Quite right, I stand corrected. I had heard arguments that using ++itr was advised (instead of itr++) because the compiler wouldn't automatically convert it to ++itr in this case. My mistake.
I don't believe the compiler can be trusted with more complicated pieces of C++ code, as they can be too hard for a compiler to know for sure that the optimization won't be destructive. The biggest example is when using the STL (or just about any class with iterators like that). Take the follow code:
Will the compiler recognize that the return value of the postfix ++ operator isn't being used, and can therefor use the faster prefix operator? Probably not, because it won't know for sure that the two methods really do accomplish the same thing. While in general this is the case, its possible that someone's code may not operate that way, causing wierd bugs.
Stuff like this pops up more and more when you make code like this that makes heavy use of classes and templates. Because of that, I don't trust the compiler to figure out it can use "++itr" instead, so I tell it to do that myself. That is just the first one I can think of, but there are many more.
With that said, you in general want to choose the one that is the easiest to read, even if it is slower. Code maintainability is generally more important than speed IMO.
How would this apply to closed source software? Because the work isn't published, they lose their copyright on the code, and all the protections that go with it. Regardless of how you stand on closed-source, people should still have the right to produce it.
Not true! A single upgrade won't, but multiple changes will! Each time you make a change (even as minor as changing RAM), it adds points. If they reach a certain level, even if they were just RAM changes. So if you swap RAM to test it 3-4 times in 6 monthes, you'l get locked out. Happened to me several times. Each minor change really does add up after a few monthes.
It's not consistent. I've had a terrible time with my PVR needing to be reactivated **4** times so far, all because of minor changes like video card or RAM upgrades. The last time I had it running for awhile (after having just activated). Tested some other RAM I just bought in it to make sure it was OK. Windows won't let me login and says "You must reactivate NOW...call us".
Here's the problem: if you change your RAM like 3-4 times in 6 monthes, you'l have to reactivate. EACH time you change something, it adds points within a timespan. Even something as small as a RAM change DOES add points.
It may not have been that way for you, but it has been for me. And I'm using a real copy of XP Pro, not pirated.
This has happened to me 4 times so far with a server machine. First it was because I ghosted the HD so I could use a bigger one (understandable). Then it was because swapped out the vid card to test some problems I was having. Then it was because I upped the RAM. Then, about a month ago, yet again because I plugged some other RAM in to test it. The first 3 times, it showed the "you must active windows" in the corner, giving a few days. The last time when I checked some RAM it now won't even boot past the "you must reactivate NOW" warning.
This is getting kinda crazy. Their system for checking if you have "significantly" changed your system is way too sensitive. I do lots of upgrades and testing on my systems. Makes it impossible to test/upgrade equipment when Windows acts this way. I could see it if I had changed a bunch of stuff, but the last several times I had changed *1* thing (the RAM) between activations.
Finally I gave up. Putting Linux on it tonight. I don't feel like calling them again (though they are nice); or buying another license. Not worth so much bother.
> IMHO they need to standardize RAM like AGP or PCI-X.
> That way users feel more comfortable investing in it...
> you can upgrade and keep your RAM.
You may be interested in FB-DIMMs, if they ever come out. Basically a standard (buffered) interface to all RAM you might want to put on there. Just make a new buffer chip and you're set.
Same goes for Netaddress (USA.net) for me. My address (right up there) is publicly posted all over the net. I get maybe 1 spam a week, at most. And so far, no false positives. I don't know what filtering software they're using, but it sure is effective.
...when looking at standard C/C++/C# code, I noticed how much the curly braches {} create a kind of structure similar to XML, and wondered about making an XML version of C++. Everyone here seems to think that's insane, but that's because they're thinking about making EVERY element an XML element, which isn't neccessary. You only need define blocks this way. For example:
It almost looks cleaner, though definately more typing. Why would this be useful? It tends to make the meaning of staements more clear. It forces you to say what block you are ending (instead of a generic }). It can be easier to parse. Standard off-the-shelf XML viewing technologies (XSLT, CSS, etc) can easily render the code in a useful way, and can even understand it without really understanding the language.
Maybe not seem useful, but could very well be. One unusual use I can think of would be the possibility of defining things like concurrency hints using extra, optional parameters.
This type of thing seems to be a design philosophy at Microsoft: design all systems to easily interoperate seamlessly. Sounds good at first, but becomes a problem when that means severely compromising security. Microsoft needs to realize that interoperablity and seamless integration are nice, but require in-depth thought on the security issues behind it, which they never seem to do.
I saw a Longhorn demo not long ago where the presenter was passing executables back and forth over email saying (to the effect) "no need for incompatible file formats, we can just send a small executable containing the data and viewer each file". We can all imagine the problems this entails. "Don't open executables" becomes bad advice; all attachments become unsafe.
My big complaint with FF isn't that you can't use Active-X. It's the massive memory leaks with tabbed browsing. FF routinely gets up to 350MB of memory usage. I use the internet *heavily* for research and reading news, so I open and close a huge number of tabs a day. Having to bookmark all the pages I have open every night so I can close down FF is a real pain (if I didn't, it would truely eat all my vm space). They really need to work on that...
(It's been a known issue for a long time, but nobody seems to be able to fix it)
>...which means that signals have to be able
> to get from one side of the system
> to the other within one clock cycle.
In a pipelined CPU (which accounts for nearly all in use today), it will take many many cycles for it to move from one end of the die to the other as the instruction executes. You're right, the bigger the die, the harder it is to have tight clocks if you spread everything out. But its just never done that way...
But seriously, this could end up being an argument for strengthening the government's power in persuing and prosecuting those responsible for infringement. Nobody else can prosecute offenders, so the government must step in. Even if the works have been long abandonded...
The card will be in constant production changes from the day it leaves the shop. But this doesn't mean just changes in drivers or even firmware. It will probably be desirable to completely change the structure of the chip itself between revisions. Afterall, this isn't a professional chip, its a project. Starting out with only a few (partly broken no doubt) features; building its way up to being a truely useful chip over several years. But if it wasn't re-programmable, you'd be stuck having to buy a new one every few monthes when they fix bugs in the hardware or add new functionality. FPGAs are no doubt the way to go to begin with. I'm sure once they get to a stage where they have a stable design with as much (working) functionality as they want, they'l make ASIC versions.
Instruction execution models the behavior of the real system, with a fetch phase, an address decode phase, and instruction execution. Often, the instruction breakout is simply a large case statement. This is fast and models the structure of microcode, but can be bulky and difficult to read.
Has nobody ever heard of jump tables??
Depends on how fast you type. There is a timeout where it considers you as changing your mind and wating to choose a different item. My mother, for instance, types very slowly (looking down at the keys). When typeing out "United States" she will get Iceland unless she stops after the first two letters. Try it yourself.
No, its very easy to get that many. When you first get that one piece of VX2.BetterInternet (as happened to me a few days ago), it will just download a new spyware every half hour. I ended up with 9 programs within a few hours on my laptop. These aren't just cookies. They're independant programs. Needless to say that laptop was flattened afterward.
It can happen if you get nailed badly enough.
That sure as hell sounds like me as a kid. Almost everything there is dead on. However, I'm not like that anymore. I forced myself into social situations and eventually was able to say "what they hell is the point of being like this" and stopped. It is NOT a disease or "syndrome". Give me a break. Its an ATTITUDE! It's like claiming laziness is an incurable diseases. I know, I've been there. If this was a disease, it would not be so easy to just look at yourself and say "screw this" and completely change your symptoms. Diseases do NOT act that way. Diagnosing it as such is bogus.
You're right, it is a crime. But just because its a crime doesn't mean it deserves jail time. Ever gotten a speeding ticket? That's a crime. If we put every person in jail that speeded, we wouldn't have many citizens left. Setting up a piracy site is definately illegal and anyone that sets one up should be shut down. And maybe a fine could be set, but jail time? Don't you find that just a tad excessive for such a minor crime?
It's not that they're dumb...they're quite smart. What matters is what advertisers believe ratings are. TV execs want TV to seem like some great area to advertise in that's seeing major growth. That way ad prices are higher, and the execs make more money. That's exactly the reason they don't want to know what people really think. They stick to what methods make them look the best to the advertisers so ad prices stay at high levels. While in reality, TV anymore is just a bunch of crappy reality shows for the most part. And is it just me or does it seem like they're doing more commercial than show on some of these channels?
I got the Sony DRU500A a few weeks ago. It does DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. No DVD-RAM, but who uses that anyway? Comes with all kinds of great software. Not bad for $350.
I use Win2K at home and love it. Its stable, runs everything I need, and is fast. I have Linux (RedHat) installed on my desktop, but don't use it much. I would use it more, but it crashes every few minutes due to a bug in the network card drviers I have. There has only been one set made (and those took me over a year to find). The driver aparently hard locks the machine whenever the connection gets a little bit of packet loss. The other problem I have with linux is that KDE (and the like) is slow. Everything tends to render much slower than it does in Windows. Getting it to work with my sound card and 3D card has been hell too. Linux is still great for servers, but it has a long way to go on the desktop.
Not all universities are like that. Although I doubt anyone has ever heard of it, the whole point behind the CS degree at IUPUI is "intellectual breadth, depth, and adaptiveness." Although we start out with learning C and C++, the courses get into all sorts of areas such as databases, using Un*x servers, assembly, graphics, and tons more. The CS department here focuses on getting to know all of the science behind how all this stuff works as a whole, giving us a good view of the entire computer sciece/IT world as a whole. I haven't toured many other universities, but I'm sure there are more like this. If I toured a college where everything was so specialized, I would look elsewhere.
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Quite right, I stand corrected. I had heard arguments that using ++itr was advised (instead of itr++) because the compiler wouldn't automatically convert it to ++itr in this case. My mistake.
I don't believe the compiler can be trusted with more complicated pieces of C++ code, as they can be too hard for a compiler to know for sure that the optimization won't be destructive. The biggest example is when using the STL (or just about any class with iterators like that). Take the follow code:
//stuff
for( iterator itr = items.begin(); itr != items.end(); itr++ )
{
}
Will the compiler recognize that the return value of the postfix ++ operator isn't being used, and can therefor use the faster prefix operator? Probably not, because it won't know for sure that the two methods really do accomplish the same thing. While in general this is the case, its possible that someone's code may not operate that way, causing wierd bugs.
Stuff like this pops up more and more when you make code like this that makes heavy use of classes and templates. Because of that, I don't trust the compiler to figure out it can use "++itr" instead, so I tell it to do that myself. That is just the first one I can think of, but there are many more.
With that said, you in general want to choose the one that is the easiest to read, even if it is slower. Code maintainability is generally more important than speed IMO.
How would this apply to closed source software? Because the work isn't published, they lose their copyright on the code, and all the protections that go with it. Regardless of how you stand on closed-source, people should still have the right to produce it.
Not true! A single upgrade won't, but multiple changes will! Each time you make a change (even as minor as changing RAM), it adds points. If they reach a certain level, even if they were just RAM changes. So if you swap RAM to test it 3-4 times in 6 monthes, you'l get locked out. Happened to me several times. Each minor change really does add up after a few monthes.
It's not consistent. I've had a terrible time with my PVR needing to be reactivated **4** times so far, all because of minor changes like video card or RAM upgrades. The last time I had it running for awhile (after having just activated). Tested some other RAM I just bought in it to make sure it was OK. Windows won't let me login and says "You must reactivate NOW...call us".
Here's the problem: if you change your RAM like 3-4 times in 6 monthes, you'l have to reactivate. EACH time you change something, it adds points within a timespan. Even something as small as a RAM change DOES add points.
It may not have been that way for you, but it has been for me. And I'm using a real copy of XP Pro, not pirated.
This has happened to me 4 times so far with a server machine. First it was because I ghosted the HD so I could use a bigger one (understandable). Then it was because swapped out the vid card to test some problems I was having. Then it was because I upped the RAM. Then, about a month ago, yet again because I plugged some other RAM in to test it. The first 3 times, it showed the "you must active windows" in the corner, giving a few days. The last time when I checked some RAM it now won't even boot past the "you must reactivate NOW" warning.
This is getting kinda crazy. Their system for checking if you have "significantly" changed your system is way too sensitive. I do lots of upgrades and testing on my systems. Makes it impossible to test/upgrade equipment when Windows acts this way. I could see it if I had changed a bunch of stuff, but the last several times I had changed *1* thing (the RAM) between activations.
Finally I gave up. Putting Linux on it tonight. I don't feel like calling them again (though they are nice); or buying another license. Not worth so much bother.
> IMHO they need to standardize RAM like AGP or PCI-X.
> That way users feel more comfortable investing in it...
> you can upgrade and keep your RAM.
You may be interested in FB-DIMMs, if they ever come out. Basically a standard (buffered) interface to all RAM you might want to put on there. Just make a new buffer chip and you're set.
Same goes for Netaddress (USA.net) for me. My address (right up there) is publicly posted all over the net. I get maybe 1 spam a week, at most. And so far, no false positives. I don't know what filtering software they're using, but it sure is effective.
...when looking at standard C/C++/C# code, I noticed how much the curly braches {} create a kind of structure similar to XML, and wondered about making an XML version of C++. Everyone here seems to think that's insane, but that's because they're thinking about making EVERY element an XML element, which isn't neccessary. You only need define blocks this way. For example:
<class name="Parser">
<memberVariables>
<private>
int id;
char* socialSecurity;
char* fullName;
</private>
</memberVariables>
<methods>
<method name="ParseDocument" params="char* doc, int block">
int len = strlen(doc);
<while cond="len != block">
len -= block;
</while>
</method>
</methods>
</class>
It almost looks cleaner, though definately more typing. Why would this be useful? It tends to make the meaning of staements more clear. It forces you to say what block you are ending (instead of a generic }). It can be easier to parse. Standard off-the-shelf XML viewing technologies (XSLT, CSS, etc) can easily render the code in a useful way, and can even understand it without really understanding the language.
Maybe not seem useful, but could very well be. One unusual use I can think of would be the possibility of defining things like concurrency hints using extra, optional parameters.
This type of thing seems to be a design philosophy at Microsoft: design all systems to easily interoperate seamlessly. Sounds good at first, but becomes a problem when that means severely compromising security. Microsoft needs to realize that interoperablity and seamless integration are nice, but require in-depth thought on the security issues behind it, which they never seem to do.
I saw a Longhorn demo not long ago where the presenter was passing executables back and forth over email saying (to the effect) "no need for incompatible file formats, we can just send a small executable containing the data and viewer each file". We can all imagine the problems this entails. "Don't open executables" becomes bad advice; all attachments become unsafe.
My big complaint with FF isn't that you can't use Active-X. It's the massive memory leaks with tabbed browsing. FF routinely gets up to 350MB of memory usage. I use the internet *heavily* for research and reading news, so I open and close a huge number of tabs a day. Having to bookmark all the pages I have open every night so I can close down FF is a real pain (if I didn't, it would truely eat all my vm space). They really need to work on that...
(It's been a known issue for a long time, but nobody seems to be able to fix it)
> ...which means that signals have to be able
> to get from one side of the system
> to the other within one clock cycle.
In a pipelined CPU (which accounts for nearly all in use today), it will take many many cycles for it to move from one end of the die to the other as the instruction executes. You're right, the bigger the die, the harder it is to have tight clocks if you spread everything out. But its just never done that way...
I'm sure the new IP Czar can help.
But seriously, this could end up being an argument for strengthening the government's power in persuing and prosecuting those responsible for infringement. Nobody else can prosecute offenders, so the government must step in. Even if the works have been long abandonded...
The card will be in constant production changes from the day it leaves the shop. But this doesn't mean just changes in drivers or even firmware. It will probably be desirable to completely change the structure of the chip itself between revisions. Afterall, this isn't a professional chip, its a project. Starting out with only a few (partly broken no doubt) features; building its way up to being a truely useful chip over several years. But if it wasn't re-programmable, you'd be stuck having to buy a new one every few monthes when they fix bugs in the hardware or add new functionality. FPGAs are no doubt the way to go to begin with. I'm sure once they get to a stage where they have a stable design with as much (working) functionality as they want, they'l make ASIC versions.
Instruction execution models the behavior of the real system, with a fetch phase, an address decode phase, and instruction execution. Often, the instruction breakout is simply a large case statement. This is fast and models the structure of microcode, but can be bulky and difficult to read. Has nobody ever heard of jump tables??
Depends on how fast you type. There is a timeout where it considers you as changing your mind and wating to choose a different item. My mother, for instance, types very slowly (looking down at the keys). When typeing out "United States" she will get Iceland unless she stops after the first two letters. Try it yourself.
No, its very easy to get that many. When you first get that one piece of VX2.BetterInternet (as happened to me a few days ago), it will just download a new spyware every half hour. I ended up with 9 programs within a few hours on my laptop. These aren't just cookies. They're independant programs. Needless to say that laptop was flattened afterward. It can happen if you get nailed badly enough.
That sure as hell sounds like me as a kid. Almost everything there is dead on. However, I'm not like that anymore. I forced myself into social situations and eventually was able to say "what they hell is the point of being like this" and stopped. It is NOT a disease or "syndrome". Give me a break. Its an ATTITUDE! It's like claiming laziness is an incurable diseases. I know, I've been there. If this was a disease, it would not be so easy to just look at yourself and say "screw this" and completely change your symptoms. Diseases do NOT act that way. Diagnosing it as such is bogus.
This post applies
You're right, it is a crime. But just because its a crime doesn't mean it deserves jail time. Ever gotten a speeding ticket? That's a crime. If we put every person in jail that speeded, we wouldn't have many citizens left. Setting up a piracy site is definately illegal and anyone that sets one up should be shut down. And maybe a fine could be set, but jail time? Don't you find that just a tad excessive for such a minor crime?
It's not that they're dumb...they're quite smart. What matters is what advertisers believe ratings are. TV execs want TV to seem like some great area to advertise in that's seeing major growth. That way ad prices are higher, and the execs make more money. That's exactly the reason they don't want to know what people really think. They stick to what methods make them look the best to the advertisers so ad prices stay at high levels. While in reality, TV anymore is just a bunch of crappy reality shows for the most part. And is it just me or does it seem like they're doing more commercial than show on some of these channels?
Soho stands for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in this case, not Small Office/Home Office.
I got the Sony DRU500A a few weeks ago. It does DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. No DVD-RAM, but who uses that anyway? Comes with all kinds of great software. Not bad for $350.
I use Win2K at home and love it. Its stable, runs everything I need, and is fast. I have Linux (RedHat) installed on my desktop, but don't use it much. I would use it more, but it crashes every few minutes due to a bug in the network card drviers I have. There has only been one set made (and those took me over a year to find). The driver aparently hard locks the machine whenever the connection gets a little bit of packet loss. The other problem I have with linux is that KDE (and the like) is slow. Everything tends to render much slower than it does in Windows. Getting it to work with my sound card and 3D card has been hell too. Linux is still great for servers, but it has a long way to go on the desktop.
Not all universities are like that. Although I doubt anyone has ever heard of it, the whole point behind the CS degree at IUPUI is "intellectual breadth, depth, and adaptiveness." Although we start out with learning C and C++, the courses get into all sorts of areas such as databases, using Un*x servers, assembly, graphics, and tons more. The CS department here focuses on getting to know all of the science behind how all this stuff works as a whole, giving us a good view of the entire computer sciece/IT world as a whole. I haven't toured many other universities, but I'm sure there are more like this. If I toured a college where everything was so specialized, I would look elsewhere.
I do my online banking through Key Bank. It works fine with Mozilla, Netscape 6, and all the others just fine. I've never had a problem with them.