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User: chthon

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Comments · 1,236

  1. Re:Sometimes I think we should just all give up on Guido and Bruce Eckel Discuss Python 3000 · · Score: 1

    You got lucky, last time I mentioned Lisp I was downmodded flame-bait. However, I share your sentiment. I have been busy in the past year programming Common Lisp, and the more you learn it, the more you can conclude that all other languages just run behind.

    Except in libraries and GUIs. My main application is now written in Lisp, but I am developing its GUI in Python, because of the cross-platform possibilities (best cross platform Lisp = CLISP (Win + Linux), Python GUI (TkInter, Win + Linux)).

  2. Re:The Cat's Outta The Bag on Sweden's Vote on OOXML Invalidated · · Score: 1

    Chiswick, fresh chairs!!

    I hope for the day that he needs to say 'A chair, a chair, my kingdom for a chair!'.

  3. Re:We've all grown up on What Vista SP1 Means To You · · Score: 1

    I too have grown up, but I discarded Microsoft once and for all already in 1991. I used OS/2 and later Linux. I have to use MS software on my job, and that is enough to keep using Linux at home. It is used by me, my wife and my father, and I use the current Debian stable distribution.

    I do not know about the current stability of Linux, it is stable enough for daily use (with daily power cycle to save electricity), but I do know that I once had 200 days of uptime on the machine I still use, but that was with RedHat 7.3, with 2.4 kernel.

  4. Re:How does it compare? on Via Unveils 1-Watt x86 CPU · · Score: 1

    It meant Instruction Set Architecture, not Interface System Architecture (or whatever the abbreviation for ISA the bus is).

  5. Re:Alien! on Study: Martian Soil Has Signs of Life · · Score: 2, Funny

    And having been exposed to them too often, I think all of them are aliens.

  6. Re:Colonel Sanders? KFP Linux Distribution! on Linus Torvalds Speaks Out on Future of Linux · · Score: 1

    Fried in its own fat, you mean ?

  7. Re:Programming languages and system architecture on Benchmarking Power-Efficient Servers · · Score: 1

    What would be the key here ? Are there optimisations possible to speedup XML processing ? Can guidelines be written to enhance XML designs for speeding up processing ? Have there been profiling tests to see where in the XML processing the bottlenecks are ? Should you use XML even ?

  8. Programming languages and system architecture on Benchmarking Power-Efficient Servers · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Answer me this : how much power is lost through the use of inefficient programming languages and architectures which only emphasize processor speed, instead of balancing memory, processor and IO ?

    Python, Perl and PHP all suffer from one big drawback : when you scale up you need that much extra processor power. One programming language I know (Common Lisp) offers the advantages of them, but can be compiled to near C/C++ speeds. I suppose there are others. Don't come saying that programmers are expensive. It seems that what you gain on programmers, you lose in the cost of your datacenter. I don't know how Java matches here, it probably depends upon the deployment of more recent JIT compilers.

    If you see how much a process has to wait on IO, how come there are still no good solutions in providing enough IO bandwidth that the processor can use fully ? (Unless you buy a mainframe or iSeries system that is)

    Just asking.

  9. Re:Intentionally misleading on DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC? · · Score: 1

    Aren't you talking about counterfeit then ? Not copyright infringement.

  10. Re:Can't RTFA... on Linus on Subversion, GPL3, Microsoft and More · · Score: 1

    That is true, but I also use trac, and trac has the best integration with SVN.

    I would like to use a more decentralised model, I tried SVK, which is based upon SVN. Unfortunately, SVK does not support externals.

    To change from SVN to another system, I need three things : I must be able to export my current SVN repository completely to the new system, it must support externals (for modular development), and it must integrate with trac.

  11. Re:Can't RTFA... on Linus on Subversion, GPL3, Microsoft and More · · Score: 1

    What's lacking is the ability to associate release numbers with tags and branch points in the repository (because the client doesn't have to keep track of these things). Yes people came up with a hack, but the hack unnecessarily duplicating data.

    Like I said in previous post, a closed-source tool like Continuus is much worse. To do a freeze/tag one has to checkout a complete project tree (project : something like svn:externals), and then freeze the checked out tree. With a hierarchy of about 200 projects, it takes between one and two hours.

    There are really worse things than SVN. The worst part being that Continuus is an expensive, closed-source tool with much more disadvantages than advantages.

  12. Re:Can't RTFA... on Linus on Subversion, GPL3, Microsoft and More · · Score: 1

    But that is to be expected isn't, it ? SVN was developed as a replacement for CVS, and it reached its goal.

  13. Re:Can't RTFA... on Linus on Subversion, GPL3, Microsoft and More · · Score: 1

    I think you misunderstood, it is Continuus that I refer to as a piece of shit. Unfortunately, I am already 7 years build manager in a Continuus environment. There are two main drawbacks, its slow, slow and slow, and to automate things one always has to work around their built-in features.

    I must say, we have been handling repositories of over 20 Gb with it. Anyone who has experience with SVN in environment with about 100 users and a repository of over 1 Gb ?

  14. Re:Can't RTFA... on Linus on Subversion, GPL3, Microsoft and More · · Score: 2, Informative

    Too bad Continuus costs too much to try, I think he would want to return to SVN after using that piece of shit.

  15. Re:Microsoft is competing with itself on ODF Vs. OOXML File Counts On the Web · · Score: 1

    Switching an office suite is a long term commitment. One should start with computing the yearly costs that have been spent in the past X years on them to see what the long term results will be. Then you can compute what can be saved by switching over to a free office suite.

  16. Re:Unfortunately on Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Plain Soap · · Score: 1

    I got here one European product, it contains 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, it also seems that they cannot call it soap, it is designated washing cream (creme lavante).

    While looking at some more products in my bathroom and searching for names, I came across this little tidbit.

  17. Re:new subject line.. on Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Plain Soap · · Score: 1

    Or married to the wrong woman...

  18. Re:But on Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Plain Soap · · Score: 1

    My parents make their mayo also, its sometimes 2 months before it is used up. Never had any problems, maybe because of the vinegar and mustard.

  19. Answer : Common Lisp on The Future of C++ As Seen By Its Creator · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    QED

  20. Re:More Generally, Fyodor on Strict German Computer Crime Law Now in Effect · · Score: 1

    If you are trained, you can kill people with your hands, elbows and feet. Just make these also illegal.

  21. Re:We're right here on The Fermi Paradox is Back · · Score: 1

    Carl Sagan must have been a fan of the X-Men. In X-Men #65 or #66, such a race was also considered.

  22. Re:Well imagine if on Patent Lawsuits Galore · · Score: 1

    All this patent abuse always makes me think that not enough people have read "The Iron Standard" by Henry Kuttner, which was written in 1943 (but considering the antics of Thomas Edison in patents, not really early).

  23. Re:Palm together with every PDA out there on Patent Lawsuits Galore · · Score: 1

    I was in 1983 or 1984 at a technology convention, and there Honeywell-Bull or HP (don't know which one, I think it was HP) had a touch screen demo.

  24. Re:I.J. Good & The Suspension of Disbelief on William Gibson Gives Up on the Future · · Score: 1

    Hard SF is an exercise for the writer to create a story in a scientific correct universe.

    Take a book like Tau-Zero. The emphasis is not on the scientific details or accuracy, but on the story line about what might be possible if you can never exceed the speed of light with a spaceship. Even the end fails in being completely hard SF, because the writer conjectures at the end of the universe a way for the people in the story to escape.

    What you are postulating here is the return to the scientifiction of Hugo Gernsback.

    Hard SF ceases to exists when faster than light travel or telepathy is mentioned.

    The dividing line between SF and fantasy for me is the correct application of logic and not having deus-ex-machinae, for which many fantasy novels fail.

  25. Re:Ok, but... on Microsoft's OOXML Formulas Could Be Dangerous · · Score: 1

    I seem to remember that all the trig math exercises and examples I had in school where in radians...