While I don't like the blocks at all, I'm a bit confused as to who was downloading torrents on their phones anyhow. Everytime I've used a 3G network, it's been slow as all shit - torrents were out of the question, let alone TOR.
I personally think "The Whitespace Thing" is a good thing for new programmers. It's more-or-less how most coders indent their code anyhow, and the last thing you want is to have to deal with reviewing code written with a bunch of different brace / indentation styles (there are, of course, editor-based solutions to this on your end, but why not just cut out the middle-man?)
I took a comp-sci course in high-school, and the teacher enforced a specific style. It was a bit of a pain to keep up with at first, but as the class got more complex, everyone thought that it was a good thing that we all wrote code in a similar manner.
Not to mention that Python's whitespace thing makes the code look pretty similar to pseudo-code - which is good for beginners, IMO.
Sorry, but Python the language is indeed object-oriented (at least from the "everything is an object" standpoint), it just doesn't force you to write code in an object-oriented manner.
Part of my point, which you seem to have missed, is that a good bit of the content on groups like comp.lang.python is not generated by people who even know that USENET exists.
comp.lang.python is mirrored as the python-list mailing list - I'm fairly sure that the vast majority of the traffic on it comes from people subscribed to the mailing list.
comp.lang.ruby is the other way around - the mailing list (ruby-lang) is mirrored as the newsgroup - and again, the vast majority of traffic on it comes from the mailing list.
This is, as far as I can tell, the case with a lot of the programming-language specific groups.
comp.lang.c is the exception. Quite a few of the usenet groups that still have useful content are mirrors of mailing lists.
With the explosion of the web, a lot of people got into programming that never heard of usenet. Saying "people are no longer answering questions on usenet" is obviously false, but for a lot of "modern" programming languages, the usenet group is just a mirror of the mailing list - and a lot of people using (for instance) python have probably never heard of usenet.
I don't think that usenet is dead, but I don't think that it's necessarily the best place to turn to for an answer off the bat anymore.
Also, I doubt that the GP is employed by stack overflow. I think that site is ran by two guys, and is more of a "let's try to provide a useful service" type of thing than a "let's turn a crazy profit" type of thing.
* Decorators in Python * Annotations in Java * Address operator in Delphi * Instance variables in Ruby * Arrays in Perl * Suppressing warnings in PHP (wtf.)
Exaile looks pretty decent, I'll reccomend it to the few people I know that use Gnome, don't like Rhythmbox, and don't like mixing KDE and Gnome apps for some reason.
(plus it's written in python, which means the bar for adding / changing functionality in it is a bit lower)
>>Popular misinterpretation of phrases often comes from the interpretation making more sense than the original usage.
I think this is a very good point that is often overlooked - language is not some static thing. It's not like someone just shat out the english language onto some stone tablets a while ago.
However, this "feature" of language does lead to some problems - namely that people need to be abundantly clear what they mean by certain phrases or words due to the ambiguity of the language. Failure to do so often leads to people having ridiculous arguments due to having two different working definitions for a phrase or word.
Not to mention that there are a whole lot more reasons to ignore the "Prime Directive" - think about it. If you land on a planet that is less developed than yours, but happens to have intelligent life on it that you can communicate with in some way, you get to be freaking gods.
I suppose it would depend on the company, but I would suspect that this tendency is becoming less and less of a concern as more people are using OSS in their everyday lives.
Kids, if you know a few programming languages already, don't learn javascript from the web unless it's from Resig or Crockford. Buy the definitive guide (or pirate it if you can't afford it). Most of the web tutorials for javascript are really really bad.
My take is that most people who dismiss the HF books are intellectual snobs who think if learning isn't painful it means you're not learning.
That may be true for some, but I'd suspect that most of the people that dismiss the HF books are people who are already fairly familiar with the software engineering / computer science / programming domain.
Personally, I haven't read any of them, but I suspect that I would get a lot less out of them than a reference material at this point. 5 years ago, this would be a different story.
Slashdot Mirror
On 3G? Really?
While I don't like the blocks at all, I'm a bit confused as to who was downloading torrents on their phones anyhow. Everytime I've used a 3G network, it's been slow as all shit - torrents were out of the question, let alone TOR.
I personally think "The Whitespace Thing" is a good thing for new programmers. It's more-or-less how most coders indent their code anyhow, and the last thing you want is to have to deal with reviewing code written with a bunch of different brace / indentation styles (there are, of course, editor-based solutions to this on your end, but why not just cut out the middle-man?)
I took a comp-sci course in high-school, and the teacher enforced a specific style. It was a bit of a pain to keep up with at first, but as the class got more complex, everyone thought that it was a good thing that we all wrote code in a similar manner.
Not to mention that Python's whitespace thing makes the code look pretty similar to pseudo-code - which is good for beginners, IMO.
Sorry, but Python the language is indeed object-oriented (at least from the "everything is an object" standpoint), it just doesn't force you to write code in an object-oriented manner.
4 spaces. Not 5. 5 is right out.
They're all stupid regex tricks, however useful they may be.
Well, the module will let you do that. The regexp will only work on addresses that have comments stripped out.
Of course, I don't think that I've ever seen a comment in an email address (I'm too young for that).
I'm not trying to say that USENET isn't useful.
Part of my point, which you seem to have missed, is that a good bit of the content on groups like comp.lang.python is not generated by people who even know that USENET exists.
comp.lang.python is mirrored as the python-list mailing list - I'm fairly sure that the vast majority of the traffic on it comes from people subscribed to the mailing list.
comp.lang.ruby is the other way around - the mailing list (ruby-lang) is mirrored as the newsgroup - and again, the vast majority of traffic on it comes from the mailing list.
This is, as far as I can tell, the case with a lot of the programming-language specific groups.
comp.lang.c is the exception. Quite a few of the usenet groups that still have useful content are mirrors of mailing lists.
With the explosion of the web, a lot of people got into programming that never heard of usenet. Saying "people are no longer answering questions on usenet" is obviously false, but for a lot of "modern" programming languages, the usenet group is just a mirror of the mailing list - and a lot of people using (for instance) python have probably never heard of usenet.
I don't think that usenet is dead, but I don't think that it's necessarily the best place to turn to for an answer off the bat anymore.
Also, I doubt that the GP is employed by stack overflow. I think that site is ran by two guys, and is more of a "let's try to provide a useful service" type of thing than a "let's turn a crazy profit" type of thing.
I know what cat piss tastes like, but I've never tried salmiak.
I do wish that that default formatting put /home on a separate partition, though.
@ is used for:
* Decorators in Python
* Annotations in Java
* Address operator in Delphi
* Instance variables in Ruby
* Arrays in Perl
* Suppressing warnings in PHP (wtf.)
Lessons in Electric Circuts
Seriously. In conjunction with Socratic Electronics, it should give you a great start.
Exaile looks pretty decent, I'll reccomend it to the few people I know that use Gnome, don't like Rhythmbox, and don't like mixing KDE and Gnome apps for some reason.
(plus it's written in python, which means the bar for adding / changing functionality in it is a bit lower)
Gnome has an equivalent to Amarok?
What I've finally settled on is using KDE with fluxbox as the window manager. Fits my usage perfectly.
I once spilled a bottle of patchouli musk on myself. It was horrible.
Wait . . . not sure if it was the code or the OS? What?
I would think that this would just drive people to use a different upload service. Well, hopefully at least.
>>Popular misinterpretation of phrases often comes from the interpretation making more sense than the original usage.
I think this is a very good point that is often overlooked - language is not some static thing. It's not like someone just shat out the english language onto some stone tablets a while ago.
However, this "feature" of language does lead to some problems - namely that people need to be abundantly clear what they mean by certain phrases or words due to the ambiguity of the language. Failure to do so often leads to people having ridiculous arguments due to having two different working definitions for a phrase or word.
Not to mention that there are a whole lot more reasons to ignore the "Prime Directive" - think about it. If you land on a planet that is less developed than yours, but happens to have intelligent life on it that you can communicate with in some way, you get to be freaking gods.
Maybe they tried it already, and someone's just got a case of loose lips.
I've got a Thinkpad R61e. Keyboard is very close, if not, fullsized. I love it.
I suppose it would depend on the company, but I would suspect that this tendency is becoming less and less of a concern as more people are using OSS in their everyday lives.
Hell yes on all suggestions.
Kids, if you know a few programming languages already, don't learn javascript from the web unless it's from Resig or Crockford. Buy the definitive guide (or pirate it if you can't afford it). Most of the web tutorials for javascript are really really bad.
My take is that most people who dismiss the HF books are intellectual snobs who think if learning isn't painful it means you're not learning.
That may be true for some, but I'd suspect that most of the people that dismiss the HF books are people who are already fairly familiar with the software engineering / computer science / programming domain.
Personally, I haven't read any of them, but I suspect that I would get a lot less out of them than a reference material at this point. 5 years ago, this would be a different story.