While it's hard to disagree that python would be ideal for both client-side and server-side, I think you probably realize that realistically that's not going to happen anytime soon. With that said, there certainly is the possibility to use javascript on both ends, via server-side options like jaxer ( http://www.aptana.com/jaxer ), helma ( http://dev.helma.org/ ), or maybe even JScript.net if you're stuck on windows.
I think you'll find that this latest version (2.0) of javascript is very pythonic, with its array comprehensions that are a lot like Python's list comprehensions.
As an aside, you're not still writing SQL queries are you? Almost every web dev platform out there has that abstracted nowadays... SQLAlchemy is a great choice for python...
This is a bit off-topic, because I agree TFA article is more about prioritization than procrastination, but I've got to disagree with the notion that some procrastination is good. What Hamming is really saying is that we shouldn't feel to guilty about the stuff we don't do as a result of prioritization, as long as that prioritization leads us to better results. Sure... that makes sense, but THAT's not really procrastination.
There really isn't a type of procrastination that is good, because as the parent said, it's almost always rooted in some fear. Sometimes you don't realize the fear that is the driving force ("Fear of success" is a weird motivator, because why would you be afraid of success??? "Fear of failure" is a weird motivator, because through procrastination, you actually make failure more probable). Usually though, if you think it out, you notice that you're afraid of completion of the task for some reason.
For instance, I used to be late for stuff all the time, and I realized it was my way of asserting my control over a situation (late to hand in an assignment at school, or late to pick up a girl for a date). Even when I wasn't late to hand in an assignment, I always put it off to the last minute so I could be sure to have that security blanket of "oh I didn't really try" in case I did poorly on it. It's not that I've totally obliterated procrastination from my life, but actually noting the REAL reason I procrastinate (if you can figure it out) helps a hell of a lot. I look at those reasons and realize that I'm actually being a ball-less passive aggressive coward, or I'm being a big baby that's afraid of life. When you realize that you're acting like THAT, it's a lot more natural to correct the behaviour. If you think procrastinators are just lazy and just need self-discipline, you're misunderstanding the problem entirely.
Anyway... sorry to get all "Dr. Phil", but I know there are a lot of other people out there who are routinely paralysed by procrastination and haven't got a clue how to start fixing it. Self-discipline is a very finite and temporary resource, and shouldn't be relied upon...
Slightly OT here, but wouldn't it do XUL a world of good to work in IE too? I download and registered the mozilla activex control ( http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm ) and I can run XUL apps in IE now (after setting my activex permissions appropriately). The plug-in seems to run XUL apps just fine, and it's a relatively small download. Is there any plan to market/package this activex as a browser plug-in? It seems like you'd get an explosion of XUL apps then, with nearly 100% of the browser market supporting it.
It is also purposely verbose as it makes large projects involving many members in different teams easier. Comments are sure nice, but in the end the code does the talking
Errrr... so the more code there is, the easier it is to read and understand? That flies in the face of ideas like logical abstraction ( http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?OnceAndOnlyOnce ), code reuse , and higher-level languages in general and certainly doesn't agree with my experience...
I checked out the video demo at http://media.nextangle.com/rails/rails_setup.mov and I have to admit that I'm pretty impressed. This framework eliminates a lot of the tedium that goes into developing web apps... Here's my problem though... Is there any reason it has to be in Ruby? I've heard of python's equivalent 'subway' ( http://subway.python-hosting.com/ ), and I'm wondering if Ruby has some language feature that makes it inherently more suitable than other languages (like python) for this 'rails-style' of development...
Otherwise, I think I'd just rather stick with Python... It seems to have a bigger and more mature standard library, and I can find more web hosts to support it... I'm not trying to start a language war, I'm just looking for the practical solutions...
I get a bit of a feeding-the-troll feeling here, but you are modded way up...
A couple of counter points: You seem to take the "it's your own fault if you don't keep your patches up-to-date" argument. What about the vulnerabilities that haven't been patched? ( http://secunia.com/advisories/12889/ ). Keep in mind too that this is a product for end-users on home computers (ie your Grandma). Are you going to say "Hopefully you have other layers of security such as a border firewall, IPSec Transport mode with packet filtering at every host, multiple antivirus vendors software (with at least one of them configured to block password protected archives, known dangerous file types and dangerous content), ongoing training, locked down servers with all the fat trimmed, middle tier servers, etc", or are you going to say "Here, try this other browser instead." I'm not saying Firefox is the solution to end-user security issues, but I am saying a step in the right direction might be to stop using IE, one of the most exploited virus vectors ever.
You also give that old argument that IE has had so many vulnerabilities found because it's so popular, and to that I have to provide the standard slashdot counter-example of apache. It has got a greater marketshare than IIS by far, and enjoys a reputation of less exploits. In addition... let's assume Firefox will one day have the same number of vulnerabilities. The key issue for me is my security right now though. I certainly hope the Firefox developers stay on top of things security-wise, but if not, I'll probably hop to some other browser. Choice is good.
Maybe security-through-obscurity is "another layer of protection", but I really don't see it working for MS in its products. I see Outlook, IE, and Word being exploited more frequently than any other closed or open source apps. It seems to me that MS has been talking about security initiatives for a few years while relying on this security-through-obscurity, and leaving just a skeleton crew to work on IE. In this case I think I prefer the many-eyes approach, even if some aren't the eyes we want.
Re:Cool... or Uncool?
on
.NET for Apache
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It really is a classic example of using disruptive technology ( http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/ate/s41p877.htm ) to try to take down an entrenched and massive competitor (apache). MSFT is 'embracing' now; watch for them to 'extend' like this: "IIS is much easier to administrate and it comes free on that OS you had to buy anyway. Plus, it's got better native support for that.net stuff everyone's doing on Apache." In true disruptive fashion, they'll be smart to close the specs more and more as they become less of an underdog. I'm not trying to be cynical, that's just the most efficient way to take mindshare, and ultimately marketshare. Once people see IIS and Apache as interchangeable, you can be sure MSFT will start the extending process to differentiate its product from the competitors.
Mono, on the other hand, is an interesting project because Gnome is vastly eclipsed by the Windows desktop. They could actually get to the point where they're disrupting MSFT windows by running.Net desktop apps on a cheap *nix box. Now that would be cool...
much buffoonery
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
A quick search for linux, windows, and open source at msnbc reveals plenty of links that are anti-MS or pro-open source.
It's a little simple-minded to think that just because MS is part of MS-NBC that their journalistic integrity is out the window and biases will be in every article. It's also more than a little hypocritical to be pointing fingers while reading Slashdot, which is probably the most biased news source on the net (it *is* supposed to be *News* for Nerds right?).
In order to compound the retardation, it seems like hardly anyone read the article. He's talking entirely about linux on the desktop, and more specifically the fact that linux on the desktop has not caught on.
He cites the fact that linux is playing catch-up with applications as the main reason: "But Linux software is getting better -- and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to." He continues by giving examples of other great OSS for linux and how it is worthy to compete with MS products. He also explains the problems with MS' proprietary formats, and how app developers have an uphill battle. He never said linux is dead. He never even said linux on the desktop as dead. It's not that I agree with the guy on all points, but it's hardly the biased tripe people are making it out to be.
I think the only bias is with slashdot. The slant that was given to this story by the submitter, relayed by slashdot, and supported by the replies I read here is pretty stupid, and frankly is getting old. This is the kind of crap that brands the OSS community with the term 'zealot'.
Slashdot Mirror
While it's hard to disagree that python would be ideal for both client-side and server-side, I think you probably realize that realistically that's not going to happen anytime soon. With that said, there certainly is the possibility to use javascript on both ends, via server-side options like jaxer ( http://www.aptana.com/jaxer ), helma ( http://dev.helma.org/ ), or maybe even JScript.net if you're stuck on windows.
I think you'll find that this latest version (2.0) of javascript is very pythonic, with its array comprehensions that are a lot like Python's list comprehensions.
As an aside, you're not still writing SQL queries are you? Almost every web dev platform out there has that abstracted nowadays... SQLAlchemy is a great choice for python...
This is a bit off-topic, because I agree TFA article is more about prioritization than procrastination, but I've got to disagree with the notion that some procrastination is good. What Hamming is really saying is that we shouldn't feel to guilty about the stuff we don't do as a result of prioritization, as long as that prioritization leads us to better results. Sure... that makes sense, but THAT's not really procrastination.
There really isn't a type of procrastination that is good, because as the parent said, it's almost always rooted in some fear. Sometimes you don't realize the fear that is the driving force ("Fear of success" is a weird motivator, because why would you be afraid of success??? "Fear of failure" is a weird motivator, because through procrastination, you actually make failure more probable). Usually though, if you think it out, you notice that you're afraid of completion of the task for some reason.
For instance, I used to be late for stuff all the time, and I realized it was my way of asserting my control over a situation (late to hand in an assignment at school, or late to pick up a girl for a date). Even when I wasn't late to hand in an assignment, I always put it off to the last minute so I could be sure to have that security blanket of "oh I didn't really try" in case I did poorly on it. It's not that I've totally obliterated procrastination from my life, but actually noting the REAL reason I procrastinate (if you can figure it out) helps a hell of a lot. I look at those reasons and realize that I'm actually being a ball-less passive aggressive coward, or I'm being a big baby that's afraid of life. When you realize that you're acting like THAT, it's a lot more natural to correct the behaviour. If you think procrastinators are just lazy and just need self-discipline, you're misunderstanding the problem entirely.
Anyway... sorry to get all "Dr. Phil", but I know there are a lot of other people out there who are routinely paralysed by procrastination and haven't got a clue how to start fixing it. Self-discipline is a very finite and temporary resource, and shouldn't be relied upon...
Slightly OT here, but wouldn't it do XUL a world of good to work in IE too? I download and registered the mozilla activex control ( http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm ) and I can run XUL apps in IE now (after setting my activex permissions appropriately). The plug-in seems to run XUL apps just fine, and it's a relatively small download. Is there any plan to market/package this activex as a browser plug-in? It seems like you'd get an explosion of XUL apps then, with nearly 100% of the browser market supporting it.
It is also purposely verbose as it makes large projects involving many members in different teams easier. Comments are sure nice, but in the end the code does the talking
Errrr... so the more code there is, the easier it is to read and understand? That flies in the face of ideas like logical abstraction ( http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?OnceAndOnlyOnce ), code reuse , and higher-level languages in general and certainly doesn't agree with my experience...
I checked out the video demo at http://media.nextangle.com/rails/rails_setup.mov and I have to admit that I'm pretty impressed. This framework eliminates a lot of the tedium that goes into developing web apps... Here's my problem though... Is there any reason it has to be in Ruby? I've heard of python's equivalent 'subway' ( http://subway.python-hosting.com/ ), and I'm wondering if Ruby has some language feature that makes it inherently more suitable than other languages (like python) for this 'rails-style' of development...
Otherwise, I think I'd just rather stick with Python... It seems to have a bigger and more mature standard library, and I can find more web hosts to support it... I'm not trying to start a language war, I'm just looking for the practical solutions...
I get a bit of a feeding-the-troll feeling here, but you are modded way up...
A couple of counter points:
You seem to take the "it's your own fault if you don't keep your patches up-to-date" argument. What about the vulnerabilities that haven't been patched?
( http://secunia.com/advisories/12889/ ). Keep in mind too that this is a product for end-users on home computers (ie your Grandma). Are you going to say "Hopefully you have other layers of security such as a border firewall, IPSec Transport mode with packet filtering at every host, multiple antivirus vendors software (with at least one of them configured to block password protected archives, known dangerous file types and dangerous content), ongoing training, locked down servers with all the fat trimmed, middle tier servers, etc", or are you going to say "Here, try this other browser instead." I'm not saying Firefox is the solution to end-user security issues, but I am saying a step in the right direction might be to stop using IE, one of the most exploited virus vectors ever.
You also give that old argument that IE has had so many vulnerabilities found because it's so popular, and to that I have to provide the standard slashdot counter-example of apache. It has got a greater marketshare than IIS by far, and enjoys a reputation of less exploits. In addition... let's assume Firefox will one day have the same number of vulnerabilities. The key issue for me is my security right now though. I certainly hope the Firefox developers stay on top of things security-wise, but if not, I'll probably hop to some other browser. Choice is good.
Maybe security-through-obscurity is "another layer of protection", but I really don't see it working for MS in its products. I see Outlook, IE, and Word being exploited more frequently than any other closed or open source apps. It seems to me that MS has been talking about security initiatives for a few years while relying on this security-through-obscurity, and leaving just a skeleton crew to work on IE. In this case I think I prefer the many-eyes approach, even if some aren't the eyes we want.
It really is a classic example of using disruptive technology ( http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/ate/s41p877.htm ) to try to take down an entrenched and massive competitor (apache). MSFT is 'embracing' now; watch for them to 'extend' like this: "IIS is much easier to administrate and it comes free on that OS you had to buy anyway. Plus, it's got better native support for that .net stuff everyone's doing on Apache." In true disruptive fashion, they'll be smart to close the specs more and more as they become less of an underdog. I'm not trying to be cynical, that's just the most efficient way to take mindshare, and ultimately marketshare. Once people see IIS and Apache as interchangeable, you can be sure MSFT will start the extending process to differentiate its product from the competitors.
.Net desktop apps on a cheap *nix box. Now that would be cool...
Mono, on the other hand, is an interesting project because Gnome is vastly eclipsed by the Windows desktop. They could actually get to the point where they're disrupting MSFT windows by running
A quick search for linux, windows, and open source at msnbc reveals plenty of links that are anti-MS or pro-open source.
w .msnbc.com/news/770299.aspn ews/752115.aspa spw ww.msnbc.com/news/743635.asp
http://www.msnbc.com/news/751496.asp
http://ww
http://www.msnbc.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/news/739406.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/747455.asp
http://
It's a little simple-minded to think that just because MS is part of MS-NBC that their journalistic integrity is out the window and biases will be in every article. It's also more than a little hypocritical to be pointing fingers while reading Slashdot, which is probably the most biased news source on the net (it *is* supposed to be *News* for Nerds right?).
In order to compound the retardation, it seems like hardly anyone read the article. He's talking entirely about linux on the desktop, and more specifically the fact that linux on the desktop has not caught on.
He cites the fact that linux is playing catch-up with applications as the main reason: "But Linux software is getting better -- and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to." He continues by giving examples of other great OSS for linux and how it is worthy to compete with MS products. He also explains the problems with MS' proprietary formats, and how app developers have an uphill battle. He never said linux is dead. He never even said linux on the desktop as dead. It's not that I agree with the guy on all points, but it's hardly the biased tripe people are making it out to be.
I think the only bias is with slashdot. The slant that was given to this story by the submitter, relayed by slashdot, and supported by the replies I read here is pretty stupid, and frankly is getting old. This is the kind of crap that brands the OSS community with the term 'zealot'.