Re:I don't even know where to begin...
on
Spring Into PHP 5
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· Score: 1
The python language somehow seems to be less bug-prone than other languages. I find more of my time is used to write code, and less time is used to test and debug during the development process.
Of course, YMMV. I recommend to anyone interested in trying a new language that they give python a chance, and suspend their disbelief of the whitespace-is-significant syntax.
Everyone I've known that's tried using python for a fitting task has been impressed with the ease of development.
That being said, it's not the perfect language. I was just mentioning that it has a certain magical quality to the syntax where people seem less likely to make mistakes the first time through. That's a great quality when making unix administrative scripts or glue code.
PHP is great because of its availability and its simple and powerful syntax
I haven't heard PHP's syntax described that way before. To me, it seems neither simple (think python, C) nor powerful (think ruby, perl).
Re:I don't even know where to begin...
on
Spring Into PHP 5
·
· Score: 1
stupidest language ever, white space as block delimiters?
Everyone always says that, and to a certain extent it's true.
However, everyone I know who's actually tried it, including myself, is surprised at how often what they write does what they expect the first time.
It was really amazing. And in practice, usually editors handle the whitespace quite nicely. Python may not be right for every task, but it's been a wonderful tool to have available.
entirely in Perl cgi, often taking months to do simple tasks
Huh? I don't think the move from Perl cgi to php will turn months of work into days. The development time is relatively close, even if you ignore all of the templating solutions for perl.
I understand people have their preferences one way or another, perl, python, php, whatever. But let's not pretend that the mere choice of language can mean the difference between months and days.
I am more likely to buy it if you're really talking about a big change in the way software is developed, e.g. python instead of C or something.
I really enjoyed learning about Ruby, but it seems to me the documentation is lacking and the websites are less navigable than other languages. Compared to perl/python/php, it really seems lacking. Also, there seems to be a million different sources for everything, without a single, definitive, complete place to find answers.
If you point me to a few places where I can find information about how to use RoR or ruby gems or various libraries, I'll give it another shot.
"There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward. A mainstream figure is that some thirty million people died during the famine that followed."
You're absolutely right. In fact, many people there still highly regard Chairman Mao, despite the fact that he is responsible for 10's of millions of his own people dead (more than Hitler and Stalin combined, I think). At least they pretend to regard him highly.
I was merely pointing out that Japan did horrible things, and was assuring the other poster that college campuses are really the only places where that is overlooked.
I'm an American, but I've been to China and their museums, and it's very clear that Japan ruthlessly attacked China, using tactics as bad as anything in history.
I suspect you are a college student, because nowhere else that I know of does there exist sympathy with WWII-time Japan.
that it's way too cynical to justify the killing of 210K by saying that it prevented many more from being killed.
The tally of people killed isn't the entire story. Americans would much prefer that Japanese died than fellow Americans. And that is a good justification; after all, we were at war with a country that attacked us.
It really makes no sense to say that an American should value the life of a WWII-time Japanese person as much as the life of a WWII-time American.
Then "separation of church and state" means jack shit to you
Not true. I think we should avoid it, but at the local level or the ballot box. I don't believe it's a Constitutional right to not hear about someone else's beliefs.
you might as well elect the Pope president
I would not vote for him. Also, there's a Constitutional requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen, which would entirely prevent his election.
and mandate that everyone be Baptist
The Constitution prohibits that by saying "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...". Those are words that are actually in the Constitution, unlike "Separation of Church and State", which are not.
SOMEONE HAS TO HAVE THAT POWER, OR THE CONSTITUTION IS NULL AND VOID!
Wrong. No matter whether I call something a religion or not, the Federal government shouldn't care or distinguish.
who does that responsibility fall to? Judges
I think you mean "who usurped that power? Judges." Judges should not be able to label something religious or secular. Particularly, since if a judge labels something "religious", it somehow no longer enjoys the freedom of speech.
The person that I replied to wrote:...fundamentalist Christians try to force their beliefs on the nation...
So then I wrote:
Why no outcry when the left tries to force their beliefs on the public schools?
then you wrote:...none of those are ever taught in SCIENCE class
then I wrote:
A fair point, but that's not what I was responding to.
It seems like a fairly logical series to me. You made a valid point, but you made it slightly out of context.
My main point is that I don't like ID, nor do I want it in the classroom, but there's all kinds of stuff from the left that I don't want in the classroom either. I think it should be settled by parents in local districts.
Diversity and the environment do matter. But there are movements by those names that are very damaging, often damaging to the environment and damaging to diversity. The problem is that those movements have crept into the schools because of their harmless-sounding names.
There are serious problems with the way these ideas are taught. Critical thinking is completely removed from discussions about the environment, rather some things are labeled "good for the environment" and other things are labeled "bad for the environment". If someone were to ask "how good is it for the environment when I recycle a newspaper?" that question would be met with blank stares rather than answers. For real environmental policy, someone needs to quantify the benefits of doing something "good" versus doing something "bad". Right now the environmentalist movement is just using their environmental name to impose their demands on others without the need for proof of anything, really.
And "diversity" and "social justice" are very poorly defined. "Social justice" means different things to different people, and the only logical result can be "the rule of man" rather than "the rule of law". "Diversity" is some blind goal people are working toward. After hearing that word about 5 times you begin to wonder if there's any value in having something in common with your fellow man. Also, in practice diversity usually means diversity of appearance, not diversity of thought.
Think about it, how much more prejudicial do you get than assuming that all Asians have the same sort of ideas? Some college might say that Asians are "overrepresented", but what they're really saying is: "If you've seen one Asian, you've seen 'em all. Bring us some other assorted colors instead." Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. The more well-educated you are, the more likely you are to have a new and different idea, regardless of what color you are.
I'm starting to rant here obviously, so I'll stop for now. Mainly what I was getting at was that you shouldn't credit the movements with progress just because they latch onto the name. And we shouldn't pretend that they don't have an agenda, because they have every bit as much of an agenda as ID. And they are preaching their agenda to every kid in America, and calling it science, history, economics, english, or anything else that will get more time in front of a captive audience.
Obviously [religion and environmentalism, diversity, and social justice] are different
Umm, how? And who decides? I think the ACLU is moving in a dangerous direction where judges are given the power to distinguish between religious and non-religious activity. Nobody should have that power. The left is attempting to silence the right by having judges declare right-leaning activities "religious" and left-leaning activities "secular", not that there is any real difference.
I demand more lead and arsenic in our water supply!
Environmentalism is just the name they use. It's just a set of policies used to contol people, and those policies are given good-sounding names.
The real motives are far worse, and far closer to a religion.
people different than us
You mean a different color. Diversity is all about diversity of appearance, not diversity of thought. Everyone should look different, but all be a part of the left agenda.
Why no outcry when the left tries to force their beliefs on the public schools?
"Environmentalism" and "diversity" and "social justice" are indistinguishable from religion. Yet somehow they find their way into public schools with no problem, and slashdot doesn't seem to mind.
I mostly agree that it should not be taught in a science class.
However, there's already BS taught in public schools that's part of some left agenda. It's religion, it's just not called "religion".
Now all of a sudden when there's an agenda being pushed that happens to be Christian, it's a big deal and all of a sudden school is about facts again.
Imagine that? You'd never hear the NEA start talking about the value of facts and objective reasoning if it weren't for some Christians trying to push their agenda into the schools alongside the left agenda.
Trust me, there are still businesses that value their employees because they realize happy employees are more productive.
More importantly, employers realize that if they don't treat their employees well, the most productive ones will leave first, because they will have less trouble finding a new job. The least productive are likely to stay at the company because they will have lots of trouble finding a new job.
Unions mean that the least productive employees ride on the backs of the most productive employees. Often, a union turns productive employees into unproductive employees, or the productive employees just leave.
Keep in mind that if you belong to a union, you lose all power to bargain as an individual. If you are a valuable individual, this is bad. If you are not a valuable individual, this is good.
They're your employer. What's the worst thing that can happen if they hit you with all of their hammers? They stop paying you money. They should be able to stop paying you money whenever they want*. It's their money, you have to convince them to give it to you, or find someone else.
Spinning words like "your employer can now ban behavior X" misses the point of the employer-employee relationship. As long as both people enjoy a net benefit from that relationship, it will continue. When that is no longer the case, the relationship will end.
Any other situation is not a free society. If someone is forced to stay in any relationship when it's not to their net benefit*, that person is now a slave.
*: Of course there could be agreements in place such as a severance pay, advanced notice, etc. Such agreements should be honored of course.
The point he's missing is that the Hungarian representative in the commission does not have to (and is not supposed to) follow his government's orders,
I think that was Stallman's point: it's an undemocratic process.
...is oppressing them, that social engineering is destroying their lives...
It's not whether gun control is good or bad. I respect arguments either way. The problem is that it's not Constitutional. Allowing the government to reinterpret the Constitution because something is "good" or "bad" weakens not only the 2nd Amendment, but every other part of the Constitution.
Defend not just the rights you prefer, but all rights in the Constitution that every president swears to defend. Without your help defending the 2nd Amendment, it weakens every other freedom you value.
If you do not prefer the exact text of the Constitution, an Amendment is appropriate. Gun control is a legitimate debate. But the debate should be around a Constitutional Amendment, not a rider on a bill in Congress.
Speech can not be responded to with actions that stop the speech.
Yes it can. Presenting copyrighted materials unlawfully, or committing other crimes while speaking are not considered to be protected by the First Amendment.
So the government is required to stop private parties from infringing those rights.
I disagree. If it's your property, you can require a search before you're allowed in, and if they say something that offends you you can force them to leave.
There is, however, the competing right for people to be secure in our private places
This concept of "competing rights" was inveted by lawyers to deprive citizens of their rights. It's a simple trick: pit one right against another.
Some of the Amendments are completely ignored, like the 2nd and the 10th. If the governemtn requires a waiting period and registration, then we have lost the right to keep and bear arms.
exclusion of people from private places on basis of race, gender, ethnicity etc are detrimental to our free society.
I disagree. We have freedom of association and freedom of assembly. If I want to have a meeting and exclude all black people, that's my right. It works that way for employment and other commercial transactions as well (of course, if I've advertised a price then I have to offer it to pretty much anyone, or else it's false advertising). The anti-discrimination laws are basically feel-good legislation that are very detrimental. It opens up small businesses to all kinds of frivilous lawsuits because the law is so vague. For example, if you have only hired white people so far, and a black person with good credentials interviews, are you legally required to hire that individual over a white alternative? If you think he has a bad attitude during the interview, and you hire a white person instead, have you broken the law? Will all judges give the same result?
That's what "Rule of Law" is about. It means that if you're of average intelligence, and reasonably well-informed, you'll know in advance if you're breaking the law. The alternative is "Rule of Man", and we don't want that.
Speed wise, isn't Perl one of the fastest script languages? (vs PHP, etc)
Perl is fast for many things. In the end, it basically comes down to how much built-in functionality you're using vs how much you're writing. If it's less code, that means it's probably using more built-in, optimized functionality, and it's probably faster.
If you wrote everything from the ground up in perl, python, ruby, etc, it will probably be slow. But if you make use of the built-in facilities and C libraries, they'll all be fast.
In java, many of the libraries are written in Java. That shows you how fast java is: it's java all the way down to the core, and yet it still is very fast for many things.
Slashdot Mirror
The python language somehow seems to be less bug-prone than other languages. I find more of my time is used to write code, and less time is used to test and debug during the development process.
Of course, YMMV. I recommend to anyone interested in trying a new language that they give python a chance, and suspend their disbelief of the whitespace-is-significant syntax.
Everyone I've known that's tried using python for a fitting task has been impressed with the ease of development.
That being said, it's not the perfect language. I was just mentioning that it has a certain magical quality to the syntax where people seem less likely to make mistakes the first time through. That's a great quality when making unix administrative scripts or glue code.
PHP is great because of its availability and its simple and powerful syntax
I haven't heard PHP's syntax described that way before. To me, it seems neither simple (think python, C) nor powerful (think ruby, perl).
stupidest language ever, white space as block delimiters?
Everyone always says that, and to a certain extent it's true.
However, everyone I know who's actually tried it, including myself, is surprised at how often what they write does what they expect the first time.
It was really amazing. And in practice, usually editors handle the whitespace quite nicely. Python may not be right for every task, but it's been a wonderful tool to have available.
entirely in Perl cgi, often taking months to do simple tasks
Huh? I don't think the move from Perl cgi to php will turn months of work into days. The development time is relatively close, even if you ignore all of the templating solutions for perl.
I understand people have their preferences one way or another, perl, python, php, whatever. But let's not pretend that the mere choice of language can mean the difference between months and days.
I am more likely to buy it if you're really talking about a big change in the way software is developed, e.g. python instead of C or something.
I really enjoyed learning about Ruby, but it seems to me the documentation is lacking and the websites are less navigable than other languages. Compared to perl/python/php, it really seems lacking. Also, there seems to be a million different sources for everything, without a single, definitive, complete place to find answers.
If you point me to a few places where I can find information about how to use RoR or ruby gems or various libraries, I'll give it another shot.
From wikipedia:
"There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward. A mainstream figure is that some thirty million people died during the famine that followed."
You're absolutely right. In fact, many people there still highly regard Chairman Mao, despite the fact that he is responsible for 10's of millions of his own people dead (more than Hitler and Stalin combined, I think). At least they pretend to regard him highly.
I was merely pointing out that Japan did horrible things, and was assuring the other poster that college campuses are really the only places where that is overlooked.
I'm an American, but I've been to China and their museums, and it's very clear that Japan ruthlessly attacked China, using tactics as bad as anything in history.
I suspect you are a college student, because nowhere else that I know of does there exist sympathy with WWII-time Japan.
that it's way too cynical to justify the killing of 210K by saying that it prevented many more from being killed.
The tally of people killed isn't the entire story. Americans would much prefer that Japanese died than fellow Americans. And that is a good justification; after all, we were at war with a country that attacked us.
It really makes no sense to say that an American should value the life of a WWII-time Japanese person as much as the life of a WWII-time American.
Then "separation of church and state" means jack shit to you
Not true. I think we should avoid it, but at the local level or the ballot box. I don't believe it's a Constitutional right to not hear about someone else's beliefs.
you might as well elect the Pope president
I would not vote for him. Also, there's a Constitutional requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen, which would entirely prevent his election.
and mandate that everyone be Baptist
The Constitution prohibits that by saying "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...". Those are words that are actually in the Constitution, unlike "Separation of Church and State", which are not.
SOMEONE HAS TO HAVE THAT POWER, OR THE CONSTITUTION IS NULL AND VOID!
Wrong. No matter whether I call something a religion or not, the Federal government shouldn't care or distinguish.
who does that responsibility fall to? Judges
I think you mean "who usurped that power? Judges." Judges should not be able to label something religious or secular. Particularly, since if a judge labels something "religious", it somehow no longer enjoys the freedom of speech.
The person that I replied to wrote: ...fundamentalist Christians try to force their beliefs on the nation...
...none of those are ever taught in SCIENCE class
So then I wrote:
Why no outcry when the left tries to force their beliefs on the public schools?
then you wrote:
then I wrote:
A fair point, but that's not what I was responding to.
It seems like a fairly logical series to me. You made a valid point, but you made it slightly out of context.
My main point is that I don't like ID, nor do I want it in the classroom, but there's all kinds of stuff from the left that I don't want in the classroom either. I think it should be settled by parents in local districts.
Diversity and the environment do matter. But there are movements by those names that are very damaging, often damaging to the environment and damaging to diversity. The problem is that those movements have crept into the schools because of their harmless-sounding names.
There are serious problems with the way these ideas are taught. Critical thinking is completely removed from discussions about the environment, rather some things are labeled "good for the environment" and other things are labeled "bad for the environment". If someone were to ask "how good is it for the environment when I recycle a newspaper?" that question would be met with blank stares rather than answers. For real environmental policy, someone needs to quantify the benefits of doing something "good" versus doing something "bad". Right now the environmentalist movement is just using their environmental name to impose their demands on others without the need for proof of anything, really.
And "diversity" and "social justice" are very poorly defined. "Social justice" means different things to different people, and the only logical result can be "the rule of man" rather than "the rule of law". "Diversity" is some blind goal people are working toward. After hearing that word about 5 times you begin to wonder if there's any value in having something in common with your fellow man. Also, in practice diversity usually means diversity of appearance, not diversity of thought.
Think about it, how much more prejudicial do you get than assuming that all Asians have the same sort of ideas? Some college might say that Asians are "overrepresented", but what they're really saying is: "If you've seen one Asian, you've seen 'em all. Bring us some other assorted colors instead." Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. The more well-educated you are, the more likely you are to have a new and different idea, regardless of what color you are.
I'm starting to rant here obviously, so I'll stop for now. Mainly what I was getting at was that you shouldn't credit the movements with progress just because they latch onto the name. And we shouldn't pretend that they don't have an agenda, because they have every bit as much of an agenda as ID. And they are preaching their agenda to every kid in America, and calling it science, history, economics, english, or anything else that will get more time in front of a captive audience.
And who should have that power?
Nobody should have the power to legally distinguish between religious and non-religous activities.
...none of those are ever taught in SCIENCE class
A fair point, but that's not what I was responding to.
Obviously [religion and environmentalism, diversity, and social justice] are different
Umm, how? And who decides? I think the ACLU is moving in a dangerous direction where judges are given the power to distinguish between religious and non-religious activity. Nobody should have that power. The left is attempting to silence the right by having judges declare right-leaning activities "religious" and left-leaning activities "secular", not that there is any real difference.
I demand more lead and arsenic in our water supply!
Environmentalism is just the name they use. It's just a set of policies used to contol people, and those policies are given good-sounding names.
The real motives are far worse, and far closer to a religion.
people different than us
You mean a different color. Diversity is all about diversity of appearance, not diversity of thought. Everyone should look different, but all be a part of the left agenda.
Why no outcry when the left tries to force their beliefs on the public schools?
"Environmentalism" and "diversity" and "social justice" are indistinguishable from religion. Yet somehow they find their way into public schools with no problem, and slashdot doesn't seem to mind.
I mostly agree that it should not be taught in a science class.
However, there's already BS taught in public schools that's part of some left agenda. It's religion, it's just not called "religion".
Now all of a sudden when there's an agenda being pushed that happens to be Christian, it's a big deal and all of a sudden school is about facts again.
Imagine that? You'd never hear the NEA start talking about the value of facts and objective reasoning if it weren't for some Christians trying to push their agenda into the schools alongside the left agenda.
Trust me, there are still businesses that value their employees because they realize happy employees are more productive.
More importantly, employers realize that if they don't treat their employees well, the most productive ones will leave first, because they will have less trouble finding a new job. The least productive are likely to stay at the company because they will have lots of trouble finding a new job.
Unions mean that the least productive employees ride on the backs of the most productive employees. Often, a union turns productive employees into unproductive employees, or the productive employees just leave.
Keep in mind that if you belong to a union, you lose all power to bargain as an individual. If you are a valuable individual, this is bad. If you are not a valuable individual, this is good.
Otherwise, I reserve the right... ...and your employer reserves the right to stop paying you entirely.
They're your employer. What's the worst thing that can happen if they hit you with all of their hammers? They stop paying you money. They should be able to stop paying you money whenever they want*. It's their money, you have to convince them to give it to you, or find someone else.
Spinning words like "your employer can now ban behavior X" misses the point of the employer-employee relationship. As long as both people enjoy a net benefit from that relationship, it will continue. When that is no longer the case, the relationship will end.
Any other situation is not a free society. If someone is forced to stay in any relationship when it's not to their net benefit*, that person is now a slave.
*: Of course there could be agreements in place such as a severance pay, advanced notice, etc. Such agreements should be honored of course.
The point he's missing is that the Hungarian representative in the commission does not have to (and is not supposed to) follow his government's orders,
I think that was Stallman's point: it's an undemocratic process.
...is oppressing them, that social engineering is destroying their lives...
It's not whether gun control is good or bad. I respect arguments either way. The problem is that it's not Constitutional. Allowing the government to reinterpret the Constitution because something is "good" or "bad" weakens not only the 2nd Amendment, but every other part of the Constitution.
Defend not just the rights you prefer, but all rights in the Constitution that every president swears to defend. Without your help defending the 2nd Amendment, it weakens every other freedom you value.
If you do not prefer the exact text of the Constitution, an Amendment is appropriate. Gun control is a legitimate debate. But the debate should be around a Constitutional Amendment, not a rider on a bill in Congress.
Speech can not be responded to with actions that stop the speech.
Yes it can. Presenting copyrighted materials unlawfully, or committing other crimes while speaking are not considered to be protected by the First Amendment.
So the government is required to stop private parties from infringing those rights.
I disagree. If it's your property, you can require a search before you're allowed in, and if they say something that offends you you can force them to leave.
There is, however, the competing right for people to be secure in our private places
This concept of "competing rights" was inveted by lawyers to deprive citizens of their rights. It's a simple trick: pit one right against another.
Some of the Amendments are completely ignored, like the 2nd and the 10th. If the governemtn requires a waiting period and registration, then we have lost the right to keep and bear arms.
exclusion of people from private places on basis of race, gender, ethnicity etc are detrimental to our free society.
I disagree. We have freedom of association and freedom of assembly. If I want to have a meeting and exclude all black people, that's my right. It works that way for employment and other commercial transactions as well (of course, if I've advertised a price then I have to offer it to pretty much anyone, or else it's false advertising). The anti-discrimination laws are basically feel-good legislation that are very detrimental. It opens up small businesses to all kinds of frivilous lawsuits because the law is so vague. For example, if you have only hired white people so far, and a black person with good credentials interviews, are you legally required to hire that individual over a white alternative? If you think he has a bad attitude during the interview, and you hire a white person instead, have you broken the law? Will all judges give the same result?
That's what "Rule of Law" is about. It means that if you're of average intelligence, and reasonably well-informed, you'll know in advance if you're breaking the law. The alternative is "Rule of Man", and we don't want that.
The Articles of Confederation did not provide for a common defense.
Speed wise, isn't Perl one of the fastest script languages? (vs PHP, etc)
Perl is fast for many things. In the end, it basically comes down to how much built-in functionality you're using vs how much you're writing. If it's less code, that means it's probably using more built-in, optimized functionality, and it's probably faster.
If you wrote everything from the ground up in perl, python, ruby, etc, it will probably be slow. But if you make use of the built-in facilities and C libraries, they'll all be fast.
In java, many of the libraries are written in Java. That shows you how fast java is: it's java all the way down to the core, and yet it still is very fast for many things.