I don't think it will really affect the day-to-day operations at Microsoft much. His "software architect" role wasn't hugely significant from what I've heard. Anyway, the company will still have the same strengths, and will still have to face the same threats.
Even if you're the biggest MS-hater around, you've got to admit that Bill is doing something Good with his fortune. The edumacation system is failing a lot of kids - and someone with Bill's money, influence, and problem-solving skill really has the power to make a difference there. Providing a good education to all kids is such a smart investment, so why isn't it happening??
For the sake of argument, suppose the laptop was not broken and the seller was honest. Further suppose that the seller had made some weak attempt to delete the information, which he mistakenly thought was good enough to prevent it from being recovered. In that case, do you think it would be ethical for the buyer to recover the data, and to make any embarrassing information public?
From my point of view, the moral status of the buyer's actions really hinge on whether or not the seller intentionally shipped a broken laptop. It looks like he did, and that's why the buyer's actions are justified, not because he has some kind of overriding moral right to do whatever he pleases with the information that was on the drive. Let's just all hope we're right about this - otherwise we're all a bunch of assholes for enjoying this so much:)
One thing is sure though - people hate to get screwed, and they love to hear about crooked fuckers getting their due.
It's really another example of the Canadian gov't showing the world what it's best at: taxing the shit out of its people:-)
It's obvious to any thinking person that the tax is both unfair and stupid. Unfortunately the law makers who are imposing it have suffered brain death, and everyone has just been too nice to tell them... We'll pay the tax of course just like the bitches we are. I admit that outside of griping, voting, signing the occasional online petition, I don't do much to actually "reach out" to those in power to make myself heard. So I'm a very typical Canadian in this regard:-) My general attitude is that I will vote for the guy who has the least amount of plans for my money.
As the price of computing power and system memory have fallen over the years - it only makes sense to put these increased resources to work. The trick is to use these resources intelligently - and to effectively manage the complexity. It seems like a lot of ppl (especially old-school nerds) like to blame the growth of software size & complexity - but that's oversimplifing things b/c that growth is inevitable and necessary as we expect more functionality. How people manage this growing complexity is what makes the difference between good and shitty s/w. The main goals are the following:
1) manage s/w complexity (good s/w design)
* if you fail to do this, any large s/w system will buckle under its own weight
2) TEST the damn s/w... don't let it out until you've really banged away on it
3) manage UI complexity
* provide access to many features without overwhelming the user
So if you are mad at some shitty s/w : don't blame its size, blame the shitty complexity management (and inadequate testing) that produced the digital lemon you are using. People _can_ make large, complex, yet highly stable and successful software systems - there are many examples to prove this point.
Anyway I always 3 Woz - even if he's somewhat irrelevant to computing these days.
What an awesome story -- can you even begin to imagine having sensation in your lower half again, after losing it for 19 years?? Stem cells are going to help a lot of people, and it truly is exciting and awe-inspiring. I often wonder what it would be like to be involved in work like this - that has the potential to change so many lives.... I work on software for a living, and my job is alright, but I doubt it would even come close in terms of job satisfaction.
Anyone who wants to hold back this research has got their head firmly planted in their ass.
Thank you for taking the time to post your incoherent rant.
1. I have overclocked my home PCs for years. I've never spent a lot of time on it, and I've never sacrificed stability.
2. Do you feel that everthing you do has to improve the world? If so, I wonder how well you are living up to such a high ideal?
3. Wanting more system performance (at zero or low cost) does not imply an obligation to become involved in the design of "faster chips".
4. Some people who overclock actually use their computers for interesting stuff. Still, even if you only want to squeeze an extra few fps out of your favourite game, what's the harm?
I've always like to overclock my PCs - and I've never sacrificed stability. It's true that the hardware will fail earlier in theory as a result of overclocking, but unless you are running crazy timings with way too much voltage or whatever, the hardware is still likely to last until it's practically worthless. If you can overclock with just a modecum of skill, you literally get more performance than you paid for. I ask you: how can it be wrong, when it feels so right?
I think that overclockers tend to overlook the danger of data corruption when they experiment with overclocking. If you boot into Windows (or any other OS) with flaky CPU/memory, you risk corruption of any filesystems/data that the system works with while it is operating in an "unstable" condition. If the system would just freeze or reboot when the hardware fails, there'd be no problems with corruption (or evaluating stability), but... Just make a Ghost image of the filesystem before you experiment with timings, and restore that image after you are done with your overclocking adventures. Way less headaches this way.
I have used goto _occasionally_ (but I never inhaled(compiled?);) Seriously -- I fully agree it does make sense in some cases. In a couple hundred thousand lines of C++ code I've probably used goto less than 10 times, and in each case I used it because the resulting code was _more_ readable for it. goto is not the devil - those sons of bitches who abuse goto are the ones who are the ball lickers:)
What I like to do is rent TV shows DVDs, copy them to DVDR, and watch them when it's convenient. Since I don't have PVR anymore.. this will have to do now:) The thing is - I'm still only watching that TV show once, so I don't see how anyone is losing out here. Of course, I might want to loan those burnt discs out to a friend sometimes... even that is considered Fair Use in Canada IIRC.
Isn't DRM supposed to help out here.. to allow legitimate copying, but prohibit illegitimate copying? At the present time, there is no widely available slick solution to this problem, and until one is available this tension between the rights of producers and consumers will obviously continue to exist. You can count on the rights holders (studios) to always want to tilt the scales in favour of _their_ rights, without much concern for your Fair Use rights.
In the good old days, I had a DirecTV/TiVo setup (here in Canada, where it was considered a legally safe thing to have for a time). That was kick ass - but all good things must come to an end as you probably have heard.. The Canadian satellite TV providers (ExpressVu and StarChoice) offer PVR setups, but sadly they are ass, and aside from that, I just haven't been able to bring myself to buy Canadian TV. I need my HBOs... Until Canadian TV stops sucking (probably not anytime soon) I'll be watching TV shows on rented DVD only... which is not too bad actually.. except that I'm behind on the shows of course:)
I've been courageously battling ET addiction for quite some time now;) I'm playing it a bit less often now, but still several hours a week. Earlier tonite I courageously spent about 90 minutes playing ET. At the height of my ET addiction I could easily spend 6 hours a day, but now ET is winding down a bit. Sure got my money's worth from that one!!;)
I think that the test of addiction (of any kind) - is that the activity starts to interfere with your work/family/health, you fail to meet obligations, etc. Even 6 hours a day can be OK depending on your situtation. If you got a lot of extra time -- hey why not, spend it however you like. Most people in the 30's or older don't have that kind of extra time.
Fischer is/was a great chess player, but the guy thinks that Sept. 11 was a great thing, and so... he's a shithead. I don't care what kinda chess skillz he has - he is a shithead. Not that America is any safer if they get him, but on the other hand I won't shed any tears for that jerk.
Some years ago I was removing a 1 gig quantum scsi drive from my case, and in the process I managed to scratch a surface-mounted component off of the drive's exposed circuit board. Just for fun I tried to use the drive and sure enough it was non-functional. At this point, I was in a bad frame of mind, so I attempted to solder the tiny component back onto the PCB with a rather large soldering iron. Even if I had a clue how to solder things - this still would not have been a very good idea - needless to say that didn't work out too well - I only succeeded in making black burn marks on the PCB.
I finally realized the truth: the drive was dead - I killed it but it was not within my power to revive it. Or wasn't it? I cleaned up the burn marks on the PCB so they were less noticeable and sent it in for warranty repair - and received a working drive a few weeks later! Actually it had some bad blocks, but I didn't have enough balls to send it in for service again!! The bad blocks were at the end of the disk, so I used the good part of the disk as/tmp and swap.
I know that was dishonest - but getting a working drive back in the mail just felt great. I still feel good about it to this day. For those of you who want to scold me for abusing warranty -- please don't bother -- I am reformed! No really!
My friends know this story -- when they are having hardware trouble I tell them 'ok just stay calm -- I will be at your place in 20 minutes with my soldering iron';)
If the code is well structured, variables, classes, methods, etc. well-named and well-conceived, it will explain itself to a large degree, and won't require an English play-by-play of every friggin detail. Generally, it's a good idea to have high-level comments that say "this chunk of code does X", but lower-level comments are often a waste of time, and only serve to clutter the code. Having said that, sometimes code is unavoidably hairy, and you have to recognize cases where the code needs some lower-level explanation, and provide it. First, avoid complexity, failing that, manage it. Generally speaking, I think code comments serve the purpose of helping s/w people to develop a mental map of the code. Code should have as few comments as possible, but no fewer:-)
If you ship UPS from the U.S. into Canada, the person who receives the package will have to cough up an obscene "brokerage fee", which can be anywhere from $20 to $70 or more depending on the value of the package -- it's essentially a package ransom - if you want your package you have to bend over. A brokerage fee is unavoidable, but UPS's brokerage fee is an obvious rip-off : if you ship USPS->CanPost there's a flat $5 brokerage fee.
Hit this link for more information. And definitely check out this site.
Personally, I think that whether or not your case is truly academic dishonesty depends on the guidlines for the assignment. If they strictly said that all work should be your own, then referencing other work probably should be considered cheating.
Not cheating by any means. Cheating means trying to pass off someone else's work as your own. This is dishonest and constitutes fraud, so of course there can be serious consequences for it.
However, if you're merely referencing other work, you're not commiting fraud. If the instructor says you're not to collaborate, and you ignore that instruction but are honest about it then the only penalty you should get is a poor or failing grade.
In addition, Debian does not commit a Red Hat-ism and package such awful software renames like kgcc. Why not call it what it is, gcc-2.7.2. I mean, come on. Pull the wool over the lusers eyes, don't ya. "Yeah. Red Hat has a special compiler for the Kernel..." Whatever.
The next time I reinstall Linux I think I'll install Debian instead of RedHat. I've stuck with RH because of habit, but RH7 really convinced me to switch. kgcc, plus shipping a frickin SNAPSHOT of gcc - are they on crack? If you can't release something of good quality, don't do a release at all.
The Linux kernel uses many abstractions. For example, the "file" abstraction is a great one. A file descriptor is just an integer that allows the kernel to figure out which code to call to do reads/writes/etc. Polymorphism!
Generally though, if you're going to use OO concepts and you can use a real OO language, it makes sense to do so. Why fight with C when you can use C++?
Abstraction is the most important and useful thing you can do as a programmer. It takes many forms, but no matter what paradigm you're working in, programming is all about abstraction. It's the simplest thing in the world: when you find two or more sections of code in your program that look very similar, you ask yourself, "what is the common ground here?". In doing so, you are engaged in abstraction.
OO is simply a way of exploiting this abstraction to maximum benefit. Because abstractions can pay off so well, you are encouraged to find them. As a programmer, you are not paid to be a typist, you are paid to think. Thought in general is part imagination and part abstraction. If you are not capable of finding such abstractions, it is not because OO is inadequate, it's because your skill is inadequate. So should you accept your incompetence, or try to better yourself? The author says you should just accept it and choose a paradigm more befitting your lowly intellect. I disagree with that.
Is OO oversold? Sure - people do expect to gain benefits magically just by using OO languages and tools. There is no substitute for talented people. And OO is not appropriate for every project. But there are a lot of examples of great things that are nonetheless oversold. Look at the Nasdaq for example.
I found the article to be pretty weak. He shows pretty graphs without citing references, and seems to be shaking a stick at OO more than anything else. Though he makes a few rational arguments, for the most part it's fairly obvious sophistry.
Really, the developer(s) of software are best fit to decide whether harm has been committed against them by violating the terms of a license. In many cases I think people have released software under the GPL, but made an exception (implicit or explicit) for KDE. The author(s) of software are free to decide when to waive some of the terms of the license in any given case. Remember, the license serves the developer, not the other way around.
In cases where GPL'd code was used without permission, and the author(s) of that code are pissed off, yes I think an apology is appropriate.
Also I really think both RMS and the KDE folk are acting like adults here. Though I don't agree with RMS's software politics, I do think he's a living legend and anyone who uses and enjoys free software (including Linux) has a lot to thank him for. RMS-bashing is not cool.
Some of those posts are scary. I was also impressed by the high signal:noise ratio. Here's one of many interesting posts:
Aucbarpa.700
net.suicide
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:olson
Sat Jan 23 18:32:48 1982
options\?
interesting argument. the assumption made by the guy who saw the quincy episode was essentially that suicide hurts. it hurts the family of the victim (is the guy who killed imself a victim, or a murderer? hmmm...). it hurts the guy himself. now, i'm not really up on my catholicism, but it seems to me that if an afterlife is guaranteed for the repentant, then suicide doesn't hurt at all. in fact, it's kind of an improvement on the status quo, if heaven is all it's cracked up to be. now then: if suicide doesn't hurt, then you're not insane if you kill yourself. one logical step further: if suicide is a means to get to heaven, and heaven is preferable to life on earth, then you're insane if you DON'T kill yourself. strange what you can do with religious dogma when you don't know what you're talking about, isn't it?
When naming variables, I often prefer to put the noun before the adjective in the name. For example, suppose you have three strings to represent a person's name. You might declare them as:
String firstName;
String middleName;
String lastName;
Instead, how about:
String nameFirst;
String nameMiddle;
String nameLast;
When you look at these names, your brain immediately clues into the fact that they are related - it is able to compress the information a little better, and the code becomes a little easier to read and therefore maintain. This is my experience at least. I try to organize my thoughts in an object-oriented way, and naming variables in this way is a natural consequence of that -- first, middle, and last names are just specializations of the name concept, and I think top-down much of the time. It makes the names seem more awkward at first (because they are less English), but I suggest you try it. I think that trying to make code look as much like English as possible is a horrible mistake anyway.
Names have a bigger impact than most people realize. Good names help us organize the information in our brains. Poorly chosen names reflect disorganized thought, and they can have long-term ill effects.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think it will really affect the day-to-day operations at Microsoft much. His "software architect" role wasn't hugely significant from what I've heard. Anyway, the company will still have the same strengths, and will still have to face the same threats.
Even if you're the biggest MS-hater around, you've got to admit that Bill is doing something Good with his fortune. The edumacation system is failing a lot of kids - and someone with Bill's money, influence, and problem-solving skill really has the power to make a difference there. Providing a good education to all kids is such a smart investment, so why isn't it happening??
For the sake of argument, suppose the laptop was not broken and the seller was honest. Further suppose that the seller had made some weak attempt to delete the information, which he mistakenly thought was good enough to prevent it from being recovered. In that case, do you think it would be ethical for the buyer to recover the data, and to make any embarrassing information public?
From my point of view, the moral status of the buyer's actions really hinge on whether or not the seller intentionally shipped a broken laptop. It looks like he did, and that's why the buyer's actions are justified, not because he has some kind of overriding moral right to do whatever he pleases with the information that was on the drive. Let's just all hope we're right about this - otherwise we're all a bunch of assholes for enjoying this so much :)
One thing is sure though - people hate to get screwed, and they love to hear about crooked fuckers getting their due.
It's really another example of the Canadian gov't showing the world what it's best at: taxing the shit out of its people :-)
It's obvious to any thinking person that the tax is both unfair and stupid. Unfortunately the law makers who are imposing it have suffered brain death, and everyone has just been too nice to tell them... We'll pay the tax of course just like the bitches we are. I admit that outside of griping, voting, signing the occasional online petition, I don't do much to actually "reach out" to those in power to make myself heard. So I'm a very typical Canadian in this regard :-) My general attitude is that I will vote for the guy who has the least amount of plans for my money.
I believe the aforementioned obligatory Strangelove quote could be "Why didn't you tell anyone??? Eh???".
It's always encouraging to see people planning ahead like this.
As the price of computing power and system memory have fallen over the years - it only makes sense to put these increased resources to work. The trick is to use these resources intelligently - and to effectively manage the complexity. It seems like a lot of ppl (especially old-school nerds) like to blame the growth of software size & complexity - but that's oversimplifing things b/c that growth is inevitable and necessary as we expect more functionality. How people manage this growing complexity is what makes the difference between good and shitty s/w. The main goals are the following:
... don't let it out until you've really banged away on it
1) manage s/w complexity (good s/w design)
* if you fail to do this, any large s/w system will buckle under its own weight
2) TEST the damn s/w
3) manage UI complexity
* provide access to many features without overwhelming the user
So if you are mad at some shitty s/w : don't blame its size, blame the shitty complexity management (and inadequate testing) that produced the digital lemon you are using. People _can_ make large, complex, yet highly stable and successful software systems - there are many examples to prove this point.
Anyway I always 3 Woz - even if he's somewhat irrelevant to computing these days.
-vk
What an awesome story -- can you even begin to imagine having sensation in your lower half again, after losing it for 19 years?? Stem cells are going to help a lot of people, and it truly is exciting and awe-inspiring. I often wonder what it would be like to be involved in work like this - that has the potential to change so many lives.... I work on software for a living, and my job is alright, but I doubt it would even come close in terms of job satisfaction.
Anyone who wants to hold back this research has got their head firmly planted in their ass.
it still "illudes" you
Thank you for taking the time to post your incoherent rant.
1. I have overclocked my home PCs for years. I've never spent a lot of time on it, and I've never sacrificed stability.
2. Do you feel that everthing you do has to improve the world? If so, I wonder how well you are living up to such a high ideal?
3. Wanting more system performance (at zero or low cost) does not imply an obligation to become involved in the design of "faster chips".
4. Some people who overclock actually use their computers for interesting stuff. Still, even if you only want to squeeze an extra few fps out of your favourite game, what's the harm?
5. Lighten up.
I've always like to overclock my PCs - and I've never sacrificed stability. It's true that the hardware will fail earlier in theory as a result of overclocking, but unless you are running crazy timings with way too much voltage or whatever, the hardware is still likely to last until it's practically worthless. If you can overclock with just a modecum of skill, you literally get more performance than you paid for. I ask you: how can it be wrong, when it feels so right?
I think that overclockers tend to overlook the danger of data corruption when they experiment with overclocking. If you boot into Windows (or any other OS) with flaky CPU/memory, you risk corruption of any filesystems/data that the system works with while it is operating in an "unstable" condition. If the system would just freeze or reboot when the hardware fails, there'd be no problems with corruption (or evaluating stability), but... Just make a Ghost image of the filesystem before you experiment with timings, and restore that image after you are done with your overclocking adventures. Way less headaches this way.
YES! It's good to hear someone else say that!!
;) Seriously -- I fully agree it does make sense in some cases. In a couple hundred thousand lines of C++ code I've probably used goto less than 10 times, and in each case I used it because the resulting code was _more_ readable for it. goto is not the devil - those sons of bitches who abuse goto are the ones who are the ball lickers :)
I have used goto _occasionally_ (but I never inhaled(compiled?)
What I like to do is rent TV shows DVDs, copy them to DVDR, and watch them when it's convenient. Since I don't have PVR anymore.. this will have to do now :) The thing is - I'm still only watching that TV show once, so I don't see how anyone is losing out here. Of course, I might want to loan those burnt discs out to a friend sometimes... even that is considered Fair Use in Canada IIRC.
.. to allow legitimate copying, but prohibit illegitimate copying? At the present time, there is no widely available slick solution to this problem, and until one is available this tension between the rights of producers and consumers will obviously continue to exist. You can count on the rights holders (studios) to always want to tilt the scales in favour of _their_ rights, without much concern for your Fair Use rights.
:)
Isn't DRM supposed to help out here
In the good old days, I had a DirecTV/TiVo setup (here in Canada, where it was considered a legally safe thing to have for a time). That was kick ass - but all good things must come to an end as you probably have heard.. The Canadian satellite TV providers (ExpressVu and StarChoice) offer PVR setups, but sadly they are ass, and aside from that, I just haven't been able to bring myself to buy Canadian TV. I need my HBOs... Until Canadian TV stops sucking (probably not anytime soon) I'll be watching TV shows on rented DVD only... which is not too bad actually.. except that I'm behind on the shows of course
I've been courageously battling ET addiction for quite some time now ;) I'm playing it a bit less often now, but still several hours a week. Earlier tonite I courageously spent about 90 minutes playing ET. At the height of my ET addiction I could easily spend 6 hours a day, but now ET is winding down a bit. Sure got my money's worth from that one!! ;)
I think that the test of addiction (of any kind) - is that the activity starts to interfere with your work/family/health, you fail to meet obligations, etc. Even 6 hours a day can be OK depending on your situtation. If you got a lot of extra time -- hey why not, spend it however you like. Most people in the 30's or older don't have that kind of extra time.
-vonkruel (aka largejohnson in ET)
Fischer is/was a great chess player, but the guy thinks that Sept. 11 was a great thing, and so... he's a shithead. I don't care what kinda chess skillz he has - he is a shithead. Not that America is any safer if they get him, but on the other hand I won't shed any tears for that jerk.
.. am I off-topic?
And Michael Moore is a fat boob.
Hmm
I like movies about Gladiators.
Some years ago I was removing a 1 gig quantum scsi drive from my case, and in the process I managed to scratch a surface-mounted component off of the drive's exposed circuit board. Just for fun I tried to use the drive and sure enough it was non-functional. At this point, I was in a bad frame of mind, so I attempted to solder the tiny component back onto the PCB with a rather large soldering iron. Even if I had a clue how to solder things - this still would not have been a very good idea - needless to say that didn't work out too well - I only succeeded in making black burn marks on the PCB.
I finally realized the truth: the drive was dead - I killed it but it was not within my power to revive it. Or wasn't it? I cleaned up the burn marks on the PCB so they were less noticeable and sent it in for warranty repair - and received a working drive a few weeks later! Actually it had some bad blocks, but I didn't have enough balls to send it in for service again!! The bad blocks were at the end of the disk, so I used the good part of the disk as /tmp and swap.
I know that was dishonest - but getting a working drive back in the mail just felt great. I still feel good about it to this day. For those of you who want to scold me for abusing warranty -- please don't bother -- I am reformed! No really!
My friends know this story -- when they are having hardware trouble I tell them 'ok just stay calm -- I will be at your place in 20 minutes with my soldering iron' ;)
If the code is well structured, variables, classes, methods, etc. well-named and well-conceived, it will explain itself to a large degree, and won't require an English play-by-play of every friggin detail. Generally, it's a good idea to have high-level comments that say "this chunk of code does X", but lower-level comments are often a waste of time, and only serve to clutter the code. Having said that, sometimes code is unavoidably hairy, and you have to recognize cases where the code needs some lower-level explanation, and provide it. First, avoid complexity, failing that, manage it. Generally speaking, I think code comments serve the purpose of helping s/w people to develop a mental map of the code. Code should have as few comments as possible, but no fewer :-)
If you ship UPS from the U.S. into Canada, the person who receives the package will have to cough up an obscene "brokerage fee", which can be anywhere from $20 to $70 or more depending on the value of the package -- it's essentially a package ransom - if you want your package you have to bend over. A brokerage fee is unavoidable, but UPS's brokerage fee is an obvious rip-off : if you ship USPS->CanPost there's a flat $5 brokerage fee. Hit this link for more information. And definitely check out this site.
The next time I reinstall Linux I think I'll install Debian instead of RedHat. I've stuck with RH because of habit, but RH7 really convinced me to switch. kgcc, plus shipping a frickin SNAPSHOT of gcc - are they on crack? If you can't release something of good quality, don't do a release at all.
Quite true.
The Linux kernel uses many abstractions. For example, the "file" abstraction is a great one. A file descriptor is just an integer that allows the kernel to figure out which code to call to do reads/writes/etc. Polymorphism!
Generally though, if you're going to use OO concepts and you can use a real OO language, it makes sense to do so. Why fight with C when you can use C++?
Abstraction is the most important and useful thing you can do as a programmer. It takes many forms, but no matter what paradigm you're working in, programming is all about abstraction. It's the simplest thing in the world: when you find two or more sections of code in your program that look very similar, you ask yourself, "what is the common ground here?". In doing so, you are engaged in abstraction.
OO is simply a way of exploiting this abstraction to maximum benefit. Because abstractions can pay off so well, you are encouraged to find them. As a programmer, you are not paid to be a typist, you are paid to think. Thought in general is part imagination and part abstraction. If you are not capable of finding such abstractions, it is not because OO is inadequate, it's because your skill is inadequate. So should you accept your incompetence, or try to better yourself? The author says you should just accept it and choose a paradigm more befitting your lowly intellect. I disagree with that.
Is OO oversold? Sure - people do expect to gain benefits magically just by using OO languages and tools. There is no substitute for talented people. And OO is not appropriate for every project. But there are a lot of examples of great things that are nonetheless oversold. Look at the Nasdaq for example.
I found the article to be pretty weak. He shows pretty graphs without citing references, and seems to be shaking a stick at OO more than anything else. Though he makes a few rational arguments, for the most part it's fairly obvious sophistry.
Really, the developer(s) of software are best fit to decide whether harm has been committed against them by violating the terms of a license. In many cases I think people have released software under the GPL, but made an exception (implicit or explicit) for KDE. The author(s) of software are free to decide when to waive some of the terms of the license in any given case. Remember, the license serves the developer, not the other way around.
In cases where GPL'd code was used without permission, and the author(s) of that code are pissed off, yes I think an apology is appropriate.
Also I really think both RMS and the KDE folk are acting like adults here. Though I don't agree with RMS's software politics, I do think he's a living legend and anyone who uses and enjoys free software (including Linux) has a lot to thank him for. RMS-bashing is not cool.
Some of those posts are scary. I was also impressed by the high signal:noise ratio. Here's one of many interesting posts:
...!ucbvax!olson,
Aucbarpa.700
net.suicide
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:olson
Sat Jan 23 18:32:48 1982
options\?
interesting argument. the assumption made by the guy who saw the quincy episode was essentially that suicide hurts. it hurts the family of the victim (is the guy who killed imself a victim, or a murderer? hmmm...). it hurts the guy himself. now, i'm not really up on my catholicism, but it seems to me that if an afterlife is guaranteed for the repentant, then suicide doesn't hurt at all. in fact, it's kind of an improvement on the status quo, if heaven is all it's cracked up to be. now then: if suicide doesn't hurt, then you're not insane if you kill yourself. one logical step further: if suicide is a means to get to heaven, and heaven is preferable to life on earth, then you're insane if you DON'T kill yourself. strange what you can do with religious dogma when you don't know what you're talking about, isn't it?
mikey
(mikey olson,
olson@berkeley)
- String firstName;
- String middleName;
- String lastName;
Instead, how about:When you look at these names, your brain immediately clues into the fact that they are related - it is able to compress the information a little better, and the code becomes a little easier to read and therefore maintain. This is my experience at least. I try to organize my thoughts in an object-oriented way, and naming variables in this way is a natural consequence of that -- first, middle, and last names are just specializations of the name concept, and I think top-down much of the time. It makes the names seem more awkward at first (because they are less English), but I suggest you try it. I think that trying to make code look as much like English as possible is a horrible mistake anyway.
Names have a bigger impact than most people realize. Good names help us organize the information in our brains. Poorly chosen names reflect disorganized thought, and they can have long-term ill effects.
-Adam