I spent 2 years at University, I dropped out for stupid reasons but to be honest, I know more than most of the people there who graduated. Unfortunately, that silly piece of paper is all most employers care about.
That is one of the most overused quotes I have heard. How about this:
first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you lose because you really are a laughable fool.
It is just as likely, in fact it is probably more likely.
Re:PC Economics according to Microsoft:
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The PC Is Not Dead
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Exactly. I just put a box together and the cost of windows XP (OEM) was 1/5th of the cost of the box. Add on the cost of office pro and we are close to 1/2 the cost of the PC being Micorosoft software.
wow... you caught me off guard. I was expecting flames and trolls.
Glad to be of service.
I hadn't heard that view about genesis before--about the thought that the earth was floating in a sphere of water. I don't think it really fits though. I always took those verses to be speaking of atmospheric vs oceanic water, but I hadn't pondered it too deeply.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day. Gen 1:6-8
This is not definitive, and I am sure that there are other explanations given. Food for thought.
I'm grappling with some sovereignty issues right now. When I get through these, maybe I'll take a closer look about women in ministry.
I made a list of passages that I have found relevant: 1 Cor 11, 14. 1 Tim 2, Proverbs - the last chapter Eph 5 1 Pet 2-3 Rev 19:10 (prophecy) Judges 4-5
The braided hair and gold and pearls is most likely a reference toward dressing like a hooker at the time. Or maybe it was just fashion extremes.
Exactly. My point is that people treat the two passages differently without realising that they are. One is explained as being cultural, the other is taken at face value.
I don't know what denominations are prevelant in Australia... I know that methodists ordain female ministers. My church has deaconesses. I can't say I'm too excited about that, but it's not something I've really spent time thinking about. They've made some decisions that make life a little harder for me, so that may be all it is.
Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Uniting. There are more, eg methodist still has a presence, but not many. The decks were cleared in a sense with the creation of the uniting church, which kind of pulled together Baptist, Presbyterian, Uniting, Methodist. It hasn't entirely been a success though. The Uniting church leadership is very liberal while many of the churches are not. It looks as though there is going to be a split in the uniting church soon. The irony is that the church was formed to consolidate the number of denominations. What is the end result: The original 4 + 2 more. You have to see the humour of it at times or you would cry.
I go to an Anglican church. This is the largest denomination. Sydney (largest city) is pretty straight down the line. Melbourne (next biggest city) is a bit soggy, although it is improving. The rest of the country is more of a liberal/high church mix. Sydney has been planting some churches lately though. You might hear a fair bit about the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, particularly in the wake of ECUSA ordaining the gay bishop.
Anyway, the uniting church will ordain anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. The Baptists and Presbyterians don't. Sydney Anglicans don't, but outside Sydney they do.
The whole issue is a bit of a mess. In some ways it has been good that there has been an external problem to focus on (ECUSA) and to take the heat out of the debate.
Yeah, 1 Tim 2 is interesting. It shouldn't be taken to say that women can't teach men in any way shape or form though. It's specifically talking about leading ministry in church. There are other examples in the bible of women teaching other women as well as men
The question is whether women have any role to teach or lead men in the church. The Anglican church in Sydney has allowed women to preach for some time (1980s). Some people are trying to roll this back.
Something else to consider: Relations in the church are to be an example to the outside world. So taking what Timothy says about overseers and deacons (not drunken, stable family etc), this is a good model for secular leaders also. Agreed?
The logical extension of this (and a literal reading of 1 Tim 2) is that women should not lead men in the secular world either.
First, if a game is decent, chances are, it exists for the Mac. Nearly all major games (Warcraft (I-WoW), Call to Duty, NWN, SW KotOR, Sims, etc.) have Mac versions that equal their Windows counterparts (not emulation).
OK then. I currently spend a fair bit of time playing Counterstrike: Source, medieval total war. Games I have loved in the past: HL1, GTA:VC, BG2, Max Payne 2, Red Alert 2. Are any of them available on a Mac?
Games that run on Mac are the exception rather than the rule.
Second, who is running away from Linux because of the lack of games?
Nobody. But people are choosing not to use Linux because the lack of games. I reached a point recently where I realised I could probably switch to Linux relatively comfortably for my home desktop. The only thing stopping me was games.
Or could it be that those professing to follow the teachings of a supremely tolerant philosopher are in fact supremely failing to be tolerant. After all we're responding to a an article about Christian intolerance aren't we?
Supremely tolerant? Are we reading the same bible? How about this for intolerance. Of this: "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
No one. I think you might need to really look at the gospels again. See the intolerance loud and clear.
BTW I am a christian and I object to people ignoring what Jesus really says. People who would reduce what he says to love your neighbour as your self, ignoring the fact that this is the second most important commandment, the first being to love god with everything you have.
Hi there, I just wanted to make a few comments on your posts. To put this in context I am an evangelical Christian.
From everything I can tell, the fossil record really doesn't support it on a macro scale, except for this one strange bird thing... I forgot what it's called, that people think might have attributes of a few different critters
Archaeopteryx.
Two comments.
1. This issue is more an issue of division among christians than one of unity. What is frustrating about that is that in general Christians agree on what counts: God created the world. The argument is over how, rather than whether. In my experience the basis for people's belief is not a conclusion they have come to after research and contemplation. They hold the view they were brought up with.
This frustrates me inordinately. But it does also prove an axiom of mine that most people make decisions and then look for reasons to justify them, rather than the other way around.
2. The bible is often mis-used. Christians mis-use it by not recognising what it is. The bible is God's timeless, saving word to mankind. It is not a scientific document. God has more important things to say than mere science, important though science.
Now going off into territory where you are likely to disagree with me. The bible was written in a time and place, historically and scientifically. God did not suddenly provide the people he inspired with a greater understanding of science so that they might be able to write the bible. The bible reflects the science of the time in which it was written, with all the errors and innacuracies. This is because science is at best tangential to the message of the bible.
It is helpful to read Genesis in this light. I heard an (IMHO) excellent talk from a Christian scientist on Genesis 1. He pointed out that the creation story has a lot is common with other creation stories, however it differs in one key issue. When it says * was created, the other creation stories mention the god of that created area. The other thing he pointed out is that Gen 1 reflects the science of the day that believed taht the earth floated in a sphere of water. That is why Genesis talks to separating the water above from the water below.
I do understand the position that if you do not interpret the bible literally, you open the flood gates to liberal interpretations of the bible. But an overly literal interpretation can be just as harmful. What is more, every literal interpretation is selective.
At the moment a burning issue in Australia is the ordination of women. On one side you have some people holding extreme views (based in a literal reading of 1 Tim 2) saying that women cannot teach men in any way, shape or form. At the other end are the extreme liberals, for who Christ rising from the dead is too hard to believe. The problem with the literal approach in this case is that a mere 2 verses beforehand, Paul tells women not to wear braided hair, pearls or gold. Literal interpretations are always selectively applied.
What is more, whatever you believe on this, this is not a gospel issue.
And yet I have heard someone in a position of ministry say in response to a question of false teaching that people who say that women can preach to men is false teaching. Given how the bible describes false teachers, anybody should take objection to this description.
Anyway I should get back to work. I'd be interested to hear your comments/thoughts.
Well, the real reason for the "Set" command was because it was a way to get around the lack of access to pointers.
I don't care what the reason was. Languages are an abstraction. That abstraction needs to be useful. One should not need to have the details of the implementation revealed to them. Certainly the implementation can force certain options in the implementation, but this is not (IMO) one of those cases.
Note that there is no disagreement that the set statement is wrong.
Yes, but they can make it more readable. I'm not a huge fan of default properties either, but they do have their place.
My opinion of languages is that they should try to enforce people writing good code. Find the one or two good ways to do something and only provide those options. See my comment in this thread on perl for example. I think default properties are on the borderline, but I'd be inclined to say that they should not be included as an option in the language.
For small programs, Java can get very wordy and very verbose, especially if you coming directly from C/C++, or from a language like Perl or Python. It does get annoying at first, typing in public in front of nearly every class/method
You still do this for C++. Unless you are writing C and compiling it with a C++ compiler.
This is not the use of the Set I am decrying in VB6. In VB6 objects were some mystical type of variable where assignments had to have a set in front of them. eg
Dim a as object Dim b as object
a = b ' generates error Set a = b ' OK
Incidentally IMO default properties are evil. Really evil. They make the code less explicit.
Using your example of the textbox, how do I know what the default property is? It could equally be myTextBox.name, myTextBox.Text, myTextBox.Whatever. By naming the property you explicitly state exactly what it is.
If you have a piece of code that cannot fail, like a simple set of calculations that can't overflow, then you do not need error trapping.
Sure, but all code can fail.
A try catch block in C++ provides real safety and control. You know: - Where it starts - where it ends - and it doesn't involve freaking goto statements, which leap all over the place
I think this is just a comment by a typical language bigot who does not like the language because it's not his particular favorite. Most of the people who criticize other languages do so because they have "taste" issues they don't like, not because of real or substantial issues.
Fair enough, this may be just bigotry. I do not have studies on hand to show the productivity of different languages or any way of quantifying what is a better syntax, other than my own experience.
Some more reasons why I don't like VB.
I much prefer the terse nature of the C derivative languages. As you point out, the ++,-- += operators are very neat.
I also prefer the use of symbols rather than words where possible. This is actually for increased productivity reasons. In Vb if you change a sub to a function, you must then change the End sub to an End function. Similarly for loops and conditional statements.
I find that C++ (my personal favourite language) is more expressive in a smaller space.
Case sensitivity I will accept as a personal preference thing. I prefer case sensitive languages.
Just to add to that, I have a huge dislike for perl. What kind of language has "there is more than one way to do it as its motto"? This is a recipe for unmaintainable code. I prefer a language that has one *good* way to do it. That way the code is legible. The number of patterns a programmer can expect to seein different peoples code is smaller. Equally, perl's class handling is crazy. How is it good design to be able to add properties to a class that were not declared in the definition? You do not know what you have at that point, that class could be anything.
So I write perl and use just a small subset of the language. I like the subset of the language I use, but in general the whole philosphy of perl repels me.
Please understand that I just try to use the appropriate language for the appropriate situation. But nonetheless I find some languages are nicer than others.
That is correct, but this article is concerned with the movement to ensure that versions of VB post VB6 are more backwards compatible.
Even so, these are hardly earth-shattering things that are wrong with the language - simply syntactical annoyances that might trip you up once or twice until you get used to them.
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. Any language that forces you to write the same code over and over again (as in the example sub I put in the comment), has serious problems.
I have no problems with hiding complexity and the VB approach. This is an (IMO) accepted limitation of the language. If you want to be doing memory ops, use another language. If you want more than VB6 can do natively, use the win32 api. Sure accessing this in VB6 is an unfortunate hack, but it is possible.
On the other hand, syntactical flaws in a language are another kettle of fish. That generates hard to maintain code. That costs programming time unnecesarily.
Cos it is terrible compared to the other modern options.
I've coded a fair bit of VB (6), in addition to: - C - C++ - perl - C# - Matlab - HTML (and associated stuff: Javascript, css etc) - other VB variants (VBScript, ASP, VBA etc)
I feel dirty when I code in VB6. The only language that I dislike more is Javascript, and that has as much to do with browser compatibility and debugging tools as anything else.
How about this as an example of a problem with VB6? To try to properly handle errors in a VB6 your routines in a basic app needs to look like this:
Sub Foo()
On Error Goto FOO_ERR_HANDER:
FOO_EXIT_COND:
Exit Sub
FOO_ERR_HANDLER:
' log error
GOTO FOO_EXIT_COND
End Sub
That is so fubar. Before you even being to add any code, you have *6 lines of code*. Cruft!
Or how about the fact that if you do this:
Dim var1, var2 as int
var1 == object, not int. Why?
How about the set statement? That should have never happened.
Working in VB6 just makes me feel dirty.
This is not to say that BASIC was always (comparatively speaking) bad. But here and now, the design decisions that were made early on for the language have the result that the only thing you can do with the thing is to take it outside and shoot it.
I am planning some changes to my home network, at the end of which I will able to access my mailserver and fileserver over VPN. So long as I can hit my home IP address, I can access all my information.
Things like PDAs and phones are a little more difficult.
Wow. How do you figure that, since it was discovered and investigated by the Pentagon months before the media caught wind of it, and shortly after it took place?
This is the first I've heard of that. Link please.
But to say this situation resulted in abuse isn't credible when the situation was dealt with swiftly and appropriately.
I do not consider that situation was dealt with appropriately.
The U.S. did not act unilaterally, of course, and if they had wanted to do so they never would have spent half a year at the UN trying to gain support, they would have simply invaded.
Thanks for the correction. I would like to restate that to say that the wanted to act, regardless of evidence, and was willing to act unilaterally.
My own sense is that the act could be greatly improved by creating mechanisms of oversight and accountability when the government exercises these powers
These are the two biggest crimes of the Bush administration. They remove oversight and accountability. The inevitable result is a abuse. Witness Abu Ghraib, witness the entire Iraq invasion mess. In the case of Iraq the US wanted to act unilaterally, without the oversight and accountability of the UN and the rest of the world.
Re:More incompatibilities on the way?
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I waiting for an explanation of how this is a problem.
You can't fix a behavioural problem with a technological solution.
Not trying to nitpick, but this is incorrect. It comes out on slashdot on awful lot (particluarly in relation to spam). It is better said as: "You cannot fix every behavioural problem with a technological solution."
Using another car example, switching the car off while the lights are on makes the car beep. This, in my experience, has largely solved the problem of leaving the lights on and getting a flat battery.
I am not certain if this has had the same effect in the wider population, but it is an example of where a behavioural problem of mine has been fixed by technology.
This is precisely what happens in Australia. The ATO (Australian Taxation Office) has a program they release each year called etax. In addition there are many tools avaiable on their website to aid in the calculation of aspects of taxation.
I was in the same position until recently. Most of the other reasons people mention as why they switched don't hold true for me. The reason I switched is that most current extensions are being built for firefox, and not for Mozilla. This may sound unimportant, but I acutally find someone of them invaluable for my job or general web usage. Things like:
- LiveHttpHeaders - prefbar - colorzilla - flashgot - bug me not
People who make money from open source make money from something other than just the application/OS/whatever.
IBM's model is that they sell hardware and services with an OS.
Red hat sells support.
IIRC mozilla makes money selling bugzilla.
The reality is that without some form of external income stream you cannot make money from open source. All too often I hear arguments on Slashdot that seem to suggest (similar to dot com boom arguments) that if you build it, you will get income from *somewhere*.
Precisiely. Oppressive governments, no culture, poor education, invasive corporations. Oh wait, you mean Australia, not America.
Well we don't have any of those problems for one thing. We also have universal health care, decent unemployment benefits and we don't have a nutcase as the leader of our country. Oh and most important of all, it isn't full of bigoted, stupid, arrogant, ill-informed, racist, selfish Americans. We do get some tourists though.
Slashdot Mirror
I spent 2 years at University, I dropped out for stupid reasons but to be honest, I know more than most of the people there who graduated. Unfortunately, that silly piece of paper is all most employers care about.
It is only silly because you don't have one...
It's late and I'm tired, but anyway...
That is one of the most overused quotes I have heard. How about this:
first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you lose because you really are a laughable fool.
It is just as likely, in fact it is probably more likely.
Exactly. I just put a box together and the cost of windows XP (OEM) was 1/5th of the cost of the box. Add on the cost of office pro and we are close to 1/2 the cost of the PC being Micorosoft software.
wow... you caught me off guard. I was expecting flames and trolls.
Glad to be of service.
I hadn't heard that view about genesis before--about the thought that the earth was floating in a sphere of water. I don't think it really fits though. I always took those verses to be speaking of atmospheric vs oceanic water, but I hadn't pondered it too deeply.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day.
Gen 1:6-8
This is not definitive, and I am sure that there are other explanations given. Food for thought.
I'm grappling with some sovereignty issues right now. When I get through these, maybe I'll take a closer look about women in ministry.
I made a list of passages that I have found relevant:
1 Cor 11, 14.
1 Tim 2,
Proverbs - the last chapter
Eph 5
1 Pet 2-3
Rev 19:10 (prophecy)
Judges 4-5
The braided hair and gold and pearls is most likely a reference toward dressing like a hooker at the time. Or maybe it was just fashion extremes.
Exactly. My point is that people treat the two passages differently without realising that they are. One is explained as being cultural, the other is taken at face value.
I don't know what denominations are prevelant in Australia... I know that methodists ordain female ministers. My church has deaconesses. I can't say I'm too excited about that, but it's not something I've really spent time thinking about. They've made some decisions that make life a little harder for me, so that may be all it is.
Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Uniting. There are more, eg methodist still has a presence, but not many. The decks were cleared in a sense with the creation of the uniting church, which kind of pulled together Baptist, Presbyterian, Uniting, Methodist. It hasn't entirely been a success though. The Uniting church leadership is very liberal while many of the churches are not. It looks as though there is going to be a split in the uniting church soon. The irony is that the church was formed to consolidate the number of denominations. What is the end result: The original 4 + 2 more. You have to see the humour of it at times or you would cry.
I go to an Anglican church. This is the largest denomination. Sydney (largest city) is pretty straight down the line. Melbourne (next biggest city) is a bit soggy, although it is improving. The rest of the country is more of a liberal/high church mix. Sydney has been planting some churches lately though. You might hear a fair bit about the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, particularly in the wake of ECUSA ordaining the gay bishop.
Anyway, the uniting church will ordain anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. The Baptists and Presbyterians don't. Sydney Anglicans don't, but outside Sydney they do.
The whole issue is a bit of a mess. In some ways it has been good that there has been an external problem to focus on (ECUSA) and to take the heat out of the debate.
Yeah, 1 Tim 2 is interesting. It shouldn't be taken to say that women can't teach men in any way shape or form though. It's specifically talking about leading ministry in church. There are other examples in the bible of women teaching other women as well as men
The question is whether women have any role to teach or lead men in the church. The Anglican church in Sydney has allowed women to preach for some time (1980s). Some people are trying to roll this back.
Something else to consider: Relations in the church are to be an example to the outside world. So taking what Timothy says about overseers and deacons (not drunken, stable family etc), this is a good model for secular leaders also. Agreed?
The logical extension of this (and a literal reading of 1 Tim 2) is that women should not lead men in the secular world either.
First, if a game is decent, chances are, it exists for the Mac. Nearly all major games (Warcraft (I-WoW), Call to Duty, NWN, SW KotOR, Sims, etc.) have Mac versions that equal their Windows counterparts (not emulation).
OK then. I currently spend a fair bit of time playing Counterstrike: Source, medieval total war. Games I have loved in the past: HL1, GTA:VC, BG2, Max Payne 2, Red Alert 2. Are any of them available on a Mac?
Games that run on Mac are the exception rather than the rule.
Second, who is running away from Linux because of the lack of games?
Nobody. But people are choosing not to use Linux because the lack of games. I reached a point recently where I realised I could probably switch to Linux relatively comfortably for my home desktop. The only thing stopping me was games.
Precisely. This is why Jesus says the second commandment is like the first.
Or could it be that those professing to follow the teachings of a supremely tolerant philosopher are in fact supremely failing to be tolerant. After all we're responding to a an article about Christian intolerance aren't we?
Supremely tolerant? Are we reading the same bible? How about this for intolerance. Of this:
"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
No one. I think you might need to really look at the gospels again. See the intolerance loud and clear.
BTW I am a christian and I object to people ignoring what Jesus really says. People who would reduce what he says to love your neighbour as your self, ignoring the fact that this is the second most important commandment, the first being to love god with everything you have.
Hi there, I just wanted to make a few comments on your posts. To put this in context I am an evangelical Christian.
From everything I can tell, the fossil record really doesn't support it on a macro scale, except for this one strange bird thing... I forgot what it's called, that people think might have attributes of a few different critters
Archaeopteryx.
Two comments.
1. This issue is more an issue of division among christians than one of unity. What is frustrating about that is that in general Christians agree on what counts: God created the world. The argument is over how, rather than whether. In my experience the basis for people's belief is not a conclusion they have come to after research and contemplation. They hold the view they were brought up with.
This frustrates me inordinately. But it does also prove an axiom of mine that most people make decisions and then look for reasons to justify them, rather than the other way around.
2. The bible is often mis-used. Christians mis-use it by not recognising what it is. The bible is God's timeless, saving word to mankind. It is not a scientific document. God has more important things to say than mere science, important though science.
Now going off into territory where you are likely to disagree with me. The bible was written in a time and place, historically and scientifically. God did not suddenly provide the people he inspired with a greater understanding of science so that they might be able to write the bible. The bible reflects the science of the time in which it was written, with all the errors and innacuracies. This is because science is at best tangential to the message of the bible.
It is helpful to read Genesis in this light. I heard an (IMHO) excellent talk from a Christian scientist on Genesis 1. He pointed out that the creation story has a lot is common with other creation stories, however it differs in one key issue. When it says * was created, the other creation stories mention the god of that created area. The other thing he pointed out is that Gen 1 reflects the science of the day that believed taht the earth floated in a sphere of water. That is why Genesis talks to separating the water above from the water below.
I do understand the position that if you do not interpret the bible literally, you open the flood gates to liberal interpretations of the bible. But an overly literal interpretation can be just as harmful. What is more, every literal interpretation is selective.
At the moment a burning issue in Australia is the ordination of women. On one side you have some people holding extreme views (based in a literal reading of 1 Tim 2) saying that women cannot teach men in any way, shape or form. At the other end are the extreme liberals, for who Christ rising from the dead is too hard to believe. The problem with the literal approach in this case is that a mere 2 verses beforehand, Paul tells women not to wear braided hair, pearls or gold. Literal interpretations are always selectively applied.
What is more, whatever you believe on this, this is not a gospel issue.
And yet I have heard someone in a position of ministry say in response to a question of false teaching that people who say that women can preach to men is false teaching. Given how the bible describes false teachers, anybody should take objection to this description.
Anyway I should get back to work. I'd be interested to hear your comments/thoughts.
Oops! I've been writing C# for so long, I am forgetting my C++. My mistake, please accept my apologies. I will be more careful in future.
Well, the real reason for the "Set" command was because it was a way to get around the lack of access to pointers.
m ll .3.93789.16
I don't care what the reason was. Languages are an abstraction. That abstraction needs to be useful. One should not need to have the details of the implementation revealed to them. Certainly the implementation can force certain options in the implementation, but this is not (IMO) one of those cases.
Check out the following 2 links regarding the set statement:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/03/14.ht
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joe
Note that there is no disagreement that the set statement is wrong.
Yes, but they can make it more readable. I'm not a huge fan of default properties either, but they do have their place.
My opinion of languages is that they should try to enforce people writing good code. Find the one or two good ways to do something and only provide those options. See my comment in this thread on perl for example. I think default properties are on the borderline, but I'd be inclined to say that they should not be included as an option in the language.
For small programs, Java can get very wordy and very verbose, especially if you coming directly from C/C++, or from a language like Perl or Python. It does get annoying at first, typing in public in front of nearly every class/method
You still do this for C++. Unless you are writing C and compiling it with a C++ compiler.
This is not the use of the Set I am decrying in VB6. In VB6 objects were some mystical type of variable where assignments had to have a set in front of them. eg
Dim a as object
Dim b as object
a = b ' generates error
Set a = b ' OK
Incidentally IMO default properties are evil. Really evil. They make the code less explicit.
Using your example of the textbox, how do I know what the default property is? It could equally be myTextBox.name, myTextBox.Text, myTextBox.Whatever. By naming the property you explicitly state exactly what it is.
If you have a piece of code that cannot fail, like a simple set of calculations that can't overflow, then you do not need error trapping.
Sure, but all code can fail.
A try catch block in C++ provides real safety and control. You know:
- Where it starts
- where it ends
- and it doesn't involve freaking goto statements, which leap all over the place
I think this is just a comment by a typical language bigot who does not like the language because it's not his particular favorite. Most of the people who criticize other languages do so because they have "taste" issues they don't like, not because of real or substantial issues.
Fair enough, this may be just bigotry. I do not have studies on hand to show the productivity of different languages or any way of quantifying what is a better syntax, other than my own experience.
Some more reasons why I don't like VB.
I much prefer the terse nature of the C derivative languages. As you point out, the ++,-- += operators are very neat.
I also prefer the use of symbols rather than words where possible. This is actually for increased productivity reasons. In Vb if you change a sub to a function, you must then change the End sub to an End function. Similarly for loops and conditional statements.
I find that C++ (my personal favourite language) is more expressive in a smaller space.
Case sensitivity I will accept as a personal preference thing. I prefer case sensitive languages.
Just to add to that, I have a huge dislike for perl. What kind of language has "there is more than one way to do it as its motto"? This is a recipe for unmaintainable code. I prefer a language that has one *good* way to do it. That way the code is legible. The number of patterns a programmer can expect to seein different peoples code is smaller. Equally, perl's class handling is crazy. How is it good design to be able to add properties to a class that were not declared in the definition? You do not know what you have at that point, that class could be anything.
So I write perl and use just a small subset of the language. I like the subset of the language I use, but in general the whole philosphy of perl repels me.
Please understand that I just try to use the appropriate language for the appropriate situation. But nonetheless I find some languages are nicer than others.
Well, these have all been addressed in VB.NET
That is correct, but this article is concerned with the movement to ensure that versions of VB post VB6 are more backwards compatible.
Even so, these are hardly earth-shattering things that are wrong with the language - simply syntactical annoyances that might trip you up once or twice until you get used to them.
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. Any language that forces you to write the same code over and over again (as in the example sub I put in the comment), has serious problems.
I have no problems with hiding complexity and the VB approach. This is an (IMO) accepted limitation of the language. If you want to be doing memory ops, use another language. If you want more than VB6 can do natively, use the win32 api. Sure accessing this in VB6 is an unfortunate hack, but it is possible.
On the other hand, syntactical flaws in a language are another kettle of fish. That generates hard to maintain code. That costs programming time unnecesarily.
Cos it is terrible compared to the other modern options.
I've coded a fair bit of VB (6), in addition to:
- C
- C++
- perl
- C#
- Matlab
- HTML (and associated stuff: Javascript, css etc)
- other VB variants (VBScript, ASP, VBA etc)
I feel dirty when I code in VB6. The only language that I dislike more is Javascript, and that has as much to do with browser compatibility and debugging tools as anything else.
How about this as an example of a problem with VB6? To try to properly handle errors in a VB6 your routines in a basic app needs to look like this:
Sub Foo()
On Error Goto FOO_ERR_HANDER:
FOO_EXIT_COND:
Exit Sub
FOO_ERR_HANDLER:
' log error
GOTO FOO_EXIT_COND
End Sub
That is so fubar. Before you even being to add any code, you have *6 lines of code*. Cruft!
Or how about the fact that if you do this:
Dim var1, var2 as int
var1 == object, not int. Why?
How about the set statement? That should have never happened.
Working in VB6 just makes me feel dirty.
This is not to say that BASIC was always (comparatively speaking) bad. But here and now, the design decisions that were made early on for the language have the result that the only thing you can do with the thing is to take it outside and shoot it.
To some extent this is possible right now.
I am planning some changes to my home network, at the end of which I will able to access my mailserver and fileserver over VPN. So long as I can hit my home IP address, I can access all my information.
Things like PDAs and phones are a little more difficult.
Wow. How do you figure that, since it was discovered and investigated by the Pentagon months before the media caught wind of it, and shortly after it took place?
This is the first I've heard of that. Link please.
But to say this situation resulted in abuse isn't credible when the situation was dealt with swiftly and appropriately.
I do not consider that situation was dealt with appropriately.
The U.S. did not act unilaterally, of course, and if they had wanted to do so they never would have spent half a year at the UN trying to gain support, they would have simply invaded.
Thanks for the correction. I would like to restate that to say that the wanted to act, regardless of evidence, and was willing to act unilaterally.
My own sense is that the act could be greatly improved by creating mechanisms of oversight and accountability when the government exercises these powers
These are the two biggest crimes of the Bush administration. They remove oversight and accountability. The inevitable result is a abuse. Witness Abu Ghraib, witness the entire Iraq invasion mess. In the case of Iraq the US wanted to act unilaterally, without the oversight and accountability of the UN and the rest of the world.
I waiting for an explanation of how this is a problem.
You can't fix a behavioural problem with a technological solution.
Not trying to nitpick, but this is incorrect. It comes out on slashdot on awful lot (particluarly in relation to spam). It is better said as: "You cannot fix every behavioural problem with a technological solution."
Using another car example, switching the car off while the lights are on makes the car beep. This, in my experience, has largely solved the problem of leaving the lights on and getting a flat battery.
I am not certain if this has had the same effect in the wider population, but it is an example of where a behavioural problem of mine has been fixed by technology.
This is precisely what happens in Australia. The ATO (Australian Taxation Office) has a program they release each year called etax. In addition there are many tools avaiable on their website to aid in the calculation of aspects of taxation.
I was in the same position until recently. Most of the other reasons people mention as why they switched don't hold true for me. The reason I switched is that most current extensions are being built for firefox, and not for Mozilla. This may sound unimportant, but I acutally find someone of them invaluable for my job or general web usage. Things like:
- LiveHttpHeaders
- prefbar
- colorzilla
- flashgot
- bug me not
This is just the point.
People who make money from open source make money from something other than just the application/OS/whatever.
IBM's model is that they sell hardware and services with an OS.
Red hat sells support.
IIRC mozilla makes money selling bugzilla.
The reality is that without some form of external income stream you cannot make money from open source. All too often I hear arguments on Slashdot that seem to suggest (similar to dot com boom arguments) that if you build it, you will get income from *somewhere*.
Precisiely. Oppressive governments, no culture, poor education, invasive corporations. Oh wait, you mean Australia, not America.
Well we don't have any of those problems for one thing. We also have universal health care, decent unemployment benefits and we don't have a nutcase as the leader of our country. Oh and most important of all, it isn't full of bigoted, stupid, arrogant, ill-informed, racist, selfish Americans. We do get some tourists though.
I hear this rubbish all the time.
Organised, trained troops will always win. If you try to overthrow the govt., you will lose.