One more question I hope you can clarify. I believe there is a lot of misinformation about this case in the media. But the most critical issue goes like this (quoted from sfgate):
Newsom testified that the city had been "in peril" because officials were blocked from access to police records, payroll data and other information.
The idea is he has brought down the city network and cut off certain department from access. But a conflicting account from more technical source is that the city network is fully functional, only that IT is unable to administer the network. Which one is a more true picture?
This probably won't change the verdict. But the public (and the mayor) should get a clearer picture on the actual extent of the problem before making their judgement.
Thank you for sharing all the detail with us. This helps a lot as there are so much misinformation in the media.
For all the misstep Mr Childs has made, I feel really bad for him. He has spent 2 years in jail already while other the drug dealers walk free and make loads of money. This is just not right.
we're focused in our biofuels technology work is how to make ethanol out of something that is already going
to be thrown away, like farm waste products.
He believe as a company that the most important source of new energy is energy efficiency and the company is investment on a number of alternative energy search. Seems quite astute for an oil man.
Can someone please tell these people that computers are, barring a massive paradigm shift in how they are used for education
Maybe that's the point! It is obvious from the spec that the $100 laptop is not your big iron laptop. It probably won't run today's desktop applications all that well. And the target audience are school kids, not geeks. We are going to find some very different applications. Any idea to help kids learn language, math? Any new media beyond books and paper?
People are easy to accuse Microsoft for their arrogance. But Google recruiters (and other companies big & small) does the same thing too. Multiple unsolicited invitations. IQ tests in the interview. I wish the recruiters would have done more work to really know the candidate rather than just resume fishing with google (like search for 'Java web services resume'!) But hack, you can politely decline or not even respond to unsolicited message if you are not interested.
Yes, the job market is heating up this year. Simply putting a resume in your home page might get you a few unsolicited recruiter spam.
I think the implication of Mac switching to Intel is really not a lot.
For me I use the computer for text editing, web browsing, storing files. Underneath, the OS provide a TCP stack, a file system, some security, process and memory management. When I program I use Java and Python, which come with their virtual machine running on multiple platforms. Nothing I've mentioned so far is specific to any CPU. (Perhaps process and memory management in some way, but the OS usually shield me from seeing the hardware layer anyway.)
Even when I program in C, what matters for me is the platform API rather than the actual machine code generated. After all C is the key technology that makes unix portable to different hardware platform!
I describe this as 'hardware being virtualized'! Eventually you may find OS X running on even more hardware platform like PDA. From user and developer's point of view it makes no big difference.
Cappucino is cool. I looked at it a while ago and decided that it is too expensive for its smallest and coolest. Now I checked it again and a configuration kind of match Mac mini with P III would cost $859. Seems Mac mini is a no brainer.
Mac Mini is a fabulously designed small form factor computer! Small form factor PC maybe around for a while but few are well designed. Either it dump truck sized Shuttle XPC or it astronomoically priced made by speciality manufacturers. I built one myself. I looks cool and small at the beginning. But when Mac mini comes along at less then half it size it just won't do. My PC fan start to make noise after less than 1 year. While the Mac mini run nearly silently so far.
Mac mini is a triumph in form, design and affordability, for Mac or for any PC.
Here are some banking and financial sites I use regularly:
Wells Fargo
Citi cards online
Fidelity
Vanguard
Chase
American Express
FirstUSA
Opera works mostly OK. Some quirks I have encountered one time or another are:
Well Fargo has an ill conceived attempt to block access from non IE or Netscape browser. The big irony is they claim they do this to improve security (by forcing me to switch from Opera to IE!!!) Latest version of Opera is doing fine now.
Citibank has a neat Virtual Account Numbers function that at one time requires ActiveX. Works on Opera now.
When logging in some of Fidelity' site, identify as Mozilla or IE to get pass the user-agent checking. Once logged in, it is safe to switch back to identify as Opera. All this switching can be done easily by the F12 menu.
Finally this year I used Firefox to file my tax with Web Turbo Tax.
Opera's basic UI is as straight forward as it can be: click, browse, forward/backward, bookmark and print. All the goodies are really useful but are not required to do basic things. Read parent's link of "30 Days to Becoming an Opera Lover" if you want to learn more. You'll notice Opera's transfer window the first time you download something.
I haven't fully comprehend the proposed ordinance. But I think you guy pull the trigger too quick. I think what proposed amendment is target for elected officials, not your average citizens. The whole thing is probably spawn the supervisor Chris Daly's blog and they feel there is need to clarify the the guideline for themselves.
What Python requires you to do is basically indent you code neatly. Which is what a good programmer is doing already. If you take a good Java program and remove the curly braces it is what a Python program looks like. So I really don't see why it can be a non-trivial issue.
Do you have any representative example in which Python's syntax cause you grieve?
I know what you are saying that some language's syntax can be annoying. Coming from a C background Pascal's:= often got me. VB has lot more idiosyncrasy that often drive me crazy. In anycase it does not stop me from cranking out many lines of code. Python's white space syntax is very minor compares to the above cases as it is what we are practicing everyday. I never find any urging need to format my source code wildly.
While the cost of hardware and software are coming down, people are becoming more important than ever. Great people set one company apart from another. If a business is too cheap on people they will get what they pay for.
It will be a true pretty for many good programmer to overlook Python just because they the feel turn off by the whitespace syntax.
To appreciate the power of Python one should look beyond this trivial issue. How do you feel if your 50 lines Java program can be implemented in 10 lines Python code? What about the productivity gain you can archieve by using such agile and dynamic language? Once you used Python's high level data structure like list and map, Java's collection feel like a drag.
Whitespace is such a trivial issue, it never enter my consciousness after I used the language for 5 minutes. Turn your focus on truely significant aspect of a language, not this minor syntactic issue. Python has many more unconventional design that may shock you when you look deeper into it. And these unconventional ideas are what make Python a break through rather than yet another language. (Think XP)
Python for Series 60 allows developers to execute Python commands and run Python scripts and applications in devices based on Series 60 Platform.
Python for Series 60 is capable of running applications that use native resources of Series 60 Platform and Symbian OS. It is well suited to the development of prototypes or for building proof of concept applications with a simple and consistent language. Python for Series 60 is an idea choice for starting to create application for devices based on Series 60 Platform.
We've been hearing this sort of thing for three decades now. Eco distaster is always just around the corner. We are always near the tipping point, close to the point of no return. Horror is coming!
So you're sitting in the couch waiting for major distaster to happen? When the polar ice melt, costal cities getting flooded, fire and drought ravage farm land. By then perhaps you might say, "Damn! These environmentalists are for real, we got to find some way to refreeze the polar ice, move our cities to highland, bring extincted species back to life, save our argiculture industry and bail out the bankrupting insurance sector?"
You want to see change? Check out National Geographics's September issue. It half of that issue is filled with stories like glacier and artic ice thawing, wildlife and plants' life cycle changing all around the globe and so on. They don't just sit in the couch and proclaim "life is good, nothing to worry".
Mac mini weight own 2.9 pound? I predict in the very near future the market will be flashed with mac mini accessories. A display and keyboard would make it a great budget portable.
You need to learn the language before complaining
on
Python 2.4 Final Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You example is a very powerful one liner!
You need to learn a few Python idioms. Anyone who work with Python for a while should have no problem understanding this.
1. x and y or z is Python's version of ternary operator. If is similar to x ? y : z in C.
2. " ".join(list) is similar to string.join(" ", list). I won't go into detail here but your expresion collapse a string with multiple whitespaces into single space.
3. The lambda construct is a function factory. Thing of callback in C but Python allow for much more elegant functional style programming.
The entire expression create a function which can collapse or not collapse a string base on you choice. The best thing is to see it in action with two more lines:
for line in file('xyz.txt'):
print processFunc(line)
This will output a files with whitespace collapsed or unmodified depends on the collapse flag.
Every language has its syntax and idiom to learn. Is the syntax below readable? Yes if you actual know the language.
for (i=0; in; i++) {
If you expect 0 learning and that each line of Python maps to something you are familiar with such as C, that's not what Python really is.
What issue do you find? Java also have the same design with a float data type and a BigDecimal class for arbitrary-precision decimal numbers. If you are complaining that C doesn't have a Decimal type that's more understandable.
The 'one best way to do it' mostly mean basic language operations, like iterating over a list. Many recipes in the Python cookbook are really mildly complex utility programs. They are differ in features, complexity, performance and intented use. The are naturally many ways to do similar things. And if you take these variables into account, you will find they are not really doing the 'same' thing.
Since Python 2.x there is a move toward iterators and generators. Rather than seeing this as bloats I would say this Python is maturing to handle real world applications. If you are handling simple data and performance is not an issue, use regular lists. If you writing application to handle arbitrary large data set or performance is an issue, go for iterators and generators. List comprehension is a neat language construct but I don't see any need to rush rewriting anything.
Slashdot Mirror
One more question I hope you can clarify. I believe there is a lot of misinformation about this case in the media. But the most critical issue goes like this (quoted from sfgate):
The idea is he has brought down the city network and cut off certain department from access. But a conflicting account from more technical source is that the city network is fully functional, only that IT is unable to administer the network. Which one is a more true picture?
This probably won't change the verdict. But the public (and the mayor) should get a clearer picture on the actual extent of the problem before making their judgement.
Thank you for sharing all the detail with us. This helps a lot as there are so much misinformation in the media. For all the misstep Mr Childs has made, I feel really bad for him. He has spent 2 years in jail already while other the drug dealers walk free and make loads of money. This is just not right.
He believe as a company that the most important source of new energy is energy efficiency and the company is investment on a number of alternative energy search. Seems quite astute for an oil man.
People are easy to accuse Microsoft for their arrogance. But Google recruiters (and other companies big & small) does the same thing too. Multiple unsolicited invitations. IQ tests in the interview. I wish the recruiters would have done more work to really know the candidate rather than just resume fishing with google (like search for 'Java web services resume'!) But hack, you can politely decline or not even respond to unsolicited message if you are not interested.
Yes, the job market is heating up this year. Simply putting a resume in your home page might get you a few unsolicited recruiter spam.
I think the implication of Mac switching to Intel is really not a lot.
For me I use the computer for text editing, web browsing, storing files. Underneath, the OS provide a TCP stack, a file system, some security, process and memory management. When I program I use Java and Python, which come with their virtual machine running on multiple platforms. Nothing I've mentioned so far is specific to any CPU. (Perhaps process and memory management in some way, but the OS usually shield me from seeing the hardware layer anyway.)
Even when I program in C, what matters for me is the platform API rather than the actual machine code generated. After all C is the key technology that makes unix portable to different hardware platform!
I describe this as 'hardware being virtualized'! Eventually you may find OS X running on even more hardware platform like PDA. From user and developer's point of view it makes no big difference.
Cappucino is cool. I looked at it a while ago and decided that it is too expensive for its smallest and coolest. Now I checked it again and a configuration kind of match Mac mini with P III would cost $859. Seems Mac mini is a no brainer.
Mac Mini is a fabulously designed small form factor computer! Small form factor PC maybe around for a while but few are well designed. Either it dump truck sized Shuttle XPC or it astronomoically priced made by speciality manufacturers. I built one myself. I looks cool and small at the beginning. But when Mac mini comes along at less then half it size it just won't do. My PC fan start to make noise after less than 1 year. While the Mac mini run nearly silently so far.
Mac mini is a triumph in form, design and affordability, for Mac or for any PC.
Since Mac is not open source I assume the open source fundamentalist would just write it off.
Opera works mostly OK. Some quirks I have encountered one time or another are:
- Well Fargo has an ill conceived attempt to block access from non IE or Netscape browser. The big irony is they claim they do this to improve security (by forcing me to switch from Opera to IE!!!) Latest version of Opera is doing fine now.
- Citibank has a neat Virtual Account Numbers function that at one time requires ActiveX. Works on Opera now.
- When logging in some of Fidelity' site, identify as Mozilla or IE to get pass the user-agent checking. Once logged in, it is safe to switch back to identify as Opera. All this switching can be done easily by the F12 menu.
Finally this year I used Firefox to file my tax with Web Turbo Tax.Opera's basic UI is as straight forward as it can be: click, browse, forward/backward, bookmark and print. All the goodies are really useful but are not required to do basic things. Read parent's link of "30 Days to Becoming an Opera Lover" if you want to learn more. You'll notice Opera's transfer window the first time you download something.
TerraServer have this for years. They even have a webservice API.
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/default.aspx
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/webservices.aspx
Slashdot so used to make all kinds of unqualified comments.
I haven't fully comprehend the proposed ordinance. But I think you guy pull the trigger too quick. I think what proposed amendment is target for elected officials, not your average citizens. The whole thing is probably spawn the supervisor Chris Daly's blog and they feel there is need to clarify the the guideline for themselves.
Daly starts blog on city Web site District 6 supervisor first official to keep diary on city's site
What Python requires you to do is basically indent you code neatly. Which is what a good programmer is doing already. If you take a good Java program and remove the curly braces it is what a Python program looks like. So I really don't see why it can be a non-trivial issue.
Do you have any representative example in which Python's syntax cause you grieve?
I know what you are saying that some language's syntax can be annoying. Coming from a C background Pascal's := often got me. VB has lot more idiosyncrasy that often drive me crazy. In anycase it does not stop me from cranking out many lines of code. Python's white space syntax is very minor compares to the above cases as it is what we are practicing everyday. I never find any urging need to format my source code wildly.
While the cost of hardware and software are coming down, people are becoming more important than ever. Great people set one company apart from another. If a business is too cheap on people they will get what they pay for.
It will be a true pretty for many good programmer to overlook Python just because they the feel turn off by the whitespace syntax.
To appreciate the power of Python one should look beyond this trivial issue. How do you feel if your 50 lines Java program can be implemented in 10 lines Python code? What about the productivity gain you can archieve by using such agile and dynamic language? Once you used Python's high level data structure like list and map, Java's collection feel like a drag.
Whitespace is such a trivial issue, it never enter my consciousness after I used the language for 5 minutes. Turn your focus on truely significant aspect of a language, not this minor syntactic issue. Python has many more unconventional design that may shock you when you look deeper into it. And these unconventional ideas are what make Python a break through rather than yet another language. (Think XP)
Excerpt from http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,,034-821,00.html
Python for Series 60 allows developers to execute Python commands and run Python scripts and applications in devices based on Series 60 Platform.
Python for Series 60 is capable of running applications that use native resources of Series 60 Platform and Symbian OS. It is well suited to the development of prototypes or for building proof of concept applications with a simple and consistent language. Python for Series 60 is an idea choice for starting to create application for devices based on Series 60 Platform.
So you're sitting in the couch waiting for major distaster to happen? When the polar ice melt, costal cities getting flooded, fire and drought ravage farm land. By then perhaps you might say, "Damn! These environmentalists are for real, we got to find some way to refreeze the polar ice, move our cities to highland, bring extincted species back to life, save our argiculture industry and bail out the bankrupting insurance sector?"
You want to see change? Check out National Geographics's September issue. It half of that issue is filled with stories like glacier and artic ice thawing, wildlife and plants' life cycle changing all around the globe and so on. They don't just sit in the couch and proclaim "life is good, nothing to worry".
The poster has mixed up. This is what W3C are doing with binary XML
http://www.w3.org/XML/Binary/
I don't find them publish anything yet.
What the poster link to is a spec to include binary data in XML message, mostly for use in SOAP.
It would be great to have web pages for all natural languages that the current computer infrastructure supports.
Mac mini weight own 2.9 pound? I predict in the very near future the market will be flashed with mac mini accessories. A display and keyboard would make it a great budget portable.
Please let us know.
You example is a very powerful one liner!
You need to learn a few Python idioms. Anyone who work with Python for a while should have no problem understanding this.
1. x and y or z is Python's version of ternary operator. If is similar to x ? y : z in C.
2. " ".join(list) is similar to string.join(" ", list). I won't go into detail here but your expresion collapse a string with multiple whitespaces into single space.
3. The lambda construct is a function factory. Thing of callback in C but Python allow for much more elegant functional style programming.
The entire expression create a function which can collapse or not collapse a string base on you choice. The best thing is to see it in action with two more lines:
for line in file('xyz.txt'):
print processFunc(line)
This will output a files with whitespace collapsed or unmodified depends on the collapse flag.
Every language has its syntax and idiom to learn. Is the syntax below readable? Yes if you actual know the language.
for (i=0; in; i++) {
If you expect 0 learning and that each line of Python maps to something you are familiar with such as C, that's not what Python really is.
What issue do you find? Java also have the same design with a float data type and a BigDecimal class for arbitrary-precision decimal numbers. If you are complaining that C doesn't have a Decimal type that's more understandable.
The 'one best way to do it' mostly mean basic language operations, like iterating over a list. Many recipes in the Python cookbook are really mildly complex utility programs. They are differ in features, complexity, performance and intented use. The are naturally many ways to do similar things. And if you take these variables into account, you will find they are not really doing the 'same' thing.
Since Python 2.x there is a move toward iterators and generators. Rather than seeing this as bloats I would say this Python is maturing to handle real world applications. If you are handling simple data and performance is not an issue, use regular lists. If you writing application to handle arbitrary large data set or performance is an issue, go for iterators and generators. List comprehension is a neat language construct but I don't see any need to rush rewriting anything.
Let me try out http://www.britannica.com/ against http://www.wikipedia.org/ on some contemporary words.
"wiki" - wikipedia full description; britannica nothing.
"spam" - wikipedia several entries including one on "email spam"; britannica some indirect references.
"moveon" - wikipedia full description of MoveOn.org; britannica nothing.
"kazaa" - wikipedia full description; britannica indirect reference in "Music and Film on the Internet".