In an ideal world, I would have my libraries kept in some safe server-space somewhere, probably with versioning control implemented. Then I would organize the code into directories for each language, and then by usage, then the actual package. You're probably not going to access it THAT much, so a descriptive readme file with each package would be necessary as well. Nor would you probably need an advanced cataloguing system... but a fun project would be to create a web-based one.
In the real world, though, I just copy code from previous projects into the new one as needed. I'm usually careful about keeping things modularized so this hasn't been a problem so far, but I tend to forget what I was doing on my old projects and have to spend time figuring that out.
I'm not sure if there's software for this or not. Did you try searching for 'code' on freshmeat?:)
If you want to get into literary merit, I wouldn't dare tout Stephenson's skill as a prose stylist. He can create incredibly fluid and lively 'scenes.' You can easily read for an hour and a half without realizing it. That's not something you could say for many Nobel-worthy writers like V.S. Naipul (who is great, of course, but can be painfully boring). And he is wonderfully imaginative, especially in Snow Crash, but his characterization is far less colorful than Tolkien's. His drama & exposition (see Cryptonomicon) can be as embarassing as some of Tolkien's poetry. OTOH, Tolkien's books are often critized less for its prose than its storytelling, like his use of deus ex machina (I just learned that term yesterday:), e.g. at Helm's Deep when all seems lost and the ents show up just in time, similarly later on in ROTK with the spirits that Aragorn lured from the cave.
My point, I think, was not that Tolkien was a better writer and that therefore the LOTR adaptation was better, but that Jackson created a movie for which the greatness of can be judged independently of the books. Look at Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, mentioned earlier in this thread, or the adaptation of the Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. Both books were said to have been 'unfilmable' and through talented writing and direction were turned into fantastic movies.
And, I think, Snow Crash in particular of Stephenson's books (most are way too long and convoluted) could be turned into a fantastic movie.
Nope, a Neal Stephenson movie wouldn't work for the same (real) reason The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy didn't work. The joy of those books is in the expository language. Even the best adaptation would still disappoint the hardcore fans.
I think The Lord of the Rings proves you wrong. Relatively few, compared to HHGTTG were disappointed, and most thought the movie was incredible in a different way than the books. Jackson put a sort of 'horror' spin on the otherwise lyrical and children's fantasy mood of Tolkien. The upside is that you can enjoy the movie and books separately, and not only that, but Jackson was true to the geographical and biographical aspects of the book.
Imagine a Stephenson novel in the vein of a Tom Clancy action epic, or Soderberg's Traffic. I could see Snow Crash making a wonderful fast-paced action movie, if it were done with care.
Then, when the movie revenues start rolling in, Stephenson can actually TAKE HIS TIME on his next book:)
I don't know what book it was based on, but he is seen in the movie with a copy of Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard that closely relates to the concept of the movie. The book is well-known in postmodern philosophy circles. I haven't read it, but some of that French stuff gets pretty strange-- good, but strange.
That's interesting- but in modern America the press is controled by the corporations, and thus, reflects the fascist paranoid nature of the corporations, not the liberal schizophrenia of being socially conservative and fiscally liberal.Corporations can't afford to be fiscally liberal.
You're mistaken in one sense and forgetting an underlying idea of capitalism in another sense: first, many of the left-wing publications are not 'corporate'-- in the sense of profit-motive or actual status. If they become too corporate, like, say, Rolling Stone or MTV in the music industry, then independent outlets spring up-- that's the point you're forgetting. It's gotten particularly easy with the internet since very little capital is involved, except free time, of which most of us have an excess.
But notice what they don't attack- the primary cause of the problems...
True for the 'corporate' media, untrue for independent or targeted media. And while you're probably right about the stock market, it doesn't gain anything to point it out. It's like a person telling the religious right that God doesn't exist or that their religion is just plain wrong. It would be easier and more effective for them to counter them in terms of the Bible, and move in slowly, one step at a time.
But so as not to nitpick around your actual argument, I don't think the media's failure to attack primary causes is of any importance. There's a subtle Bush-bashing story every week, it seems like, the latest being the C.S. King funeral. The implications of the Penn. mining accident were all there-- corporations suck. Slashdot's 'YRO' section is not-so-veiled anti-fascism (even though the concept of a 'right' is infinitely disputable).
Democrats aren't liberal. Democrats are center-right.
I should have put quotes around 'liberal.' I agree, but actual liberals who aren't stupid or insanely-idealistic enough to vote 3rd party find their home with the democrats.
I'm speaking of the press as being naturally liberal--not Democrat-- as opposed to the fascist nature of the corporation, and the institutions such as both political parties which it seeks to control. This is more philosophical than political. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, an interesting pair of anti-fascist philosophers (who seemed to have regarded Marx highly), related fascism to the condition of paranoia and liberalism (or the heterogeneous masses demanding their personal needs all at once) to the condition of schizophrenia.
There are the 'paranoid' press outlets, CNN, Fox, ABC, et al, and the rest-- Mother Jones, Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books (to name a few strongly 'democrat' leaning pubs), The National Review, High Times, etc., mostly with their own agendas. Even the recent views of NASA, espoused recently on/., and other scientific institutions and publications, represent what I'm talking about-- people stating their case against the established structure. This is what attracts the press most of all and constitutes a 'story.' Rarely do we hear if the gov't is doing its job well. The corporate controlled outlets tend to report on neutral items like, say, skiing accidents or famous weddings. But even in a case like the Penn. mining accidents, it reflects poorly on the corporation, so it's liberal-leaning.
So to clarify, there's an enormous amount of press that constitutes a formidable barrier to total fascism and almost by its definition, the press is liberal. It's convenient for people to say they're 'biased', but that's only because the Democrats happen to have the liberal constituency.
a Fascist government is what we have in the United States.
I think you're partially right, though its a slightly negative outlook. You're forgetting one thing, though: freedom of the press-- something that perhaps no fascist society has, arguably, ever had (Soviet Russia fell only a few years after Gorbechav granted the press freedom (or did the freedom of press grant gorbechav?:)). Consider the press to be the truly democratic arm of the gov't. It's no accident that the press is 'liberal'-- it's almost by definition that they behave liberally, or even democratically.
I don't buy it. I work closely with a number of women & children's shelters that consistently turn women's lives from homelessness into social productivity. There a few giant mismanaged money-pits, run by people far removed from those they're supposed to be helping, that give a bad name to social services. Those that work well in the field scarcely live a social step above their clients in a highly sacrificial mindset. I don't believe they cost too much, nor do I have evidence that they're not working. What evidence I do have is that those really in need of care (the mentally ill) are wandering the streets all day asking me for change & cigarettes.
I'm actually arguing on your side.. I just wish I could hear a coherent explanation on why we SHOULDN'T have these programs. Seriously. I can't find a clear answer from any of these 'conservatives.' I would really, really like to know what their reasoning is. So far, I can only conclude they're just defending their party line. And why shouldn't I believe that if we trusted corporations to infrastructural tasks we wouldn't be ruined by the same corporate hubris that affects nearly every other economic area?? We've seen (and are still seeing) what happens when communications industries fall victim to the profit agenda. Is it best for consumers??
I think you're correct to a point. Managers' jobs are (or can be) wayyy different from software developers'. It depends on the environment. If you're talking about project managers, I think they ought to know more than their underlings. Management that deal in budgets, communicating with higher management, etc, seem totally different. These mgrs can get transferred from unrelated depts into IT and hardly miss a beat. I'm assuming that since you're reading slashdot, you must be somewhat tech-savvy and perhaps not in this breed of mgmt.
I'm just a peon, by anyone's standards, but I would feel dispirited if someone were promoted past me because they couldn't function at the lower level. I've seen it several times (well, a couple times, but I haven't been in the corp. world long) where the clueless employee is promoted because mgmt doesn't want to risk taking the best guys off the lower-rung jobs. On the other hand, the best guys, the geeks, enjoy their line of work and would probably feel less satisfaction at the mgmt level. So they're stuck at a lower pay level, and like the parent suggests, probably would love to have something of a mentor working above them... it would give them some hope of advancement, careerwise.
On a side note, if you're managing geeks, or technical specialists of some kind, its probably best to avoid any micro-management simply because you don't know what you're talking about. I like seeing my manager as an ally in my career, not someone I have to slip past to get anything done. It's a complementary relationship, not a strict heirarchy. She knows much that I don't, and that goes both ways.
Doing so would most certainly wipe out certain types of rather dangerous genetic mental disorders, and would leave behind only people who have an utter lack of such behavior. It's just adding a new evolutionary pressure.
You're preaching a horrible brand of fascism. A society need not live in fear to be a success. I obey the law not because I fear the police, but because I'm not desperate enough to do so. America has been a success because its citizens can act freely, outside the fear of government. China & Stalinist Russia (if not for that damn hippy Gorbechav!!) has/had been a success for opposite reasons. Which country would you rather live in?
Point: The fear you want to instill simply breeds more terrorists
Counterpoint: Not once they're all dead.
Go to Europe and see what light-weight socialism does for the overall quality of life of its citizens. Many may be forced to live without their rocket cars and solid-gold houses, but fewer (than the U.S) need worry about medical expenses or homelessness.
Or read European history and see what happens to societies split by class-divisions (read about the Reformation and the French Revolution) and corrupted by imperialism (Napolean, Hitler, etc...). There's a lot to be learned from the rest of the world which American history books aren't yet big enough to tell us.
And if that type of thinking doesn't appeal to you, then 1) pick up any Bible and read Jesus's Sermon on the Mount (which, depending on the Gospel you read it from may have happened on a mountain, or on a flat plain) 2) Re-read the sermon until you understand it.
In a recent article about the "Top Myths" of the shuttle disaster, they explained how gov't/political influence had been debunked as any sort of leading cause, which I don't think you were claiming. Edward Tufte has hypothesized, convincingly, that it was due to information loss from a "telephone game" of powerpoint presentations where the warning signs were summarized and summarized until by the time they reached management, the importance of the signs was all but lost.
JSF seems to do some interesting things, particularly with form processing, but I haven't looked at it much further. It hasn't caught on in any large scale. A lot people are touting its strengths as a complementary technology alongside Struts to manage the 'view' aspects, whereas Struts tends toward clean separation of the 'view' from model and controller aspects.
Although I cringe at the name "Ruby on Rails," I'm assuming I'll get past that. I've been writing Java for years and, afraid of falling behind, I decided to try out rails to see if I really could, as the books all say, become more productive. I certainly think it's something to look into. The language's lack of type safety (or even 'my'!) sets off a continual internal alarm and nags at me to no end, but I find I can just set the vars to zero to get past that.
What I've found is that it really is much faster in initial development. Rails has an explicit separation of model, view and controller code, while in Java it tends to become convenient to mix all but the lower levels within.jsp pages. Another worry I have is the packaging system, which is harder to manage than Java's dom.company.package.subpackage structure. I could imagine that namespace conflicts would be inevitable in Ruby as with other 'scripting' (sorry to use that word) languages.
I haven't gotten much further than that.. Once I get to the point of having to maintain and expand on a larger codebase I'll no doubt have stronger opinions on its strengths and weaknesses, but for now, I'd say that most of what people are doing in Java can be done more simply and faster in Rails (or perhaps a Perl framework). I'd be concerned about its resilience and scalability on larger systems, as well as its industry or 3rd party support (Java's support, esp from Apache, is outstanding).
IMHO, this is a result of the mindset reported on by this very article. People expect to be able to 'just get it.' In history, et al, all they're required to do is memorize vocabulary & dates. Now that they actually have to think, they don't know what to do.
I was never that good in physics or chemistry, but I knew why. It was because I was lazy, not because I don't have the mental capacity for the subjects.
I really like the laid-back quality of Slashdot and always have. I also truly enjoy low-budget film and television. It has a certain charm to it. Accurate spelling and grammar are the least of my reasons for coming to slashdot. I mostly enjoy the discussions and occasionally contributing to them. So here are my ideas:
1) Make the spelling and grammar so obnoxiously bad (retaining the value of the story, of course) that people with nothing better to contribute to discussions than their ingenious spelling insights will spontaneously combust.
2) Make a separate thread for each article for complaints about the quality of Slashdot. Then delete that thread at the end of each day.
3) Create one obscured grammar-nazi-bait article each day. Have it be about colored bubbles or something relatively unimportant. Go nuts with bad grammar in that story and watch the other threads suddenly become more interesting!
Half the time a link of 'Here', or the website name would be much better than you trying to make it part of the context of the sentence.
There are two reasons that having links anchored to appropriate text is helpful for me. First, because the a-tag serves to 'highlight' the important text when I'm scanning a page. Secondly, it assists the URL parser when you open a story and it lists the links within the story. I can't remember ever having a problem with links pointing to the wrong information.
With or without the optimization, there are the same number of people either in the elevator or waiting for the elevator on each floor. In the elevator case, I would suspect it would be a gamble, the odds being a factor of the floor you're on. If someone below you starts pulling the same stunt on a floor below you, then you could be screwed out of playing your own stunt.
You have a point with the table situation, however, because the time spent waiting in line plays with the time eating. I don't think there are analagous variables in the elevator case...
BTW, I work in one of two remaining buildings on the West Coast (in Seattle) that still has elevator *operators*! We have to wait for goddamn ever.
IBM has been pushing Java pretty hard for a few years now and has contributed a lot to the community. They may very well contribute to Apache, but I'm not sure on that. The article above was written for IBM's developerworks site which has frequent articles on all of the technology and development tools that IBM have their fingers in, including Linux, Java, Open-Source, and quite a bit more. It's a cool site to visit every so often.
Good point, and don't forget that Google and Sun seem to have plans for a web-based open-office application. Actually, I'm not sure that's quite true, but I don't think Google and Sun are going to let Microsoft get a jump on this one.
Slashdot Mirror
In the real world, though, I just copy code from previous projects into the new one as needed. I'm usually careful about keeping things modularized so this hasn't been a problem so far, but I tend to forget what I was doing on my old projects and have to spend time figuring that out.
I'm not sure if there's software for this or not. Did you try searching for 'code' on freshmeat? :)
My point, I think, was not that Tolkien was a better writer and that therefore the LOTR adaptation was better, but that Jackson created a movie for which the greatness of can be judged independently of the books. Look at Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, mentioned earlier in this thread, or the adaptation of the Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. Both books were said to have been 'unfilmable' and through talented writing and direction were turned into fantastic movies.
And, I think, Snow Crash in particular of Stephenson's books (most are way too long and convoluted) could be turned into a fantastic movie.
Imagine a Stephenson novel in the vein of a Tom Clancy action epic, or Soderberg's Traffic. I could see Snow Crash making a wonderful fast-paced action movie, if it were done with care.
Then, when the movie revenues start rolling in, Stephenson can actually TAKE HIS TIME on his next book :)
I don't know what book it was based on, but he is seen in the movie with a copy of Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard that closely relates to the concept of the movie. The book is well-known in postmodern philosophy circles. I haven't read it, but some of that French stuff gets pretty strange-- good, but strange.
There are the 'paranoid' press outlets, CNN, Fox, ABC, et al, and the rest-- Mother Jones, Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books (to name a few strongly 'democrat' leaning pubs), The National Review, High Times, etc., mostly with their own agendas. Even the recent views of NASA, espoused recently on /., and other scientific institutions and publications, represent what I'm talking about-- people stating their case against the established structure. This is what attracts the press most of all and constitutes a 'story.' Rarely do we hear if the gov't is doing its job well. The corporate controlled outlets tend to report on neutral items like, say, skiing accidents or famous weddings. But even in a case like the Penn. mining accidents, it reflects poorly on the corporation, so it's liberal-leaning.
So to clarify, there's an enormous amount of press that constitutes a formidable barrier to total fascism and almost by its definition, the press is liberal. It's convenient for people to say they're 'biased', but that's only because the Democrats happen to have the liberal constituency.
I don't buy it. I work closely with a number of women & children's shelters that consistently turn women's lives from homelessness into social productivity. There a few giant mismanaged money-pits, run by people far removed from those they're supposed to be helping, that give a bad name to social services. Those that work well in the field scarcely live a social step above their clients in a highly sacrificial mindset. I don't believe they cost too much, nor do I have evidence that they're not working. What evidence I do have is that those really in need of care (the mentally ill) are wandering the streets all day asking me for change & cigarettes.
I'm actually arguing on your side.. I just wish I could hear a coherent explanation on why we SHOULDN'T have these programs. Seriously. I can't find a clear answer from any of these 'conservatives.' I would really, really like to know what their reasoning is. So far, I can only conclude they're just defending their party line. And why shouldn't I believe that if we trusted corporations to infrastructural tasks we wouldn't be ruined by the same corporate hubris that affects nearly every other economic area?? We've seen (and are still seeing) what happens when communications industries fall victim to the profit agenda. Is it best for consumers??
I'm just a peon, by anyone's standards, but I would feel dispirited if someone were promoted past me because they couldn't function at the lower level. I've seen it several times (well, a couple times, but I haven't been in the corp. world long) where the clueless employee is promoted because mgmt doesn't want to risk taking the best guys off the lower-rung jobs. On the other hand, the best guys, the geeks, enjoy their line of work and would probably feel less satisfaction at the mgmt level. So they're stuck at a lower pay level, and like the parent suggests, probably would love to have something of a mentor working above them... it would give them some hope of advancement, careerwise.
On a side note, if you're managing geeks, or technical specialists of some kind, its probably best to avoid any micro-management simply because you don't know what you're talking about. I like seeing my manager as an ally in my career, not someone I have to slip past to get anything done. It's a complementary relationship, not a strict heirarchy. She knows much that I don't, and that goes both ways.
Enough of my soapbox.
Or read European history and see what happens to societies split by class-divisions (read about the Reformation and the French Revolution) and corrupted by imperialism (Napolean, Hitler, etc...). There's a lot to be learned from the rest of the world which American history books aren't yet big enough to tell us.
And if that type of thinking doesn't appeal to you, then 1) pick up any Bible and read Jesus's Sermon on the Mount (which, depending on the Gospel you read it from may have happened on a mountain, or on a flat plain) 2) Re-read the sermon until you understand it.
In a recent article about the "Top Myths" of the shuttle disaster, they explained how gov't/political influence had been debunked as any sort of leading cause, which I don't think you were claiming. Edward Tufte has hypothesized, convincingly, that it was due to information loss from a "telephone game" of powerpoint presentations where the warning signs were summarized and summarized until by the time they reached management, the importance of the signs was all but lost.
JSF seems to do some interesting things, particularly with form processing, but I haven't looked at it much further. It hasn't caught on in any large scale. A lot people are touting its strengths as a complementary technology alongside Struts to manage the 'view' aspects, whereas Struts tends toward clean separation of the 'view' from model and controller aspects.
What I've found is that it really is much faster in initial development. Rails has an explicit separation of model, view and controller code, while in Java it tends to become convenient to mix all but the lower levels within .jsp pages. Another worry I have is the packaging system, which is harder to manage than Java's dom.company.package.subpackage structure. I could imagine that namespace conflicts would be inevitable in Ruby as with other 'scripting' (sorry to use that word) languages.
I haven't gotten much further than that.. Once I get to the point of having to maintain and expand on a larger codebase I'll no doubt have stronger opinions on its strengths and weaknesses, but for now, I'd say that most of what people are doing in Java can be done more simply and faster in Rails (or perhaps a Perl framework). I'd be concerned about its resilience and scalability on larger systems, as well as its industry or 3rd party support (Java's support, esp from Apache, is outstanding).
I was never that good in physics or chemistry, but I knew why. It was because I was lazy, not because I don't have the mental capacity for the subjects.
Oops.. and here I thought my subscription had run out. So are you my friend or my foe?
1) Make the spelling and grammar so obnoxiously bad (retaining the value of the story, of course) that people with nothing better to contribute to discussions than their ingenious spelling insights will spontaneously combust.
2) Make a separate thread for each article for complaints about the quality of Slashdot. Then delete that thread at the end of each day.
3) Create one obscured grammar-nazi-bait article each day. Have it be about colored bubbles or something relatively unimportant. Go nuts with bad grammar in that story and watch the other threads suddenly become more interesting!
Ahem... do you know what that little circle beside your name means :) It means you are lying!
You have a point with the table situation, however, because the time spent waiting in line plays with the time eating. I don't think there are analagous variables in the elevator case...
BTW, I work in one of two remaining buildings on the West Coast (in Seattle) that still has elevator *operators*! We have to wait for goddamn ever.
IBM has been pushing Java pretty hard for a few years now and has contributed a lot to the community. They may very well contribute to Apache, but I'm not sure on that. The article above was written for IBM's developerworks site which has frequent articles on all of the technology and development tools that IBM have their fingers in, including Linux, Java, Open-Source, and quite a bit more. It's a cool site to visit every so often.
Lake High School
Good point, and don't forget that Google and Sun seem to have plans for a web-based open-office application. Actually, I'm not sure that's quite true, but I don't think Google and Sun are going to let Microsoft get a jump on this one.
Now it's proper to say "all the hell over the place" or "everywhere you look" or "occupies every point in n-space."