I realised about my mistake now. The correction about which I complained in my previous message made sense. This was a quite curious situation where I didn't even test the algorithm (something extremely weird with me), this curious output was mostly provoked by the over-confidence deriving from my initial (very) evident correction + the performance problems on that algorithm in various scenarios. No excuse anyway. I had a horrible behaviour and a completely-unjustified reaction; I will apologise right now. Why am I explaining all this you might wonder? To comply with what I expect from everyone else: do whatever you want, but always take responsibility for your mistakes:).
This is the article I meant. BTW, I will be uploading in brief an optimised version of that algorithm in C to my GitHub account.
Other curious thing which I have seen this morning, in parallel with this not-understanding-too-well-what-is-wrong-with-some-people incident, is that another random person in internet has reverted a correction which I recently performed in Wikipedia for no other reason than deciding to do so?! So, I make an effort to share something (have some laughs/nice conversations or generously fixing an error I discovered at my work to avoid others make the same mistake I did) and, as a reward, some random not-sure-even-how-to-call-them individuals have aggressive, censoring, not-properly-understanding, invasive, etc. reactions! Why?!
What has to be wrong with you to react aggressively to a generous contribution on any front from someone?! Why not plainly avoiding to enjoy what you don't like/understand/need? Why do you have to bother, invade, attack people not minding you and all what you represent? How can you feel that an acceptable behaviour to reward a generous gesture is to somehow attack/feel attacked by it? How can anyone seriously think that they can step in any conversation/activity and impose what they want (and much worse: by being taking seriously and/or without bearing any consequences)?! Pfff... I have seriously accepted all this sadness, but eventually feel like sharing some thoughts about so much stupidity.
A simple "thank you, I didn't know about the use of all these measures", or "sorry my bad, you were right all along"
I am honestly not trying to insult you, but am genuinely curious: have you any kind of (serious) problem? Do you understand that we are talking about JOKISH UNITS?! That this whole thread was a joke! That nobody will ever take any of the referred units seriously? That almost nobody will ever spend so much as you have done in discussion about so extremely irrelevant issues and, additionally, not even getting anything right? Pfff... Note that I have stopped reading your new nonsense after that line I am quoting. Please, stop bothering me with sadly pointless behaviour.
With C, you wind up using C-style arrays, raw pointers, and usually C-style strings all the time. With C++, these can easily be limited to where they're actually necessary, which frequently winds up being "never".
I am currently developing a piece of software (still work in progress, but expected to be reasonably big/complex) exclusively relying on C-style arrays, pointers and C-style strings. In fact, it is a string-parsing/management-intensive development. I will continue sticking to pure C because it is the best alternative under these conditions.
You can write code that's automatically range-checked unless the compiler decides it doesn't need it, and if you want to skip the range checking in favor of speed or something you can do that.
So, you are saying that a language/compiler with all these additional options (which might be used or not, but which has to be supported) generates an equivalently fast output than another one not having any of those? This doesn't sound too right. On the other hand, I haven't done any tests on this front and cannot be sure. That scenario of using C++ as C wouldn't make too much sense anyway.
This wasn't exactly the kind of external reference which I was expecting (as far as this article might have been written by a person like you, eminently concerned about blindly defending whatever without caring too much about anything else), but at least it is somehow relevant to this discussion. I was expecting samples of actual usage in the kind of informal contexts where these units are meant to be used; for example, a non-technical article in a newspaper providing a graphical idea about a big volume by actually relying on swimming pools.
Anyway, writing this last comment has already represented a relevant effort for me, as far as I don't see the point of a conversation, which you seem to be mostly having with yourself (BTW, thanks for quoting me on things which I never said/thought), since a while ago. Bye again.
I am self-employed and do everything by my own, so no internal secrets for me. I am also quite straightforward and always ready to explain/share as much information as possible, what has been proven as a trigger for some people! Certain individuals are used to systematically compensate their lacks with generic assumptions, by mostly focusing on worst-case scenarios. They expect to see certain kind of fishy stuff going on and, when not seeing anything, they tend to freak out. I have seen quite weird stuff on this front (+ what I only guess via unmotivated reactions; bear in mind that these people are rarely too direct/honest)!
I even think that the attitude I am having lately of being extremely clear and communicative is provoking the aforementioned people to mistrust me even more?! It doesn't matter if I provide as much information as possible, am always ready to answer anything and even enable further channels to confirm any issue; some people seem to prefer living in a (made-up) world where random assumptions have to make sense. In some cases, they seem to be able to remain in a stage of permanent doubt for very long times without needing to confirm/dismiss their fears; or even worse: accepting new assumptions/fears as confirmation/dismissal of previous ones.
I don't care if my attitude has been the responsible (trusting in others' proper understanding! What I was thinking?), but I currently have zero tolerance on this front. Now, I cannot imagine how I was able to systematically tolerate and feel compelled to address so many unmotivated fears. My attitude on this front might be a bit too radical now, but I accept this fact too. All what matters is that I have no secrets (of the bad kind) and that I will not tolerate any kind of (imaginary) nonsense negatively affecting me in any way.
Where? When people say things on these lines, they usually include some kind of external reference, but you are not including any! Your remaining post doesn't seem to make too much sense either: your argument mostly consists in repeating the same mantra over and over without trying to understand/dismiss my points.
I plainly wrote some meant-to-be-funny-and-immediately-understood posts and wasn't expecting to extend any of these conversations further. In fact, I didn't enjoy either the funny or the serious parts of this small chat with you; much less this extension whose point I don't get (extending further a discussion about the exact usage of stupid units by not being even willing/able to reach a proper understanding?!). I will stop it here. Bye.
to eliminate a large number of errors C is prone to.
are incompatible statements. The strongest point of C is its speed, a direct consequence of being one of the most minimal versions of a programming language around. What means that you have to write everything by your own because there are virtually no in-built functionalities. It also means that you have to check everything and take care of every single aspect (e.g., memory). Any language improving C would affect these issues and, consequently, its main advantage.
There is trade-off speed vs. programmer friendliness and no way around it. Modern languages are very fast for most of situations. You can even use languages like C++ which might rely more/less on the C peculiarities. A different story is saying that C++ can do the same than C, because it cannot. In the best scenario, it might be somehow similar to C; but the closer it gets to C, the less C++/typical-C-problems-being-avoided would become.
As said in my previous comments, some other comments in this thread and even by applying some programming common knowledge, C is a very problematic environment. You shouldn't ever forget about this issue when using that language, hiring people to use that language, test the outputs of that language, etc. When you are perfectly aware about certain conditions to be very problematic, you can do two things: either completely ignore those conditions by assuming that can/should do such a thing; or accept that reality and take all the required measurements to adequately deal with it.
In this specific case, you cannot (better: shouldn't even think about it) fully replace C, simply because there is no replacement. What do you want? To make everything unnecessarily slower (and even less reliable)? You have to adequately understand a complex reality and to deliver the best output which, as what usually happens, isn't the simplest, one-magical-solution-for-everything-based approach. C will not go anywhere, accept it. Its actual applicability is likely to keep decreasing in parallel to the increase of complexity in the software world; but you will have still to maintain all the non-replaceable C code and continue using it in certain cases. Eventually, there might even be new developments under a-priori-non-ideal-for-C conditions (e.g., the one I have recently started and which I commented here) where C might also be used.
I didn't imply that more modern languages are intrinsically wrong or that programmers fully focusing on them are worse. Modern languages are a normal outcome of programming evolution and have allowed to easily create much more complex pieces of software. Even trying to use C nowadays in a big number of situations would imply a much higher (even unacceptably high) complexity than what any development 20-30 years ago did.
With old languages like C, programmers have to take care of a big proportion of issues which can be plainly ignored with modern languages; that's why the attitude of those programmers was somehow different to the modern ones. Equivalent things happen with any other aspect of human evolution: driving a modern car is much easier than an old one, but it doesn't mean that modern drivers are worse. All what this implies is that, for most of modern drivers/programmers, moving back to an old car/language wouldn't be easy/they wouldn't do a good job/they wouldn't even try to do such a thing; nothing to do with being intrinsically worse, but with not being as adaptable as required.
It is also true that the easier a given framework becomes (e.g., modern languages and huge availability of learning resources thanks to internet), the more likely is that less prepared people start using it. But again this also happens in other aspects of modern societies like manufacturing (e.g., increasingly number of cheap, low-quality products). So and generically speaking, I do think that any modern language is much better than C for taking care of random, nowadays, complex-enough situations and modern programmers are likely to be much more prepared to face them. On the other hand, in the specific sub-fields where the C features have no competition (i.e., being the fastest language under relatively simple conditions), you need a very specific type of programmer: either a "native" C or a very adaptable (like me:)) one.
because competent C coders are quite a bit more expensive
No doubt about that. I am quite experienced with different languages (most of them C-based) and, in most of the cases, I can start using a new language almost immediately; but this experience with C has been quite problematic. Even now when I am starting to get used to it, I keep seeing lots of peculiarities. Although I am kind of enjoying the process, I don't think that most of (modern-language) programmers are cut for this.
I swear that I realised about it right after writing the post and was even about to write another comment with a correction. But then I said to me "what on the hell! Why not letting other people have some fun?". LOL. I logically meant pretty much the opposite ("I think that this is neither possible nor logical"), but wrote it wrong.
FUN FACT: in Spanish, double negation is correct. For example, a word-by-word translation of my version to Spanish would be fine: "NO creo que sea posible NI lógico".
I have recently started a quite demanding development by fully relying on C and this experience has being quite eye-opening. One thing is knowing that C is really fast (and dangerous), but a completely different story is getting in there from a modern-language background.
C can certainly be extremely problematic in bad hands (increasingly careless attitudes in the programming world, anyone?). Also I don't see the point of using it other than under very specific conditions. But completely replacing it? I don't think that this is neither possible nor logical.
Which newsletter? The one about software bugs, the one about complaints (software), the one about complaints (internet), the one about complaints (everything else) or the one with all my attacks to random people/companies? You can get a very good deal if you subscribe to all of them. LOL. Just kidding. I don't write anything anywhere, other than sporadically in my public accounts of various sites like this one.
I see bugs, non-ideal behaviours, wrong approaches, easily-improvable bits, etc. almost every day in virtually any piece of software. The software which I develop might also include bugs. Everyone makes errors. How could I feel angry about any of this? I would be constantly angry! What kind of life would be that? I find most of bugs funny or irrelevant. Some of them might be somehow annoying, but I would plainly ignore them or even stop using that software.
A different story is gross incompetence, careless/abusive attitudes (sometimes, even intentionally!) or dishonest reactions. I wouldn't feel angry in these cases either, but might stop taking that company seriously or have a more aggressive reaction.
Actually, the referred link is just a small part of the whole story as far as this same functionality works also for other formats (i.e., raw, XML and JSON). By bearing in mind that all these records are being regularly updated (currently, every 24h) and its number increased (currently, at a rate of about 50k-60k/day), I guess that my "a virtually infinite number of pages" isn't an exaggeration.
Just in case it wasn't completely clear, I have written the PHP code of both my sites completely from scratch; what means that there isn't even a single public/written by others bit. Also note that what I meant with one of my sites including a part with an almost infinite number of pages was this, where you can modify the last part [starting index]_[length up to 250] as much as you wish within the maximum number of records (currently, 9134287).
I have been getting some naive (and/or plainly ridiculous) visits from bots during the last days. Not sure if this was provoked but this post or not (my sites get a relevant number of dumb-bot visits; honestly, no idea why), but I am including this additional information just in case. If you want to know anything else, just ask.
PS: my comment is mostly focused on vacuum and associated issues (e.g., stress due to pressure variations), but it applies to everything else. For example, you are talking about "thermal expansion and mechanical effects" or "trains pushing on the tube", expressions which mean nothing without the right context (= a system as the one being proposed with those dimensions and operative conditions).
You are blindly extrapolating from not-even-similar situations, by also forgetting about additional effects deriving from the accumulation of all these issues. Going from 5 to 10 rarely requires just doubling everything; but going from two different scenarios with 5 to one scenario including both 5s is also very likely to provoke an uncontrollable increase of complexity.
But a lot of what people complain about around here are problems that have been already solved in industry
As said, I am not interested in starting a discussion about all this (already did in the recent past and didn't like the outputs) but what you are saying isn't right. You cannot defend that something has been solved when you are currently working on the first version ever! Nobody has ever created anything not even close to what is being proposed here.
Extrapolating conclusions from other situations (even similar enough; not the case here) isn't a realistic attitude. You cannot take what works at 5 and assume that at 10 you would just need to double everything. This isn't how the world (of engineering) works. The size (and distance) matters a lot and increases the complexity/requirements/risks a lot.
Olympic swimming pool (though not a particularly European standard perhaps) is most assuredly a measure of volume
Sorry to be a bit serious on this part, but none of these wacky units of measurement refers to 3D/volume. It is always 2D/area or even 1D/length. As explained, getting a proper grasp of 3D dimensions is quite counter-intuitive and, as such, completely against all what these references are about (= providing an intuitive understanding for virtually everyone).
this post is expected to be eminently understood as a joke... I'm afraid this is no laughing matter.
I didn't include that reference for you, but in general. There are lots of extremely lost individuals with very limited understanding capabilities taking each single bit out of context (+ unnecessarily wasting my time with their nonsense). As explained in one of my other comments and after having tried various different approaches, I have preferred to go with the undoubtedly-tagging-each-non-completely-serious-reference method.
I think that we have already extended this joke for long enough. So, I will be stopping it here.
I have zero interest in participating in certain type of discussion with certain type of people (with certain type of knowledge, expectations, attitude, etc.), but I haven't been able to refrain myself from writing something about this new dishonest PR attempt (one quick joke-for-me-but-kind-of-serious-for-some-people: "We are at 77 and want to reach 255, how should we proceed?" - "Scale it up! Do I have to do all the thinking here or what?". If you don’t get it and/or think that it makes sense, please try to avoid dealing with me).
Below these lines, I am writing what I expect this whole Hyperloop thing to be now and in the near/far future. I invite any person to quote me on any part of this post at any point. Note that I haven't performed a proper analysis of this whole situation and that delivering long-term guesses under these conditions isn't precisely my style, but I do feel like making an exception here.
What you will never see: - Crazily-high speeds as advertised. Current high-speed trains can be considered as way above the maximum speed that any system on these lines will ever reach. - A vacuum-based system on the lines of the one being proposed for big enough sizes and long enough stretches. With big enough, I mean something suitable for comfortable transportation of people (i.e., train-like size); and, with long enough stretches, I mean anything over 200 km even under ideal conditions (e.g., desert) and much less in more difficult scenarios (e.g., mountains). - Commercial trips even of much more restricted versions (as described below) transporting people, animals or any other delicate/dangerous/similar stuff.
Honestly, I don't think that any version of this approach will ever become a commercial reality; but with enough money, contacts and persistence (not precisely of the good kind, understood as motivated by common sense, being the objectively best approach and cheaper/safer/more reliable than other alternatives), a much more restricted version might become a reality at some point.
That quite-unlikely-to-happen highly restricted version would be defined by the following points: - Its operating conditions would be much more limited than the ones being currently advertised: much slower speeds (as said, speed of current trains represents an unreachable upper threshold), much smaller sizes (anything bigger than 1 metre seems already too much), much shorter distances (anything over 100 km seems already too much), etc. - It would be focused on the transportation of not-living, resisting, not-dangerous substances/goods. Or, even more likely, it would be some kind of toy or commodity for either rich people or companies eminently using that system as some kind of promotion. - Minimising its (huge) construction/risk costs would be a top priority and, consequently, the orography/climate would be extremely relevant. It would most likely run though dessert/plain areas with a quite stable/moderate weather. - An approach on these lines is extremely unlikely to ever become profitable. The limited number of income-generation alternatives associated with this system would probably never be in a position to return the required investments (compensating the huge building/maintenance costs, much higher than the ones needed by other transportation systems which usually have an important governmental support).
I'm sorry but the bullring is not a recognised SI unit
In the SIUA (Spanish Invented Units Association), we don't recognise the SI either. So and as far as you don't mind, I will continue sticking to my bullrings.
iceberg volume
Everything in the real 3D world we live in is associated with a volume, including bullrings, soccer stadiums, swimming pools and the city/region-based measurements referred in other comments. Usually, when you want to get a proper impression about a big enough size, you focus on the 2D aspect (= area); and this is pretty much the point of using references like Delaware, swimming pools or bullrings: giving a graphical reference of X/Y (width/depth if you prefer) values by not minding the Z component (height).
When you are trying to picture how big is Delaware (or a swimming pool), you don't think about its height (which BTW would be very difficult/impossible to determine: at which point stops being Delaware and starts being national/international air?) and that's why all this is used as area rather than volume units. It is much easier for us to understand 2D concepts and the whole point of these goofy units is precisely to make everything as simple as possible.
Clarification for people with understanding limitations: although some parts are serious (e.g., differences between area/volume, 2D/3D), this post is expected to be eminently understood as a joke.
many people over the years mistake my posts as serious
This has happened to me quite a lot too and, after having tried different approaches, I think that I will better stick to the undoubted-tag alternative (LOL,:) or what you propose). Sometimes, I think that doing this kind of things defeats the whole purpose of the joke or that I shouldn't mind people misunderstanding my intention. On the other hand, clearly telling your intention avoid lots of unnecessary clarifications and that's why I will better stick to that (or keep it completely serious).
BTW, your signature might not be helping you to avoid people getting offended. After your explanations, I understand that it means that people gets easily offended when you are around, even though this isn't your intention. Before those explanations, I might have misunderstood it as you being actually interested in bothering others.
Slashdot Mirror
I realised about my mistake now. The correction about which I complained in my previous message made sense. This was a quite curious situation where I didn't even test the algorithm (something extremely weird with me), this curious output was mostly provoked by the over-confidence deriving from my initial (very) evident correction + the performance problems on that algorithm in various scenarios. No excuse anyway. I had a horrible behaviour and a completely-unjustified reaction; I will apologise right now. Why am I explaining all this you might wonder? To comply with what I expect from everyone else: do whatever you want, but always take responsibility for your mistakes :).
This is the article I meant. BTW, I will be uploading in brief an optimised version of that algorithm in C to my GitHub account.
Other curious thing which I have seen this morning, in parallel with this not-understanding-too-well-what-is-wrong-with-some-people incident, is that another random person in internet has reverted a correction which I recently performed in Wikipedia for no other reason than deciding to do so?! So, I make an effort to share something (have some laughs/nice conversations or generously fixing an error I discovered at my work to avoid others make the same mistake I did) and, as a reward, some random not-sure-even-how-to-call-them individuals have aggressive, censoring, not-properly-understanding, invasive, etc. reactions! Why?!
What has to be wrong with you to react aggressively to a generous contribution on any front from someone?! Why not plainly avoiding to enjoy what you don't like/understand/need? Why do you have to bother, invade, attack people not minding you and all what you represent? How can you feel that an acceptable behaviour to reward a generous gesture is to somehow attack/feel attacked by it? How can anyone seriously think that they can step in any conversation/activity and impose what they want (and much worse: by being taking seriously and/or without bearing any consequences)?! Pfff... I have seriously accepted all this sadness, but eventually feel like sharing some thoughts about so much stupidity.
A simple "thank you, I didn't know about the use of all these measures", or "sorry my bad, you were right all along"
I am honestly not trying to insult you, but am genuinely curious: have you any kind of (serious) problem? Do you understand that we are talking about JOKISH UNITS?! That this whole thread was a joke! That nobody will ever take any of the referred units seriously? That almost nobody will ever spend so much as you have done in discussion about so extremely irrelevant issues and, additionally, not even getting anything right? Pfff... Note that I have stopped reading your new nonsense after that line I am quoting. Please, stop bothering me with sadly pointless behaviour.
With C, you wind up using C-style arrays, raw pointers, and usually C-style strings all the time. With C++, these can easily be limited to where they're actually necessary, which frequently winds up being "never".
I am currently developing a piece of software (still work in progress, but expected to be reasonably big/complex) exclusively relying on C-style arrays, pointers and C-style strings. In fact, it is a string-parsing/management-intensive development. I will continue sticking to pure C because it is the best alternative under these conditions.
You can write code that's automatically range-checked unless the compiler decides it doesn't need it, and if you want to skip the range checking in favor of speed or something you can do that.
So, you are saying that a language/compiler with all these additional options (which might be used or not, but which has to be supported) generates an equivalently fast output than another one not having any of those? This doesn't sound too right. On the other hand, I haven't done any tests on this front and cannot be sure. That scenario of using C++ as C wouldn't make too much sense anyway.
This wasn't exactly the kind of external reference which I was expecting (as far as this article might have been written by a person like you, eminently concerned about blindly defending whatever without caring too much about anything else), but at least it is somehow relevant to this discussion. I was expecting samples of actual usage in the kind of informal contexts where these units are meant to be used; for example, a non-technical article in a newspaper providing a graphical idea about a big volume by actually relying on swimming pools.
Anyway, writing this last comment has already represented a relevant effort for me, as far as I don't see the point of a conversation, which you seem to be mostly having with yourself (BTW, thanks for quoting me on things which I never said/thought), since a while ago. Bye again.
I am self-employed and do everything by my own, so no internal secrets for me. I am also quite straightforward and always ready to explain/share as much information as possible, what has been proven as a trigger for some people! Certain individuals are used to systematically compensate their lacks with generic assumptions, by mostly focusing on worst-case scenarios. They expect to see certain kind of fishy stuff going on and, when not seeing anything, they tend to freak out. I have seen quite weird stuff on this front (+ what I only guess via unmotivated reactions; bear in mind that these people are rarely too direct/honest)!
I even think that the attitude I am having lately of being extremely clear and communicative is provoking the aforementioned people to mistrust me even more?! It doesn't matter if I provide as much information as possible, am always ready to answer anything and even enable further channels to confirm any issue; some people seem to prefer living in a (made-up) world where random assumptions have to make sense. In some cases, they seem to be able to remain in a stage of permanent doubt for very long times without needing to confirm/dismiss their fears; or even worse: accepting new assumptions/fears as confirmation/dismissal of previous ones.
I don't care if my attitude has been the responsible (trusting in others' proper understanding! What I was thinking?), but I currently have zero tolerance on this front. Now, I cannot imagine how I was able to systematically tolerate and feel compelled to address so many unmotivated fears. My attitude on this front might be a bit too radical now, but I accept this fact too. All what matters is that I have no secrets (of the bad kind) and that I will not tolerate any kind of (imaginary) nonsense negatively affecting me in any way.
as the use of Olympic swimming pool demonstrates!
Where? When people say things on these lines, they usually include some kind of external reference, but you are not including any! Your remaining post doesn't seem to make too much sense either: your argument mostly consists in repeating the same mantra over and over without trying to understand/dismiss my points.
I plainly wrote some meant-to-be-funny-and-immediately-understood posts and wasn't expecting to extend any of these conversations further. In fact, I didn't enjoy either the funny or the serious parts of this small chat with you; much less this extension whose point I don't get (extending further a discussion about the exact usage of stupid units by not being even willing/able to reach a proper understanding?!). I will stop it here. Bye.
C++ can do anything C does
and
to eliminate a large number of errors C is prone to.
are incompatible statements. The strongest point of C is its speed, a direct consequence of being one of the most minimal versions of a programming language around. What means that you have to write everything by your own because there are virtually no in-built functionalities. It also means that you have to check everything and take care of every single aspect (e.g., memory). Any language improving C would affect these issues and, consequently, its main advantage.
There is trade-off speed vs. programmer friendliness and no way around it. Modern languages are very fast for most of situations. You can even use languages like C++ which might rely more/less on the C peculiarities. A different story is saying that C++ can do the same than C, because it cannot. In the best scenario, it might be somehow similar to C; but the closer it gets to C, the less C++/typical-C-problems-being-avoided would become.
LOL.
As said in my previous comments, some other comments in this thread and even by applying some programming common knowledge, C is a very problematic environment. You shouldn't ever forget about this issue when using that language, hiring people to use that language, test the outputs of that language, etc. When you are perfectly aware about certain conditions to be very problematic, you can do two things: either completely ignore those conditions by assuming that can/should do such a thing; or accept that reality and take all the required measurements to adequately deal with it.
In this specific case, you cannot (better: shouldn't even think about it) fully replace C, simply because there is no replacement. What do you want? To make everything unnecessarily slower (and even less reliable)? You have to adequately understand a complex reality and to deliver the best output which, as what usually happens, isn't the simplest, one-magical-solution-for-everything-based approach. C will not go anywhere, accept it. Its actual applicability is likely to keep decreasing in parallel to the increase of complexity in the software world; but you will have still to maintain all the non-replaceable C code and continue using it in certain cases. Eventually, there might even be new developments under a-priori-non-ideal-for-C conditions (e.g., the one I have recently started and which I commented here) where C might also be used.
I didn't imply that more modern languages are intrinsically wrong or that programmers fully focusing on them are worse. Modern languages are a normal outcome of programming evolution and have allowed to easily create much more complex pieces of software. Even trying to use C nowadays in a big number of situations would imply a much higher (even unacceptably high) complexity than what any development 20-30 years ago did.
:)) one.
With old languages like C, programmers have to take care of a big proportion of issues which can be plainly ignored with modern languages; that's why the attitude of those programmers was somehow different to the modern ones. Equivalent things happen with any other aspect of human evolution: driving a modern car is much easier than an old one, but it doesn't mean that modern drivers are worse. All what this implies is that, for most of modern drivers/programmers, moving back to an old car/language wouldn't be easy/they wouldn't do a good job/they wouldn't even try to do such a thing; nothing to do with being intrinsically worse, but with not being as adaptable as required.
It is also true that the easier a given framework becomes (e.g., modern languages and huge availability of learning resources thanks to internet), the more likely is that less prepared people start using it. But again this also happens in other aspects of modern societies like manufacturing (e.g., increasingly number of cheap, low-quality products). So and generically speaking, I do think that any modern language is much better than C for taking care of random, nowadays, complex-enough situations and modern programmers are likely to be much more prepared to face them. On the other hand, in the specific sub-fields where the C features have no competition (i.e., being the fastest language under relatively simple conditions), you need a very specific type of programmer: either a "native" C or a very adaptable (like me
because competent C coders are quite a bit more expensive
No doubt about that. I am quite experienced with different languages (most of them C-based) and, in most of the cases, I can start using a new language almost immediately; but this experience with C has been quite problematic. Even now when I am starting to get used to it, I keep seeing lots of peculiarities. Although I am kind of enjoying the process, I don't think that most of (modern-language) programmers are cut for this.
I swear that I realised about it right after writing the post and was even about to write another comment with a correction. But then I said to me "what on the hell! Why not letting other people have some fun?". LOL. I logically meant pretty much the opposite ("I think that this is neither possible nor logical"), but wrote it wrong.
FUN FACT: in Spanish, double negation is correct. For example, a word-by-word translation of my version to Spanish would be fine: "NO creo que sea posible NI lógico".
I have recently started a quite demanding development by fully relying on C and this experience has being quite eye-opening. One thing is knowing that C is really fast (and dangerous), but a completely different story is getting in there from a modern-language background.
C can certainly be extremely problematic in bad hands (increasingly careless attitudes in the programming world, anyone?). Also I don't see the point of using it other than under very specific conditions. But completely replacing it? I don't think that this is neither possible nor logical.
Which newsletter? The one about software bugs, the one about complaints (software), the one about complaints (internet), the one about complaints (everything else) or the one with all my attacks to random people/companies? You can get a very good deal if you subscribe to all of them. LOL. Just kidding. I don't write anything anywhere, other than sporadically in my public accounts of various sites like this one.
I see bugs, non-ideal behaviours, wrong approaches, easily-improvable bits, etc. almost every day in virtually any piece of software. The software which I develop might also include bugs. Everyone makes errors. How could I feel angry about any of this? I would be constantly angry! What kind of life would be that? I find most of bugs funny or irrelevant. Some of them might be somehow annoying, but I would plainly ignore them or even stop using that software.
A different story is gross incompetence, careless/abusive attitudes (sometimes, even intentionally!) or dishonest reactions. I wouldn't feel angry in these cases either, but might stop taking that company seriously or have a more aggressive reaction.
Actually, the referred link is just a small part of the whole story as far as this same functionality works also for other formats (i.e., raw, XML and JSON). By bearing in mind that all these records are being regularly updated (currently, every 24h) and its number increased (currently, at a rate of about 50k-60k/day), I guess that my "a virtually infinite number of pages" isn't an exaggeration.
Just in case it wasn't completely clear, I have written the PHP code of both my sites completely from scratch; what means that there isn't even a single public/written by others bit. Also note that what I meant with one of my sites including a part with an almost infinite number of pages was this, where you can modify the last part [starting index]_[length up to 250] as much as you wish within the maximum number of records (currently, 9134287).
I have been getting some naive (and/or plainly ridiculous) visits from bots during the last days. Not sure if this was provoked but this post or not (my sites get a relevant number of dumb-bot visits; honestly, no idea why), but I am including this additional information just in case. If you want to know anything else, just ask.
PS: my comment is mostly focused on vacuum and associated issues (e.g., stress due to pressure variations), but it applies to everything else. For example, you are talking about "thermal expansion and mechanical effects" or "trains pushing on the tube", expressions which mean nothing without the right context (= a system as the one being proposed with those dimensions and operative conditions).
You are blindly extrapolating from not-even-similar situations, by also forgetting about additional effects deriving from the accumulation of all these issues. Going from 5 to 10 rarely requires just doubling everything; but going from two different scenarios with 5 to one scenario including both 5s is also very likely to provoke an uncontrollable increase of complexity.
But a lot of what people complain about around here are problems that have been already solved in industry
As said, I am not interested in starting a discussion about all this (already did in the recent past and didn't like the outputs) but what you are saying isn't right. You cannot defend that something has been solved when you are currently working on the first version ever! Nobody has ever created anything not even close to what is being proposed here.
Extrapolating conclusions from other situations (even similar enough; not the case here) isn't a realistic attitude. You cannot take what works at 5 and assume that at 10 you would just need to double everything. This isn't how the world (of engineering) works. The size (and distance) matters a lot and increases the complexity/requirements/risks a lot.
Olympic swimming pool (though not a particularly European standard perhaps) is most assuredly a measure of volume
Sorry to be a bit serious on this part, but none of these wacky units of measurement refers to 3D/volume. It is always 2D/area or even 1D/length. As explained, getting a proper grasp of 3D dimensions is quite counter-intuitive and, as such, completely against all what these references are about (= providing an intuitive understanding for virtually everyone).
this post is expected to be eminently understood as a joke ... I'm afraid this is no laughing matter.
I didn't include that reference for you, but in general. There are lots of extremely lost individuals with very limited understanding capabilities taking each single bit out of context (+ unnecessarily wasting my time with their nonsense). As explained in one of my other comments and after having tried various different approaches, I have preferred to go with the undoubtedly-tagging-each-non-completely-serious-reference method.
I think that we have already extended this joke for long enough. So, I will be stopping it here.
I have zero interest in participating in certain type of discussion with certain type of people (with certain type of knowledge, expectations, attitude, etc.), but I haven't been able to refrain myself from writing something about this new dishonest PR attempt (one quick joke-for-me-but-kind-of-serious-for-some-people: "We are at 77 and want to reach 255, how should we proceed?" - "Scale it up! Do I have to do all the thinking here or what?". If you don’t get it and/or think that it makes sense, please try to avoid dealing with me).
Below these lines, I am writing what I expect this whole Hyperloop thing to be now and in the near/far future. I invite any person to quote me on any part of this post at any point. Note that I haven't performed a proper analysis of this whole situation and that delivering long-term guesses under these conditions isn't precisely my style, but I do feel like making an exception here.
What you will never see:
- Crazily-high speeds as advertised. Current high-speed trains can be considered as way above the maximum speed that any system on these lines will ever reach.
- A vacuum-based system on the lines of the one being proposed for big enough sizes and long enough stretches. With big enough, I mean something suitable for comfortable transportation of people (i.e., train-like size); and, with long enough stretches, I mean anything over 200 km even under ideal conditions (e.g., desert) and much less in more difficult scenarios (e.g., mountains).
- Commercial trips even of much more restricted versions (as described below) transporting people, animals or any other delicate/dangerous/similar stuff.
Honestly, I don't think that any version of this approach will ever become a commercial reality; but with enough money, contacts and persistence (not precisely of the good kind, understood as motivated by common sense, being the objectively best approach and cheaper/safer/more reliable than other alternatives), a much more restricted version might become a reality at some point.
That quite-unlikely-to-happen highly restricted version would be defined by the following points:
- Its operating conditions would be much more limited than the ones being currently advertised: much slower speeds (as said, speed of current trains represents an unreachable upper threshold), much smaller sizes (anything bigger than 1 metre seems already too much), much shorter distances (anything over 100 km seems already too much), etc.
- It would be focused on the transportation of not-living, resisting, not-dangerous substances/goods. Or, even more likely, it would be some kind of toy or commodity for either rich people or companies eminently using that system as some kind of promotion.
- Minimising its (huge) construction/risk costs would be a top priority and, consequently, the orography/climate would be extremely relevant. It would most likely run though dessert/plain areas with a quite stable/moderate weather.
- An approach on these lines is extremely unlikely to ever become profitable. The limited number of income-generation alternatives associated with this system would probably never be in a position to return the required investments (compensating the huge building/maintenance costs, much higher than the ones needed by other transportation systems which usually have an important governmental support).
Even though I am atheist, I do recognise that there is nothing better than Vaticans to measure big areas. LOL.
I'm sorry but the bullring is not a recognised SI unit
In the SIUA (Spanish Invented Units Association), we don't recognise the SI either. So and as far as you don't mind, I will continue sticking to my bullrings.
iceberg volume
Everything in the real 3D world we live in is associated with a volume, including bullrings, soccer stadiums, swimming pools and the city/region-based measurements referred in other comments. Usually, when you want to get a proper impression about a big enough size, you focus on the 2D aspect (= area); and this is pretty much the point of using references like Delaware, swimming pools or bullrings: giving a graphical reference of X/Y (width/depth if you prefer) values by not minding the Z component (height).
When you are trying to picture how big is Delaware (or a swimming pool), you don't think about its height (which BTW would be very difficult/impossible to determine: at which point stops being Delaware and starts being national/international air?) and that's why all this is used as area rather than volume units. It is much easier for us to understand 2D concepts and the whole point of these goofy units is precisely to make everything as simple as possible.
Clarification for people with understanding limitations: although some parts are serious (e.g., differences between area/volume, 2D/3D), this post is expected to be eminently understood as a joke.
many people over the years mistake my posts as serious
This has happened to me quite a lot too and, after having tried different approaches, I think that I will better stick to the undoubted-tag alternative (LOL, :) or what you propose). Sometimes, I think that doing this kind of things defeats the whole purpose of the joke or that I shouldn't mind people misunderstanding my intention. On the other hand, clearly telling your intention avoid lots of unnecessary clarifications and that's why I will better stick to that (or keep it completely serious).
BTW, your signature might not be helping you to avoid people getting offended. After your explanations, I understand that it means that people gets easily offended when you are around, even though this isn't your intention. Before those explanations, I might have misunderstood it as you being actually interested in bothering others.