I did years of ASP development, which used VBScript which, like J(ava)Script does not use strict typing. Personally, I greatly prefer strict typing over the sloppiness of dynamic typing. Leads to better programming and less error-prone apps.
Now, one might say dynamic typed languages have their place in scripting languages and, therefore, Web development. Again, I disagree. I see Microsoft trying to meld desktop application development and Web development, making the two indistinguishable. I, for one, think this is a good thing. Ideally, you shouldn't have to worry about the medium, just develop the app and deploy it to desktop or Web, whatever you want. If you use VS.NET you'll, I think, tend to agree that the similarities between developing a Web Form and a WinForm are eerily similar. (Which, again, I think is a Good Thing.)
A more appropriate question, as another poster mentioned, is what's better: PHP, classic ASP, or Cold Fusion? Those are stand-alone scripting technologies. ASP.NET and JSP are more platform-based, providing true OOP, an impressive set of base classes, and so on.
As a Web developer who has created Web applications in both PHP and ASP.NET, I can say, without hyperbole, that ASP.NET is one-million times better. Ok, so maybe there's a little hyperbole in there, and I know I'm just feeding a troll with this post, but I would wager that anyone with extensive experience with both PHP and ASP.NET would, at minimum, say ASP.NET is par with PHP, but would likely express that ASP.NET is better in a variety of areas. About the only negative for ASP.NET is its lack of cross-platformness, but with Mono and such, who knows how long this complaint will hold merit. Too, having Apache serve ASP.NET Web pages on a Windows box is something that is doable.
I think you misunderstood me, or did not understand me completely. This random reward is good for all sorts of things for kids. For example, imagine you want the kid to take out the trash. The kid groans, but does so. Now, what do you do? If you always reward them, this is not good, IMHO, as it has them equate trash taking out with getting a reward. If you never reward them then they have no reinforcement to take out the trash and will gladly not take out the trash when you're not there to pester them. By reinforcing taking out the trash, you have them (hopefully) come to take out the trash on their own volition.
While I have never reared/educated children, my mom has a masters degree in education and has taught 3rd through 5th grade for twenty some-odd years. She echos my sentiments re: periodic reinforcement. If you always reinforce someone when they do a task, they'll only do said task when they want the reinforcement. For example, if every single time your kid cleans the room you give him $5.00, the kid is only going to clean the room when he needs/wants $5.00.
Now, adults are obviously different from children, but I would wager dollars to donuts that intermittent reinforcement is the best approach. I can dig up some psychological/sociological studies if you really want, I remember reading about this back in school in my sociology class, but, unless my memory fails me completely, I assure you that reinforcement is best doled out randomly rather than consistently.
If a person does a task and *expects* to be rewarded, but isn't, it would tend to reduce the probability of her wanting to "delay gratification" again, regardless of the reward.
The best pattern is to reward fairly consistently at first, then less frequently, using a random pattern. Granted, if a person expects a reward and doesn't get it, then that is not going to motivate them. That is why, when training animals or humans, you don't promise the reward and then hold back. Rather, you encourage the behavior and then randomly decide whether or not to reward the person. So, to translate this to the great-grandparent thread, the person should delay gratification because he realizes that it is the optimal decision to have a life of success. To reinforce the behavior, he should periodically reward himself.
I have no idea if what you claim is true or not, but from my own experience with owning several dogs, random positive reinforcement works head and shoulders better than constant reinforcement, either positive or negative. That's not to say constant reinforcement can't work, it's just not the best.
Fortunately I do not suffer from the same complex that you shared, so my words may be quite hallow and without use to you. I find that I am able to get my shit done; I have done well for myself, and others have noted that I am quite productive, hard-working, and studious.
The "secret" is, IMHO, to be a gratification-delayer. Psychologists some time ago did studies on young children, asking them if they'd rather have a marshmellow now, or two after some time interval. Those who could delay gratification and wait for the two marshmellows, proved to be more productive and successful adults. In fact, these researchers found, IIRC, that this ability to delay gratification had the greatest affect on a person's adult success, more so than race, religion, socio-economic background, and so on.
From your comments, it appears as if you are not one who can delay gratification. I would encourage you to change this post haste. How does one do this? That, clearly, is the 64 thousand dollar question. While I don't know what will work for you, here are some suggestions you might want to give a try:
Practice delaying gratification on other things. For example, imagine it's 3:00 pm and you are hungry and want a snack. Make yourself wait until dinner. Say you know that you want to watch the Simpsons tonight. Don't allow yourself to do so. Move the TV to a neighbors if you have to, but make sure you deprive yourself of this pleasure. This may sound a bit masochistic, but I think it would be a step in the right direction.
Setup a system of rewards for delaying your gratification. By skipping that snack, treat yourself to a nicer dinner. In foregoing the Simpsons, allow yourself an hour of playing Doom, or whatever ultraviolent computer games kids these days play. One suggestion: don't always reward yourself for your discipline. Sometimes, give no reward; other times, reward yourself. Random reinforcement does wonders better than constant reinforcement. Ask any parent or psychologist.
Do not underestimate the importance of learning how to delay gratification. It can mean the difference between a successful, happy life and one where you are constantly burdened with deadlines, financially strapped, and constantly stressed.
In any event, best of luck, and I hope you find a solution to your problem.
Re:it seems silly not to include a hard drive
on
Lindows Webstation
·
· Score: 1
The big deal here would be to sell online storage space. Save everything online!
Before people start whining about the speed of this...
I wouldn't be worried so much about the speed, but the failure of the online connection. While my broadband has been relatively stable, I have friends across the US who have had downtimes, at one point or another, of days. I guess the dialup can serve as a backup of sorts, though, but still...
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall
mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by
small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is
clear: To build and maintain those robots.
I have a far superior algorithm in both time and space complexity. Start with 1. Then simply transform it to the requisite number of 1s and 0s, a la 1101101001001. Bah to your two-step process.:-)
Yeah, it lacks a point. Kind of like playing computer games, reading, watching TV, or any other hobby. Oh wait, all those things are fun and enjoyable (save the watching TV part). Maybe that's why he did it?
You could always read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's a relatively short piece, can be read in a couple days. Also, the book is free, so there's no downside if you don't like it (short of a spell of time).
This guy basically shared his story for a publicity plug for his defibralator Web site (see the last paragraph in the story). This would be synonymous to an ex-Enron exec who joined up with PepsiCola after the Enron fallout sharing his story of deceipt only to start off with saying, "Before I begin, let's all enjoy a Pepsi. Mmmmmm, Pepsi tastes so good and its stock price is very reasonable - buy now!"
You should read Stephen King's short story Apt Pupil. It might give you new insight into "It taught me an interest in the Nazis and World War II that I would never have acquired otherwise.":-)
That prior to the 20th century, there was no such thing as income tax, right? Meaning it wasn't until the 1930s or whenever income tax was added that April 15th had any sort of significance.
Our nation has existed longer without income tax than with it. Why can't we revert back to just use-tax (i.e., sales taxes, tolls, etc.)? Wouldn't that be the most fair -- you pay for what you use and don't pay for what you don't?
Granted, this would significantly shrink our Federal Gov'ts budget, which would drastically reduce the military complex, social programs, things like government watchdog groups, etc., and would move us back closer to laissez-faire capitalism. This has both its advantages and disadvantages, as I'm sure you know.
Perhaps the best solution would be to have a small flat income tax rate (say 8% for everyone making over a minimum), and then just using use taxes. The income tax could pay for what military presence is needed and watchdog groups (FDA, FCC, EPA, etc.). Granted, we would have fewer bombers, and we'd be less likely to "shock and awe" folks, but maybe that'd be for the better.
Check out this guy's blog. He worked three summers as an intern at Microsoft. In fact, he and I were both interns at Microsoft back in 1999. Anyway, never really got to know him during my time there, but reading his blog he seems like a really interesting and intelligent person. He has some great insights into MS and their culture.
I enjoyed my internship there, but declined the full-time offer for a variety of reasons, the two main ones being that I did not want to work my butt off 60 hours a week (yes, this is what I put in as an intern, worked on the weekends too), and I was working for myself at the time, and wanted to roll the dice on that. In the end, I'm glad I did not do the full-time job with MS, I've had much more fun, freedom, and success going it on my own that I would have working for MS. In fact, in choosing to go it on my own I had the opportunity to close the circle: I sold some software I wrote (the complete source code and intellectual rights) to MS about a year ago.
The internship at MS was sweet, though, $4k a month, IIRC, flex hours, all the Diet Cherry Coke I could drink, my own office for most of the internship, I was given a real project to work on... unfortunately I was the sole developer/product manager, so I didn't really get to work in a team or form any sort of relationship with regular MS employees, but it was neat to be able to start a project at its inception and work on it through deployment. (FWIW, the project was a notification system for the Office team to allow developers/testers to sign up for notifications when certain builds were complete or certain other criteria were met.) The BBQ at Bill's house was pretty sweet, the HR chicks were pretty hot, and intramural basketball was hella fun.
The supply is high (the number of folks that want to sign a deal) and the demand (from the record label's point of view) is low. That is, the record label will be happy to just sign a few new folks per year, a tiny percentage of the supply. Therefore it makes sense that these folks will get paid a shitty wage.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, one might say dynamic typed languages have their place in scripting languages and, therefore, Web development. Again, I disagree. I see Microsoft trying to meld desktop application development and Web development, making the two indistinguishable. I, for one, think this is a good thing. Ideally, you shouldn't have to worry about the medium, just develop the app and deploy it to desktop or Web, whatever you want. If you use VS.NET you'll, I think, tend to agree that the similarities between developing a Web Form and a WinForm are eerily similar. (Which, again, I think is a Good Thing.)
If you are interested in the scripting language comparison, see Server-Side Scripting Shootout.
As a Web developer who has created Web applications in both PHP and ASP.NET, I can say, without hyperbole, that ASP.NET is one-million times better. Ok, so maybe there's a little hyperbole in there, and I know I'm just feeding a troll with this post, but I would wager that anyone with extensive experience with both PHP and ASP.NET would, at minimum, say ASP.NET is par with PHP, but would likely express that ASP.NET is better in a variety of areas. About the only negative for ASP.NET is its lack of cross-platformness, but with Mono and such, who knows how long this complaint will hold merit. Too, having Apache serve ASP.NET Web pages on a Windows box is something that is doable.
SCO will make Linux free as in "not".
I think you misunderstood me, or did not understand me completely. This random reward is good for all sorts of things for kids. For example, imagine you want the kid to take out the trash. The kid groans, but does so. Now, what do you do? If you always reward them, this is not good, IMHO, as it has them equate trash taking out with getting a reward. If you never reward them then they have no reinforcement to take out the trash and will gladly not take out the trash when you're not there to pester them. By reinforcing taking out the trash, you have them (hopefully) come to take out the trash on their own volition.
While I have never reared/educated children, my mom has a masters degree in education and has taught 3rd through 5th grade for twenty some-odd years. She echos my sentiments re: periodic reinforcement. If you always reinforce someone when they do a task, they'll only do said task when they want the reinforcement. For example, if every single time your kid cleans the room you give him $5.00, the kid is only going to clean the room when he needs/wants $5.00.
Now, adults are obviously different from children, but I would wager dollars to donuts that intermittent reinforcement is the best approach. I can dig up some psychological/sociological studies if you really want, I remember reading about this back in school in my sociology class, but, unless my memory fails me completely, I assure you that reinforcement is best doled out randomly rather than consistently.
If a person does a task and *expects* to be rewarded, but isn't, it would tend to reduce the probability of her wanting to "delay gratification" again, regardless of the reward.
The best pattern is to reward fairly consistently at first, then less frequently, using a random pattern. Granted, if a person expects a reward and doesn't get it, then that is not going to motivate them. That is why, when training animals or humans, you don't promise the reward and then hold back. Rather, you encourage the behavior and then randomly decide whether or not to reward the person. So, to translate this to the great-grandparent thread, the person should delay gratification because he realizes that it is the optimal decision to have a life of success. To reinforce the behavior, he should periodically reward himself.
I have no idea if what you claim is true or not, but from my own experience with owning several dogs, random positive reinforcement works head and shoulders better than constant reinforcement, either positive or negative. That's not to say constant reinforcement can't work, it's just not the best.
The "secret" is, IMHO, to be a gratification-delayer. Psychologists some time ago did studies on young children, asking them if they'd rather have a marshmellow now, or two after some time interval. Those who could delay gratification and wait for the two marshmellows, proved to be more productive and successful adults. In fact, these researchers found, IIRC, that this ability to delay gratification had the greatest affect on a person's adult success, more so than race, religion, socio-economic background, and so on.
From your comments, it appears as if you are not one who can delay gratification. I would encourage you to change this post haste. How does one do this? That, clearly, is the 64 thousand dollar question. While I don't know what will work for you, here are some suggestions you might want to give a try:
Do not underestimate the importance of learning how to delay gratification. It can mean the difference between a successful, happy life and one where you are constantly burdened with deadlines, financially strapped, and constantly stressed.
In any event, best of luck, and I hope you find a solution to your problem.
I wouldn't be worried so much about the speed, but the failure of the online connection. While my broadband has been relatively stable, I have friends across the US who have had downtimes, at one point or another, of days. I guess the dialup can serve as a backup of sorts, though, but still...
Just like the law enforcement is more interested in busting drug dealers than drug users.
I have a far superior algorithm in both time and space complexity. Start with 1. Then simply transform it to the requisite number of 1s and 0s, a la 1101101001001. Bah to your two-step process. :-)
You have to also design an operating system and a basic interpretter for your hardware?
Yeah, it lacks a point. Kind of like playing computer games, reading, watching TV, or any other hobby. Oh wait, all those things are fun and enjoyable (save the watching TV part). Maybe that's why he did it?
He did much more than just "design a CPU." He also built his own operating system and a basic interpretter.
You could always read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's a relatively short piece, can be read in a couple days. Also, the book is free, so there's no downside if you don't like it (short of a spell of time).
This guy basically shared his story for a publicity plug for his defibralator Web site (see the last paragraph in the story). This would be synonymous to an ex-Enron exec who joined up with PepsiCola after the Enron fallout sharing his story of deceipt only to start off with saying, "Before I begin, let's all enjoy a Pepsi. Mmmmmm, Pepsi tastes so good and its stock price is very reasonable - buy now!"
You should read Stephen King's short story Apt Pupil. It might give you new insight into "It taught me an interest in the Nazis and World War II that I would never have acquired otherwise." :-)
Our nation has existed longer without income tax than with it. Why can't we revert back to just use-tax (i.e., sales taxes, tolls, etc.)? Wouldn't that be the most fair -- you pay for what you use and don't pay for what you don't?
Granted, this would significantly shrink our Federal Gov'ts budget, which would drastically reduce the military complex, social programs, things like government watchdog groups, etc., and would move us back closer to laissez-faire capitalism. This has both its advantages and disadvantages, as I'm sure you know.
Perhaps the best solution would be to have a small flat income tax rate (say 8% for everyone making over a minimum), and then just using use taxes. The income tax could pay for what military presence is needed and watchdog groups (FDA, FCC, EPA, etc.). Granted, we would have fewer bombers, and we'd be less likely to "shock and awe" folks, but maybe that'd be for the better.
I enjoyed my internship there, but declined the full-time offer for a variety of reasons, the two main ones being that I did not want to work my butt off 60 hours a week (yes, this is what I put in as an intern, worked on the weekends too), and I was working for myself at the time, and wanted to roll the dice on that. In the end, I'm glad I did not do the full-time job with MS, I've had much more fun, freedom, and success going it on my own that I would have working for MS. In fact, in choosing to go it on my own I had the opportunity to close the circle: I sold some software I wrote (the complete source code and intellectual rights) to MS about a year ago.
The internship at MS was sweet, though, $4k a month, IIRC, flex hours, all the Diet Cherry Coke I could drink, my own office for most of the internship, I was given a real project to work on... unfortunately I was the sole developer/product manager, so I didn't really get to work in a team or form any sort of relationship with regular MS employees, but it was neat to be able to start a project at its inception and work on it through deployment. (FWIW, the project was a notification system for the Office team to allow developers/testers to sign up for notifications when certain builds were complete or certain other criteria were met.) The BBQ at Bill's house was pretty sweet, the HR chicks were pretty hot, and intramural basketball was hella fun.
I agree with (1) but not (2). The supply of wanna-be artists is so high that record companies don't need to have the band's best interests in mind.
The supply is high (the number of folks that want to sign a deal) and the demand (from the record label's point of view) is low. That is, the record label will be happy to just sign a few new folks per year, a tiny percentage of the supply. Therefore it makes sense that these folks will get paid a shitty wage.
perhaps that's where you saw it.
Did you watch the video? If you did, and this is your reaction, then your sense of humor is suspect. :-)
Switch to Linux.