An explanation may be long if it is explaining something complex that the code is doing. A long-winded comment may also be a precise one, rather than a general one: rather than an excuse, this may be an explanation.
I have known several people who point out that if it really does require that complicated of an explanation, you might need to re-factor your code and make it less arcane. Of course, not everything can be simplified to the point where it's obvious when you read it, but I've definitely seen a lot of code that could/did benefit from changing it to make it more straight-forward and readable.
In general though, I agree with the article -- I've known more than a few developers who barely if ever comment code, and claim that it should be obvious from the code. As such, their comments (what there are) tend to be fairly random and not helpful. I once saw a comment that said "die lamer die" with no explanation whatsoever. "Add 1 to count" is also fairly useless.
Me, I always write the comment for a function/method before I've started writing the body of the method. Because, even if it's just me maintaining the code, I want to know what it was there for in the first place.
I've never thought that the sharks are wandering out in the wide open. Put it this way, the sea lions and seals they eat are at the mouths of rivers (and in the bay) because of the fish spawn. The sharks should be found where their food is.
The sharks do range over several thousands of miles during the year. From California to Hawaii is pretty much as "out in the wide open" as you can get. I suspect they're mostly just passing through the open water bits, but a large shark will have no problem ranging over vast distances.
Yeah, shortly after I posted that I googled for "san francisco surfing" and found this, which clearly shows someone surfing with the Golden Gate in the background.
People definitely swim and surf relatively close to that area, despite the assertion that humans don't generally do that.
I was there in teh summer touring the bay in a boat and it was freezing. Still, there were dozens of people wind surfing around and under the Golden Gate. I don't know how they didn't freeze, but I wonder if they were aware of the shark population under them.
'Freezing' is a word that is pretty elastic depending on where the person using the word is from. Coming from a place with real actual winters (Canada, eh), I've found that a lot of people who say "freezing" have never actually encountered real temperatures where water would freeze in the ambient air temperature.
I was in northern Arizona once in February. To me, it was a balmy temperature way above what I'd left at home. To the people from Florida, it was "freezing". The tour guide had warned me I'd need a jacked since it could get "pretty cold" up near the Grand Canyon. When I asked him for a definition of "pretty cold", he said "oh, as low as 60" -- I laughed at him and said I was Canadian and that was t-shirt weather.:-P
I suspect the (wind) surfers might also be wearing wet-suits, which go a long way to keeping warm. I've known people who surfed in Nova Scotia in November. That is freezing.
Relatively few humans are crazy enough to swim near the Golden Gates in the first place.
Maybe not directly under the Golden Gate, but you don't have to go very far to still be in sight of the bridge and find a beach and/or a place where people surf.
It's not like a shark can't travel distance or anything. So, maybe a 5 minute cruise for a shark, and there's people there.
I think what's more relevant here is that there's a lot of sharks in very close proximity to where people actually go. A lot more sharks (and a lot more often) than people had previously realized.
I hope and kind of know that they will use this for non-cellphones like mp3 players and other gadgets. It is seriously stupid the amount of chargers that exist at home...
Actually, depending on the devices you have now and how they charge, you might actually be able to eliminate some of them.
Jut last week I bought a Kensington wall-charger that has four powered USB ports. I can charge my Motorolla phone, my Tom Tom, and two different generations of iPods at the same time.
If your gadgets all charge off 5V USB, you can have a lot of them charging from the same charger. It may not do everything, it actually does charge everything that I have that needs charging. For me, it was money well spent and fit exactly what I needed -- literally the day before I had said "what I really want is a wall charger with four USB ports", so when I found it in the store I bought it immediately.
and I thought Canadians were the levelheaded ones of that particular continent?;-)
Sadly, I'm afraid that this bit of legislation is being pushed in conjunction with US/global media interests -- many of our media are somewhat in bed with US corporations, and they all have the same agenda of reserving the right to control anything which might even remotely be used to infringe on their money stream.
Those companies have been driving getting this kind of thing installed into law in other countries for a long time, and it's been well covered on Slashdot before. Sadly the *AA's are beginning to seem a lot more like the global oligopolies in some of the cyberpunk stuff.
This isn't coming from an entirely domestic agenda -- it's lobby groups and business, the same as it is in the US. In fact, in a lot of case, it's the same companies. This is the long arm of the DMCA. In fact, I should add that given that Sony will be one of the companies involved in this, I bet they're waging this campaign in almost every country they can, so it's not just US influences on this legislation here in Canada.
Hey -- I'm a vegetarian, too. You *can* win friends with salad;)
You can do much better than salad, as you point out.
I've spent about 8-9 years learning to cook so that when I go to someone's place I can cook dinner, or if they're over, I can cook for them. My food repertoire spans vegetarian versions of Mexican, Italian, French, Indian, Ukranian, Spanish, and a bunch of other places. I own more cookbooks than most normal people, vegetarian or otherwise.
Vegetarian cooking can be exceedingly diverse, and while most of my friends are omnivores with a bent towards being carnivores, I've fed all of them, and they've all been very happy with what I've given them.
If you know what you're doing, you can trot out some pretty damned tasty dishes!!
It's not really evolutionary design, it's evolutionary results.
Evolution doesn't sit down at the drawing board and try to figure out how to give birth to a giraffe. This is the end result of bazillions of little experiments that ended up with the rather comic/disturbing notion of a baby giraffe falling that far.
I'm sure to an advanced species, our mating habits, genitals, mode of breathing, and whatnot look hilarious.:-P
The bad kids need to be identified as early as possible, and shunted off into a different program where they're prepared for careers as janitors and burger-flippers, and society doesn't waste any more time or money on them than necessary.
I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta and wear a red hat, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write.
This idea that computer science programs should weed out tons of people in the first years is ludicrous.... The idea that "you either get it, or you don't, there's no middle of the road" is ridiculous.
You seem to be laboring under the belief that I'm suggesting that computer science should be weeding people out heavily in first year.
I was merely pointing out that if you plot the test scores on a curve, you end up with a double-tassel distribution instead of a normal curve. It's more of a statement than a value judgement.
The reality of it is, it falls on a double-tassel distribution because in real life, you either do get it, or you don't. I've known brilliant mathematicians who never really understood writing code. Some people just never get their head wrapped around the specifics.
Trust me, I'm not being elitist or anything... it's merely a reality that it's a subject matter which doesn't land on a bell curve.
Personally, I'm in favour of as many people as possible "getting it" -- the notion that computers should be some spooky voo-doo that only a select few can be taught is absurd. It doesn't change the fact that you can measurably demonstrate that it's not something everyone gets. I don't know if other subjects generally don't land on a bell curve or not.
To some people, it still ends up being voo-doo and something they can't figure out.
Excuse the pedantry, but you're making a big assumption when you're considering that the majority are in the average. For all you know half of people could be extremely bad and the other half extremely bright, leaving no one anywhere near the average.
Ummm... they've measured IQs, plotted it on a bell curve, and defined average to be the peak in the curve plus some on each side.
Since that holds the majority of the population, it's entirely correct to say that the majority of the people in the world are average. It's defined to include the majority of the people.
What you're describing is, I believe, a double-tassel distribution -- which is what first year comp-sci classes tend to look like. You either get it, or you don't, there's no middle of the road.
Average human intelligence really does sit in the middle, and most people are average.
And this makes sense? I buy all my music and use CD/DVD for data copying. So I'd have to subsidize someone who doesn't feel he has to buy music/movies? What a joke.
It doesn't make sense, but it was the media companies who pushed for the levies in the first place.
Once they realized that everyone said "ok, screw you, I'm downloading since I've already paid you" they wanted to have their cake and eat it too -- they want the levy and for downloading to be illegal.
I'm betting that a couple of courts have sided with only dinging people once (and supported the notion of fair use) and said if there's a levy, the download is legit.
Since I know I pay the levy here in Canada, I wouldn't feel so bad about copying music if I was so inclined.
Having operated FLIR gear, there is no way the umbrella would be "completely transparent" to IR. Perhaps there will be a new technology in the future, such as sub-millimeter radar that could give the resolution you're implying, but current IR gear cannot.
Then I stand corrected, as I've never operated such equipment.:-P
I just figured thin nylon would be essentially transparent to it.
Slashdot Mirror
I have known several people who point out that if it really does require that complicated of an explanation, you might need to re-factor your code and make it less arcane. Of course, not everything can be simplified to the point where it's obvious when you read it, but I've definitely seen a lot of code that could/did benefit from changing it to make it more straight-forward and readable.
In general though, I agree with the article -- I've known more than a few developers who barely if ever comment code, and claim that it should be obvious from the code. As such, their comments (what there are) tend to be fairly random and not helpful. I once saw a comment that said "die lamer die" with no explanation whatsoever. "Add 1 to count" is also fairly useless.
Me, I always write the comment for a function/method before I've started writing the body of the method. Because, even if it's just me maintaining the code, I want to know what it was there for in the first place.
Cheers
Jeebus. I remember when my 1200 baud modem felt whizzo fast compared to my old 300 baud modem.
And, yes, I can already see the "get off of my lawn" posts below you, and I'm dating myself. :-P
Cheers
The sharks do range over several thousands of miles during the year. From California to Hawaii is pretty much as "out in the wide open" as you can get. I suspect they're mostly just passing through the open water bits, but a large shark will have no problem ranging over vast distances.
Cheers
Shitty. :-P
Cheers
Yeah, shortly after I posted that I googled for "san francisco surfing" and found this, which clearly shows someone surfing with the Golden Gate in the background.
People definitely swim and surf relatively close to that area, despite the assertion that humans don't generally do that.
Cheers
These are not designs, they're results.
Design implies a conscious, driving force. As you say, it's merely the laws of physics ending up with results we didn't think of.
Cheers
'Freezing' is a word that is pretty elastic depending on where the person using the word is from. Coming from a place with real actual winters (Canada, eh), I've found that a lot of people who say "freezing" have never actually encountered real temperatures where water would freeze in the ambient air temperature.
I was in northern Arizona once in February. To me, it was a balmy temperature way above what I'd left at home. To the people from Florida, it was "freezing". The tour guide had warned me I'd need a jacked since it could get "pretty cold" up near the Grand Canyon. When I asked him for a definition of "pretty cold", he said "oh, as low as 60" -- I laughed at him and said I was Canadian and that was t-shirt weather. :-P
I suspect the (wind) surfers might also be wearing wet-suits, which go a long way to keeping warm. I've known people who surfed in Nova Scotia in November. That is freezing.
Cheers
Maybe not directly under the Golden Gate, but you don't have to go very far to still be in sight of the bridge and find a beach and/or a place where people surf.
It's not like a shark can't travel distance or anything. So, maybe a 5 minute cruise for a shark, and there's people there.
I think what's more relevant here is that there's a lot of sharks in very close proximity to where people actually go. A lot more sharks (and a lot more often) than people had previously realized.
Cheers
Bats are most assuredly mammals.
What are you on about?
Cheers
Oh, I dunno. Maybe not in real life, but I bet it would make one hell of a cartoon. :-P
I'm going to laugh the rest of the day about robo-grandpa ... "get off my lawn, you have 10 seconds to comply".
Cheers
Oh, and according to Kensington, it'll do "Input: 100-240VACm, 50-60Hz, 0.3A Max".
So, it's also a travel charger, which is pretty sweet.
Cheers
Actually, depending on the devices you have now and how they charge, you might actually be able to eliminate some of them.
Jut last week I bought a Kensington wall-charger that has four powered USB ports. I can charge my Motorolla phone, my Tom Tom, and two different generations of iPods at the same time.
If your gadgets all charge off 5V USB, you can have a lot of them charging from the same charger. It may not do everything, it actually does charge everything that I have that needs charging. For me, it was money well spent and fit exactly what I needed -- literally the day before I had said "what I really want is a wall charger with four USB ports", so when I found it in the store I bought it immediately.
Cheers
Sadly, I'm afraid that this bit of legislation is being pushed in conjunction with US/global media interests -- many of our media are somewhat in bed with US corporations, and they all have the same agenda of reserving the right to control anything which might even remotely be used to infringe on their money stream.
Those companies have been driving getting this kind of thing installed into law in other countries for a long time, and it's been well covered on Slashdot before. Sadly the *AA's are beginning to seem a lot more like the global oligopolies in some of the cyberpunk stuff.
This isn't coming from an entirely domestic agenda -- it's lobby groups and business, the same as it is in the US. In fact, in a lot of case, it's the same companies. This is the long arm of the DMCA. In fact, I should add that given that Sony will be one of the companies involved in this, I bet they're waging this campaign in almost every country they can, so it's not just US influences on this legislation here in Canada.
Cheers
You can do much better than salad, as you point out.
I've spent about 8-9 years learning to cook so that when I go to someone's place I can cook dinner, or if they're over, I can cook for them. My food repertoire spans vegetarian versions of Mexican, Italian, French, Indian, Ukranian, Spanish, and a bunch of other places. I own more cookbooks than most normal people, vegetarian or otherwise.
Vegetarian cooking can be exceedingly diverse, and while most of my friends are omnivores with a bent towards being carnivores, I've fed all of them, and they've all been very happy with what I've given them.
If you know what you're doing, you can trot out some pretty damned tasty dishes!!
Cheers
As a staunch vegetarian, the only animal I'll eat is pussy. :-P
Cheers
It's not really evolutionary design, it's evolutionary results.
Evolution doesn't sit down at the drawing board and try to figure out how to give birth to a giraffe. This is the end result of bazillions of little experiments that ended up with the rather comic/disturbing notion of a baby giraffe falling that far.
I'm sure to an advanced species, our mating habits, genitals, mode of breathing, and whatnot look hilarious. :-P
Cheers
I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta and wear a red hat, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write.
Aldus Huxley
Brave New World
Cheers
You seem to be laboring under the belief that I'm suggesting that computer science should be weeding people out heavily in first year.
I was merely pointing out that if you plot the test scores on a curve, you end up with a double-tassel distribution instead of a normal curve. It's more of a statement than a value judgement.
The reality of it is, it falls on a double-tassel distribution because in real life, you either do get it, or you don't. I've known brilliant mathematicians who never really understood writing code. Some people just never get their head wrapped around the specifics.
Trust me, I'm not being elitist or anything ... it's merely a reality that it's a subject matter which doesn't land on a bell curve.
Personally, I'm in favour of as many people as possible "getting it" -- the notion that computers should be some spooky voo-doo that only a select few can be taught is absurd. It doesn't change the fact that you can measurably demonstrate that it's not something everyone gets. I don't know if other subjects generally don't land on a bell curve or not.
To some people, it still ends up being voo-doo and something they can't figure out.
Cheers
Which is why I qualified it and said:
I just hand waved around the specifics of the statistics. :-P
Cheers
Ummm ... they've measured IQs, plotted it on a bell curve, and defined average to be the peak in the curve plus some on each side.
Since that holds the majority of the population, it's entirely correct to say that the majority of the people in the world are average. It's defined to include the majority of the people.
What you're describing is, I believe, a double-tassel distribution -- which is what first year comp-sci classes tend to look like. You either get it, or you don't, there's no middle of the road.
Average human intelligence really does sit in the middle, and most people are average.
Cheers
Or, more accurately in this case, red junglefowl. :-P
Cheers
Despite the misleading headline, they say that males seem to be able to adjust -- most likely related to level of hormones or arousal.
Nobody is suggesting the sperm "know" anything, merely that the human glandular system is complex, and this is another example. :-P
Cheers
*laugh* Oh sure, and I've already used my mod points!
Cheers
It doesn't make sense, but it was the media companies who pushed for the levies in the first place.
Once they realized that everyone said "ok, screw you, I'm downloading since I've already paid you" they wanted to have their cake and eat it too -- they want the levy and for downloading to be illegal.
I'm betting that a couple of courts have sided with only dinging people once (and supported the notion of fair use) and said if there's a levy, the download is legit.
Since I know I pay the levy here in Canada, I wouldn't feel so bad about copying music if I was so inclined.
Cheers
Then I stand corrected, as I've never operated such equipment. :-P
I just figured thin nylon would be essentially transparent to it.
Cheers