I find it strange how people recommend Smarty for separation of code from content. Smarty implements its own while loops and if then statements. I have yet to come across a web application using Smarty that was easily readable. I would think if the goal was to separate code from content, one would use a templating engine more akin to QuickTemplates. It does not make you relearn a whole new programming language syntax for while loops and if then statements like Smarty does.
People recommend Smarty because PHP feels pretty incomplete without it. And it's not about separating code from contentit's about separating business logic from display logic. And the syntax is really easy.
You make good points. However, I hope you weren't implying that a Corolla will get you style points with the chicks. Since you bring it up, how well can you judge the likelihood that a new car will last 15 years other than looking at the company's track record? I know that in some instances the only real changes made between model years are cosmetic. In that case you can look for recall notices, reviews, etc. for the previous year(s). I think the reputation of a company counts for a lot.
For the record, I did a considerable amount of research before my purchases. Of course, I did more research for the car than for the MP3 player, but the car purchase entailed a bigger chunk of change.
iPods and other MP3 players are more of Status Symboles then entertainment. Why do people perfer a Catalic vs. a Toyota, The toyota is much more reliable and often has better gas milage, but the Catalic is considered nicers for our lifestyles ideas of luxery. The same with iPods. Sure other Mp3 players are just as good but it will not impress other people.
People say this kind of crap all the time, but I just don't see it. I have a Toyota Corolla. I have an iPod. And I bought them both for the same reason--they were both good values.
There, I said it. I think my iPod is a good value. I does exactly what I need (and more) with minimal fuss. And it has proven to be very reliable. The same is true for the Toyota. My confidence in both of these purchases was based somewhat on the reputation for quality these companies have. I haven't been disappointed.
I didn't get an iPod to impress anybody. As a matter of fact, I'd rather no one ever see my iPod.
Isn't it possible that the average joe buys an iPod because they've heard that they're pretty good?
Re:PHP definitely does not follow the KISS princip
on
A Decade of PHP
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· Score: 1
I'll be the first to admit that I know precious little about Perl. So maybe you could educate me a little more here. Specifically, I'd really like to see a regular expression that you could use in Perl that you couldn't use in PHP.
Re:PHP definitely does not follow the KISS princip
on
A Decade of PHP
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· Score: 4, Informative
As someone who has mastered Perl's regular expressions I find it a major struggle when I have to tackle something in PHP (I admit, I've never 'learned' PHP, but I find it a very hard language to make quick fixes on for other people.. compared to, say, C, VB or Python, languages I don't know intimately but can easily hack).
Just a quick point--you can use Perl's regular expressions in PHP. And that's usually what I see people doing. As a matter of fact, it is recommended in the PHP documentation that Perl's regular expressions be used:
Note: preg_match(), which uses a Perl-compatible regular expression syntax, is often a faster alternative to ereg().
That's an interesting article. But that's not my life. I do use my iPod about 5 hours a day. I sit in a cube all day and the music helps me tune out distractions (read: co-workers). Before my iPod it was a discman. I live in a city--not the suburbs. I walk to work so I can see and hear my town. I don't want to be cut off from it. Well, that and to get my chunky ass some exercise.
I personally don't care about slideshows and such. But I really like that the album cover can be displayed while the song is playing. It may seem like a very small thing, but to someone as anal about their music collection as I am, this is very appealing.
That being said, it ain't appealing enough for me to drop $449 to upgrade my iPod.
My guess is that this is just an intermediate step towards some greater functionality. Like video or broader PDA functionality.
I'm interested in this service, but I was hoping you could answer a question. You mention that your daughter uses this service to call the US from the UK. However, onesuite.com mentions that you can't use their service to place calls from another country (i.e. outside the US and Canada). Do you know of a similar service available in the UK?
The West is now locked in a steel cage deathmatch with Radical Islam for world supremacy
Really? You really believe that? Wow. You bought it hook, line and sinker. The War on Terror is like the War on Drugs, but it is also different. Just as you can't simply allow planes filled with drugs to cross our borders, you can't let terrorists fly planes into buildings. But doing a decent job of stopping these activities is only a small part of the solution. To solve the drug problem, find a way to reduce the demand for drugs. To reduce the threat of terrorism, the US would be well-served to determine why we are hated. Hint: it isn't because we're free and it isn't because we aren't a Muslim nation.
It's pretty clear that your mind is made up, so don't think I'm trying to change your vote. However, I would encourage you to read up on the some of the misinformation shoved down our throats by both parties. FactCheck.org is an excellent resource--it was recommended by Cheney in the VP debate.
If your claim is that language has no influence on the thought of its speakers, I disagree. I think the influence is subtle, but it's there. Language and culture have an influence on each other.
I'll bet you're right that Germans don't care which is which. The distinction is culturally unimportant. The culture influenced the language. However, since there is no distinction in the language spoken by the general non-bird-watching German public, they are less inclined to perceive a distinction than a speaker of a language that makes such a distinction. This is the influence of the language on the culture.
Do you not see this as being a two-way street? I imagine that influence of culture on language is greater than the other way around, but the influence is still there.
I think it's a feedback loop. If there's no need to be able to express a certain concept, there will likely be no word for it. However, the absence of that word makes it less likely that a native speaker of this language will deal with that concept.
Higher thought is facilitated by language and vice-versa. You think in words. Try thinking without words sometime--it's fun.
I think there is definitely some validity to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but it's more subtle than is characterized in this article and in previous posts. Here's an example:
As a native speaker of American English I perceive a distinction between a pidgeon and a dove. I have a word each, after all. I would eat a dove. I would not eat a pidgeon.
To the best of my knowledge, German makes no such distinction. There is one word for both: Taube*. The Germans that I have spoken to about this perceive pidgeons and doves as being the same bird. When I think about it, the two birds do seem rather similar, but prior to these discussions I saw no real similarity. That is significant.
I am perfectly capable of seeing pidgeons and dove as distinct or the same. I don't think language binds your thinkingit merely influences it.
* I have heard someone call a dove a "Friedenstaube" or "peace pidgeon/dove," but that was under weird circumstances.
With respect to the "right wing" comment, I think our foreign friend was trying to point out that to most of the world the US understanding of right vs. left is heavily shifted to the right. So a liberal American isn't considered liberal by the rest of the world.
First of all, well put. But I do have a question -- why should the acceptance of "alot" lamentable? As you point out, this sort of change is very natural and likely inevitable. Languages change. They don't decay.
I'm probably stating the obvious, but I believe Apple had two reasons for ignoring the interface guidelines for Windows. First of all, I think keeping the Windows version as much like the Mac version made porting easier. Secondly, I suspect it was an attempt to give PC users a taste of what the Apple experience is like. Unfortunately, I suspect they failed in that regard. See Quicktime for Windows.
I now wear headphone when I walk home from work. And I'm usually not listening to music. I've discovered it's the only way to get past the numerous panhandlers I pass on the way home.
It doesn't stop them from asking for money or cigarettes. But when I'm wearing headphones, they don't scream at me for ignoring them. I've tried saying "sorry," or "not today," or something else, but they still scream at me if I don't give them money. Just ignoring them pisses them off even more. The headphones work like a charm.
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People recommend Smarty because PHP feels pretty incomplete without it. And it's not about separating code from contentit's about separating business logic from display logic. And the syntax is really easy.
Not true at all. I know several German AIM users. And most of them beat me in an AIM Fight. What makes you think this is limited to people in the US?
There was also a really insteresting story involving ADM corruption on This American Life. Worth checking out.
You make good points. However, I hope you weren't implying that a Corolla will get you style points with the chicks. Since you bring it up, how well can you judge the likelihood that a new car will last 15 years other than looking at the company's track record? I know that in some instances the only real changes made between model years are cosmetic. In that case you can look for recall notices, reviews, etc. for the previous year(s). I think the reputation of a company counts for a lot.
For the record, I did a considerable amount of research before my purchases. Of course, I did more research for the car than for the MP3 player, but the car purchase entailed a bigger chunk of change.
People say this kind of crap all the time, but I just don't see it. I have a Toyota Corolla. I have an iPod. And I bought them both for the same reason--they were both good values.
There, I said it. I think my iPod is a good value. I does exactly what I need (and more) with minimal fuss. And it has proven to be very reliable. The same is true for the Toyota. My confidence in both of these purchases was based somewhat on the reputation for quality these companies have. I haven't been disappointed.
I didn't get an iPod to impress anybody. As a matter of fact, I'd rather no one ever see my iPod.
Isn't it possible that the average joe buys an iPod because they've heard that they're pretty good?
I'll be the first to admit that I know precious little about Perl. So maybe you could educate me a little more here. Specifically, I'd really like to see a regular expression that you could use in Perl that you couldn't use in PHP.
Just a quick point--you can use Perl's regular expressions in PHP. And that's usually what I see people doing. As a matter of fact, it is recommended in the PHP documentation that Perl's regular expressions be used: Note: preg_match(), which uses a Perl-compatible regular expression syntax, is often a faster alternative to ereg().
Does this mean that a person who's illiterate (and therefore cannot spell any word) probably doesn't know what any word really means?
Are you trolling or are you serious?
You mean like this?
Sure. And I do everyday. It's my iPod.
That's an interesting article. But that's not my life. I do use my iPod about 5 hours a day. I sit in a cube all day and the music helps me tune out distractions (read: co-workers). Before my iPod it was a discman. I live in a city--not the suburbs. I walk to work so I can see and hear my town. I don't want to be cut off from it. Well, that and to get my chunky ass some exercise.
I personally don't care about slideshows and such. But I really like that the album cover can be displayed while the song is playing. It may seem like a very small thing, but to someone as anal about their music collection as I am, this is very appealing.
That being said, it ain't appealing enough for me to drop $449 to upgrade my iPod.
My guess is that this is just an intermediate step towards some greater functionality. Like video or broader PDA functionality.
No problem. Thanks for the clarification, though.
I'm interested in this service, but I was hoping you could answer a question. You mention that your daughter uses this service to call the US from the UK. However, onesuite.com mentions that you can't use their service to place calls from another country (i.e. outside the US and Canada). Do you know of a similar service available in the UK?
There's a place in Austin that sells these, although I don't think they're called Skat Skootas. The name of the store is Terra Toys.
The West is now locked in a steel cage deathmatch with Radical Islam for world supremacy
Really? You really believe that? Wow. You bought it hook, line and sinker. The War on Terror is like the War on Drugs, but it is also different. Just as you can't simply allow planes filled with drugs to cross our borders, you can't let terrorists fly planes into buildings. But doing a decent job of stopping these activities is only a small part of the solution. To solve the drug problem, find a way to reduce the demand for drugs. To reduce the threat of terrorism, the US would be well-served to determine why we are hated. Hint: it isn't because we're free and it isn't because we aren't a Muslim nation.
It's pretty clear that your mind is made up, so don't think I'm trying to change your vote. However, I would encourage you to read up on the some of the misinformation shoved down our throats by both parties. FactCheck.org is an excellent resource--it was recommended by Cheney in the VP debate.
If your claim is that language has no influence on the thought of its speakers, I disagree. I think the influence is subtle, but it's there. Language and culture have an influence on each other.
I'll bet you're right that Germans don't care which is which. The distinction is culturally unimportant. The culture influenced the language. However, since there is no distinction in the language spoken by the general non-bird-watching German public, they are less inclined to perceive a distinction than a speaker of a language that makes such a distinction. This is the influence of the language on the culture.
Do you not see this as being a two-way street? I imagine that influence of culture on language is greater than the other way around, but the influence is still there.
I think it's a feedback loop. If there's no need to be able to express a certain concept, there will likely be no word for it. However, the absence of that word makes it less likely that a native speaker of this language will deal with that concept.
Higher thought is facilitated by language and vice-versa. You think in words.Try thinking without words sometime--it's fun.
I think there is definitely some validity to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but it's more subtle than is characterized in this article and in previous posts. Here's an example:
As a native speaker of American English I perceive a distinction between a pidgeon and a dove. I have a word each, after all. I would eat a dove. I would not eat a pidgeon.
To the best of my knowledge, German makes no such distinction. There is one word for both: Taube*. The Germans that I have spoken to about this perceive pidgeons and doves as being the same bird. When I think about it, the two birds do seem rather similar, but prior to these discussions I saw no real similarity. That is significant. I am perfectly capable of seeing pidgeons and dove as distinct or the same. I don't think language binds your thinkingit merely influences it.
* I have heard someone call a dove a "Friedenstaube" or "peace pidgeon/dove," but that was under weird circumstances.
With respect to the "right wing" comment, I think our foreign friend was trying to point out that to most of the world the US understanding of right vs. left is heavily shifted to the right. So a liberal American isn't considered liberal by the rest of the world.
First of all, well put. But I do have a question -- why should the acceptance of "alot" lamentable? As you point out, this sort of change is very natural and likely inevitable. Languages change. They don't decay.
I'm probably stating the obvious, but I believe Apple had two reasons for ignoring the interface guidelines for Windows. First of all, I think keeping the Windows version as much like the Mac version made porting easier. Secondly, I suspect it was an attempt to give PC users a taste of what the Apple experience is like. Unfortunately, I suspect they failed in that regard. See Quicktime for Windows.
just a tiny correction -- the word is "puttanesca" not "putresca". and you're right, america's test kitchen rocks.
I now wear headphone when I walk home from work. And I'm usually not listening to music. I've discovered it's the only way to get past the numerous panhandlers I pass on the way home.
It doesn't stop them from asking for money or cigarettes. But when I'm wearing headphones, they don't scream at me for ignoring them. I've tried saying "sorry," or "not today," or something else, but they still scream at me if I don't give them money. Just ignoring them pisses them off even more. The headphones work like a charm.