So, to draw 30 minutes' worth of power in one second, how much do you have to draw? 1350. Enough to not just melt your wires, but probably vaporize them. (Especially since inside the fixture, they usually use 16-gauge wire.)
Can't say I have any idea what the melting point is in terms of amps. I'll check the details of your argument later, but you're right though, I've just been carting about this urban legend and never really critically thought about it. Thanks. I'll have to work out what it does draw on startup, so I can get it vaguely right next time.
If you're going to get self-congratulatory for being the rational one of the pair, perhaps you should look into some of your other assumptions, too.
So, you are claiming that turning the flourscent light on and off continously will save power?
How much it really cost to keep a light on while you have a shower?
The obsession people have with not leaving lights on even for a few minutes has always bothered me, because it's really the last thing you should be concerned about. I'll have to look at my electricity bill when I get home and work it out... I did do this exercise once to defeat an annoying co-habitant, but I can't remember the exact result. It really was not worth talking about, even for (at the time) starving students:) 20 cents to run a light for 24 hours, or something like that. I remember giving her one dollar, and requesting that she therefore never bug me about lights again, as those few minutes I leave lights on are now covered for at least a year.
And then there are flourescent lights. In that case, they are cheaper to run, *but* it takes a lot of electricity to start them up. The equivalent of about 30 minutes worth of running time IIRC. This means that if you walk into and out of a room switching the damned flourescent light on and off, you are actually costing much more money then just leaving it on! And yes, the ex-roommate kept switching the flourescent kitchen light off, and then back on again, every ten minutes.
You used a precisely defined term (OSS) in error. You don't get to "speak for yourself" about how you define it.
As I said, I know quite enough about perl, definitely more than I want to know
It's quite obvious you don't know anything at all about it. You can't possible have read "Programming Perl", given some of the laughable nonsense you've spouted here.
Just stop talking about things you know nothing about. And if you think Perl can't deal with "large scale systems", that would be another subject you probably need to get some experience dealing with.
Yeah, whatever.
You might at least want to look up the definition of Open Source Software before talking about it next time... it's not hard or anything.
Readability of Perl has rarely been considered a matter of opinion
Yes, I'm afraid it is. I don't find Python inherently more readable at all.
I don't consider a source code very open if it is extremely unreadable, especially in case of willfull obfuscation with tools etc
This is all just your opinion. About reabability, and about what is open and what is not. No one cares about what *you* consider to be open. What you said was absolute rubbish. End of story.
Because perl just doesn't scale to large problems. Even Larry Wall agrees with that, or at least has at some interviews. This is something perl6 is trying to fix
So, I'm just imagining all the large problems solved with it, then? As for these "interviews", I think I know what you're referring to, and that's not true at all.
Perl 6: since you don't know anything about Perl it's best not to dig yourself in any deeper by starting to talk about Perl 6.
Like I said, you don't know what you're talking about, you were trolling, I gave you a chance to explain yourself, and you have been (gently) corrected, and continuing to try to defend this position justs continues to make you look a bit silly. It really is as simple as that. The best thing to do is grow up a bit, admit you were flatly wrong in the first place, and move on. Really.
Advocacy: If you speak incorrect BS, do you really expect any Perl programmers to consider Python? Or just roll their eyes and get on with implementing their large scale systems in an OSS language? I really do want more people to try Python, but this is having the exact opposite effect. Think about it. Please!
It wasn't the fact that he didn't want the goverment to pay for it, but the fact that he said that broadband was only used for gambling and porn that made him the subject of international mockery.
Because Python code is much more readable than Perl.Hence, it's more Open, because more people can take a look at the code, learn from it, and hack it.
The "readability" issue is merely an opinion. I've never found that at all. And now you're talking about "open" in an entirely different context from "OSS".
With Python, people can do bigger programs faster, One Python program equals ~ 4 Java/C++ programmers in productivity. Perl programmers are not even in the same league, because they can't implement systems of similar scale/complexity
What? Yes, they can. Why not?
Churning out cute little scripts is not a wise career move in the long run, even if it can be a lifesaver in various situations. Management is more likely to assume that those scripts could have been written by anyone, while with bigger programs one can demonstrate their architectural vision.
I don't "churn out little scripts" in Perl. Never have. I've done plenty of large and complex systems in Perl however, and I'm far from the only one.
I don't want to get into an argument particularly, but if this reasoning is the basis of your statements, then it's clear that they are completely unsupportable.
Before you leap into a reply you may want to consider if you really know much about Perl at all. From the above statements, it's clear that you don't. Now that's not a bad thing in itself, but it's best not to criticize from a position of ignorance like this just to attempt to rally support for your current favourite language. You won't succeed in convincing anyone, and will actually drive people away with statements such as "furthering the OSS movement more, not to mention their own careers..."
Why not talk about the object models instead, say? Or something else aside from FUD? That would be a much more productive approach.
Anyway, good luck with Python. It is a nice language, as I said. I use it a lot.
has an entirely different meaning, doesn't it? Well, sir, I congratulate you. You have discovered the long sought after example where the difference between "map" and "for" is significant semantically to the reader.
What a shame you posted anonymously. I can only credit "anonymous coward" with this one.
[and before the language lawyers start on about it, yes, "do" is a reserved word, so it's "&do for @chicks"]
syntax error at./lightbulb line 13, near "=;" Execution of./lightbulb aborted due to compilation errors.
The odd thing is, this code doesn't even attempt to read the response from STDIN, and then doesn't try to answer the question... it will just sleep for a bit and then exit. I see what it's intended to do, but I suspect this must be some sort of subtle statement about Perl, or perhaps all the languages mentioned... but I'm not sure what exactly. Either that or it's just broken;)
[Disclaimer: I do both Perl and Python. Marvelous languages, both. This isn't a swipe at Python]
By hacking w/ Python, many Perl mongers would be furthering the OSS movement more
Why is choosing Python furthering OSS more than using Perl? In case you weren't aware, Perl is completely open source, and has one of the largest and most active open source communities in existence.
On the face of it, this doesn't hold up at all.
not to mention their own careers...
This might well be true, but in my experience and judgement it wouldn't at all. On what do you base this claim? I just can't see how you reach this conclusion.
Seriously, scripting language holy wars are even sillier than other holy wars. I use Perl, Python, and PHP regularly
I agree! I'm happy to hear someone else say it. I use both Python and Perl continuously. My code isn't unreadable in either language. Yes, I've had other people work on my Perl code, and I've been able to read my own years later. No problem. OTOH, I'm currently refactoring Java code that is an incomprehensible mess in places. The fact is that the language is not the problem if your code is rubbish.
I was just reading a republished article of Larry Wall's in "Best of the Perl Journal Vol 3". To quote, "Python is like MTV. It rocks, but after a while everything just looks the same". That about sums it up.
Perl's nice. Python's nice. Learn both, you will learn something new and interesting, I guarantee it. Features from each regularly end up in the other anyway, so you'll be ahead of the curve:)
And of a classic on-line argument?
on
Perl 5.8.1 Released
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
A quick pass through the changes uncovered:
Miscellaneous Enhancements
map in void context is no longer expensive. map is now context aware, and will not construct a list if called in void context.
This must have been added to *end* the ceaseless wars over whether using "map" in a void context is lame, or not. This argument after repeated dowsing attempts, would constantly spring back into life with renewed vigor on comp.lang.perl.misc and other places.
Now it doesn't matter. Argument over. I think I'll miss it. Sort of. I can't remember a time when people weren't fighting about this. Next I suppose we'll be sorting out the whole "who would win, the Enterprise or a star destroyer?" mess;)
For those who don't know what I'm on about: "map" applies a subroutine or code block to each element in a list. Some people would use it to iterate over lists, instead of using "for". Perl is now smart enough to notice if you're not using the result of "map", and so won't generate the result list in that particular case.
The whole argument came down over whether to say:
map { do_stuff; } @list;
or
do_stuff for @list;
So the "for" people would, rightly, say that the "map" was inefficient if you weren't using the result list created by map, and the "map" people said that Perl should just figure it out and do the right thing.
Actually, now I think about it, this is going to make the argument *worse*, as now they are functionally equivalent, and it will just come down to taste! No! They don't know what they've done... now it will never die!:)
*Don't* bring back the Daleks!
on
Doctor Who Comeback
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I would rather not see all the "classic" monsters recycled. These were very much a product of their times, exaggerations of then-current fears. Nuclear war/radiation/mutation --> Daleks. The new field of cybernetics and artificial limbs/organs --> Cybermen. And so on.
I'd much prefer to see *new* stories with inventive new villians. It doesn't have to be "mystery science bogeyman" *every* week, but there are certainly some more topical lurking fears that could be put to good use. Quantum mechanics, nanomachines, genetic engineering, viruses, various forms of computing and communication technology taken to pathological extremes, and so on.
Let's *really* scare the living crap out of people, eh? A pepper-pot with a plunger just won't cut it any more.
I also think that if you take away the crutch of recycling old monsters and plots, you will get *much* better stories.
As for the truth of the "return", I'll believe it when I see it. I've seen this kind of story turn out to be false too many times. I want it to be true, I really do, but the cynical side of me fears that the BBC just want to drive up DVD sales... again.
Sounds like an interesting effort. I was just thinking the other day about how "profiles" of C++ might provide the safety and ease (eg. pointer checking, garbage collection) of Java or C#, without re-inventing the entire wheel.
As an alternative approach, I've had some success with this tool, which is basically a patch to gcc so that the code that is emitted on compilation contains bounds checking for each and every pointer arithmetic operation, including array indexing.
It works by finding the size of the block which is the target for the "base pointer" of any pointer arithmetic, and checking that the final result is within the bounds of that block.
The disadvantage is that it will slow your code down, but if security is important enough that becomes less important. However, it *doesn't* require any change to your code whatsoever.
I have not deployed code compiled with this extension, but I have used it when running unit tests over our existing code base, and it did find some subtle problems lurking in our code that had some of the real C language-lawyers around the place scurring to prove the tool was wrong and that their code was OK. After much argument, and referral to the C standard, it turned out the tool was exactly right in all cases. These were problems that didn't shown up at all in Purify! It really worked very well, and I didn't expect it be worthwhile at all.
I'm currently reading "Building Secure Software" (Addison-Wesley), and that's how I discovered this extension. This book seems quite good so far, despite the fact that I know a lot of it already. It doesn't just focus on prevention, but also talks about auditing and monitoring and other important deployment issues that are often ignored. You just can't assume that "nothing will go wrong"...
It would be nice if every undergrad were to have read this book (or something like it) at some point.
I notice that the keynote speaker is Michi Henning, and he is delivering the "Computing Fallacies" talk again, presumably in an updated form.
Since this very presentation was discussed on/. previously, it might be interesting for an attendee to take notes so that we can compare with last time. Does he believe things have improved, or not, and why?
Not a commercial use, but I'd like to attach one to every technical book that I buy. These tend to go wandering, and people claim to have returned them, when I know that they haven't - and the missing books invariably turn up in their house a year or so later during a move or clean up or whatever.
These books are just too expensive to lose.
I'd like to be able to go round with a scanner and find the damned things. Of course, this doesn't prevent malicious theft as they'd never let me in their house to start with... but the recurring problem I have is friends with less than reliable memories.
(Yes, I could stop letting people borrow my books, but I do like to borrow others' as well... not to mention the indirect benefit of improving my co-worker's knowledge)
I've simply decided not to see the third one, after the Reloaded mess. It is the only way they'll learn not to just slap "The Matrix" label onto any old thing.
I'll be very interested to see what kind of business Revolutions does. Only the real Matrix fanatics seem to have much positive to say about Reloaded. I can't see average movie goers being particular keen to see the next one...
Slashdot Mirror
So, to draw 30 minutes' worth of power in one second, how much do you have to draw? 1350. Enough to not just melt your wires, but probably vaporize them. (Especially since inside the fixture, they usually use 16-gauge wire.)
Can't say I have any idea what the melting point is in terms of amps. I'll check the details of your argument later, but you're right though, I've just been carting about this urban legend and never really critically thought about it. Thanks. I'll have to work out what it does draw on startup, so I can get it vaguely right next time.
If you're going to get self-congratulatory for being the rational one of the pair, perhaps you should look into some of your other assumptions, too.
So, you are claiming that turning the flourscent light on and off continously will save power?
How much it really cost to keep a light on while you have a shower?
... I did do this exercise once to defeat an annoying co-habitant, but I can't remember the exact result. It really was not worth talking about, even for (at the time) starving students :) 20 cents to run a light for 24 hours, or something like that. I remember giving her one dollar, and requesting that she therefore never bug me about lights again, as those few minutes I leave lights on are now covered for at least a year.
The obsession people have with not leaving lights on even for a few minutes has always bothered me, because it's really the last thing you should be concerned about. I'll have to look at my electricity bill when I get home and work it out
And then there are flourescent lights. In that case, they are cheaper to run, *but* it takes a lot of electricity to start them up. The equivalent of about 30 minutes worth of running time IIRC. This means that if you walk into and out of a room switching the damned flourescent light on and off, you are actually costing much more money then just leaving it on! And yes, the ex-roommate kept switching the flourescent kitchen light off, and then back on again, every ten minutes.
I can hardly speak for anyone else but myself.
... it's not hard or anything.
You used a precisely defined term (OSS) in error. You don't get to "speak for yourself" about how you define it.
As I said, I know quite enough about perl, definitely more than I want to know
It's quite obvious you don't know anything at all about it. You can't possible have read "Programming Perl", given some of the laughable nonsense you've spouted here.
Just stop talking about things you know nothing about. And if you think Perl can't deal with "large scale systems", that would be another subject you probably need to get some experience dealing with.
Yeah, whatever.
You might at least want to look up the definition of Open Source Software before talking about it next time
Readability of Perl has rarely been considered a matter of opinion
Yes, I'm afraid it is. I don't find Python inherently more readable at all.
I don't consider a source code very open if it is extremely unreadable, especially in case of willfull obfuscation with tools etc
This is all just your opinion. About reabability, and about what is open and what is not. No one cares about what *you* consider to be open. What you said was absolute rubbish. End of story.
Because perl just doesn't scale to large problems. Even Larry Wall agrees with that, or at least has at some interviews. This is something perl6 is trying to fix
So, I'm just imagining all the large problems solved with it, then? As for these "interviews", I think I know what you're referring to, and that's not true at all.
Perl 6: since you don't know anything about Perl it's best not to dig yourself in any deeper by starting to talk about Perl 6.
Like I said, you don't know what you're talking about, you were trolling, I gave you a chance to explain yourself, and you have been (gently) corrected, and continuing to try to defend this position justs continues to make you look a bit silly. It really is as simple as that. The best thing to do is grow up a bit, admit you were flatly wrong in the first place, and move on. Really.
Advocacy: If you speak incorrect BS, do you really expect any Perl programmers to consider Python? Or just roll their eyes and get on with implementing their large scale systems in an OSS language? I really do want more people to try Python, but this is having the exact opposite effect. Think about it. Please!
It wasn't the fact that he didn't want the goverment to pay for it, but the fact that he said that broadband was only used for gambling and porn that made him the subject of international mockery.
And *I*, for one, welcome our *new* luddite overlord! :)
Yeah, it's lame, but I'm so happy right now, I just don't care. I didn't think anything could better the news of Doctor Who returning, but here it is!
I just submitted this most excellent news item to /., but spent so much time digging up links to his inglorious past that someone beat me to it.
However, I found the original Register article that named Alston as "The World's Biggest Luddite".
Now, let's not forget the acceptance of kickbacks from Telstra in the form of a $10,000AU plasma television.
Because Python code is much more readable than Perl.Hence, it's more Open, because more people can take a look at the code, learn from it, and hack it.
The "readability" issue is merely an opinion. I've never found that at all. And now you're talking about "open" in an entirely different context from "OSS".
With Python, people can do bigger programs faster, One Python program equals ~ 4 Java/C++ programmers in productivity. Perl programmers are not even in the same league, because they can't implement systems of similar scale/complexity
What? Yes, they can. Why not?
Churning out cute little scripts is not a wise career move in the long run, even if it can be a lifesaver in various situations. Management is more likely to assume that those scripts could have been written by anyone, while with bigger programs one can demonstrate their architectural vision.
I don't "churn out little scripts" in Perl. Never have. I've done plenty of large and complex systems in Perl however, and I'm far from the only one.
I don't want to get into an argument particularly, but if this reasoning is the basis of your statements, then it's clear that they are completely unsupportable.
Before you leap into a reply you may want to consider if you really know much about Perl at all. From the above statements, it's clear that you don't. Now that's not a bad thing in itself, but it's best not to criticize from a position of ignorance like this just to attempt to rally support for your current favourite language. You won't succeed in convincing anyone, and will actually drive people away with statements such as "furthering the OSS movement more, not to mention their own careers..."
Why not talk about the object models instead, say? Or something else aside from FUD? That would be a much more productive approach.
Anyway, good luck with Python. It is a nice language, as I said. I use it a lot.
I'm just a "map { do; } @chicks;" kind of guy.
I know you were joking, but:
do for @chicks;
has an entirely different meaning, doesn't it? Well, sir, I congratulate you. You have discovered the long sought after example where the difference between "map" and "for" is significant semantically to the reader.
What a shame you posted anonymously. I can only credit "anonymous coward" with this one.
[and before the language lawyers start on about it, yes, "do" is a reserved word, so it's "&do for @chicks"]
And the answer is:
./lightbulb line 13, near "= ;" ./lightbulb aborted due to compilation errors.
... it will just sleep for a bit and then exit. I see what it's intended to do, but I suspect this must be some sort of subtle statement about Perl, or perhaps all the languages mentioned ... but I'm not sure what exactly. Either that or it's just broken ;)
syntax error at
Execution of
The odd thing is, this code doesn't even attempt to read the response from STDIN, and then doesn't try to answer the question
[Disclaimer: I do both Perl and Python. Marvelous languages, both. This isn't a swipe at Python]
By hacking w/ Python, many Perl mongers would be furthering the OSS movement more
Why is choosing Python furthering OSS more than using Perl? In case you weren't aware, Perl is completely open source, and has one of the largest and most active open source communities in existence.
On the face of it, this doesn't hold up at all.
not to mention their own careers...
This might well be true, but in my experience and judgement it wouldn't at all. On what do you base this claim? I just can't see how you reach this conclusion.
Seriously, scripting language holy wars are even sillier than other holy wars. I use Perl, Python, and PHP regularly
:)
I agree! I'm happy to hear someone else say it. I use both Python and Perl continuously. My code isn't unreadable in either language. Yes, I've had other people work on my Perl code, and I've been able to read my own years later. No problem. OTOH, I'm currently refactoring Java code that is an incomprehensible mess in places. The fact is that the language is not the problem if your code is rubbish.
I was just reading a republished article of Larry Wall's in "Best of the Perl Journal Vol 3". To quote, "Python is like MTV. It rocks, but after a while everything just looks the same". That about sums it up.
Perl's nice. Python's nice. Learn both, you will learn something new and interesting, I guarantee it. Features from each regularly end up in the other anyway, so you'll be ahead of the curve
Some code just deserves to be broken ;)
A quick pass through the changes uncovered:
;)
... now it will never die! :)
Miscellaneous Enhancements
map in void context is no longer expensive. map is now context aware, and will not construct a list if called in void context.
This must have been added to *end* the ceaseless wars over whether using "map" in a void context is lame, or not. This argument after repeated dowsing attempts, would constantly spring back into life with renewed vigor on comp.lang.perl.misc and other places.
Now it doesn't matter. Argument over. I think I'll miss it. Sort of. I can't remember a time when people weren't fighting about this. Next I suppose we'll be sorting out the whole "who would win, the Enterprise or a star destroyer?" mess
For those who don't know what I'm on about: "map" applies a subroutine or code block to each element in a list. Some people would use it to iterate over lists, instead of using "for". Perl is now smart enough to notice if you're not using the result of "map", and so won't generate the result list in that particular case.
The whole argument came down over whether to say:
map { do_stuff; } @list;
or
do_stuff for @list;
So the "for" people would, rightly, say that the "map" was inefficient if you weren't using the result list created by map, and the "map" people said that Perl should just figure it out and do the right thing.
Actually, now I think about it, this is going to make the argument *worse*, as now they are functionally equivalent, and it will just come down to taste! No! They don't know what they've done
I would rather not see all the "classic" monsters recycled. These were very much a product of their times, exaggerations of then-current fears. Nuclear war/radiation/mutation --> Daleks. The new field of cybernetics and artificial limbs/organs --> Cybermen. And so on.
... again.
I'd much prefer to see *new* stories with inventive new villians. It doesn't have to be "mystery science bogeyman" *every* week, but there are certainly some more topical lurking fears that could be put to good use. Quantum mechanics, nanomachines, genetic engineering, viruses, various forms of computing and communication technology taken to pathological extremes, and so on.
Let's *really* scare the living crap out of people, eh? A pepper-pot with a plunger just won't cut it any more.
I also think that if you take away the crutch of recycling old monsters and plots, you will get *much* better stories.
As for the truth of the "return", I'll believe it when I see it. I've seen this kind of story turn out to be false too many times. I want it to be true, I really do, but the cynical side of me fears that the BBC just want to drive up DVD sales
We need to find out if ants can sort tiny screws in space!!
Sounds like an interesting effort. I was just thinking the other day about how "profiles" of C++ might provide the safety and ease (eg. pointer checking, garbage collection) of Java or C#, without re-inventing the entire wheel.
...
As an alternative approach, I've had some success with this tool, which is basically a patch to gcc so that the code that is emitted on compilation contains bounds checking for each and every pointer arithmetic operation, including array indexing.
It works by finding the size of the block which is the target for the "base pointer" of any pointer arithmetic, and checking that the final result is within the bounds of that block.
The disadvantage is that it will slow your code down, but if security is important enough that becomes less important. However, it *doesn't* require any change to your code whatsoever.
I have not deployed code compiled with this extension, but I have used it when running unit tests over our existing code base, and it did find some subtle problems lurking in our code that had some of the real C language-lawyers around the place scurring to prove the tool was wrong and that their code was OK. After much argument, and referral to the C standard, it turned out the tool was exactly right in all cases. These were problems that didn't shown up at all in Purify! It really worked very well, and I didn't expect it be worthwhile at all.
I'm currently reading "Building Secure Software" (Addison-Wesley), and that's how I discovered this extension. This book seems quite good so far, despite the fact that I know a lot of it already. It doesn't just focus on prevention, but also talks about auditing and monitoring and other important deployment issues that are often ignored. You just can't assume that "nothing will go wrong"
It would be nice if every undergrad were to have read this book (or something like it) at some point.
I notice that the keynote speaker is Michi Henning, and he is delivering the "Computing Fallacies" talk again, presumably in an updated form.
/. previously, it might be interesting for an attendee to take notes so that we can compare with last time. Does he believe things have improved, or not, and why?
Since this very presentation was discussed on
Not a commercial use, but I'd like to attach one to every technical book that I buy. These tend to go wandering, and people claim to have returned them, when I know that they haven't - and the missing books invariably turn up in their house a year or so later during a move or clean up or whatever.
... but the recurring problem I have is friends with less than reliable memories.
... not to mention the indirect benefit of improving my co-worker's knowledge)
These books are just too expensive to lose.
I'd like to be able to go round with a scanner and find the damned things. Of course, this doesn't prevent malicious theft as they'd never let me in their house to start with
(Yes, I could stop letting people borrow my books, but I do like to borrow others' as well
I've simply decided not to see the third one, after the Reloaded mess. It is the only way they'll learn not to just slap "The Matrix" label onto any old thing.
...
I'll be very interested to see what kind of business Revolutions does. Only the real Matrix fanatics seem to have much positive to say about Reloaded. I can't see average movie goers being particular keen to see the next one
What's "htttp"? "hyper text texting protocol"?
I meant "hyper text texting transfer protocol". That's what I get posting this close to midnight (my time).
I know, it was a joke ... note the smiley right there.
That's probably supposed to be kernel.org.
:)
And in case it's fixed later, it is broken right now. What's "htttp"? "hyper text texting protocol"?
Great!
But before I download this, where do I pay my SCO licensing fee?