For my personal machines I've long used the last names of my favorite authors: Eco, Calvino, Borges, Pavic....
At a startup we used names drawn from Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' to name practically everything. Unfortunately, I think that only really made sense to me. Servers were named after rivers (Anduin, Rauros,...), the wireless GWs after wizards (Gandalf, Ragadast). The biggest problem I had was that most of the names were too unfamiliar to the rest of the office for them to remember or spell correctly.
First of all: what problem are you trying to solve? You mention bar codes and better inventory control, which is a larger scope that just point of sale. Are you wishing to receive into inventory? Perform physical inventory? Audit? Generate purchase orders?
You mention Linux compatibility with barcode and other retail equipment: generally speaking Linux is 'compatible' with a great variety of equipment. I really don't think that will be an issue.
You mention datamining. I don't know the scale of your retail operations, so I don't really know what you mean by that. I assume that you want to know what particular customers are buying so that you can a) improve your ability to accurately order inventory, b) suggest items of interest to customers based on similar purchase patterns, and c) realize better margins by more intelligent up-selling. All of these boil down to good domain knowledge of your retail sector, good awareness of the market, and developing a good understanding of your customers. That is, ask yourself how much datamining is going to help before you go down that road. [ Do you have any kind of customer loyalty program (frequent purchaser discounts, points, etc.)
You mention output in a useful format. The format isn't that important. Understanding what needs to be reported using useful metrics is important, and the harder question. Transforming data into CSV is not that hard.
To that I'll add that I agree with some other posters as to whether you should produce your own retail systems. There is plenty of risk in such an endeavor, not the least of which is your implicit agreement to keep such a system running... forever. Of course, that's a nice inventive to do it well, too.
Since a few others have mentioned their credentials, I'll add that I produced and managed the development of a significant number of *nix retail applications for a Fortune 500 retailer. Jim Greer
Disclaimer: In 2004-6 I worked as a 'Teaching Fellow' as part of an NSF funded grant providing computer science resources in local high schools. [ http://triplets.cs.memphis.edu/ ] As part of that work we introduced AgentSheets into several classrooms.
That's an interesting aspect of rubinius - not only are they attempting another Ruby implementation (and a rather minimal one at that), but they are soliciting specifications (via RSpec) that describe current Ruby behavior, which they then use to test their implementation.
I think you've not actually read the associated blog entry by Michael Kolling. When Michael learned of MS's copying of the BlueJ feature - a tool I've actually used in teaching computer science in local high schools - he _did_ state that he was okay with the copying, providing MS actually attributed the feature's origins. That is, Michael was willing to accept the kind of recognition that is the most valuable in academia as 'payment' for a really good idea. It is this most recent offense - the filing of a patent that covers this copied feature - that has caused this to become much more newsworthy. If you had actually read Michael's post, you would understand that his concern is that MS may attempt to use this patent to shutdown the use and dissemination of BlueJ, irrespective of the profit motive.
procedural programming
on
The Art of SQL
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"One difference between SQL and a conventional procedural programming language is that for SQL there's a bigger gap between what the code says and what the code does."
Well, certainly one difference between SQL and a conventional procedural programming language is that SQL isn't procedural, it's declarative. One describes the data a query such produce, rather than state a set of steps necessary to achieve a desired result.
There are different means of checking software; the article describes a technique wherein a specification language is used to describe the essential features of an application which is then checked using theorem-proving techniques. The power of Alloy seems to be based in part on its ability to efficiently process the multitude of variations in program execution by establishing the equivalency of many internal states. There are other methods which the article does mention, albeit briefly.
Floyd (whose early papers make for excellent reading of CS, and whose name should be every bit as familiar to the CS crowd as Knuth) and then Hoare explored the idea of using assertions to prove the correctness of functions. This work was adapted by Meyer and is the basis of the Design-By-Contract features of Eiffel. Eiffel allows one to specify pre-, post-, and invariant conditions. Unlike the work cited in the article, this is not fed to a model checker, but is instead monitored during program execution. Constraint failures cause exceptions to be thrown. Some debate the overall utility of this approach, as contract checking can be resource intensive. Still, over the past couple of decades there has been a steady increase in DBC research, including several preprocessor and reflection/library implementations for Java and also Spec#, a strong research effort at Microsoft.
There is research project at OGI that features what seems to be a novel approach. http://www.cse.ogi.edu/PacSoft/projects/programati ca/ allows the developer to annotate bits of code with assertions regarding its validity. For instance, you can tag a function as having been formally proved correct, or you can tag another as having been inspected by a fellow programmer. This flexibility seems to address many of the concerns regarding the role of formal verification in software design.
Another interesting approach is that taken by Praxis, which uses a syntactically reduced version of Ada called 'Spark'. This version is much more amenable to automated analysis. They do the sort of full program-correctness analysis mentioned in the article. Oh, and they are, according to reports, very, very good with respect to their defect rate. I imagine they don't work for peanuts, either.
Other efforts have attempted static analysis of the code base. Some work appears to be simply performing type-checking or simple analysis of the code, i.e. confirming that all statements are reachable, while others, like Alloy, concentrate on theorem proving techniques, either by use of alternate descriptions, e.g. Z, or by direct analysis on the implementation code base.
A variation on this them will be familiar to readers of the Linux kernel mailing list: researchers at Stanford used a combination approach - a variant of gcc and a proprietary language named Metal - to describe the set of potential faults to examine. That is, rather than prove the correction of a body of code, they established that the code in question didn't exhibit particular defects. This approach is, of course, subject to false positives and is limited by capabilities of the fault description language. Still, it has been effective in uncovering many previously undisclosed errors.
I believe that even Meyer has stated that one of the ultimate goals of SE is theorem-proving of large bodies of software. Perhaps choosing when to use one of these tools will eventually become part of the software development process? The success of these tools may alter the manner in which development is performed not only because of the ultimate ramifications of the establishing correctness, but also because of the discipline or precision necessary to utilize them.
Wow. You're thinking about CASE tools in general.... I recall some of the marketing nonsense going on then. In fact, in the early 90's a group from my workplace traveled to Atlanta to talk to a software vendor about their CASE tool. The CEO came by during lunch to meet the group.... his name was Fran Tarkenton! And, just to help you out, the company was "KnowledgeWare".
Of course, we should remember that the original FORTRAN 0 manual stated that the use of the language would elimate coding errors and the need for debugging. [ Sebesta, "Concepts of Programming Languages". ]
Likewise, I enjoy promoting the use of LaTex, though awareness of both seems to be waning even in academia (e.g. my graduate school thesis folks "Hate LaTeX" and have seem to have chosen standards that can only be fulfilled by MS Word. Grrrr). If you're looking to get into LaTeX, I highly recommend "Guide to LaTeX, Fourth Edition" by Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly. It's the only LaTex book I've ever purchased and is well-thumbed with use, despite the plethora of good internet sources for information as well.
A caveat regarding LaTex, though: it is, first and foremost, a typsetting package. In order to typeset a document, LaTex encourages you to structure it (chapters, sections, subsections, etc.). The poster doesn't state whether it is his intention to programmatically strip out requirements from the document. Perhaps there are simpler formats for doing this.
I've also used Wikis for requirements gathering. While they lack the sophistication of LaTeX's markup features, they are very simple to setup and very easy to use. In a previous life I used them as the primary document repository to describe marketing materials, product information, and requirements in a small startup where the majority of users were tech-savvy but hadn't used a wiki before. In spite of this, we had no problems, and even used access to our wiki during the financial due-diligence review by our investors.
I'm suprised at folks advocating CVS so strongly rather than Subversion. Since the poster's users are likely running Windows, I think it is important to note that there is a nice, fairly easy-to-use explorer extension client that allows you to check-in/out sets of documents from a GUI. http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
EA recently agreed to fund the development of the next major version of Alice, a programming environment produced by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
Included in this agreement is the use of Sims characters within Alice. Developers create worlds and place objects and characters within these settings; the actions and reactions of the characters and objects are based on methods. This new funding will allow users to choose Sims characters and use Sims animations.
Alice has been shown to be effective in allowing students to tell stories. AIR, some recent doctoral work in this area indicates that while game playing appeals primarily to male students, storytelling appeals to both female and male students and increases student retention (one of the goals of the study).
Speaking as one who currently teaches computer science in high school classrooms, I can offer my own anecdotal evidence to the contrary: students do still program computers. That said, I agree with much of what others have said here. These days there are usually several different courses that tend to be lumped together as 'computing', although some of them have nothing to do with one another save that they involve a computer: - keyboarding, aka typing - computer literacy, aka word processing, productivity applications, etc. - introductory programming, - intermediate programming, - AP computer science
The first two in the list have little if any programming component. I say little, though the second course may cover a number of use of spreadsheets and through that the use of formulae, conditional expressions, etc. [ I should note that there is a online journal dedicated to documenting the various ways in which spreadsheets can be used to teach various concepts - see http://www.sie.bond.edu.au/ for more details. ]
The introductory and intermediate courses may have widely differing names depending upon when they were introduced into the school system; a local public system calls the second course "Data Structures", most likely because it was introduced during the Pascal heyday. Even though these two course sound like a close-knit progression of coursework, they actually may be quite different. Two of the local systems teach a different language (Java) in the second course than is used in the first course (VB.Net). The reasons for this choice are not entirely clear. Pascal was introduced into high school classrooms largely via the Apple II series; even the emergence of the IBM PC and its clone still gave access to Turbo Pascal. Not to imply that VB.Net is a step backwards, but the return in the high school classroom to QBasic, VB 6, and then VB.Net seems driven more by the availability of textbooks than other factors. I welcome a more informed explanation.
Originally Pascal was chosen as the AP Computer Science language of choice. { Here A.P. means Advanced Placement, high school courses with an associated standardized exam; many colleges and universities recognize exam scores and award credit towards degree programs. } For whatever reason, though, that choice was relatively short lived - perhaps driven by a 'pragmatic' crowd that wanted a 'real programming language' to be taught in the high school? At any rate, Java is now the language used in the the AP Computer Science exam. There is talk of changing the exams again to use a more language agnostic format.
A great many other tools and languages are taught in addition to or besides these, obviously. A smattering of ones that I know of or have used:
- The TeachScheme project http://www.teach-scheme.org/ exists to provide resources for those who wish to use Scheme in introductory high school and college courses. { And DrScheme rocks.... } I personally know one high school instructor who went through their workshop and adopted their approach and who had good things to say about it. { In fairness, though, he is currently teaching Java due to his participation in an NSF-funded grant. } For those looking for a natural follow-on to Java or more 'traditional' OOP programming, might I suggest having a look at Proulx and Gray's work in How To Design Classes and ProfessorJ http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/vkp/HtDCH/http://www.drscheme.org/.
- Alice http://www.alice.org/ is getting a lot of well deserved buzz, especially in light of the recent announcement that EA will be funding the development of their next major version (3.0), which will include features from the popular Sims game series. Caitlin Kelleher's work in extending Alice into a storytelling environment has also produced good results, esp
Ummmm. No, that's my point; testing is stable. That is, stable enough to use.
As for your having "Tried it"... that doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Perhaps if you actually described your use, I would be more interested in your remarks, or more apt to give them some credence. As it stands, I'm using it, and you're not. I hope you understand my reluctance to be persuaded.
And, as for 'Will be'. You are aware that VMWare does app migration now, right? Did you actually ever try a xm migrate? I mean will be as in: from an administration perspective, migration is more interesting than simply re-presenting an OS.
I wouldn't be too sure about that; I just installed Xen on a box this past week, and the testing branch has been remarkably stable. Have you actually used Xen? That said, I like to think that the poster's larger point is that virtualization technology and its implementations - in VMWare, Xen, etc. have made patch management easier to manage, especially with all of the work going on in migrating apps and OSes. That, to me, will be the real benefit of such work.
Just in case no one has ever thanked for you for helping preserve those documents, I just thought I'd take a moment and say, "Thank you. Thank you very much."
I'm using Ruby. [ I like Slashdot, but I'm not sure your message is going to be a useful poll. ]
WRT to your 'maybe if it had gotten out there before python' comment: explain, then, why it is MORE popular than Python in Japan, in spite of having come out later. I think the acceptance issues have been driven more by the fact that much of the work has been done in Japan (and, hence, much of the documentation is in Japanese).
/me swivels in chair and looks at shelf behind As for 'Like no documention': Like, dude, I've got Like 4 books on the shell behind me about, Like, Ruby.
As for wrong bindings. You have actually written the authors about these, right? So far I've found Ruby module authors to be just as pleasant and helpful has their Perl and Python counterparts, in spite of my complete lack of Japanese language skills and their oft admitted poor English skills.
I would argue that Ruby is benefitting from maturing after Python, like all languages should. Matz is learning what to include and what to avoid in his language design.
Finally... you can't seriously expect us to take the "this software has bugs, so we can't use it" argument, do you? All software has bugs. All languages have warts in their design and bugs in their implementation.
What version of bash are you using? I suspect that you have generalized a feature of bash that you noticed in a different context. In particular, pipe chains are implemented such that the last expression is executed in a subshell. This has the effect that your variables into which you read values are not directly available outside of the loop. For instance:
ls | while read foo bar
do
echo $foo
done
echo $foo
doesn't work as you probably expect. This is especially unexpected behaviour if you have used AT&T Korn shells, since they do not implement the final command in a subshell. On the otherhand, this is permitted according to the UNIX 1 specification.
Right on! With two caveats: Perl is large(r than bash) and Perl isn't always installed in the same place on all platforms [ not that this can't be changed by rolling it yourself. ] Oh... and a few vendors out there are behind the current stable perl version quit a bit.
So, how are you complying with the AT&T license? Specifically your obligation to ensure that the recipient enters into the agreement with AT&T?
* YOUR OBLIGATIONS
1. If you distribute Build Materials (including if you are required to do so pursuant to this Agreement), you shall ensure that the recipient enters into and duly accepts an agreement with you which includes the minimum terms set forth in Appendix A (completed to indicate you as the LICENSOR) and no other provisions which, in AT&T's opinion, conflict with your obligations under, or the intent of, this Agreement. The agreement required under this Section 4.1 may be in electronic form and may be distributed with the Build Materials in a form such that the recipient accepts the agreement by using or installing the Build Materials. If any Additional Code contained in your Build Materials includes Software you obtained under license, the agreement shall also include complete details concerning the license and any restrictions or obligations associated with such Software.
Yeah, you're right -/bin/sh should probably refer to ksh. The problem, of course, is that most distros implement ksh using pdksh, which throws some slightly interesting behavior into the mix as well. For instance, even though the UNIX 1 spec says that the last process in the pipe chain can be implemented in sub-shell, practically all implementations do not, except for pdksh.
I wish distros would pick up the AT&T ksh implementation, since it is actively maintained, standards compliant, and since the source code is available to mere mortals now.
Yes, but you've got the interesting situation that IBM might (and probably does, FAIN) contribute to the PPC port, thus mitigating some of your points. Look at all the contributions that IBM already contributes to another port - the 390 series. Imagine them doing the same thing for PPC. Stir to taste.
That's not the issue. To continue your analogy, the issue is that the DMCA makes it illegal for me to say "You can break into TomV's house by smashing a window with a brick."
The DMCA protects poor quality software.
The DMCA harms competition. How? Imagine being a competitor to the eBook vendor that uses ROT-13 scheme. Imagine you're trying to convince a client to use your format instead of theirs. What do you say?
You: "Competitor X uses poor quality encryption."
Client: "Oh yeah. Like what?"
You: "I can't say. But it is poor."
Client: "You're just saying that."
You: "No, really. But if I told you how poor it was, I could be arrested."
Client: "Don't be silly."
Slashdot Mirror
Lawsuits against their customers? You're kidding, right?
For my personal machines I've long used the last names of my favorite authors: Eco, Calvino, Borges, Pavic....
At a startup we used names drawn from Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' to name practically everything. Unfortunately, I think that only really made sense to me. Servers were named after rivers (Anduin, Rauros, ...), the wireless GWs after wizards (Gandalf, Ragadast). The biggest problem I had was that most of the names were too unfamiliar to the rest of the office for them to remember or spell correctly.
jbgreer
First of all: what problem are you trying to solve? You mention bar codes and better inventory control, which is a larger scope that just point of sale. Are you wishing to receive into inventory? Perform physical inventory? Audit? Generate purchase orders?
You mention Linux compatibility with barcode and other retail equipment: generally speaking Linux is 'compatible' with a great variety of equipment. I really don't think that will be an issue.
You mention datamining. I don't know the scale of your retail operations, so I don't really know what you mean by that. I assume that you want to know what particular customers are buying so that you can a) improve your ability to accurately order inventory, b) suggest items of interest to customers based on similar purchase patterns, and c) realize better margins by more intelligent up-selling. All of these boil down to good domain knowledge of your retail sector, good awareness of the market, and developing a good understanding of your customers. That is, ask yourself how much datamining is going to help before you go down that road. [ Do you have any kind of customer loyalty program (frequent purchaser discounts, points, etc.)
You mention output in a useful format. The format isn't that important. Understanding what needs to be reported using useful metrics is important, and the harder question. Transforming data into CSV is not that hard.
To that I'll add that I agree with some other posters as to whether you should produce your own retail systems. There is plenty of risk in such an endeavor, not the least of which is your implicit agreement to keep such a system running... forever. Of course, that's a nice inventive to do it well, too.
Since a few others have mentioned their credentials, I'll add that I produced and managed the development of a significant number of *nix retail applications for a Fortune 500 retailer.
Jim Greer
Not only Alice, but AgentSheets as well, which also features a visual programming approach.
http://www.agentsheets.com/
Disclaimer: In 2004-6 I worked as a 'Teaching Fellow' as part of an NSF funded grant providing computer science resources in local high schools. [ http://triplets.cs.memphis.edu/ ] As part of that work we introduced AgentSheets into several classrooms.
That's an interesting aspect of rubinius - not only are they attempting another Ruby implementation (and a rather minimal one at that), but they are soliciting specifications (via RSpec) that describe current Ruby behavior, which they then use to test their implementation.
I think you've not actually read the associated blog entry by Michael Kolling. When Michael learned of MS's copying of the BlueJ feature - a tool I've actually used in teaching computer science in local high schools - he _did_ state that he was okay with the copying, providing MS actually attributed the feature's origins. That is, Michael was willing to accept the kind of recognition that is the most valuable in academia as 'payment' for a really good idea. It is this most recent offense - the filing of a patent that covers this copied feature - that has caused this to become much more newsworthy. If you had actually read Michael's post, you would understand that his concern is that MS may attempt to use this patent to shutdown the use and dissemination of BlueJ, irrespective of the profit motive.
"One difference between SQL and a conventional procedural programming language is that for SQL there's a bigger gap between what the code says and what the code does."
Well, certainly one difference between SQL and a conventional procedural programming language is that SQL isn't procedural, it's declarative. One describes the data a query such produce, rather than state a set of steps necessary to achieve a desired result.
jbgreer
There are different means of checking software; the article describes a technique wherein a specification language is used to describe the essential features of an application which is then checked using theorem-proving techniques. The power of Alloy seems to be based in part on its ability to efficiently process the multitude of variations in program execution by establishing the equivalency of many internal states. There are other methods which the article does mention, albeit briefly.
i ca/ allows the developer to annotate bits of code with assertions regarding its validity. For instance, you can tag a function as having been formally proved correct, or you can tag another as having been inspected by a fellow programmer. This flexibility seems to address many of the concerns regarding the role of formal verification in software design.
Floyd (whose early papers make for excellent reading of CS, and whose name should be every bit as familiar to the CS crowd as Knuth) and then Hoare explored the idea of using assertions to prove the correctness of functions. This work was adapted by Meyer and is the basis of the Design-By-Contract features of Eiffel. Eiffel allows one to specify pre-, post-, and invariant conditions. Unlike the work cited in the article, this is not fed to a model checker, but is instead monitored during program execution. Constraint failures cause exceptions to be thrown. Some debate the overall utility of this approach, as contract checking can be resource intensive. Still, over the past couple of decades there has been a steady increase in DBC research, including several preprocessor and reflection/library implementations for Java and also Spec#, a strong research effort at Microsoft.
There is research project at OGI that features what seems to be a novel approach.
http://www.cse.ogi.edu/PacSoft/projects/programat
Another interesting approach is that taken by Praxis, which uses a syntactically reduced version of Ada called 'Spark'. This version is much more amenable to automated analysis. They do the sort of full program-correctness analysis mentioned in the article. Oh, and they are, according to reports, very, very good with respect to their defect rate. I imagine they don't work for peanuts, either.
Other efforts have attempted static analysis of the code base. Some work appears to be simply performing type-checking or simple analysis of the code, i.e. confirming that all statements are reachable, while others, like Alloy, concentrate on theorem proving techniques, either by use of alternate descriptions, e.g. Z, or by direct analysis on the implementation code base.
A variation on this them will be familiar to readers of the Linux kernel mailing list: researchers at Stanford used a combination approach - a variant of gcc and a proprietary language named Metal - to describe the set of potential faults to examine. That is, rather than prove the correction of a body of code, they established that the code in question didn't exhibit particular defects. This approach is, of course, subject to false positives and is limited by capabilities of the fault description language. Still, it has been effective in uncovering many previously undisclosed errors.
I believe that even Meyer has stated that one of the ultimate goals of SE is theorem-proving of large bodies of software. Perhaps choosing when to use one of these tools will eventually become part of the software development process? The success of these tools may alter the manner in which development is performed not only because of the ultimate ramifications of the establishing correctness, but also because of the discipline or precision necessary to utilize them.
jbgreer
Wow. You're thinking about CASE tools in general.... I recall some of the marketing nonsense going on then. In fact, in the early 90's a group from my workplace traveled to Atlanta to talk to a software vendor about their CASE tool. The CEO came by during lunch to meet the group.... his name was Fran Tarkenton! And, just to help you out, the company was "KnowledgeWare".
Of course, we should remember that the original FORTRAN 0 manual stated that the use of the language would elimate coding errors and the need for debugging. [ Sebesta, "Concepts of Programming Languages". ]
-- jbgreer
Likewise, I enjoy promoting the use of LaTex, though awareness of both seems to be waning even in academia (e.g. my graduate school thesis folks "Hate LaTeX" and have seem to have chosen standards that can only be fulfilled by MS Word. Grrrr). If you're looking to get into LaTeX, I highly recommend "Guide to LaTeX, Fourth Edition" by Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly. It's the only LaTex book I've ever purchased and is well-thumbed with use, despite the plethora of good internet sources for information as well.
A caveat regarding LaTex, though: it is, first and foremost, a typsetting package. In order to typeset a document, LaTex encourages you to structure it (chapters, sections, subsections, etc.).
The poster doesn't state whether it is his intention to programmatically strip out requirements from the document. Perhaps there are simpler formats for doing this.
I've also used Wikis for requirements gathering. While they lack the sophistication of LaTeX's markup features, they are very simple to setup and very easy to use. In a previous life I used them as the primary document repository to describe marketing materials, product information, and requirements in a small startup where the majority of users were tech-savvy but hadn't used a wiki before. In spite of this, we had no problems, and even used access to our wiki during the financial due-diligence review by our investors.
I'm suprised at folks advocating CVS so strongly rather than Subversion. Since the poster's users are likely running Windows, I think it is important to note that there is a nice, fairly easy-to-use explorer extension client that allows you to check-in/out sets of documents from a GUI. http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
EA recently agreed to fund the development of the next major version of Alice, a programming environment produced by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
http://www.alice.org/simsAnnouncement.html
Included in this agreement is the use of Sims characters within Alice. Developers create worlds and place objects and characters within these settings; the actions and reactions of the characters and objects are based on methods. This new funding will allow users to choose Sims characters and use Sims animations.
Alice has been shown to be effective in allowing students to tell stories. AIR, some recent doctoral work in this area indicates that while game playing appeals primarily to male students, storytelling appeals to both female and male students and increases student retention (one of the goals of the study).
jbgreer
Speaking as one who currently teaches computer science in high school classrooms, I can offer my own anecdotal evidence to the contrary: students do still program computers. That said, I agree with much of what others have said here. These days there are usually several different courses that tend to be lumped together as 'computing', although some of them have nothing to do with one another save that they involve a computer:
- keyboarding, aka typing
- computer literacy, aka word processing, productivity applications, etc.
- introductory programming,
- intermediate programming,
- AP computer science
The first two in the list have little if any programming component. I say little, though the second course may cover a number of use of spreadsheets and through that the use of formulae, conditional expressions, etc. [ I should note that there is a online journal dedicated to documenting the various ways in which spreadsheets can be used to teach various concepts - see http://www.sie.bond.edu.au/ for more details. ]
The introductory and intermediate courses may have widely differing names depending upon when they were introduced into the school system; a local public system calls the second course "Data Structures", most likely because it was introduced during the Pascal heyday. Even though these two course sound like a close-knit progression of coursework, they actually may be quite different. Two of the local systems teach a different language (Java) in the second course than is used in the first course (VB.Net). The reasons for this choice are not entirely clear. Pascal was introduced into high school classrooms largely via the Apple II series; even the emergence of the IBM PC and its clone still gave access to Turbo Pascal. Not to imply that VB.Net is a step backwards, but the return in the high school classroom to QBasic, VB 6, and then VB.Net seems driven more by the availability of textbooks than other factors. I welcome a more informed explanation.
Originally Pascal was chosen as the AP Computer Science language of choice. { Here A.P. means Advanced Placement, high school courses with an associated standardized exam; many colleges and universities recognize exam scores and award credit towards degree programs. } For whatever reason, though, that choice was relatively short lived - perhaps driven by a 'pragmatic' crowd that wanted a 'real programming language' to be taught in the high school? At any rate, Java is now the language used in the the AP Computer Science exam. There is talk of changing the exams again to use a more language agnostic format.
A great many other tools and languages are taught in addition to or besides these, obviously. A smattering of ones that I know of or have used:
- The TeachScheme project http://www.teach-scheme.org/ exists to provide resources for those who wish to use Scheme in introductory high school and college courses. { And DrScheme rocks.... } I personally know one high school instructor who went through their workshop and adopted their approach and who had good things to say about it. { In fairness, though, he is currently teaching Java due to his participation in an NSF-funded grant. } For those looking for a natural follow-on to Java or more 'traditional' OOP programming, might I suggest having a look at Proulx and Gray's work in
How To Design Classes and ProfessorJ
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/vkp/HtDCH/ http://www.drscheme.org/.
- Alice http://www.alice.org/ is getting a lot of well deserved buzz, especially in light of the recent announcement that EA will be funding the development of their next major version (3.0), which will include features from the popular Sims game series. Caitlin Kelleher's work in extending Alice into a storytelling environment has also produced good results, esp
Ummmm. No, that's my point; testing is stable. That is, stable enough to use.
As for your having "Tried it"... that doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Perhaps if you actually described your use, I would be more interested in your remarks, or more apt to give them some credence. As it stands, I'm using it, and you're not. I hope you understand my reluctance to be persuaded.
And, as for 'Will be'. You are aware that VMWare does app migration now, right? Did you actually ever try a xm migrate? I mean will be as in: from an administration perspective, migration is more interesting than simply re-presenting an OS.
I wouldn't be too sure about that; I just installed Xen on a box this past week, and the testing branch has been remarkably stable. Have you actually used Xen? That said, I like to think that the poster's larger point is that virtualization technology and its implementations - in VMWare, Xen, etc. have made patch management easier to manage, especially with all of the work going on in migrating apps and OSes. That, to me, will be the real benefit of such work.
Do I remember them? Hell, I still have one.
Just in case no one has ever thanked for you for helping preserve those documents, I just thought I'd take a moment and say, "Thank you. Thank you very much."
Jim G
WRT to your 'maybe if it had gotten out there before python' comment: explain, then, why it is MORE popular than Python in Japan, in spite of having come out later. I think the acceptance issues have been driven more by the fact that much of the work has been done in Japan (and, hence, much of the documentation is in Japanese).
/me swivels in chair and looks at shelf behind
As for 'Like no documention': Like, dude, I've got Like 4 books on the shell behind me about, Like, Ruby.
As for wrong bindings. You have actually written the authors about these, right? So far I've found Ruby module authors to be just as pleasant and helpful has their Perl and Python counterparts, in spite of my complete lack of Japanese language skills and their oft admitted poor English skills.
I would argue that Ruby is benefitting from maturing after Python, like all languages should. Matz is learning what to include and what to avoid in his language design.
Finally... you can't seriously expect us to take the "this software has bugs, so we can't use it" argument, do you? All software has bugs. All languages have warts in their design and bugs in their implementation.
Or any of the nice SOAP stuff, either.
What version of bash are you using? I suspect that you have generalized a feature of bash that you noticed in a different context. In particular, pipe chains are implemented such that the last expression is executed in a subshell. This has the effect that your variables into which you read values are not directly available outside of the loop. For instance:
ls | while read foo bar
do
echo $foo
done
echo $foo
doesn't work as you probably expect. This is especially unexpected behaviour if you have used AT&T Korn shells, since they do not implement the final command in a subshell. On the otherhand, this is permitted according to the UNIX 1 specification.
Right on! With two caveats: Perl is large(r than bash) and Perl isn't always installed in the same place on all platforms [ not that this can't be changed by rolling it yourself. ] Oh... and a few vendors out there are behind the current stable perl version quit a bit.
So, how are you complying with the AT&T license? Specifically your obligation to ensure that the recipient enters into the agreement with AT&T?
* YOUR OBLIGATIONS
1. If you distribute Build Materials (including if you are required to do so pursuant to this Agreement), you shall ensure that the recipient enters into and duly accepts an agreement with you which includes the minimum terms set forth in Appendix A (completed to indicate you as the LICENSOR) and no other provisions which, in AT&T's opinion, conflict with your obligations under, or the intent of, this Agreement. The agreement required under this Section 4.1 may be in electronic form and may be distributed with the Build Materials in a form such that the recipient accepts the agreement by using or installing the Build Materials. If any Additional Code contained in your Build Materials includes Software you obtained under license, the agreement shall also include complete details concerning the license and any restrictions or obligations associated with such Software.
Yeah, you're right - /bin/sh should probably refer to ksh. The problem, of course, is that most distros implement ksh using pdksh, which throws some slightly interesting behavior into the mix as well. For instance, even though the UNIX 1 spec says that the last process in the pipe chain can be implemented in sub-shell, practically all implementations do not, except for pdksh.
I wish distros would pick up the AT&T ksh implementation, since it is actively maintained, standards compliant, and since the source code is available to mere mortals now.
Yes, but you've got the interesting situation that IBM might (and probably does, FAIN) contribute to the PPC port, thus mitigating some of your points. Look at all the contributions that IBM already contributes to another port - the 390 series. Imagine them doing the same thing for PPC. Stir to taste.
It includes both gcc-3.0 and gcc-2.96. The gcc-3.0 is mainly for better support of the C++ standard.
That's not the issue. To continue your analogy, the issue is that the DMCA makes it illegal for me to say "You can break into TomV's house by smashing a window with a brick."
The DMCA protects poor quality software.
The DMCA harms competition. How? Imagine being a competitor to the eBook vendor that uses ROT-13 scheme. Imagine you're trying to convince a client to use your format instead of theirs. What do you say?
You: "Competitor X uses poor quality encryption."
Client: "Oh yeah. Like what?"
You: "I can't say. But it is poor."
Client: "You're just saying that."
You: "No, really. But if I told you how poor it was, I could be arrested."
Client: "Don't be silly."
But it wouldn't be silly, it would be illegal.