"X86 machine code has also been "interpreted" for ages now."
Yes, and that is done with a performance penalty like every other interpretation. Even though that is done completely in hardware. However, java is translated to bytecode, the bytecode in turn has to be translated at runtime to X86 machine code, that machine code in turn STILL has to be interpreted yet again by the chip itself to native opcodes. The X86 translation occurs with every language including ASM so it really is not relevant to the conversation at hand.
"The importance of "interpreted" versus "compiled" stopped being relevant some time ago."
It will stop being relevant when it stops carrying a performance overhead, this will occur sometime in the ballpark of never.
"The main issue now is just choosing the trade-off between speed and correctness (java VMs can be made reasonably faster if you turn off some of the safety checks; I'm not sure if that tuneability exists outside of the embedded VM implementations, though)."
Within the VM I am sure that is true. In reality if performance is an issue an interpreted language is generally not the correct choice. Java is however, one of the better performing interpreted languages.
Correction. "OOo is slow" AND "it's still largely impelemented using" C and "C++ with all that entails."
There is certainly no reason to believe it is slow BECAUSE C++ was used. One can write a slow app in any language. It is just a bit easier to do in an interpreted language like Java than in a compiled language like C++.
P.S. Don't tell me that Java compiles to bytecode. That just means that Java compiles to an interpreted language instead of a native language.
I was not aware that "cop out" qualified as valid grounds to dismiss a logical argument. If "cop out" is the best you have to refute this line of logic I am afraid I will have to continue to maintain that it is valid.
As I said, there is nothing in logic to refute this line of thinking that amounts to more than "nuh uh".
'You might as well shout "EVERYTHING IS SUBJECTIVE SO I CAN'T BE WRONG, AND WRONG IS A MEANINGLESS CONCEPT!".'
Sounds about right to me. That is the conclusion of any cold legitimate path of logic that does not have an unfounded need for "right" and "wrong" to exist in the moral sense. In fact it is technically true outside the moral sense if one does not qualify with a perspective and scope.
"right" and "wrong" are relative and there is no standing counter argument to this that boils down to more than "nuh uh".
I think I am going to have to read this "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" book my fellow slashdotians keep talking about. Especially now that I have the honor of rediscovering one of its points.:)
"why should you be able to understand some of the bit more complex metaphysical aspects of life the universe and everything"
I am certainly not one to claim to know everything there is to know about the universe. I would not even venture to claim that mankind has such knowledge; man may never have such knowledge. There are however no credible observations that would reasonably suggest that metaphysics will ever need to be invoked to explain the human machine.
"water" is also a noun. Water, is however a label for something real. "Life" is a label for a concept that does not exist, we made up the concept itself and not merely the label. It is not even a classification like a mammal, there is a valid definition of mammal, there has never been an agreed upon definition of life.
"It might even claim to have the same internal sensations we do, however, although I can program a computer to state "I feel depressed," that doesn't mean it feels the same way I do when I'm depressed."
That is a rather ridiculous standard. We don't even know if you see the same thing I do when I see something red. We also don't know if you feel the way I do when I'm depressed. My conception of depressed could be entirely different than yours.
Take some acid and have a conversation about the "levels" of reality to understand what I mean.
A categorization is actually counter productive if nobody bothers to define it. The problem with the "life" label is that it has never been defined. There is a sensible definition that was basically given by the GP. However, those who want to believe that living beings have "souls" or use other excuses to assign importantance to our own form of meat cluster and similar forms do not want a simple classification for life.
If every self replicating and evolution pattern becomes a form of "life" then "life" is no longer sacred.
Perhaps the better solution to this dillema is to realize the debate can not be settled because "life" is not a thing. It is a label. Humans invented the label and since it is an artificial construction its scope is equally artificial.
There is no such thing as "life" we invented a classification without defining it and therefore we have a debate. The only reason we even find it to be important is that we are still trying to come up with excuses to think of ourselves as something more than a random cluster of protein soup.
tsk tsk now you are suggesting executives make a decision that is the logical conclusion of technical competance.
Executives are only interested in suggestions like this is they provide a readily measurable benefit. Even if the numbers are bullshit but look good they only want to implement something with a measurable result. "I produced a profit increase of X by doing Y" is good. Your suggestion is just too fuzzy. Why should an exec be interested in pushing for something that will cost a measurable amount of money without producing a measurable return? That makes them look bad.
Often this has already been considered anyway and googlebot will not be served the same content you are. Unfortunately the googlebot version allows a machine to parse the page but is not really parsable by humans.
I think the proper way to handle this is with incentive programs. Perhaps give tax breaks to corporations that have sites certified to standards for accesibility and set the bar for that certification suitably high.
I think most corporations would respond to this. It gives them a direct incentive and it doesn't really cost taxpayers much because corporate accountants are dodging the taxes via more grey accounting methods anyway.
A direct incentive like this coupled with the tech guys explaining how much easier to maintain standards compliant sites are would get the job done. And would do so without forcing any hands or nasty lawsuits.
You and a number of others seem to have confused my statements. I simply said that the summary was correct and explained why. I never said that reality was a good thing.
In a world where executives are liable for actions that adversely affect the bottom line it certainly is required. Accesiblity for the blind likely costs more than it generates in revenue.
Re:I would have made use of Sun's grid already
on
Sun Grid Compute Utility
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
You could save some really serious money by porting to a proper compiled language.
"The fact of the matter is that there is a "culture of corruption", and the party that's guilty of creating and perpetuating it is the U.S. Government. Will Rogers and Mark Twain were right."
Not at all. There are parties to blame but the U.S. Government is not the greatest of them. Ultimately OUR SYSTEM of capitalism is to blame. The portion of the system that is most directly responsible is our concept of corporations and the laws surrounding them. We make paper entities that have the same rights as humans, and then we make laws to "protect shareholders" that mean the executives calling the shots at the corp are not legally responsible for anything the corp does UNLESS they make a call that would reduce profits (and therefore not be in the shareholders interests). Deliberately choosing to do a "right thing" that would reduce profit can put a CEO in jail.
We need to eliminate the concept of corporations having the same rights as people. We need to eliminate the idea that those leading corporations are not liable for the actions that are required by their mandates AND de facto requirements that result from them.
"Unless you use accelerants (which is dangerous) books are suprisingly hard to burn."
About as hard to burn as a log the same size. You simply need some kindling and smaller sticks to get the fire started and then keep the kindling on until the log (or book) catches.
In theory you are right. One thing I have discovered about wireless technology in practice in the home setting is that most homes can't use it. Especially here in Florida where buildings are constructed mostly of concrete.
"And how long will that last (more desktops than laptops)?"
Probably until the fastest laptops aren't smoked by the slowest gateway desktop in performance pretty much across the board. Damn those 5400 rpm drives grind.
"Aren't laptops currently outselling desktops?"
Possibly, but I have not heard anything to that effect.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean Ubuntu of course. Kubuntu is just a spinoff for those with an axe to grind.
"X86 machine code has also been "interpreted" for ages now."
Yes, and that is done with a performance penalty like every other interpretation. Even though that is done completely in hardware. However, java is translated to bytecode, the bytecode in turn has to be translated at runtime to X86 machine code, that machine code in turn STILL has to be interpreted yet again by the chip itself to native opcodes. The X86 translation occurs with every language including ASM so it really is not relevant to the conversation at hand.
"The importance of "interpreted" versus "compiled" stopped being relevant some time ago."
It will stop being relevant when it stops carrying a performance overhead, this will occur sometime in the ballpark of never.
"The main issue now is just choosing the trade-off between speed and correctness (java VMs can be made reasonably faster if you turn off some of the safety checks; I'm not sure if that tuneability exists outside of the embedded VM implementations, though)."
Within the VM I am sure that is true. In reality if performance is an issue an interpreted language is generally not the correct choice. Java is however, one of the better performing interpreted languages.
Correction. "OOo is slow" AND "it's still largely impelemented using" C and "C++ with all that entails."
There is certainly no reason to believe it is slow BECAUSE C++ was used. One can write a slow app in any language. It is just a bit easier to do in an interpreted language like Java than in a compiled language like C++.
P.S. Don't tell me that Java compiles to bytecode. That just means that Java compiles to an interpreted language instead of a native language.
I was not aware that "cop out" qualified as valid grounds to dismiss a logical argument. If "cop out" is the best you have to refute this line of logic I am afraid I will have to continue to maintain that it is valid.
As I said, there is nothing in logic to refute this line of thinking that amounts to more than "nuh uh".
'You might as well shout "EVERYTHING IS SUBJECTIVE SO I CAN'T BE WRONG, AND WRONG IS A MEANINGLESS CONCEPT!".'
Sounds about right to me. That is the conclusion of any cold legitimate path of logic that does not have an unfounded need for "right" and "wrong" to exist in the moral sense. In fact it is technically true outside the moral sense if one does not qualify with a perspective and scope.
"right" and "wrong" are relative and there is no standing counter argument to this that boils down to more than "nuh uh".
I think I am going to have to read this "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" book my fellow slashdotians keep talking about. Especially now that I have the honor of rediscovering one of its points. :)
"why should you be able to understand some of the bit more complex metaphysical aspects of life the universe and everything"
I am certainly not one to claim to know everything there is to know about the universe. I would not even venture to claim that mankind has such knowledge; man may never have such knowledge. There are however no credible observations that would reasonably suggest that metaphysics will ever need to be invoked to explain the human machine.
"water" is also a noun. Water, is however a label for something real. "Life" is a label for a concept that does not exist, we made up the concept itself and not merely the label. It is not even a classification like a mammal, there is a valid definition of mammal, there has never been an agreed upon definition of life.
There is a very substantial difference there.
"It might even claim to have the same internal sensations we do, however, although I can program a computer to state "I feel depressed," that doesn't mean it feels the same way I do when I'm depressed."
That is a rather ridiculous standard. We don't even know if you see the same thing I do when I see something red. We also don't know if you feel the way I do when I'm depressed. My conception of depressed could be entirely different than yours.
Take some acid and have a conversation about the "levels" of reality to understand what I mean.
A categorization is actually counter productive if nobody bothers to define it. The problem with the "life" label is that it has never been defined. There is a sensible definition that was basically given by the GP. However, those who want to believe that living beings have "souls" or use other excuses to assign importantance to our own form of meat cluster and similar forms do not want a simple classification for life.
If every self replicating and evolution pattern becomes a form of "life" then "life" is no longer sacred.
Perhaps the better solution to this dillema is to realize the debate can not be settled because "life" is not a thing. It is a label. Humans invented the label and since it is an artificial construction its scope is equally artificial.
There is no such thing as "life" we invented a classification without defining it and therefore we have a debate. The only reason we even find it to be important is that we are still trying to come up with excuses to think of ourselves as something more than a random cluster of protein soup.
Warp drive here we come!
tsk tsk now you are suggesting executives make a decision that is the logical conclusion of technical competance.
Executives are only interested in suggestions like this is they provide a readily measurable benefit. Even if the numbers are bullshit but look good they only want to implement something with a measurable result. "I produced a profit increase of X by doing Y" is good. Your suggestion is just too fuzzy. Why should an exec be interested in pushing for something that will cost a measurable amount of money without producing a measurable return? That makes them look bad.
Often this has already been considered anyway and googlebot will not be served the same content you are. Unfortunately the googlebot version allows a machine to parse the page but is not really parsable by humans.
Good doctor, are you suggesting that my suggestion suggests the possibility for breeding a new race of mutant clones?
Agreed, although there is a legitimate issue here. At least if we are ignoring the harsh realities of natural selection.
9 80924
Refer to this post for my solution:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=180965&cid=14
I think the proper way to handle this is with incentive programs. Perhaps give tax breaks to corporations that have sites certified to standards for accesibility and set the bar for that certification suitably high.
I think most corporations would respond to this. It gives them a direct incentive and it doesn't really cost taxpayers much because corporate accountants are dodging the taxes via more grey accounting methods anyway.
A direct incentive like this coupled with the tech guys explaining how much easier to maintain standards compliant sites are would get the job done. And would do so without forcing any hands or nasty lawsuits.
You and a number of others seem to have confused my statements. I simply said that the summary was correct and explained why. I never said that reality was a good thing.
All we have to do is bombard clones with the right kind of radiation and we can rapid grow them now.
In a world where executives are liable for actions that adversely affect the bottom line it certainly is required. Accesiblity for the blind likely costs more than it generates in revenue.
You could save some really serious money by porting to a proper compiled language.
exactly... they have shaken out the simple bugs.
"The fact of the matter is that there is a "culture of corruption", and the party that's guilty of creating and perpetuating it is the U.S. Government. Will Rogers and Mark Twain were right."
Not at all. There are parties to blame but the U.S. Government is not the greatest of them. Ultimately OUR SYSTEM of capitalism is to blame. The portion of the system that is most directly responsible is our concept of corporations and the laws surrounding them. We make paper entities that have the same rights as humans, and then we make laws to "protect shareholders" that mean the executives calling the shots at the corp are not legally responsible for anything the corp does UNLESS they make a call that would reduce profits (and therefore not be in the shareholders interests). Deliberately choosing to do a "right thing" that would reduce profit can put a CEO in jail.
We need to eliminate the concept of corporations having the same rights as people. We need to eliminate the idea that those leading corporations are not liable for the actions that are required by their mandates AND de facto requirements that result from them.
"Unless you use accelerants (which is dangerous) books are suprisingly hard to burn."
About as hard to burn as a log the same size. You simply need some kindling and smaller sticks to get the fire started and then keep the kindling on until the log (or book) catches.
In theory you are right. One thing I have discovered about wireless technology in practice in the home setting is that most homes can't use it. Especially here in Florida where buildings are constructed mostly of concrete.
"And how long will that last (more desktops than laptops)?"
Probably until the fastest laptops aren't smoked by the slowest gateway desktop in performance pretty much across the board. Damn those 5400 rpm drives grind.
"Aren't laptops currently outselling desktops?"
Possibly, but I have not heard anything to that effect.