If you'll look more closely at the article, you'll notice that he's addressing software developers. The point is that, if you're developing an application to be distributed and installed widely, it shouldn't go in/usr/local.
Re:Not as bad as all that
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Ironically, the top result for "dumb motherfucker" now is the Wired article.
My daughter's 3 now, so I'm digging back into memory. At 21 months she...
knew a few books by heart.
could carry a tune and knew all the words to several songs
could stand on one leg
could stack over a dozen blocks into a tower.
invented elaborate stories involving her dolls and wooden animals
said "I love you" a lot
...without using a computer.
The point being that there is more to a child's development than academic skills. Computers help with a few aspects of development, and hinder many others.
Note: I'm talking about early childhood here. By all means, once a kid's in double-digit years, if they're interested in computers, get them a good cheap used computer, your favorite OS, a couple O'Reilly books, and let them loose.
This is an accusation that has been made relatively often about Waldorf schools. Here's a bit of detail:
The first Waldorf school was founded in Waldorf Germany in 1919 (iirc) by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner was, among other things a philosopher who developed a philosophy called Anthroposophy, which focuses largely on the spiritual nature of human beings. I've read only a little bit of his work, and I do find it rather hard to follow -- lots of talk about ethereal bodies, and whatever. So a lot of people see it as new-age, or occult, or just claptrap.
The important part of anthroposophy that Waldorf schools apply to their curriculum is the belief that education needs to meet more than just intellectual needs, that all sides of a child's being need to be nurtured. Their focus on children's stages of development means that they don't push rigorous academics early on. They also teach an interest in and respect for nature, as well as a focus on the spiritual side of life. (Yes, they do mention God, which is one reason why some people are adverse to the use of Waldorf methods in public schools.)
waldorfcritics.org is vehemently anti-Waldorf. If you're interested in the other side of the debate, you might want to look at awsna.org -- the Association of Waldorf Schools in North America.
By the way -- I think you meant to say "It's a cult!!!!"
On the contrary, the connections between TV and computers are both obvious and important.
They both use cathode ray tubes.
They both involve only 2 senses -- sight and sound -- leaving the others uninvolved.
In other words, the experience of watching a screen is very different from the experience of touching, tasting, smelling, and physically manipulating the world. During childhood, especially the early years, our brains are busy developing the connections that determine how they will work for the rest of our lives. What we fail to develop early on, we can never build later.
There is a growing body of evidence that video tubes are detrimental to children's development, and TV is linked to a range of behavioral disorders, including ADD and problems with aggression.
If you want your children to learn to read, Sesame Street is vastly inferior to books. If you want them to learn to count, computer software is vastly inferior to a bunch of blocks, or sticks, or whatever.
Finally, yes Mathematica is a valuable and useful program. I made much use of it while working on my PhD. But it's not for children.
I do recall the endless "almost there" phase before 2.4 was released. I also recall that there was always "one more thing" to add, and I got the impression when it was released that Linus had just said "That's it! Enough! Here, it's done!", so 2.4.0 was pretty raw.
The problem was, how do we allow developers to keep adding new stuff, while we get a stable release out at the same time?
Here's a suggestion (I'm going to phrase it for 2.5, since that's next, but it could any 2.n, n odd):
When it looks like 2.5 has gotten far enough for a new stable release (let's suppose we're at 2.5.35, say), start a new stable branch and a new unstable branch right then. So, 2.6.pre1 is the same as 2.7.0 is the same as 2.5.35. The 2.5 branch is done. From there, anything new goes into 2.7, and 2.6 starts going into fix/beta test mode, working up through 2.6.pre# and 2.6.rc# until it's 2.6.0
I think the fact that 2.5 was not started earlier was part of why 2.4 is a bit too cuttting edge.
Okay -- if I wasn't all psyched about my first-ever Slashdot post, I might have noticed that I needed some HTML tags.
Here's the readable version: (Feel free to moderate the original down -- is there a "clueless" category?
XML = Extensible _Markup_ Language.
Based on SGML (Standard General Markup Language), it is used for marking up data in a way that clearly indicates the structure of the information.
UML is a _Modelling_ Language. Its purpose, essentially, is to describe and specify systems. It provides a way for various participants in a project -- coders, managers, users, etc. -- to be able to communicate about a system being designed.
(It's a bit simplistic, but that's the basic idea...)
XML = Extensible _Markup_ Language.
Based on SGML (Standard General Markup Language), it is used for marking up data in a way that clearly indicates the structure of the information.
UML is a _Modelling_ Language. Its purpose, essentially, is to describe and specify systems. It provides a way for various participants in a project -- coders, managers, users, etc. -- to be able to communicate about a system being designed.
(It's a bit simplistic, but that's the basic idea...)
Slashdot Mirror
If you'll look more closely at the article, you'll notice that he's addressing software developers. The point is that, if you're developing an application to be distributed and installed widely, it shouldn't go in /usr/local.
Ironically, the top result for "dumb motherfucker" now is the Wired article.
Apparently, somebody's been reading E2.
Wired had an interesting article a few months ago about Google's ad revenue model. I'll go look it up...
Got it.
Not to get into a competition, but...
My daughter's 3 now, so I'm digging back into memory. At 21 months she ...
The point being that there is more to a child's development than academic skills. Computers help with a few aspects of development, and hinder many others.
Note: I'm talking about early childhood here. By all means, once a kid's in double-digit years, if they're interested in computers, get them a good cheap used computer, your favorite OS, a couple O'Reilly books, and let them loose.
The school mentioned in the article is a Waldorf school, and awsna.org probably has some links to these ideas.
This is an accusation that has been made relatively often about Waldorf schools. Here's a bit of detail:
The first Waldorf school was founded in Waldorf Germany in 1919 (iirc) by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner was, among other things a philosopher who developed a philosophy called Anthroposophy, which focuses largely on the spiritual nature of human beings. I've read only a little bit of his work, and I do find it rather hard to follow -- lots of talk about ethereal bodies, and whatever. So a lot of people see it as new-age, or occult, or just claptrap.
The important part of anthroposophy that Waldorf schools apply to their curriculum is the belief that education needs to meet more than just intellectual needs, that all sides of a child's being need to be nurtured. Their focus on children's stages of development means that they don't push rigorous academics early on. They also teach an interest in and respect for nature, as well as a focus on the spiritual side of life. (Yes, they do mention God, which is one reason why some people are adverse to the use of Waldorf methods in public schools.)
waldorfcritics.org is vehemently anti-Waldorf. If you're interested in the other side of the debate, you might want to look at awsna.org -- the Association of Waldorf Schools in North America.
By the way -- I think you meant to say "It's a cult!!!!"
On the contrary, the connections between TV and computers are both obvious and important.
In other words, the experience of watching a screen is very different from the experience of touching, tasting, smelling, and physically manipulating the world. During childhood, especially the early years, our brains are busy developing the connections that determine how they will work for the rest of our lives. What we fail to develop early on, we can never build later.
There is a growing body of evidence that video tubes are detrimental to children's development, and TV is linked to a range of behavioral disorders, including ADD and problems with aggression.
If you want your children to learn to read, Sesame Street is vastly inferior to books. If you want them to learn to count, computer software is vastly inferior to a bunch of blocks, or sticks, or whatever.
Finally, yes Mathematica is a valuable and useful program. I made much use of it while working on my PhD. But it's not for children.
I do recall the endless "almost there" phase before 2.4 was released. I also recall that there was always "one more thing" to add, and I got the impression when it was released that Linus had just said "That's it! Enough! Here, it's done!", so 2.4.0 was pretty raw.
The problem was, how do we allow developers to keep adding new stuff, while we get a stable release out at the same time?
Here's a suggestion (I'm going to phrase it for 2.5, since that's next, but it could any 2.n, n odd):
When it looks like 2.5 has gotten far enough for a new stable release (let's suppose we're at 2.5.35, say), start a new stable branch and a new unstable branch right then. So, 2.6.pre1 is the same as 2.7.0 is the same as 2.5.35. The 2.5 branch is done. From there, anything new goes into 2.7, and 2.6 starts going into fix/beta test mode, working up through 2.6.pre# and 2.6.rc# until it's 2.6.0
I think the fact that 2.5 was not started earlier was part of why 2.4 is a bit too cuttting edge.
Okay -- if I wasn't all psyched about my first-ever Slashdot post, I might have noticed that I needed some HTML tags.
Here's the readable version: (Feel free to moderate the original down -- is there a "clueless" category?
XML = Extensible _Markup_ Language. Based on SGML (Standard General Markup Language), it is used for marking up data in a way that clearly indicates the structure of the information.
UML is a _Modelling_ Language. Its purpose, essentially, is to describe and specify systems. It provides a way for various participants in a project -- coders, managers, users, etc. -- to be able to communicate about a system being designed.
(It's a bit simplistic, but that's the basic idea...)
XML = Extensible _Markup_ Language. Based on SGML (Standard General Markup Language), it is used for marking up data in a way that clearly indicates the structure of the information. UML is a _Modelling_ Language. Its purpose, essentially, is to describe and specify systems. It provides a way for various participants in a project -- coders, managers, users, etc. -- to be able to communicate about a system being designed. (It's a bit simplistic, but that's the basic idea...)