I can't wait to see all of the timing errors that will pop up in software due to this. The defect reports due to race conditions alone will fill up Gigs of storage. Not to mention that systems will be as individual as fingerprints! Hours of debugging fun!!!
There seem to be many folks here who seem to think that replacing highly reliable machines and ayatems with newer (and less reliable) ones is an unbridled good. I wonder if they will still think its a good idea when their paychecks start arriving late or when payroll starts getting snappy with them because they've had to spend the previous night up babysitting a balky machine.
Not to mention that most of these systems will be replaced with ones having a more "northwestern" feel:-(.
Everyone knew about Y2k for several decades before they started worrying about it.
I remember that Thompson and Ritchie had many sleepless nights worrying if their OS would survive past 31 January, 1999. Not to mention IBM's concern back in the 60's. And I hear Eckert and Mauchly were very concerned about it back in the 40's and 50's. Even in the 30's Konrad Zuse wanted to know "How should I store dates in mein Komputieren-machinen?". In fact, I'm sure that Babbage was worried sick over the whole thing...
Several decades, indeed (but only for very small values of "several").
Several years, perhaps, but I think hyperbole got the better of you this time.
But do you remeber the HP-1000 (running RTE) and the HP-300 (with the Amigo operating system)?
Yes, my school got a great number of research grants from HP. These were just two of the machines I had to contend with out of the last two years of school where I used no fewer than 10 machines/OS'es/editing systems.
One of the wonderful things about the net is that you can often wander into new places. For instance, I was looking for a driver the other day, wandered into sites about building drivers, and then into sites about efficient low-level C coding. The problem with the PaP scheme is that I would have been much less likely to explore a new area (which might have been worthless) had I been forced to pay for each access. This is the major problem with the scheme, as it changes the web from a medium of exploration to a medium of delivery.
I'm not that impressed with the NASA study... Perl would also likely kick C++ and Java's ass in this task.
If you took the time to read the paper, you'd notice that the study was based on an earlier one that did include Perl. They both did, indeed, kick C++'s ass.
However, Lisp still did somewhat better than Perl in terms of time spent coding the task, had less variability in the time it took to code the task, and used significantly fewer runtime resources than Perl, IIRC.
don't you think it a little churlish to denigrate Java as 'an abstract, high level assembly language'?
Overclockers.com had the information out a couple of days after the XP came out. This article came out on 19 October with essentially the same information as Tom's. Since then, at Overclockers, there have been other articles dealing with other approaches to reconnecting the bridges and how the laser cuts have changed.
I don't know why people think that Tom's is a particularly good source anymore. These days they really seem to be slow off the mark...
Over the past thirty years, the US has completely destroyed its manufacturing base. About the only thing we do make anymore is information. Just think! Car designs are farmed out to people in far away lands. Marketing, we still do, but that's all information, too. Same with our culturally enlightening entertainment exports.
What does this have to do with Alan Cox? Everything...
The powers that be in the information sector know that the loss of IP rights would completely destroy the information economy and, as such, the US economy. They cannot let go of these laws. They need them to ensure the survivability of the US economy into the next century. This is why the DMCA will be defended at every turn. This is why any act of "civil disobediece' will be punished. And if it is a foreign citizen that needs to be punished (like Dimitri or Alan) so much the better. The only people who will be crying to defend these "evil hackers" would be a bunch of ineffective nerds who can't even figure out they need to support the mainstream political parties to get their voices heard and who go away after a news article disappears from Slashdot's front page.
So, no. I don't think that Alan is being paranoid or just making a point. What I think is that the Slashdot audience really doesn't understand the extent to which the US economy is supported by IP law and the extent to which our government will go to see those laws protected and extended.
So go ahead. The changelogs are out there. Go ahead and host them yourselves. That is if you're not afraid to. Oh? Got to stay in and watch that Seinfeld rerun, huh? Thought so...
If RMS scares off all the commercial entities, I can easily see KDE coming in... and just stomping GNOME.
If all the commercial entities could be scared off by RMS, I'd be more concerned about their comitment to Open Source. RMS was the founder of FSF which, for better or worse, was the original Open Source organization. Whether you agree with his positions or not, it is undeniable that Linux would not have been here without the FSF software. Most commercial organizations participating in the Open Source community are aware of RMS's participation, his views, and the nature of the same. Throwing up the fantasy that these organizations are somehow unaware of RMS and will flee at the very sight of him and his opinions is simply spreading FUD. Even if he is elected, there would be ten other members of the board who would moderate his views. Why is it I get the distinct impression that some people are so scared of his opinions that they're willing to go to almost any length to shut him up? Pretty damned unappreciative of them, in my opinion...
Before the Java runtime's garbage collector disposes of objects, it calls their finalizers.
Almost every Lisp that's out there has finalizers, too. Yes, they figured out they needed them years before Java was around.
Most also have a concept of "weak references" as well. This allows an obect to be collected if only weak references to it exist. All weak references are replaced by NIL at that time. This allows one to automatically cache functionally computed variables and have them disappear when they are no longer needed. Saves a lot of space.
Snotty equivalent of the previous message... Java prosteletyzers should do their research before they try to ding languages with MORE features than their favorite one.
To think that a man who ran for President "gets it" with respect to Free Software boggles the mind.
And to think that most of the Neanderthals on Slashdot still think it the height of humor to castigate him as a loon. I don't want to be a troll, but I find it the penulimate irony that people who can wax rhapsodiacally over RMS bitch about the one nationally recocognized politician that seems to actually "get it" when it comes to Free Software.
The ulitimate irony is, of course, that anyone actually takes these Neanderthals seriously enough to bitch about it:-(.
I made my mistake in the last election by wasting my vote on Gore. Next time, it's Green all the way, baby...
... you can always check out this little page by Bruce Stirling.
This article makes it clear that, although the first tests of packet switching were done in Great Britain, the idea was initially kicked around by the dudes at the RAND Institute. I also have heard speculation that Bell Labs had explored this as a possibility as early as the early '60's, but had rejected it as a way to gain reliability in their network due to cost considerations (A-D converters and computers being a bit more expensive at the time).
Here are my responses. Kent's would be different...
static typing Yes it spots some errors, but at a great cost - greater difficulty in code modification. Most Lisp programmers don't hit that many type errors and when they do, they have the option of fixing the error or extending the interface to accept the new type. It's not like strongly typed FP systems have complete type systems anyway. How do I specify a type "must be prime" for use in constructing hash tables, for instance? In Lisp, you just declare a variable as being of type (satisfies primep) and let the function primep do the checking. You can't do that in a statically typed language. In summary, most Lispers see static typing as a very rigid answer to a non-problem.
datatypes and pattern matching Datatypes I covered above. I'll only add that both structures and objects are available. As for pattern matching on said items, Lisp has that in CLOS. You can specialize a method on type or value. Here's an example:
Syntax Definitely subjective. But having written code that builds code in languages with more complex syntax, I know which one I'd pick...
dynamic stuff
I can't say if it is valuable for "big things" either, but it is very valuable for "important things" - things that can't go down.
self-interpretation You can't even define a static type (as defined by most strong typing systems today) for this. I'd find it very hard for it to be put consistently into a statically-typed language.
Does 700,000 lines of code seem a little bloated to anyone else?
Well, they were writing it in C++. All of those copy constructors and assignment opperators take up a lot of space!
Just think! If they were writing in Lisp with C primitives for accessing X, they probably could have gotten it down to 40 KLoC and been done in half the time...
any more than he would be pro-slavery because he buys Confederate artifacts
Nah, he'd just be a traitorous, anti-Federalist bastard.
I personally don't see why we allow Southerners to glorify a traitorous act that nearly destroyed our country. But then, I guess that 1'st Amendment thing still holds for traitorous crackers, too...
One thing that has not been brought up yet is that most larger companies are publically traded. Their number one objective is to create value for their shareholders.
You know, this is an interesting point! How many people show up at annual meetings and ask why the companies they own stock in continue to pay their yearly "Microsoft tax" rather than switching to an alternative that is cheaper and more secure? I know that I don't. On the other hand, there are always people at these meetings asking embarrassing questions about human rights, etc., so I don't know why this topic should be out of bounds. It would get more visibility for the issue.
Another killer is Exchange - there is nothing I can go to management and say "We should look to replace Exchange with XXXXXX"
Let XXXXXX=Lotus Notes.
It has better security than Exchange and IBM is much more friendly to OSS projects than Microsoft. They also have a Linux version of their Domino server. It has ALL of the functionality of Exchange and more. It is also a web server to boot (if you want to use it that way). All-in-all a super replacement for Exchange and one worth looking at if for no other reason than lack of scripting viruses.
So, ask yourselves, does file sharing -- the exchange of information on a scale far exceeding anything we have seen in human history -- promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
Yes, but going out and shooting fundamentalists that don't believe in stem cell research promotes "science and the useful arts", too, and that's still not allowed.
This isn't meant as flamebait. The point is that copyright (which is also being infringed by the use of P2P) is also supposedly to promote "science and the useful arts" and this infringement is also termed theft via the current legal system.
This is one of those situations where one is trying to make a proper balance between the competing rights of two parties. The fact that one party uses these rights to make money and one uses it to share knowledge does not make either less entitled to their right under law.
I too believe that the use of sharing to promote knowledge is morally superior to the use of copyright to make money and I'd hate to se P2P destroyed because of a ham-handed approach to fixing this problem. But the Congress and the courts have a very troubling problem when it comes to technology that allows anonymous transfer of stolen information (which, in a legal sense, is undeniably its major use as of now). I'm sure not wise enough to solve this issue. I just hope that they are. If not, we can always change the law:-).
How are they going to stop these services? The fact that there is no clear person responsible for the content of the services except the users themselves makes it difficult...
Easy. They'll use a three pronged approach:
They'll start at the highest tier, making large ISP's kick out any user who shares P2P under threat of suit.
They'll sue any major directory provider as an enabler (see the Music City suit).
Finally, if there's anyone still sharing files to any noticable extent, they'll go after them individually.
Remember that the RIAA doesn't need to completely stop sharing to win. They only need to make it dificult enough that most people don't go to the bother of doing it. They don't plan to win via eradication, but by attrition...
Slashdot Mirror
I can't wait to see all of the timing errors that will pop up in software due to this. The defect reports due to race conditions alone will fill up Gigs of storage. Not to mention that systems will be as individual as fingerprints! Hours of debugging fun!!!
Not to mention that most of these systems will be replaced with ones having a more "northwestern" feel :-(.
I remember that Thompson and Ritchie had many sleepless nights worrying if their OS would survive past 31 January, 1999. Not to mention IBM's concern back in the 60's. And I hear Eckert and Mauchly were very concerned about it back in the 40's and 50's. Even in the 30's Konrad Zuse wanted to know "How should I store dates in mein Komputieren-machinen?". In fact, I'm sure that Babbage was worried sick over the whole thing...
Several decades, indeed (but only for very small values of "several").
Several years, perhaps, but I think hyperbole got the better of you this time.
Yes, my school got a great number of research grants from HP. These were just two of the machines I had to contend with out of the last two years of school where I used no fewer than 10 machines/OS'es/editing systems.
P.S. Am I 1337, yet?
One of the wonderful things about the net is that you can often wander into new places. For instance, I was looking for a driver the other day, wandered into sites about building drivers, and then into sites about efficient low-level C coding. The problem with the PaP scheme is that I would have been much less likely to explore a new area (which might have been worthless) had I been forced to pay for each access. This is the major problem with the scheme, as it changes the web from a medium of exploration to a medium of delivery.
If you took the time to read the paper, you'd notice that the study was based on an earlier one that did include Perl. They both did, indeed, kick C++'s ass.
However, Lisp still did somewhat better than Perl in terms of time spent coding the task, had less variability in the time it took to code the task, and used significantly fewer runtime resources than Perl, IIRC.
don't you think it a little churlish to denigrate Java as 'an abstract, high level assembly language'?
It's not?
I don't know why people think that Tom's is a particularly good source anymore. These days they really seem to be slow off the mark...
What does this have to do with Alan Cox? Everything...
The powers that be in the information sector know that the loss of IP rights would completely destroy the information economy and, as such, the US economy. They cannot let go of these laws. They need them to ensure the survivability of the US economy into the next century. This is why the DMCA will be defended at every turn. This is why any act of "civil disobediece' will be punished. And if it is a foreign citizen that needs to be punished (like Dimitri or Alan) so much the better. The only people who will be crying to defend these "evil hackers" would be a bunch of ineffective nerds who can't even figure out they need to support the mainstream political parties to get their voices heard and who go away after a news article disappears from Slashdot's front page.
So, no. I don't think that Alan is being paranoid or just making a point. What I think is that the Slashdot audience really doesn't understand the extent to which the US economy is supported by IP law and the extent to which our government will go to see those laws protected and extended.
So go ahead. The changelogs are out there. Go ahead and host them yourselves. That is if you're not afraid to. Oh? Got to stay in and watch that Seinfeld rerun, huh? Thought so...
If all the commercial entities could be scared off by RMS, I'd be more concerned about their comitment to Open Source. RMS was the founder of FSF which, for better or worse, was the original Open Source organization. Whether you agree with his positions or not, it is undeniable that Linux would not have been here without the FSF software. Most commercial organizations participating in the Open Source community are aware of RMS's participation, his views, and the nature of the same. Throwing up the fantasy that these organizations are somehow unaware of RMS and will flee at the very sight of him and his opinions is simply spreading FUD. Even if he is elected, there would be ten other members of the board who would moderate his views. Why is it I get the distinct impression that some people are so scared of his opinions that they're willing to go to almost any length to shut him up? Pretty damned unappreciative of them, in my opinion...
Almost every Lisp that's out there has finalizers, too. Yes, they figured out they needed them years before Java was around.
Most also have a concept of "weak references" as well. This allows an obect to be collected if only weak references to it exist. All weak references are replaced by NIL at that time. This allows one to automatically cache functionally computed variables and have them disappear when they are no longer needed. Saves a lot of space.
Snotty equivalent of the previous message... Java prosteletyzers should do their research before they try to ding languages with MORE features than their favorite one.
Are you trying to hush up those that find these vulnerabilities?
Absolutely not. Our reputation and our practices speak for themselves.
He's right. Says it all, I think.
I wan' it. I wan' it. I wan' it. I wan' it.
Two words: Beowulf Clusters.
Hint of what response you can expect: In. Your. Dreams.
Actually, this (Warning! Don't click on this link unless you actually like that sort of thing!) is what you can expect if you ask Microsoft if you can sell your copy of XP. And then they'll turn you over to the BSA so they can have their turn...
And to think that most of the Neanderthals on Slashdot still think it the height of humor to castigate him as a loon. I don't want to be a troll, but I find it the penulimate irony that people who can wax rhapsodiacally over RMS bitch about the one nationally recocognized politician that seems to actually "get it" when it comes to Free Software.
The ulitimate irony is, of course, that anyone actually takes these Neanderthals seriously enough to bitch about it :-(.
I made my mistake in the last election by wasting my vote on Gore. Next time, it's Green all the way, baby...
This article makes it clear that, although the first tests of packet switching were done in Great Britain, the idea was initially kicked around by the dudes at the RAND Institute. I also have heard speculation that Bell Labs had explored this as a possibility as early as the early '60's, but had rejected it as a way to gain reliability in their network due to cost considerations (A-D converters and computers being a bit more expensive at the time).
static typing
Yes it spots some errors, but at a great cost - greater difficulty in code modification. Most Lisp programmers don't hit that many type errors and when they do, they have the option of fixing the error or extending the interface to accept the new type.
It's not like strongly typed FP systems have complete type systems anyway. How do I specify a type "must be prime" for use in constructing hash tables, for instance? In Lisp, you just declare a variable as being of type (satisfies primep) and let the function primep do the checking. You can't do that in a statically typed language.
In summary, most Lispers see static typing as a very rigid answer to a non-problem.
datatypes and pattern matching
Datatypes I covered above. I'll only add that both structures and objects are available. As for pattern matching on said items, Lisp has that in CLOS. You can specialize a method on type or value. Here's an example:
(defmethod factorial ((i (eql 0))) 1)
(defmethod factorial ((i integer)) (* i (factorial (1- i))))
Syntax
Definitely subjective. But having written code that builds code in languages with more complex syntax, I know which one I'd pick...
dynamic stuff
I can't say if it is valuable for "big things" either, but it is very valuable for "important things" - things that can't go down.
self-interpretation
You can't even define a static type (as defined by most strong typing systems today) for this. I'd find it very hard for it to be put consistently into a statically-typed language.
Well, they were writing it in C++. All of those copy constructors and assignment opperators take up a lot of space!
Just think! If they were writing in Lisp with C primitives for accessing X, they probably could have gotten it down to 40 KLoC and been done in half the time...
Nah, he'd just be a traitorous, anti-Federalist bastard.
I personally don't see why we allow Southerners to glorify a traitorous act that nearly destroyed our country. But then, I guess that 1'st Amendment thing still holds for traitorous crackers, too...
It's obvious what the difference is!
.com is used to target people with X10 popups, while .biz is used to target people with... Oh! Nevermind...
...Operation Audiable Puppy! Soon to be follwed by Operation Omniscient Gerbil!!!
You know, this is an interesting point! How many people show up at annual meetings and ask why the companies they own stock in continue to pay their yearly "Microsoft tax" rather than switching to an alternative that is cheaper and more secure? I know that I don't. On the other hand, there are always people at these meetings asking embarrassing questions about human rights, etc., so I don't know why this topic should be out of bounds. It would get more visibility for the issue.
Let XXXXXX=Lotus Notes.
It has better security than Exchange and IBM is much more friendly to OSS projects than Microsoft. They also have a Linux version of their Domino server. It has ALL of the functionality of Exchange and more. It is also a web server to boot (if you want to use it that way). All-in-all a super replacement for Exchange and one worth looking at if for no other reason than lack of scripting viruses.
Yes, but going out and shooting fundamentalists that don't believe in stem cell research promotes "science and the useful arts", too, and that's still not allowed.
This isn't meant as flamebait. The point is that copyright (which is also being infringed by the use of P2P) is also supposedly to promote "science and the useful arts" and this infringement is also termed theft via the current legal system.
This is one of those situations where one is trying to make a proper balance between the competing rights of two parties. The fact that one party uses these rights to make money and one uses it to share knowledge does not make either less entitled to their right under law.
I too believe that the use of sharing to promote knowledge is morally superior to the use of copyright to make money and I'd hate to se P2P destroyed because of a ham-handed approach to fixing this problem. But the Congress and the courts have a very troubling problem when it comes to technology that allows anonymous transfer of stolen information (which, in a legal sense, is undeniably its major use as of now). I'm sure not wise enough to solve this issue. I just hope that they are. If not, we can always change the law :-).
Easy. They'll use a three pronged approach:
They'll start at the highest tier, making large ISP's kick out any user who shares P2P under threat of suit.
They'll sue any major directory provider as an enabler (see the Music City suit).
Finally, if there's anyone still sharing files to any noticable extent, they'll go after them individually.
Remember that the RIAA doesn't need to completely stop sharing to win. They only need to make it dificult enough that most people don't go to the bother of doing it. They don't plan to win via eradication, but by attrition...