I had a Maxtor drive flake out on me with the click of death. So, I sent in for another, and it worked for a little while, but then it wouldn't even spin up. My current Maxtor drive, while it sort of works, often has trouble unparking the drive head when I first boot up. I have decided to stop wasting my time trying to get replacements, and have stopped wasting my time with Maxtor altogether.
Maxtor certainly isn't the only company that makes flacky harddrives. I've had Western Digitals and Quantums (now owned by Maxtor) die on me too. However, Maxtors drives seem to be consistently bad, and after getting 3 bad hard drives from them in a row, I make sure to avoid them at all cost, and let me friends know to do so as well.
Forgive me, but besides making it easier for these sorts of previews/reviews, I don't see why there is a 'screenshot' button in the main install window. It's not exactly such a central feature that it should be placed right beside the 'continue/go back' buttons. I realize this is the 'expert gui', but that isn't an excuse for sloppy design. I don't necessarily think this feature should disappear, but it should be moved somewhere else, perhaps in a menu and/or left as a hotkey.
I realize I'm nitpicking here, and it's nice to see Debian trying to make their system more user friendly, however I hope they have someone who has a strong background in interface design working with them. Having windows and buttons in their install doesn't automatically make it easier to use.
I don't think it's a question at all. I think it's been very negative because it eliminated the voice that state governments had in the federal government, allowing the federal government to run roughshod over the states. The fact that senators were appointed by (and could be recalled by!) their respective states was another way of setting the components of government in opposition to one another. By making senators popularly elected, we significantly reduced the strength of one of the "checks and balances" built into the system.
But, the question is, who should senators be beholden to, the people of the state or the state government? The state government is already supposed to be beholden to the people of the state, so having them appoint the senate adds a level of indirection between the voters and those they are meant to represent them. I think that while people within state government would like more power at the federal level, I can't think of a good reason to give it to them.
I think the more interesting thing is that appointees act differently than those who are elected. Moreover, those whose jobs are secure for much longer periods of times also act differently than those who could be replaced. Though the senate tries to be the more 'stable' of the branches of government by having 6 year terms, it seems that they are just as concerned about public appearances, if not more so, than the members of the house.
Well, you get everyone to agree *not* to spend money at the store if they don't get a deal. Sure, a few might break with the deal and buy something anyway, but as long as the vast majority stay with deal, it should be successful. If the store doesn't agree to make a deal, try another store.
Why should flickr change their policy?
Its creators wanted a site to share photographs. Why should they have to accomodate anyone who doesn't want to use the site as intended? There are countless other options for sharing images other than photographs.
It is definately there choice to run the site the way they want. If they feel their users in general only want to search for photographs and not anything else, then this makes sense.
However, I do think this move doesn't make much sense, as they are pushing away a set of customers. It would be fairly easy to allow users to tag their images to signify whether they are photos or not, and then allow people searching to use those tags to limit their search. For those who use flickr for both photos and non-photos, this policy my cause them to leave and join a competitor for *all* their images, which I would assume wouldn't make flickr all that happy/profitable.
The bottom of the "Access Copyright" webpage contains the message
"We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian Culture Online Program." So I guess it's okay for a government funded organization representing the publishing industry to spread propaganda directed towards children.
IMHO, the purpose of the criminal justice system is not to punish. Let that sink in. I don't want to punish criminals. It's stupid. It's vindictive. It's emotional and it isn't constructive.
What SHOULD be the purpose of the justice system? One thing, and one thing only:
To separate dangerous individuals from society, and keep them separated.
I agree that incarceration shouldn't be used in a vindictive way, such as to get revenge. However, prison time does present other reasons for existence that you don't mention. First, it acts as a deterent. If you know crime X will lead to Y years in jail, that alone may stop you from acting. Second, while in prison they can participate in programs meant to prevent them from making the mistakes that led them to jail. Certainly you can argue just how valuable these are versus the costs, both moral and financial, of putting someone in jail, but I don't think they can be discounted. Thus, there are definately crimes that might not physically endanger someone, where incarceration still would be appropriate.
That said, gambling is not immoral and should not be illegal. Adults can make their own decisions on how they want to spend (or lose) their own money. In this case, the supporters of the bill provide the arguement that this bill is for the 'victims' own good. Bullshit. This has to do with looking good to people who want to impose their own moral views on everyone else, while at the same time protecting casinos/lotteries in their own state that pay taxes, and perhaps more importantly, pay 'donations' to legistators when they are up for election.
This feature, file system and registry virtualization, is something I'm very glad to see in Vista. It will act as a stop-gap until programs are written properly so they don't require admin level access just to run them.
I figure this OpenGL screensaver, iSlideshow , might be of interest given the topic. It allows you to select a set of images and play them back ken burn's style.
I fail to see how anyone can think "you're not paying me, so I can be an asshole" is a valid train of thought.
This is so incredibly true it's not funny. So many people in chats/forums, when confronted with perfectly valid, politely asked questions, respond in a way that totally insults the questioner. Sure, perhaps there are rules/conventions that require people to look for help elsewhere, or first read the manual, and if that's the case, you can let them know this *politely*. If you can't do that, then please just don't respond. Yes, some questions are assholes and come in *demanding* answers, and those people can be dealt with appropriately. But just because some people are like this doesn't mean you should default to treating people badly.
I've also noticed in some places where they are trying to keep people from looking for tech support, they feel that being an asshole to these people acts as a deterent of sorts. That is, if you treat people who search for tech support like shit, people will stop coming looking for tech support. The only problem is most of the people coming to the forum asking these questions have never been there before, and have no understanding of these 'consequences'. So, instead of keeping people from looking for free tech support, all they accomplish is creating a significant set of users who feel your forum is run by a bunch of assholes.
on driving tests to keep the completely brain-dead off the road will be eliminated. I hope examiners will demand that this feature be turned off for testing.
All that really matters is that you are able to parallel park. This part of such a test isn't a general test of your overall manuvarability, it's test of a very specific thing. They will be able to figure out how competent you are in many other ways. Parallel parking here in Ontario, though tested, isn't the type of thing they are going to fail you on just because you take a while for you to get into a spot. It can be a frustrating maneuver but it's unlikely to turn into something dangerous unless you are stupid otherwise.
Whether you do it manually or the car does it automatically isn't the issue. Sure, you certainly could be in a different car while doing normal driving vs when you do the test, but I wouldn't be suprised at all to find this becoming a very standard sort of feature in the not too distance future. I do suspect a lot more than this will be automated sooner than many people think, and as more becomes automated, less skill will be required to drive.
In most cases, it's not worth it worry about optimizing code such as this. For this example, if do_something_to_pixel is inlined, it should be able to optimize it to something equivalent to the first piece of code.
While I do agree people should have an understanding of how the machine works at a lower level, it is best not to code with the idea that changing orderings in this way is going to do much. For beginners especially, they are likely to just waste time making useless optimizations that might not actually be helping at all, and in some cases may be making things worse.
I personally think it is best to first learn programming concepts at a higher level. Let them get a feel for programming at a more abstract level, and make real programs. This way, the base of their knowledge are things such as variables, functions, classes, and the like. After they have a good grasp of that, then they should learn about how the computer works at a lower level, and how it maps to their high-level language.
Good to see you did plenty of research before posting this comment. Second Life doesn't have stats.
I should have specified that I was talking about MMORPGs in general, which generally do have stats and the like. I admit to not knowing much about Second Life, but perhaps the punishment for this game could be monetary in nature (i.e. a fine), or perhaps your properties could be temporarily innaccessable. Whatever the manner of punishment, I think the idea of it fitting within the game's mechanics is an interesting one.
I'm not sure leaving people in a cornfield is really such a good idea, since as the article suggests this is almost something to look forward to. Instead, it would make sense to punish users with something they would fear: a loss of stats and/or items. If these players are willing to put hundreds of hours towards levelling or getting rare items, they will definately not be happy if you take some of that away.
Further, his own page, which was linked to from the article, states that he will be working at Microsoft Research. It doesn't take much thought to conclude that it's very unlikely that someone who just got hired at Microsoft Research would have a significant, if any, impact on Vista and Office 12 which are already in Beta.
He'll likely be able to do whatever he wants to work on. However, from what I understand Microsoft Research does do a fair amount of product development, so I wouldn't discount it.
Note that Sen. Frist voted with the majority. He didn't do this because he agreed that the act should expire, but because it will allow him to call a new vote whenever he sees that he can turn the tables. And given his Senate leadership position, that means he can wait until a few people leave chambers and call a quick vote very easily.
I don't think that would work, since as far as I remember a cloture vote would require 60 senators to pass, not 60% of senators. A senator who opposes the law wouldn't have to be there for such a vote, as a 'no' is the same as a abstaining. An absolute 60 yes votes is required.
Ganes became when I got my ATI Stereo/FX. I was a little late to the whole sound card era, but either way going from beeps to FM synthesized music and actual wave sound effect was great.
No, it's not a tax. It's a licence fee, just like a pet licence or a driver's licence fee.
It's even easy to avoid paying: just don't own a television. Of course, you have to be able to prove that [turnoffyourtv.com].
Well, they might not call it a tax, but it's essentially a tax, technicalities asside. I have a feeling the vast majority of people own a tv in Britain own a tv, which is why the government doesn't believe you right away even if you don't. As well, it's not really an optional thing. The government forces nearly everyone with a tv to buy into BBC, whether they want to or not.
The argument about value for money is a can of worms I'm not going to touch, however, it smacks a little bit of unfairness if my US based cousins can enjoy what is arguably the best part of the BBC (BBC Online) without having to contribute a penny.
BBC Online should be protected in-line with the rest of the BBC, the content should be un-lockable via entry of my license number.
Cry me a river. You don't lose anything having other have access to this music. While it might be officially setup as you paying for a 'licence', it's essentially a tax similar to all other taxes.
If the government wants to spend it's money providing it's citizens classical music, great. If it allows others outside it's borders access to it, that's great gesture of goodwill. It's not like you don't already benefit from the goodwill of others. Open source software is an obvious example of this.
I think it's about time that we get rid of crown (government) copyright altogether. Copyright as a rule limits who gets access to something, however when a government produces something their goals should be maximizing the public benefit, and that is not equivalent to maximizing their tax revenue.
While I agree C++0x doesn't address many issues and can see where you are coming from with most of your comments, I think you are making many invalid assumptions.
The lexer ambiguity where a<b<c>> and a<b<c> > meant entirely different things is fixed, saving as many as one keystroke.
This is not about saving keystrokes, but about making the language more understandable. This has always been a silly issue with the language that nearly everyone trips up with at some point. If <> are going to be used as brackets, they should act like brackets, and not require spaces between them.
The class system is still fundamentally brittle and unfriendly to simple things such as upgrading a DLL or determining at runtime if two objects are of the same type.
DLL issues is really separate from the language. The language does support comparison of types of objects through RTTI, though it's almost a rule that if you need this you probably aren't using the language as intended.
References are still gimped
I assume you mean references aren't like references in Java, where they can be reassigned. There's not much reason why pointers can't be used instead, nor smart pointers.
the distinctions in behavior and use between static and dynamic objects remain awkward and newbie-unfriendly
By 'static' objects, I assume you mean objects that objects that are automatically created and destroyed on the stack. I agree it's a stumbling block for newbies, but any change in this would be a very fundamental change in the language. Java's 'solution' to this is to just have dynamic objects combined with garbage collection. For C++, creating stack objects means you know *exactly* when the object will be destroyed, with no need for garbage collection or manual call of 'delete'. As well, you can use this as an idiom for features like locking some sort of resource with a 'lock' object, which automatically unlocks when the object is pushed off the stack.
The features that people obviously desire to have in the language as demonstrated by their tendency to hack them in with third-party libraries (like BOOST) are-- they tell us-- a good thing, and they tell us we should continue to hack them in with libraries (like BOOST). That's nice. You know, that would be a lot easier though if we had a macro system** capable of anything smarter than blind code cut and paste-- or at least a macro system** fundamentally designed to be used for anything at all other than generics.
I don't know if a macro system is appropriate. Ideally the spots where BOOST has to copy/paste could be dealt with in a smarter way.
Meanwhile, it appears if I'm reading this right that the most important differences in C++0x will be changes to the standard library. Great. The STL was defined how many years ago, and it's only just in the last few years that compliant implementations have become commonplace? How many decades will it be before the "C++0x" library changes have become common in a cross-platform compatible way?
Well, if you think changing the STL is hard, changing the language itself is generally a lot harder. Ideally, you could have (essentially) one implementation of STL that, without any hacks, just works on all systems. The reason this doesn't happen is because of issues with the language, most notably issues with implementing templates.
I definately think though, that if a useful feature can be cleanly implemented in the standard library instead of the language, that's the way to go. If it can't, then as Bjarne discusses in his article, it's best not to just add that feature to the language, but look and see if some general mechanism can be added to the language that would not just benefit that one feature but possibly many other features people could add later.
* ("C++0x". Were they specifically trying to come up with a name less convenient than "C#"? Ah well, I guess we can call it "COX" or "cocks" for short.)
It's C++05 or C++06... depending on the year the standard comes out.
> There is a "typeid" operator but no "typeof" operator.
According to "Effective C++" - Meyers, if you need to know the type of a class, you designed your classes wrong. Take advantage of abstract classes and coercion for this.
Well, there are some issues with this. For example, when dealting with STL, I believe they avoid abstract classes in order to avoid virtual function overhead as well as normal function overhead by having inlinable code. Some sort of 'auto' or 'typeof' operator would be an excellent addition to the language, as it would support a style of code many use and that they explicitly encourage via the STL. That said, there are cases like this where abstract classes would be appropriate, and should be considered as an option, whether or not 'auto' or 'typeof' come into existence.
This is silly. Why should it be illegal to import legally purchased PSPs for resale in another country? When a distributor gets exclusive rights from Sony, that should be limited only to the PSPs received by them. That is, Sony won't sell to other distributers.
However, once they are out of Sony's hands, who are they to say who can buy and sell it? As well, how is it trademark infringement? Sony has already gotten their money. They should have no right to this kind of control.
Slashdot Mirror
I had a Maxtor drive flake out on me with the click of death. So, I sent in for another, and it worked for a little while, but then it wouldn't even spin up. My current Maxtor drive, while it sort of works, often has trouble unparking the drive head when I first boot up. I have decided to stop wasting my time trying to get replacements, and have stopped wasting my time with Maxtor altogether. Maxtor certainly isn't the only company that makes flacky harddrives. I've had Western Digitals and Quantums (now owned by Maxtor) die on me too. However, Maxtors drives seem to be consistently bad, and after getting 3 bad hard drives from them in a row, I make sure to avoid them at all cost, and let me friends know to do so as well.
Forgive me, but besides making it easier for these sorts of previews/reviews, I don't see why there is a 'screenshot' button in the main install window. It's not exactly such a central feature that it should be placed right beside the 'continue/go back' buttons. I realize this is the 'expert gui', but that isn't an excuse for sloppy design. I don't necessarily think this feature should disappear, but it should be moved somewhere else, perhaps in a menu and/or left as a hotkey.
I realize I'm nitpicking here, and it's nice to see Debian trying to make their system more user friendly, however I hope they have someone who has a strong background in interface design working with them. Having windows and buttons in their install doesn't automatically make it easier to use.
But, the question is, who should senators be beholden to, the people of the state or the state government? The state government is already supposed to be beholden to the people of the state, so having them appoint the senate adds a level of indirection between the voters and those they are meant to represent them. I think that while people within state government would like more power at the federal level, I can't think of a good reason to give it to them.
I think the more interesting thing is that appointees act differently than those who are elected. Moreover, those whose jobs are secure for much longer periods of times also act differently than those who could be replaced. Though the senate tries to be the more 'stable' of the branches of government by having 6 year terms, it seems that they are just as concerned about public appearances, if not more so, than the members of the house.
Well, you get everyone to agree *not* to spend money at the store if they don't get a deal. Sure, a few might break with the deal and buy something anyway, but as long as the vast majority stay with deal, it should be successful. If the store doesn't agree to make a deal, try another store.
I don't think it is fair to assume that he is a bad programmer because he tries to get good grades and got very nervous during a test.
It is definately there choice to run the site the way they want. If they feel their users in general only want to search for photographs and not anything else, then this makes sense.
However, I do think this move doesn't make much sense, as they are pushing away a set of customers. It would be fairly easy to allow users to tag their images to signify whether they are photos or not, and then allow people searching to use those tags to limit their search. For those who use flickr for both photos and non-photos, this policy my cause them to leave and join a competitor for *all* their images, which I would assume wouldn't make flickr all that happy/profitable.
The bottom of the "Access Copyright" webpage contains the message "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian Culture Online Program." So I guess it's okay for a government funded organization representing the publishing industry to spread propaganda directed towards children.
What SHOULD be the purpose of the justice system? One thing, and one thing only:
To separate dangerous individuals from society, and keep them separated.
I agree that incarceration shouldn't be used in a vindictive way, such as to get revenge. However, prison time does present other reasons for existence that you don't mention. First, it acts as a deterent. If you know crime X will lead to Y years in jail, that alone may stop you from acting. Second, while in prison they can participate in programs meant to prevent them from making the mistakes that led them to jail. Certainly you can argue just how valuable these are versus the costs, both moral and financial, of putting someone in jail, but I don't think they can be discounted. Thus, there are definately crimes that might not physically endanger someone, where incarceration still would be appropriate.
That said, gambling is not immoral and should not be illegal. Adults can make their own decisions on how they want to spend (or lose) their own money. In this case, the supporters of the bill provide the arguement that this bill is for the 'victims' own good. Bullshit. This has to do with looking good to people who want to impose their own moral views on everyone else, while at the same time protecting casinos/lotteries in their own state that pay taxes, and perhaps more importantly, pay 'donations' to legistators when they are up for election.
This feature, file system and registry virtualization, is something I'm very glad to see in Vista. It will act as a stop-gap until programs are written properly so they don't require admin level access just to run them.
Daily Show had a great segment on this, where Colbert goes over the top with his presentation of her 'after-hours' version:
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=1615
I figure this OpenGL screensaver, iSlideshow , might be of interest given the topic. It allows you to select a set of images and play them back ken burn's style.
This is so incredibly true it's not funny. So many people in chats/forums, when confronted with perfectly valid, politely asked questions, respond in a way that totally insults the questioner. Sure, perhaps there are rules/conventions that require people to look for help elsewhere, or first read the manual, and if that's the case, you can let them know this *politely*. If you can't do that, then please just don't respond. Yes, some questions are assholes and come in *demanding* answers, and those people can be dealt with appropriately. But just because some people are like this doesn't mean you should default to treating people badly.
I've also noticed in some places where they are trying to keep people from looking for tech support, they feel that being an asshole to these people acts as a deterent of sorts. That is, if you treat people who search for tech support like shit, people will stop coming looking for tech support. The only problem is most of the people coming to the forum asking these questions have never been there before, and have no understanding of these 'consequences'. So, instead of keeping people from looking for free tech support, all they accomplish is creating a significant set of users who feel your forum is run by a bunch of assholes.
2. Open source OS X
3. ???
4. Profit!
There's no step 3!
All that really matters is that you are able to parallel park. This part of such a test isn't a general test of your overall manuvarability, it's test of a very specific thing. They will be able to figure out how competent you are in many other ways. Parallel parking here in Ontario, though tested, isn't the type of thing they are going to fail you on just because you take a while for you to get into a spot. It can be a frustrating maneuver but it's unlikely to turn into something dangerous unless you are stupid otherwise.
Whether you do it manually or the car does it automatically isn't the issue. Sure, you certainly could be in a different car while doing normal driving vs when you do the test, but I wouldn't be suprised at all to find this becoming a very standard sort of feature in the not too distance future. I do suspect a lot more than this will be automated sooner than many people think, and as more becomes automated, less skill will be required to drive.
While I do agree people should have an understanding of how the machine works at a lower level, it is best not to code with the idea that changing orderings in this way is going to do much. For beginners especially, they are likely to just waste time making useless optimizations that might not actually be helping at all, and in some cases may be making things worse.
I personally think it is best to first learn programming concepts at a higher level. Let them get a feel for programming at a more abstract level, and make real programs. This way, the base of their knowledge are things such as variables, functions, classes, and the like. After they have a good grasp of that, then they should learn about how the computer works at a lower level, and how it maps to their high-level language.
I should have specified that I was talking about MMORPGs in general, which generally do have stats and the like. I admit to not knowing much about Second Life, but perhaps the punishment for this game could be monetary in nature (i.e. a fine), or perhaps your properties could be temporarily innaccessable. Whatever the manner of punishment, I think the idea of it fitting within the game's mechanics is an interesting one.
I'm not sure leaving people in a cornfield is really such a good idea, since as the article suggests this is almost something to look forward to. Instead, it would make sense to punish users with something they would fear: a loss of stats and/or items. If these players are willing to put hundreds of hours towards levelling or getting rare items, they will definately not be happy if you take some of that away.
He'll likely be able to do whatever he wants to work on. However, from what I understand Microsoft Research does do a fair amount of product development, so I wouldn't discount it.
I don't think that would work, since as far as I remember a cloture vote would require 60 senators to pass, not 60% of senators. A senator who opposes the law wouldn't have to be there for such a vote, as a 'no' is the same as a abstaining. An absolute 60 yes votes is required.
Ganes became when I got my ATI Stereo/FX. I was a little late to the whole sound card era, but either way going from beeps to FM synthesized music and actual wave sound effect was great.
It's even easy to avoid paying: just don't own a television. Of course, you have to be able to prove that [turnoffyourtv.com].
Well, they might not call it a tax, but it's essentially a tax, technicalities asside. I have a feeling the vast majority of people own a tv in Britain own a tv, which is why the government doesn't believe you right away even if you don't. As well, it's not really an optional thing. The government forces nearly everyone with a tv to buy into BBC, whether they want to or not.
BBC Online should be protected in-line with the rest of the BBC, the content should be un-lockable via entry of my license number.
Cry me a river. You don't lose anything having other have access to this music. While it might be officially setup as you paying for a 'licence', it's essentially a tax similar to all other taxes.
If the government wants to spend it's money providing it's citizens classical music, great. If it allows others outside it's borders access to it, that's great gesture of goodwill. It's not like you don't already benefit from the goodwill of others. Open source software is an obvious example of this.
I think it's about time that we get rid of crown (government) copyright altogether. Copyright as a rule limits who gets access to something, however when a government produces something their goals should be maximizing the public benefit, and that is not equivalent to maximizing their tax revenue.
The lexer ambiguity where a<b<c>> and a<b<c> > meant entirely different things is fixed, saving as many as one keystroke.
This is not about saving keystrokes, but about making the language more understandable. This has always been a silly issue with the language that nearly everyone trips up with at some point. If <> are going to be used as brackets, they should act like brackets, and not require spaces between them.
The class system is still fundamentally brittle and unfriendly to simple things such as upgrading a DLL or determining at runtime if two objects are of the same type.
DLL issues is really separate from the language. The language does support comparison of types of objects through RTTI, though it's almost a rule that if you need this you probably aren't using the language as intended.
References are still gimped
I assume you mean references aren't like references in Java, where they can be reassigned. There's not much reason why pointers can't be used instead, nor smart pointers.
the distinctions in behavior and use between static and dynamic objects remain awkward and newbie-unfriendly
By 'static' objects, I assume you mean objects that objects that are automatically created and destroyed on the stack. I agree it's a stumbling block for newbies, but any change in this would be a very fundamental change in the language. Java's 'solution' to this is to just have dynamic objects combined with garbage collection. For C++, creating stack objects means you know *exactly* when the object will be destroyed, with no need for garbage collection or manual call of 'delete'. As well, you can use this as an idiom for features like locking some sort of resource with a 'lock' object, which automatically unlocks when the object is pushed off the stack.
The features that people obviously desire to have in the language as demonstrated by their tendency to hack them in with third-party libraries (like BOOST) are-- they tell us-- a good thing, and they tell us we should continue to hack them in with libraries (like BOOST). That's nice. You know, that would be a lot easier though if we had a macro system** capable of anything smarter than blind code cut and paste-- or at least a macro system** fundamentally designed to be used for anything at all other than generics.
I don't know if a macro system is appropriate. Ideally the spots where BOOST has to copy/paste could be dealt with in a smarter way.
Meanwhile, it appears if I'm reading this right that the most important differences in C++0x will be changes to the standard library. Great. The STL was defined how many years ago, and it's only just in the last few years that compliant implementations have become commonplace? How many decades will it be before the "C++0x" library changes have become common in a cross-platform compatible way?
Well, if you think changing the STL is hard, changing the language itself is generally a lot harder. Ideally, you could have (essentially) one implementation of STL that, without any hacks, just works on all systems. The reason this doesn't happen is because of issues with the language, most notably issues with implementing templates.
I definately think though, that if a useful feature can be cleanly implemented in the standard library instead of the language, that's the way to go. If it can't, then as Bjarne discusses in his article, it's best not to just add that feature to the language, but look and see if some general mechanism can be added to the language that would not just benefit that one feature but possibly many other features people could add later.
* ("C++0x". Were they specifically trying to come up with a name less convenient than "C#"? Ah well, I guess we can call it "COX" or "cocks" for short.)
It's C++05 or C++06... depending on the year the standard comes out.
According to "Effective C++" - Meyers, if you need to know the type of a class, you designed your classes wrong. Take advantage of abstract classes and coercion for this.
Well, there are some issues with this. For example, when dealting with STL, I believe they avoid abstract classes in order to avoid virtual function overhead as well as normal function overhead by having inlinable code. Some sort of 'auto' or 'typeof' operator would be an excellent addition to the language, as it would support a style of code many use and that they explicitly encourage via the STL. That said, there are cases like this where abstract classes would be appropriate, and should be considered as an option, whether or not 'auto' or 'typeof' come into existence.
However, once they are out of Sony's hands, who are they to say who can buy and sell it? As well, how is it trademark infringement? Sony has already gotten their money. They should have no right to this kind of control.