Most home users don't twaddle with operating systems. Ever. My mother bought a computer over 5 years ago and she hasn't updated the OS. I doubt she ever will.
Most very small businesses do the same thing. My dry cleaner has a 486 running a DOS-based database program that keeps track of my drycleaning. I remember using something very similar on a job in 1988.
Many companies don't bother going with the latest and greatest. It's just not worth it to churn their computers and operating software every 2-3 years. Unless they're in IT, it doesn't matter much which version of MS Office they're using.
My wife calls it "Evernipple Nights" because of the large bosomed ladies everywhere. She also made fun of me for playing it too much.
We've had great success playing the Sims. I got sick of playing that one, because I got tired of making new friends. I mean, sheesh, I don't have 9 "real" friends, much less 9 sim friends.
My mother lives 800 miles away and has one of the first iMacs. I _never_ have to provide tech support, not because I'm a ungrateful son, but because nothing goes wrong.
In the past 5 years she's maybe called three times. Once she couldn't get a CD to eject, so I introduced her to the 'unbent paper clip'. The second time she needed to trash a preference file of a shareware game she liked. The third time she needed to install a driver for a printer.
I did the first two over the phone, the last we did when I visited over the holidays.
Meanwhile, my good friends bought a Gateway with Windows XP about a year ago. I suggested they get a iMac, but they said they needed to get a PC. I've been over there about 3 times in the past year until I told them enough... I shudder to think what's going on there now.
She's a high-ranking lawyer at the US PTO (I'm guessing a GS-14 or 15 or equivalent). Her career has been in intellectual property law. If she's ignorant of the issue (unlikely), she should be removed. If she's disingenuous (far more likely), she should be removed.
I don't mind using X11, and it will get better when Panther is out.
This would matter more if I used a Mac at work. At home, my office suite consists of Safari, Mail.app, BBEdit, & Python. When I need to bang out a quick spreadsheet or a nice looking letter, I use AppleOffice.
The only thing which bites about AppleOffice is the dreadful (and I mean dreadful) Presentations module.
Which is just as well. The world needs less presentations. Here's a made-up statistic which feels true: 90% of PowerPoint users have no idea how to make an effective presentation.
Max it up with RAM and it runs Jaguar really well. Plus it has a DVD player, 2 USB ports, and a Firewire port.
I've been using it as my main machine since 2000 and the only time I get frustrated with it is when I'm compiling something from source. My wife has a G4 Powerbook and sure, it's zippier, but I don't perceive any major slowdown when I go back to my iMac. My jealousies are limited to the sleek aluminum case...
Now some would say it's a testament to Apple that their hardware doesn't become obsolete as quickly. Others would say it's because Apple hasn't made any strides in processing power.:-)
How does this involve locking up food to control people? Or do you mean that a person couldn't just take someone else's crop? Was that a mistake? Why? What alternative do you propose?
"Ishmael" suggests that humans lived in relative prosperity and in harmony with the land for 90,000 years. It's only been the last 10,000 years where domination (locking up the food, paying people to guard the food, controlling the distribution of food) has resulted in all the benefits as well as the problems of civilization.
I think RMS's feels that 'locking up the code' is tantamount to domination in the digital age.
As far as my primitive arguments, I have an imperfect understanding of both RMS and Daniel Quinn, so I readily admit my ignorance. I refer you to both "Ishmael" and "Free as In Freedom" for more info.
I've been giving the word 'free' a lot of thought.
Your definition of 'free': "anyone could take it, compile it, change it, give away the results in any form they wanted, incorporate into a paid-for product with or without the source, or otherwise do as they wished." maximizes freedom for yourself. I think personal freedom is necessary in a free society.
The 'free' that RMS believes in maximizes freedom for all, not just you. Here's how:
Users: Anyone is free to use GPL'd software.
Vendors: Anyone is free to distribute GPL'd software, heck, they can even charge money for it.
System Administrators: They are free to modify GPL'd software for their own internal needs. The only time they have to provide their source code is if/when they choose to distribute the program. That's how the White House's webserver can use a heavily modified version of Linux.
Programmers: This group gets benefits not covered by regular copyright law, but they also have restrictions. Under copyright law, programmers can't use the copyrighted source code. Under the GPL they have access to all of it, but since it's benefitted you, you in turn have to share it with others. They're even free to NOT use the GPL: They can write their own code.
In essence, the GPL is a legal hack of the copyright system in order for it to behave closer to the perfect world RMS has in mind.
Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael suggests that modern man has lived a simple agrarian lifestyle for 100,000 years. He states that "Civilization" really got started around 10,000 years ago when somebody got the idea that you can control people by locking up the food. RMS made it his life's work to make sure this doesn't happen in the information age.
I've taken the Myers-Briggs twice now and I've scored the same thing both times (INFP).
What I understand about introvert/extrovert is it's a preference of how a person gets their energy. For instance, an introvert obtains energy by being with themself. An extrovert gets energy from social situations. They obtain energy from other people.
Now, I can do both, but I really prefer to do the former.
The US Department of Transportation recently required shippers of Hazardous Materials to improve the security of the shipping process.
One of the results is more background checks are being done on the people who are hired to haul Hazardous Materials.
One would think that the Department of Commerce, responsible for regulating interstate commerce, would want to make sure that the 'predominate business information infrastructure' (i.e. Microsoft Windows) has strong security. After all, a large percentage of business is conducted on the Microsoft Windows platform.
But is Microsoft doing background checks on sensitive personnel? Durned if I know.
MS Windows is a failure point we have little control over. I define "risk" as the severity of consequence and liklihood of consequence. Perhaps people are finally realizing that the risk is higher than they're comfortable with.
If you're teaching Unix to a group of computer users, you might want to check out Think Unix by Jon Lasser.
I bought it shortly after I first installed Linux. The book starts out on how to use man pages (and other forms of sparse documentation) to learn new commands. From there it teaches how to make aliases, use pipes, and redirect output. It eventually tackles vi, shell programming, changing your environment, and the X-Windows system.
It's a pretty good book which treats you like you know your way around a comuputer, but are new to *nices.
Alex Martelli has written an article that talks about the changes from Python 2.2 to 2.3.
David, thanks for making your book available on-line. I'll be sure to look for a 'dead tree' version.
Re:I see whitespace is still syntactically relevan
on
Python 2.3 Final Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Most of your problems would be fixed with a good python-aware editor.
Putting a large block of code into a while or for loop.
Well, if you had a large block of code to insert, why not make it a function and call it. Also, when you're working with Python, you quickly learn (or assign) the "entab" and "detab" commands, so inserting the tabs aren't a problem.
TABS and order of whitespace
Most people have their editors convert tabs to spaces
For decently-complex programs there might be so many nesting levels that the indented code is spaced so far inwards that one needs ridiculously-wide displays for sanity.
Someone who is using 10 levels of nested blocks isn't effectively refactoring. Extract method now and then...:-)
Learning Python is getting quite dated (it covers Python 1.5). I recommend Python: A Visual Quickstart Guide by Chris Fehily. It's a better book than Learning Python, at least.
I've been learning Python Language for a while, but since I don't work with other programmers, it's taken me quite a while. I learned python the usual way (a mix between the on-line tutorial and Learning Python) and my fluency is improving.
I picked up this book recently while I was at a convention in Baltimore. I liked its organization: the book features a whole chapter on each datatype (strings, numbers, tuples, lists, and dictionaries). There are also chapters on Control Flow Statements, Functions, Modules, Files, Classes, and Exceptions.
Because of its organization, it's as useful as a reference as it is a tutorial. Each chapter contains progressively advanced examples that end up demonstrating the finer points of each topic.
For example, one hint was to use the vars() function creates a dictionary of the local namespace. This makes it useful when string formatting:
>>> quality = 'color' >>> thing = 'orange' >>> print "What %s is an %s?" % (quality, thing) # useful for simple formatting. What color is an orange? >>> print "What %(quality)s is an %(thing)s?" % vars() # more legible and useful. What color is an orange?
The book does not cover advanced topics like Tkinter, Jython, or extending Python with C. Nor does it cover the Library modules (the Python online documentation is actually quite good).
"Python" is newer, cheaper (22 USD vs. 30 USD), and longer (410pp vs. 368pp) than "Learning Python"
I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn Python. If you're an intermediate Pythoneer, I agree with the parent: you will want to get "Python In A Nutshell".
Forget about PHP and Python, you need to learn about Perl...
Dont you know you're supposed to suffer for weeks learning an obscure, undocumented programming language, then write unmaintainable poorly commented code, and then brag how you are a 733T HAXOR to all your misfit pals?
Come on, using the right tool for the right job isn't the slashdot way... Get with the program...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Most home users don't twaddle with operating systems. Ever. My mother bought a computer over 5 years ago and she hasn't updated the OS. I doubt she ever will.
Most very small businesses do the same thing. My dry cleaner has a 486 running a DOS-based database program that keeps track of my drycleaning. I remember using something very similar on a job in 1988.
Many companies don't bother going with the latest and greatest. It's just not worth it to churn their computers and operating software every 2-3 years. Unless they're in IT, it doesn't matter much which version of MS Office they're using.
...is about to go on eBay.
My wife calls it "Evernipple Nights" because of the large bosomed ladies everywhere. She also made fun of me for playing it too much.
We've had great success playing the Sims. I got sick of playing that one, because I got tired of making new friends. I mean, sheesh, I don't have 9 "real" friends, much less 9 sim friends.
Oh, you need a mid-level laptop?
Might I recommend the iBook (12.1" at $999)? Who wants to dual boot anymore?
My mother lives 800 miles away and has one of the first iMacs. I _never_ have to provide tech support, not because I'm a ungrateful son, but because nothing goes wrong.
In the past 5 years she's maybe called three times. Once she couldn't get a CD to eject, so I introduced her to the 'unbent paper clip'. The second time she needed to trash a preference file of a shareware game she liked. The third time she needed to install a driver for a printer.
I did the first two over the phone, the last we did when I visited over the holidays.
Meanwhile, my good friends bought a Gateway with Windows XP about a year ago. I suggested they get a iMac, but they said they needed to get a PC. I've been over there about 3 times in the past year until I told them enough... I shudder to think what's going on there now.
She's a high-ranking lawyer at the US PTO (I'm guessing a GS-14 or 15 or equivalent). Her career has been in intellectual property law. If she's ignorant of the issue (unlikely), she should be removed. If she's disingenuous (far more likely), she should be removed.
this might work too...
Nothing really.
I don't mind using X11, and it will get better when Panther is out.
This would matter more if I used a Mac at work. At home, my office suite consists of Safari, Mail.app, BBEdit, & Python. When I need to bang out a quick spreadsheet or a nice looking letter, I use AppleOffice.
The only thing which bites about AppleOffice is the dreadful (and I mean dreadful) Presentations module.
Which is just as well. The world needs less presentations. Here's a made-up statistic which feels true: 90% of PowerPoint users have no idea how to make an effective presentation.
Oh well, if it dies, it dies...
Frankly the G4 eMac is so cheap (and bound to be cheaper now with the G5 on the loose), I need an excuse to buy one.
Um, Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister?
Do you know something I don't know?
The thought of selling this computer for a G4 eMac appeals, but not right away.
They're running around $500 on eBay.
:-)
Max it up with RAM and it runs Jaguar really well. Plus it has a DVD player, 2 USB ports, and a Firewire port.
I've been using it as my main machine since 2000 and the only time I get frustrated with it is when I'm compiling something from source. My wife has a G4 Powerbook and sure, it's zippier, but I don't perceive any major slowdown when I go back to my iMac. My jealousies are limited to the sleek aluminum case...
Now some would say it's a testament to Apple that their hardware doesn't become obsolete as quickly. Others would say it's because Apple hasn't made any strides in processing power.
"Ishmael" suggests that humans lived in relative prosperity and in harmony with the land for 90,000 years. It's only been the last 10,000 years where domination (locking up the food, paying people to guard the food, controlling the distribution of food) has resulted in all the benefits as well as the problems of civilization.
I think RMS's feels that 'locking up the code' is tantamount to domination in the digital age.
As far as my primitive arguments, I have an imperfect understanding of both RMS and Daniel Quinn, so I readily admit my ignorance. I refer you to both "Ishmael" and "Free as In Freedom" for more info.
Your definition of 'free': "anyone could take it, compile it, change it, give away the results in any form they wanted, incorporate into a paid-for product with or without the source, or otherwise do as they wished." maximizes freedom for yourself. I think personal freedom is necessary in a free society.
The 'free' that RMS believes in maximizes freedom for all, not just you. Here's how:
In essence, the GPL is a legal hack of the copyright system in order for it to behave closer to the perfect world RMS has in mind.
Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael suggests that modern man has lived a simple agrarian lifestyle for 100,000 years. He states that "Civilization" really got started around 10,000 years ago when somebody got the idea that you can control people by locking up the food. RMS made it his life's work to make sure this doesn't happen in the information age.
I've taken the Myers-Briggs twice now and I've scored the same thing both times (INFP).
What I understand about introvert/extrovert is it's a preference of how a person gets their energy. For instance, an introvert obtains energy by being with themself. An extrovert gets energy from social situations. They obtain energy from other people.
Now, I can do both, but I really prefer to do the former.
The US Department of Transportation recently required shippers of Hazardous Materials to improve the security of the shipping process.
One of the results is more background checks are being done on the people who are hired to haul Hazardous Materials.
One would think that the Department of Commerce, responsible for regulating interstate commerce, would want to make sure that the 'predominate business information infrastructure' (i.e. Microsoft Windows) has strong security. After all, a large percentage of business is conducted on the Microsoft Windows platform.
But is Microsoft doing background checks on sensitive personnel? Durned if I know.
MS Windows is a failure point we have little control over. I define "risk" as the severity of consequence and liklihood of consequence. Perhaps people are finally realizing that the risk is higher than they're comfortable with.
If you're teaching Unix to a group of computer users, you might want to check out Think Unix by Jon Lasser.
I bought it shortly after I first installed Linux.
The book starts out on how to use man pages (and other forms of sparse documentation) to learn new commands. From there it teaches how to make aliases, use pipes, and redirect output. It eventually tackles vi, shell programming, changing your environment, and the X-Windows system.
It's a pretty good book which treats you like you know your way around a comuputer, but are new to *nices.
For example, if we use Slashcode then Cowboy Neal would be president.
Oh the horror!
No, I'm just stupid....
I confused assignment with comparison.
flag = 1
flag == 1
Sorry, back to my hole.
Your [sic] welcome...
Alex Martelli has written an article that talks about the changes from Python 2.2 to 2.3.
David, thanks for making your book available on-line. I'll be sure to look for a 'dead tree' version.
Most of your problems would be fixed with a good python-aware editor.
:-)
Putting a large block of code into a while or for loop.
Well, if you had a large block of code to insert, why not make it a function and call it. Also, when you're working with Python, you quickly learn (or assign) the "entab" and "detab" commands, so inserting the tabs aren't a problem.
TABS and order of whitespace
Most people have their editors convert tabs to spaces
For decently-complex programs there might be so many nesting levels that the indented code is spaced so far inwards that one needs ridiculously-wide displays for sanity.
Someone who is using 10 levels of nested blocks isn't effectively refactoring. Extract method now and then...
I've been learning Python Language for a while, but since I don't work with other programmers, it's taken me quite a while. I learned python the usual way (a mix between the on-line tutorial and Learning Python) and my fluency is improving.
I picked up this book recently while I was at a convention in Baltimore. I liked its organization: the book features a whole chapter on each datatype (strings, numbers, tuples, lists, and dictionaries). There are also chapters on Control Flow Statements, Functions, Modules, Files, Classes, and Exceptions.
Because of its organization, it's as useful as a reference as it is a tutorial. Each chapter contains progressively advanced examples that end up demonstrating the finer points of each topic.
For example, one hint was to use the vars() function creates a dictionary of the local namespace. This makes it useful when string formatting:The book does not cover advanced topics like Tkinter, Jython, or extending Python with C. Nor does it cover the Library modules (the Python online documentation is actually quite good).
"Python" is newer, cheaper (22 USD vs. 30 USD), and longer (410pp vs. 368pp) than "Learning Python"
I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn Python. If you're an intermediate Pythoneer, I agree with the parent: you will want to get "Python In A Nutshell".
Forget about PHP and Python, you need to learn about Perl...
:-)
Dont you know you're supposed to suffer for weeks learning an obscure, undocumented programming language, then write unmaintainable poorly commented code, and then brag how you are a 733T HAXOR to all your misfit pals?
Come on, using the right tool for the right job isn't the slashdot way... Get with the program...