If you combine Java with some kind of IDE/wizzards that can give you the RAD functionality of Visual Basic, that would be a great first language. Although if you did that, you would have something not to different to C#:)
I learned Pascal as my first language and it was good. The latest incantation (Delphi 7, the new.NET version is crap IMO) is still good.
For a first language for new programmers today, I would suggest Java or one of the.NET languages (C# & VB.NET seem like a good place to start)
I learned Java as my first language in University, never programmed the.NET languages and use C++ for most of my programming I do nowadays. The only downsides to Java are the exception handling (which generally only becomes a problem when doing I/O) and the way of doing GUIs (specifically the fact that, unlike Visual Basic, Delphi, the.NET languages and any language using win32 dialog resources, Java makes it difficult to get precice positioning of controls on dialog boxes and forms).
I still love C. A large part of the stuff I program is in C or "C++" (as in, C++ without actually using any OOP stuff like classes except for when I call COM objects).
The other problem with live music venues is that (at least here in Perth, Australia), more and more live venues (pubs etc) are either going away (because the land is more valuable with a nice new apartment block on it) or being hobbled because a nice new apartment block goes up next door and even though the pub has been there (and been playing live music) a lot longer than the apartment block has been there, the people who move into the new apartment block have been able to convince councils, government departments etc to force the pub next door to stop making so much noise.
Multicast probobly wont happen in any meaningfull way because providers cant figure out how to charge for it.
For example, if netconcert.com sends out a concert to 20 people via unicast, thats 20 connections going out and its easy to follow those 20 packets and find out who has to pay who. But, if that goes out over multicast, one packet leaves the server and is split into multiple packets. How do you charge for that?
The right answer is to force ISPs to do more. Any ISP with even remotly competant technical people should be able to tell that customer x is spewing out 10000s of spam emails or participating in a DDOS attack. Ergo, they can take action (including letting the customer know and giving them free removal tools).
Unfortunatly, the problem is that because of how the broken legal system works (in USA anyway) its may actually BETTER (legal/lawsuit wise) for ISPs to do nothing at all than for them to do something that helps solve the problem but doesnt go all the way.
One way to avoid collisions is to use multiple hashing algorithims. Using both MD5 and CRC32 together wont add that much overhead vs just using MD5 and greatly reduces the possiblity of false positives.
The other alternative is to just drive the car yourself. Although then you have to factor in the costs of accomodation/food/gas on the way. But if your car is worth a lot to you (in market value or sentimental value), it might be worth it just to make sure it gets there in one piece.
The only reason crappy carriers like Verizon still exist is because they have better coverage in all the places people need to use a cellphone.
If a company can produce a network that has the coverage of verizon without all the crap, they will make a mint with all the verizon customers switching to them (thank god for mobile number portability)
If the US can do what us aussies have (largely) done and eliminate all forms of protection, it would be a very good thing for the world at large.
Us aussies dont need to pay farmers to produce because our farmers are good enough that they (except in times of natural disasters like floods or drought) dont need subsidies to stay in business.
US farm subsidies cause more total output of various crops to be produced than would otherwise be the case which drives prices lower and hurts unsibsidised farmers. In the ideal world, there would be no subsidies, tarrifs, embargos or other trade barriers and everything would be produced by the countries most efficiantly able to produce it.
If that means that some hillbilly farmer cant produce unsubsidised produce that is cheaper (when all the costs are taken into account) than an australian farmer, so be it.
Its more like that they dont want people buying drives from elsewhere and avoiding paying over-the-top features for what is (presumably) just a firewire hard disk that uses a custom filesystem and thus depriving Alesis of profit.
No, the correct answer (from the Alesis point of view) is: 1) Make really cool hard disk 2) Allow public specs for the disk and protocols 3) Watch as 3rd party companies release cheap clones that work with their audio gear 4) Loose profit
Its all well and good to allow people onto the AIM network legitimatly. BUT, until you change the licence, most of the popular alternatives will still be considered "illegal" by AOL.
Specifically, if it really IS possible to connect to AIM (and use full features) from an alternative client without using the AOL SDK (e.g. what clients like GAIM and Miranda use), there needs to be legal say so from someone at AOL (not just a random slashdot posting from someone who may be an AOL employee or may be impersonating one).
Also, the restriction about using GPL etc code needs to be changed so that it only applies if: A.The client is linking to code/modules that are (C) AOL and B.The licence applied to the client requires that the (C) AOL modules are open sourced. (e.g. "This program is under GPL with an exception that lets you link with the official AOL SDK modules" would be ok) This change would basicly mean that any licence for the code is OK as long as such licence does not require that the AIM libraries are open sourced.
And, most importantly, the restriction that prevents one from making "legal" AOL clients that also talk to ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, XMPP, Jabber, IRC or other IM networks must be removed. Since I doubt AOL will be willing to make this last change, clients like Miranda IM (which I use), GAIM and Trillian will likely remain "illegal".
Also, the restrictions on building "wireless" clients might hurt open-source prjects, especially with the (IMO) vague definition of what counts of "wireless" (Does using AIM on my PC at home connecting to my WiFi router count? Does using AIM on my laptop in a WiFi hotspot count? Does using AIM on my laptop with a wireless data card or mobile phone with internet access count?)
I think the intent of the rule is to prevent people writing AIM clients for mobile phones, PDAs, Smartphones and other things that have "mobile phone" functionality built in (both because AOL makes so much $$$ from licencing AIM to the manufacturers and because the carriers demand limits on what AIM on their network can actually do) but regardless, a clearer definition of what counts as "wireless" under the licence would be nice:)
Also, its not clear what is required to be "fingerprinted" for the purposes of getting a development key, the client EXE or the AOL plugin DLL (or both)
I think this restriction is designed to target the companies making mobile phones, PDAs (smartphones etc) and the like. Unless you add specific functionality related to mobile phones or wireless networks, they probobly wont have problems with anyone building a client running on a normal windows machine. Of course IANAL etc etc etc
If this happened in Australia, it would be a Good Thing.
Basicly, take the infrastructure away from Telecrap (now Tel$tra) and allow anyone to access the network. Government regulation would ensure that everyone was on a level playing field and subsidies (like we already have) would ensure that the owner of the local loop is forced to service everyone.
Try selling the "consolidation is a good thing" mantra to all those people stuck on Verizon Wireless (with crappy phones that they hate) because no-one else gives them usable service in the places they need usable service.
Limit message size and implement some kind of shared network storage (where people can put files) and/or some kind of internal corporate IM system (I know such things exist) with file transfer functionality.
IIRC the lenovo issue was sorted by making sure that all the R&D and model development happened in america (as well as the development of any special software etc that would go on the machines, bios etc) and that information being given to the chinese side was carefully checked over first before it was given out.
If america would stop wasting money on wars it should never have started in the first place (the situation in IRAQ is actually WORSE now than it was under saddam I believe), maybe there would be enough money to do something good (like space exploration)
I dont follow US politics, is the general push from the US people these days pro-iraq-war or anti-iraq-war? (i.e. is there pressure from the public to the administration to pull out of iraq or not?)
is if: 1.They have ads that are as unobtrusive as google adwords. 2.They can gaurantee me that the search results are 100% free from any attempts by unscruplous page owners to boost their results using underhanded tricks (cf the recent BMW case) 3.They can gaurantee me that their search results are 100% accurate and that no-one has paid Microsoft any money to get higher results 4.They can gaurantee me that they wont sell any info they collect to nasty people (spammers etc) and 5.They can come up with cool logos for special days and events like Christmas and the Winter Olympics:) Until then, I will stick with Google (who fit all those criteria)
Obviously I cant really say where or go into big details but the place I work (big global tech firm) already does good software development practices including things like code review (nothing goes into the main development tree for the project unless its been inspected first)
I do concur with the lack of good code documentation. Good documentation should allow someone who has never seen the code before to come along and understand what the code is doing.
There are locks comming on the market now that use essentially the same keyless entry technology as cars have had for years. (better still would be if they can combine it so that when you unlock the door, the front lights come on automatically) There are others that work on combination locks (doors on commercial premises have had these for years too)
The obvious question is why dont they just make the form electronic so you dont have to fill it in and take it to HR, you sit at your desk and fill it in and then it gets sent to HR automatically.
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If you combine Java with some kind of IDE/wizzards that can give you the RAD functionality of Visual Basic, that would be a great first language. Although if you did that, you would have something not to different to C# :)
.NET version is crap IMO) is still good.
.NET languages (C# & VB .NET seem like a good place to start)
.NET languages and use C++ for most of my programming I do nowadays. The only downsides to Java are the exception handling (which generally only becomes a problem when doing I/O) and the way of doing GUIs (specifically the fact that, unlike Visual Basic, Delphi, the .NET languages and any language using win32 dialog resources, Java makes it difficult to get precice positioning of controls on dialog boxes and forms).
I learned Pascal as my first language and it was good.
The latest incantation (Delphi 7, the new
For a first language for new programmers today, I would suggest Java or one of the
I learned Java as my first language in University, never programmed the
I still love C.
A large part of the stuff I program is in C or "C++" (as in, C++ without actually using any OOP stuff like classes except for when I call COM objects).
The other problem with live music venues is that (at least here in Perth, Australia), more and more live venues (pubs etc) are either going away (because the land is more valuable with a nice new apartment block on it) or being hobbled because a nice new apartment block goes up next door and even though the pub has been there (and been playing live music) a lot longer than the apartment block has been there, the people who move into the new apartment block have been able to convince councils, government departments etc to force the pub next door to stop making so much noise.
Multicast probobly wont happen in any meaningfull way because providers cant figure out how to charge for it.
For example, if netconcert.com sends out a concert to 20 people via unicast, thats 20 connections going out and its easy to follow those 20 packets and find out who has to pay who.
But, if that goes out over multicast, one packet leaves the server and is split into multiple packets. How do you charge for that?
The right answer is to force ISPs to do more.
Any ISP with even remotly competant technical people should be able to tell that customer x is spewing out 10000s of spam emails or participating in a DDOS attack.
Ergo, they can take action (including letting the customer know and giving them free removal tools).
Unfortunatly, the problem is that because of how the broken legal system works (in USA anyway) its may actually BETTER (legal/lawsuit wise) for ISPs to do nothing at all than for them to do something that helps solve the problem but doesnt go all the way.
One way to avoid collisions is to use multiple hashing algorithims.
Using both MD5 and CRC32 together wont add that much overhead vs just using MD5 and greatly reduces the possiblity of false positives.
If they can build in a share model (i.e. where you can share data either with "anyone" or with ), they will be on to a real winner.
The other alternative is to just drive the car yourself. Although then you have to factor in the costs of accomodation/food/gas on the way. But if your car is worth a lot to you (in market value or sentimental value), it might be worth it just to make sure it gets there in one piece.
The only reason crappy carriers like Verizon still exist is because they have better coverage in all the places people need to use a cellphone.
If a company can produce a network that has the coverage of verizon without all the crap, they will make a mint with all the verizon customers switching to them (thank god for mobile number portability)
If the US can do what us aussies have (largely) done and eliminate all forms of protection, it would be a very good thing for the world at large.
Us aussies dont need to pay farmers to produce because our farmers are good enough that they (except in times of natural disasters like floods or drought) dont need subsidies to stay in business.
US farm subsidies cause more total output of various crops to be produced than would otherwise be the case which drives prices lower and hurts unsibsidised farmers. In the ideal world, there would be no subsidies, tarrifs, embargos or other trade barriers and everything would be produced by the countries most efficiantly able to produce it.
If that means that some hillbilly farmer cant produce unsubsidised produce that is cheaper (when all the costs are taken into account) than an australian farmer, so be it.
Its more like that they dont want people buying drives from elsewhere and avoiding paying over-the-top features for what is (presumably) just a firewire hard disk that uses a custom filesystem and thus depriving Alesis of profit.
No, the correct answer (from the Alesis point of view) is:
1) Make really cool hard disk
2) Allow public specs for the disk and protocols
3) Watch as 3rd party companies release cheap clones that work with their audio gear
4) Loose profit
Its all well and good to allow people onto the AIM network legitimatly.
:)
BUT, until you change the licence, most of the popular alternatives will still be considered "illegal" by AOL.
Specifically, if it really IS possible to connect to AIM (and use full features) from an alternative client without using the AOL SDK (e.g. what clients like GAIM and Miranda use), there needs to be legal say so from someone at AOL (not just a random slashdot posting from someone who may be an AOL employee or may be impersonating one).
Also, the restriction about using GPL etc code needs to be changed so that it only applies if:
A.The client is linking to code/modules that are (C) AOL
and B.The licence applied to the client requires that the (C) AOL modules are open sourced. (e.g. "This program is under GPL with an exception that lets you link with the official AOL SDK modules" would be ok)
This change would basicly mean that any licence for the code is OK as long as such licence does not require that the AIM libraries are open sourced.
And, most importantly, the restriction that prevents one from making "legal" AOL clients that also talk to ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, XMPP, Jabber, IRC or other IM networks must be removed.
Since I doubt AOL will be willing to make this last change, clients like Miranda IM (which I use), GAIM and Trillian will likely remain "illegal".
Also, the restrictions on building "wireless" clients might hurt open-source prjects, especially with the (IMO) vague definition of what counts of "wireless" (Does using AIM on my PC at home connecting to my WiFi router count? Does using AIM on my laptop in a WiFi hotspot count? Does using AIM on my laptop with a wireless data card or mobile phone with internet access count?)
I think the intent of the rule is to prevent people writing AIM clients for mobile phones, PDAs, Smartphones and other things that have "mobile phone" functionality built in (both because AOL makes so much $$$ from licencing AIM to the manufacturers and because the carriers demand limits on what AIM on their network can actually do) but regardless, a clearer definition of what counts as "wireless" under the licence would be nice
Also, its not clear what is required to be "fingerprinted" for the purposes of getting a development key, the client EXE or the AOL plugin DLL (or both)
I think this restriction is designed to target the companies making mobile phones, PDAs (smartphones etc) and the like.
Unless you add specific functionality related to mobile phones or wireless networks, they probobly wont have problems with anyone building a client running on a normal windows machine.
Of course IANAL etc etc etc
If this happened in Australia, it would be a Good Thing.
Basicly, take the infrastructure away from Telecrap (now Tel$tra) and allow anyone to access the network.
Government regulation would ensure that everyone was on a level playing field and subsidies (like we already have) would ensure that the owner of the local loop is forced to service everyone.
Try selling the "consolidation is a good thing" mantra to all those people stuck on Verizon Wireless (with crappy phones that they hate) because no-one else gives them usable service in the places they need usable service.
Limit message size and implement some kind of shared network storage (where people can put files) and/or some kind of internal corporate IM system (I know such things exist) with file transfer functionality.
IIRC the lenovo issue was sorted by making sure that all the R&D and model development happened in america (as well as the development of any special software etc that would go on the machines, bios etc) and that information being given to the chinese side was carefully checked over first before it was given out.
If america would stop wasting money on wars it should never have started in the first place (the situation in IRAQ is actually WORSE now than it was under saddam I believe), maybe there would be enough money to do something good (like space exploration)
I dont follow US politics, is the general push from the US people these days pro-iraq-war or anti-iraq-war? (i.e. is there pressure from the public to the administration to pull out of iraq or not?)
Which is why I love my OzStick :)
It has a joystick and 9(!) buttons.
It will only stay alive until the senators involved get home and find the suitcases full of unmarked bills with the big bell on the side.
is if: :)
1.They have ads that are as unobtrusive as google adwords.
2.They can gaurantee me that the search results are 100% free from any attempts by unscruplous page owners to boost their results using underhanded tricks (cf the recent BMW case)
3.They can gaurantee me that their search results are 100% accurate and that no-one has paid Microsoft any money to get higher results
4.They can gaurantee me that they wont sell any info they collect to nasty people (spammers etc)
and 5.They can come up with cool logos for special days and events like Christmas and the Winter Olympics
Until then, I will stick with Google (who fit all those criteria)
Obviously I cant really say where or go into big details but the place I work (big global tech firm) already does good software development practices including things like code review (nothing goes into the main development tree for the project unless its been inspected first)
I do concur with the lack of good code documentation. Good documentation should allow someone who has never seen the code before to come along and understand what the code is doing.
There are locks comming on the market now that use essentially the same keyless entry technology as cars have had for years. (better still would be if they can combine it so that when you unlock the door, the front lights come on automatically)
There are others that work on combination locks (doors on commercial premises have had these for years too)
The obvious question is why dont they just make the form electronic so you dont have to fill it in and take it to HR, you sit at your desk and fill it in and then it gets sent to HR automatically.