But like many instances of companies copying others, MS has improved on Java. I've been doing research lately on languages and their strengths and disadvantages to decide what I should do my next pet project in. I got interested in C#, and started to look into it.
In the process, I discovered a couple articles (no obvious bias from MS) comparing C# and Java. More than convince me of C#'s merits though, I discovered 4 things lacking in Java that utterly turn me off of the language: no passing by reference, no preprocessor directives (and hence no conditional compilation), no enums, and no overloaded operators. Sure, in each of those cases it's possible to work around the problem, but in each of the cases it would make the code less readable. Also, having done C++ for a while, I feel that I shouldn't have to work around them. C# includes support for all four of these features, while still fixing most of the problems that I suspect led Java's developers to not include them.
Now, whether the benefits I see in the language of C# outweigh the drawbacks of it being MS (if you see it that way) is a matter of opinion. For me, I'm going with C# for stuff I write for Windows, but will stick with C++ for things I want to be cross-platform.
>>My college is a good example. One of the required courses - no matter what your major - is called Basic Computing. It sounds like a joke class, but it's not; aside from learning how to turn the computer on and off, you also learn how to use Word, Excel, and even Access. I've been using computers since I was 8 and this class was by no means an "easy A" (since I had never before used Word, Excel, or Access). Every student who expects to graduate must take this course, even the people majoring in stuff like "Turfgrass Management" (I kid you not).
Hell, Carnegie-Mellon has a similar thing from my understanding. And they've got one of the best comp sci programs in the world!
My university (Penn State) has (on Sept. 1 the verb will change to "had") a deal with Microsoft where students could get Office XP Pro (amound several other programs, including the latest Visual Studio pro) "free". Sure, it comes from tuition, but I bet it's even cheaper because MS realized that some people already have it and some won't get it, so the poor saps who don't take advantage of it are helping me pay for my software.:)
(Just for the record, I'm trying very hard to stick with Linux, but I've got WinXP + Visual Studio.NET + Office XP + FrontPage (in case I go insane and use it instead of Dreamweaver) on too, all for free.)
>>What study is that?? I for one have no problem with dropping the phone on the passenger seat if I need to put that hand back on the wheel.
Apparently you've never been in a situation where you needed to react quckly to events, like cars cutting you off, or braking in front of you. You THINK you can drive and call, but the truth is that few people can. I'll cite studies in a later reply.
>>Phones are only OK if you're calling the radio station. HELLO??!!!
I never said it was okay to use a cell phone to call the radio staion. My point was that radio isn't ever interactive unless you call into the show you're listening to.
>>Look, truckers have been using CB's for decades without smashing into each other mid-conversation. Cellphones are hardly different.
Have you heard a typical "conversation" btw people driving with CBs? They're almost never more than a few seconds. A quick report on the road conditions, warnings about speed traps, etc. You don't get people "Well, do you want to do to dinner tonight? How 'bout tommorrow? OK, where?" or "Listen, I need five 10,000 cfm pumps at the physical plant by tomorrow! I don't care if you have other work to do, if those pumps aren't there by tommorrow, we lose our contract."
>>Anyone that just can't seem to drive amidst distraction probably shouldn't be on the road at all. Case in point; every highway in eastern Mass. There are enough distractions to screw up a monk whether you're on the phone or not.
There aren't any that continuously divert your attention for 5 minutes at a time.
>>Legislating what people may or may not do while driving is not the answer
Then we might as well get rid of all traffic laws; after all, people know how fast is safe in certain conditions, and that you should stop at intersections until you can go, and that you can't cross paths with oncoming traffic.
>>Sure something like that would be an isolated case, but you have ot bare in my mind here there are times when cell phones really really are important
>>Talking on a cell phone is in no way anymore dangerous than fiddling with a CD player, changing radio stations, or talking to other passengers. These "numerous studies" you mention either don't exist or are likely quite biased.
Actually, I've done research in the past on this, and there are several good studies carried out by universities. Most have a strong corrolation between cell phone use and dangerous driving (inconsistant speeds, tailgating, not stopping for red lights, swirving). Most put the risk at approximately that of driving while intoxicated. If you'd like, I can site a few of these studies. (I didn't go looking for them now because I have the slight impression that you'd ignore them...)
>>Statistics can prove any aspect of any argument, as can "numerous studies".
In that case, they also couldn't prove that it's safe to drive. So now we're left with speculation. In which case, the proper course of action would be to prohibit them.
As a computer user, perhaps you've noticed that defaults in dialog boxes and whatnot almost always default to the least-dangerous option (e.g., 'yes' or 'cancel' in a "Save before quitting?" dialog). Basic rule of HCI. Needs to be followed elsewhere. NASA abandoned this policy during the evening of January 27, 1986; the next day, because of it, seven people were dead, the US was down a space shuttle, and the nation came to a standstill unlike anything since the Kennedy assassination. (I'm referring to NASA's demanding proof it was unsafe to fly the shuttle or else they would fly, rather than their normal procedure of demanding proof that it was safe to fly, or else they wouldn't, a change several people commented on in the proceedings that followed.)
Therefore we must look at the dangers of banning cell phones -- making a usually minor inconvienience to people who would have to pull over to make a phone call -- versus the danger of not banning cell phones -- the chance of significant numbers of people losing their lives. Then we must pick the least dangerous of the choices. In this case, this is clearly the former.
(Run the same thing with leaving other people out of the car would end up with the opposite result. I'll get to radio in a moment.)
>>I think having conversations with passengers is easily more dangerous, as anyone here can agree with me on, because you are more likely to make gestures or attempt eye contact.
The problem while driving is not losing eye contact, it's getting it. The part of your retina that can see well enough to make informed decisions is about the size of a quarter held a arms length. Therefore you must actively scan the entire view. Conversation -- cell phone or in person -- interferes with this scanning. The eye contact you'd make while talking lasts only a very short time, and thus does not contribute much to the dangers of driving.
>>As for radios - no one "listen[s] to radio only". They often channel surf whenever commericals come on, or they fast forward or skip songs on their radios.
First, I'm not sure how accurate your statement is. I listen to programs regardless of commercials. So do my friends/family. Even so, this goes back to the length of the distraction. After getting used to the positions of the controls, the length of time it takes to operate them is fairly small. (I can usually do it without even looking, though that still doesn't get me off the hook, for the same reason that conversation interferes with eye movement.) That said, changing radio stations is one of the most common reasons for a crash caused by distractions.
(Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if radio, when you're not fiddling with it, is relaxing and therefore beneficial.)
>>I have nothing against kids and obviously they can't be banned, but I have seen more people distracted while driving by their offspring than cell phones at all.
I'll agree here too. But again, your argument is flawed because it's in the form "action B is more dangerous than action A, therefore action A isn't a problem."
If I'm somewhere where I'm paying to not smell something bad, yes. (BTW, you shouldn't be "arrested" any more than you're arrested for speeding. You should just get a ticket of sorts that says you need to pay a fine. Though ideally, the fine would be distributed among the rest of the audience and the performers.)
That would be fine with me. Or perhaps "Patrons have the right to have their mobile telephones/pagers on in this theater as long as they agree that other patrons may grab said phone and hurl it across the room as hard as they can and want."
>>If you are getting jammed, the worst that can happen is that you can't call 911 when you have to
We went over this when that conversation was on. Theaters have pay phones; 911 is a free call. If the time it takes someone to get to the pay phone makes a difference in your survival, the chance you would have made it anyway is very, very slim. In fact, until they get that location locator system set up, using a pay phone very well could be quicker than making a cell phone call.
>>it's because I'm from the bay area, but using a cell phone while driving is a god given right as far as I'm concerned, as long as you remember to pay full attention to the road.
Which is nearly impossible for the brain, as numerous scientific studies have shown.
>>If they're going to ban cell phones while driving, they need to ban radios
You listen to a radio only. Unless you're using a cell phone to call in. Listening to music (or even a talk/news show) is far different from carrying on a conversation.
>>conversations and other passengers altogether,
Conversations with other passengers aren't as dangerous, because if you for instance start to swirve, the other person can go "look out" while the guy at the other end of the phone will keep yakking away because he doesn't know any better, and your brain will try - and fail - to both concentrate on the phone call and correct the situation. Pretty much the only exception to this is small children.
"It's like outlawing putting your elbows on the table,farting at the table, etc."
Not really. If I go to a concert, I'm going -- and more importantly for this discussion, paying -- to hear a concert. Cell phones/pagers going off disrupt the experience. Your examples above would be better ones if you were paying to go somewhere to see people eat. Not just going to the restraunt, because then your main purpose is to eat, and someone else having their elbows on the table doesn't affect your eating.
"Wired mentions that actor Laurence Fishburne, in the middle of a Broadway performance, yelled to an audience member to 'turn your f___ing phone off!'"
On the other hand, if you spend the whole weekend reading how to fence, preparing to fence, and fencing, you're liable to go insane. At least I would. I can't stand to do anything - even something fun - for that length of time. (I've got nothing against fencing; in fact, I used to fence myself, but quit because it doesn't mesh with my personality. I'm a nice guy, not agressive at all; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't become agressive during the bouts and so would be way to defensive.)
>>Plus the P4 is engineered well enough that it doesn't go *POOF* when the heatsink is removed.
To be fair, AMD acted well on this issue and inclues a temperature probe in their chips. It's still up to the MB to read it and turn off/down (I don't know which) the power, which only two have done so far. But any new MB introduced now will have to have it to become AMD certified.
Then you read _reviews_. Pick up a copy of Computer Shopper. Or PC Magezine. Or go to Toms Hardware. Or anandtech. It shouldn't be the computer manufacturer's duty to benchmark their systems.
Actually, the people would have a MUCH better suit against the hard drive manufacturers. They DELIBERATLY misrepresent the size of their disks to make them look bigger! Remember, hard drive manufacturers consider 1 meg to be 1,000,000 bytes instead of 2^20. For example, you lose over 5 gigs on an 80 gig drive - they're actually only 74 1/2 gigs...
(I'm being a bit sarcastic here of course, but the clock speed is an honest measurement at least (usually; some components are actually lower clock speed that have been o/ced, like the FSB on Asus(?) motherboards) while this misrepresentation is something that bugs me. But I wouldn't sue over it...)
"Students in Japan beat the heck out of American kids in important areas like science and math, and not acting like an idiot in public. That's because American kids, instead of studying, would rather spend their time in front of television sets that are made in, er... Japan." -Drew Carey, as quoted in Joke Soup
>>Explain to me how tv can cater to your precise needs without having a tv station for each person in the US. This doesn't seem very feasible to me.
Hmmmm.... the internet seems to do it pretty well. Even the cable company does; you think they have a separate network for people who get basic cable, extended cable, and digital cable, not to mention the various combinations of channels you can get when you combine that choice with the option to get the subscription channels and cable modems and pay-per-view. Of course not. Access to content you don't pay for is essentially prohibited.
It shouldn't be too hard to provide indivudial channels which the end user can choose. Perhaps charge per channel per month, with an option to pay per program on channels that you don't subscribe to, etc.
The proper move if they agree (or are ordered by the courts) to censor the site is to also all agree to censor the RIAA's site. Whoops! No more RIAA website...
Slashdot Mirror
But like many instances of companies copying others, MS has improved on Java. I've been doing research lately on languages and their strengths and disadvantages to decide what I should do my next pet project in. I got interested in C#, and started to look into it.
In the process, I discovered a couple articles (no obvious bias from MS) comparing C# and Java. More than convince me of C#'s merits though, I discovered 4 things lacking in Java that utterly turn me off of the language: no passing by reference, no preprocessor directives (and hence no conditional compilation), no enums, and no overloaded operators. Sure, in each of those cases it's possible to work around the problem, but in each of the cases it would make the code less readable. Also, having done C++ for a while, I feel that I shouldn't have to work around them. C# includes support for all four of these features, while still fixing most of the problems that I suspect led Java's developers to not include them.
Now, whether the benefits I see in the language of C# outweigh the drawbacks of it being MS (if you see it that way) is a matter of opinion. For me, I'm going with C# for stuff I write for Windows, but will stick with C++ for things I want to be cross-platform.
>>My college is a good example. One of the required courses - no matter what your major - is called Basic Computing. It sounds like a joke class, but it's not; aside from learning how to turn the computer on and off, you also learn how to use Word, Excel, and even Access. I've been using computers since I was 8 and this class was by no means an "easy A" (since I had never before used Word, Excel, or Access). Every student who expects to graduate must take this course, even the people majoring in stuff like "Turfgrass Management" (I kid you not).
Hell, Carnegie-Mellon has a similar thing from my understanding. And they've got one of the best comp sci programs in the world!
My university (Penn State) has (on Sept. 1 the verb will change to "had") a deal with Microsoft where students could get Office XP Pro (amound several other programs, including the latest Visual Studio pro) "free". Sure, it comes from tuition, but I bet it's even cheaper because MS realized that some people already have it and some won't get it, so the poor saps who don't take advantage of it are helping me pay for my software. :)
.NET + Office XP + FrontPage (in case I go insane and use it instead of Dreamweaver) on too, all for free.)
(Just for the record, I'm trying very hard to stick with Linux, but I've got WinXP + Visual Studio
The exception was to the 'conversations are less dangerous than cell phone' part
>>What study is that?? I for one have no problem with dropping the phone on the passenger seat if I need to put that hand back on the wheel.
Apparently you've never been in a situation where you needed to react quckly to events, like cars cutting you off, or braking in front of you. You THINK you can drive and call, but the truth is that few people can. I'll cite studies in a later reply.
>>Phones are only OK if you're calling the radio station. HELLO??!!!
I never said it was okay to use a cell phone to call the radio staion. My point was that radio isn't ever interactive unless you call into the show you're listening to.
>>Look, truckers have been using CB's for decades without smashing into each other mid-conversation. Cellphones are hardly different.
Have you heard a typical "conversation" btw people driving with CBs? They're almost never more than a few seconds. A quick report on the road conditions, warnings about speed traps, etc. You don't get people "Well, do you want to do to dinner tonight? How 'bout tommorrow? OK, where?" or "Listen, I need five 10,000 cfm pumps at the physical plant by tomorrow! I don't care if you have other work to do, if those pumps aren't there by tommorrow, we lose our contract."
>>Anyone that just can't seem to drive amidst distraction probably shouldn't be on the road at all. Case in point; every highway in eastern Mass. There are enough distractions to screw up a monk whether you're on the phone or not.
There aren't any that continuously divert your attention for 5 minutes at a time.
>>Legislating what people may or may not do while driving is not the answer
Then we might as well get rid of all traffic laws; after all, people know how fast is safe in certain conditions, and that you should stop at intersections until you can go, and that you can't cross paths with oncoming traffic.
>>Sure something like that would be an isolated case, but you have ot bare in my mind here there are times when cell phones really really are important
And for those times there's the lobby.
>>Talking on a cell phone is in no way anymore dangerous than fiddling with a CD player, changing radio stations, or talking to other passengers. These "numerous studies" you mention either don't exist or are likely quite biased.
Actually, I've done research in the past on this, and there are several good studies carried out by universities. Most have a strong corrolation between cell phone use and dangerous driving (inconsistant speeds, tailgating, not stopping for red lights, swirving). Most put the risk at approximately that of driving while intoxicated. If you'd like, I can site a few of these studies. (I didn't go looking for them now because I have the slight impression that you'd ignore them...)
>>Statistics can prove any aspect of any argument, as can "numerous studies".
In that case, they also couldn't prove that it's safe to drive. So now we're left with speculation. In which case, the proper course of action would be to prohibit them.
As a computer user, perhaps you've noticed that defaults in dialog boxes and whatnot almost always default to the least-dangerous option (e.g., 'yes' or 'cancel' in a "Save before quitting?" dialog). Basic rule of HCI. Needs to be followed elsewhere. NASA abandoned this policy during the evening of January 27, 1986; the next day, because of it, seven people were dead, the US was down a space shuttle, and the nation came to a standstill unlike anything since the Kennedy assassination. (I'm referring to NASA's demanding proof it was unsafe to fly the shuttle or else they would fly, rather than their normal procedure of demanding proof that it was safe to fly, or else they wouldn't, a change several people commented on in the proceedings that followed.)
Therefore we must look at the dangers of banning cell phones -- making a usually minor inconvienience to people who would have to pull over to make a phone call -- versus the danger of not banning cell phones -- the chance of significant numbers of people losing their lives. Then we must pick the least dangerous of the choices. In this case, this is clearly the former.
(Run the same thing with leaving other people out of the car would end up with the opposite result. I'll get to radio in a moment.)
>>I think having conversations with passengers is easily more dangerous, as anyone here can agree with me on, because you are more likely to make gestures or attempt eye contact.
The problem while driving is not losing eye contact, it's getting it. The part of your retina that can see well enough to make informed decisions is about the size of a quarter held a arms length. Therefore you must actively scan the entire view. Conversation -- cell phone or in person -- interferes with this scanning. The eye contact you'd make while talking lasts only a very short time, and thus does not contribute much to the dangers of driving.
>>As for radios - no one "listen[s] to radio only". They often channel surf whenever commericals come on, or they fast forward or skip songs on their radios.
First, I'm not sure how accurate your statement is. I listen to programs regardless of commercials. So do my friends/family. Even so, this goes back to the length of the distraction. After getting used to the positions of the controls, the length of time it takes to operate them is fairly small. (I can usually do it without even looking, though that still doesn't get me off the hook, for the same reason that conversation interferes with eye movement.) That said, changing radio stations is one of the most common reasons for a crash caused by distractions.
(Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if radio, when you're not fiddling with it, is relaxing and therefore beneficial.)
>>I have nothing against kids and obviously they can't be banned, but I have seen more people distracted while driving by their offspring than cell phones at all.
I'll agree here too. But again, your argument is flawed because it's in the form "action B is more dangerous than action A, therefore action A isn't a problem."
If I'm somewhere where I'm paying to not smell something bad, yes. (BTW, you shouldn't be "arrested" any more than you're arrested for speeding. You should just get a ticket of sorts that says you need to pay a fine. Though ideally, the fine would be distributed among the rest of the audience and the performers.)
>>Yet lugging around a full desktop rig to set up over a weekend is a viable plan?
Desktop+LCD is still a lot easier than Desktop+CRT. (I never said I'd do it; just that an LCD would make it a bit easier)
That would be fine with me. Or perhaps "Patrons have the right to have their mobile telephones/pagers on in this theater as long as they agree that other patrons may grab said phone and hurl it across the room as hard as they can and want."
>>If you are getting jammed, the worst that can happen is that you can't call 911 when you have to
We went over this when that conversation was on. Theaters have pay phones; 911 is a free call. If the time it takes someone to get to the pay phone makes a difference in your survival, the chance you would have made it anyway is very, very slim. In fact, until they get that location locator system set up, using a pay phone very well could be quicker than making a cell phone call.
>>it's because I'm from the bay area, but using a cell phone while driving is a god given right as far as I'm concerned, as long as you remember to pay full attention to the road.
Which is nearly impossible for the brain, as numerous scientific studies have shown.
>>If they're going to ban cell phones while driving, they need to ban radios
You listen to a radio only. Unless you're using a cell phone to call in. Listening to music (or even a talk/news show) is far different from carrying on a conversation.
>>conversations and other passengers altogether,
Conversations with other passengers aren't as dangerous, because if you for instance start to swirve, the other person can go "look out" while the guy at the other end of the phone will keep yakking away because he doesn't know any better, and your brain will try - and fail - to both concentrate on the phone call and correct the situation. Pretty much the only exception to this is small children.
"It's like outlawing putting your elbows on the table,farting at the table, etc."
Not really. If I go to a concert, I'm going -- and more importantly for this discussion, paying -- to hear a concert. Cell phones/pagers going off disrupt the experience. Your examples above would be better ones if you were paying to go somewhere to see people eat. Not just going to the restraunt, because then your main purpose is to eat, and someone else having their elbows on the table doesn't affect your eating.
"Wired mentions that actor Laurence Fishburne, in the middle of a Broadway performance, yelled to an audience member to 'turn your f___ing phone off!'"
I wish I was there for that...
>>Why do you need to game over a weekend where a laptop doesn't suffice?
Who said it wouldn't? But if you have a desktop, a good 17" LCD monitor is half the price of a decent laptop.
>>why aren't you using a CRT to get some REAL gaming?
Perhaps because a CRT is 5 times bigger and heavier and is proportionally harder to carry around on fencing tournaments?
On the other hand, if you spend the whole weekend reading how to fence, preparing to fence, and fencing, you're liable to go insane. At least I would. I can't stand to do anything - even something fun - for that length of time. (I've got nothing against fencing; in fact, I used to fence myself, but quit because it doesn't mesh with my personality. I'm a nice guy, not agressive at all; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't become agressive during the bouts and so would be way to defensive.)
Try again; 908 is correct.
>>Plus the P4 is engineered well enough that it doesn't go *POOF* when the heatsink is removed.
To be fair, AMD acted well on this issue and inclues a temperature probe in their chips. It's still up to the MB to read it and turn off/down (I don't know which) the power, which only two have done so far. But any new MB introduced now will have to have it to become AMD certified.
>>One can be misleading without blatantly lying.
At least they're not like hard drive manufacturers who LIE about their sizes.
>>I would hazard a guess that the lawsuit has no strong legal grounds.
IANAL, but it doesn't.
Then you read _reviews_. Pick up a copy of Computer Shopper. Or PC Magezine. Or go to Toms Hardware. Or anandtech. It shouldn't be the computer manufacturer's duty to benchmark their systems.
Actually, the people would have a MUCH better suit against the hard drive manufacturers. They DELIBERATLY misrepresent the size of their disks to make them look bigger! Remember, hard drive manufacturers consider 1 meg to be 1,000,000 bytes instead of 2^20. For example, you lose over 5 gigs on an 80 gig drive - they're actually only 74 1/2 gigs...
(I'm being a bit sarcastic here of course, but the clock speed is an honest measurement at least (usually; some components are actually lower clock speed that have been o/ced, like the FSB on Asus(?) motherboards) while this misrepresentation is something that bugs me. But I wouldn't sue over it...)
"Students in Japan beat the heck out of American kids in important areas like science and math, and not acting like an idiot in public. That's because American kids, instead of studying, would rather spend their time in front of television sets that are made in, er... Japan."
-Drew Carey, as quoted in Joke Soup
>>Explain to me how tv can cater to your precise needs without having a tv station for each person in the US. This doesn't seem very feasible to me.
Hmmmm.... the internet seems to do it pretty well. Even the cable company does; you think they have a separate network for people who get basic cable, extended cable, and digital cable, not to mention the various combinations of channels you can get when you combine that choice with the option to get the subscription channels and cable modems and pay-per-view. Of course not. Access to content you don't pay for is essentially prohibited.
It shouldn't be too hard to provide indivudial channels which the end user can choose. Perhaps charge per channel per month, with an option to pay per program on channels that you don't subscribe to, etc.
You forgot one:
*The artists, for writing the music that people pirate
The proper move if they agree (or are ordered by the courts) to censor the site is to also all agree to censor the RIAA's site. Whoops! No more RIAA website...