Imagine if this was a corporation, and the execs went to the shareholders and said 'We spent $600 million on software, but it's not going to work. sorry." They'd be out of a job in a flash.
You're right. That's why they wouldn't tell the shareholders in the first place. I don't think the conduct of American business over the last few years inspires any confidence. Besides, is there really much wall between private corporations and public agencies these days? Seems like we get the cream of the crap rising to the top in both worlds.
How one can seriously advocate voting for Nader in the swing states is just beyond me. I swear, I just cannot fathom it. It's about as responsible as passing out free crack to first graders.
I'm glad you were impressed by the seriousness of ReverseVoteSwap.org. You're clearly a person of fine literary sensitivity.
As it turns out, though, I would encourage swing-state voters to vote for Nader if that is the candidate with whom they agree. Part of the reason is that it pains me to observe reasonably informed people, such as yourself, regurgitate White Man's Burden arguments that have been used to justify every imperialist outrage in history. That's the price paid for being dragged around by the politics of John Kerry.
I don't know how you all see it, but when it comes to the children, Wu-Tang is for the children. We teach the children. Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best.
Also, kids today need to learn about such topics as
1) A kid (or adult) with some brains, but little actual low level computer knowledge can come up with an interpreter
I'd add that, even if you do have a lot of brains, it's both easier and ensures wider use to develop an interpreter if you're trying to introduce a new language. Writing a good compiler is High Art and by no means identical to language design.
On that note, interpretation also gives a language designer an amount of conceptual freedom by abstracting the architecture. That's why languages with paradigms that don't translate well onto von Neumann-y notions (eg, LISP or Prolog) are interpreted as a rule. Interestingly, some of these concepts can then migrate into compiled languages, for instance the Boost Lambda library for C++.
Conspicuously referencing (brackets []) a learning institution deep in a thread in a vain effort to lend credence...
Hey sharpknife, Slashdot automatically inserts the domain of any URL to which one links. My friend's blog is hosted by Havard, her employer.
to an otherwise opioniated statement...
I make no attempt to hide the opinionated nature of my opinions. (I have assumed here that you misspelled "opinionated," although perhaps I lack the life experience to know as many words as you do.)
have you even programmed in more than three types of program languages yet?
I don't see how anyone can seriously criticise an unfinished book.
Well, I honestly didn't think the parts of it I read were very good. Also I think that if you announce something publicly, you open it to criticism; if it's not in a state where you want criticism, don't publish it (I say this having done some amount of public writing and speaking). I found the prose long-winded, the presentation not amenable to experimentation or reference, the "pure fun" material purely distracting, and the self-aware style pretty irritating. I don't really know anything about Ruby and have nothing against it--seems like a fine language, but this book didn't encourage me to check it out.
Also, as an experiment, I asked a friend of mine to take a look at the book. She's a liberal arts person, but did some programming at school and knows the basics. Obviously she didn't have the same sort of cranky attitude I did, but her criticism was essentially similar.
Methinks, perchance, no. Maybe I'm a just curmudgeon (at 23! not bad!), but I do like to think that programming is a serious technical art based in serious science, not the electronic equivalent of making a zine. There's a certain value in acting like what we do is actually a real profession, not something just any teen can accomplish with enough M&Ms, Jolt Cola, and "sassy" instructional cartoons.
OK, I'm definitely a curmudgeon. Still I think I'm right.
It would be pretty cool if this guy did a LEGO reenactment of that scene where the game over screen comes up while you're in the middle of fighting. Wait a minute...VR military missions...they were training us! You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!
A mule is very different from a dog. So much so that the Pentagon is spending millions to develop a robotic mule as well. Check out my Slashdot Journal entry of 1-Dec-2003.
Joe P. Capitain is not in control of his plane when there is a gun to his head.
Well, I don't have control of my car if someone has a gun to my head. Does that mean my car should be restricted so that, say, it cannot be driven off the road? I certainly hope not--it's not hard to think of situations where driving your car off the road is the rational choice (actually, it's sometimes recommended to crash your car if you're being carjacked and expect to be gravely assaulted).
It seems like this solution is flubbing the question of default level of control. If we decide that it's safer that the pilot generally not have control, then he should be required to take special action to override the system (or not be allowed to override at all); otherwise he should be required to take special action to lock himself out.
You can't answer the question, "Is the operator trusted?" with "Sort of." (Of course you can say yes for X, no for Y, etc.) Incidentally, I think Windows is an excellent example of how not to think about these kinds of problems. In some ways Windows treats you like a stone dummy, in others like the almighty. The result is a hodgepodge of contradictory models that is a notorious security failure (although the newest releases are substantially better. It's not entirely Microsoft's fault either, but a more general problem about the role of a PC and how it's marketed).
It ran on the eccentric (read: awful) "Burly Bear" college network; I cannot remember the title, nor am I certain it was titled. Its times of appearance could be used to seed a very good random number generator. One of the hosts was rather obese, the other rather scrawny. They certainly had a serious dedication to games, as it seemed they spent all their budget on gaming equipment rather than producing a TV show.
The one thing I recall quite clearly is that they were sponsored by SoBe, who makes all those stupid energy drinks. Someone at SoBe Marketing must be very unemployed today, if they indeed sponsored this show. It can't have possibly been the image they were going for; nor, in fact, did the hosts show any particular enthusiasm for the product (the highest praise ever conferred upon it was the fat fellow opining, "It's all right.").
I guess it wasn't really a good show at all. But it evoked a certain unreal atmosphere, as if the show was shot entirely in the Simulacrum. An irreverent video epistle from the Kingdom of Dreams...
Assuredly I do note the difference between programming a simple HTTP client in Java versus assembler. To write such a thing in assembler is a triumph; in Java, an undergraduate exercise. But the fact that a good language or library allows one to operate at a higher level of abstraction doesn't mean that you've made programming as an art easier.
For example, I've done substantial projects both in Java with full sets of libraries and in assembly (embedded microcontroller). Was the Java project easier? Not really. Of course it would have been harder to do the Java project in assembly, but no one would expect that in the first place. Having libraries and a high-level language meant that I had to deal with different levels of interactions and structure.
Well, I'm glad you pointed out that good programmers can, indeed, come from the inscrutable Orient. I'm the son of immigrants, and I've worked with plenty of people on H1-B visas or in India, and they're just as good as anyone else, and often more conscientous engineers. Native-born workers should be fighting with them to better working conditions for everyone, not giving into screwy stereotypes about "crappy Asian coders" that just reinforces the idea that they deserve worse treatment. Look at where that thinking has gotten American steelworkers...
But I disagree with your contention that better libraries, techonology, etc. means that you can make divisions between "desginer-programmers" and "coder-programmers." Of course there need to be divisions and abstractions between higher and lower levels of any project of non-trivial size, but I think every coder needs an intelligent and critical sense of design, and vice versa. Dijkstra in particular spoke very intelligently against attempts to automate, mechanize, or de-skill programming. Assembly-line methods are surely to blame for the absolutely sorry state of a lot of commercial software today.
I don't have a compiler handy, but is the article even correct? As I understand it, you don't specialize function templates--you use the overload mechanism to achieve the desired result. That is, you wouldn't write:
Slashdot Mirror
As it turns out, though, I would encourage swing-state voters to vote for Nader if that is the candidate with whom they agree. Part of the reason is that it pains me to observe reasonably informed people, such as yourself, regurgitate White Man's Burden arguments that have been used to justify every imperialist outrage in history. That's the price paid for being dragged around by the politics of John Kerry.
The stakes are too high for another pro-war president--vote Nader in the swing states!
- Shaolin
- Killer Beez (on a swarm!)
- The Brooklyn Zoo
- Dollar Dollar Bills
Shame on ya, RIAA! Shame on ya!On that note, interpretation also gives a language designer an amount of conceptual freedom by abstracting the architecture. That's why languages with paradigms that don't translate well onto von Neumann-y notions (eg, LISP or Prolog) are interpreted as a rule. Interestingly, some of these concepts can then migrate into compiled languages, for instance the Boost Lambda library for C++.
Also, as an experiment, I asked a friend of mine to take a look at the book. She's a liberal arts person, but did some programming at school and knows the basics. Obviously she didn't have the same sort of cranky attitude I did, but her criticism was essentially similar.
OK, I should have included this the first time, but I only just had time to go find it. It's Edsger Dijkstra's hilarious satire "User-Friendly Mathematics" (links to PDF).
OK, I'm definitely a curmudgeon. Still I think I'm right.
Simpsons 1F13
Take that, Osama!
It seems like this solution is flubbing the question of default level of control. If we decide that it's safer that the pilot generally not have control, then he should be required to take special action to override the system (or not be allowed to override at all); otherwise he should be required to take special action to lock himself out.
You can't answer the question, "Is the operator trusted?" with "Sort of." (Of course you can say yes for X, no for Y, etc.) Incidentally, I think Windows is an excellent example of how not to think about these kinds of problems. In some ways Windows treats you like a stone dummy, in others like the almighty. The result is a hodgepodge of contradictory models that is a notorious security failure (although the newest releases are substantially better. It's not entirely Microsoft's fault either, but a more general problem about the role of a PC and how it's marketed).
The one thing I recall quite clearly is that they were sponsored by SoBe, who makes all those stupid energy drinks. Someone at SoBe Marketing must be very unemployed today, if they indeed sponsored this show. It can't have possibly been the image they were going for; nor, in fact, did the hosts show any particular enthusiasm for the product (the highest praise ever conferred upon it was the fat fellow opining, "It's all right.").
I guess it wasn't really a good show at all. But it evoked a certain unreal atmosphere, as if the show was shot entirely in the Simulacrum. An irreverent video epistle from the Kingdom of Dreams...
For example, I've done substantial projects both in Java with full sets of libraries and in assembly (embedded microcontroller). Was the Java project easier? Not really. Of course it would have been harder to do the Java project in assembly, but no one would expect that in the first place. Having libraries and a high-level language meant that I had to deal with different levels of interactions and structure.
But I disagree with your contention that better libraries, techonology, etc. means that you can make divisions between "desginer-programmers" and "coder-programmers." Of course there need to be divisions and abstractions between higher and lower levels of any project of non-trivial size, but I think every coder needs an intelligent and critical sense of design, and vice versa. Dijkstra in particular spoke very intelligently against attempts to automate, mechanize, or de-skill programming. Assembly-line methods are surely to blame for the absolutely sorry state of a lot of commercial software today.