means of conferencing and file sharing. It propagated to all platforms that supported TCP/IP networking. The problem with email is that it is asynchronous. By default, it provides no notice that a message has arrived at its destination, much less was seen by the intended recipient. IRC is a way to extend the conferencing capabilities of email. You know instantly whether your message was received. For small groups, this method works well.
If AOL's IM improves (for some values of "improves") on real time conferencing Napster,
Gnutella and Freenet extend file sharing to be pervasive and searchable. And yes, unlicensed files are traded with wild abandon on those networks too. Hustler magazine is printed on paper, just like currence, the Bible and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. I wouldn't go back to using stone tables because the medium can be abused.
Of course, it is easy to pick on the senile old aunt of conferencing technologies. There is no doubt that script kiddies and p0rn abound in seedy, misspelled chat rooms. It is a shame to condemn this important technology simple because of the activities of a few reprobates. If one could judge the whole by its parts, we'd have been Usenet years ago.
You may not choose to use IRC because of the few bad apples, but you'd do well not to quickly condemn all IRCers. There is a lot useful information tucked away in those intangible rooms.
It doesn't have typed parameters. It has "prototypes", but those are really context coercions. Perl isn't strongly typed, which is
pleasant for some and hateful to others. Here is an example of Perl's named parameters:
$result = foobaz( first => "bob", last => "dole");
sub foobaz {
my %params = @_;
return "My name is $params{first} $params{last}";
}
If by "semantics" you mean "the study of language meaning", Perl's syntax is a wonderful tool for expression. The "line noise" argument falls apart when you realize Perl's syntax is really telling the programer a great deal. If it is "all Greek to you", perhaps a trip to Athens is in order.:-)
Life is full of hoops that one is obligated to jump through. There are few things more certain - death, taxes - than a high school senior's opinion of himself. The crushing demand for programmers and administrators has created an anomalous job market. It is unclear how long this situation will last. What is clear is that the high school kid without a degree who pursues the a hi-tech career will get older. He (gender neutral) will probably get married. In short, he will be utterly screwed when the demand for hi-tech grunts wanes. The insult becomes clear when he has to compete against both the peers and the young whelps who have degrees.
That's a very unhappy place to be. I saw many people in exactly this position when I got my degree at UMass/Boston. It took me ten years from my high school graduation to get just a bachelor's. It made a noticable and positive impact on my salary.
If you are a recent high school grad or even
a current student who is considering dropping out, please do yourself a favor and think seriously before pursuing a career sans degree. You may be one of the lucky ones who makes it - ala Bill Gates - but that's really a sucker's bet.
Slashdot Mirror
what can i do with xml-rpc or soap? why is it so much better than just plain-old http post? just because it has the correct buzzword juju for today?
Actually, XML-RPC and SOAP both fall under the rubric of web services. Web services allow a program to make a remote procedure call to another machine using some wire protocol (ie XML-RPC or SOAP). The neat part about web services is that they are language neutral. That is, a Perl script on Linux can make remote procedure calls to an NT server running an ASP server. When the Perl script gets the data from the RPC call, the data will be available as a standard Perl datatype. If one were to simply use web pages to do this, every script would have to parse HTML just for that particular call. With web services, the programmer never needs to deal with XML at all.
Check out XML-RPC.com or IBM's developerWorks for more information on web services.
Take a look. Reagan had two recessions during his 2 terms.
What's going on in the US economy is a financial hangover from the binge-drinking VC funding of questionable Internet startups. It's not like computers or the Internet is going away. Businesses are going to leverage network technology a lot more adroitly in the near future. Businesses exist to make money, not change society. Those ventures that forget this are soon dispatched.
While I'm uncertain if more friendly tax laws for R&D will revive the bull market, I do think that it will only take a few months of investor wound-licking before a new surge happens. Despite the machinations of Al Greenspan, economic surges are a bottom-up phenomenon.
We are in a time of correction. Consumer and VC spending will be forth coming. Unlike the recessions of the Reagan years, this economy has some very strong things going for it. Investor fear will soon diminish.
It might be a good time for techies to take a vacation before the next wave of startups locks them away from sunlight again. ;-)
Oh wait, I guess I am now.
Thanks slashdot...
Although am interested in SETI, Art Bell and all things alien, I'm far more concerned about what corporations and the government are doing to our human rights right now.
I'm sure whatever aliens arrive will be screwed in turn, just like the natives.
Bureaucracy is blind.
My point is that free clients increase the value of their service at a small cost to themselves. Too many companies, it seems, are more interested in control rather than service. Tight control doesn't always lead to higher profits or longer life.
The more clients using their service, the more *useful* the service becomes. This is a fundamental truth about networks and p2p services. AOL is actually benefitting from the FREE work of the Gaim developers. Does AOL really think that instant messaging alone is selling its (questionable) ISP services? This is madness. Does *anyone* in today's business world look beyond his nose?
This story is much the same with the Napster. For all the "music theft," CD sales are up. In the early days of MS Windows, theft *HELPED* spread the damn OS to more machines than Microsoft's marketing department. Does this mean that while companies take a short-term "hit" from missed sales opportunities, they actually benefit in the long run from a certain level of "service theft"?
Yes.
The only reason for AOL/Microsoft/MPAA to get squirrelly about freeloading is unfettered, short-term greed (and possibly repressed a Calvinist rearing.) And, apologies to Gordon Geeko, greed is not good for long term business.
In the face of competition from open source operating systems like Linux and *BSD, Apple chose to reuse and enhance existing OSS software. With hardware prices spiralling down to sub-basement levels, shouldn't Microsoft consider scrapping win32 and adopt one of the freely available operating systems? Won't the economics of the Operating System market force Microsoft to search for cheaper ways to deliver its software services?
W32.Winux contains internal text strings. It also contains the following text: ?[Win32/Linux.Winux] multi-platform virus by Benny/29A? and ?'This GNU program is covered by GPL.?
It appears that the Free Software Foundation's message has finally reached the cracker community.
Jeez, why did my submission of this story (with the SAME headline) get rejected TWO days ago? I suppose that's Just Another Slashdot FAQ. :-)
* 2000-12-18 12:41:29 P2P Piracy? Piffle! (articles,news) (accepted)
* 2001-02-05 18:40:20 Using XML-RPC with Perl (articles,news) (rejected)
* 2001-03-23 12:58:25 William Hanna dead at 90 (articles,news) (rejected)
But, I'm not bitter...
Pluto's not a Real Planet (tm) anyway.
As many of the discussions to at the ol' SlashDot do, this one has devolved into ESR and XML bashing. XML-RPC isn't about conversing bandwidth or saving CPU cycles. It's about cross platform gateways. It's about using whatever language you want to get to the service you need. It's about freedom.
XML-RPC is *simple*. It is simple to use and simple to debug. There is a free XML-RPC library for ASP, so that you can finally control Windows from a linux box. Both XML-RPC and SOAP should be strongly embraced by the Open Source community, not because of their CPU effeciencies (which are non-existent), but because of the *programmer* effeciency. It become really easy to snap together a bunch of applications (much like a pipe) using one or both of these protocols. Yes, there is even a C implement of XML-RPC for those that enjoy the compile-debug-edit cycle.
Do have a look at this intro that I wrote about XML-RPC.
Are thier problems with XML-RPC and SOAP? Absolutely, but nothing that clever hackers can't fix.
Anyway, XML-RPC and SOAP are very much worth your time to look at.
One of the reasons I've gotten into web services like XML-RPC is that with them you can create platform independent and language neutral components. In a weird way, web services remind me of unix shell pipes; as long as programs agree to read from STDIN and write to STDOUT, you can string any of them together. Web services promote an Open and Documented architecture because you can easily read the communication going over the wire between clients and servers. This, for most applications, is a Good Thing (TM).
The .NET strategy from M$ seemed to me to be the best idea out of Redmond in years. It seemed like .NET would finally provide a level playfield for M$ competitors by opening up application component APIs.
I was greatly disappointed (but not really surprised) to read in this article that Corel and Microsoft see .NET as a way to charge customers more money for the same functionality that traditional desktop apps already have.
Instead of a playing field, .NET is going to be another Gated Community, where customers lose.
Frank Zappa's musical question is still relevant today. TMBG are well known for their fractured take on modern life. Should more music embrace the absurd? Would that add too much camp to the radio and lessen the impact of insightful comedy? Shouldn't most recording artists just lighten up?
Doh! Thanks! I must sleep more!
Refusal 2000
Americans Prefer Their Candidates Dead
As Dan Rather said during the presidential election coverage, the race was "so close you couldn't put cigarette paper between them", which provides some insight into where Rather's mind was. Synchronistically, Comedy Central's prime time movie last night was _Half Baked_, the charming story of New York city stoners and their wacky, toked-up antics.
As of this writing, the new President of these United States isn't known. The initial results of Florida's general election gave Bush the state by only 2000 votes. Because this slim lead easily falls within the margin of error, the home state of Mikey Mouse and German tourist murderers is recounting the ballets -- or blown out candles or colored marbles depending on the county. Whoever is declared the winner there will surely go on to claim "a clear mandate from the people". Considering the source, that mandate will likely include Geritol and cheap stool softners for all.
The presidential race wasn't the only bit of madness happening last evening. The population of the great state of Missouri reelected the popular governor Robert Holden, a democrat from Jefferson City. His adversary was the sober Republican candidate Jim Talent (that's his real name, honest). The Show-Me state voters chose the candidate who would best address the state's flat economy, lackluster education and low prestige. As Newt Gingrich was fond of saying "history is the best indicator of future performance" (which is utterly false in the domain of probability), so Missouri went with the devil they knew. The biggest obstruction facing the new governor is keeping voters' hopes alive while he isn't. Bob Holden is dead. Very dead. Still, he seemed to campaign better than Talent, so he has that going for him.
As all loyal viewers of the space opera "Babylon 5" knew, actor Jerry Doyle (Mr. Garibaldi from the series) ran for Representative from California's district 24. As an actor with political ambitions, Doyle was in good company. Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee appeared in numerous bad network TV shows in the 80s. Senator Sonny Bono, dead, was very popular before his death was widely known. Although I'd rather, let's not forget the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan, or mayor Clint Eastwood. Americans love their actors, but not the ones that have done Sci-Fi. Doyle was soundly trounced by the incumbent Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks (really). I suppose the money and fame can't buy you an election after all.
Let's not forget our own state Massachusetts. Once again, the bloated and hoary friend to all DWI offenders, Ted Kennedy secured his senate seat for another six years. As long as there's booze in the state, Kennedy will continue to run and win elections. The more interesting story for the Mass elections was the ballot questions. In a state known for being pathologically democrat, it was fun to see how many republican initiatives were supported by the ballot questions. Tax cuts, toll rebates and no new health care policies all sound awfully much like what George W. was stammering about during his campaign. And what would warm old Dubba's heart more than to know that we as a state enjoy killing grayhounds? Sure, those dogs aren't convicted prisoners being executed, but we'll get to that.
In the end, this confused, befuddling, irritating election has served to renew my faith in our representative democracy. Voters caused this mess, not big businesses with political action committees. We citizens can send the jumbled message to Washington that something unclear is perhaps bothering us and we're not going to take it very much longer unless we have to. It is clear that neither major party candidate enjoys popular support. Most voters seemed to fear that the *other* candidate would be elected. Truly, election 2000 was a contest of Lessers. It seemed that those voting for Bush were trying to send a message about the Clinton years. I'm not referring to the eight years of morbidly obese economic growth, but the bald-faced manipulation that Clinton engaged in. Even supporters of Clinton have to admit that Slick Willy is a master confidence man. He lied on nationally televised video tape under oath and he escape any reprimand for it. That's slick. Gore doesn't have the charisma or the cajones of Clinton and that's why voters are venting their spleen on him.
Just to rub it in, Clinton reminds us that he "still has 10 more weeks to quack". Quack on, you licentious, profligate rogue. America can't get enough of you. ;-)
I entered "Hello, jjohn" and got:
m String(System.String, System.Type)
m String(System.String, System.Type)
m eterReader.Read(System.Web.Services.Prot ocols.HttpServerValueCollection)
R ead(System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpSe rverRequest)
R eadParameters()
n voke()
o reProcessRequest()
System.Exception: Invalid value: Hello, jjohn ---> System.FormatException: The input string wasn't in a correct format.
at System.Number.ParseInt32(System.String, System.Globalization.NumberStyles, System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo)
at System.Int32.FromString(System.String)
at System.Convert.ToInt32(System.String)
at System.String.ToInt32()
at System.Convert.DefaultToType(System.IConvertible, System.Type)
at System.String.ToType(System.Type)
at System.Convert.ChangeType(System.Object, System.Type)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ScalarFormatter.Fro
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ScalarFormatter.Fro
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.ValueCollectionPara
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.UrlParameterReader.
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpServerProtocol.
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandler.I
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandler.C
Remember what happened to Mir and the Space Fungus?
I wonder if they will post a doctor on ISS. It would be a bummer to get a heartattack 20 miles above the closest hospital...
also really dislike Perl. Perl is a badly designed mutant hybrid of bourne shell, sed, awk, and C. Python is a far better scripting language than Perl - it is far cleaner and simpler, it promotes good programming practice, it was well designed from the start instead of being a mishappen pile of hacks, and it IMHO just sucks. I've tried to program nontrivial programs in Perl and it was a major pain in the ass. There are a lot of things which are simple in Python which are a pain in Perl. Object orientation in Perl is poorly designed, function syntax and handling is badly designed, error handling is badly designed, and so on.
Aw, you big lug! It sounds like you've been hurt by Perl. Maybe you need a hug.
Perl's OO is different that other languages. You clearly don't like it and you should use the tool that's best for you. Perl works very well for me even with complex programs. It doesn't put a gun to my head. It always lets me express myself in a natural way, like English. Also like english, I often have to revise and clarify Perl code because the first thing I write down isn't always the best way to say it. This isn't unique to Perl. All programming languages need editing. It's a shame that Comp Sci classes don't encourage the "one to throw away" model more enthusiastically.
Perl respects the programmer. The programmer, not the language, is responsible for source code maintainability. Bad code isn't a Perl Problem.
Let's look at C. A perfectly respectable language. It's got stronger type checking than Perl. Clean C code should abound. Yet, it doesn't.
Perl is a whimsical language. You can create truly bizarre phrases like:
print (map "$_ => $h{$_}\n" keys %h)
or you can write the more conservative:
while( my( $key, $value ) = each %hash ){ print "$key => $value\n"; }
I do agree with your dislike of Global variables. Especially with the special globals, like $_, programming can get hairy. There is talk about isolating these variable. That would be a Good Thing.
Dr. Conway is a truly delightful speaker and "cowboy" hacker. He brings to Perl not just excellent coding chops but solid development methodology. His book on Object Orient Perl gives legitimacy and respect to this often ridiculed subject. His greatest contribution to the Perl community so far has been his outstanding presentations at YAPC, the Open Source Conference and the University of Perl series.
Damian Conway is both an inspired and inspiring individual. In a profession dominated by blowhards and egotists, he's a genuinely decent human being.
If you missed it earlier, here is a recent interview with him posted on Perl.com.
He's a contributing editor for MacWeek. He's not Knuth. He's defining an OS from a Mac user's point of view. Clearly, he's not trying to list the essential components of an Operating System for Comp Sci teachers.
Users don't very much care that an OS abstracts hardware to make life easier for application designers. Users care about the applications themselves. At least, this seems to be Every's point.
I understand what an OS is and what I expect from it. At the very least, I want my OS to allocate enough memmory for my applications without manual interventionfrom me. I would like my OS to protect itself from uppity applications. I would like my OS to have preemptive multitasking and a solid file permissions system.
Of course, I may not be able to instantly upload pictures of my dog urinating on the carpet to my family's web site with out-of-the-box Unix, but I'll deal.
Everyone makes mistakes. Proactively fixing this bug reflects very well on Red Hat.
However...
I recall the clammer over the win95 bug that would crash the system 50 days out. Microsoft was lambasted over this and rightly so.
Red Hat should also take heat for such a similar mistake. A code review might have caught such a stupid bug.
As the most visible icon of Linux, Red Hat should be nervously checking their releases for bugs. There is no reason why their customers won't flee to Suse, Caldera, Storm, Debian or even Slackware if Red Hat continues to deliver buggy, insecure systems (unstable compilers, piranha backdoors, etc).
I have bought Red Hat CDs in the past and continue to use their distribution on a variety of machines. I do have to think twice before deploying a production machine with this distribution installed.
What needs to happen to get Red Hat to improve the quality of their releases? The installation is easy enough; it's the default system configuration that needs more attention.
I can't think why any decent minded person would support the use of a protocol which is used almost solely for illegal, and quite frankly disgusting, purposes.
IRC is an open protocol for distributed "real time" text conferencing and file sharing. This potent idea continually gets reinvented. AOL's Instant Messager and Jabber are the latest incarnations of real time conferencing.
As the original killer Internet application, email has florished as a means of conferencing and file sharing. It propagated to all platforms that supported TCP/IP networking. The problem with email is that it is asynchronous. By default, it provides no notice that a message has arrived at its destination, much less was seen by the intended recipient. IRC is a way to extend the conferencing capabilities of email. You know instantly whether your message was received. For small groups, this method works well.
If AOL's IM improves (for some values of "improves") on real time conferencing Napster, Gnutella and Freenet extend file sharing to be pervasive and searchable. And yes, unlicensed files are traded with wild abandon on those networks too. Hustler magazine is printed on paper, just like currence, the Bible and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. I wouldn't go back to using stone tables because the medium can be abused.
Of course, it is easy to pick on the senile old aunt of conferencing technologies. There is no doubt that script kiddies and p0rn abound in seedy, misspelled chat rooms. It is a shame to condemn this important technology simple because of the activities of a few reprobates. If one could judge the whole by its parts, we'd have been Usenet years ago.
You may not choose to use IRC because of the few bad apples, but you'd do well not to quickly condemn all IRCers. There is a lot useful information tucked away in those intangible rooms.
Cheers
It doesn't have typed parameters. It has "prototypes", but those are really context coercions. Perl isn't strongly typed, which is
:-)
pleasant for some and hateful to others. Here is an example of Perl's named parameters:
$result = foobaz( first => "bob", last => "dole");
sub foobaz {
my %params = @_;
return "My name is $params{first} $params{last}";
}
If by "semantics" you mean "the study of language meaning", Perl's syntax is a wonderful tool for expression. The "line noise" argument falls apart when you realize Perl's syntax is really telling the programer a great deal. If it is "all Greek to you", perhaps a trip to Athens is in order.
Cheers.
Life is full of hoops that one is obligated to jump through. There are few things more certain - death, taxes - than a high school senior's opinion of himself. The crushing demand for programmers and administrators has created an anomalous job market. It is unclear how long this situation will last. What is clear is that the high school kid without a degree who pursues the a hi-tech career will get older. He (gender neutral) will probably get married. In short, he will be utterly screwed when the demand for hi-tech grunts wanes. The insult becomes clear when he has to compete against both the peers and the young whelps who have degrees.
That's a very unhappy place to be. I saw many people in exactly this position when I got my degree at UMass/Boston. It took me ten years from my high school graduation to get just a bachelor's. It made a noticable and positive impact on my salary.
If you are a recent high school grad or even a current student who is considering dropping out, please do yourself a favor and think seriously before pursuing a career sans degree. You may be one of the lucky ones who makes it - ala Bill Gates - but that's really a sucker's bet.