You know what else is depressing? There will always be a Top One Percent. No matter what. There will always One Percent that has more than the other Ninety Nine Percent. Deal with it.
those exotic programs which are mentioned in the article ought to take a lot longer than 3 years to manifest
DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Yes, DARPA's place is exploring wild ideas, pushing the envelope. But the current administration doesn't want to fund basic research if it's related to the military so they appointed her to merge her budget with routine acquisitions; that way it looks like research is still in the budget when it was actually cut.
It's just a coincidence that her leaving comes at a time when there's an investigation into some of those acquisitions that were no bid contracts to the company she founded and is still part owner of.
No doubt supporters of the Conservatives were involved, but nobody has been caught. All this report shows is that someone knew which voters to call on election day, I get "opinion poll" calls all the time, so identifying those voters wouldn't require access to a secret smiley-face database. But mentioning it in the same article makes for a juicy story,
Microsoft issues a press release to announce that they're not going to announce anything. And it makes the headlines of Slashdot. And I'm reading it on a Friday night. That's it, I'm off to drink beer, even if it isn't free.
as the basic referenced statement is that in some cases python _is_ too slow but that one can work around that using hacks
You completely missed what he said, which is "use the best tool for the job".
Most apps can be written much more quickly in Python than C/C++. If they perform adequately you're done. If there are slow spots, use an extension (it's not a hack) to optimize that tiny part of the app. This has been SOP since compiled languages were first invented; we used to write that last 5% of the app in Assembler. But obviously using C/C++ is more productive than Assembler and usually fast enough, just as using Python is more productive than C/C++ and usually fast enough.
The article tosses out opinions with nothing to back them up; essentially all he is saying is that unionization will cure everything that's wrong in the US. This myth gets posted on Slashdot several times a year; it's no more true now that it ever was.
No doubt there are some programmers on mandatory overtime, but in my experience it's the exception, not the rule.
When police finally had a lead on the BTK serial killer they obtained a sample of a relative's DNA because they didn't have enough evidence to get sample of his. I assume that will become one of the primary uses of New York's database.
Lopes observes that few successful modern languages have roots in academia. An academic herself, she's naturally dismayed....Successful languages have a niche
That's really the heart of it. No matter how "good" a language might be from an academic's perspective, it has to be actually useful to be used.
C was (and still is) a great alternative to Assembly
Java succeeded mostly because it was Not Microsoft, but in part because C++ is a miserable language and the world was ready to replace COBOL, ALGOL/JOVIAL, and FORTRAN.
Ada failed for many reasons, but mostly because it was just glorified Pascal and had all the limitations that made Pascal a good student language but lousy for real work.
Lisp, Perl, Javascript, Python, etc. all fill niches; some niches bigger than others.
This is much closer to real life than you probably think. After Hurricane Katrina, people found they didn't have flood insurance. So they sued, claiming their house was blown apart by the wind before it washed away.
In the US if the police investigate a report of a possible burglary, find a man in the house who refuses to identify himself screaming incoherently about being racially profiled, and they arrest him for disorderly conduct, they may read on the news the next day that President Obama has called them stupid.
Call in an "exosolar planet", "unbound free-floating planetary-mass body", or "exoplanet", but it's reasonable to qualify the word to indicate that the planet is not bound to our Sun or another star.
The other companies were doing a terrible job at useful search though. Result placement was sold to the highest bidder, some were open about it but most pretended to rank results by relevance. Google stepped into the market with a search engine that did what people wanted and blew everyone else away.
Their problem now is that when you know a lot about the person doing the search, building a reasonably good search engine is pretty easy. Facebook has the potential to eat Google's lunch.
Of source I understand that it doesn't have to add up to 100%, duh. But if you don't have 3 to 5 hours a month to keep your skills up to date you need to find a new job.
And regarding the 30 hour work week? I'd love to have that, and a sabbatical every few years. But your claim that it would be cost effective is nonsense. You think a college education is so cheap in the US because professors have those benefits?
So police, fire, military personnel are suppling their own training and at their own expense?
What part of "IT professionals" is confusing you?
By the way, my job title is Senior Java Developer; before that it was Senior Database Developer, so I've been there done that. I still prefer the database end of it and generally work in that arena though. Most Java developers can't write even the simplest SQL query.
Slashdot Mirror
You know what else is depressing? There will always be a Top One Percent. No matter what. There will always One Percent that has more than the other Ninety Nine Percent. Deal with it.
those exotic programs which are mentioned in the article ought to take a lot longer than 3 years to manifest
DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Yes, DARPA's place is exploring wild ideas, pushing the envelope. But the current administration doesn't want to fund basic research if it's related to the military so they appointed her to merge her budget with routine acquisitions; that way it looks like research is still in the budget when it was actually cut.
It's just a coincidence that her leaving comes at a time when there's an investigation into some of those acquisitions that were no bid contracts to the company she founded and is still part owner of.
I think they became extinct because they were all eaten by a burgeoning post-Holocene human population.
So they are good to eat. That makes the research worthwhile.
No doubt supporters of the Conservatives were involved, but nobody has been caught. All this report shows is that someone knew which voters to call on election day, I get "opinion poll" calls all the time, so identifying those voters wouldn't require access to a secret smiley-face database. But mentioning it in the same article makes for a juicy story,
Microsoft issues a press release to announce that they're not going to announce anything. And it makes the headlines of Slashdot. And I'm reading it on a Friday night. That's it, I'm off to drink beer, even if it isn't free.
you respond by attacking Fox News?
It appears to be a typo, I'm sure he meant Josh Fox.
as the basic referenced statement is that in some cases python _is_ too slow but that one can work around that using hacks
You completely missed what he said, which is "use the best tool for the job".
Most apps can be written much more quickly in Python than C/C++. If they perform adequately you're done. If there are slow spots, use an extension (it's not a hack) to optimize that tiny part of the app. This has been SOP since compiled languages were first invented; we used to write that last 5% of the app in Assembler. But obviously using C/C++ is more productive than Assembler and usually fast enough, just as using Python is more productive than C/C++ and usually fast enough.
Could you expand on the Pascal limitations things?
* Lack of powerful libraries
* For a same functionality program writing from 2 time to 10 time more lines of code than dynamic languages like Python or Perl
* Languages like Python are better for writing applications and quick&dirty little scripts to help here and there
The article tosses out opinions with nothing to back them up; essentially all he is saying is that unionization will cure everything that's wrong in the US. This myth gets posted on Slashdot several times a year; it's no more true now that it ever was.
No doubt there are some programmers on mandatory overtime, but in my experience it's the exception, not the rule.
When police finally had a lead on the BTK serial killer they obtained a sample of a relative's DNA because they didn't have enough evidence to get sample of his. I assume that will become one of the primary uses of New York's database.
An it will be guaranteed to make Slashdot.
Lopes observes that few successful modern languages have roots in academia. An academic herself, she's naturally dismayed....Successful languages have a niche
That's really the heart of it. No matter how "good" a language might be from an academic's perspective, it has to be actually useful to be used.
C was (and still is) a great alternative to Assembly
Java succeeded mostly because it was Not Microsoft, but in part because C++ is a miserable language and the world was ready to replace COBOL, ALGOL/JOVIAL, and FORTRAN.
Ada failed for many reasons, but mostly because it was just glorified Pascal and had all the limitations that made Pascal a good student language but lousy for real work.
Lisp, Perl, Javascript, Python, etc. all fill niches; some niches bigger than others.
Try offering the female fruit flies a banana...
To paraphrase an old cliche: "Only Pearl can father Pearl"
Maybe because there were several $100K in other donations besides the two you mention?
Yes, but 30 days means people either:
A) Are still on the honeymoon and think it will be useful to them
B) Set it aside after a few days and decided to return it "later"
This is much closer to real life than you probably think. After Hurricane Katrina, people found they didn't have flood insurance. So they sued, claiming their house was blown apart by the wind before it washed away.
In the US if the police investigate a report of a possible burglary, find a man in the house who refuses to identify himself screaming incoherently about being racially profiled, and they arrest him for disorderly conduct, they may read on the news the next day that President Obama has called them stupid.
Missing Manual: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual
Call in an "exosolar planet", "unbound free-floating planetary-mass body", or "exoplanet", but it's reasonable to qualify the word to indicate that the planet is not bound to our Sun or another star.
there were other companies at play
The other companies were doing a terrible job at useful search though. Result placement was sold to the highest bidder, some were open about it but most pretended to rank results by relevance. Google stepped into the market with a search engine that did what people wanted and blew everyone else away.
Their problem now is that when you know a lot about the person doing the search, building a reasonably good search engine is pretty easy. Facebook has the potential to eat Google's lunch.
Do you refer to our current President as "Barry"? Because that's what he called himself...
he country was in the middle of a war and their party groomed no leader to continue it.
Still the case
Which side had 6 years of uncontested control?
Neither
Which side failed to run a ship that could endure the storm?
Both
Of source I understand that it doesn't have to add up to 100%, duh. But if you don't have 3 to 5 hours a month to keep your skills up to date you need to find a new job.
And regarding the 30 hour work week? I'd love to have that, and a sabbatical every few years. But your claim that it would be cost effective is nonsense. You think a college education is so cheap in the US because professors have those benefits?
So police, fire, military personnel are suppling their own training and at their own expense?
What part of "IT professionals" is confusing you?
By the way, my job title is Senior Java Developer; before that it was Senior Database Developer, so I've been there done that. I still prefer the database end of it and generally work in that arena though. Most Java developers can't write even the simplest SQL query.