I did my research and got my PhD. Academic pursuit isn't incompatible with sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and having a laugh every once in a while. If you oppose instant gratification to scientific research you're just uptight. Loosen up.
Breakpoints should be settable not just on a position in the code, but how you got there. I'd like to be able to set a breakpoint in function A() that only triggers if it was called from function B(). That can be interpreted in two ways: either when A() is called directly from B() or when A() is called from B() maybe via some intermediaries. Or I'd like to be able to set a breakpoint that activates only when the call stack is at a certain depth. Good for debugging those recursive functions!
There's probably a technical term for the pair consisting of a position in the code and the path taken to get there. It's a bit like what a mathematician would call in a point in the universal cover.
Reversibility could be done in at least two ways. One is to emulate and the other is to insert extra instructions into the code. Several tools do stuff like the latter - I think purify does and pixie (under Irix) definitely did.
You don't need to store full snapshots. Some instructions require very little information to be stored to be reversible. Eg. add eax,1 only needs a few bits from the flags register to be logged.
You store a log. You'd do this at the machine level. So, for example, if you emulated the x86 instruction add eax,1 you'd need to store a copy of the flags before executing the instruction because some of those will be clobbered irreversibly. Note that you wouldn't need to store the value of eax as that part is reversible. For an instruction like mov eax,[ptr] you'd obviously need to log the value of eax before executing it. You might also need to store some extra flags to deal with branch instructions.
Reversibility. I'd like to be able to step backwards through code. No, this isn't a joke. Only a small amount of information needs to be stored as each instruction is executed in order to have an emulator go backwards again. You don't necessarily want to run an entire application reversibly. You might want to run a small loop until it crashes and then work backwards to find the cause.
Easy plugins I want to easily be able to load my own custom code into the debugger. For example I might want a custom routine to conveniently display a custom datastructure, or even give a graphical representation of some data.
Program control. More cooperation with the code itself. I'd like the debugger to provide a library against which I can link my code so that the code being debugged can control things like which variables are being watched and which breakpoints are active. I could then easily have breakpoints that are enabled only under certain conditions. Especially useful when the best way to detect those conditions is for the code itself to figure it out.
Here's what one well known Academy Award winning 3D package does. Every command is an object. When you execute a command that object is stored in a 'history'. The command has two methods, a do() method and an undo() method. As long is the object remains alive it can undo or redo the associated operation.
It's not easy to implement. It's actually a lot of work. Suppose, for example, you're building a 3D animation system and every operation needs to be undoable. Every time you tweak a vertex, or intersect two polyhedra, or retesselate a primitive you need to have a way of undoing it. This isn't just a few lines of code. It means that every time you write some code to do anything you need to write code to undo it. This is a lot of work.
Well all the developers left years ago. I guess the admin, HR and cleaning staff must be having a great time with no actual work to do.
Oh, and they ceased to be called 'Silicon Graphics' years ago. Since all the staff left there isn't actually anyone left at the company who knows any graphics.
I have no idea. I'm just pointing out that the fact that the hypercomplex numbers have a faithful linear representation doesn't tell you there isn't smart going on. For example using quaternions can really simplify computations with rotation matrices even though they don't really add anything new (well, not in the context of computer graphics anyway).
However, I, like you, suspect that the whole thing is hype anyway.
They're just a shorthand for a sub-ring of the matricies
Now that's bullshit if I ever read it. Any algebra that has a faithful matrix representation can be considered a sub-ring of a matrix algebra. You might as well dismiss the complex numbers, the quaternions and a whole host of other systems because they are all for "a sub-ring of the matrics". Hell, why not dismiss the discrete fourier transform. That's just a matrix.
In fact, even just looking at the web site, you can see how from a computational point of view they aren't just matrices. A dimension N hypercomplex number is represeted by an NxN matrix. An O(N) algorithm isn't the same as an O(N^2) one. Etc.
It is completely obvious and it has been at least since Boltzmann. Computing just how much 'violation' of the 2nd law we expect to see can be a pretty hairy problem but that small systems defy the second law is totally trivial. I won't bother reading the literature unless you point me to a publication that expresses surprise that a small system can do this. And then I'll read it for entertainment value only.
Highlight? Isn't this completely trivial and obvious? Next someone will roll a die, get the number 1, and then claim that this violates the law of large numbers.
In fact if entropy did always increase you could use that to build a perpetual motion machine. If it did always increase you could make predictions about particles that could be exploited by a Maxwell type demon. But the fact that it usually increases, but might sometimes decrease, means that information isn't available to you. (Similarly if there really were such a things as a "law of averages" people could use it to win at roulette. That hasn't stopped people trying though.)
You don't have to give me exact details. Very roughly where are these people working at what do they do? This isn't my experience at all. I wouldn't hire a less than good H1B worker because of the money, hassle and the time involved.
No actually. It's built on experience. I get resumes all the time listing projects that American students worked on. Frequently when I ask about such projects I get responses like "Uh...well...really I helped someone else do that..." and it kinda dissolves out of the interview. I rarely have such issues with candidate immigrant workers who generally seem to be pretty honest about their achievements.
I'm not really that interested in what the media want me to think and if by chance my own thoughts happen to be the same, so be it. I can see with my own eyes how a Russian or British degree in mathematics, say, compares with an American one.
I work near Silicon Valley and have many friends working in and around SIlicon Valley in high tech jobs. Many have H1B visas. They all seem smart, often much smarter than the Americans around them, and this is reflected in the fact that they often become promoted fast within their companies. In fact many high tech companies (employing Americans) seem to be built on technology developed by immigrants. They all seem to be paid damn well to me. I frequently have to recruit workers on H1B visas because many US schools seem more interesting in boosting people's self esteem than teaching students anything useful. I wouldn't entertain, even for a second, the idea of paying them less than Americans.
...but it didn't increase my sexual activity one bit.
Re:Not that I believe aliens are buzzing Earth, bu
on
Starcraft
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Hell. That's nothing.
One time we were camping in Yosemite. Slowly I became aware that there was light coming into the tent. I put my head out and basically, above the tent, was a floating round object. When I say object I mean something about 100 ft across. The weird thing is that it was semi-transparent but glowing. I could see moonlit clouds through it and yet there was definitely something there above me. It was about 80 feet away. There was no chance I could have been mistaken and I woke up my friend who saw it too. I even have photographs though they came out underexposed and fogged up in a really weird way.
doesn't this open up a slippery slope?
Similarly when people commit a crime they can be fined or go to prison. But if we extend the powers of government to allow them to take money from people and lock people up won't everyone end up penniless in prison? No, of course not. There is no slippery slope because nobody has been given the right to arbitrarily impose conditions on companies. What has in fact happened is that a court, which is part of a complex system with many checks and balances, has imposed a condition in a very special and unusual situation.
Slashdot Mirror
I did my research and got my PhD. Academic pursuit isn't incompatible with sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and having a laugh every once in a while. If you oppose instant gratification to scientific research you're just uptight. Loosen up.
I've had the Visual C++ debugger crash and kick up another debugger to debug itself many times now...
Are you talking about that file, whose name I can't remember, where you can give a crude format specifier? It's OK for some stuff, but not great.
There's probably a technical term for the pair consisting of a position in the code and the path taken to get there. It's a bit like what a mathematician would call in a point in the universal cover.
You don't need to store full snapshots. Some instructions require very little information to be stored to be reversible. Eg. add eax,1 only needs a few bits from the flags register to be logged.
You store a log. You'd do this at the machine level. So, for example, if you emulated the x86 instruction add eax,1 you'd need to store a copy of the flags before executing the instruction because some of those will be clobbered irreversibly. Note that you wouldn't need to store the value of eax as that part is reversible. For an instruction like mov eax,[ptr] you'd obviously need to log the value of eax before executing it. You might also need to store some extra flags to deal with branch instructions.
Here's what one well known Academy Award winning 3D package does. Every command is an object. When you execute a command that object is stored in a 'history'. The command has two methods, a do() method and an undo() method. As long is the object remains alive it can undo or redo the associated operation.
It's not easy to implement. It's actually a lot of work. Suppose, for example, you're building a 3D animation system and every operation needs to be undoable. Every time you tweak a vertex, or intersect two polyhedra, or retesselate a primitive you need to have a way of undoing it. This isn't just a few lines of code. It means that every time you write some code to do anything you need to write code to undo it. This is a lot of work.
That name would never catch on. It doesn't look one bit like a pole, or even a stick. It looks more like some snow.
Oh, and they ceased to be called 'Silicon Graphics' years ago. Since all the staff left there isn't actually anyone left at the company who knows any graphics.
However, I, like you, suspect that the whole thing is hype anyway.
In fact, even just looking at the web site, you can see how from a computational point of view they aren't just matrices. A dimension N hypercomplex number is represeted by an NxN matrix. An O(N) algorithm isn't the same as an O(N^2) one. Etc.
Looks like a good paper though, thanks.
It is completely obvious and it has been at least since Boltzmann. Computing just how much 'violation' of the 2nd law we expect to see can be a pretty hairy problem but that small systems defy the second law is totally trivial. I won't bother reading the literature unless you point me to a publication that expresses surprise that a small system can do this. And then I'll read it for entertainment value only.
In fact if entropy did always increase you could use that to build a perpetual motion machine. If it did always increase you could make predictions about particles that could be exploited by a Maxwell type demon. But the fact that it usually increases, but might sometimes decrease, means that information isn't available to you. (Similarly if there really were such a things as a "law of averages" people could use it to win at roulette. That hasn't stopped people trying though.)
You don't have to give me exact details. Very roughly where are these people working at what do they do? This isn't my experience at all. I wouldn't hire a less than good H1B worker because of the money, hassle and the time involved.
I'm not really that interested in what the media want me to think and if by chance my own thoughts happen to be the same, so be it. I can see with my own eyes how a Russian or British degree in mathematics, say, compares with an American one.
I work near Silicon Valley and have many friends working in and around SIlicon Valley in high tech jobs. Many have H1B visas. They all seem smart, often much smarter than the Americans around them, and this is reflected in the fact that they often become promoted fast within their companies. In fact many high tech companies (employing Americans) seem to be built on technology developed by immigrants. They all seem to be paid damn well to me. I frequently have to recruit workers on H1B visas because many US schools seem more interesting in boosting people's self esteem than teaching students anything useful. I wouldn't entertain, even for a second, the idea of paying them less than Americans.
It's usually greyed out. It'd be useful if it always worked as it could make surfing really efficient.
...but it didn't increase my sexual activity one bit.
One time we were camping in Yosemite. Slowly I became aware that there was light coming into the tent. I put my head out and basically, above the tent, was a floating round object. When I say object I mean something about 100 ft across. The weird thing is that it was semi-transparent but glowing. I could see moonlit clouds through it and yet there was definitely something there above me. It was about 80 feet away. There was no chance I could have been mistaken and I woke up my friend who saw it too. I even have photographs though they came out underexposed and fogged up in a really weird way.
But in my case I admit to making this shit up.
doesn't this open up a slippery slope?
Similarly when people commit a crime they can be fined or go to prison. But if we extend the powers of government to allow them to take money from people and lock people up won't everyone end up penniless in prison? No, of course not. There is no slippery slope because nobody has been given the right to arbitrarily impose conditions on companies. What has in fact happened is that a court, which is part of a complex system with many checks and balances, has imposed a condition in a very special and unusual situation.