...but nobody's making you learn this new fangled language...
Not yet. If it gets popular, I may have to, to maintain employability. I love programming and will stay current on things regardless, but it is a heavy load some times keeping up with the technology du jour. I'm a little older now, and am a little more picky about where I spend my time, and have acquired the perspective of not being too jazzed about learning something new that would not mean a quantum leap in capabilities for me. Even in my 20's I recall being a little ticked about having to move from Pascal to C, not because I didn't like C (I liked it better than Pascal), but because it was really a lateral move. Then from C/procedural programming to C++/OOP was definitely a worthwhile journey. Java and C# seem essentially redundant to C++, so I'm waiting for "the next big thing" in programming languages, hopefully something designed especially for writing concurrent systems.
You've made the argument for learning another category of languages, not another language. Unless Lua is such a paradigm shift that it warrants its own, new category, then the GP's question remains a good one: Why another language?
I was thinking "why another scripting language", but I don't know bupkis about Lua. But the problem is one can only be truly fluent in a couple or four languages, at a time. Outside the few that I have the chance to maintain high levels of expertise in, code that I write in any others is going to be, on average, pretty mediocre. This can manifest as inefficiencies, due to the way it was coded, or just awkwardness in the code, or sometimes crossing paths with a language "gotcha" (what people call it when they're personally unfamiliar with a particular language feature) resulting in a bug. We have finite mental abilities and can really only write high-quality code in the few languages we've chosen to specialize in (and some of us don't even do that), so do we really need yet another language vying for our attention and use?
Glad to hear you run your own company. I work for someone else, and for intranet use, browser configurations are standardized organization-wide, and they're absolutely demanding AJAX/JavaScript apps. They don't want the hassles of distributing and upgrading and troubleshooting on individual workstations any more thick-client apps than they have to. They want the new ones all browser-based. And they don't want the flashing, page-reloading, old-fashioned "standard html output" experience, they want the new desktop app like feel, that Google and others have given them a taste of.
AJAX is not some magical voodoo that is somehow uniquely capable of bringing down a web server. All it is is a means for doing an HTTP request, just like for a web page, in the background, without re-requesting and re-rendering the whole page. That's it. Just HTTP requests to a web server.
If you want to use it to make a web page that hits the server on every mouse click, you can. That's your business. But you could also code it up the traditional, non-AJAX way, to also hit the web server on every mouse click. AJAX is no more the problem than submitting forms is.
I must say, our existing CGI-based solution worked far better.
That's not an alternative to AJAX. I'm building an AJAX app that is serviced via CGI. CGI is just a way to respond to a web request. Whether a form post, a get request, or an AJAX request. It sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about.
Writing code that uses more network bandwidth than you've got is not an AJAX problem. It's a "writing code that uses more network bandwidth than you've got" problem. One could achieve the same thing in Java. That doesn't make it a Java problem.
Even if those others have paid, you can't read their messages.
I wonder if that was made clear to paying members, before you send them. Or before you join.
I was similarly disappointed when I tried out the system of eHarmony a year ago. I could understand not being able to initiate communications until becoming a paying member, but I was very surprised that I couldn't communicate back. Someone who could initiate with me would have to be a paying member. But to me this lessens the value of membership. Esp. if they aren't told when someone they're being matched up with isn't currently a member and as such cannot respond. Otherwise they're partly paying for the privilege of being tricked into helping the site recruit more members.
The question is, was he promoted by existing management, or by someone who's no longer there?
If the latter, and he really "almost never" talks to upper management, i.e. he rarely schmoozes with the business managers, then he can be end-run around. In that case, even though you're not paid (yet) to do that part of his job, embrace it. Interface with upper management on IT-related strategic business decisions, thereby letting them know that, you at least, are thinking about "the big picture". Preserve your dept. and your job, and maybe get promoted some time down the road.
If the former, don't assume or underestimate the bonds between manager types. Even if it looks like he's pretty much lost contact with them, in this case, going around him will be perceived as a lowly techy trying to dis management, and you'll get bitchslapped.
I.e. you need to determine somehow if your manager is "one the them". If he's not, become what they hoped he would have. Otherwise, know your place (in the business world).
I wish I still had mod points, that is the funniest thing I've read today!
It's basically the same thing I read last month. And the month before that. Etc. Seriously, it's pretty much redundant, but okay, mod it up to say +2 or 3 Funny and move on. But +5 Insightful? Where was the insight? It was one line of sarcastic humor. Why does pretty much every on-topic first post immediately get modded up to +5?!?
And your post at +3 Informative? Is it really of notable informativeness to all of us that one Slashdotter found something he thought was the funniest thing he'd read so far today? Slashdot may as well cancel the moderation system -- it's virtually useless. Hardly anybody can be troubled to actually realize there are words (ooh!) in the mod categories (wa?). This isn't Digg ("bury this" vs. "digg this"), and I don't want it to become one.
Re:the same thing
on
The Expert Mind
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I believe the term is "sour grapes", but otherwise I think you're right.
I'm beginning to think they must be paying Google to never tag their crap as spam.
1) Offer free email with gobs of space to instantly become a major player in that area. 2) Punch blatantly obvious holes in the spam filters for your biggest-budget customers. 3) When people complain, simply remind them that it's still in beta. 4) Profit!
Say a library method specifies returning you an object intended to be GC'ed when you're done with it. The library is compiled with GC on, so when the method returns the object, the object is registered with the GC to be watched for its reference count going to zero, for example. Now you don't wish to use GC in your own code, so you compile with it off. Then the compiler will never add the code to effect decrementing the reference count in the GC's tables, so the object will never be GC'ed.
As a C++ hothead, I think it would be great if GC was added to C++, contingent of course on it being added according to the spirit of C++, which is you don't pay for what you don't use. I.e. make it available as an option in the language, but not always activated. I'll also add, C++ programmers are used to and favor deterministic destruction, so a GC for C++ should be able to be triggered, and the language should specify that it doesn't return until all objects that could be freed at that point are. We like control, and guarantees. If it were implemented that way, I might even use it.
I think the keyboard hardware would have to buffer up a set of keypresses, to factor out the irregular delay patterns in peoples' typing, and then return those keypresses to the OS individually with the proscribed delays between each. Then as long as the OS didn't suddenly become majorly busy during the processing of those characters...
...many people will start considering the Windows codebase as a sustaining mode project. They will assume that Microsoft is busy preparing a brand new code base...
+5 Insightful? I agree that GUI programming in C is a pain (and I speak from past experience on this), but GGP was simply asking a question. How come just because you don't want to do GUI programming in C means that someone else shouldn't be allowed to?
Trolltech is obviously trying to branch out and expand the uses of their toolkit to other popular languages. Java is a no-brainer. I wouldn't be surprised if they targeted C# after that. And support for C, which is still very popular, seems like it could be added via the precompiler that's required for their C++ binding.
From TFA, and essentially its thesis: "If you're confused, you probably won't be the only one."
It just doesn't seem that confusing (sorry if that makes the article less exciting). Here:
Vista w/out Media Center w/ Media Center Home Versions: Home Basic Home Premium w/out Tablet PC Pro Versions: Business Ultimate w/ Tablet PC
There, now with this plus the realization in the following paragraph, whether you have XP Home, Pro, Media Center, or Tablet PC, you know what upgrade will migrate your settings.
It makes sense that with the Home version of the prior OS you have your choice of making a lateral move or upgrading it to a Pro version, but the Pro version of the prior OS cannot really be downgraded to a Home version.
So for example it looks like XP Media Center was based off of XP Home, and XP Tablet PC was based off XP Pro.
Many tend to mix what I consider two separate applications of the word "extreme". I'll try to explain them both in the same example: You and nine of your friends walk up to me and each of you says "hi". I knock all of your friends unconscious, but I only bloody your nose. It could be argued that your treatment was not extreme at all, in that the others suffered a much worse reaction. That is, on the scale of bodily injury, you may not like what you got, but it's nowhere near "extreme" compared to what the others got. Yet at the same time, you could also argue that my action towards you was an extreme response to merely greeting me. That is, no matter that others got much worse treatment, the treatment you got was extreme on its own in that that level of response was (perceived by you to be) highly unwarranted.
Except grandma would crap her diapers if she was presented with checkboxes like "overwrite boot er what was that thingie again?". Maybe MS should make their OS installer more like the install wizard type of apps installers, where you're typically presented with "Typical installation" and "Custom installation (Recommended only for advanced users)" choices. Afterall, the people who are going to configure their system to be multi-boot aren't going to be stopped by it not being an option in the wizard. So might as well make it one.
It's about both. There is downward pressure on development costs, caused partly by globalization, and partly by PHB ego, greed, and stupidity. So there is demand for cheaper, low-skilled programmers, and safer, and consequently more bloated languages/environments for them to work in. But there's also algorithmic inefficiency, as this new class of developer may not only not have the foundation to choose or know to choose from different algorithms, there's likely no time for such an "optimization".
Yup, since managers get paid twice what techies make, or in other words, they're currently receiving two jobs' worth of money, the logical choice then for who's going to take on a 2nd whole entire skillset is... the techies!
Slashdot Mirror
...but nobody's making you learn this new fangled language...
Not yet. If it gets popular, I may have to, to maintain employability. I love programming and will stay current on things regardless, but it is a heavy load some times keeping up with the technology du jour. I'm a little older now, and am a little more picky about where I spend my time, and have acquired the perspective of not being too jazzed about learning something new that would not mean a quantum leap in capabilities for me. Even in my 20's I recall being a little ticked about having to move from Pascal to C, not because I didn't like C (I liked it better than Pascal), but because it was really a lateral move. Then from C/procedural programming to C++/OOP was definitely a worthwhile journey. Java and C# seem essentially redundant to C++, so I'm waiting for "the next big thing" in programming languages, hopefully something designed especially for writing concurrent systems.
You've made the argument for learning another category of languages, not another language. Unless Lua is such a paradigm shift that it warrants its own, new category, then the GP's question remains a good one: Why another language?
I was thinking "why another scripting language", but I don't know bupkis about Lua. But the problem is one can only be truly fluent in a couple or four languages, at a time. Outside the few that I have the chance to maintain high levels of expertise in, code that I write in any others is going to be, on average, pretty mediocre. This can manifest as inefficiencies, due to the way it was coded, or just awkwardness in the code, or sometimes crossing paths with a language "gotcha" (what people call it when they're personally unfamiliar with a particular language feature) resulting in a bug. We have finite mental abilities and can really only write high-quality code in the few languages we've chosen to specialize in (and some of us don't even do that), so do we really need yet another language vying for our attention and use?
Glad to hear you run your own company. I work for someone else, and for intranet use, browser configurations are standardized organization-wide, and they're absolutely demanding AJAX/JavaScript apps. They don't want the hassles of distributing and upgrading and troubleshooting on individual workstations any more thick-client apps than they have to. They want the new ones all browser-based. And they don't want the flashing, page-reloading, old-fashioned "standard html output" experience, they want the new desktop app like feel, that Google and others have given them a taste of.
AJAX is not some magical voodoo that is somehow uniquely capable of bringing down a web server. All it is is a means for doing an HTTP request, just like for a web page, in the background, without re-requesting and re-rendering the whole page. That's it. Just HTTP requests to a web server.
If you want to use it to make a web page that hits the server on every mouse click, you can. That's your business. But you could also code it up the traditional, non-AJAX way, to also hit the web server on every mouse click. AJAX is no more the problem than submitting forms is.
I must say, our existing CGI-based solution worked far better.
That's not an alternative to AJAX. I'm building an AJAX app that is serviced via CGI. CGI is just a way to respond to a web request. Whether a form post, a get request, or an AJAX request. It sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about.
Writing code that uses more network bandwidth than you've got is not an AJAX problem. It's a "writing code that uses more network bandwidth than you've got" problem. One could achieve the same thing in Java. That doesn't make it a Java problem.
Look again at the very first post here. It is you who didn't get the joke.
Even if those others have paid, you can't read their messages.
I wonder if that was made clear to paying members, before you send them. Or before you join.
I was similarly disappointed when I tried out the system of eHarmony a year ago. I could understand not being able to initiate communications until becoming a paying member, but I was very surprised that I couldn't communicate back. Someone who could initiate with me would have to be a paying member. But to me this lessens the value of membership. Esp. if they aren't told when someone they're being matched up with isn't currently a member and as such cannot respond. Otherwise they're partly paying for the privilege of being tricked into helping the site recruit more members.
The question is, was he promoted by existing management, or by someone who's no longer there?
If the latter, and he really "almost never" talks to upper management, i.e. he rarely schmoozes with the business managers, then he can be end-run around. In that case, even though you're not paid (yet) to do that part of his job, embrace it. Interface with upper management on IT-related strategic business decisions, thereby letting them know that, you at least, are thinking about "the big picture". Preserve your dept. and your job, and maybe get promoted some time down the road.
If the former, don't assume or underestimate the bonds between manager types. Even if it looks like he's pretty much lost contact with them, in this case, going around him will be perceived as a lowly techy trying to dis management, and you'll get bitchslapped.
I.e. you need to determine somehow if your manager is "one the them". If he's not, become what they hoped he would have. Otherwise, know your place (in the business world).
I wish I still had mod points, that is the funniest thing I've read today!
It's basically the same thing I read last month. And the month before that. Etc. Seriously, it's pretty much redundant, but okay, mod it up to say +2 or 3 Funny and move on. But +5 Insightful? Where was the insight? It was one line of sarcastic humor. Why does pretty much every on-topic first post immediately get modded up to +5?!?
And your post at +3 Informative? Is it really of notable informativeness to all of us that one Slashdotter found something he thought was the funniest thing he'd read so far today? Slashdot may as well cancel the moderation system -- it's virtually useless. Hardly anybody can be troubled to actually realize there are words (ooh!) in the mod categories (wa?). This isn't Digg ("bury this" vs. "digg this"), and I don't want it to become one.
I believe the term is "sour grapes", but otherwise I think you're right.
I'm beginning to think they must be paying Google to never tag their crap as spam.
1) Offer free email with gobs of space to instantly become a major player in that area.
2) Punch blatantly obvious holes in the spam filters for your biggest-budget customers.
3) When people complain, simply remind them that it's still in beta.
4) Profit!
What makes you think you know what my idea of how a GC might be implemented is?
Say a library method specifies returning you an object intended to be GC'ed when you're done with it. The library is compiled with GC on, so when the method returns the object, the object is registered with the GC to be watched for its reference count going to zero, for example. Now you don't wish to use GC in your own code, so you compile with it off. Then the compiler will never add the code to effect decrementing the reference count in the GC's tables, so the object will never be GC'ed.
As a C++ hothead, I think it would be great if GC was added to C++, contingent of course on it being added according to the spirit of C++, which is you don't pay for what you don't use. I.e. make it available as an option in the language, but not always activated. I'll also add, C++ programmers are used to and favor deterministic destruction, so a GC for C++ should be able to be triggered, and the language should specify that it doesn't return until all objects that could be freed at that point are. We like control, and guarantees. If it were implemented that way, I might even use it.
I think the keyboard hardware would have to buffer up a set of keypresses, to factor out the irregular delay patterns in peoples' typing, and then return those keypresses to the OS individually with the proscribed delays between each. Then as long as the OS didn't suddenly become majorly busy during the processing of those characters...
You seem to be under the bizarre impression that C++ does not destruct temporary objects.
...many people will start considering the Windows codebase as a sustaining mode project. They will assume that Microsoft is busy preparing a brand new code base...
It is. And they are. In case you missed it.
Haven't you noticed, pretty much every first post (that's not a troll post) goes to +5.
+5 Insightful? I agree that GUI programming in C is a pain (and I speak from past experience on this), but GGP was simply asking a question. How come just because you don't want to do GUI programming in C means that someone else shouldn't be allowed to?
Trolltech is obviously trying to branch out and expand the uses of their toolkit to other popular languages. Java is a no-brainer. I wouldn't be surprised if they targeted C# after that. And support for C, which is still very popular, seems like it could be added via the precompiler that's required for their C++ binding.
From TFA, and essentially its thesis: "If you're confused, you probably won't be the only one."
It just doesn't seem that confusing (sorry if that makes the article less exciting). Here:
Vista w/out Media Center w/ Media Center
Home Versions: Home Basic Home Premium w/out Tablet PC
Pro Versions: Business Ultimate w/ Tablet PC
There, now with this plus the realization in the following paragraph, whether you have XP Home, Pro, Media Center, or Tablet PC, you know what upgrade will migrate your settings.
It makes sense that with the Home version of the prior OS you have your choice of making a lateral move or upgrading it to a Pro version, but the Pro version of the prior OS cannot really be downgraded to a Home version.
So for example it looks like XP Media Center was based off of XP Home, and XP Tablet PC was based off XP Pro.
Many tend to mix what I consider two separate applications of the word "extreme". I'll try to explain them both in the same example: You and nine of your friends walk up to me and each of you says "hi". I knock all of your friends unconscious, but I only bloody your nose. It could be argued that your treatment was not extreme at all, in that the others suffered a much worse reaction. That is, on the scale of bodily injury, you may not like what you got, but it's nowhere near "extreme" compared to what the others got. Yet at the same time, you could also argue that my action towards you was an extreme response to merely greeting me. That is, no matter that others got much worse treatment, the treatment you got was extreme on its own in that that level of response was (perceived by you to be) highly unwarranted.
Except grandma would crap her diapers if she was presented with checkboxes like "overwrite boot er what was that thingie again?". Maybe MS should make their OS installer more like the install wizard type of apps installers, where you're typically presented with "Typical installation" and "Custom installation (Recommended only for advanced users)" choices. Afterall, the people who are going to configure their system to be multi-boot aren't going to be stopped by it not being an option in the wizard. So might as well make it one.
It's about both. There is downward pressure on development costs, caused partly by globalization, and partly by PHB ego, greed, and stupidity. So there is demand for cheaper, low-skilled programmers, and safer, and consequently more bloated languages/environments for them to work in. But there's also algorithmic inefficiency, as this new class of developer may not only not have the foundation to choose or know to choose from different algorithms, there's likely no time for such an "optimization".
Yup, since managers get paid twice what techies make, or in other words, they're currently receiving two jobs' worth of money, the logical choice then for who's going to take on a 2nd whole entire skillset is... the techies!