What exactly does Bruce Perens do? ESR codes (well, he used to, sort of) and is a well known right-wing crackpot. Torvalds is a kernel engineer. RMS codes and goes on speaking tours.
What does Perens do except sit around and armchair-quarterback the FOSS community? I can't think of a single qualification the guy has that makes him fit for the sort of "leadership" position the guy has fashioned for himself.
It's easy to argue that something like Blackbox is small compared to Gnome or KDE, but if you compare it to other actual window managers, it's not really all that special. Metacity and E are the only WMs that I can think of off hand that might be called "big."
I do very well on tests, but the thing is, I never really feel pressure to do well. In the study, they told them they were up for a cash prize, and that they were being analyzed by smarty math professors. Most tests aren't anything like that. And if you already know you're smart, you're possibly even less likely to worry about test performance, since you know you'll do pretty well anyways.
Ah, I actually never paid attention to how daylight savings effected gmt offsets (and was somewhat confused about it, but not enough to go look it up), so thanks for telling me. I'm in central so I'm gmt-6, and gmt-5 during daylight savings./me commits to memory
I wouldn't dare call myself a guru, but here's some tweaks:
import sys, re
def Usage():
print """
%s usage:
%s [Input String]
[Input String]: An input string that should be tested against
the prompted expression
""" % (sys.argv[0], sys.argv[0])
if len(sys.argv) < 2:
Usage()
raw_input()
sys.exit(1)
text = ' '.join(argv[1:])
regex = raw_input('Enter a regular expression to test the string "%s":' % text).strip()
matchstr = ""
if not re.match(regex, input):
matchstr = " NOT"
print '"%s DOES%s Match %s"' % (input, matchstr, regex)
comments:
string module isn't very useful anymore; most of its functionality is now in str.
input is a built-in function; assigning the name to something else doesn't really hurt, but IMO it's preferable to not do that.
I had to remove the dashes altogether to avoid the lameness filter.
(man, formatting this on/. sucks)
You can do something along the lines of your first example in Python as well. (assuming your point was to show that you can have regexp objects)
>>> r = re.compile("foo")
>>> bool(r.match("food")) # the returned r object has some more complex / useful methods, but it can simply be checked for truth
True
And I don't really like regexps being built into a language's syntax, but that's just a matter of opinion. (it doesn't make me nauseous, I just prefer simple syntax)
Parrot does seem really cool to me too, I can't wait to see where it goes in the future.:)
Well, as usual, pudge has to add his 2 cents, which, as always, consists of some comment in defense of Apple. Pudge, why can't you just post the news like (some) other people (some of the time), and leave your opinions out of it?
I can't say I know if either approach is better, but in my personal opinion, I don't think there's a huge advantage to learning either higher-level or lower-level languages first. Many people started with assembly and now code Java and do just fine. I, on the other hand, started with scripting languages and worked my way down (to C so far, I'll tackle assembly eventually) -- and I do just fine. I think the importance of ability of the individual dwarfs the importance of what order things are learned in. If you have the right mindset to be a programmer, you'll figure it out either way. If you don't have the mindset, you'll probably suck either way.
But I guess I'll try and pick the top ones. I'll assume this is a desktop machine.
screen vim firefox less aterm gaim gimp m pd python scrot... I guess. I also left out X and a window manager, and ssh, since I'm thinking of "applications," not really just "software."
I'm a bit worried that the history channel may become a victim of this; the history channel was specifically mentioned in the hearing (I saw some of it on cspan) as one of the niche channels that would have died before being put on basic (or something along those lines) cable plans, thus essentially being subsidized by the people that don't watch it.
And while I enjoy the history channel *a lot*, and watch basically it every day, it does seem wrong for, say, 50 non-viewers to pay for my privilege of viewing it. If the people at the history channel can't come up with a viable and self-reliant (as much as possible of course - no person or thing is completely self-reliant) business plan, then well, it just seems unfair for everyone to pay their welfare checks, so to speak.
But of course, it also seems unfair to have such a great source of information and entertainment go by the wayside. The commie side of me wants them to stay no matter what (bah, people can afford a few cents or dollars here and there, most of them have more money than I do), and the libertarian nutjob side of me wants them to only stay if they can make it work without taking welfare checks from non-viewers. Hard to decide which side to pick, but I think I pick the latter.
So say this really does kill off all of the smaller channels, and all we're left with is Fox, ESPN, MTV, and whatever else most people watch. Obviously this will be a blow to a lot of people, and tv will probably be less informative overall; instead it will be more "entertaining" and flashy, doing whatever it takes to grab more viewers' attention and advertising money. What will happen then? And how likely is that to happen?
I'm sure that they're taking that into consideration. I hope so, anyways.
Super_L is an X11-ism, not really a linux issue. I doubt it's in any standard anywhere, but my windows keys are always made Super modifiers by XFree86. I imagine it totally depends on the keyboard layout that you tell XFree to use.
"but you've got to release the software at no cost or you can sell the software at cost of distribution. "
You sure about that? I thought you could demand any price you want for the software - but you have to provide the source for free. And you only have to offer free source to the same people that you sell the software to. But since those people can turn around and give the software and/or source to anyone they want, it makes it hard to actually sell the software at a high price. That's my understanding anyways.
Irregardless of the fact that The X Consortium and XFree86 are different groups (I don't know how many people from one are involved in the other, or what influence each group has on the other), the whole "trap" is a farse as far as I can tell. So they planned to make new releases non-free -- does that wipe the old (free) releases from the face of the planet? If not, then how exactly is it a trap? Or was RMS just using rhetoric meant to play on peoples' fears?
Code doesn't disappear just because someone decides not to release the source of their changes, and even the original developer can't make the code disappear (unless distribution of the code was non-existant in the first place).
Exacree! The GPL just increases the freedoms of people who don't care, or are too lazy or inept to find the original source. You can use my X/MIT-style licensed code for 50 proprietary applications, but the code is still on the web, and not hard to find. Wanting everyone to have freedoms is nice and all, but the GPL strong-arms people into it, and doesn't accomplish much by doing so, IMO.
The one thing I dislike most about the GPL is how people seem to just default to it when they don't know anything about licenses.
Slashdot Mirror
link
I wrote the Electric Fence malloc() debugger, and some pieces of Debian.
A fun comparison I did
I do very well on tests, but the thing is, I never really feel pressure to do well. In the study, they told them they were up for a cash prize, and that they were being analyzed by smarty math professors. Most tests aren't anything like that. And if you already know you're smart, you're possibly even less likely to worry about test performance, since you know you'll do pretty well anyways.
They should fix their freshmeat page.
Exeem is using a GPL library? Doesn't that mean they're violating the GPL?
Funny they didn't redirect stderr; no wonder people were getting error messages spewed at them.
And rm -rf a file? Seems like whoever did this was an amateur. (surprise)
Ah, I actually never paid attention to how daylight savings effected gmt offsets (and was somewhat confused about it, but not enough to go look it up), so thanks for telling me. I'm in central so I'm gmt-6, and gmt-5 during daylight savings. /me commits to memory
eastern is GMT-5 I believe.
And I don't really like regexps being built into a language's syntax, but that's just a matter of opinion. (it doesn't make me nauseous, I just prefer simple syntax)
Parrot does seem really cool to me too, I can't wait to see where it goes in the future. :)
Who said it was intended to be objective? I didn't get that impression at all.
Because of the great power of mono! Behold:
I mean, in Python, it'd be like:
matches = re.match(regex, input)
That doesn't look like great power to me.
(all joking aside, I found the article interesting, and if it weren't for the (potential) legal issues, I would probably be playing with C#)
Well, as usual, pudge has to add his 2 cents, which, as always, consists of some comment in defense of Apple. Pudge, why can't you just post the news like (some) other people (some of the time), and leave your opinions out of it?
I can't say I know if either approach is better, but in my personal opinion, I don't think there's a huge advantage to learning either higher-level or lower-level languages first. Many people started with assembly and now code Java and do just fine. I, on the other hand, started with scripting languages and worked my way down (to C so far, I'll tackle assembly eventually) -- and I do just fine. I think the importance of ability of the individual dwarfs the importance of what order things are learned in. If you have the right mindset to be a programmer, you'll figure it out either way. If you don't have the mindset, you'll probably suck either way.
But I guess I'll try and pick the top ones. I'll assume this is a desktop machine.
m pd ... I guess. I also left out X and a window manager, and ssh, since I'm thinking of "applications," not really just "software."
screen
vim
firefox
less
aterm
gaim
gimp
python
scrot
Last question in the interview: "Are you an evil minion bent on destroying the opensource community?"
There's a great quote on the morphix website (morphix.org):
"It's simple to make things. It's hard to make things simple."
I'm a bit worried that the history channel may become a victim of this; the history channel was specifically mentioned in the hearing (I saw some of it on cspan) as one of the niche channels that would have died before being put on basic (or something along those lines) cable plans, thus essentially being subsidized by the people that don't watch it.
And while I enjoy the history channel *a lot*, and watch basically it every day, it does seem wrong for, say, 50 non-viewers to pay for my privilege of viewing it. If the people at the history channel can't come up with a viable and self-reliant (as much as possible of course - no person or thing is completely self-reliant) business plan, then well, it just seems unfair for everyone to pay their welfare checks, so to speak.
But of course, it also seems unfair to have such a great source of information and entertainment go by the wayside. The commie side of me wants them to stay no matter what (bah, people can afford a few cents or dollars here and there, most of them have more money than I do), and the libertarian nutjob side of me wants them to only stay if they can make it work without taking welfare checks from non-viewers. Hard to decide which side to pick, but I think I pick the latter.
So say this really does kill off all of the smaller channels, and all we're left with is Fox, ESPN, MTV, and whatever else most people watch. Obviously this will be a blow to a lot of people, and tv will probably be less informative overall; instead it will be more "entertaining" and flashy, doing whatever it takes to grab more viewers' attention and advertising money. What will happen then? And how likely is that to happen?
I'm sure that they're taking that into consideration. I hope so, anyways.
I'm not fearful of the message; I use and contribute to open source myself -- and yet, I consider plenty of what I see to be rabid zealotry.
Unfortunately this applies to many people, not just windows admins.
Super_L is an X11-ism, not really a linux issue. I doubt it's in any standard anywhere, but my windows keys are always made Super modifiers by XFree86. I imagine it totally depends on the keyboard layout that you tell XFree to use.
You sure about that? I thought you could demand any price you want for the software - but you have to provide the source for free. And you only have to offer free source to the same people that you sell the software to. But since those people can turn around and give the software and/or source to anyone they want, it makes it hard to actually sell the software at a high price. That's my understanding anyways.
Regardless, whatever. Big words are fun, huh?
Irregardless of the fact that The X Consortium and XFree86 are different groups (I don't know how many people from one are involved in the other, or what influence each group has on the other), the whole "trap" is a farse as far as I can tell. So they planned to make new releases non-free -- does that wipe the old (free) releases from the face of the planet? If not, then how exactly is it a trap? Or was RMS just using rhetoric meant to play on peoples' fears?
Exacree! The GPL just increases the freedoms of people who don't care, or are too lazy or inept to find the original source. You can use my X/MIT-style licensed code for 50 proprietary applications, but the code is still on the web, and not hard to find. Wanting everyone to have freedoms is nice and all, but the GPL strong-arms people into it, and doesn't accomplish much by doing so, IMO.
The one thing I dislike most about the GPL is how people seem to just default to it when they don't know anything about licenses.