I bet some idiot replies to this with some choice quotes from the jargon file/hacker's dictionary about user logins and the good old days.
I use to like the jargon file, but now it just seems to prop up clueless newbies who want to feel superior by telling everyone to use the word "cracker" instead of "hacker".
Cool! Look, RMS has started employing astro-turfers! Pretty soon they'll have us convinced that "GNU/Linux" doesn't sound awkward and actually is the best way to describe the OS, just like MS people have convinced everyone to pronounce it "sequal server" instead of "SQL server".
Back in the 70s when I was but a small object someone gave me a toy car that read punched cards. Basically you slotted the card in underneath the car, and I suppose it had a lead of in/out switches that got pressed.
Each card would make the car do something; one would make it go in circles forverer, another would make it zoom forward, then do a left turn etc.
The coolest thing, although I was too young to appreciate it at the time (I was about 4), was that they gave you some blank cards and the instructions to "program" the car.
Oooooh, Java is safe! You can't hurt yourself! Just like a nice rubber room! See? You can run round bouncing off the nice safe walls and still be safe and happy. Oh so happy.
Give me the power! Give me the electricity crackling through my fingers that is C!
You make a good point, bringing up the JNI. I would like to continue this by criticisizing language designers who like to claim that their language doesn't let you do anything dangerous, but then provide a native interface so that when you need to do something you can't do in their language you can link to the routine written in C or whatever. They can then bounce around when programs have security flaws, saying that "Java is secure" and "Well the hole was in the C part" etc.
Especially when the extra functionality you need is written for this application and is not just a link to a previously-written module it is damn handy being able to write it in the same language. In my view it is very cool of MS to allow you to use c# for everything.
"Isn't it like saying, in cooking, we have all these herbs and spices, they're too difficult for me, lets throw them out and make everything taste the same?"
Aha! You have stumbled onto the secret of English cooking!
A purely functional style of programming means that you never change the value of a variable, instead using function calls which take an argument and then return a copy of the argument(s) transformed in some way.
You can even see functional paradigms in visual basic 6 if you are weird like that-
Public Function allowrant(username As String) As Boolean
If UCase$(Left$(username, 3)) = "RMS" Then allowrant = False Else allowrant = True
End Function
Although it looks like you are assigning to a variable here this is just the way you return values in vb functions. The real point is the ucase$ function and the left$ function; they don't change the argument, they just return a copy of it, modified in some way.
As to why one language qualifies as functional and another doesn't I have no idea because I have yet to meet a language everyone seems to think is functional where you can't assign to variables.
I was thinking about this the other day. They were showing some archive footage of Mr. G. at the XBox launch and he looked very old in his trendy XBox jacket- like some sad old woman wearing make-up and a short skirt.
I suddenly thought about what would happen if he just had a heart-attack tomorrow and died. God knows, his job must be pretty stressful, even if he doesn't read slashdot.
I realized I would miss him- at least as a concept. I mean I dislike a lot of things that MS has done, but in the end they are a company trying, like every other company, to make as much money as possible.
But think about it- no play is complete without its villian, and he does make life more interesting. I mean, how cool would slashdot be without anti-ms stories and postings, as well as anti-sun, anti-sony etc.?
Headlines:
* Gnome developers release new cool desktop.
* KDE developers in love fest with gnome developers.
* Everyone gets along splendidly and collaborates on new open-source software.
* We all love each other.
* Miguel and RMS have polite disagreement over whether to call it "free beer" or "free lager".
Etc.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that if Bill Gates died tomorrow I would say- "That's a shame- he seemed like an OK guy, really."
So go ahead, flame away.
(Hmm. Maybe you're not supposed to drink with this cough-medicine.)
"almost makes me want to take up gardening and stay away from CS...."
You're kidding, right? Have you heard two hardcore gardeners have a conversation? It's just as geeky, jargon-filled and ultimately pointless conversational masturbation as a slashdot story on.net!
In fact, if you ever check out the letters page in a specialist magazine (no, not those ones) e.g. Land Rover Monthly or Model Aeroplanes Weekly or whatever, you'll recognize the style immediately- there is an underlying similarity running through all specialist hobbies (which may or may not have commercial applications).
You'd think that using an rdbms would give you lots of control over your source tree, but think again. Any decent rcs works incrementally- i.e. you are storing deltas, not always whole lines of code.
The indices (stuff this "indexes" crap) would be really bad and slow on all your tables.
Also RDBMSs suck at representing hierachies, which source trees naturally are. In fact, I dare say the only reason that RDBMSs are so widespread and accepted today is that originally it was much faster to do this rather than use an OO, hierachical way of doing things.
The way you store things has to be written specifically so that it fits in with the way projects work and evolve.
Forgive the lameness. Haven't had my 2nd coffee of the day yet...
I know you probably know, but that was a different Death Star- v2.0 if you like. The reason it looked the same is because the (evil) Ewpire said they were not going to release any new battlestations, just concentrate on the security and stability of the old design.
Most people who release cool free software these days have their own domain name. This will be simply another reason to get a good one. Even if you haven't got a domain name you cold use sourceforge, so for example, my toy programming language would be net.sourceforge.stalk. I can definately live with that.
Consider you live in a world where this wireless p2p is a reality.
Now for amusement's sake, suppose you are walking around all day and you notice some weird guy following you around. For extra amusement, let's pretend he looks like Kramer off Seinfeld.
When you eventually get the courage to confront him about his suspicious behaviour...
You: WTF are you doing following me?!
Him: I'm downloading your Aerosmith albums!
You: Well, get them off someone else- I have a board meeting in 10 minutes!
Him: I'll just stand in the corner! I won't bother you!
(further hilarity later ensues when he won't leave your board meeting- claiming the directors have some "really shit hot pr0n on them")
Slashdot Mirror
s/use/used
What? Me, a hypocrite? No, I'm allowed.
graspee
I bet some idiot replies to this with some choice quotes from the jargon file/hacker's dictionary about user logins and the good old days.
I use to like the jargon file, but now it just seems to prop up clueless newbies who want to feel superior by telling everyone to use the word "cracker" instead of "hacker".
blerg.
graspee
Cool! Look, RMS has started employing astro-turfers! Pretty soon they'll have us convinced that "GNU/Linux" doesn't sound awkward and actually is the best way to describe the OS, just like MS people have convinced everyone to pronounce it "sequal server" instead of "SQL server".
graspee
"Since we know what you're by and large going to say"
;)
The idea of astroturfing is to not make mistakes like saying "We offer several products.."
So, did you know I was going to say that ?
graspee
Yeah, this brings up the only problem with this technology- do you really want to be observed on public transport saying, apparently to yourself:
"Hit me baby one more time"
graspee
"If you want to see the real thing, apparently both Dublin, Ireland and Glasgow, Scotland have remains of St' Valentine in churches."
I thought he was beheaded, not hit with a frag grenade.
graspee
"Maybe some more bandwidth"
Cos every girl loves a fat pipe.
graspee
Back in the 70s when I was but a small object someone gave me a toy car that read punched cards. Basically you slotted the card in underneath the car, and I suppose it had a lead of in/out switches that got pressed.
Each card would make the car do something; one would make it go in circles forverer, another would make it zoom forward, then do a left turn etc.
The coolest thing, although I was too young to appreciate it at the time (I was about 4), was that they gave you some blank cards and the instructions to "program" the car.
I wish I still had it...
graspee
Lucky Australians!
graspee
Ah old days. Wasn't it the case that the 286 wouldn't actually let you leave protected mode except by rebooting ?
graspee
Oooooh, Java is safe! You can't hurt yourself! Just like a nice rubber room! See? You can run round bouncing off the nice safe walls and still be safe and happy. Oh so happy.
Give me the power! Give me the electricity crackling through my fingers that is C!
World Shakin' !
graspee
One- JavaOS. And lo! it was crap.
graspee
You make a good point, bringing up the JNI. I would like to continue this by criticisizing language designers who like to claim that their language doesn't let you do anything dangerous, but then provide a native interface so that when you need to do something you can't do in their language you can link to the routine written in C or whatever. They can then bounce around when programs have security flaws, saying that "Java is secure" and "Well the hole was in the C part" etc.
Especially when the extra functionality you need is written for this application and is not just a link to a previously-written module it is damn handy being able to write it in the same language. In my view it is very cool of MS to allow you to use c# for everything.
graspee
"Isn't it like saying, in cooking, we have all these herbs and spices, they're too difficult for me, lets throw them out and make everything taste the same?"
Aha! You have stumbled onto the secret of English cooking!
Graspee (UK)
A purely functional style of programming means that you never change the value of a variable, instead using function calls which take an argument and then return a copy of the argument(s) transformed in some way.
You can even see functional paradigms in visual basic 6 if you are weird like that-
Public Function allowrant(username As String) As Boolean
If UCase$(Left$(username, 3)) = "RMS" Then allowrant = False Else allowrant = True
End Function
Although it looks like you are assigning to a variable here this is just the way you return values in vb functions. The real point is the ucase$ function and the left$ function; they don't change the argument, they just return a copy of it, modified in some way.
As to why one language qualifies as functional and another doesn't I have no idea because I have yet to meet a language everyone seems to think is functional where you can't assign to variables.
(Cue for "you obviously haven't met..." posts.)
graspee
I was thinking about this the other day. They were showing some archive footage of Mr. G. at the XBox launch and he looked very old in his trendy XBox jacket- like some sad old woman wearing make-up and a short skirt.
I suddenly thought about what would happen if he just had a heart-attack tomorrow and died. God knows, his job must be pretty stressful, even if he doesn't read slashdot.
I realized I would miss him- at least as a concept. I mean I dislike a lot of things that MS has done, but in the end they are a company trying, like every other company, to make as much money as possible.
But think about it- no play is complete without its villian, and he does make life more interesting. I mean, how cool would slashdot be without anti-ms stories and postings, as well as anti-sun, anti-sony etc.?
Headlines:
* Gnome developers release new cool desktop.
* KDE developers in love fest with gnome developers.
* Everyone gets along splendidly and collaborates on new open-source software.
* We all love each other.
* Miguel and RMS have polite disagreement over whether to call it "free beer" or "free lager".
Etc.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that if Bill Gates died tomorrow I would say- "That's a shame- he seemed like an OK guy, really."
So go ahead, flame away.
(Hmm. Maybe you're not supposed to drink with this cough-medicine.)
graspee
"almost makes me want to take up gardening and stay away from CS...."
.net!
You're kidding, right? Have you heard two hardcore gardeners have a conversation? It's just as geeky, jargon-filled and ultimately pointless conversational masturbation as a slashdot story on
In fact, if you ever check out the letters page in a specialist magazine (no, not those ones) e.g. Land Rover Monthly or Model Aeroplanes Weekly or whatever, you'll recognize the style immediately- there is an underlying similarity running through all specialist hobbies (which may or may not have commercial applications).
I think it's a testosterone thing.
graspee
"Govt Says: Internet Is Popular"
So how do I mod the Govt down as "-1 Redundant" ???
Graspee
"Gates is NOT Cthulhu-Jr, he is Cthulhu"
Bollocks- if Gates were Cthulhu then one of the following two statements would be true:
a) Bill Gates is asleep deep in the ocean
b) Humanity has been exterminated
graspee
"He may club baby seals for all I know."
;)
Well if those baby seals are writing proprietary software, what choice does he have?
graspee
"So, step back and remove your dark sunglasses and may be you will see the light!"
If I take off my dark sunglasses I won't be able to tell who is an alien any more!
graspee
You'd think that using an rdbms would give you lots of control over your source tree, but think again. Any decent rcs works incrementally- i.e. you are storing deltas, not always whole lines of code.
The indices (stuff this "indexes" crap) would be really bad and slow on all your tables.
Also RDBMSs suck at representing hierachies, which source trees naturally are. In fact, I dare say the only reason that RDBMSs are so widespread and accepted today is that originally it was much faster to do this rather than use an OO, hierachical way of doing things.
The way you store things has to be written specifically so that it fits in with the way projects work and evolve.
Forgive the lameness. Haven't had my 2nd coffee of the day yet...
graspee
I know you probably know, but that was a different Death Star- v2.0 if you like. The reason it looked the same is because the (evil) Ewpire said they were not going to release any new battlestations, just concentrate on the security and stability of the old design.
graspee
Most people who release cool free software these days have their own domain name. This will be simply another reason to get a good one. Even if you haven't got a domain name you cold use sourceforge, so for example, my toy programming language would be net.sourceforge.stalk. I can definately live with that.
graspee
Consider you live in a world where this wireless p2p is a reality.
Now for amusement's sake, suppose you are walking around all day and you notice some weird guy following you around. For extra amusement, let's pretend he looks like Kramer off Seinfeld.
When you eventually get the courage to confront him about his suspicious behaviour...
You: WTF are you doing following me?!
Him: I'm downloading your Aerosmith albums!
You: Well, get them off someone else- I have a board meeting in 10 minutes!
Him: I'll just stand in the corner! I won't bother you!
(further hilarity later ensues when he won't leave your board meeting- claiming the directors have some "really shit hot pr0n on them")
graspee