People who somehow have this idea that the reason that the rest of us are fighting a lot of the time is because we just don't know any better. That if *you* were just around to educate us about being nice, then the world would have eternal peace.
Guess what, the world isn't like that. It isn't going to be for quite some time; no matter how hard you keep complaining about it. Yes, we all know that if we were just all nice then the world would be better, but not everyone is nice and the rest of us aren't going to sit around and get pummeled for the sake of peace.
We're working on peace, but it's going to take some time. Your elitist attitude isn't going to help.
Well, a linker has little to do with CPUs or performance, they just glue modules together.
Wrong.
Having used Intel's compiler, I would think that you would know better. What about inter-module optimizations? Who's going to do that? The compiler or linker. It's the linker buddy. Optimizations aren't just source level. Once you have the assembly, there is still a lot of stuff you can do. Instruction reordering, vectorizations, etc.
As incredibly opposed to this as I *should* be, I'm not. I'm from Utah and like to see Novell succeed. Sometimes the old boys network works in my favor.
We've become used to the idea that we have to turn battery powered devices off because of a deficiency in batteries, they run down fast. Why in the world should you have to turn the thing off if the battery is going to produce the electricity anyway?
Tell an device designer that instead of being careful about using too much electricity, they have to worry about not using enough, and I don't think you'll hear many complaints.
I work with a kid who *does* have aspergers and believe me, it's pretty obvious that there is something wrong with him. If you're not sure you have aspergers, then you probably don't. It's a real disease for sure. This kid is not normal. He doesn't really respond to people when they talk to him. He can't change the focus of his attention without a lot of effort. And he is fascinated by classification, to a fault.
He's got aspergers. Most people here who think they do, don't.
Funny that this comes up now, because I have be researching my family who came from northern ireland and trying to find info on the area they are from online has been difficult at best.
So I jump on this only to find that detailed street maps are only available for major cities. Not particularly useful for much else.
My whole point is that you simply can't make blanket statements like, "The money used on space colonization would be better used feeding the poor." Which is what you're saying. What do you mean by better? Better by what metric? Who is say that feeding the poor is better than space colonization? I say that if we *don't* colonize space then we risk loss of all humanity, and if we feed the poor, then we lose *some* humans for sure. It's a classic risk vs. reward problem. If we feed some poor people and not colonize space, we risk all of humanity. If we let some poor people go hungry and colonize space then we ensure the survival of all of humanity.
It's a tradeoff. I'm saying that I don't know the best side to pick. You're saying that you do (feed the poor), but you haven't given me any concrete evidence for your claim.
How does making colonization of space the highest priority improve any of these metrics? My point is that it doesn't.
I never said it did. I'm saying it has a probability to do so. Again you're confusing your *opinion* of what would happen (the metrics would improve if we didn't colonize space), with what might happen. Colonization has the potential to improve those metrics if the earth is destroyed. Whether or not it actually does is an entirely different question, and one that you cannot answer no matter how times you repeat it.
If there are no humans, metrics don't exist. That isn't the same as low metrics.
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it does. If there are no people around to compute the metric, does it exist? Yes, of course it does. We can compute the metric, whatever it might be, before humans all die.
Don't confuse *your* idea of what the common good is with *your* prediction of what the common good is and what the true common good is.
No one knows what decisions should be made for the true common good. None of us can predict the future. It also depends on what metric you use to determine common good. First of all, your opinion doesn't count as a good metric. A good metric is something like, "average standard of living" and/or "percentage of wealth held by the top 5% of the population". Each of these things change how the common good is acheived.
Now, if earth is destroyed, then there are few good metrics that show the common good being served unless we have something out there. Because if there are no humans, then the metrics are pretty low.
Colonizing space might service the species, but it certainly doesn't service the common good.
You're contradicting yourself here. Unless of course you think that helping out our species isn't the same as the common good. You're going to have to explain yourself.
The whole point is that capitalism takes advantage of naturally selfish human behavior to keep people working and producing. It has to be kept in check of course. That is just the reality. All economically succesful countries in modern times use some form of regulated capitalism.
Your unsupported "flame" doesn't really change that fact at all.
This is true, and will always be true. People are just not going to "get more intelligent" anytime soon. The solution that works with humans *in the real world* is to set up a system whereby the default human behavior actually serves the common good. True, capitalism may not be the perfect system, but for imperfect beings, it is pretty good.
You could remove it, but that's even worse, now the application will just continue and crash at some random point.
Or not. A lot of times, things that are asserted just don't cause a problem later on. Especially if the rest of the code is fairly well written and free of lots of intermodule dependencies. Why have a probability of crashing at 1.0, when you can have one that is less than 1.0? Yes data corruption is an issue, but again, see the comment above about intermodule dependencies. Good code checks assumptions at multiple levels and gracefully recovers.
Once at the lowest level you've determined that something is wrong, very often the only sensible option is a fatal abort.
Completely wrong. A crash simply isn't the only thing to do. And in many cases, it can be a very bad thing. Sure, if a user-interactive program crashes, then the user restarts the program, no big deal. But if your code is running on Mars, then it sure is a big deal. And don't try to tell me that that is an extreme situation, that kind of thing happens all the time in embedded programming.
I didn't miss the point at all. I understood his point and he's talking out his ass. If he had ever read the relevant law at all, then he wouldn't be saying what he's saying. Just because you've read something about contract workers doesn't mean you're an expert.
Now here is my point again: It doesn't matter what contract voodoo you come up to get around treating your employees like non-people. If you are managed like an employee, then you are an employee. No contract can get around that.
You need to learn actually read some tax law since you obviously don't know what you're talking about. The IRS doesn't allow companies to get around actually hiring people by calling them contractors. If someone looks, acts, and is managed like an employee then they MUST become such. That is the LAW. Read it sometime.
Users are funny. They know that they want something, but most of the time they don't know what that is. Sometimes, when they think they know what that is, and they get what they want, they find out they didn't know what they wanted in the first place.
Programmers are also funny. They're human, but they act like computers. Some of them do exactly what a user tells them. The problem is that humans aren't computers.
I don't know why programmers seem to think that when a user asks for something, they should do exactly what the user tells them. This is plain nonsense. Why would the user know they best way to implement a feature? They're not programmers.
But Mr. Alan Cooper, whoever he is, is yet another arrogant engineer who forgets that his job is to make the life of his users easier. His job isn't to create the "perfect design" or design software in a vacuum. In the end, he supports the users in doing their work. Most software development should be user-driven, just not user-controlled.
You're right, but how do many communities get together for a common cause? Through their local government. And what is wrong with a local government setting up a utility like this? I personally like my local government and would really like to see them set up a local broadband service.
Good corporations understand the value of corporate alliances. Often, the cost of doing something by yourself isn't worth the payout. Business support software is one of those. Companies don't make money from selling their internally developed software. OSS provides a means for lots of small companies to get together to create this kind of software, without having to create a formal agreement. Sure, some companies are going to take advantage, but if it is open, then every company can add the features that it wants.
The problem with a software company filling this role is that their system is proprietary and unmodifiable by the client. Most companies *do* have the resources to hire a programmer or a contractor to add a feature to a piece of OSS.
Anyone have any ideas on how to prevent abuse of such a system? That is, too many people using the system and not enough people contributing?
1982 brought us Postscript. It's new! Exciting new syntax. Well, okay, Lisp thought of it first.
Postscript was designed so it could be implemented on underpowered processors in printers, not because it's a great language. It's a comprimise. As a language, it really isn't that great.
I think that freecycle deserves a mention to help people dispose of stuff that has too little monetary value to hassle a price with it, but yet want to keep it out of the dumpster. Also, it is helping people out.
When I checked it out, it looked like more of a place for people to plead and beg for various items they think people should give to them. Not a lot of giving going on.
Slashdot Mirror
I love people like you.
People who somehow have this idea that the reason that the rest of us are fighting a lot of the time is because we just don't know any better. That if *you* were just around to educate us about being nice, then the world would have eternal peace.
Guess what, the world isn't like that. It isn't going to be for quite some time; no matter how hard you keep complaining about it. Yes, we all know that if we were just all nice then the world would be better, but not everyone is nice and the rest of us aren't going to sit around and get pummeled for the sake of peace.
We're working on peace, but it's going to take some time. Your elitist attitude isn't going to help.
Well, a linker has little to do with CPUs or performance, they just glue modules together.
Wrong.
Having used Intel's compiler, I would think that you would know better. What about inter-module optimizations? Who's going to do that? The compiler or linker. It's the linker buddy. Optimizations aren't just source level. Once you have the assembly, there is still a lot of stuff you can do. Instruction reordering, vectorizations, etc.
As incredibly opposed to this as I *should* be, I'm not. I'm from Utah and like to see Novell succeed. Sometimes the old boys network works in my favor.
Mod parent up.
We've become used to the idea that we have to turn battery powered devices off because of a deficiency in batteries, they run down fast. Why in the world should you have to turn the thing off if the battery is going to produce the electricity anyway?
Tell an device designer that instead of being careful about using too much electricity, they have to worry about not using enough, and I don't think you'll hear many complaints.
I love you. Seriously.
I work with a kid who *does* have aspergers and believe me, it's pretty obvious that there is something wrong with him. If you're not sure you have aspergers, then you probably don't. It's a real disease for sure. This kid is not normal. He doesn't really respond to people when they talk to him. He can't change the focus of his attention without a lot of effort. And he is fascinated by classification, to a fault.
He's got aspergers. Most people here who think they do, don't.
Funny that this comes up now, because I have be researching my family who came from northern ireland and trying to find info on the area they are from online has been difficult at best.
So I jump on this only to find that detailed street maps are only available for major cities. Not particularly useful for much else.
Well then, what *is* your point?
Colonizing space might service the species, but it certainly doesn't service the common good.
That's what I thought your point was...
My whole point is that you simply can't make blanket statements like, "The money used on space colonization would be better used feeding the poor." Which is what you're saying. What do you mean by better? Better by what metric? Who is say that feeding the poor is better than space colonization? I say that if we *don't* colonize space then we risk loss of all humanity, and if we feed the poor, then we lose *some* humans for sure. It's a classic risk vs. reward problem. If we feed some poor people and not colonize space, we risk all of humanity. If we let some poor people go hungry and colonize space then we ensure the survival of all of humanity.
It's a tradeoff. I'm saying that I don't know the best side to pick. You're saying that you do (feed the poor), but you haven't given me any concrete evidence for your claim.
How does making colonization of space the highest priority improve any of these metrics? My point is that it doesn't.
I never said it did. I'm saying it has a probability to do so. Again you're confusing your *opinion* of what would happen (the metrics would improve if we didn't colonize space), with what might happen. Colonization has the potential to improve those metrics if the earth is destroyed. Whether or not it actually does is an entirely different question, and one that you cannot answer no matter how times you repeat it.
If there are no humans, metrics don't exist. That isn't the same as low metrics.
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it does. If there are no people around to compute the metric, does it exist? Yes, of course it does. We can compute the metric, whatever it might be, before humans all die.
Don't confuse *your* idea of what the common good is with *your* prediction of what the common good is and what the true common good is.
No one knows what decisions should be made for the true common good. None of us can predict the future. It also depends on what metric you use to determine common good. First of all, your opinion doesn't count as a good metric. A good metric is something like, "average standard of living" and/or "percentage of wealth held by the top 5% of the population". Each of these things change how the common good is acheived.
Now, if earth is destroyed, then there are few good metrics that show the common good being served unless we have something out there. Because if there are no humans, then the metrics are pretty low.
Colonizing space might service the species, but it certainly doesn't service the common good.
You're contradicting yourself here. Unless of course you think that helping out our species isn't the same as the common good. You're going to have to explain yourself.
The whole point is that capitalism takes advantage of naturally selfish human behavior to keep people working and producing. It has to be kept in check of course. That is just the reality. All economically succesful countries in modern times use some form of regulated capitalism.
Your unsupported "flame" doesn't really change that fact at all.
This is true, and will always be true. People are just not going to "get more intelligent" anytime soon. The solution that works with humans *in the real world* is to set up a system whereby the default human behavior actually serves the common good. True, capitalism may not be the perfect system, but for imperfect beings, it is pretty good.
but it will get caught
Can you prove it will get caught?
Mathematicians want certainty.
And of course they get it, because no mathemetician has ever made a mistake.
You could remove it, but that's even worse, now the application will just continue and crash at some random point.
Or not. A lot of times, things that are asserted just don't cause a problem later on. Especially if the rest of the code is fairly well written and free of lots of intermodule dependencies. Why have a probability of crashing at 1.0, when you can have one that is less than 1.0? Yes data corruption is an issue, but again, see the comment above about intermodule dependencies. Good code checks assumptions at multiple levels and gracefully recovers.
Once at the lowest level you've determined that something is wrong, very often the only sensible option is a fatal abort.
Completely wrong. A crash simply isn't the only thing to do. And in many cases, it can be a very bad thing. Sure, if a user-interactive program crashes, then the user restarts the program, no big deal. But if your code is running on Mars, then it sure is a big deal. And don't try to tell me that that is an extreme situation, that kind of thing happens all the time in embedded programming.
I didn't miss the point at all. I understood his point and he's talking out his ass. If he had ever read the relevant law at all, then he wouldn't be saying what he's saying. Just because you've read something about contract workers doesn't mean you're an expert.
Now here is my point again: It doesn't matter what contract voodoo you come up to get around treating your employees like non-people. If you are managed like an employee, then you are an employee. No contract can get around that.
You need to learn actually read some tax law since you obviously don't know what you're talking about. The IRS doesn't allow companies to get around actually hiring people by calling them contractors. If someone looks, acts, and is managed like an employee then they MUST become such. That is the LAW. Read it sometime.
I live by a saying:
Listen to your users, but don't do what they say.
Users are funny. They know that they want something, but most of the time they don't know what that is. Sometimes, when they think they know what that is, and they get what they want, they find out they didn't know what they wanted in the first place.
Programmers are also funny. They're human, but they act like computers. Some of them do exactly what a user tells them. The problem is that humans aren't computers.
I don't know why programmers seem to think that when a user asks for something, they should do exactly what the user tells them. This is plain nonsense. Why would the user know they best way to implement a feature? They're not programmers.
But Mr. Alan Cooper, whoever he is, is yet another arrogant engineer who forgets that his job is to make the life of his users easier. His job isn't to create the "perfect design" or design software in a vacuum. In the end, he supports the users in doing their work. Most software development should be user-driven, just not user-controlled.
I don't think that particular explanation of what is a valid point is going to fly or even make much sense to those who you're trying to discount.
You're right, but how do many communities get together for a common cause? Through their local government. And what is wrong with a local government setting up a utility like this? I personally like my local government and would really like to see them set up a local broadband service.
Good corporations understand the value of corporate alliances. Often, the cost of doing something by yourself isn't worth the payout. Business support software is one of those. Companies don't make money from selling their internally developed software. OSS provides a means for lots of small companies to get together to create this kind of software, without having to create a formal agreement. Sure, some companies are going to take advantage, but if it is open, then every company can add the features that it wants.
The problem with a software company filling this role is that their system is proprietary and unmodifiable by the client. Most companies *do* have the resources to hire a programmer or a contractor to add a feature to a piece of OSS.
Anyone have any ideas on how to prevent abuse of such a system? That is, too many people using the system and not enough people contributing?
1982 brought us Postscript. It's new! Exciting new syntax. Well, okay, Lisp thought of it first.
Postscript was designed so it could be implemented on underpowered processors in printers, not because it's a great language. It's a comprimise. As a language, it really isn't that great.
Maybe they should p2p their web site. It's already down.
I think that freecycle deserves a mention to help people dispose of stuff that has too little monetary value to hassle a price with it, but yet want to keep it out of the dumpster. Also, it is helping people out.
When I checked it out, it looked like more of a place for people to plead and beg for various items they think people should give to them. Not a lot of giving going on.