That sounds like a good suggestion to me. So far as I can see my Linux Desktop ( KDE ) is very good and easily better than Windows.
However what is a problem is that almost nobody releases any of their products for Linux that they do for Windows and there are some things which aren't available as Open Source which I would like to have.
If there was clear and easy way for these companies to release their apps for Windows & Linux then that would really help Linux take off amongst the general user population.
OK so there is WINE which is very handy indeed but it is not exactly perfect yet, maybe all it would take would be some way of using Wine to help traditional Windows developers port to Linux to make the difference but something along these lines would be good in my opinion.
Absoloutley, this is definatly the only sensible course of action for any true democracy.
A big problem with any government is that the become easily side tracked by minor issues when they should be concentrating fully on the 'real' or important ones.
A true democracy should listen most to those who invest most in the state, usually large corporations or wealthy individuals.
Large companies can perform invaluable services to a democracy by acting as a proxy between the voters and the government, after all if a company is doing well and making lots of profit this is surely because the voting public endorse this companies products and ethics and are, in a way, voting with their wallets.
This policy would ensure that some of the frivilous and airy fairy notions expressed by some of the voting public ( but not to a degree where they are willing to put their money where there mouth is ) do not interfere with those policies targetted at improving a countries bottom line.
Some people may quibble that companies are somehow divorced from the general public and should be banned from public life but these allegations are obviously nonsense when you consider that any company worth it's salt is guided by a large body of people called shareholders. These selfless individuals will invest their money and signal a clear commitment to the values and beliefs of their chosen company in way which cannot be matched by ordinary voters simply posting ballot papers. It is easy to put a cross on a piece of paper if you don't have to invest any time and effort in it you will probably not give the action as much thought as you would when choosing which shares to buy.
I agree that small snippets are undoubtedly the best way to learn how to do specific things, e.g. make a search engine or send an e-mail.
However I think there comes a point where you realise that you don't have to particulary bother to learn how to do these things until you need to use them. At that point you just find a sample to cut and paste and adapt to your needs.
Where I think looking at the way other people have created their web site, CMS or whatever is helpful is to learn the best way to structure your entire PHP project. And indeed I think that learning these structures is probably the best way to ensure your ideas work out in practice. I think you can learn a lot just by looking at a few of the include scripts that the way they have chosen to design -whatever - is either very bad ( in which case you won't have a clue what is going on anywhere ) or very good. Learn from the good and avoid the bad.
I tend to agree that you don't *need* a good debugger for PHP because if you find yourself in the situation where it is impossible to debug your code then you really need to do some restructuring.
None the less though having a good debugger could quite often cut down that 30mins identifying problems using echo, var_dump etc to 1 or 2 minutes and I would certainly find that to be a great help.
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like a good suggestion to me. So far as I can see my Linux Desktop ( KDE ) is very good and easily better than Windows.
However what is a problem is that almost nobody releases any of their products for Linux that they do for Windows and there are some things which aren't available as Open Source which I would like to have.
If there was clear and easy way for these companies to release their apps for Windows & Linux then that would really help Linux take off amongst the general user population.
OK so there is WINE which is very handy indeed but it is not exactly perfect yet, maybe all it would take would be some way of using Wine to help traditional Windows developers port to Linux to make the difference but something along these lines would be good in my opinion.
Absoloutley, this is definatly the only sensible course of action for any true democracy. A big problem with any government is that the become easily side tracked by minor issues when they should be concentrating fully on the 'real' or important ones. A true democracy should listen most to those who invest most in the state, usually large corporations or wealthy individuals. Large companies can perform invaluable services to a democracy by acting as a proxy between the voters and the government, after all if a company is doing well and making lots of profit this is surely because the voting public endorse this companies products and ethics and are, in a way, voting with their wallets. This policy would ensure that some of the frivilous and airy fairy notions expressed by some of the voting public ( but not to a degree where they are willing to put their money where there mouth is ) do not interfere with those policies targetted at improving a countries bottom line. Some people may quibble that companies are somehow divorced from the general public and should be banned from public life but these allegations are obviously nonsense when you consider that any company worth it's salt is guided by a large body of people called shareholders. These selfless individuals will invest their money and signal a clear commitment to the values and beliefs of their chosen company in way which cannot be matched by ordinary voters simply posting ballot papers. It is easy to put a cross on a piece of paper if you don't have to invest any time and effort in it you will probably not give the action as much thought as you would when choosing which shares to buy.
I agree that small snippets are undoubtedly the best way to learn how to do specific things, e.g. make a search engine or send an e-mail. However I think there comes a point where you realise that you don't have to particulary bother to learn how to do these things until you need to use them. At that point you just find a sample to cut and paste and adapt to your needs. Where I think looking at the way other people have created their web site, CMS or whatever is helpful is to learn the best way to structure your entire PHP project. And indeed I think that learning these structures is probably the best way to ensure your ideas work out in practice. I think you can learn a lot just by looking at a few of the include scripts that the way they have chosen to design -whatever - is either very bad ( in which case you won't have a clue what is going on anywhere ) or very good. Learn from the good and avoid the bad.
I tend to agree that you don't *need* a good debugger for PHP because if you find yourself in the situation where it is impossible to debug your code then you really need to do some restructuring.
None the less though having a good debugger could quite often cut down that 30mins identifying problems using echo, var_dump etc to 1 or 2 minutes and I would certainly find that to be a great help.