I don't think that this is a problem with RAM. I've checked the usage graphs and the only resource that is at 100% most of the time is the CPU (and sometimes disks). The java process uses around 300 megs on the average, so I think that the heap size is already adjusted.
I think what you mean is that Java takes too long to start, and I, and everyone in the whole community, agrees with you. However, if you say that a Java program is unusable for user interaction on a pentium, you're just trolling.
Hello from Pentium 166 MMX/32 Megs of RAM. Java is slow here even for user interaction. I run CGoban (Go Client and SGF editor). It's slow and I'm not talking about startup time. I have an older version by the same author written in C. It's fast.
Fade in to Pentium III 700 MHz 512M of RAM. IBM Websphere Application Developer (based on Eclipse). Slow.
Ok, it doesn't prove that Java is slow. Perhaps the developers did thing the wrong way. Perhaps my perception of "slow" is skewed. However, in my experience Java apps are slow and I sincerely wish that someone could prove me wrong.
1) Competitors. If anyone can see your code, so can your competitor. It's always easy to improve on something when someone else already does the heavy lifting. Why should I spend $$$ on coding and have it OSS when my competitor will turn right around and see how I did something instantly? That right there destroys my investment. I'm in business to make money, not to help my competitor. Someone give me good reason why I should pay to help my enemy.
Valid point. My thoughts on this: Yes, your competitor can take your source and (more or less secretly) take your ideas or even pieces of code. Your hope is that the customers will choose you instead of him, because they also get the source and the right to modify it. Of course this doesn't always have to suffice.
2) Customer support. OK, my app is OSS. Some guy codes an derivative, and then releases the changes. Mr. Slashdot user (who has actually bought a licenced version from me, *gasp*) compiles it and has trouble somehow. He decides to ring ME up. This costs me money. Why should I have to waste resources now to screen who has trouble with my product, and who has trouble with a derivative not made by me?
I don't think it's a big problem - ask for hashes of the source tree. Of course the customer can lie to you and tell you the hashes of the original version, but eventually this will come out. I don't see why the customer shouldn't pay for that (support agreement should state this clearly - "you call me up on a bogus version, you pay").
Why face the job market alone when you can face it with all your co-workers?
Perhaps you can take some of your former customers with you? In consulting business it's not uncommon for a group of employees to form their own business stealing the former employer's customers.
For an average person, R is probably in the millions of ohms.
No. It's more like 2k ohms, plus whatever resistance the wire/skin barrier creates. The latter is much more variable than the internal resistance - if your skin is very dry, it can go up, if your skin is wet (and possibly salty), it goes down. The internal resistance isn't that big - after all we are bags of electrolyte.
Why is the title 'Tragedy of the Commons" for your post? The tragedy of the commons is based on a prisoner's dilemma for a common resource, i.e. each farmer 'cheating' by allowing their cattle to graze on a shared, *common*, field more then is agreed upon.
There is a common resource - the pool of people who believe that the games are fair. One could argue whether rigging the machines is rational, but it certainly depletes the resource once the story gets out of the bag.
Um.... what's programming doing on that list? IME, unless you're compiling a huge swath of code all at once (which is extremely rare in the real world), effective programming can be still be done with, oh, say, a p2 350 w/ 32MB. Or maybe even lower; that just happens to be the box I code on.:)
That depends on the environment. Sure, if you do C programming with command line tools and don't keep all your code in one huge file, then a 100 MHz Pentium is enough, but try Websphere Application Developer - Pentium III 800 MHz with a half gig of RAM and it goes between "annoyingly slow" and "unusable".
Now I do not write the cleanest code in the world... but when writing with a group, I can take the time and effort to make ultra clean code--especially if my paycheck depended on it!
Heh, heh.
"Hey, why waste time on those sanity checks, let's use gets(), the security monkeys will clean it up anyway!"
It hardly needs saying, but in a week I didn't make any amino acids I could detect.
My high school experiment results were quite different - I had to throw the jar into a volcano after the evolved organisms created a civilization and started working on a technology to break the jar and take over the Earth. At least that's what I wrote in my paper. My mark was also quite different, and needless to say I wasn't very happy with it.
A grumpy guy in blue overalls carrying a big brush, a bucket full of paint and painting a gazillion walls a day. At least that's how I feel at work. Yes, I am definitely a painter.
It sure looks nice, but it also looks like DirectFB is Linux-only. It is a pity, because (IMO) any X replacement will need to be multi-platform.
Can anybody familiar with their API shed some light on how hard is it tied to Linux? Their page says that they have software fallbacks for every graphics operation that is not supported by the underlying hardware - this could mean that porting is relatively easy.
OK, lamer question. If you had never coded anything before, what language would you start with, and why?
That depends on the reasons behind your interest in programming.
Wan't to quickly create a Windows app? Visual Basic (the language is ugly, though - it didn't even have array constants last time I checked) or Delphi (Object Pascal isn't perfect either, but still much better).
If you just want to learn basic programming techniques, I agree with previous poster that
Python is very friendly and yet elegant, so it's probably good to start with. As far as I remember, there's even an article combining a Python tutorial with an introduction to programming.
If you are perfectionist with a background in mathematics, you might want to check OCAML. It isn't actually easy to learn, but its syntax is small and semantics very formal - people who don't like constructs that "work, but you don't want to know why and how" might prefer this language.
How could OO replace assembly? That's ludicrous. OO doesn't have goto and self-modifying code (that I am aware of) so it is a weaker model than assembly.
A better analogy would be OO vs structural programming. OO didn't replace it - you still have the ifs, whiles & one entry point per procedure (ok, it's usually called method in OO).
Similarly Aspect, Pattern and XP won't probably replace OOP but rather extend it, if any of them really catch on. Perhaps the functional approach will replace OO at some point in time, but I'd rather bet on some form of OO/functional mix. Python already is a bit like that - it has the functional tools like lambda, filter, map and reduce plus of course objects.
Now of course, I wouldn't have had this reaction if the company had taken steps working with the discoverers of the security flaw. If anything, they should hire/pay these researchers for their work, fix the problem, implement it, and then publish what went wrong. And who knows, maybe they even tried. I doubt it though, when a cease-and-desist can have the same effect.
Sadly, the reaction of Blackboard is a big hint to the future discoverers of security flaws: don't even try to contact the company - wear gloves, attach a fake beard, go to an internet cafe, publish your exploits on Freenet, Usenet, foreign haxx0r sites and whatever else comes to your mind, grin evilly (this part is optional).
If people don't like their work environment, either organize a union, file a lawsuit, or quit. Whining does nothing but make you sound like a whiner.
I prefer to keep the job and become a cynical sadistic lazy immoral pencil-stealing morale-lowering whining obstructionist trying to inflict the most damages while precisely following orders.
Frying clothes in a microwave oven has disadvantages. First, a microwave oven usually smells of the last 20 meals prepared in it - some people might find it unpleasant (this is only a disadvantage if you meet people). Second, you risk burning the clothes (this is only a disadvantage if you don't like your clothes burned).
Not true, If the numbers were 32 bit floating point then the probability of getting 10 0's in a row is 2^320, which is about 10^96, there have been of the order of 10^17 seconds since the universe began, so the probability of anyone, anywhere, anytime getting that sequence is vanishingly small.
In fact, the probability of getting any sequence is equally small, and yet a sequence will get picked, so we obtain an almost improbable event with probability 1:-)
In Soviet Russia...
You'll be glad you don't live in the U.S.
Hm... I remember the eighties in Poland (part of the Soviet block then). The law forbidding detention longer than 48 hours without presenting charges was obeyed. The police circumvented it by letting people out after 47 hours and locking them back after a short time, but I haven't heard of anyone detained for two weeks straight!
You can't just tell people to drop these toolkits, or anything else for that matter.
Especially wxWindows, since it is not a replacement for GTK (which the author proposes as The Widget Set), but rather a portable API with many implementations. In fact, there is wxGTK which is the API implemented using GTK widgets.
I know that they probably have the best intentions, but which is preferable? Cut 5 peoples salary 20% and keep them all on? Or fire one person because you can't cut salaries?
Declare bankrupcy, go unemployed and take advantage of the benefit system. Socialism rocks:-)
Yet more evidence that the PATRIOT act had little or nothing to do with actual terrorism...
Yes, and this holds true even if you don't like PayPal. Two evils clash again, mixed feelings arise. To all who rejoice because of this: you may be next.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think that this is a problem with RAM. I've checked the usage graphs and the only resource that is at 100% most of the time is the CPU (and sometimes disks). The java process uses around 300 megs on the average, so I think that the heap size is already adjusted.
Fade in to Pentium III 700 MHz 512M of RAM. IBM Websphere Application Developer (based on Eclipse). Slow.
Ok, it doesn't prove that Java is slow. Perhaps the developers did thing the wrong way. Perhaps my perception of "slow" is skewed. However, in my experience Java apps are slow and I sincerely wish that someone could prove me wrong.
"Hey, why waste time on those sanity checks, let's use gets(), the security monkeys will clean it up anyway!"
A grumpy guy in blue overalls carrying a big brush, a bucket full of paint and painting a gazillion walls a day. At least that's how I feel at work. Yes, I am definitely a painter.
Wan't to quickly create a Windows app? Visual Basic (the language is ugly, though - it didn't even have array constants last time I checked) or Delphi (Object Pascal isn't perfect either, but still much better).
If you just want to learn basic programming techniques, I agree with previous poster that Python is very friendly and yet elegant, so it's probably good to start with. As far as I remember, there's even an article combining a Python tutorial with an introduction to programming.
If you are perfectionist with a background in mathematics, you might want to check OCAML. It isn't actually easy to learn, but its syntax is small and semantics very formal - people who don't like constructs that "work, but you don't want to know why and how" might prefer this language.
Similarly Aspect, Pattern and XP won't probably replace OOP but rather extend it, if any of them really catch on. Perhaps the functional approach will replace OO at some point in time, but I'd rather bet on some form of OO/functional mix. Python already is a bit like that - it has the functional tools like lambda, filter, map and reduce plus of course objects.