Um... no. I describe myself as a Slashdot addict. Yes, I like Slashdot a lot, and yes I visit Slashdot a lot, but it is having severe consequences with regard to my grades. I describe myself as an addict because it is having harmful effects, and because through my own will I have been unable to break my habit. It's not that I don't want to - it's that I can't. Everytime I have tried stopping, I've always come rushing back after a day or two because I almost went mad from not knowing what's going on in the world.
So your recommendation is that the government declare Slashdot illegal and come arrest you for being a user? Interesting approach...
"So, boy, how long you been using this stuff? I hear CmdrTaco packs a really mean punch..."
If as a society we are interested in a healthy citizenry, let's not focus on whether or not people are making excuses, but on helping them be healthy, whether they are drunks or junkies or philanderers or gamblers or whatever.
What if we are interested in a free citizenry instead?
What you view as destructive, wasteful behavior (say, skiing), I may view as a fun way to spend a weekend. The government should get out of the business of prosecuting "victimless" crimes.
Drinking, philandering, and gambling are all legal. Drug use should fall right into the same category.
Addicition generally implies physiological changes of some sort that become reinforced with each use of the substance.
No, there is "psychological addiction". Further, my skiing example involves adrenalin, which can have lasting physiological effects if abused enough.
I'm surprised that not one of the posts in response really addressed the skiing example. Surely, if one can be "psychologically addicted" to sex, one can be "psychologically addicted" to skiing?!?
Be consistent now...;-)
Eating at McDonalds everyday or enjoying too much chocolate is not an addiction, it's a lack of willpower [or laziness, in the case of the golden arches].
Well, whether or not McDonalds is an 'addiction', the puritans are out to save you from it. Will Big Macs be legal in ten years? Stay tuned...
"I would love to see recreational drugs that aren't bad for you and that aren't addictive."
Well, there is a problem with that. You see, the anti-drug puritans have basically defined "addiction" as "liking something and doing it regularly". Soon we'll be hearing about Internet addiction (oops too late), sex addiction (oops too late), chocolate addiction, McDonalds addiction and psychologist addiction.
Let's face it, when people like something, they often do it frequently. When people really like something, they really do it frequently.
To put it a different way, is skiing good for you? It might help your mental attitude, and might help your conditioning, but it could also land you in the hospital or the morgue (ask Sonny Bono). So, is someone that skis every day an "addict"? Should skiing be illegal because it's dangerous? Should Big Macs?
My answer to all of that is no. People should be held accountable for their behavior, with the freedom to do what they please even if it is "partly bad for them". If someone uses drugs and kills someone they should be tried for murder. If someone uses drugs and eats a pizza, well...let the punishment fit the crime.
It also makes you wonder why they call it the "Big Bang" anyway.
I don't care what kind of noise it was making inside, but anything that accelerates the entire mass of the universe to high velocities in 1.0e-100 seconds qualifies as a "big bang" for me.;-)
This is what happens when you don't democratically elect a leader.
Wrong.
However, even if your fantasy were true, think what things would be like with algore as Supreme Leader. I'm sure he'd be fighting the DMCA, MPAA and RIAA tooth and nail, right? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No, in fact he'd be fighting for them, because just like the Republicans, the Democrats receive millions of dollars from the media big dogs. The rights of regular Americans and the public good mean nothing by comparison.
That is the reason the existing two party system is in need of a BIG overhaul.
Re:The main mistake of EJB.
on
Bitter EJB
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· Score: 1
I've seen one J2EE implementation that doesn't fail gracefully, however, and doesn't provide useful feedback to the hopeful and rather under-qualified developers. The biggest fault I assign to these developers is using a commercial J2EE implementation complete with EJBs for a project that has only a few dozen tables and barely any data. They really could have gotten by with Perl scripts for this project, but the government top-down dogma used to sell the project was "web based" with "enterprise java". Yup, that's right, the technology to be used was specified in the requirements (basically the project failed with the first written page).
It didn't even provide a Java stack trace? That I find hard to believe.
As for using the wrong tool for the job, or not educating the developers, what can I say about that? It takes competence somewhere to prevent stupid mistakes...
Two-edged sword; it can be either because the techniques are simply optimal and need no improvement or because we can't think outside the box and come up with better ones yet.
Well, I was speaking as opposed to the forced "innovations" from Redmond that require complete re-learning every 3-5 years or so. It is nice to get things right the first time, occasionally...
Pardon me if I wasn't clear.
(BTW, when we do "think outside the box" and come up with better new ideas, I suspect they'll also have plenty of staying power...)
Re:EJB is REALLY Bitter
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Bitter EJB
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· Score: 1
Dude, how did we end up talking about Microsoft when I spoke only of Unix and Java? I made a criticism of Java. I did not endorse or compare to any Microsoft enviroment.
Yes, I got your argument confused with some parent poster's comment. Sorry.
I had decades of programing experience when I first approached Java, I found it heavy sledding to get going.
All I can say about this is that it's quite likely your earlier experience wasn't heavy C++ development. Compared with that, Java is a breeze.
There are many other interesting alternatives, but Java's widespread acceptance is very compelling. It seems the JCP will fill in whatever holes might be left to eventually provide an excellent language + libraries. In the meantime it's very usable for real world work. New developments like SWT and JOGL show the vitality of the Java scene.
Re:The main mistake of EJB.
on
Bitter EJB
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· Score: 4, Insightful
They confused complexity with usefulness.
I wouldn't put it that way. It may be that Einstein's dictum of "make it as simple as possible, but no simpler" wasn't followed. That I'd accept as a valid criticism of some of Java and it's libraries.
A system with complex rules isn't necessarily more powerful, but it's usually more difficult and error prone.
I'm not sure what you mean by "with complex rules". The essence of the matter is that developers want to use complex libraries and subsystems, in the hope that they'll solve equally (or more) complex problems. EJB's (and J2EE's) success or failure should be judged in that light. This is also true with regard to your "error prone" comment. The exact attraction of the J2EE architecture is that it should remove both risk and fragility from the system by using robust, tested code. There is a very large test suite that must be passed in order for an application server to be J2EE compliant. I think very few that have deployed J2EE applications would characterize the environment as "fragile".
It certainly seems to have solved some need, because many projects are using it, many successfully. It certainly runs on the highest-end server hardware out there (up to over 100 processors in a single SMP box, which can be clustered).
Unfortunately this misconception is very common in computer science. People tend always to create complex APIs/infaces and protocols just to get a "powerful tools". The result is the security and error ridden state of the internet and computers we see these days.
First of all, J2EE systems haven't been the victim of many security exploits that I've heard of...Microsoft systems seem to be the usual victims. Both Unix and Java are Internet-hardened technologies that have stood up very well in real world use. Let's hear your alternatives now...
No, oil is an energy source. When it is no longer practical and/or desirable, you do understand that the Sun is always a very good Plan B?
Right, along with hydrogen for fusion.
The one point I'd make about burning all that oil is that it would be much better used to make plastic (recyclable and long-lived). Making plastic may be fairly difficult once the oil is gone. On the other hand, with unlimited energy making plastic seems a solvable problem...
Re:EJB is REALLY Bitter
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Bitter EJB
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· Score: 1
The problem with Java in general (not just EJB) is that you really need to grok the whole in order to understand a simple "Hello World" program, let alone do anything really useful.
Life is short.
Ironically, Java was created largely to address the "life is too short" problem with C++, largely succesfully (in terms of language design). Nor have I heard many complaints about the lack of generics in Java from practicing Java programmers, as opposed to the numerous armchair quarterbacks who always seem willing to share their opinion.
I'm curious which Microsoft solution you feel is easier, and why?
Further, I'd like you to defend why you think the MS technology is a better long-term investment. For me, it's very nice having most of the Unix techniques I learned in the 80's still be perfectly useful now.
I expect Java and EJB/J2EE to have long lives ahead - at least 20 years of widespread use. Both are way ahead of C# and.Net, in almost every respect. Avoiding vendor lockin is a big priority for most IS shops these days.
The obvious conclusion is that people here at Slashdot just hate Microsoft for ANY reason. It's immature.
Well, many are looking for reasons to hate C#. For me, I won't consider it until it is much less of a single-vendor thing. I should start evaluating Mono, I hear it is almost usable these days. HOWEVER, that doesn't address some of the major problems, such as WinForms being closed.
However, on the Java side I have many major vendors providing compilers and runtimes, as well as free implementations, running on all the major platforms. With C#/CLR I see a single vendor with a complete implementation, running on only one (substandard IMO) platform.
It's an easy choice for now...
Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?
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C# 2.0 Spec Released
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· Score: 1
The TA for my computer science class, wasn't sure if things were passed by value or reference in Java. That is partially her fault, but also her education's fault for choosing a language that lends itself to not understanding what is going on.
First of all, the Java docs are quite clear on all Java entities being passed by value. It just happens that the "value" for each Java object is the reference to it.;-) Java in no way discourages you from understanding all the details of how it works. It really doesn't "hide the machine" any more than straight C does.
You can't write a "swap" function in Java to swap the values of two primitives. However, unless you write a "swap" function, things just pretty much work as you'd expect. That TA might still be a better programmer than you.:-)
I'm guessing from the tone of your rant that you'd prefer C or other lower level languages to be taught in undergraduate CS studies. I disagree, mainly since 90%+ of all the grads will be working in a "high level language" where algorithms and data are the important issues, not instruction ordering or word size. There are classes outside the core curriculum, if you think you want to specialize in embedded programming or similar areas (many who go this route do an EE degree instead though).
You might also consider a Computer Engineering degree - you'll get plenty of low-level exposure there.;-)
Easier access to IO - just try it in Java and see. It's much faster in C#
Did you try using NIO? I suspect any C# speed advantage has been largely negated.
Also, if I/O speed remained a serious concern, I could simply write JNI wrappers for the C open(), write(), close() etc. functions. That would be within a few percent of raw C I/O speeds, on all the platforms Java supports...instead of just Windows.
The tablet seems perfect; however, the problem in medicine is the problem everywhere else... input. In increasing amounts history/physicals, progress notes, clinic visits, and orders are being inputted directly into the system by typing. The other predominate way is by dictation... which allows somebody else to type it into the system.
I'm curious, what about voice recognition? Is the amount of technical jargon too great for current technology? I'd think simultaneous voice recording and voice recognition would be the best of all worlds (you could always correct the written version post-facto). Possible killer app?
I do agree a number of mac users are miffed about paying out $130 for the third time since initially upgradaing to OS X. I think the new finder does bring some uniformity into the interface as mentioned; though, many may not like the new brushed aluminum taking over their desktops recently.
It might be worth doing the Select developer program for a lot of people here on Slashdot. For $500/year you get both prerelease and current versions of OSes and dev tools, PLUS you get one system a year at 10-20% off list.
Car analogies are weak--the Audi really does go faster than the Kia. The iBook does NOT run faster than a comparably priced Intel laptop.
No, but it does run a fairly sane OS. It is also supported well, and very nicely designed. I understand (I've never owned one) that iBooks are pretty rugged. Battery life is also outstanding.
These observations often don't apply to "a comparably priced Intel laptop".
For me, though, the 15" Powerbook is definitely a better fit.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
So your recommendation is that the government declare Slashdot illegal and come arrest you for being a user? Interesting approach...
"So, boy, how long you been using this stuff? I hear CmdrTaco packs a really mean punch..."
What if we are interested in a free citizenry instead?
What you view as destructive, wasteful behavior (say, skiing), I may view as a fun way to spend a weekend. The government should get out of the business of prosecuting "victimless" crimes.
Drinking, philandering, and gambling are all legal. Drug use should fall right into the same category.
No, there is "psychological addiction". Further, my skiing example involves adrenalin, which can have lasting physiological effects if abused enough.
I'm surprised that not one of the posts in response really addressed the skiing example. Surely, if one can be "psychologically addicted" to sex, one can be "psychologically addicted" to skiing?!?
Be consistent now... ;-)
Eating at McDonalds everyday or enjoying too much chocolate is not an addiction, it's a lack of willpower [or laziness, in the case of the golden arches].
Well, whether or not McDonalds is an 'addiction', the puritans are out to save you from it. Will Big Macs be legal in ten years? Stay tuned...
Well, there is a problem with that. You see, the anti-drug puritans have basically defined "addiction" as "liking something and doing it regularly". Soon we'll be hearing about Internet addiction (oops too late), sex addiction (oops too late), chocolate addiction, McDonalds addiction and psychologist addiction.
Let's face it, when people like something, they often do it frequently. When people really like something, they really do it frequently.
To put it a different way, is skiing good for you? It might help your mental attitude, and might help your conditioning, but it could also land you in the hospital or the morgue (ask Sonny Bono). So, is someone that skis every day an "addict"? Should skiing be illegal because it's dangerous? Should Big Macs?
My answer to all of that is no. People should be held accountable for their behavior, with the freedom to do what they please even if it is "partly bad for them". If someone uses drugs and kills someone they should be tried for murder. If someone uses drugs and eats a pizza, well...let the punishment fit the crime.
I guess I'd go with Merriam Webster's first definition:
1 : to strike sharply
Bear in mind that it was named by an astronomer, not an English major. ;-)
I don't care what kind of noise it was making inside, but anything that accelerates the entire mass of the universe to high velocities in 1.0e-100 seconds qualifies as a "big bang" for me. ;-)
Wrong.
However, even if your fantasy were true, think what things would be like with algore as Supreme Leader. I'm sure he'd be fighting the DMCA, MPAA and RIAA tooth and nail, right? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No, in fact he'd be fighting for them, because just like the Republicans, the Democrats receive millions of dollars from the media big dogs. The rights of regular Americans and the public good mean nothing by comparison.
That is the reason the existing two party system is in need of a BIG overhaul.
It didn't even provide a Java stack trace? That I find hard to believe.
As for using the wrong tool for the job, or not educating the developers, what can I say about that? It takes competence somewhere to prevent stupid mistakes...
Well, I was speaking as opposed to the forced "innovations" from Redmond that require complete re-learning every 3-5 years or so. It is nice to get things right the first time, occasionally...
Pardon me if I wasn't clear.
(BTW, when we do "think outside the box" and come up with better new ideas, I suspect they'll also have plenty of staying power...)
Yes, I got your argument confused with some parent poster's comment. Sorry.
I had decades of programing experience when I first approached Java, I found it heavy sledding to get going.
All I can say about this is that it's quite likely your earlier experience wasn't heavy C++ development. Compared with that, Java is a breeze.
There are many other interesting alternatives, but Java's widespread acceptance is very compelling. It seems the JCP will fill in whatever holes might be left to eventually provide an excellent language + libraries. In the meantime it's very usable for real world work. New developments like SWT and JOGL show the vitality of the Java scene.
I wouldn't put it that way. It may be that Einstein's dictum of "make it as simple as possible, but no simpler" wasn't followed. That I'd accept as a valid criticism of some of Java and it's libraries.
A system with complex rules isn't necessarily more powerful, but it's usually more difficult and error prone.
I'm not sure what you mean by "with complex rules". The essence of the matter is that developers want to use complex libraries and subsystems, in the hope that they'll solve equally (or more) complex problems. EJB's (and J2EE's) success or failure should be judged in that light. This is also true with regard to your "error prone" comment. The exact attraction of the J2EE architecture is that it should remove both risk and fragility from the system by using robust, tested code. There is a very large test suite that must be passed in order for an application server to be J2EE compliant. I think very few that have deployed J2EE applications would characterize the environment as "fragile".
It certainly seems to have solved some need, because many projects are using it, many successfully. It certainly runs on the highest-end server hardware out there (up to over 100 processors in a single SMP box, which can be clustered).
Unfortunately this misconception is very common in computer science. People tend always to create complex APIs/infaces and protocols just to get a "powerful tools". The result is the security and error ridden state of the internet and computers we see these days.
First of all, J2EE systems haven't been the victim of many security exploits that I've heard of...Microsoft systems seem to be the usual victims. Both Unix and Java are Internet-hardened technologies that have stood up very well in real world use. Let's hear your alternatives now...
Right, along with hydrogen for fusion.
The one point I'd make about burning all that oil is that it would be much better used to make plastic (recyclable and long-lived). Making plastic may be fairly difficult once the oil is gone. On the other hand, with unlimited energy making plastic seems a solvable problem...
Life is short.
Ironically, Java was created largely to address the "life is too short" problem with C++, largely succesfully (in terms of language design). Nor have I heard many complaints about the lack of generics in Java from practicing Java programmers, as opposed to the numerous armchair quarterbacks who always seem willing to share their opinion.
I'm curious which Microsoft solution you feel is easier, and why?
Further, I'd like you to defend why you think the MS technology is a better long-term investment. For me, it's very nice having most of the Unix techniques I learned in the 80's still be perfectly useful now.
I expect Java and EJB/J2EE to have long lives ahead - at least 20 years of widespread use. Both are way ahead of C# and .Net, in almost every respect. Avoiding vendor lockin is a big priority for most IS shops these days.
$399 for Athlon 64 3200+ on pricegrabber.com...so no real difference there except more RAM addressing for the Athlon. :-)
BTW, I'm sure Intel is pissed at that price for the P4 3.2 GHz. Most of them are still priced over $600, and several were over $700. ;-)
Those kind of dollars are reserved for Athlon64 FX and Opteron these days...
Well, many are looking for reasons to hate C#. For me, I won't consider it until it is much less of a single-vendor thing. I should start evaluating Mono, I hear it is almost usable these days. HOWEVER, that doesn't address some of the major problems, such as WinForms being closed.
However, on the Java side I have many major vendors providing compilers and runtimes, as well as free implementations, running on all the major platforms. With C#/CLR I see a single vendor with a complete implementation, running on only one (substandard IMO) platform.
It's an easy choice for now...
First of all, the Java docs are quite clear on all Java entities being passed by value. It just happens that the "value" for each Java object is the reference to it. ;-) Java in no way discourages you from understanding all the details of how it works. It really doesn't "hide the machine" any more than straight C does.
You can't write a "swap" function in Java to swap the values of two primitives. However, unless you write a "swap" function, things just pretty much work as you'd expect. That TA might still be a better programmer than you. :-)
I'm guessing from the tone of your rant that you'd prefer C or other lower level languages to be taught in undergraduate CS studies. I disagree, mainly since 90%+ of all the grads will be working in a "high level language" where algorithms and data are the important issues, not instruction ordering or word size. There are classes outside the core curriculum, if you think you want to specialize in embedded programming or similar areas (many who go this route do an EE degree instead though).
You might also consider a Computer Engineering degree - you'll get plenty of low-level exposure there. ;-)
Did you try using NIO? I suspect any C# speed advantage has been largely negated.
Also, if I/O speed remained a serious concern, I could simply write JNI wrappers for the C open(), write(), close() etc. functions. That would be within a few percent of raw C I/O speeds, on all the platforms Java supports...instead of just Windows.
I presume he meant Python, perl, and php. He should have just said. ;-)
Wow, no FORTRAN in the engineering track. Well, it's easy enough to learn...
I'm curious, what about voice recognition? Is the amount of technical jargon too great for current technology? I'd think simultaneous voice recording and voice recognition would be the best of all worlds (you could always correct the written version post-facto). Possible killer app?
It might be worth doing the Select developer program for a lot of people here on Slashdot. For $500/year you get both prerelease and current versions of OSes and dev tools, PLUS you get one system a year at 10-20% off list.
Not such a bad deal... =)
What would it achieve with a G5 factored in there somewhere? ;-)
I'm drooling over one of the dual 2 GHz. models...
No, but it does run a fairly sane OS. It is also supported well, and very nicely designed. I understand (I've never owned one) that iBooks are pretty rugged. Battery life is also outstanding.
These observations often don't apply to "a comparably priced Intel laptop".
For me, though, the 15" Powerbook is definitely a better fit. ;-)
Do not look into laser with remaining eye!
Now you know one of the big reasons governments spend billions of dollars on weather forecasting equipment and satellites.
The exact same issues apply to laser guided bombs. Many other military activities are much easier in good weather.