Dunno about changing definitions, but when my club set up for our big annual star party, the solar observing was a complete bust - no flares, no spots, just a big rubber ball....
They'll intersperse their code-those strings of instructions that result in nifty applications and programs-with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it.
I see. Only women comment their code. Gimme a break.
Hmmm... I think you misunderstood my point. It's not that there aren't operating systems written in other languages, it's that the momentum and mindshare held by Linux is a barrier to the adoption of other operating systems.
In a way, I think C, and Gnu C in particular, has become the Microsoft Windows of computer languages - for all the bad and the good that that implies.
Twenty years ago, I bragged that I was fluent in over 20 different computer languages - if you counted dialects of BASIC and assembler it was closer to 30 - but with the arrival of gcc as an effective and free compiler the compiler language business froze. Everyone began using C and then C++, and other languages got pushed to the margins. Good because it meant that a programmer's skills and code became more portable but bad because we were suddenly caught in the trap of backward compatibility.
At this point, all my other languages are obsolete and nearly forgotten (Anybody need some PL/I? FORTH? APL? Modula-2?) Even my Java has atrophied to the "read it but can't write it" level. About the only other language I do anything in is PHP - I dabble in it to the point that I can make minor patches to my Drupal server. The idea that C is now fading fills me with excitement but also a good bit of dread...
C is an assembly language? For what processor? I always thought C needed to be compiled and linked, not run through an assembler, so that it was portable. Sigh. Kids today. Yes C is a compiler. Krog's point was that C was designed to translate quickly and easily into PDP-11 machine instructions. That's why it has the increment and decrement functions, why strings are arrays, why pointers are interchangeable with arrays and why the size of C variables is machine dependent.
I disagree with this on a couple of fronts.
Computer languages are theoretical; one valid language is just as 'stable' as another. Only from a theoretical viewpoint. Languages are designed for particular tasks and using them for tasks they weren't designed for is asking for trouble. Try writing a device driver in SAS, for example.
The real issue of stability lies in the implementation, and that is language-independent. Again, I disagree. Stability is a feature of a language as much as strong typing or object orientation. A language can be designed to make it easy to write stable code or it can be written without consideration of stability. C was designed to be easily compiled into efficient PDP binaries. C++ was designed as a pre-processor for C. Neither had reliability or security as a design goal and it shows. This does not mean they are bad languages, but it does mean that there's an advantage to be gained in creating a language that has the efficiencies of C but also has the durability and security to survive in the modern computing environment.
Lucas Licensing called the prop designer a "fan" even though he created the Stormtroopers!
Ummm... No. Work on your reading comprehension. Lucas said they wouldn't sue fans, but this guy isn't a fan - he's someone making money off of the Star Wars franchise.
As I said, it's going to have a much lower light output and, thus, a much smaller habitable zone - hardly "just like our sun" and hardly likely to have an earth-like world.
So yes, 2 is more common than we previously thought.
Because a star is "just like ours" if it has 50% of the mass?
I'm sorry, this story is a ridiculous piece of over-reaching. A star half the size of ours will have, off the cuff, maybe 1/4th the light output. How big is that habitable zone going to be?
It seems to me to be a straight forward evolutionary development, right? Animals which are insufficiently alert get eaten, while there is no penalty for being "too" alert.
...And, since this is the government, instead of fixing the problem by requiring individuals who are qualified and competent to administer the census...
And, what, exactly, do you have against equal opportunity?
ever generating the kind of affection that other early computer companies did - almost certainly because Microsoft didn't make hardware.
Think about it. You had Atari fans and Amiga bigots and C64 freaks and Apple lunatics all fighting to the death on Usenet - even TRS-80 users and Exidy Sorcerer users - and don't get started on Sinclair fans and Acorn users.
I don't remember anybody caring that much about Microsoft - after all, it ran on all (or most) of those machines, didn't it?
Later with the advent of the PC, it was still an **IBM** PC, not a Microsoft PC. Even when Microsoft basically owned the personal computer software market it didn't really have fans - people use it because there was no choice or because that's what runs on generic hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it really that hard to add a blinking LED?
Dunno about changing definitions, but when my club set up for our big annual star party, the solar observing was a complete bust - no flares, no spots, just a big rubber ball....
So,
I know sun spots are a different temp than the sun overall - has this had an effect on the energy output of the sun?
At this stage of development? Quite possible. If you read up on the history of the X- series and our early space launches, it's quite scary.
If nothing else, solar cells are limited by the basic energy density of solar radiation.
Maybe you need to look at more cameras, then. The last couple I've owned have done that.
Shouldn't we be able to pick up the radio noise generated by earth-like planets in other solar systems?
Even worse. The women I work with tend to dress just like the guys - which might explain why no one notices them.
In a 25 year career? Less than ten percent of the "boots on the ground" have been women.
They'll intersperse their code-those strings of instructions that result in nifty applications and programs-with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it.
I see. Only women comment their code. Gimme a break.
I heard the crime was committed by an Intruder.
Hmmm... I think you misunderstood my point. It's not that there aren't operating systems written in other languages, it's that the momentum and mindshare held by Linux is a barrier to the adoption of other operating systems.
In a way, I think C, and Gnu C in particular, has become the Microsoft Windows of computer languages - for all the bad and the good that that implies.
Twenty years ago, I bragged that I was fluent in over 20 different computer languages - if you counted dialects of BASIC and assembler it was closer to 30 - but with the arrival of gcc as an effective and free compiler the compiler language business froze. Everyone began using C and then C++, and other languages got pushed to the margins. Good because it meant that a programmer's skills and code became more portable but bad because we were suddenly caught in the trap of backward compatibility.
At this point, all my other languages are obsolete and nearly forgotten (Anybody need some PL/I? FORTH? APL? Modula-2?) Even my Java has atrophied to the "read it but can't write it" level. About the only other language I do anything in is PHP - I dabble in it to the point that I can make minor patches to my Drupal server. The idea that C is now fading fills me with excitement but also a good bit of dread...
I disagree with this on a couple of fronts. Computer languages are theoretical; one valid language is just as 'stable' as another. Only from a theoretical viewpoint. Languages are designed for particular tasks and using them for tasks they weren't designed for is asking for trouble. Try writing a device driver in SAS, for example. The real issue of stability lies in the implementation, and that is language-independent. Again, I disagree. Stability is a feature of a language as much as strong typing or object orientation. A language can be designed to make it easy to write stable code or it can be written without consideration of stability. C was designed to be easily compiled into efficient PDP binaries. C++ was designed as a pre-processor for C. Neither had reliability or security as a design goal and it shows. This does not mean they are bad languages, but it does mean that there's an advantage to be gained in creating a language that has the efficiencies of C but also has the durability and security to survive in the modern computing environment.
We could have had that today, if the idiots controlling Plan9 and Inferno hadn't put such ridiculous licensing restrictions on them.
They were so worried about their precious IP they ensured that no one would ever use it for anything.
Singularity is interesting but it's just a research project, it's not intended to ever become a real OS.
Let me know when you're finished with that Linux replacement.
Ummm... No. Work on your reading comprehension. Lucas said they wouldn't sue fans, but this guy isn't a fan - he's someone making money off of the Star Wars franchise."pretty damn close"?
As I said, it's going to have a much lower light output and, thus, a much smaller habitable zone - hardly "just like our sun" and hardly likely to have an earth-like world.
So yes, 2 is more common than we previously thought.
Because a star is "just like ours" if it has 50% of the mass?
I'm sorry, this story is a ridiculous piece of over-reaching. A star half the size of ours will have, off the cuff, maybe 1/4th the light output. How big is that habitable zone going to be?
only 40% of us are alert to possible threats.
It seems to me to be a straight forward evolutionary development, right? Animals which are insufficiently alert get eaten, while there is no penalty for being "too" alert.
...And, since this is the government, instead of fixing the problem by requiring individuals who are qualified and competent to administer the census...
And, what, exactly, do you have against equal opportunity?
I have been in this business since the late 1970's
;-)
Hah! A likely story. If you've been in the business so long, how come your UID is so high?
ever generating the kind of affection that other early computer companies did - almost certainly because Microsoft didn't make hardware.
Think about it. You had Atari fans and Amiga bigots and C64 freaks and Apple lunatics all fighting to the death on Usenet - even TRS-80 users and Exidy Sorcerer users - and don't get started on Sinclair fans and Acorn users.
I don't remember anybody caring that much about Microsoft - after all, it ran on all (or most) of those machines, didn't it?
Later with the advent of the PC, it was still an **IBM** PC, not a Microsoft PC. Even when Microsoft basically owned the personal computer software market it didn't really have fans - people use it because there was no choice or because that's what runs on generic hardware.