My route to Slashdot has four hops on UUnet and then 12 on exodus.net .
I only mentioned this in the first place because it doesnt just seem like normal loss:
I never have any icmp loss; and the HTTP requests always connects immediately --- but no data ever comes. It's not as if it loads slowly or loads part of the code, there's nothing.
Sometimes it will time out, but sometimes I get a server error page (not a browser error) 301 or 312, saying that the page did not exist or something. This is usually around the wee hours of the morning, in American time, btw. It only happened since the server upgrade.
For the last few weeks, Slashdot has add annoying "pauses" where the browser will connect to the server, but no data will ever come. These pauses last for anything from one minute to 30. Then I have to squish all my posting in before the next piece of downtime.
I don't really see how you can say "slightly more rigorous", since these two both have no rigour whatsoever. Your argument can have the same criticisms levelled against it as the original argument (and in fact I see that someone has).
Anything rigorous will, for starters, not include "...".
Actually, that won't even convince most people (I know this from experience), there are some extremely thick heads out there.
In fact, scrolling down, I see there are all these posts on the matter. *laughs heartily* This is going to be a fun read. One to save for posterity.
Curiously, some people are more convinced by the argument that 1/3 = 0.333333333333.... so that 3/3 = 0.9999999999999999.... and 1 = 0.999999999999.....
One can only speculate about how this is more convincing... perhaps because people are more familiar with "1/3" than they are with 0.99999..
It isn't splitting hairs, it's the crux of the problem.
Goldbach's conjecture doesn't require that you know what the primes are, you only have to prove that they exist. It's conceivable that there is a proof that Goldbach's conjecture is false, but it won't be able to tell you what the numbers involved are. (This sort of thing happens in number theory all the time.)
BTW, I can't believe the exceptional lameness that is going on in this thread. Whichever is the largest "known" prime is completely irrelevant. We are not trying to answer questions about a certain subset of numbers that we happen to know at the moment - these problems apply to *all* natural numbers!
It might be factorable by an unknown prime smaller than the larger known prime;
Go back and read his proof. Just near the start, he places the assumption that all primes up to the largest known prime. What's more, this is a safe assumption because if a prime is known, all numbers smaller can then be checked for primeness.
So your proof is erroneus and anyway doesn't prove anything useful (that there is an infinite number of primes has been known for quite a while, heh).
1) It's exceedingly useful in pure mathematics to know that an infinitude of primes exists, 2) the point of this proof was to prove that, so I think he has succeeded admirably
Let's toy with the idea that there may actually be a largest possibly known prime.
There is a largest known prime. And it is definitely known, not just possibly. At some point in the future, there will be a new largest known prime.
The rest of your post seems to be degenerate drivel which talks about computing times (what have they got to do with anything?) I don't think anyone here would be stupid enough to say that there are not a finite, fixed number of primes in a given finite range. (for example, between 1 and largest-known-prime), even if we don't know what they are yet.
Every man and his dog and its mangy fleas got the joke. It was modersately funny the first time, but not now. Every time a mathematical story gets posted on slashdot, dozens of lamers reply and make this miserable joke.
There is a post just down from here that likens Fermat's proof to Mozilla source code. It is funny because it both has humour potential, and is original.
Uh. Every man and his dog and its fleas got it. It wasn't funny cos a few dozen lamers make this joke every time a mathematical story gets posted on slashdot.
If you look further down, you will see that someone made a joke likening Fermat's proof to Mozilla source code. This, on the other hand, is funny now because it is original and has humour potential. If several people made that joke afterwards, it would cease to be funny.
Why the fuck did he get +3 for posting a paragraph out of one of the links which is in the original story ! Not as if he discussed it or analyzed it or anything, it's just a straight cut'n'paste.
+3 for saving us time by not having to actually click or select the link ? Please
Before some lamer replies saying "but you can do that at the commandline", the point is, yes you can, but IDEs did it first.
Another point I'll throw in here: Integrated Development Environment. Is that not exactly what Unix is ????
Perhaps this debate is merely over whose flavour of iceblock is the nicest.
Now, wizards - with or without a wizard, the person still isn't going to know how to do those things you mention. I like wizards because they save me time. With development for GUI platforms, they are even more useful because there is a lot of code that has to be there for the GUI that is perfectly suited to wizards. Why risk getting it wrong myself when I can use someone else's code who has got it right?
Your research study will probably be a waste of time then..
Blaming poor design on IDEs is ludicrous. I can write a badly designed project just as well in vi as i can in an IDE.
Failure to use an IDE simply does not suddenly make one's program better designed. In fact, in my experience, it makes it even worse.
I find design easier in an IDE because I can see all of my files at once, and rapidly ensure that each piece is in the right file, and see which pieces of which file call other files, and so on.
Now that I have learned (through long experience) how to design projects properly, I can and do do it just as well in an IDE as without an IDE.
Your study may well find that the best-designed projects are written with a text editor in UNIX. However, this will not imply that the use of a text editor caused it. A more likely explanation would be that most of those who have good design skills are the sharp-minded ones who are at home on a Unix box.
With a little (well, a lot) of practice, highlighting and copying and pasting in vim is just as easy as in Windows editors. (I say this having programmed extensively in both).
And with vim, you can even bind ^C to copy ('y') and ^V to paste ('p' or 'P') if it makes you feel more at home (after pressing 'v' or 'V' and selecting the text you want).
I prefer vim because you have the added advantage of having 26 copy buffers, rather than one -- and having append as well as overwrite. So I can go through a file (or several files), copying pieces of text as I go, and then paste the lot somewhere when I am done. Or I can copy several seperate pieces, and then re-paste them in any order.
If you want to use the mouse for highlighting, run vim in a window on your windows machine, and use windows highlight and paste.
All said, IMO, command-line development a la *NIX-programming is undeniably far more powerful, flexible, and configurable, and even more efficient, for the seasoned programmer.
I can't think of a single way it is more powerful - can you? More flexible? Configurable? You get to choose your editor....but that's it More efficient? A seasoned IDE programmer would be at least as efficient as a seasoned commandline programmer, no?
But for people still learning a language, and needing to look up documentation occasionally (and perform other misc tasks), an IDE may be a better choice.
Are there any serious programmers who do not need to look up documentation occasionally ????
This brings me to another point: most of the open source code I have looked at is hideous, ugly, undocumented (or with useless comments), and parts that haven't been worked on by seasoned coders are also rather inefficient.
Not a good example for someone learning C to look at -- and probably, that's why the situation isn't getting any better. I don't want to work on anyone else's open source project because I would spend most of my time figuring out someone else's code and rewriting it properly. This includes figuring out what I should expect from someone else's functions.
The make language is miserably easy, but it isn't documented much (and C manuals certainly don't discuss it).
When you are learning C, you will get by fine with a single file or a small number of files, so you can just type "make programname" and not even need a makefile. Either that, or "gcc -o program file1.c file2.c file3.c", etc.
It's only when you want to use advanced compiler features or have large projects that the makefile comes into its own --- and by that time you should be a fair programmer anyway.
My POV on the IDE is that it is a great thing; some people choose to learn an IDE rather than concentrate on the language, but surely that is their choice. One might compare it to learning GCC extensions instead of ANSI C.
And whatever anybody might say, an IDE is *faster* for performing all these operations (finding a variable declaration, addings files to a project, editing multiple files, etc.) Even if its only a fraction of a second, it is immensely annoying if you are not able to change a line of code, whack F9, see the changes, then do the same again, all in a matter of seconds.
One point which I am surprised I have not seen mentioned, is integrated debugging. That is one of the greatest strengths of VC++ and BCB. Being able to step through a program, in the same place that you were coding it, and have watches available and having tooltip variable evaluations, being able to execute an expression you enter and then have the program continue, being able to modify the source and keep stepping through it, and so on. Weeding out bugs in an integrated debugger is speedy and fun.
The only problem I have with the IDEs I've used is their lack of support for vi-style editing. Now, if it would let you specify a commandline to use as an editor within the IDE - perfect!
A bit of history first: Netscape developed xpCOM recently, as a componentisation protocol. It is a ripoff of MS COM, with a few names changed and is incompatible with MS COM. Netscape did this just to annoy Microsoft.
Now, linux users are all catching on to componentisation, which has been around for years --- apparently only because it doesn't have MS's name on it now.
There has been an awful lot of COM development done, and there will soon be an awful lot of CORBA and xpCOM.
Somebody should sit down and try and reconcile the three, so that we can have components which are portable everywhere and connectable everywhere - instead of only with that sector of the programming world that used the same componentisation protocol.
Slashdot Mirror
No it doesn't. The problem only refers to natural numbers, which doesn't include infinity.
Sorry, I must have missed that key in emacs that pops up a wizard telling you how to properly document/comment your code.
My route to Slashdot has four hops on UUnet and then 12 on exodus.net .
I only mentioned this in the first place because it doesnt just seem like normal loss:
I never have any icmp loss; and the HTTP requests always connects immediately --- but no data ever comes. It's not as if it loads slowly or loads part of the code, there's nothing.
Sometimes it will time out, but sometimes I get a server error page (not a browser error) 301 or 312, saying that the page did not exist or something.
This is usually around the wee hours of the morning, in American time, btw.
It only happened since the server upgrade.
For the last few weeks, Slashdot has add annoying "pauses" where the browser will connect to the server, but no data will ever come. These pauses last for anything from one minute to 30. Then I have to squish all my posting in before the next piece of downtime.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I really, really, REALLY hope this is a troll.
The problem doesn't mention infinity, you dumb fuck
I think you're on drugs.
I don't really see how you can say "slightly more rigorous", since these two both have no rigour whatsoever. Your argument can have the same criticisms levelled against it as the original argument (and in fact I see that someone has).
Anything rigorous will, for starters, not include "...".
That's the most sensible thing I've seen in a long time. Have on one me, bud.
Actually, that won't even convince most people (I know this from experience), there are some extremely thick heads out there.
In fact, scrolling down, I see there are all these posts on the matter. *laughs heartily* This is going to be a fun read. One to save for posterity.
Curiously, some people are more convinced by the argument that 1/3 = 0.333333333333....
so that 3/3 = 0.9999999999999999....
and 1 = 0.999999999999.....
One can only speculate about how this is more convincing... perhaps because people are more familiar with "1/3" than they are with 0.99999..
It isn't splitting hairs, it's the crux of the problem.
Goldbach's conjecture doesn't require that you know what the primes are, you only have to prove that they exist.
It's conceivable that there is a proof that Goldbach's conjecture is false, but it won't be able to tell you what the numbers involved are. (This sort of thing happens in number theory all the time.)
BTW, I can't believe the exceptional lameness that is going on in this thread. Whichever is the largest "known" prime is completely irrelevant. We are not trying to answer questions about a certain subset of numbers that we happen to know at the moment - these problems apply to *all* natural numbers!
It might be factorable by an unknown prime smaller than the larger known prime;
Go back and read his proof. Just near the start, he places the assumption that all primes up to the largest known prime.
What's more, this is a safe assumption because if a prime is known, all numbers smaller can then be checked for primeness.
So your proof is erroneus and anyway doesn't prove anything useful (that there is an infinite number of primes has been known for quite a while, heh).
1) It's exceedingly useful in pure mathematics to know that an infinitude of primes exists,
2) the point of this proof was to prove that, so I think he has succeeded admirably
Let's toy with the idea that there may actually be a largest possibly known prime.
There is a largest known prime. And it is definitely known, not just possibly.
At some point in the future, there will be a new largest known prime.
The rest of your post seems to be degenerate drivel which talks about computing times (what have they got to do with anything?)
I don't think anyone here would be stupid enough to say that there are not a finite, fixed number of primes in a given finite range. (for example, between 1 and largest-known-prime), even if we don't know what they are yet.
To speak your language (*):
infinity^2 = infinity
(similar to how infinity + 1 = infinity)
so you have shown that there are only as many natural numbers as real numbers.
(*) As a mathematician, I disclaim all rights to and knowledge of this post.
Every man and his dog and its mangy fleas got the joke. It was modersately funny the first time, but not now. Every time a mathematical story gets posted on slashdot, dozens of lamers reply and make this miserable joke.
There is a post just down from here that likens Fermat's proof to Mozilla source code. It is funny because it both has humour potential, and is original.
Comprende ?
It was funny(ish) the first time anyone heard it, about a million years ago. Now it is boring.
Uh. Every man and his dog and its fleas got it. It wasn't funny cos a few dozen lamers make this joke every time a mathematical story gets posted on slashdot.
If you look further down, you will see that someone made a joke likening Fermat's proof to Mozilla source code. This, on the other hand, is funny now because it is original and has humour potential. If several people made that joke afterwards, it would cease to be funny.
Comprende ?
What is:
0100000000...
pray tell?
It certainly doesn't look like an integer from here
Now, supposing you have replied with a definition:
How is it different to 00100000000... ?
Why the fuck did he get +3 for posting a paragraph out of one of the links which is in the original story !
Not as if he discussed it or analyzed it or anything, it's just a straight cut'n'paste.
+3 for saving us time by not having to actually click or select the link ? Please
Before some lamer replies saying "but you can do that at the commandline", the point is, yes you can, but IDEs did it first.
Another point I'll throw in here: Integrated Development Environment. Is that not exactly what Unix is ????
Perhaps this debate is merely over whose flavour of iceblock is the nicest.
Now, wizards - with or without a wizard, the person still isn't going to know how to do those things you mention.
I like wizards because they save me time. With development for GUI platforms, they are even more useful because there is a lot of code that has to be there for the GUI that is perfectly suited to wizards. Why risk getting it wrong myself when I can use someone else's code who has got it right?
Your research study will probably be a waste of time then..
Blaming poor design on IDEs is ludicrous. I can write a badly designed project just as well in vi as i can in an IDE.
Failure to use an IDE simply does not suddenly make one's program better designed. In fact, in my experience, it makes it even worse.
I find design easier in an IDE because I can see all of my files at once, and rapidly ensure that each piece is in the right file, and see which pieces of which file call other files, and so on.
Now that I have learned (through long experience) how to design projects properly, I can and do do it just as well in an IDE as without an IDE.
Your study may well find that the best-designed projects are written with a text editor in UNIX. However, this will not imply that the use of a text editor caused it. A more likely explanation would be that most of those who have good design skills are the sharp-minded ones who are at home on a Unix box.
With a little (well, a lot) of practice, highlighting and copying and pasting in vim is just as easy as in Windows editors. (I say this having programmed extensively in both).
And with vim, you can even bind ^C to copy ('y') and ^V to paste ('p' or 'P') if it makes you feel more at home (after pressing 'v' or 'V' and selecting the text you want).
I prefer vim because you have the added advantage of having 26 copy buffers, rather than one -- and having append as well as overwrite. So I can go through a file (or several files), copying pieces of text as I go, and then paste the lot somewhere when I am done. Or I can copy several seperate pieces, and then re-paste them in any order.
If you want to use the mouse for highlighting, run vim in a window on your windows machine, and use windows highlight and paste.
I can't think of a single way it is more powerful - can you? More flexible? Configurable? You get to choose your editor....but that's it More efficient? A seasoned IDE programmer would be at least as efficient as a seasoned commandline programmer, no?
But for people still learning a language, and needing to look up documentation occasionally (and perform other misc tasks), an IDE may be a better choice.
Are there any serious programmers who do not need to look up documentation occasionally ????
This brings me to another point: most of the open source code I have looked at is hideous, ugly, undocumented (or with useless comments), and parts that haven't been worked on by seasoned coders are also rather inefficient.
Not a good example for someone learning C to look at -- and probably, that's why the situation isn't getting any better. I don't want to work on anyone else's open source project because I would spend most of my time figuring out someone else's code and rewriting it properly. This includes figuring out what I should expect from someone else's functions.
Can you lend me some punchcards?
The make language is miserably easy, but it isn't documented much (and C manuals certainly don't discuss it).
When you are learning C, you will get by fine with a single file or a small number of files, so you can just type "make programname" and not even need a makefile. Either that, or "gcc -o program file1.c file2.c file3.c", etc.
It's only when you want to use advanced compiler features or have large projects that the makefile comes into its own --- and by that time you should be a fair programmer anyway.
My POV on the IDE is that it is a great thing; some people choose to learn an IDE rather than concentrate on the language, but surely that is their choice. One might compare it to learning GCC extensions instead of ANSI C.
And whatever anybody might say, an IDE is *faster* for performing all these operations (finding a variable declaration, addings files to a project, editing multiple files, etc.) Even if its only a fraction of a second, it is immensely annoying if you are not able to change a line of code, whack F9, see the changes, then do the same again, all in a matter of seconds.
One point which I am surprised I have not seen mentioned, is integrated debugging. That is one of the greatest strengths of VC++ and BCB. Being able to step through a program, in the same place that you were coding it, and have watches available and having tooltip variable evaluations, being able to execute an expression you enter and then have the program continue, being able to modify the source and keep stepping through it, and so on.
Weeding out bugs in an integrated debugger is speedy and fun.
The only problem I have with the IDEs I've used is their lack of support for vi-style editing. Now, if it would let you specify a commandline to use as an editor within the IDE - perfect!
The recent growth of xpCOM is a worry.
A bit of history first: Netscape developed xpCOM recently, as a componentisation protocol. It is a ripoff of MS COM, with a few names changed and is incompatible with MS COM. Netscape did this just to annoy Microsoft.
Now, linux users are all catching on to componentisation, which has been around for years --- apparently only because it doesn't have MS's name on it now.
There has been an awful lot of COM development done, and there will soon be an awful lot of CORBA and xpCOM.
Somebody should sit down and try and reconcile the three, so that we can have components which are portable everywhere and connectable everywhere - instead of only with that sector of the programming world that used the same componentisation protocol.