Well said. I tried to explain exactly that idea but couldn't find the words.
Re:Who Cares What Language, It Reeks of Poor Desig
on
Why COBOL Could Come Back
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've rarely ever seen good COBOL, so maybe it's possible. From what I HAVE seen, especially with the never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed KSAM flat table POS wannabe database files, suggests to me that good, recoverable, code, is nearly impossible to write. None of that stuff is transaction safe. The programs work in too many discrete steps; if it fails, it hardly ever fails in such a way that you can just RE-run the program; either you need a recovery-specific subset or you have to traverse the program until the point of failure and see if you can recover it.
It is possible to write good COBOL:-)
In the programs I maintain, the recovery is per-program or per-job. Each "unit" of work has a documented (albeit manual) rollback. It usually implies replacing the trashed files from a backup tape (*).
Manual well documented recovery has an advantage : it requires that someone actually looks at the problem and finds why it crashed.
(*) Yes, we don't have a relational database on our mainframe. Only flat files. With 8-chars names. And no hierarchical filesystem. It's called "DOS/VSE with ICCF" and it's so old I feel like a caveman, which is actually kind of fun sometimes:-)
I think that the command line is more usable because it uses the same building bricks on pretty much any UN*X-like system (pipes, "standard" utilities like ls, etc.).
You can build an intuitive mental model of the command line, because of it's (relative) uniformity.
At this point, it's no longer a given that the Mac or Windows version of some GUI for some sort of app is any better.
An app by itself is nothing. You have to consider the whole package of apps that you use, and the system configuration tools, and the print dialog, everything that's part of the GUI "environment".
Windows and Mac GUI programs have an essential advantage over their Linux cousins: they use one toolkit. Moreover, when you create a Mac application with Apple-provided tools, you are (strongly) advised to follow common guidelines (Microsoft may have the same policy, I suppose). As of today, Linux apps have a long way to go before they can match their evil proprietary counterparts.
Choice of GUI is good, but you can't expect uniformity across toolkits...
That's why I stick to command-line, text-only programs under Linux:-)
What do you mean by full ? The Ruby one-click-installer has all the standard libs that you have on Linux/*BSD, plus the Windows-specific libs (it has some OLE stuff and an example about MS Excel remote-control, though I have to admit I don't know much about Windows Scripting).
And it's the second Google result for "windows ruby installer", the first will redirect you to the new page. You didn't try very hard, did you:-)
It's also trivial to install new packages using the (soon to be built-in) "gem" command.
There are some libraries that are *NIX specific (etc for example), but it's a very minor part of the standard distribution.
Are you aware that you can redefine any method in any Ruby class (event the built-in), even at runtime ?
Obviously, you have to understand how the frameworks is organized, and Rails *is* a complicated piece of code. But because of the language used, it is much more flexible and adaptable than say, J2EE...
It seems that people really like to bash Ruby on Rails. Must be a reaction to the (over)hype. Still, it's very annoying that the average comment is completely ignorant of the language or the framework (I mean, more ignorant than the average slashdot troll)...
Well if you look at the photo which is around the middle of the article, I think it's pretty obvious.
An arm protruding out of a tomb with the legend saying "Do not panic. We stress that nothing unusual has been observed during recent excavations" sure seems like a joke to me. Or maybe I should start to run now;-)
Anyway, that's cool to see this kind of article in a scientific journal.
Yeah, and it will have a very positive effect : kids will quickly learn how to sidestep RFID tracking. When it comes to circumventing laws, teenagers are very effective and imaginative.
And when they become responsible, adult citizens, it will be nearly impossible to track them down with this kind of tricks. Something like a vaccine against a particular strain of Bigbrotheris:-)
Apparently, the Core Duo is a bit more power-hungry than the old G4. From the article :
"...the dual-core Core Duo processors in the MacBook Pro use about 25 to 47 watts of power consumption versus about 30 or so on the Aluminum, PowerPC 74xx PowerBook G4s".
Also, Apple seems to have slightly upgraded the battery for the MacBook (still from the article). All in all, it still looks like battery life is much lower than with previous models; but I don't think it has anything to do with the OS. Except for the drivers the code should be the same, no ? My 1-year-old 14" Ibook still has more than 5 hours of battery life in normal use (not using cdrom drive, though).
And by the way, I found that "easy-reading" review to be rather good : in particular it contains facts about practical things (problems with MagSafe, screen flicker at low brightness,...), which is much more interesting than another round of shiny and utterly useless benchmarks.
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Well said. I tried to explain exactly that idea but couldn't find the words.
It is possible to write good COBOL :-)
In the programs I maintain, the recovery is per-program or per-job. Each "unit" of work has a documented (albeit manual) rollback. It usually implies replacing the trashed files from a backup tape (*).
Manual well documented recovery has an advantage : it requires that someone actually looks at the problem and finds why it crashed.
(*) Yes, we don't have a relational database on our mainframe. Only flat files. With 8-chars names. And no hierarchical filesystem. It's called "DOS/VSE with ICCF" and it's so old I feel like a caveman, which is actually kind of fun sometimes :-)
I think that the command line is more usable because it uses the same building bricks on pretty much any UN*X-like system (pipes, "standard" utilities like ls, etc.).
You can build an intuitive mental model of the command line, because of it's (relative) uniformity.
An app by itself is nothing. You have to consider the whole package of apps that you use, and the system configuration tools, and the print dialog, everything that's part of the GUI "environment".
Windows and Mac GUI programs have an essential advantage over their Linux cousins: they use one toolkit. Moreover, when you create a Mac application with Apple-provided tools, you are (strongly) advised to follow common guidelines (Microsoft may have the same policy, I suppose). As of today, Linux apps have a long way to go before they can match their evil proprietary counterparts.
Choice of GUI is good, but you can't expect uniformity across toolkits...
That's why I stick to command-line, text-only programs under Linux :-)
What do you mean by full ? The Ruby one-click-installer has all the standard libs that you have on Linux/*BSD, plus the Windows-specific libs (it has some OLE stuff and an example about MS Excel remote-control, though I have to admit I don't know much about Windows Scripting).
:-)
And it's the second Google result for "windows ruby installer", the first will redirect you to the new page. You didn't try very hard, did you
It's also trivial to install new packages using the (soon to be built-in) "gem" command.
There are some libraries that are *NIX specific (etc for example), but it's a very minor part of the standard distribution.
Are you aware that you can redefine any method in any Ruby class (event the built-in), even at runtime ?
Obviously, you have to understand how the frameworks is organized, and Rails *is* a complicated piece of code. But because of the language used, it is much more flexible and adaptable than say, J2EE...
It seems that people really like to bash Ruby on Rails. Must be a reaction to the (over)hype. Still, it's very annoying that the average comment is completely ignorant of the language or the framework (I mean, more ignorant than the average slashdot troll)...
Uuuhh ?
;-)
Well if you look at the photo which is around the middle of the article, I think it's pretty obvious.
An arm protruding out of a tomb with the legend saying "Do not panic. We stress that nothing unusual has been observed during recent excavations" sure seems like a joke to me. Or maybe I should start to run now
Anyway, that's cool to see this kind of article in a scientific journal.
Yeah, and it will have a very positive effect : kids will quickly learn how to sidestep RFID tracking. When it comes to circumventing laws, teenagers are very effective and imaginative.
:-)
And when they become responsible, adult citizens, it will be nearly impossible to track them down with this kind of tricks. Something like a vaccine against a particular strain of Bigbrotheris
Apparently, the Core Duo is a bit more power-hungry than the old G4. From the article : "...the dual-core Core Duo processors in the MacBook Pro use about 25 to 47 watts of power consumption versus about 30 or so on the Aluminum, PowerPC 74xx PowerBook G4s".
Also, Apple seems to have slightly upgraded the battery for the MacBook (still from the article). All in all, it still looks like battery life is much lower than with previous models; but I don't think it has anything to do with the OS. Except for the drivers the code should be the same, no ? My 1-year-old 14" Ibook still has more than 5 hours of battery life in normal use (not using cdrom drive, though).
And by the way, I found that "easy-reading" review to be rather good : in particular it contains facts about practical things (problems with MagSafe, screen flicker at low brightness, ...), which is much more interesting than another round of shiny and utterly useless benchmarks.