The vast majority of Java VMs compile the performance-critical stuff at least down to native machine code. For faster startup time (and sometimes faster running time) you can use gcj, but only for non-GUI stuff.
Swing GUI performance was just about acceptable when I started using it five years ago - and since then it's got faster and is running on much faster CPUs. However, bad coding processes, like running long non-GUI computations in the GUI thread, can make Swing seem much slower than it "really is".
can offer some type of event-driven operation,
Yep. addActionListener etc.
will work with a GUI toolkit of some sort
You have a big choice! AWT, Swing, SWT, OpenGL and more... Qt/KDE bindings are currently out of date and therefore broken but I'm hoping they will be updated soon. Anyway, I would recommend Swing - it seems to be the most flexible.
and is "safer" than C++
Yep. No pointers, no segmentation faults (in theory), no array overflows (unless you turn off checking in gcj for performance), etc.
I don't need the candy-coated interface, but I do need a language that will provide those things in a reliable fashion.
JDK 1.4 has a really appalling bug that makes it crash on 24-bit mode on some Linux distros (the workaround is to use JDK1.3 or lower IIRC), but apart from that I've found it to be pretty reliable.
There is a big choice of IDEs, including some free ones like NetBeans (but that's quite bloated and slow).
use Python, Ruby, or Java and never C++? I call buzzword bullshit bingo!
No, it's a valid point. "Programmers" who don't understand pointers shouldn't use C++ for production code, at least not until they understand what they're doing.
Well, that may or may not be true. However, the applet should be disposed and shouldn't be able to actually do anything at that stage apart from use the CPU.
Upon talking to him it becomes absolutely clear that he hasn't the slightest clue as to the fundamentals of Riemannian Geometry. I.E. he makes claims about the fallacy of GR that would prove Riemannian Geometry to be false as well.
Perhaps you are right, I don't know the details. But have you considered the possibility that Riemannian Geometry just doesn't apply to the world as GR says it does? Axiomatic theories are perfect by design but that doesn't imply that they represent the physical world correctly.
The same paper WOULD NOT have been published if submitted for blind review.
Although the paper was rather crammed full of blatant examples of falsehoods, nonsense and incoherent statements, Sokal's whole point is that similar papers would, and indeed have been. His paper was a parody of the abuse of science and mathematics in "postmodernism" etc., and it reflected the false or nonsensical ideas of other papers and books that have been published and treated in all seriousness, without much criticism from within their respective fields. For a small smattering of examples you can check out Sokal and Bricmont's book, Intellectual Impostures.
True enough, but hardly an indictment of cultural studies, the humanities, postmodernism, multiculturalism, or whatever it is that is supposed to have been shown to be foolish.
What Sokal tried to show was foolish was the abuse of scientific-sounding words to promulgate unscientific nonsense. Other commentators have tried to draw too broad a conclusion from this, but really what Sokal was doing was quite narrow and modest.
Seems like you might get good info by directly talking to the FSF
They'll probably recommend that you release the driver as Free Software in the first instance.
And why not? You've got to weigh things up here: is the puported competitive advantage gained by hoarding your source code more important than the loss of efficiency involved in writing a userspace driver?
Palladium-locked data isn't going to jump all around the net--it's going to stay right at home, and be accessed only by the program that wrote it.
I thought Palladium was designed to be used for things like "digital rights management"? That is, everything from DRM-protected videos to emails that "cannot be forwarded" (easily). (That's the theory, anyway). Surely this type of DRM stuff would require moving data around the net?
Interesting. Does that mean that selling second-hand Levis would also be "piracy", by the same token - after all, the sales aren't "authorised" by Levis...
Only the fastest Java desktop applications are usable on my PIII 1.2GHz, namely NetBeans and Eclipse, and that's because they don't use Swing.
Troll. Netbeans isn't one of the fastest Java apps, and it does use Swing.
I wrote a Hello World app in C# and it took 2 seconds to start.
If you don't know why Hello World is an invalid performance test, you have no business pronouncing on the relative efficiency of different platforms/languages.
God. If so, that's at least the third time this bug or similar has recurred in moz. They really need some kind of comment like "DO NOT DISABLE THIS BEHAVIOUR YOU MORONS!!!" in the code.
Um, in the UK dialup users are typically disconnected automatically every 2 hours (I know, it's really stupid), which I presume means different IP addresses every 2 hours, and therefore the nodes must be set as transient.
It's not an oxymoron at all. You only think it is because the definition of "algorithm" you are using is a wrong one, frequently given to beginning students in computer science. Heuristic algorithms exist.
The central problem of AI is to find a finite vocabulary that can be used to express any idea.
MS's promises have nothing whatsoever to do with "understanding" the semantics of a letter to your girlfriend or whatever and expressing your sentiments as an XML tree. If you think it is, you have failed to understand the article! It is not an attempt to mark up semantics, it is an attempt to convert things like bold, italic, font size into XML representations.
OK - I call your bluff. Please can you point me to details on how to manipulate an embedded diagram in a MS Word 2000 file using Java on Linux - thanks.
If the TCP-IP protocol were released under GPL, then anyone writing an application that used TCPIP in any fashion would have to be GPL as well.
Not true! An implementation of a protocol can be cloned by a cleanroom technique without violating the GPL. An abstract specification of a protocol cannot restrict implementations with the GPL, because it contains no code to link against.
If companies are playing with lives where you live, you shouldn't be worrying about Tort reform, you should be pressing the government to pass some basic industrial safety regulations.
- and not only that, enforce them. It's no good having workplace health and safety regulations if a corporate-bribed administration just cuts back on enforcement, as happened e.g. under Reagan.
Slashdot Mirror
I need something that can be compiled
The vast majority of Java VMs compile the performance-critical stuff at least down to native machine code. For faster startup time (and sometimes faster running time) you can use gcj, but only for non-GUI stuff.
Swing GUI performance was just about acceptable when I started using it five years ago - and since then it's got faster and is running on much faster CPUs. However, bad coding processes, like running long non-GUI computations in the GUI thread, can make Swing seem much slower than it "really is".
can offer some type of event-driven operation,
Yep. addActionListener etc.
will work with a GUI toolkit of some sort
You have a big choice! AWT, Swing, SWT, OpenGL and more... Qt/KDE bindings are currently out of date and therefore broken but I'm hoping they will be updated soon. Anyway, I would recommend Swing - it seems to be the most flexible.
and is "safer" than C++
Yep. No pointers, no segmentation faults (in theory), no array overflows (unless you turn off checking in gcj for performance), etc.
I don't need the candy-coated interface, but I do need a language that will provide those things in a reliable fashion.
JDK 1.4 has a really appalling bug that makes it crash on 24-bit mode on some Linux distros (the workaround is to use JDK1.3 or lower IIRC), but apart from that I've found it to be pretty reliable.
There is a big choice of IDEs, including some free ones like NetBeans (but that's quite bloated and slow).
No, it's a valid point. "Programmers" who don't understand pointers shouldn't use C++ for production code, at least not until they understand what they're doing.
False. Hitler made reference to anti-semitic conspiracy theory nonsense to justify his hatred of Jews.
I can't understand why you are so hot on denying the plain fact that the Nazis hated Jews. Do you not understand what the word "hate" means?
What? Nazis don't promote anti-semitism? What have you been smoking?
The holocaust was merely the cleansing of the aryan state of lesser peoples.
No, the Holocaust was about mass-murdering Jews and others who the Nazis hated with a passion. How can you deny this plain historical fact?
Wait, I don't want to know. People like you creep me out.
Perhaps you are right, I don't know the details. But have you considered the possibility that Riemannian Geometry just doesn't apply to the world as GR says it does? Axiomatic theories are perfect by design but that doesn't imply that they represent the physical world correctly.
Although the paper was rather crammed full of blatant examples of falsehoods, nonsense and incoherent statements, Sokal's whole point is that similar papers would, and indeed have been. His paper was a parody of the abuse of science and mathematics in "postmodernism" etc., and it reflected the false or nonsensical ideas of other papers and books that have been published and treated in all seriousness, without much criticism from within their respective fields. For a small smattering of examples you can check out Sokal and Bricmont's book, Intellectual Impostures.
True enough, but hardly an indictment of cultural studies, the humanities, postmodernism, multiculturalism, or whatever it is that is supposed to have been shown to be foolish.
What Sokal tried to show was foolish was the abuse of scientific-sounding words to promulgate unscientific nonsense. Other commentators have tried to draw too broad a conclusion from this, but really what Sokal was doing was quite narrow and modest.
How about a bit of personal responsibility, fucktard. It's the wankers who crapflood who have ruined anonymity on Slashdot, if anyone.
They'll probably recommend that you release the driver as Free Software in the first instance.
And why not? You've got to weigh things up here: is the puported competitive advantage gained by hoarding your source code more important than the loss of efficiency involved in writing a userspace driver?
That's just messed up.
I thought Palladium was designed to be used for things like "digital rights management"? That is, everything from DRM-protected videos to emails that "cannot be forwarded" (easily). (That's the theory, anyway). Surely this type of DRM stuff would require moving data around the net?
Troll. Netbeans isn't one of the fastest Java apps, and it does use Swing.
I wrote a Hello World app in C# and it took 2 seconds to start.
If you don't know why Hello World is an invalid performance test, you have no business pronouncing on the relative efficiency of different platforms/languages.
I'm sorry, but you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
The central problem of AI is to find a finite vocabulary that can be used to express any idea.
MS's promises have nothing whatsoever to do with "understanding" the semantics of a letter to your girlfriend or whatever and expressing your sentiments as an XML tree. If you think it is, you have failed to understand the article! It is not an attempt to mark up semantics, it is an attempt to convert things like bold, italic, font size into XML representations.
Not true! An implementation of a protocol can be cloned by a cleanroom technique without violating the GPL. An abstract specification of a protocol cannot restrict implementations with the GPL, because it contains no code to link against.
Um, there is if you run BIND, considering its appalling security record.
- and not only that, enforce them. It's no good having workplace health and safety regulations if a corporate-bribed administration just cuts back on enforcement, as happened e.g. under Reagan.