"For more information on basic operating systems programming, you should consider the texts mentioned in the bibliography at the end of this book."
There are a few references to this bibliography, but I was unable to find it. I assume that this book is a work in progress and that part hasn't been posted yet. I didn't miss anything, did I? I would be interested in what books they recommend (actually, I would be interested in slashdot readers' recommendations, too).
Although the link seems to be slashdotted, I've read a few "Ultimate Linux Box" articles including one
on slashdot
recently. That one is apparently a sequel to another article Eric Raymond wrote in 1996 which discusses building a Linux box on the cheap. Since that would now be out of date, I'm wondering if there are other articles/advice on building or buying a cheap linux box.
Since I am not much of a hardware guy, I'd be more interested in questions like where is it essential to spend a little money. For example, if one only wants reasonable performace and would be developing only for hobby and self-education, is one of the cheap Celeron systems OK or will it bite me in the ass down the line that I don't have a Pentium? And if I would also need to boot Windows for work related stuff, does that change my minimum hardware requirements?
Richard M. Stallman has requested that this post be renamed "GNUth Releases Part of Volume 4" and that the book be referred to as "GNUth's 'The Art of Computer Programming'". Says RMS, "Clearly this system of many eyes viewing the pre-releases to remove bugs reflects a major benefit of open source. To say anything but 'GNUth' would be to ignore this fact."
Thomas M Hughes writes:
I don't know of anyone who honestly expected AI to arrive in 2001, especially no one who knew anything about it in 2001, or in 2000, or 1999, etc.
Actually, Doug Lenat and
Cycorp
, who were mentioned in the article, seemed to be expecting just that - if you think Mr. Lenat beleives the claims that he has made. And whether or not he turns out to be correct, he seems to be a very smart man.
My take (and I am certainly no expert) is that Mr. Lenat is a theorist and he sees no theoretical problem to acheiving his goals.
This leaves him with an engineering problem which he consistently underestimates. I know I have essentially that problem often, although on a much smaller scale.
Back to AI, you can add the fact that AI seems to be defined differenly by every person you speak to. This is another factor which can cause estimates on when the vapor will materialize to vary greatly. Some would even say AI had already arrived in 2001.
Apparently, Peter Jackson is an avid Slashdot reader with all the free time on his hands. Having read
this
story, he decided to add a few hours of
Nien Nunb
to the director's cut along with
Hammerhead
and the
Jawas.
Says Jackson, "The movie was running short and, hopefully, this will give them the added exposure they so richly deserve. Who knows, maybe this story will even be duplicate-posted on Slashdot in 5 or 6 months!"
Real bloat comes from libraries like STL...
First let me say that I have not used the STL much at all. However, I remembered reading an article about the design and goals of the STL which claimed that STL code, when compiled, was almost as efficient as a version written in assembly. Can any more experienced STL/C++ programmers comment on the validity of the claims? I dug up what I think is the article in the byte archives. Its by Alexander Stepanov.
Here's an interesting quote from the article:
"I found that efficiency and generality were not mutually exclusive. In fact, quite the reverse is true. If a component is not efficient enough, it usually means that it's not abstract enough. This is because efficiency and abstractness both require a clean, orthogonal design. A similar phenomenon occurs in mathematics: Making a proof more abstract makes it more concise and elegant."
*ZiggyP0P* writes "Napster has finally released a preview/teaser of their new business model . Seems kind of sad that so much work will be done on something that noone will use. Quite interesting the part about their own file format..."
Based on the quotes, it appears to me that the submitter was editorializing. I thought it was kinda funny myself. I think most readers realize they are going to get lots of editorializing on slashdot and, far from being impressionable nerds, they are ready to smack down dumb statments faster than I can reload.
Here's a patriotic article about the topic to counter this drivel. It was originally at the onion but it doesn't appear to be archived there.
Note for the sarcastically challenged: read the link.
My "Dr. Weil" spider-sense is tingling. Maybe off topic, but Dr. Weil is Mr. Pseudo-Science.
While I agree with the idea that medical science should be more attuned to mental and nutritional aspects of health, Dr. Weil goes way beyond this. He basically leaves science behind. If you're just reading him because he has some interesting ideas, great. But don't treat him as a medical or nutritional authority. I don't have time to look up lots of links now, but here's a relatively benign one.
I'm not a scientist, just a magazine reader and curious person... err... person with a lot of curiousity.
However, as I understand it, string theory affects little else besides theory - which is one of its problems. Although it may or may not correctly describe the universe, it is very difficult to devise a test or find ways in which it would predict something different which we can measure.
Can someone more knowledgeable elaborate on that (or correct me)?
While I agree that "Thinking in Patterns with Python" might be a better name, the text is actually titled "Thinking in Python" with the subtitle "Design Patterns and Problem-Solving Techniques".
From the preface, it appears to be a port of "Thinking in Patterns with Java" to Python, with the hope of completing the Python version and then porting it back to Java. He (Bruce Eckel) makes clear that this is not a Python tutorial.
You can get the complete explanation from the horse's mouth, but I figure it'll be slashdotted soon.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a few references to this bibliography, but I was unable to find it. I assume that this book is a work in progress and that part hasn't been posted yet. I didn't miss anything, did I? I would be interested in what books they recommend (actually, I would be interested in slashdot readers' recommendations, too).
There must be at least one more meaning for OS which you could fit in the same paragraph, or at least another two letter acronym ;)
Since I am not much of a hardware guy, I'd be more interested in questions like where is it essential to spend a little money. For example, if one only wants reasonable performace and would be developing only for hobby and self-education, is one of the cheap Celeron systems OK or will it bite me in the ass down the line that I don't have a Pentium? And if I would also need to boot Windows for work related stuff, does that change my minimum hardware requirements?
Anybody have any links or advice?
Richard M. Stallman has requested that this post be renamed "GNUth Releases Part of Volume 4" and that the book be referred to as "GNUth's 'The Art of Computer Programming'". Says RMS, "Clearly this system of many eyes viewing the pre-releases to remove bugs reflects a major benefit of open source. To say anything but 'GNUth' would be to ignore this fact."
Actually, Doug Lenat and Cycorp , who were mentioned in the article, seemed to be expecting just that - if you think Mr. Lenat beleives the claims that he has made. And whether or not he turns out to be correct, he seems to be a very smart man.
My take (and I am certainly no expert) is that Mr. Lenat is a theorist and he sees no theoretical problem to acheiving his goals. This leaves him with an engineering problem which he consistently underestimates. I know I have essentially that problem often, although on a much smaller scale.
Back to AI, you can add the fact that AI seems to be defined differenly by every person you speak to. This is another factor which can cause estimates on when the vapor will materialize to vary greatly. Some would even say AI had already arrived in 2001.
Apparently, Peter Jackson is an avid Slashdot reader with all the free time on his hands. Having read this story, he decided to add a few hours of Nien Nunb to the director's cut along with Hammerhead and the Jawas. Says Jackson, "The movie was running short and, hopefully, this will give them the added exposure they so richly deserve. Who knows, maybe this story will even be duplicate-posted on Slashdot in 5 or 6 months!"
Apparently Microsoft has hacked this code. The onion is reporting that Bill Gates has granted himself 18 dexterity and 20 Charisma.
==> (and you know this, maaan)
nil
==>
Real bloat comes from libraries like STL...
First let me say that I have not used the STL much at all. However, I remembered reading an article about the design and goals of the STL which claimed that STL code, when compiled, was almost as efficient as a version written in assembly. Can any more experienced STL/C++ programmers comment on the validity of the claims? I dug up what I think is the article in the byte archives. Its by Alexander Stepanov. Here's an interesting quote from the article:
"I found that efficiency and generality were not mutually exclusive. In fact, quite the reverse is true. If a component is not efficient enough, it usually means that it's not abstract enough. This is because efficiency and abstractness both require a clean, orthogonal design. A similar phenomenon occurs in mathematics: Making a proof more abstract makes it more concise and elegant."
*ZiggyP0P* writes "Napster has finally released a preview/teaser of their new business model . Seems kind of sad that so much work will be done on something that noone will use. Quite interesting the part about their own file format..."
Based on the quotes, it appears to me that the submitter was editorializing. I thought it was kinda funny myself. I think most readers realize they are going to get lots of editorializing on slashdot and, far from being impressionable nerds, they are ready to smack down dumb statments faster than I can reload.
Here's a patriotic article about the topic to counter this drivel. It was originally at the onion but it doesn't appear to be archived there.
Note for the sarcastically challenged: read the link.
My "Dr. Weil" spider-sense is tingling. Maybe off topic, but Dr. Weil is Mr. Pseudo-Science.
While I agree with the idea that medical science should be more attuned to mental and nutritional aspects of health, Dr. Weil goes way beyond this. He basically leaves science behind. If you're just reading him because he has some interesting ideas, great. But don't treat him as a medical or nutritional authority. I don't have time to look up lots of links now, but here's a relatively benign one.
IBM does not own Dell, and IBM's support of Linux has much more to do with server side than desktops (at least so far).
I guess old Scrooge still won't let you put more coal on the fire, huh, Mr. Cratchit.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I'm not a scientist, just a magazine reader and curious person... err... person with a lot of curiousity.
However, as I understand it, string theory affects little else besides theory - which is one of its problems. Although it may or may not correctly describe the universe, it is very difficult to devise a test or find ways in which it would predict something different which we can measure.
Can someone more knowledgeable elaborate on that (or correct me)?
Now if I could just get a beowulf cluster of these, I could get rid of the central air in my house.
(ducking)
While I agree that "Thinking in Patterns with Python" might be a better name, the text is actually titled "Thinking in Python" with the subtitle "Design Patterns and Problem-Solving Techniques".
From the preface, it appears to be a port of "Thinking in Patterns with Java" to Python, with the hope of completing the Python version and then porting it back to Java. He (Bruce Eckel) makes clear that this is not a Python tutorial.
You can get the complete explanation from the horse's mouth, but I figure it'll be slashdotted soon.
BZ: The fact of the matter is, there is no good reason to keep the source once it has been parsed...
I submit to you that there is at least one good reason to keep the source: View Source.