Having now programmed in 20+ programming languages over 30 years, I can honestly say that Pascal was the one I detested most. C (tight, terse, sharp, powerful!) was such a revelation. A bit dangerous if you misused the power? Yes, but so are many if not most professional-grade tools (think of an 18-wheeler vs. a go-kart, a 30-ton press vs. the hand-operated metal-bender you used in 8th grade metal shop).
Note how many of us are still programming in C or C++, and how much commercial and OSS software is written in that language family, vs. Pascal. No contest. Good riddance!
Uh... What have I misconceived, exactly? I think you've inferred that I don't understand what MBTF means -- or, more correctly, that it means precious little!:-)
None the less, these inflated MTBF figures that the manufacturers bandy about at least imply an extraordinary service life (a very broad U-curve). And, I don't believe it. By claiming such a long mean, they suggest mega-long durability. I'm sure the general reliability of drives are improving, but by a factor of almost 5 in 4 years? (My first 10K SCSI drive from IBM, purchased less than 4 years ago, had a MTBF of 300,000 hours, IIRC.) I smell 'marketing' -- oooo-whee!...
1.4e6/(24*365.24) = 159.71 years, to be picky about it. I see these figures on modern drives and, frankly, I don't believe it. But, that doesn't keep me from drooling over them (which would proably shorten the MTBF, yes?:-)
BS! Any essay that purports to analyze the rise of VoIP yet completely ignores ATM and SONET and claims via omission that Haramaty and Cohen were the first to think about packetizing voice over public networks is suspect in the extreme. "How could slicing voice into 50 millisecond packets improve the telephone business?", the author asks rhetorically. Well, duh! GTE was doing it in the early 60's. No over IP, true, but in little 'cells' (a.k.a. 'packets') just the same.
I have to pay to have my privacy invaded!? Sigh!...
Re:C# is not an open standard.
on
IT, Be Free!
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The grandparent said it correctly -- he said 'C#', not '.NET'. C# *is* an open standard, certified by ECMA (ECMA-334 to be exact). C# is now a ratified ISO standard (ISO/IEC 23270).
On the other hand, you are correct in saying C# is not of much use without the rest of.NET...
1024 physical CPUs running *one* logical host linux image running god knows how many uml instances, each fully independent of the other and seeing 3 TB of memory. The mind boggles!:-)
I've been coding in C for 20 years, in C++ for 10, in Python for about 6 months.
There's no way in heck I can write debugged, full-feature code in C or C++ as fast as I can in Python. Now, if you want it to run really, really fast, well, that's another story...
I've been programming for 30 years. I recently discovered Python. I'm ass-deep in the uglyness of XML. I'm getting comfortable with Linux, beginning to understand where it's like *nix and where it's not. I'm reading up on.NET; some of it's new, some of it's borrowed, some of it's ugly, some of it's pretty neat. I'd like to get a chance to play with Erlang or ML.
In short, I am *still* learning, and there are areas I've not even scratched. And I'm having a ball! Ten years? Heck, it may take me fifty!
Supposedly this was Gates rejoinder to Steve Jobs when the latter said, "We're better than you." Gates knows in this case that throwing a bit of cash to Minnesota to settle the suit doesn't really matter, either. It's the same Machiavellian insight as to what it takes to win his grand strategic goals at the cost of a few tactical losses. "Oh, I over charged you for the years between 1994 and 2001? So sorry. Here's a 30% refund in 2004. Thanks for the 70% I get to keep! (And the time I needed to eliminate my competition, hehe...)".
Slashdot Mirror
-k
Note how many of us are still programming in C or C++, and how much commercial and OSS software is written in that language family, vs. Pascal. No contest. Good riddance!
Uh... What have I misconceived, exactly? I think you've inferred that I don't understand what MBTF means -- or, more correctly, that it means precious little! :-)
None the less, these inflated MTBF figures that the manufacturers bandy about at least imply an extraordinary service life (a very broad U-curve). And, I don't believe it. By claiming such a long mean, they suggest mega-long durability. I'm sure the general reliability of drives are improving, but by a factor of almost 5 in 4 years? (My first 10K SCSI drive from IBM, purchased less than 4 years ago, had a MTBF of 300,000 hours, IIRC.) I smell 'marketing' -- oooo-whee!...
Yikes!!! Typo -- my bad. "Early 70's"...
if ( ptr && *ptr ) {...}
Most modern languages I know of support this.
The Ctrl key is in the placd God intended. Get the rubber-dome model for work to spare your coworkers the noice, get the buckling spring for home.
On the other hand, you are correct in saying C# is not of much use without the rest of .NET...
an application...
running on user mode linux...
running on a host linux...
running on VMWare...
running on Windows.
So, what's the "platform"? (Extra Credit: If the application is a web-services solution, what's the "platform" then?)
Tin foil is so, well, passe. Some bright stripes, or maybe some flowers, would be soooo chic.
You've obviously never been the parent of a 18 month old toddler.
And, right after that, these would become networked mind-control implants. Uh, no thanks...
There's no way in heck I can write debugged, full-feature code in C or C++ as fast as I can in Python. Now, if you want it to run really, really fast, well, that's another story...
Thought so -- you're a bloody ENGLISHMAN! Pooh!
... just say 'Cal', ok? (ref. last line of 3rd paragraph in article). -k
In short, I am *still* learning, and there are areas I've not even scratched. And I'm having a ball! Ten years? Heck, it may take me fifty!
Supposedly this was Gates rejoinder to Steve Jobs when the latter said, "We're better than you." Gates knows in this case that throwing a bit of cash to Minnesota to settle the suit doesn't really matter, either. It's the same Machiavellian insight as to what it takes to win his grand strategic goals at the cost of a few tactical losses. "Oh, I over charged you for the years between 1994 and 2001? So sorry. Here's a 30% refund in 2004. Thanks for the 70% I get to keep! (And the time I needed to eliminate my competition, hehe...)".