However, "Some preparedness" has a much better chance at fixing the problem than "no preparedness"
I never made any comments about the goodness or badness, just a wise crack about the _effectiveness_ given previous history.
Besides, at the very least it would ease the minds of people about to die.
If you go back and read this thread, it stemmed from someone saying that the tactic being employed is one of ignorance (i.e. keep the public ignorant), isn't what you just said similar in effect? Either way you are keeping them ignorant of the graveness of the situation. Like you said:
They're going to die either way--and might as well die without too much panic.
Re:Meteor strikes not that uncommon
on
Meteor Over Midwest
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Why dont you ask the Kuwaities and The US military about the current success of the next gen Patriot?
Yes, it's nice to have a decade to fix your problems. If we were talking a large metor striking the Earth, we wouldn't have the opportunity to fix our first screw up.
Plus, considering the rather, uh, "optimistic" results that are reported during conflicts (e.g. reports of the last Partriot success during the conflict), I'd be rather suspect of _any_ such information until after everything is said and done (hey, it may turn out that it was better than first thought, either way, until the post mortem, I'm not taking anything as gospel).
Re:Meteor strikes not that uncommon
on
Meteor Over Midwest
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The trillions of dollars spent on SDI and later the Patriot system would have been better spent on such protection.
And given the "success" of those projects, would you feel any safer?
XML is a markup language. Not a programming language. English is a language. Does that make it a programming language? Of course not.
What I'm saying is that simply having a defined structure with some keywords doesn't qualify something as a "language". Just like spoken "languages". Some ways that people communicate do not contain all the attributes that qualify it as a language. Just because people use it and can communicate with it don't qualify it as a language. Same type of thing. Markup or programming or whatever. A project I worked on previously offered variable replacement for web pages (this was before ASP even existed), you would enter and it even had loops to display lists of information. It had a defined structure and syntax and various keywords. Was it a "language", nope, just a variable replacement mechanism.
Do these satellites actually detect small changes such as people and tanks
They certainly could. The challange is getting up to the minute data to the headset.
Otherwise, why not just use a map and a laptop?
You have to actually hold a laptop. If the laptop is out in the field, then it has to be ruggedized. So now you have a soldier with this 40lb armour plated laptop. If you can integrate the guts into the visor, it leaves the hands free to do more important things, like shoot or say drive that tank and make sure those small things that aren't on the map show up. Same argument for why have night vision goggles vs night vision binoculars.
BTW, anyone else getting funny messages like "It's been -142 seconds since you last successfully posted a comment"? This/code is amazing, it actually knows that I am going to post two minutes from now!
Some people just don't "get" XML
on
Why XML Doesn't Suck
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You read some of the arguments against XML, and you realize that people just don't "get it".
1 - XML sucks as a language
Repeat after me, XML is NOT a language. Certainly not in the sense that C++ is a language. XML is a standard that defines how one structures data.
2 - XML is bloated, I can send binary much cheaper/easier
DUH. If your application is fine using binary data transfer, then USE it. HOWEVER, many applications that either have to A) communicate with other applications or B) have to deal with varying data sets benefit greatly from using XML. Anyone who has been programming for any length of time knows that while binary is more compact, it is less flexible and potentially more error prone. Want to add a new field in the middle of your data, boy you better not get your software versions mixed. Want to write an app that can do reasonably intelligent things with ANY data it recieves, binary is not the way to go. As with all things in life, use the tool for that which it was intended (vs some peoples view that it is the end all be all of data representation).
3 - It's slow
Same as 2 above. If absolute performance is an issue, then by all means, use whatever representation gives you what you need. XML is about flexibility and standardization, NOT performance.
4 - It's complex
Well as complex as you want to make it, and it does sometimes encourages more complexity than is really needed, but it doesn't FORCE you into it. If you want/need schemas, go for it. If you need the functionality but in a simpler form, then do that (unless of course you need to communicate with another system expecting a schema, but his is obvious). It's just like C++, you don't HAVE to use templates and multiple inheritence (hell, you don't even have to create classes if you don't want/need), you use the parts of the tool that are useful and provide benefit, you don't use them just because they're there.
So I don't see what all the bruhaha is about. It has it's strengths, it has it's weaknesses. As with anything, relatively, new, people are trying it in various places. Some of these places not really fit, others do. I've designed apps that benefited greatly, others I've dismissed xml for entirely.
But it's not a DVD drive. It's based on DVD blue laser tech (as stated in the article), but it's geared towards the MO market NOT the DVD+-~R market and it's certainly not aimed at consumers.
Actually I was just joking. Slippery slope, drm, all the buzzwords ya know. I was hoping the phone number -> National ID thing would be enough of a stretch that no one would take me seriously:)
Is anyone aware of any regulations allowing you to transfer your home phone number to your cell phone if you were to disconnect your home phone number? I think I remember reading about rules stating you could keep your home phone number if you switched land carriers, and now you'll be able to keep your cell phone number when you switch cell carriers, but what about if you are ditching your land line altogether?
This could be one of those areas where those cellular companies that are tied to land line providers could offer added benefits. As an example, Verizon could offer this for their local land line customers. "Move from land line and keep your phone# if you stay with Verizon." type of promotion.
Dang, i try to make a funny and get beaten out by the first post no less. Shame on anyone having the same thought as me and actually being able to post it faster;) Go ahead, lay those -1 Redundants on me, I can take it:)
Of course with number portability we are one step closer to having a national ID. Definitely a slippery slope if you ask me. Next thing you know they'll be tying DRM to your phone#.
As others have stated, this isn't just "what I know" from a comfort point of view, it's what I know from an effiency point of view (not just lines of code written, but also quality). Over the years I have amassed a considerable library of tools/algorithms etc to aid my development efforts. This means that I can usually write things in C++ quicker and better than someone who doesn't have that experience/infrastructure. So for me, the payoff from switching to a higher level language isn't as great as it might be for others.
As for STL, do I use it extensively, well no. I use it where and when it seems approrpriate to use. Vs others I know that use it just because it's there.
I consider myself a pragmatic programmer. I've been around long enough to know that there are the right tools for the right job, BUT that the determination of the right tool isn't as simple as vb does guis better than vc++ therefore you should code your gui in vb. Other than the most trivial instances, it's deeper than that. You can't JUST look at the language, you also have to look at the developer, the two are tied together. I think that that is the point the author misses.
btw, I agree with you that C++ sucks, but probably for vastly different reasons (just to give you a hint, I LOVE C), but that's another story;)
Java and C# are based on a subset of C++. If you know C++ well, you should be going full steam in these languages within 2 weeks. If your task is long enough, it might be worth it.
True, but are Java and C# truely high level enough to warrant the time to learn their environments (remember, the development environment, esp with vm based languages, is often more than half the battle of learning "the language"). BTW, I don't do Java, but my company is moving slowly in the.net world so I've already started into the c# thing.
After programmers take responsibility, perhaps they can consider using the right tool for the job, rather than the right tool for the job of their dreams.
I don't think this macho thing plays into it nearly as much as he states. I think it has to do with comfort and laziness. I've been programming in C/C++ for over 15 years, so obviously, if I have a programming task to tackle, I will lean towards using those languages. I can do a minimal amount of vb, so if I need to slap together a ui, I can, but not anything that did anything interesting. If I have a task, how much time should I spend learning a new language if that language is better suited for the task than a language I know? Since I'm new to this language, how much worse is the code going to be than what I could have written in a less suitable language?
I'm not saying that I'm against learning new languages, but a programmer can only realisticly be "good" at a small set of languages. And the realities are that unless I'm working on a pet project, I don't have the time to learn something new or try to come back up to speed on a language I last used two years ago. Perl is an excellent example in my case, I don't know a lick of it. If I have simple text processing to do, I use the "simpler" text utilities (awk and sed primarily), unless the problem is very simple, in which case I fire up my text editor. If it's more complex, then I use C/C++. Could it be done quicker in Perl, maybe, maybe not. If by quicker you allow me to ignore the ramp up time to learn the language. If I were doing this type of thing all the time, then the rampup could be amortized in the long run. If it's onsie twosie, then forget it, out comes the c compiler.
Actually I thought the joke was that this "Cobol programmer shortage" has been around forever. It came into the publics awareness around Y2K time frame, but the issue has been punted around programming circles for years before that.
Could anyone who's actually done/doing this mind numbing work actually give some more details as to exactly what this work is? It's hard to get any appreciation for just how technical one has to be and just how, uh, appreciative of repitition one has to be.
That is why I prefaced by pointing out that the article said Free and not Open and that I wasn't sure if that's explicitly what they meant to say. If they did mean free, it's also interesting to see if they mean just license costs, or are they also expecting free support?
The question is, is the REQUIREMENT that all systems contain Free (they didn't say OPEN, just FREE, I don't know if this is a translation thing, but there is an important distinction) software good or not. Are they limiting themselves just as they would be if they declared "all systems must have Microsoft software". What if it turns out that MacOS actually suits their needs the best? (ok, you can stop laughing now)
The article is light on background and I don't read Spanish, so I don't know what precipitated this decision (purely financial, political (aka Anti-Microsoft), technical, or whatever). So it's hard to tell just how well thought out this is.
This is interesting. Most of the replies have been "yeah but this isn't Disney produced". I assume the original poster was not making a reference to Disney quality, but Disney corporate (you know, like Sony). So it's funny that this is "ok" because anime is cool and it wasn't produced by Disney. Yet no one has said (there are 5 replies as of this writing) "hey it's those slimeball copyright extending Disney dudes, I'm not gonna support ANYTHING they are involved with".
Slashdot Mirror
However, "Some preparedness" has a much better chance at fixing the problem than "no preparedness"
I never made any comments about the goodness or badness, just a wise crack about the _effectiveness_ given previous history.
Besides, at the very least it would ease the minds of people about to die.
If you go back and read this thread, it stemmed from someone saying that the tactic being employed is one of ignorance (i.e. keep the public ignorant), isn't what you just said similar in effect? Either way you are keeping them ignorant of the graveness of the situation. Like you said:
They're going to die either way--and might as well die without too much panic.
Why dont you ask the Kuwaities and The US military about the current success of the next gen Patriot?
Yes, it's nice to have a decade to fix your problems. If we were talking a large metor striking the Earth, we wouldn't have the opportunity to fix our first screw up.
Plus, considering the rather, uh, "optimistic" results that are reported during conflicts (e.g. reports of the last Partriot success during the conflict), I'd be rather suspect of _any_ such information until after everything is said and done (hey, it may turn out that it was better than first thought, either way, until the post mortem, I'm not taking anything as gospel).
The trillions of dollars spent on SDI and later the Patriot system would have been better spent on such protection.
And given the "success" of those projects, would you feel any safer?
XML is a markup language. Not a programming language. English is a language. Does that make it a programming language? Of course not.
What I'm saying is that simply having a defined structure with some keywords doesn't qualify something as a "language". Just like spoken "languages". Some ways that people communicate do not contain all the attributes that qualify it as a language. Just because people use it and can communicate with it don't qualify it as a language. Same type of thing. Markup or programming or whatever. A project I worked on previously offered variable replacement for web pages (this was before ASP even existed), you would enter and it even had loops to display lists of information. It had a defined structure and syntax and various keywords. Was it a "language", nope, just a variable replacement mechanism.
So what does the 'L' stand for?
Good thing it doesn't stand for Beer, or else everyone would try to drink it (because lord knows if you call it a thing, then it is that thing).
Do these satellites actually detect small changes such as people and tanks
/code is amazing, it actually knows that I am going to post two minutes from now!
They certainly could. The challange is getting up to the minute data to the headset.
Otherwise, why not just use a map and a laptop?
You have to actually hold a laptop. If the laptop is out in the field, then it has to be ruggedized. So now you have a soldier with this 40lb armour plated laptop. If you can integrate the guts into the visor, it leaves the hands free to do more important things, like shoot or say drive that tank and make sure those small things that aren't on the map show up. Same argument for why have night vision goggles vs night vision binoculars.
BTW, anyone else getting funny messages like "It's been -142 seconds since you last successfully posted a comment"? This
You read some of the arguments against XML, and you realize that people just don't "get it".
1 - XML sucks as a language
Repeat after me, XML is NOT a language. Certainly not in the sense that C++ is a language. XML is a standard that defines how one structures data.
2 - XML is bloated, I can send binary much cheaper/easier
DUH. If your application is fine using binary data transfer, then USE it. HOWEVER, many applications that either have to A) communicate with other applications or B) have to deal with varying data sets benefit greatly from using XML. Anyone who has been programming for any length of time knows that while binary is more compact, it is less flexible and potentially more error prone. Want to add a new field in the middle of your data, boy you better not get your software versions mixed. Want to write an app that can do reasonably intelligent things with ANY data it recieves, binary is not the way to go. As with all things in life, use the tool for that which it was intended (vs some peoples view that it is the end all be all of data representation).
3 - It's slow
Same as 2 above. If absolute performance is an issue, then by all means, use whatever representation gives you what you need. XML is about flexibility and standardization, NOT performance.
4 - It's complex
Well as complex as you want to make it, and it does sometimes encourages more complexity than is really needed, but it doesn't FORCE you into it. If you want/need schemas, go for it. If you need the functionality but in a simpler form, then do that (unless of course you need to communicate with another system expecting a schema, but his is obvious). It's just like C++, you don't HAVE to use templates and multiple inheritence (hell, you don't even have to create classes if you don't want/need), you use the parts of the tool that are useful and provide benefit, you don't use them just because they're there.
So I don't see what all the bruhaha is about. It has it's strengths, it has it's weaknesses. As with anything, relatively, new, people are trying it in various places. Some of these places not really fit, others do. I've designed apps that benefited greatly, others I've dismissed xml for entirely.
But it's not a DVD drive. It's based on DVD blue laser tech (as stated in the article), but it's geared towards the MO market NOT the DVD+-~R market and it's certainly not aimed at consumers.
Well I was trying to be funny, guess I didn't succeed :) Knew I should have thrown in a reference to Microsoft and Memory Stick.
Actually I was just joking. Slippery slope, drm, all the buzzwords ya know. I was hoping the phone number -> National ID thing would be enough of a stretch that no one would take me seriously :)
Is anyone aware of any regulations allowing you to transfer your home phone number to your cell phone if you were to disconnect your home phone number? I think I remember reading about rules stating you could keep your home phone number if you switched land carriers, and now you'll be able to keep your cell phone number when you switch cell carriers, but what about if you are ditching your land line altogether?
This could be one of those areas where those cellular companies that are tied to land line providers could offer added benefits. As an example, Verizon could offer this for their local land line customers. "Move from land line and keep your phone# if you stay with Verizon." type of promotion.
Dang, i try to make a funny and get beaten out by the first post no less. Shame on anyone having the same thought as me and actually being able to post it faster ;) Go ahead, lay those -1 Redundants on me, I can take it :)
Of course with number portability we are one step closer to having a national ID. Definitely a slippery slope if you ask me. Next thing you know they'll be tying DRM to your phone#.
As others have stated, this isn't just "what I know" from a comfort point of view, it's what I know from an effiency point of view (not just lines of code written, but also quality). Over the years I have amassed a considerable library of tools/algorithms etc to aid my development efforts. This means that I can usually write things in C++ quicker and better than someone who doesn't have that experience/infrastructure. So for me, the payoff from switching to a higher level language isn't as great as it might be for others.
;)
As for STL, do I use it extensively, well no. I use it where and when it seems approrpriate to use. Vs others I know that use it just because it's there.
I consider myself a pragmatic programmer. I've been around long enough to know that there are the right tools for the right job, BUT that the determination of the right tool isn't as simple as vb does guis better than vc++ therefore you should code your gui in vb. Other than the most trivial instances, it's deeper than that. You can't JUST look at the language, you also have to look at the developer, the two are tied together. I think that that is the point the author misses.
btw, I agree with you that C++ sucks, but probably for vastly different reasons (just to give you a hint, I LOVE C), but that's another story
Java and C# are based on a subset of C++. If you know C++ well, you should be going full steam in these languages within 2 weeks. If your task is long enough, it might be worth it.
.net world so I've already started into the c# thing.
True, but are Java and C# truely high level enough to warrant the time to learn their environments (remember, the development environment, esp with vm based languages, is often more than half the battle of learning "the language"). BTW, I don't do Java, but my company is moving slowly in the
After programmers take responsibility, perhaps they can consider using the right tool for the job, rather than the right tool for the job of their dreams.
I don't think this macho thing plays into it nearly as much as he states. I think it has to do with comfort and laziness. I've been programming in C/C++ for over 15 years, so obviously, if I have a programming task to tackle, I will lean towards using those languages. I can do a minimal amount of vb, so if I need to slap together a ui, I can, but not anything that did anything interesting. If I have a task, how much time should I spend learning a new language if that language is better suited for the task than a language I know? Since I'm new to this language, how much worse is the code going to be than what I could have written in a less suitable language?
I'm not saying that I'm against learning new languages, but a programmer can only realisticly be "good" at a small set of languages. And the realities are that unless I'm working on a pet project, I don't have the time to learn something new or try to come back up to speed on a language I last used two years ago. Perl is an excellent example in my case, I don't know a lick of it. If I have simple text processing to do, I use the "simpler" text utilities (awk and sed primarily), unless the problem is very simple, in which case I fire up my text editor. If it's more complex, then I use C/C++. Could it be done quicker in Perl, maybe, maybe not. If by quicker you allow me to ignore the ramp up time to learn the language. If I were doing this type of thing all the time, then the rampup could be amortized in the long run. If it's onsie twosie, then forget it, out comes the c compiler.
Actually I thought the joke was that this "Cobol programmer shortage" has been around forever. It came into the publics awareness around Y2K time frame, but the issue has been punted around programming circles for years before that.
Could anyone who's actually done/doing this mind numbing work actually give some more details as to exactly what this work is? It's hard to get any appreciation for just how technical one has to be and just how, uh, appreciative of repitition one has to be.
Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense and clears that up.
That is why I prefaced by pointing out that the article said Free and not Open and that I wasn't sure if that's explicitly what they meant to say. If they did mean free, it's also interesting to see if they mean just license costs, or are they also expecting free support?
The question is, is the REQUIREMENT that all systems contain Free (they didn't say OPEN, just FREE, I don't know if this is a translation thing, but there is an important distinction) software good or not. Are they limiting themselves just as they would be if they declared "all systems must have Microsoft software". What if it turns out that MacOS actually suits their needs the best? (ok, you can stop laughing now)
The article is light on background and I don't read Spanish, so I don't know what precipitated this decision (purely financial, political (aka Anti-Microsoft), technical, or whatever). So it's hard to tell just how well thought out this is.
You'd think that they could re-dig up some articles posted yesterday.
Dyson [google.com] - google is a wonderful thing!!!
So are we talking the vacuum or the filter? (I assume the former).
This is interesting. Most of the replies have been "yeah but this isn't Disney produced". I assume the original poster was not making a reference to Disney quality, but Disney corporate (you know, like Sony). So it's funny that this is "ok" because anime is cool and it wasn't produced by Disney. Yet no one has said (there are 5 replies as of this writing) "hey it's those slimeball copyright extending Disney dudes, I'm not gonna support ANYTHING they are involved with".