Can you show that people have been "almost always" wrong on every issue?
Yeah, you can. It's not difficult. (see below) Of course, it doesn't matter as this is clearly a trap.
You can point to individual anecodatal points
This is why it's a trap. If the parent can't give a complete run-down from 500 BCE onward, you'll shout some nonsense about anecdotes. Let's see if I'm right.,,
On gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, on quantum mechanics, on the atom theory of nature, on evolution,
Quantum mechanics is a bit new -- including it in your absurd list is dishonest as it hasn't had time to fail spectacularly like history suggests it will. Gravity: obvious examples are obvious. If you're particularly thick, just google "history of gravity". Atomic theory: dramatically changed several times pre and post Einstein. The atom today is so dramatically different from the atom in, say, 1850 that I'd say the science of the time was "spectacularly wrong". Thermodynamics: phlogiston, caloric theory, need I go on?
Shoot, I took the bait! Did I spring the trap?
, but "almost always" and "spectacularly wrong" on every issue is a very strong statement.
It's a strong statement, and you can object to "spectacularly" if you want to split hairs. Of course, that doesn't make the statement any less true. It's also an important part of what makes science work. See, you're operating under this superstitious delusion that science progresses toward "truth" through a process of refinement. It should be obvious to anyone with even a passive understanding of science, or even the history of science, that this simply isn't true, has never been true, and would be a complete disaster if science operated on that assumption!
Also, "faith" has no place in science.
That depends on what you mean by "faith". Particle physics seemed to get on just fine with faith that the Higgs boson would be "found". While I understand there are some (less than ideal?) Higgs-free models on the ready, it seems that the consensus is that the Higgs will be found and that it would mean a big change for the field if they can't find it.
I provisionally accept lots of things, based on the scientific consensus of my colleagues
Why don't I believe for an instant that you're any sort of scientist? Hell, my background is in the social sciences and even I have a better grasp of this than you do! This is pretty thin mix of basic science and popular science here. How can you possibly fail this so spectacularly?!
Contrary evidence trumps consensus, , but in the case of climate change, it isn't there.
You've looked at it all and found that every bit of available data points decisively to AGW? Yeah, you're definitely not a scientist of any sort.
Skeptic: "This story is related to global warming. Therefore, any claims made in the article cannot be questioned because AGW is true."
Normal person: "AGW is one thing, the claims made here are only superficially related. It seems to me that... "
Skeptic: "Stupid AGW deniers, pretending to be 'skeptics'! Why, you won't accept any evidence, no matter how compelling!"
Normal person: "We're not talking about AGW, we're talking about coral and..."
Skeptic: "Shout this guy down! He's a quack out to spread his crazy right-wing anti-AGW propaganda! It's a conspiracy I tell you! The coral is doomed! The oceans will die! We'll all starve to death if we listen to this whack-job!"
The Skeptical movement and the Creationist movement have a lot in common. The bulk of the membership aren't terribly bright, depend completely on a small group of authorities for talking points, and don't understand their own beliefs (even superficially). Members of both groups LOVE to repeat the same nonsense over and over -- even after some misguided soul points out how irrational their absurd claims and beliefs are. It still astonishes me how few so-called skeptics seem to have even a basic understanding of science.
I was a horrible programmer in college compared to where I am now.
Save a recent example of what you consider exemplary work on your part and take a look at it a few years from now. You'll think that you were a raging moron when you wrote it. I figure that a good chunk of bad code comes from good programmers from the past. That doesn't mean they were bad programmers then, just like you're probably not a bad programmer now -- but you'll think that you were in a few years!
Part of that is because we tend to continuously improve over time, as we gain wisdom and experience. Part of that comes from buying in to the latest fads, "best practices", etc. only to discover how horribly misguided we were later on. The crazy part is that we often don't recognize that we've bought in to the latest myth! (Remember when Java sucked because it lacked multiple inheritance and everyone, a majority on Slashdot at least, thought that multiple inheritance was not only a good thing, but essential?)
RIM has been keeping the N-Series phone under tight wraps. This is what we think we know: 720×720 display measuring 52-53mm wide somehow at 330 PPI -- weird, as you'd figure to keep the display square, each side would need to be ~2.18" with a ~3.08" diagonal or ~55mm width.
Someone figured that if the display isn't square what some possible aspect ratios could be (I haven't checked them, insomnia and laziness go hand-in-hand): Resolution | PPI | Diag | Ratio | H... | W... 720×720... | 330 | 3.1" | 16:10 | 1.6" | 2.6" 720×720... | 330 | 3.1" | 16:09 | 1.5" | 2.7" 720×720... | 330 | 3.1" | 04:03 | 1.9" | 2.5"
That would be some crazy stretching though. I don't know that we'll see a cool portrait oriented keyboard phone this generation. Pure speculation: I agree that it would be nice, I just don't think it's going to happen. If we get anything in the future, I'd put my money on a 1280x720 landscape display on a keyboard model -- just like the display on the L-Series (all-touch models).
No kidding. It took an hour a day for a solid month before I could juggle three balls at all. A bit longer than that to be able to manage it longer than a minute with any kind of consistency.
Seeing a skilled juggler now is boggling. Kudos to the skillful Slashdot jugglers!
Making a ridiculous comparison makes the headline more sensational. Saying something accurate like "3Q Fiscal 2013: Revenue ~2.7 Billion down 5% from the previous quarter and ~47% from last year (3Q Fiscal 2012 Revenue: ~5.2 billion, up 24% from the previous quarter)" isn't quite as dramatic.
RIM posted their second quarterly loss (114 million), which is lower than the previous loss (235 million) from last quarter -- yet, again, their cash balance increased -- this time by 600 million (to ~2.9 Billion)
Expect a third loss in Q4 (Dec, Jan, Feb) with BB10 is set to launch January 30th (which is expected to hurt BBOS 7 sales leading up to the launch) and a major marketing campaign leading up to and following the launch.
Scrambling would mean they'd have released BB10 phones early this year instead of early next year (as was suspected). However, while it clearly hurt them in the short term, they took their time with the move from the old BBOS to the new shiny QNX / BB10 OS. This is a good thing.
I honestly don't think that they were "resting on their laurals" -- they've always produced new and interesting form-factors, some successful (Pearl) and some not (Style) even when they were the clear market leader. They didn't just keep pushing out the same iconic phone with incremental updates year over year. It was their bread and butter, no doubt, but even that didn't stay static. Compare, for example, the 7290, 8800, and 9900 to see how much risk they took with that iconic form-factor over the years.
They weren't ready for the shift in the market post-iPhone and they made some stupid mistakes. Rather than continue to stumble around, they took some time made some great acquisitions (Torch Mobile, QNX, The Astonishing Tribe, etc.) and built a great new platform, focused on the future. From what we've seen so far, the results are fantastic; well worth the wait, even if the long transition period was painful. (They haven't released a new flagship model in more than a year now -- I'm astonished that they've only shown two quarterly losses (the most recent less than the previous) and that they've continued to increase their cash reserves. This is also the first quarter that they didn't gain users. Things could have been a lot worse for them had they not focused so heavily on emerging markets over the past two years.)
It'll be interesting to see what happens to Apple if they continue the annual incremental upgrade route that is oft cited as the cause of RIM's difficulties over the past few years. Will they be forced to make a similar transition to stay relevant?
That doesn't make any sense in the context of the discussion. The parent wrote:
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet? What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
To which I replied adequately.
Where did you get that other nonsense? It has absolutely nothing to do with the parent or my reply.
Moving on:
Well that was the point made in a part of the video
The video is both unwatchable and disturbingly inaccurate -- in the very rare case where he actually says something concrete (that occasionally happens between long bouts of fake, pointless, rage and making crude fart jokes), he's usually wrong. (e.g. weather jumping out to get him. See other posts for why this is complete nonsense.)
I don't have a machine running Windows 8 handy right now so I can't test it out. A google search shows exactly one complaint about this "inability to search for control panel apps" but only mentions being unable to search for "Event Viewer". Perhaps someone could check to see if other more common control panel applets don't appear in a search on Windows 8 (like sound, display, etc.)? I suspect that (given the solution below) that the "missing" options may be limited to "advanced" control panel applets and not the more common.
Anyhow, the solution? There are at least two: (1) Win+W to bring up search with "settings" pre-selected. or (2) From the charms bar, select "Settings" and enable "Access Administrative Tools"
I know that it's cool to hate every single aspect of Windows 8 and deny that it could possibly have any positive qualities. Do you know what's even cooler? Focusing on actual problems instead! How about the evil walled-garden around metro apps? That one is pretty nasty.
With such poor standards as white space and curly braces, write a pretty routine to clean it up.
Even better, you should need to do less than that. Don't most IDE's and even code editors include a pretty printer these days? Did everyone forget about them?
I get having rules about naming using camelCase, underscored_names, and OtherStyles -- They can even be mixed as a handy way to provide more information -- like Hungarian notation but easy to read.
Whitespace and rules about braces don't make any sense . That's a solved problem. Pick a style for source control to reformat to on check-in and configure your editor to reformat it the way you like when you're working. At worst, you'll have a week or two of hell forcing this on an existing project but for new projects it's no problem at all.
I tried to watch that abomination of a video. I got about half-way through before I couldn't stand the lack of actual information, thoye toilet humor, and the author's horrid voice.
I can't speak to your first point, though I don't have enough information.
On the second point, this is addressed elsewhere in the comments. In short: That "problem" is not the fault of the OS.
On the thrid point, that's false on its face. You need not know any specific keywords to find any configuration features, as noted elsewhere in the comments.
Even if all three were true (and I'm certain at least two of those points are false) that hardly validated the claim that the OS: "goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete"
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet?
Try typing "control panel"?
Too obvious?
What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
Then just browse through. You can do that, you know. Swipe up or right-click on the start screen and select "All Apps" -- you'll find control panel under "Windows System"
You can even go classic in control panel by switching from Category view to " Small icons" or the "Large icons" view.
Windows 8 isn't all that different from 7 -- just a stupid start menu with it's own special apps. You'll get used to or get over it pretty quickly. Of course, you could always skip this release and hope that Metro goes away. (I figure if MS doesn't change their Apple-like restrictions on Metro apps, it'll die in a version or two.)
and goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete whilst using this abomination of an OS
Okay, I'll bite. It what way does it "hinder any task". Does it jump out and steal your keyboard or something? Does clippy interrupt your session to make crude jokes about your mom? Does the 5-minute learning curve make you feel so bad about yourself than you have difficulty focusing?
They actually have EXACTLY the same expressive power
What the hell does "expressive power" mean when applied to a programming language? Last time I checked, semantics were extrinsic, not intrinsic, and completely irrelevant to the computer! Computers lack intentionality.
In a human language, translation needs to preserve semantics. This is a MUCH harder problem; as we all know, you can't get semantics from pure syntax.
there's no reason to believe dialects of human languages can't be also.
Except for the blindingly obvious reason above. I blame Kurzweil and his band of singularity nuts for all the recent confusion on issues like this.
According to the TIOBE graph, Ruby is almost exactly where it was in mid-2007. Using YOUR own source
You brought in the TIOBE graph, not me. Also, the TIOBE graph shows Ruby to be in a steady decline. I don't know why graphs confuse you so much.
Yes, LISP and SmallTalk are effectively dead. Java is in decline and, yes, it's dying. That happens to programming languages all the time. This isn't rocket science.
I'm not making claims like that of my own, but very clearly, ALL the data do not show what you claim.
I claimed that ruby was in decline. The data from RedMonk does not show a trend as it's a single snapshot. If you look at previous iterations of that chart, there does indeed appear to be a decline, though there isn't really enough data there to show the clear downward trend you see on other sources.
The only reason I have been contradicting you is because you have been making ridiculous arguments and then claim to have actually demonstrated your point, when actually you have done nothing of the sort
Well, my only claim was that Ruby is in decline. The data show this. You just hate the facts.
That is the weirdest argument yet. As an analogy, that is rather like saying you are using Shelby Cobras as a proxy for all Fords, because searching just for Fords pulls in too many results.
That's because you're clearly incompetent, as evidenced by your ridiculous analogy. It's not my fault that you're are incapable of understanding why a search for Ruby on that site won't tell you anything relevant to the discussion yet a search for "ruby on rails" will. It's painfully obvious. I honestly don't see why this is so damn difficult for you.
Perhaps your point about Rails is significant, perhaps not, but showing that Rails had declined means nothing unless you can SHOW that there is a cause-effect link between that and the popularity of Ruby.
More incompetence. First, you don't prove causality. Hell, in this case, it's obviously impossible! It's so obvious that it would make an excellent classroom example. Go learn how basic science works.
My reasoning is obvious. Ruby's rise in popularity correlates with the rise of RoR. This isn't in dispute. The clear and obvious decline in popularity of Ruby correlates with the decline in popularity of RoR. You can see this reflected in the TIOBE index and the Google Trends search.
You have not done so; you have merely made a bald, unsupported assertion.
What? The claim was that ruby was declining in popularity. That's pretty clearly true. The data you provided makes a very compelling case! Do you mean my opinion as to why it's declining? I offered my reasoning for that already. I believe more than once. It's just my opinion, but it does have real data behind it -- I'd hardly call that unsupported -- it's more like "informed" as in "my informed opinion".
You didn't even contradict my original point.
This was your original point: "According to the TIOBE Index, Ruby moved up on the list again this month." Which was intended to suggest that Ruby was not, in fact, dying. With Ruby clearly in decline, I failed to see the relevance as the rank is absolutely meaningless in this context. You seem to understand how it's position on the list can change regardless of its popularity when you write "But that's largely because Objective-C came out of nowhere".
Your "argument" against my claim was perfectly meaningless. You know this as well as I do. Yes, Ruby did change position on the TIOBE rank. What's the point? It's not dying any less just because JavaScript suffered one if its typical massive spikes, in a downward direction this time, knocking itself below Ruby a few months back. The downward trend is clear as crystal.
You're out of you mind. At least as far as Ruby is concerned, all the sources we've looked at are in pretty close agreement. Considering that the methodology is so different between some of them, it's pretty impressive.
The claim I made was that Ruby was dying. The TIOBE data YOU provided showed exactly that -- a steady decline over a period of several years. It's true that it may be flattening out, we'll need to wait and see if the downward trend continues over the next year or two, if it remains steady, or if something miraculous happens to reverse the trend.
You want to talk about the languages popularity relative to other languages (why?) I guess we can, though I honestly don't see the point. It's completely irrelevant to my claim that ruby is dying.
C and Perl and the TIOBE data. Well, they're both ahead of Ruby in terms of overall popularity, with C way ahead of both. Horray? What's the point?
I think you are showing significant "confirmation bias".
It's not my fault the data confirm my earlier assertion. I'm sorry that reality doesn't fit your delusion.
But I repeat: at least two sources said Ruby was UP in popularity last month.
Up against what? The previous month? Nope, it's down... Oh, up from December last year? Yep, it's up a tiny bit from the same month last year. (See what I did there?)
Why is that meaningless? Take a look at the chart from 2007 to early 2008. Notice those gigantic downward spikes and the crazy upward spike between them? Now, you could take this to mean that over a 10-month period people en-mass hated, loved, hated, and then loved ruby like they're townspeople in The Simpsons when faced with two competing salespersons, or you could go "huh, I guess that that data isn't terribly meaningful if we look at just a tiny bit."
Pick any language you want, you'll see massive peaks and valleys. Well, relatively speaking -- it looks pretty big on the chart, but in Ruby's case, it's just a tiny tiny change. That it's "up" less than 1/4 of 1 point over the same month last year, in data where a several point swing down and back up (or vise versa) happens rapidly and regularly, I think we can safely assume that there was no significant change there. If yo believe that the data is so accurate that it can detect perfectly such a minute shift in popularity, I can't help you any more than I can help the citizens of Springfield who apparently make up the bulk of those posting about programming languages.
Redmonk (via TechCrunch) shows Ruby to be well ahead of Perl and almost even with C. Are YOU ignoring THAT data?
"Well ahead" is just delusional. It's not. If ruby is "well ahead" of Perl then it's "well behind" C by the same absurd reasoning. I'm guessing that you haven't even looked at the raw data, so I'm probably just wasting my time here, but they're actually pretty close to each other, within a couple points. You also probably don't know that the chart isn't designed to rank languages by popularity. Not that it matters to you. You don't care what the data says -- because the data doesn't show you what you want to see. It shows that ruby has been declining in popularity for years.
I'm too tired to bother with this any more. The data is in. Ruby is declining. Get over it.
Slashdot Mirror
Its also true that hardware resources will only become cheaper, so that advantage becomes less and less meaningful.
I keep hearing this, yet it seems that hardware isn't keeping up its end of the bargain...
(To clarify: Software seems to be getting less efficient at faster pace than hardware is getting faster and cheaper.)
Be careful. There are still primitive parts of the internet where that kind of talk is considered blasphemy.
Apparently you can't read. I shouldn't be too surprised, Geman pigs aren't known for being terrible bright.
It's a conspiracy!
Can you show that people have been "almost always" wrong on every issue?
Yeah, you can. It's not difficult. (see below) Of course, it doesn't matter as this is clearly a trap.
You can point to individual anecodatal points
This is why it's a trap. If the parent can't give a complete run-down from 500 BCE onward, you'll shout some nonsense about anecdotes. Let's see if I'm right.,,
On gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, on quantum mechanics, on the atom theory of nature, on evolution,
Quantum mechanics is a bit new -- including it in your absurd list is dishonest as it hasn't had time to fail spectacularly like history suggests it will. Gravity: obvious examples are obvious. If you're particularly thick, just google "history of gravity". Atomic theory: dramatically changed several times pre and post Einstein. The atom today is so dramatically different from the atom in, say, 1850 that I'd say the science of the time was "spectacularly wrong". Thermodynamics: phlogiston, caloric theory, need I go on?
Shoot, I took the bait! Did I spring the trap?
, but "almost always" and "spectacularly wrong" on every issue is a very strong statement.
It's a strong statement, and you can object to "spectacularly" if you want to split hairs. Of course, that doesn't make the statement any less true. It's also an important part of what makes science work. See, you're operating under this superstitious delusion that science progresses toward "truth" through a process of refinement. It should be obvious to anyone with even a passive understanding of science, or even the history of science, that this simply isn't true, has never been true, and would be a complete disaster if science operated on that assumption!
Also, "faith" has no place in science.
That depends on what you mean by "faith". Particle physics seemed to get on just fine with faith that the Higgs boson would be "found". While I understand there are some (less than ideal?) Higgs-free models on the ready, it seems that the consensus is that the Higgs will be found and that it would mean a big change for the field if they can't find it.
I provisionally accept lots of things, based on the scientific consensus of my colleagues
Why don't I believe for an instant that you're any sort of scientist? Hell, my background is in the social sciences and even I have a better grasp of this than you do! This is pretty thin mix of basic science and popular science here. How can you possibly fail this so spectacularly?!
Contrary evidence trumps consensus, , but in the case of climate change, it isn't there.
You've looked at it all and found that every bit of available data points decisively to AGW? Yeah, you're definitely not a scientist of any sort.
Ugh.
Skeptic: "This story is related to global warming. Therefore, any claims made in the article cannot be questioned because AGW is true."
Normal person: "AGW is one thing, the claims made here are only superficially related. It seems to me that ... "
Skeptic: "Stupid AGW deniers, pretending to be 'skeptics'! Why, you won't accept any evidence, no matter how compelling!"
Normal person: "We're not talking about AGW, we're talking about coral and ..."
Skeptic: "Shout this guy down! He's a quack out to spread his crazy right-wing anti-AGW propaganda! It's a conspiracy I tell you! The coral is doomed! The oceans will die! We'll all starve to death if we listen to this whack-job!"
The Skeptical movement and the Creationist movement have a lot in common. The bulk of the membership aren't terribly bright, depend completely on a small group of authorities for talking points, and don't understand their own beliefs (even superficially). Members of both groups LOVE to repeat the same nonsense over and over -- even after some misguided soul points out how irrational their absurd claims and beliefs are. It still astonishes me how few so-called skeptics seem to have even a basic understanding of science.
No worries, you're not alone.
Though I've got to say, having read your post, that your .sig has me absolutely baffled!
I rather think an hour and then crank out 200 lines of code per hour
Only a retarded dog would measure developer productivity in lines of code per hour.
Your world must be full with incompetent programmers.
Considering that you replied to him, I'd say that there is at least one incompetent programmer in his world.
I was a horrible programmer in college compared to where I am now.
Save a recent example of what you consider exemplary work on your part and take a look at it a few years from now. You'll think that you were a raging moron when you wrote it. I figure that a good chunk of bad code comes from good programmers from the past. That doesn't mean they were bad programmers then, just like you're probably not a bad programmer now -- but you'll think that you were in a few years!
Part of that is because we tend to continuously improve over time, as we gain wisdom and experience. Part of that comes from buying in to the latest fads, "best practices", etc. only to discover how horribly misguided we were later on. The crazy part is that we often don't recognize that we've bought in to the latest myth! (Remember when Java sucked because it lacked multiple inheritance and everyone, a majority on Slashdot at least, thought that multiple inheritance was not only a good thing, but essential?)
Good as in what?
Good as in "pedagogically sound"? As that is the sole purpose of the code in question, if it meets that criteria, then it's good code.
Colleges and universities aren't trade schools, you know.
RIM has been keeping the N-Series phone under tight wraps. This is what we think we know: 720×720 display measuring 52-53mm wide somehow at 330 PPI -- weird, as you'd figure to keep the display square, each side would need to be ~2.18" with a ~3.08" diagonal or ~55mm width.
Someone figured that if the display isn't square what some possible aspect ratios could be (I haven't checked them, insomnia and laziness go hand-in-hand):
Resolution | PPI | Diag | Ratio | H... | W...
720×720... | 330 | 3.1" | 16:10 | 1.6" | 2.6"
720×720... | 330 | 3.1" | 16:09 | 1.5" | 2.7"
720×720... | 330 | 3.1" | 04:03 | 1.9" | 2.5"
That would be some crazy stretching though. I don't know that we'll see a cool portrait oriented keyboard phone this generation. Pure speculation: I agree that it would be nice, I just don't think it's going to happen. If we get anything in the future, I'd put my money on a 1280x720 landscape display on a keyboard model -- just like the display on the L-Series (all-touch models).
No kidding. It took an hour a day for a solid month before I could juggle three balls at all. A bit longer than that to be able to manage it longer than a minute with any kind of consistency.
Seeing a skilled juggler now is boggling. Kudos to the skillful Slashdot jugglers!
Making a ridiculous comparison makes the headline more sensational. Saying something accurate like "3Q Fiscal 2013: Revenue ~2.7 Billion down 5% from the previous quarter and ~47% from last year (3Q Fiscal 2012 Revenue: ~5.2 billion, up 24% from the previous quarter)" isn't quite as dramatic.
RIM posted their second quarterly loss (114 million), which is lower than the previous loss (235 million) from last quarter -- yet, again, their cash balance increased -- this time by 600 million (to ~2.9 Billion)
Expect a third loss in Q4 (Dec, Jan, Feb) with BB10 is set to launch January 30th (which is expected to hurt BBOS 7 sales leading up to the launch) and a major marketing campaign leading up to and following the launch.
Reality isn't really all that exciting, is it?
Scrambling would mean they'd have released BB10 phones early this year instead of early next year (as was suspected). However, while it clearly hurt them in the short term, they took their time with the move from the old BBOS to the new shiny QNX / BB10 OS. This is a good thing.
I honestly don't think that they were "resting on their laurals" -- they've always produced new and interesting form-factors, some successful (Pearl) and some not (Style) even when they were the clear market leader. They didn't just keep pushing out the same iconic phone with incremental updates year over year. It was their bread and butter, no doubt, but even that didn't stay static. Compare, for example, the 7290, 8800, and 9900 to see how much risk they took with that iconic form-factor over the years.
They weren't ready for the shift in the market post-iPhone and they made some stupid mistakes. Rather than continue to stumble around, they took some time made some great acquisitions (Torch Mobile, QNX, The Astonishing Tribe, etc.) and built a great new platform, focused on the future. From what we've seen so far, the results are fantastic; well worth the wait, even if the long transition period was painful. (They haven't released a new flagship model in more than a year now -- I'm astonished that they've only shown two quarterly losses (the most recent less than the previous) and that they've continued to increase their cash reserves. This is also the first quarter that they didn't gain users. Things could have been a lot worse for them had they not focused so heavily on emerging markets over the past two years.)
It'll be interesting to see what happens to Apple if they continue the annual incremental upgrade route that is oft cited as the cause of RIM's difficulties over the past few years. Will they be forced to make a similar transition to stay relevant?
That doesn't make any sense in the context of the discussion. The parent wrote:
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet? What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
To which I replied adequately.
Where did you get that other nonsense? It has absolutely nothing to do with the parent or my reply.
Moving on:
Well that was the point made in a part of the video
The video is both unwatchable and disturbingly inaccurate -- in the very rare case where he actually says something concrete (that occasionally happens between long bouts of fake, pointless, rage and making crude fart jokes), he's usually wrong. (e.g. weather jumping out to get him. See other posts for why this is complete nonsense.)
I don't have a machine running Windows 8 handy right now so I can't test it out. A google search shows exactly one complaint about this "inability to search for control panel apps" but only mentions being unable to search for "Event Viewer". Perhaps someone could check to see if other more common control panel applets don't appear in a search on Windows 8 (like sound, display, etc.)? I suspect that (given the solution below) that the "missing" options may be limited to "advanced" control panel applets and not the more common.
Anyhow, the solution? There are at least two: (1) Win+W to bring up search with "settings" pre-selected. or (2) From the charms bar, select "Settings" and enable "Access Administrative Tools"
I know that it's cool to hate every single aspect of Windows 8 and deny that it could possibly have any positive qualities. Do you know what's even cooler? Focusing on actual problems instead! How about the evil walled-garden around metro apps? That one is pretty nasty.
With such poor standards as white space and curly braces, write a pretty routine to clean it up.
Even better, you should need to do less than that. Don't most IDE's and even code editors include a pretty printer these days? Did everyone forget about them?
I get having rules about naming using camelCase, underscored_names, and OtherStyles -- They can even be mixed as a handy way to provide more information -- like Hungarian notation but easy to read.
Whitespace and rules about braces don't make any sense . That's a solved problem. Pick a style for source control to reformat to on check-in and configure your editor to reformat it the way you like when you're working. At worst, you'll have a week or two of hell forcing this on an existing project but for new projects it's no problem at all.
Where do braces go?
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhereDoTheBracesGo
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/peterwie/archive/2008/02/04/pedantic-coder-where-do-braces-go.aspx
Flame on!
I tried to watch that abomination of a video. I got about half-way through before I couldn't stand the lack of actual information, thoye toilet humor, and the author's horrid voice.
I can't speak to your first point, though I don't have enough information.
On the second point, this is addressed elsewhere in the comments. In short: That "problem" is not the fault of the OS.
On the thrid point, that's false on its face. You need not know any specific keywords to find any configuration features, as noted elsewhere in the comments.
Even if all three were true (and I'm certain at least two of those points are false) that hardly validated the claim that the OS: "goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete"
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet?
Try typing "control panel"?
Too obvious?
What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
Then just browse through. You can do that, you know. Swipe up or right-click on the start screen and select "All Apps" -- you'll find control panel under "Windows System"
You can even go classic in control panel by switching from Category view to " Small icons" or the "Large icons" view.
Windows 8 isn't all that different from 7 -- just a stupid start menu with it's own special apps. You'll get used to or get over it pretty quickly. Of course, you could always skip this release and hope that Metro goes away. (I figure if MS doesn't change their Apple-like restrictions on Metro apps, it'll die in a version or two.)
and goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete whilst using this abomination of an OS
Okay, I'll bite. It what way does it "hinder any task". Does it jump out and steal your keyboard or something? Does clippy interrupt your session to make crude jokes about your mom? Does the 5-minute learning curve make you feel so bad about yourself than you have difficulty focusing?
They actually have EXACTLY the same expressive power
What the hell does "expressive power" mean when applied to a programming language? Last time I checked, semantics were extrinsic, not intrinsic, and completely irrelevant to the computer! Computers lack intentionality.
In a human language, translation needs to preserve semantics. This is a MUCH harder problem; as we all know, you can't get semantics from pure syntax.
there's no reason to believe dialects of human languages can't be also.
Except for the blindingly obvious reason above. I blame Kurzweil and his band of singularity nuts for all the recent confusion on issues like this.
Users of the best keyboard ever produced can simply press Crtl+Esc.
According to the TIOBE graph, Ruby is almost exactly where it was in mid-2007. Using YOUR own source
You brought in the TIOBE graph, not me. Also, the TIOBE graph shows Ruby to be in a steady decline. I don't know why graphs confuse you so much.
Yes, LISP and SmallTalk are effectively dead. Java is in decline and, yes, it's dying. That happens to programming languages all the time. This isn't rocket science.
You claimed that it was dying and that nobody cared about it.
A language in decline is dying. The data shows Ruby to be in a long decline, spanning several years. You're insane.
I'm not making claims like that of my own, but very clearly, ALL the data do not show what you claim.
I claimed that ruby was in decline. The data from RedMonk does not show a trend as it's a single snapshot. If you look at previous iterations of that chart, there does indeed appear to be a decline, though there isn't really enough data there to show the clear downward trend you see on other sources.
The only reason I have been contradicting you is because you have been making ridiculous arguments and then claim to have actually demonstrated your point, when actually you have done nothing of the sort
Well, my only claim was that Ruby is in decline. The data show this. You just hate the facts.
That is the weirdest argument yet. As an analogy, that is rather like saying you are using Shelby Cobras as a proxy for all Fords, because searching just for Fords pulls in too many results.
That's because you're clearly incompetent, as evidenced by your ridiculous analogy. It's not my fault that you're are incapable of understanding why a search for Ruby on that site won't tell you anything relevant to the discussion yet a search for "ruby on rails" will. It's painfully obvious. I honestly don't see why this is so damn difficult for you.
Perhaps your point about Rails is significant, perhaps not, but showing that Rails had declined means nothing unless you can SHOW that there is a cause-effect link between that and the popularity of Ruby.
More incompetence. First, you don't prove causality. Hell, in this case, it's obviously impossible! It's so obvious that it would make an excellent classroom example. Go learn how basic science works.
My reasoning is obvious. Ruby's rise in popularity correlates with the rise of RoR. This isn't in dispute. The clear and obvious decline in popularity of Ruby correlates with the decline in popularity of RoR. You can see this reflected in the TIOBE index and the Google Trends search.
You have not done so; you have merely made a bald, unsupported assertion.
What? The claim was that ruby was declining in popularity. That's pretty clearly true. The data you provided makes a very compelling case! Do you mean my opinion as to why it's declining? I offered my reasoning for that already. I believe more than once. It's just my opinion, but it does have real data behind it -- I'd hardly call that unsupported -- it's more like "informed" as in "my informed opinion".
You didn't even contradict my original point.
This was your original point: "According to the TIOBE Index, Ruby moved up on the list again this month." Which was intended to suggest that Ruby was not, in fact, dying. With Ruby clearly in decline, I failed to see the relevance as the rank is absolutely meaningless in this context. You seem to understand how it's position on the list can change regardless of its popularity when you write "But that's largely because Objective-C came out of nowhere".
Your "argument" against my claim was perfectly meaningless. You know this as well as I do. Yes, Ruby did change position on the TIOBE rank. What's the point? It's not dying any less just because JavaScript suffered one if its typical massive spikes, in a downward direction this time, knocking itself below Ruby a few months back. The downward trend is clear as crystal.
What a massive waste of this this has been.
It depends on whose data you are looking at.
You're out of you mind. At least as far as Ruby is concerned, all the sources we've looked at are in pretty close agreement. Considering that the methodology is so different between some of them, it's pretty impressive.
The claim I made was that Ruby was dying. The TIOBE data YOU provided showed exactly that -- a steady decline over a period of several years. It's true that it may be flattening out, we'll need to wait and see if the downward trend continues over the next year or two, if it remains steady, or if something miraculous happens to reverse the trend.
You want to talk about the languages popularity relative to other languages (why?) I guess we can, though I honestly don't see the point. It's completely irrelevant to my claim that ruby is dying.
C and Perl and the TIOBE data. Well, they're both ahead of Ruby in terms of overall popularity, with C way ahead of both. Horray? What's the point?
I think you are showing significant "confirmation bias".
It's not my fault the data confirm my earlier assertion. I'm sorry that reality doesn't fit your delusion.
But I repeat: at least two sources said Ruby was UP in popularity last month.
Up against what? The previous month? Nope, it's down... Oh, up from December last year? Yep, it's up a tiny bit from the same month last year. (See what I did there?)
Why is that meaningless? Take a look at the chart from 2007 to early 2008. Notice those gigantic downward spikes and the crazy upward spike between them? Now, you could take this to mean that over a 10-month period people en-mass hated, loved, hated, and then loved ruby like they're townspeople in The Simpsons when faced with two competing salespersons, or you could go "huh, I guess that that data isn't terribly meaningful if we look at just a tiny bit."
Pick any language you want, you'll see massive peaks and valleys. Well, relatively speaking -- it looks pretty big on the chart, but in Ruby's case, it's just a tiny tiny change. That it's "up" less than 1/4 of 1 point over the same month last year, in data where a several point swing down and back up (or vise versa) happens rapidly and regularly, I think we can safely assume that there was no significant change there. If yo believe that the data is so accurate that it can detect perfectly such a minute shift in popularity, I can't help you any more than I can help the citizens of Springfield who apparently make up the bulk of those posting about programming languages.
Redmonk (via TechCrunch) shows Ruby to be well ahead of Perl and almost even with C. Are YOU ignoring THAT data?
"Well ahead" is just delusional. It's not. If ruby is "well ahead" of Perl then it's "well behind" C by the same absurd reasoning. I'm guessing that you haven't even looked at the raw data, so I'm probably just wasting my time here, but they're actually pretty close to each other, within a couple points. You also probably don't know that the chart isn't designed to rank languages by popularity. Not that it matters to you. You don't care what the data says -- because the data doesn't show you what you want to see. It shows that ruby has been declining in popularity for years.
I'm too tired to bother with this any more. The data is in. Ruby is declining. Get over it.