Yes, newer movies will potentially have more impact on the spectator, if anything due to advances in technology. Cinema and technology are tightly linked, there's no denying that. In fact, even "La nouvelle vague" lead by Truffaut (whose "400 Blows" you mentioned) and Godard was a result of new camera technology that allowed them to film outdoors and in natural lighting.
And yes, many older movies look dated and look terrible now. I agree with you that some of the movies in the list are there for historical reasons, and I don't really know if that's a good decision.
Having said all that, there are some truly great old movies that have stood the test of time and still have the same impact. They're the ones that focused on substance rather than flash, or had an interesting story to tell, or an engaging character, provocative ideas, good acting, and so on... In fact, some of those qualities are harder to find these days in mainstream movies, as the industry is more driven by marketing now than it is by creativity, and as disruptive ideas are discouraged for being financially risky.
How many of the recent movies you have enjoyed do you think will still have that same impact 20 years down the road? If you want to eliminate movies that are dated, by the same token you should eliminate the recent ones that have the potential to be in that same state in the future... You might then find out that the ratio of good movies is really not that different for any decade.
Try "Duel", his very first movie. Also, the first "Jaws" (the only one he directed AFAIK) had quite an impact at the time, but I don't know if it has aged well. If any, those are two Speilberg movies that the list should have used im my opinion.
And no Antonioni, no Hal Hartley, no von Trier, no Mike Leigh, no Jacques Tati... Was there any Cassavettes or Bergman in there?
But frankly, I was expecting worse. This still works well as a starting point or a checklist... Contrast this with IMDB's user rankings, and you'll feel better!
If you're using Eclipse you're most likely going to be using the SWT tools.
It would be interesting to know the stats on this. Personally, I do my Swing development using Eclipse (by hand, no fancy GUI editor for me!), and in fact I have no knowledge of the SWT libraries.
Please read my post again. I said it'd be great to have BOTH versions (i.e. with and without preloaded search engines) available. Let us geeks download and add whichever search engine we see fit, and let Joe Sixpack download the "commercially enhanced" version with all the flashy gizmos that'll pay Mofo's bills.
It's just so easy to end up with a "convenient package" including a commercial instant messaging application, some toolbars and other nonsense that turned Netscape into such a joke.
I guess there is always tension between convenience and freedom of choice...
That's beside the point. Some of us like(d) Firefox for its lack of ads and corporate product push. If anything, Firefox could offer an ad-free download in addition to its corporate backed one.
You shouldn't expect a free plug-in from Togethersoft! Omondo's plug-in is free for academic use. I haven't tried it yet though, as to get the academic license you need to jump through a few hoops.
I think you need to teach both C and some clean OO language. You would use C to introduce topics such as pointers and memory management (as part of a course on data structures for example). As for OO, I would stay away from both C++ and Java, as neither really uses OO as a consistent paradigm. Smalltalk would be a good candidate, but it is not deemed "marketable" these days... I don't know much about Ruby, maybe there's potential there?
If a few lines of text on a scrap of paper, or an ad-hoc diagram you've just invented, will communicate better (with your memory, with your immediate colleagues, and with anyone who might be maintaining the system in future), then by all means use it! Anyone who insists on UML or whatever for the sake of it is missing the point.
The problem is that the "ad-hoc diagram you've just invented" doesn't have standard semantics. You might mean one thing with your diagram, the reader might understand another. And if your answer to this is: "but the reader did understand what I meant by my diagram", then your mistake is that you've reduced your readership to a very small subset of potential readers. If your design is meant to be durable, then your documentation should also stand the test of time and future readers/users.
UML might not be a panacea, but at least its diagrams have a known and standardized meaning. The problem is that it is often misused and misunderstood, maybe because it is sometimes unintuitive and overly complex. But then again any type of modelling tool that would aim for completeness and unambiguous semantics would probably end up that way...
TFA says that the prof still reads all the papers. As long as you don't rely entirely on the program, I say anything that can improve the quality and efficiency of the grading should be welcome.
Amen. Between the pressure from administration, the students, the parents and the peers, there's no reason left for a prof to grade properly.
If the average universities (I'm assuming that the very good ones still work decently) didn't worry so much about short term profitability (low dropout == $$$), maybe they could improve the quality of their degree and improve their reputation. But reputation is hard to earn and easy to lose...
It all comes down to money ultimately. If North American universities were properly subsidised they wouldn't worry so much about profitability.
Check out research.microsoft.com and tell me that Microsoft isn't doing top-notch research.
It might be true that their research investment isn't translated into great consumer products, but that's certainly not because Microsoft coerces its brilliant minds into doing menial development.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, newer movies will potentially have more impact on the spectator, if anything due to advances in technology. Cinema and technology are tightly linked, there's no denying that. In fact, even "La nouvelle vague" lead by Truffaut (whose "400 Blows" you mentioned) and Godard was a result of new camera technology that allowed them to film outdoors and in natural lighting.
And yes, many older movies look dated and look terrible now. I agree with you that some of the movies in the list are there for historical reasons, and I don't really know if that's a good decision.
Having said all that, there are some truly great old movies that have stood the test of time and still have the same impact. They're the ones that focused on substance rather than flash, or had an interesting story to tell, or an engaging character, provocative ideas, good acting, and so on... In fact, some of those qualities are harder to find these days in mainstream movies, as the industry is more driven by marketing now than it is by creativity, and as disruptive ideas are discouraged for being financially risky.
How many of the recent movies you have enjoyed do you think will still have that same impact 20 years down the road? If you want to eliminate movies that are dated, by the same token you should eliminate the recent ones that have the potential to be in that same state in the future... You might then find out that the ratio of good movies is really not that different for any decade.
Try "Duel", his very first movie. Also, the first "Jaws" (the only one he directed AFAIK) had quite an impact at the time, but I don't know if it has aged well. If any, those are two Speilberg movies that the list should have used im my opinion.
Agreed! In fact, the grandparent's breakdown by decade made me appreciate the list more. I'm not sure that was its point! ;-)
And no Antonioni, no Hal Hartley, no von Trier, no Mike Leigh, no Jacques Tati... Was there any Cassavettes or Bergman in there?
But frankly, I was expecting worse. This still works well as a starting point or a checklist... Contrast this with IMDB's user rankings, and you'll feel better!
Please read my post again. I said it'd be great to have BOTH versions (i.e. with and without preloaded search engines) available. Let us geeks download and add whichever search engine we see fit, and let Joe Sixpack download the "commercially enhanced" version with all the flashy gizmos that'll pay Mofo's bills.
It's just so easy to end up with a "convenient package" including a commercial instant messaging application, some toolbars and other nonsense that turned Netscape into such a joke.
I guess there is always tension between convenience and freedom of choice...
That's beside the point. Some of us like(d) Firefox for its lack of ads and corporate product push. If anything, Firefox could offer an ad-free download in addition to its corporate backed one.
The song is a bolero (listen to its rhythm). Grace Slick was inspired by listening to Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain".
The shortest one will be in there too of course! In many different encodings too!
Very Borgesian, I say (see in "Ficciones", the Library of Babel).
You shouldn't expect a free plug-in from Togethersoft! Omondo's plug-in is free for academic use. I haven't tried it yet though, as to get the academic license you need to jump through a few hoops.
... such as trying to grab marketshare from a Microsoft quasi-monopoly.
Touche! :)
But there's unfortunately no guarantee that unhealthy eating habits will lead to an easy, quick and painless death...
I think you need to teach both C and some clean OO language. You would use C to introduce topics such as pointers and memory management (as part of a course on data structures for example). As for OO, I would stay away from both C++ and Java, as neither really uses OO as a consistent paradigm. Smalltalk would be a good candidate, but it is not deemed "marketable" these days... I don't know much about Ruby, maybe there's potential there?
There already is a Together plug-in for Eclipse: it's called the TogetherJ Eclipse Edition.
This is sweet, I'd been wondering if such a thing existed.
The problem is that the "ad-hoc diagram you've just invented" doesn't have standard semantics. You might mean one thing with your diagram, the reader might understand another. And if your answer to this is: "but the reader did understand what I meant by my diagram", then your mistake is that you've reduced your readership to a very small subset of potential readers. If your design is meant to be durable, then your documentation should also stand the test of time and future readers/users.
UML might not be a panacea, but at least its diagrams have a known and standardized meaning. The problem is that it is often misused and misunderstood, maybe because it is sometimes unintuitive and overly complex. But then again any type of modelling tool that would aim for completeness and unambiguous semantics would probably end up that way...
That it can be formalized easily? Maybe it's a hard science after all! ;-)
TFA says that the prof still reads all the papers. As long as you don't rely entirely on the program, I say anything that can improve the quality and efficiency of the grading should be welcome.
Amen. Between the pressure from administration, the students, the parents and the peers, there's no reason left for a prof to grade properly.
If the average universities (I'm assuming that the very good ones still work decently) didn't worry so much about short term profitability (low dropout == $$$), maybe they could improve the quality of their degree and improve their reputation. But reputation is hard to earn and easy to lose...
It all comes down to money ultimately. If North American universities were properly subsidised they wouldn't worry so much about profitability.
Where are my mod points when I need them? Thanks for a very informative posts!
What's the worst time performance of matching a regex with a DFA though? Is it polynomial at least?
Check out research.microsoft.com and tell me that Microsoft isn't doing top-notch research.
It might be true that their research investment isn't translated into great consumer products, but that's certainly not because Microsoft coerces its brilliant minds into doing menial development.