I dunno what you're trying to say.. we will never reach perfection, we will jsut get closer and closer, perhaps we'll reach a point when it's trivial. But we're lightyears from that. So memmory leaks will happen.. if you use GC they won't happen except if there's an error in the GC itself.
"Seek and ye shall find." If you do *not* seek perfection, you will get just that, and when you say we you are really saying I. And to the legions of people who don't try harder, I say "cheers". Keep up the mediocre work. In the meantime, what I seek shall keep getting the same response:
I don't see your point.
At least I can say I tried. Just remember, it may just be that not "everyone is lightyears away from that".
GC is straying away from fundamentals? Fundamentals are a relative thing. fundamental in C is vastly different from LISP or java. C you have to manage memory, it's a fundamental. Java, that is not part of the game. And if you use a GC for C lib, it wouldn't be part of C either.
Yes, GC is just shifting the responsibility, but the freeing-unused-memory pied-piper must be paid by something, no matter the language, no matter the os. And, when it comes right down to it, we are already developing more programmers now that *cannot* work on os-level code (straight C or asm, always) because they've been indoctrinated into the "just let another process handle that bit o' trivia".
Also, when it comes time to write an app that is as fast as possible with the fastest possible reaction time to the user, a solid minute of unscheduled, but necessary, GC will make such an endeavor impossible.
But you seemed to imply that any memory leaks were due to bad programmign design. My point is, good design, while makes these things less frequent does not eliminate them, and that most of the leaks i've seen were not from bad design. They were from human error.
No, good design *could* eliminate bugs, but we don't yet know how to make such a design. What I'm referring to is the *process* of creating software, which involves both good design and pattern usage inorder to to *allow* a process that can find the bugs that will inevitably appear.
And, yes, to err is human. But to seek to find *all* the errors and fix them, ahhh, that makes a damn good coder.
Peace & Blessings, bmac real programmers *never* put a space in a filename.
Erm then why not do everything in assembly? It's a waste of time to constantly pay attention to details in large projects. Why pay attention to deleting stuff at the proper time, when something like GC can take care of it, at a trivial cost. You increase the speed of development.
All a computer program is *is details*. Every single non-comment line is a crucial detail. Using C instead of assembly is because C takes care of details that I have no need of taking care of. My overall point here is that if you don't structure your data structures in reference to the three types of changes they incur (addition, modifcation and deletion) you aren't thinking clearly about you design.
This is where I think you are trolling. what you've said is like no shit sherlock, but understanding these thigns are not the problem, well in my experience. IMO it is due to human error. It's like asking if a developer has ever made a program that crashed.. mistakes happen. You seem to think that mistakes are for inferior programmers, which is a very arrogant view, and once again, in my experience, is held by extremely ignorant people.
To paraphrase a book on Go from a 7-dan, he said "the difference between the amature and the professional is that the professional *never* strays from the fundamentals". Furthermore, *all* his actions are manifestations of the fundamentals.
And, *absolutely not*, are mistakes for inferior programmers. Inferior programmers don't *catch* their mistakes. Being able to catch your bugs is what separates the amature from the professional. Furthermore, no professional in *any* discipline has gotten to that level without both making mistakes and correcting them. The lifelong amature just doesn't care enough to correct his mistakes.
the poeople getting the code, will simply not care so much. I mean if i can have one program for 80k and a similiar one for 10k, but the 10k one has some slightly annoying bugs.. so what?
Hmmm. I better not see you bashing Micro$oft for their bug-ridden, insecure os's:-)
Peace & Blessings, bmac www.mihr.com: for true peace & happiness
IMO, if you can't organize you code such that you prevent leaks, you probably can't organize your code to accomplish anything simpler than bubblesorting a text file.
It is attention to detail and the creation of highly patterned structures of code that allows software-in-the-large to be successfully constructed. Not that I've ever tried designing a production system that utilized GC, but I can't imagine that forgetting about when/where you are creating new memory structures will improve your total comprehension of the information flow within the software.
While every 30th article on/. bemoans the outsourcing of programming jobs to India, ask yourselves this: will they do what it takes to make sure there are no memory leaks? I'm fairly certain that they will, and, moreover, they just consider it a part of creating quality software.
Here's what software does:
1. reads in data from storage to memory
2. allows the user to:
a. change the memory
b. add new structures to memory
c. delete structures from memory
3. writes the memory back to storage
Now, in implementing functions that accomplish both 2a and 2b, there will be memory structures created that are used in a transient/temporary fashion to accomplish the creation of data structures that get attached to the tree of permanent data structures.
Anything not attached to the permanent set of data structures gets freed! Whoopee, no memory leaks! And, guess what, when the user deletes something, all that shtuff gets freed.
I'd charge you a fee for tutoring you in basic computer science, but I don't know your billing information.
Peace & Blessings, bmac For true peace & happiness: www.mihr.com
I'd still like a clean C++ compiler that doesn't include all the cruft necessary to implement templates & MI, tho. I think that would streamline things even more. And yes, I do desire the inline directive for my C code. I mean, c'mon, it has to be pretty easy, right, especially if they can do all the MI and template crap, what's a little parse tree substitution and one more keyword:-)
Peace & Blessings, bmac www.mihr.com -- True peace & happiness are just a wish away...
but a real coder has no *favorite* stories about bugs, only their worst nightmares.
How about spending three days trying to track down a bug that ends up being in a third-party floating point library. (The old DOS-extender days with High C/C++ compiler & whatnot).
Those are not good memories in my book. I like to let those memories just drift away into nothingness.
Yup, STL is *partly* responsible for C++ being mostly worthless, but let's not forget the other big nail in C++'s coffin: multiple-inheritance. The ol' diamond of death means compiler-determined (and not in any kind of spec, that I know of, tho I may be wrong) implementation, which is an auto-no-go in my book. Then again, I've *never* seen a practical reason to use multiple inheritance. Most books just use some assinine example like animals, mammals, and cows. WTF?! I use C because it's deterministic, and the implementation offers no surprises, except for bugs in the linked libs, of course:-)
Even in C# (which I use for rad development as a transition to straight C + win32/bsd), the Hashtable collection is totally fscked. After a certain number of elements it just goes to the weeds. Totally ridiculous. Some of the bugs in the *$2000*.NET IDE are so absurd that you wonder if Micro$oft isn't try to screw developers from being able to write sophisticated programs at all.
Oh well, crappy software means I still have an market:-)
Having used C++ templates extensively, I can say that compiler-generated code is a bad idea. A compiler should generate assembly, not other code. That said, I really like the *idea* of C++ templates, yet they fail in a number of subtle ways, not the least of which is that if the implementer of the STL construct screws up, you're screwed. Personally, I rather like keeping my own classes (containers and all) under my own control, so, when (not if) there's a bug, I can put in my own debug statements to track it down.
Note that C++ is not the only language that screws up the manifestation of so-called generics. Java and C# don't even have them (yet), and my experience with software of any kind of complexity that has major features added after the initial design and implementation is that they are bug-ridden POSs (and that ain't point-of-sale:-)
The problem (IMO) is that there should be two phases between the translation of the program description to the final executable. The first phase should be a code generation phase where meta-level programming constructs are expanded into their final program description, and then, two, your standard compilation phase. C++ already jumbles the two and what you get is - guess what - jumbled. If the first phase produced specific source *files* in your project then you would have greater control.
Now for the blatant self-promotion. I am about to release a nifty piece of shareware that will generate such source files for you. While based on relatively simple text replacement, it gives the user the ability to generate collection classes for C#, Java, C, and C++, and (arg!) VB in a way more powerful than C++ templates, which it is loosely based upon.
The purpose for my writing the software was to automatically generate type-safe containers in C#, but with the ability to extend each container instance with its own functionality (not dissimilar in the end result from subclassing). Basically, it works as a parameterized code definition mechanism and the proof that it works is that I am using six auto-generated collection classes in the software itself (who else here likes the work of M.C.Escher?).
Anyhow, in answer to the initial question, your problem will never be gotten under control until you write your own containers (thereby permitting testing & debugging like any other code you write).
For any/.'ers who would like such a tool (I haven't even named it yet), keep a look out in my journal for the big announcement.
Thanks slashdot, I now feel like a dirty whore. But just like a *good* whore, I *am* providing a much-needed service:-)
Dude, there's so much stuff to do on this planet, it would be generations before 6 billion organized, educated & trained (that's part of the process) human beings completed a complete "renovation". Landscaping, dump-clearing, organic vegetable growing, child educating (with a far greater ratio of teacher:student) are just a small list of possibilities. Some would think this kind of work is retro, but it seems to me that that is what a highly automated/robotized society will tend towards (if the progression is fortunate/wise enough to prevent revolution and comcommitant anarchy).
By letting the machines to the grunt labor for us, it will free us for more creative endeavors, none more important than finding positive things for people to do.
The problem with the status quo is that there is only incentive to create financial profit; our society must create economic incentives for companies creating *societal* profit.
BTW, proper welfaring, IMO, involves creating work that benefits the community *and* the individual by advancing his education (which adds self-esteem) as well as providing a roof over his head.
I'll be the first to coin it: compassionate creativity.
This is exactly why Europe has such a lavish welfare system -- Hitler capitalized upon uncared-for Germans who were jealous of the wealthy overclass (with a significant amount of Jews). This was only 60 years ago and Europe is not going to make the same mistake again, though the economics of welfaring a section of the population which have a significant percentage of people who just want to drink beer and sleep around has got serious problems too. Paying people to be slackers isn't good for the country, though bloody revolution (you better be careful, corporate America) is a poor solution, offered up by the people who want to be the next aristocrats.
IMO, the solution involves the "haves" having compassion for the "have-nots" which means welfare only for the purpose of getting them a niche where they can be productive (and relatively happy doing it) for themselves, their families and the aggregate society. Ted Turner, you fuck, are you listening?
Peace & blessings, bmac
True peace and happiness are only a wish away -- www.mihr.com
The open source proponents don't believe that working on free software is giving the chinese anything. (Or IBM for that matter)
Of course they don't believe that (nor is that their intent), but what people believe is actually often very far from the truth. Open source software is giving the software to *anyone/everyone*. If they steal it, use in a proprietary product and don't acknowledge it (you think the Chinese govt is going to abide by the license(s) that OSS incorporates?), the only recourse is to sue, and I don't think that the open-source movement has the resources for all that. And as a low-level programmer, I don't want to be the one who has to try to figure out exactly what compiled modules are stolen by disassembling and comparing - yuck!
My point is that we software folks tend to be rather socially conscious (broad overstatement, I know) - even Bill Gates gives *tons* of money in charity each year. I would rather see the results of our hard work go to creating a source of money to promote the free flow of information (here in America as well as in countries like China). Giving our technically superior work to those who abuse others only hurts ourselves in the process. Ne?
Now, not only have you "open-source" folks helped corporate America in their brutality of the American people (economic slavery by an entity that is only defined on paper), but now the even-worse folks in China will use all your expertise and hard-work to further their efforts to dominate their people to produce more cheap plastic trinkets for the idiots in the US.
One poster's sig said it best: "Think free as in working for IBM for free." Now you can add: "Think free as in helping the folks who massacred peaceful civilian protesters in Tieneman Square."
I know y'all have good hearts, want to give stuff away and generally dislike greed, but if you developed a nuclear weapon, would you just "share" it with any person who said "yeah, I'd like to use that"? Cmon. There is probably no greater weapon at anyone's disposal than information, and we all know that China has no interest in its free flow (and you have to ask yourself "does America?" really?).
I'll leave my work closed-source, thank you, but share it with any individual pursuing freedom for all, peace among all groups of people and sustainable prosperity for all persons on Earth. The rest of `em can write me a fat check.
Get a clue.
-bmac Manual.sig generator too pissed off to generate:-( go to www.mihr.com anyway:-) true peace & happiness is only a wish away...
Your best bet (not that I have done this or have any inclination to do so) may be to be a part of documenting the code area(s) you are interested in working on. This will thoroughly acquaint you with the code and provide a much-needed service that may get your foot in the door.
Just a thought, bmac
Peace be with you all. Manual.sig generator v.1.0.
(as I have done) instead of using your webhosting service's free email service, you just use a yahoo mail account? I don't think (tho I may be wrong) that yahoo would react the same way a normal webhost would because a) they should know that I at least didn't send all those spams from my account, and b) they probably filter a friggin' billion spams a day already.
My general opinion is that a division of labor should be kept between web page hosting and email hosting, even tho, of course, the server is designed to handle both services; perhaps the cost of setting up one of those 100M yahoo email accounts may be justified. The Chinese say "pay a lot, cry once" -- perhaps this is a side effect of the 'free pop emails' that hosting services always offer.
It's also *really* nice to be able to access your email from anywhere in the world (yeah, I know you can access your pop from anywhere, too, but it's definitely more of a pain). That, combined with need to never spam your contacts with a new email address (tho that's what the old Napster guy's working on now) every time I change ISPs.
Of course, none of the spam horseshi*t is going to change until email accounts only receive email from address on "the list". Come programmers! I've got enough shtuff to do already -- I don't have time to write that (relatively) simple application:-)
May the Peace & Blessings of our Creator be with you all, bmac
Your life will change within minutes of seeking to deliver your spirit back to our Creator within your lifetime -- www.mihr.com
Because the Creator is a singularity ~ something with complete consciousness, power,... any attribute falls short, yet it is a singularity, in a way that we (as the created) cannot fathom. Yet that doesn't stop us from standing in awe of It. It also doesn't stop us from exploring our environment and its wondrous nature.
Remember that there are three levels of knowledge: the known, the unknown, and the *unknowable*. How the Creator was created is a perfect example of such an unknowable question. Yet, as much as It cannot be explained, it can be experience, but only through hard work. There are subtle laws to this existence that reward the seeking of such knowledge, partly because seeking that requires foregoing most earthly pleasures. Imagine spending billions of years exploring this creation in an unchanging energy body ~ that is one of the rewards of such seeking.
The seeking and its rewards are built into this universe just like Planck's Constant and all those other little universal 'parameters'. Consciousness has its own rulebase - kinda like karma - and learning those rules is learning how to live, fully, purposefully and ecstatically (tho without drugs).
As our Sufi teacher says, every piece of information that you discover reveals ten times as much that you don't know. The unfathomability is infinite, yet each new piece of the puzzle is a joy in and of itself.
Check out "how to play" at www.mihr.com in the english translations of the lectures.
There is no greater question to ask than "why are we here". Answering it correctly is the greatest reward. You may want to check out my other replies to this story for more info.
Peace be with you, bmac
manual.sig: Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all else will be added unto you.
[See my post in reply to "Physics and Consciousness" for an elementary discussion of dark matter, and a more broad overview of my source.]
Dark energy (tho the details as I know them are sketchy) is the result of an *enourmous* and constant bombardment of neurtinos which are what keep our electrons moving and what keeps supplying kinetic energy to our universe. (I'm new to these explanations, so please forgive my sketchiness.) One idea you may want to ponder is the fact that when the expansion stops (which it will), time stops.
The failure of the current models of physics is that they do not take into consideration the other out-of-phase dimensions that exist in our same 3-space (five others, making six including ours). They also don't try (as far as I know) to answer how it is that those electrons keep spinning!
Anyhow, the key to finding these answers resides in seeking God, for who else but the Creator can answer questions about His creation? For how to do this (as well as the occasional physics whopper), go to www.mihr.com and check out the english translations of the lectures.
The short answer is that creation is here to house beings capable of percieving the magnificence of the Creator. The Creator of all of this is something *absolutely* unfathomable. I mean, try to contemplate how to create a universe and its *physics* - fscking *wow*. Only It can understand It. But that doesn't mean that elements of the Creation (us) can't appreciate or even perceive it.
See my above post in "Physics and Consciousness" for more info.
To find out how to explore the universe with all your latent faculties, go to www.mihr.com and check out the english-translated lectures.
Next time you feel inquisitive, ask yourself how we can "feel" someone looking/staring at us. There is absolutely no physical explanation for that phenomenon.
Peace be with you, bmac
auto.sigs are for the lazy manual.sigs can ramble on forever, tho I will spare you this time
You are seeing the proper perspective, my friend. That is why the teachings of all prophets are based upon service to humanity. Part of the requirements of that path are to have a minimal impact on the planet (imagine, if just the American population - gross wasters - would adopt this policy, what affect that would have on the earth).
See my post above in "Physics and Consciousness" for how seeking to live the truths brought by the prophets leads to some really cool knowledge of our phsical worlds.
To have an optimal positive effect on your environment, you must tune yourself; to find out how to do that go to www.mihr.com and check out the english-translated lectures. Check your prejudices at the door and open your mind before entering!
There *has been* such fruitful experimentation in the matter, but who has enough open-mindedness to recognize its truth.
Imagine a three-part body: spirit, physical body and soul. Then overlay free-will which uses an aspect of global mind to make the decisions as to what the physical body does. This mind (or consciousness) is outside the physical systems of the three-part body, yet is linked to it via the free will.
Think of the brain, not as the thought maker, but as the thought *tuner*. It is the organ with which we choose a spectrum of the universal mind to receive; note that what you can tune in to is determined by your environment (that's why education is *very* important). So, to answer your question: yes, that mind/consciousness does lay outside of the physical worlds.
All of this information is just a small part of the cosmology provided by the Sufis. Our Creator has created us to perceive Him; as such, we have been given the ability (thru hard work) to learn everything about His creation (tho not much about the Creator, because that is mostly unknowable by any member of Its creation).
Let's say that a couple of the tidbits I've discovered in my Sufi journey (via our teacher, not by myself) are the source of dark matter, namely the fact that five other parallel three-spaces inhabit the same one we reside in, yet are of a different phase than ours (hence invisible). These other dimensions have mass (anitmatter and antienergy are the residents of one of those dimensions and exist in bulk within it), and that mass is what is bringing the universal expansion to a halt.
Also, what happens when the universe stops expanding? Time stops and begins reversing, beginning the second phase of creation, leading to judgement. Why a judgement? Because God wants us to perceive Him (our inherent purpose), and doing anything other than that is a waste of our (and His) precious time. There is a reward system built-in to which "quantum event" you choose. Choosing to be Hitler should not be treated the same as choosing the path of Gandhi, neh? God, being the most-just, rewards and punishes us for the choices we make with the life He has given us. I would say that this finely-balanced set of physical laws that we find ourselves in the midst of are designed so that we *can* make choices; I then extrapolate that to the choices are a major part of our purpose here.
Well, this kind of talk is mostly lost on so-called scientists, but I've found non-mystical scientists to be very closed-minded about the *purpose* of our universe and our very own selves, and, as such, have missed the entire boat.
Just in case check out: www.mihr.com for the whole story. Remember, God/Allah/Jehovah/... is not in the sky and not in our 3-space, It is to be found within ourselves by shutting off the physical world at different times of the day; this can lead to the development of other organs of perceptions with which other realms of perception.
Ever contemplate how you can know when someone is staring at your back? There is absolutely no physical explanation for that rather common phenomenon, yet there is an energetic one.
The Covenent of Allah: those who wish to reach Allah will be not just allowed, but *made* to reach Him, but only if you really (with all your heart) wish for that. After that wish, life gets very magical.
First, when alcohol is in your system, no other calories are being burned because alcohol cannot be converted to fat. That means that any other calories in your system (like all the carbs from the barley and hopps and whatnot, not to mention actual food) get converted into fat. That's why, even though alcohol is a depressant, it gives you crazy energy.
Second, think about it: you do things when drunk that you wouldn't do when sober; how can that possibly be good. And no one in their right mind would say that alcohol in any way *improves* your decision making capacity. Personally, I'd say that making excellent decisions is difficult enough without the interference of alcohol.
I've been there, done that, and don't do it any more.
I've wondered why you can't target the direct transmeta ML. It has to exist as its own, separate entity, right? Why not have an OS that targets it directly? And, lastly, why would you create a chip and not write an OS for it in its native code?
just to invent a nontoxic brown magic marker for your teeth.
Manually implemented sigs are of unlimited length...
Re:Dune (what about Miles Teg?)
on
A Good Summer Read?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't agree with "dry and uninteresting", but Miles Teg getting his in book 5 (Heretics of Dune, I believe) is one of my all-time favorite sections in any book. As well, the book is as much about the fact that the development of the humans centers upon *awareness* is in itself worth the wordage, IMO.
The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom
It explains how we humans are really still just acting like a bunch of mammals. Part history, part biology and a lot of sociology. A very concise treatment of why the world is so violent.
Tao Te Ching
The Art of War
The Book of Five Rings (it's Musashi, if I remember correctly)
The entire Dune series
The entire series of books by Carlos Castaneda, from start to finish (must be read in order).
The Qu'ran
[Very interesting science references in there, beyond the powerful message]
The Inner Meaning of the Bhagavad Gita, by Roy Eugene Davis. It is the ancient Indian description of the layers of the universe and the struggle to become human told through a parable; Mr. Davis's translation and commentary are facinating.
anything on Linguistics, though I've only read a tiny bit about it, it is a facinating science, especially for someone who has learned many PL's.
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno what you're trying to say.. we will never reach perfection, we will jsut get closer and closer, perhaps we'll reach a point when it's trivial. But we're lightyears from that. So memmory leaks will happen.. if you use GC they won't happen except if there's an error in the GC itself.
"Seek and ye shall find." If you do *not*
seek perfection, you will get just that, and
when you say we you are really saying
I. And to the legions of people who
don't try harder, I say "cheers". Keep up
the mediocre work. In the meantime, what I
seek shall keep getting the same response:
I don't see your point.
At least I can say I tried. Just remember,
it may just be that not "everyone is lightyears
away from that".
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
www.mihr.com: where is that dark matter?
GC is straying away from fundamentals? Fundamentals are a relative thing. fundamental in C is vastly different from LISP or java. C you have to manage memory, it's a fundamental. Java, that is not part of the game. And if you use a GC for C lib, it wouldn't be part of C either.
Yes, GC is just shifting the responsibility,
but the freeing-unused-memory pied-piper must
be paid by something, no matter the language,
no matter the os. And, when it comes right
down to it, we are already developing more
programmers now that *cannot* work on os-level
code (straight C or asm, always) because
they've been indoctrinated into the "just let
another process handle that bit o' trivia".
Also, when it comes time to write an app that
is as fast as possible with the fastest
possible reaction time to the user, a solid
minute of unscheduled, but necessary, GC will
make such an endeavor impossible.
But you seemed to imply that any memory leaks were due to bad programmign design. My point is, good design, while makes these things less frequent does not eliminate them, and that most of the leaks i've seen were not from bad design. They were from human error.
No, good design *could* eliminate bugs, but we
don't yet know how to make such a design. What
I'm referring to is the *process* of creating
software, which involves both good design and
pattern usage inorder to to *allow* a
process that can find the bugs that will
inevitably appear.
And, yes, to err is human. But to seek to
find *all* the errors and fix them, ahhh,
that makes a damn good coder.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
real programmers *never* put a space in
a filename.
Erm then why not do everything in assembly? It's a waste of time to constantly pay attention to details in large projects. Why pay attention to deleting stuff at the proper time, when something like GC can take care of it, at a trivial cost. You increase the speed of development.
:-)
All a computer program is *is details*. Every
single non-comment line is a crucial detail.
Using C instead of assembly is because C
takes care of details that I have no need of
taking care of. My overall point here is that
if you don't structure your data structures
in reference to the three types of changes
they incur (addition, modifcation and deletion)
you aren't thinking clearly about you design.
This is where I think you are trolling. what you've said is like no shit sherlock, but understanding these thigns are not the problem, well in my experience. IMO it is due to human error. It's like asking if a developer has ever made a program that crashed.. mistakes happen. You seem to think that mistakes are for inferior programmers, which is a very arrogant view, and once again, in my experience, is held by extremely ignorant people.
To paraphrase a book on Go from a 7-dan,
he said "the difference between the amature
and the professional is that the professional
*never* strays from the fundamentals".
Furthermore, *all* his actions are
manifestations of the fundamentals.
And, *absolutely not*, are mistakes for
inferior programmers. Inferior programmers
don't *catch* their mistakes. Being able
to catch your bugs is what separates the
amature from the professional. Furthermore,
no professional in *any* discipline has
gotten to that level without both making
mistakes and correcting them. The lifelong
amature just doesn't care enough to correct
his mistakes.
the poeople getting the code, will simply not care so much. I mean if i can have one program for 80k and a similiar one for 10k, but the 10k one has some slightly annoying bugs.. so what?
Hmmm. I better not see you bashing Micro$oft for their bug-ridden, insecure os's
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
www.mihr.com: for true peace & happiness
IMO, if you can't organize you code such that
/. bemoans the
you prevent leaks, you probably can't organize
your code to accomplish anything simpler than
bubblesorting a text file.
It is attention to detail and the creation of
highly patterned structures of code that allows
software-in-the-large to be successfully
constructed. Not that I've ever tried
designing a production system that utilized
GC, but I can't imagine that forgetting about
when/where you are creating new memory structures
will improve your total comprehension of the
information flow within the software.
While every 30th article on
outsourcing of programming jobs to India, ask
yourselves this: will they do what it takes
to make sure there are no memory leaks? I'm
fairly certain that they will, and, moreover,
they just consider it a part of creating
quality software.
Here's what software does:
1. reads in data from storage to memory
2. allows the user to:
a. change the memory
b. add new structures to memory
c. delete structures from memory
3. writes the memory back to storage
Now, in implementing functions that accomplish
both 2a and 2b, there will be memory structures
created that are used in a transient/temporary
fashion to accomplish the creation of data
structures that get attached to the tree of
permanent data structures.
Anything not attached to the permanent set of
data structures gets freed! Whoopee, no memory
leaks! And, guess what, when the user deletes
something, all that shtuff gets freed.
I'd charge you a fee for tutoring you in basic
computer science, but I don't know your billing
information.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
For true peace & happiness: www.mihr.com
Ah, grasshoppa, you understand :-)
:-)
I'd still like a clean C++ compiler that
doesn't include all the cruft necessary
to implement templates & MI, tho. I think
that would streamline things even more.
And yes, I do desire the inline directive
for my C code. I mean, c'mon, it has to
be pretty easy, right, especially if they
can do all the MI and template crap, what's
a little parse tree substitution and one
more keyword
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
www.mihr.com -- True peace & happiness
are just a wish away...
but a real coder has no *favorite* stories about bugs, only their worst nightmares.
How about spending three days trying to track down a bug that ends up being in a third-party floating point library. (The old DOS-extender days with High C/C++ compiler & whatnot).
Those are not good memories in my book. I like to let those memories just drift away into nothingness.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
For true peace & happiness -- www.mihr.com
Yup, STL is *partly* responsible for C++ being mostly worthless, but let's not forget the other big nail in C++'s coffin: multiple-inheritance. The ol' diamond of death means compiler-determined (and not in any kind of spec, that I know of, tho I may be wrong) implementation, which is an auto-no-go in my book. Then again, I've *never* seen a practical reason to use multiple inheritance. Most books just use some assinine example like animals, mammals, and cows. WTF?! I use C because it's deterministic, and the implementation offers no surprises, except for bugs in the linked libs, of course :-)
.NET IDE are so absurd that you wonder if Micro$oft isn't try to screw developers from being able to write sophisticated programs at all.
:-)
Even in C# (which I use for rad development as a transition to straight C + win32/bsd), the Hashtable collection is totally fscked. After a certain number of elements it just goes to the weeds. Totally ridiculous. Some of the bugs in the *$2000*
Oh well, crappy software means I still have an market
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
Having used C++ templates extensively, I can say that compiler-generated code is a bad idea. A compiler should generate assembly, not other code. That said, I really like the *idea* of C++ templates, yet they fail in a number of subtle ways, not the least of which is that if the implementer of the STL construct screws up, you're screwed. Personally, I rather like keeping my own classes (containers and all) under my own control, so, when (not if) there's a bug, I can put in my own debug statements to track it down.
:-)
/.'ers who would like such a tool (I haven't even named it yet), keep a look out in my journal for the big announcement.
:-)
Note that C++ is not the only language that screws up the manifestation of so-called generics. Java and C# don't even have them (yet), and my experience with software of any kind of complexity that has major features added after the initial design and implementation is that they are bug-ridden POSs (and that ain't point-of-sale
The problem (IMO) is that there should be two phases between the translation of the program description to the final executable. The first phase should be a code generation phase where meta-level programming constructs are expanded into their final program description, and then, two, your standard compilation phase. C++ already jumbles the two and what you get is - guess what - jumbled. If the first phase produced specific source *files* in your project then you would have greater control.
Now for the blatant self-promotion. I am about to release a nifty piece of shareware that will generate such source files for you. While based on relatively simple text replacement, it gives the user the ability to generate collection classes for C#, Java, C, and C++, and (arg!) VB in a way more powerful than C++ templates, which it is loosely based upon.
The purpose for my writing the software was to automatically generate type-safe containers in C#, but with the ability to extend each container instance with its own functionality (not dissimilar in the end result from subclassing). Basically, it works as a parameterized code definition mechanism and the proof that it works is that I am using six auto-generated collection classes in the software itself (who else here likes the work of M.C.Escher?).
Anyhow, in answer to the initial question, your problem will never be gotten under control until you write your own containers (thereby permitting testing & debugging like any other code you write).
For any
Thanks slashdot, I now feel like a dirty whore. But just like a *good* whore, I *am* providing a much-needed service
Peace & blessings,
bmac
Dude, there's so much stuff to do on this planet, it would be generations before 6 billion organized, educated & trained (that's part of the process) human beings completed a complete "renovation". Landscaping, dump-clearing, organic vegetable growing, child educating (with a far greater ratio of teacher:student) are just a small list of possibilities. Some would think this kind of work is retro, but it seems to me that that is what a highly automated/robotized society will tend towards (if the progression is fortunate/wise enough to prevent revolution and comcommitant anarchy).
By letting the machines to the grunt labor for us, it will free us for more creative endeavors, none more important than finding positive things for people to do.
The problem with the status quo is that there is only incentive to create financial profit; our society must create economic incentives for companies creating *societal* profit.
BTW, proper welfaring, IMO, involves creating work that benefits the community *and* the individual by advancing his education (which adds self-esteem) as well as providing a roof over his head.
I'll be the first to coin it: compassionate creativity.
Peace & blessings,
bmac
www.mihr.com for *real* peace & happiness
This is exactly why Europe has such a lavish welfare system -- Hitler capitalized upon uncared-for Germans who were jealous of the wealthy overclass (with a significant amount of Jews). This was only 60 years ago and Europe is not going to make the same mistake again, though the economics of welfaring a section of the population which have a significant percentage of people who just want to drink beer and sleep around has got serious problems too. Paying people to be slackers isn't good for the country, though bloody revolution (you better be careful, corporate America) is a poor solution, offered up by the people who want to be the next aristocrats.
IMO, the solution involves the "haves" having compassion for the "have-nots" which means welfare only for the purpose of getting them a niche where they can be productive (and relatively happy doing it) for themselves, their families and the aggregate society. Ted Turner, you fuck, are you listening?
Peace & blessings,
bmac
True peace and happiness are only a wish away -- www.mihr.com
The open source proponents don't believe that working on free software is giving the chinese anything. (Or IBM for that matter)
Of course they don't believe that (nor is that their intent), but what people believe is actually often very far from the truth. Open source software is giving the software to *anyone/everyone*. If they steal it, use in a proprietary product and don't acknowledge it (you think the Chinese govt is going to abide by the license(s) that OSS incorporates?), the only recourse is to sue, and I don't think that the open-source movement has the resources for all that. And as a low-level programmer, I don't want to be the one who has to try to figure out exactly what compiled modules are stolen by disassembling and comparing - yuck!
My point is that we software folks tend to be rather socially conscious (broad overstatement, I know) - even Bill Gates gives *tons* of money in charity each year. I would rather see the results of our hard work go to creating a source of money to promote the free flow of information (here in America as well as in countries like China). Giving our technically superior work to those who abuse others only hurts ourselves in the process. Ne?
Peace & blessings,
bmac
Now, not only have you "open-source" folks helped corporate America in their brutality of the American people (economic slavery by an entity that is only defined on paper), but now the even-worse folks in China will use all your expertise and hard-work to further their efforts to dominate their people to produce more cheap plastic trinkets for the idiots in the US.
.sig generator too pissed off to generate :-( :-) true peace & happiness is only a wish away...
One poster's sig said it best: "Think free as in working for IBM for free." Now you can add: "Think free as in helping the folks who massacred peaceful civilian protesters in Tieneman Square."
I know y'all have good hearts, want to give stuff away and generally dislike greed, but if you developed a nuclear weapon, would you just "share" it with any person who said "yeah, I'd like to use that"? Cmon. There is probably no greater weapon at anyone's disposal than information, and we all know that China has no interest in its free flow (and you have to ask yourself "does America?" really?).
I'll leave my work closed-source, thank you, but share it with any individual pursuing freedom for all, peace among all groups of people and sustainable prosperity for all persons on Earth. The rest of `em can write me a fat check.
Get a clue.
-bmac
Manual
go to www.mihr.com anyway
Your best bet (not that I have done this or have any inclination to do so) may be to be a part of documenting the code area(s) you are interested in working on. This will thoroughly acquaint you with the code and provide a much-needed service that may get your foot in the door.
.sig generator v.1.0.
Just a thought,
bmac
Peace be with you all.
Manual
(as I have done) instead of using your webhosting service's free email service, you just use a yahoo mail account? I don't think (tho I may be wrong) that yahoo would react the same way a normal webhost would because a) they should know that I at least didn't send all those spams from my account, and b) they probably filter a friggin' billion spams a day already.
:-)
My general opinion is that a division of labor should be kept between web page hosting and email hosting, even tho, of course, the server is designed to handle both services; perhaps the cost of setting up one of those 100M yahoo email accounts may be justified. The Chinese say "pay a lot, cry once" -- perhaps this is a side effect of the 'free pop emails' that hosting services always offer.
It's also *really* nice to be able to access your email from anywhere in the world (yeah, I know you can access your pop from anywhere, too, but it's definitely more of a pain). That, combined with need to never spam your contacts with a new email address (tho that's what the old Napster guy's working on now) every time I change ISPs.
Of course, none of the spam horseshi*t is going to change until email accounts only receive email from address on "the list". Come programmers! I've got enough shtuff to do already -- I don't have time to write that (relatively) simple application
May the Peace & Blessings of our Creator be with you all,
bmac
Your life will change within minutes of seeking to deliver your spirit back to our Creator within your lifetime -- www.mihr.com
stealing my identity could only *improve* my credit history.
.sigs are for the lazy .sigs have no limit :-)
auto
manual
peace be with you all.
Because the Creator is a singularity ~ something with complete consciousness, power, ... any attribute falls short, yet it is a singularity, in a way that we (as the created) cannot fathom. Yet that doesn't stop us from standing in awe of It. It also doesn't stop us from exploring our environment and its wondrous nature.
.sig: Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all else will be added unto you.
Remember that there are three levels of knowledge: the known, the unknown, and the *unknowable*. How the Creator was created is a perfect example of such an unknowable question. Yet, as much as It cannot be explained, it can be experience, but only through hard work. There are subtle laws to this existence that reward the seeking of such knowledge, partly because seeking that requires foregoing most earthly pleasures. Imagine spending billions of years exploring this creation in an unchanging energy body ~ that is one of the rewards of such seeking.
The seeking and its rewards are built into this universe just like Planck's Constant and all those other little universal 'parameters'. Consciousness has its own rulebase - kinda like karma - and learning those rules is learning how to live, fully, purposefully and ecstatically (tho without drugs).
As our Sufi teacher says, every piece of information that you discover reveals ten times as much that you don't know. The unfathomability is infinite, yet each new piece of the puzzle is a joy in and of itself.
Check out "how to play" at www.mihr.com in the english translations of the lectures.
There is no greater question to ask than "why are we here". Answering it correctly is the greatest reward. You may want to check out my other replies to this story for more info.
Peace be with you,
bmac
manual
[See my post in reply to "Physics and Consciousness" for an elementary discussion of dark matter, and a more broad overview of my source.]
.sig temporarily off-line
Dark energy (tho the details as I know them are sketchy) is the result of an *enourmous* and constant bombardment of neurtinos which are what keep our electrons moving and what keeps supplying kinetic energy to our universe. (I'm new to these explanations, so please forgive my sketchiness.) One idea you may want to ponder is the fact that when the expansion stops (which it will), time stops.
The failure of the current models of physics is that they do not take into consideration the other out-of-phase dimensions that exist in our same 3-space (five others, making six including ours). They also don't try (as far as I know) to answer how it is that those electrons keep spinning!
Anyhow, the key to finding these answers resides in seeking God, for who else but the Creator can answer questions about His creation? For how to do this (as well as the occasional physics whopper), go to www.mihr.com and check out the english translations of the lectures.
Peace be with you,
bmac
manual
The short answer is that creation is here to house beings capable of percieving the magnificence of the Creator. The Creator of all of this is something *absolutely* unfathomable. I mean, try to contemplate how to create a universe and its *physics* - fscking *wow*. Only It can understand It. But that doesn't mean that elements of the Creation (us) can't appreciate or even perceive it.
.sigs are for the lazy .sigs can ramble on forever,
See my above post in "Physics and Consciousness" for more info.
To find out how to explore the universe with all your latent faculties, go to www.mihr.com and check out the english-translated lectures.
Next time you feel inquisitive, ask yourself how we can "feel" someone looking/staring at us. There is absolutely no physical explanation for that phenomenon.
Peace be with you,
bmac
auto
manual
tho I will spare you this time
You are seeing the proper perspective, my friend. That is why the teachings of all prophets are based upon service to humanity. Part of the requirements of that path are to have a minimal impact on the planet (imagine, if just the American population - gross wasters - would adopt this policy, what affect that would have on the earth).
See my post above in "Physics and Consciousness" for how seeking to live the truths brought by the prophets leads to some really cool knowledge of our phsical worlds.
To have an optimal positive effect on your environment, you must tune yourself; to find out how to do that go to www.mihr.com and check out the english-translated lectures. Check your prejudices at the door and open your mind before entering!
Peace be with you,
bmac
There *has been* such fruitful experimentation in the matter, but who has enough open-mindedness to recognize its truth.
.sig's are for the lazy
Imagine a three-part body: spirit, physical body and soul. Then overlay free-will which uses an aspect of global mind to make the decisions as to what the physical body does. This mind (or consciousness) is outside the physical systems of the three-part body, yet is linked to it via the free will.
Think of the brain, not as the thought maker, but as the thought *tuner*. It is the organ with which we choose a spectrum of the universal mind to receive; note that what you can tune in to is determined by your environment (that's why education is *very* important). So, to answer your question: yes, that mind/consciousness does lay outside of the physical worlds.
All of this information is just a small part of the cosmology provided by the Sufis. Our Creator has created us to perceive Him; as such, we have been given the ability (thru hard work) to learn everything about His creation (tho not much about the Creator, because that is mostly unknowable by any member of Its creation).
Let's say that a couple of the tidbits I've discovered in my Sufi journey (via our teacher, not by myself) are the source of dark matter, namely the fact that five other parallel three-spaces inhabit the same one we reside in, yet are of a different phase than ours (hence invisible). These other dimensions have mass (anitmatter and antienergy are the residents of one of those dimensions and exist in bulk within it), and that mass is what is bringing the universal expansion to a halt.
Also, what happens when the universe stops expanding? Time stops and begins reversing, beginning the second phase of creation, leading to judgement. Why a judgement? Because God wants us to perceive Him (our inherent purpose), and doing anything other than that is a waste of our (and His) precious time. There is a reward system built-in to which "quantum event" you choose. Choosing to be Hitler should not be treated the same as choosing the path of Gandhi, neh? God, being the most-just, rewards and punishes us for the choices we make with the life He has given us. I would say that this finely-balanced set of physical laws that we find ourselves in the midst of are designed so that we *can* make choices; I then extrapolate that to the choices are a major part of our purpose here.
Well, this kind of talk is mostly lost on so-called scientists, but I've found non-mystical scientists to be very closed-minded about the *purpose* of our universe and our very own selves, and, as such, have missed the entire boat.
Just in case check out: www.mihr.com for the whole story. Remember, God/Allah/Jehovah/... is not in the sky and not in our 3-space, It is to be found within ourselves by shutting off the physical world at different times of the day; this can lead to the development of other organs of perceptions with which other realms of perception.
Ever contemplate how you can know when someone is staring at your back? There is absolutely no physical explanation for that rather common phenomenon, yet there is an energetic one.
The Covenent of Allah: those who wish to reach Allah will be not just allowed, but *made* to reach Him, but only if you really (with all your heart) wish for that. After that wish, life gets very magical.
Peace be with you,
bmac
auto
First, when alcohol is in your system, no other calories are being burned because alcohol cannot be converted to fat. That means that any other calories in your system (like all the carbs from the barley and hopps and whatnot, not to mention actual food) get converted into fat. That's why, even though alcohol is a depressant, it gives you crazy energy.
Second, think about it: you do things when drunk that you wouldn't do when sober; how can that possibly be good. And no one in their right mind would say that alcohol in any way *improves* your decision making capacity. Personally, I'd say that making excellent decisions is difficult enough without the interference of alcohol.
I've been there, done that, and don't do it any more.
True happiness and heaven: www.mihr.com
I've wondered why you can't target the direct transmeta ML. It has to exist as its own, separate entity, right? Why not have an OS that targets it directly? And, lastly, why would you create a chip and not write an OS for it in its native code?
More questions than answers here...
just to invent a nontoxic brown magic marker for your teeth.
Manually implemented sigs are of unlimited length...
I don't agree with "dry and uninteresting", but Miles Teg getting his in book 5 (Heretics of Dune, I believe) is one of my all-time favorite sections in any book. As well, the book is as much about the fact that the development of the humans centers upon *awareness* is in itself worth the wordage, IMO.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
[in no particular order]
The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom
It explains how we humans are really still just acting like a bunch of mammals. Part history, part biology and a lot of sociology. A very concise treatment of why the world is so violent.
Tao Te Ching
The Art of War
The Book of Five Rings (it's Musashi, if I remember correctly)
The entire Dune series
The entire series of books by Carlos Castaneda, from start to finish (must be read in order).
The Qu'ran
[Very interesting science references in there, beyond the powerful message]
The Inner Meaning of the Bhagavad Gita, by Roy Eugene Davis. It is the ancient Indian description of the layers of the universe and the struggle to become human told through a parable; Mr. Davis's translation and commentary are facinating.
anything on Linguistics, though I've only read a tiny bit about it, it is a facinating science, especially for someone who has learned many PL's.
{just my 2+cents}