"I once did a search for "wheatstone bridge" and got tons of $cientology links."
you can avoid lot of 'wrong' sites in search results by using - (like "wheatstone bridge" -scientology). I am not sure how many search engines support it but altavista definitely does.
"How about a "no pr0n" checkbox. That would be sweet."
"The evidence of the truth of the Bible lies in my life"
no, it does not.
talking about famous believers/atheists - note that the man might be very gifted in one area (computers) and very stupid in another (choosing religion). the fact that genius is religious is irrelevant.
it is kinda strange that the review dismisses the other (non NQC) environments as mediocre since they need the new firmware...
I would say that the fact that pbForth and legOS replace the firmware is the main advantage - the firmware has some serious limitations (32 variables...)
I would say that the legOS is best environment, it is not very easy to set but it is not very hard either (on linux it is fairly easy).
the second best is pbForth. while it is true that the forth is not one of the most popular laguages, it is widely used in embedded systems, mainly because it is very efficient and I have heard lot of praise for this language. it takes a different mindset to use it but it definitely has good points...
I have both of these and I don't even consider nqc, mainly because it uses the LEGO firmware...
all above is IMO, of course, YMMV, I just wanted to point out that people might see it differently...
the point is not only what we know about them, the point is to use the knowledge to find out what would they profit on more - the successfull java or fragmented java like dialects.
since their main area of expoertise are tools that use java and other languages (CASE tools) they profit if everybody uses same java, because they can all use their tools then. in fact it would be a disadvantage for them to have java that is not compliant with 'real java'.
another point of view: they do not have the market share to introduce the 'java extensions'.
yes, the o'reilly book covers the most important programming environments for mindstorms (lego's own software, NQC, pbFORTH and legOS).
the lego's own software is VERY limited (win, maybe mac).
the third party software is very powerful, the best packages (IMO) are pbFORTH and legOS, both are usable from both win and linux. actually pbFORTH is usable from basically any computer that has terminal program (minicom, telix, hyperterminal,...). the legOS is usable anywhere where you can set up gcc.
the book also lists other programming environments (including smalltalk:-)
"1.5 has better software, as well as an upgrade on the firmware (the RCX's OS.)"
if you're going to do anything remotely interesting you don't want to use the firmware but you'll use legOS or pbFORTH (IMO). so you don't really care for the firmware upgrade.
I have read on lugnet that the new RCX does not come with jack for power adapter - you can only use batteries as power source (that's a major bummer, if you ask me). of course, you can still solder some wires and jack and use adapter...
well, where I came from the monday is the first day of the week, so friday would be fifth!:-)
also, anybody noticed how odd it is to consider sunday to be the first day of the week, while at the same time it is definitely part of weekEND? one could argue that it is the last day of week (but then again, one could argue almost anything:-)
I think that closer to proper definition would be: prime number is the number that is not divisible by any integer number except of itself and 1 (and the result being an integer number). therefore 1, being only divisible by itself and 1, is a prime number. why should the fact that 'itself' and '1' refer to same number be important?
"One thing that has escaped internationalization has been programming languages. The keywords in every such language I have seen have been in English."
well, I have seen localized excel that had visual basic (macro language for excel) translated to slovak! it really sucked and was basically useless even though my native language is slovak:-)
yes, programming languages should be in english only... not only because it is already customary but also because the nature of english language (the grammar) is suitable for such purpose. for example the 'for i = 0 to 10' is understandable without knowing any computer language, it wouldn't be so easy to create such statements in other languages (it might be possible in some...)
Dennet and Hofstadter have put together another book: Mind's I. it is a lot of various stories (some works of art, some thought experiments etc.) with comments, all dealing with consciousness.
I agree on this one. user should have control on what parts are actually installed - they should be all separate programs...
however I use some of the tools - e-mail client and composer. btw the e-mail client recognizes the links - it lets me do anything with a link that I can in navigator, e.g. open it in new window, I haven't find out how to do it in inbox (microsoft e-mail client)
3) Tone down the user interface.
obviously the toolbars should be configurable (just like the personal toolbar is). about the only button I use is the back button (rarely, I prefer keyboard). it should have better support for keyboard (more hotkeys, configurable), for example I do not know how to get to the Location field using keyboard (on windows platform the tab key gets you there)
5) Load time counts.
the reason the explorer loads so fast is that it loads during win startup and is in memory all the time, whether you use it or not. the netscape actually loads when you start it for the first time. if you close it and start again, it usually loads pretty fast... you can start the netscape during startup and keep it minimized, it is basically the same thing that IE does (you just don't see the IE icon in taskbar)
6) Make the interface decent
that's the matter of taste. one thing I hate about the IE is smooth scrolling (which sucks a lot). other then that I don't want ANY browser interface, I want to see web pages. the interface should be as minimal as possible. I would include only one toolbar, no menu, on toolbar I would like to have bookmark button, location field and menu button (possibly back/forward/reload/stop buttons). of course not everybody would want the same setup so - it should be completely configurable.
regarding: "I was a faithful Navigator user up until version 4. I continued to use Navigator for a while after it was released, but fewer and fewer sites looked correct and I had to switch to IE."
what are you talking about??? I use netscape almost all the time (I very rarely use IE, usually if it is called by some program) and I do not see any major problems with webpages.
well, quite a few printers are supported, I have epson 740 (I hope I got the number right) which is fairly OK cheap printer and it is supported (ghostscript). other epson printers are supported as well. maybe not all of them but I don't see the problem in this area. simply check wich printer is supported and buy one of those.
I often use both altavista and google. altavista is better 'precise' tool (it find everything, and I can precisely specify what&how) while google seem to have better heuristics in finding relevant web pages, so if altavista returns lots of URLs and most seem irrelevant (and I can't think of better search expression) I use google and it often returns more relevant results. I think there is place for both approaches (deterministic and heuristic).
there is no place for lycos approach in search engines. if they want to give customers edited content, do that using portal, after all that's what the portals are for.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. If that doesn't sum up GPL'd software, I don't know what does. "
you miss the point so badly that it is hard to explain where you went wrong.
from each according to his ability:
everybody can contribute as much as he WANT not as much as he CAN, and, more importantly, nobody has to provide it for free, there's nothing in GPL that says you cannot sell the software you create (RMS does so himself).
to each according to his need:
in software realm everybody can get not only what he needs, everybody can get it ALL. you don't get to have a share of software, you get it all, all the software you can get (talking about the free software). so your needs don't have any relationship to what the 'community' delivers to you.
no, your saying does not sum up GPL, it is not even relevant.
the point is, that it is all done by the compiler, not you, if you would try to implement good inheritance (multiple, public/private etc.) it would not be all that easy and not that easy to use (if you want polymorphism).
>
it's not about trust. you want to make it known, which functions/members are internal and which are for general use. objects have internal mechanizms (change with time) and external interfaces (should not change in time). you want to differentiate between these.
>
they generate one function for each different value of template parameters, the macros are simple peices of code inserted everywhere where the macro is called.
----------------------------------------
you seem to be missing that all the programming languages generally do the same, everything that you can implement in one of them, can be implemented in machine code. yet we have different languages for different purposes. the computer languages are for people. OO is much easier to do if the language supports it (like C++) or even mandates it (like Smalltalk).
in support of this - lot (maybe all) of the 'real-world' communist countries (USSR, rest of east-european countries) had patent laws, not very different from patent law in capitalist countries.
erik
Re:Everything computer is a Microsoft spinoff
on
SCO does Linux
·
· Score: 1
even in sarcastic mode you should not forget that MS did not write DOS, they bought it.
> there aren't any hybrids (half man/half > ape) around
well, the gorilla is genetically closer to human then to orangutan.
while the coverage of the monkey-ape-human specie-space is not continuous we have it pretty much covered. you can say that ape is half monkey/half human:-) you can say that gorilla is half orangutan half human:-) but: nothing you can say that can't... all you need...:-) I digress, but I hope you got my point anyway
---------------------- 1) Performance due to missing and wasted functionality. The "scroll" problem is because unlike Windows & Mac, X does not support a nice scrolling functions like "copy block up and only redraw the bottom line" like Windows does. ----------------------
how do you exaplain that I can scroll netscape under X without any problems?
since I do not have problems on my machine, I believe it is more problem of the specific implementation of X server (and of course, the graphic card used) then the problem of X itself.
btw I have voodoo3 and Daryll's accelerated server. the X windows are fast like hell...
"Look at fvwm. It is relatively stinky when compared with even the Windows 95 UI."
the default configuration is not nicest/best but you can configure it to your heart content and make it look like anything else (almost) and make it do whatever you want.
for example - what do you click in win9x so that the window goes behind all other windows? there's no sloppy focus in win9x. there's a lot of other examples of what can you do in fvwm (or other decent WMs) that you cannot do in win9x.
you can even have the blue screen (just use the xscreensaver), of course, when you move the mouse/hit the key the blue screen goes away, unlike that of win9x...:-))
Slashdot Mirror
... and it also looks much better!
erik
"I once did a search for "wheatstone bridge" and got tons of $cientology links."
you can avoid lot of 'wrong' sites in search results by using - (like "wheatstone bridge" -scientology). I am not sure how many search engines support it but altavista definitely does.
"How about a "no pr0n" checkbox. That would be sweet."
I bet "free pr0n" would be much more popular:-))
erik
"I don't think all the Nazis were atheists"
officially they were very christian, there were 'got mit uns' (god with us) writings all over their stuff...
erik
"The evidence of the truth of the Bible lies in my life"
no, it does not.
talking about famous believers/atheists - note that the man might be very gifted in one area (computers) and very stupid in another (choosing religion). the fact that genius is religious is irrelevant.
erik
pbForth: works on mac too (well, actually pbForth runs on the RCX itself, you only need the serial port and terminal program to communicate with it),
legOS: I think you should be able to get gcc up and running on mac (and then legOS works too).
erik
it is kinda strange that the review dismisses the other (non NQC) environments as mediocre since they need the new firmware...
I would say that the fact that pbForth and legOS replace the firmware is the main advantage - the firmware has some serious limitations (32 variables...)
I would say that the legOS is best environment, it is not very easy to set but it is not very hard either (on linux it is fairly easy).
the second best is pbForth. while it is true that the forth is not one of the most popular laguages, it is widely used in embedded systems, mainly because it is very efficient and I have heard lot of praise for this language. it takes a different mindset to use it but it definitely has good points...
I have both of these and I don't even consider nqc, mainly because it uses the LEGO firmware...
all above is IMO, of course, YMMV, I just wanted to point out that people might see it differently...
erik
the point is not only what we know about them, the point is to use the knowledge to find out what would they profit on more - the successfull java or fragmented java like dialects.
since their main area of expoertise are tools that use java and other languages (CASE tools) they profit if everybody uses same java, because they can all use their tools then. in fact it would be a disadvantage for them to have java that is not compliant with 'real java'.
another point of view: they do not have the market share to introduce the 'java extensions'.
erik
yes, the o'reilly book covers the most important programming environments for mindstorms (lego's own software, NQC, pbFORTH and legOS).
...). the legOS is usable anywhere where you can set up gcc.
the lego's own software is VERY limited (win, maybe mac).
the third party software is very powerful, the best packages (IMO) are pbFORTH and legOS, both are usable from both win and linux. actually pbFORTH is usable from basically any computer that has terminal program (minicom, telix, hyperterminal,
the book also lists other programming environments (including smalltalk:-)
erik
"1.5 has better software, as well as an upgrade on the firmware (the RCX's OS.)"
if you're going to do anything remotely interesting you don't want to use the firmware but you'll use legOS or pbFORTH (IMO). so you don't really care for the firmware upgrade.
I have read on lugnet that the new RCX does not come with jack for power adapter - you can only use batteries as power source (that's a major bummer, if you ask me). of course, you can still solder some wires and jack and use adapter...
there might be other changes.
erik
well, where I came from the monday is the first day of the week, so friday would be fifth! :-)
also, anybody noticed how odd it is to consider sunday to be the first day of the week, while at the same time it is definitely part of weekEND? one could argue that it is the last day of week (but then again, one could argue almost anything:-)
erik
I think that closer to proper definition would be: prime number is the number that is not divisible by any integer number except of itself and 1 (and the result being an integer number). therefore 1, being only divisible by itself and 1, is a prime number. why should the fact that 'itself' and '1' refer to same number be important?
erik
"One thing that has escaped internationalization has been programming languages. The keywords in every such language I have seen have been in English."
well, I have seen localized excel that had visual basic (macro language for excel) translated to slovak! it really sucked and was basically useless even though my native language is slovak:-)
yes, programming languages should be in english only... not only because it is already customary but also because the nature of english language (the grammar) is suitable for such purpose. for example the 'for i = 0 to 10' is understandable without knowing any computer language, it wouldn't be so easy to create such statements in other languages (it might be possible in some...)
erik
erik
Dennet and Hofstadter have put together another book: Mind's I. it is a lot of various stories (some works of art, some thought experiments etc.) with comments, all dealing with consciousness.
erik
you have some good points but:
2) Let me download just the browser again.
I agree on this one. user should have control on what parts are actually installed - they should be all separate programs...
however I use some of the tools - e-mail client and composer. btw the e-mail client recognizes the links - it lets me do anything with a link that I can in navigator, e.g. open it in new window, I haven't find out how to do it in inbox (microsoft e-mail client)
3) Tone down the user interface.
obviously the toolbars should be configurable (just like the personal toolbar is). about the only button I use is the back button (rarely, I prefer keyboard). it should have better support for keyboard (more hotkeys, configurable), for example I do not know how to get to the Location field using keyboard (on windows platform the tab key gets you there)
5) Load time counts.
the reason the explorer loads so fast is that it loads during win startup and is in memory all the time, whether you use it or not. the netscape actually loads when you start it for the first time. if you close it and start again, it usually loads pretty fast... you can start the netscape during startup and keep it minimized, it is basically the same thing that IE does (you just don't see the IE icon in taskbar)
6) Make the interface decent
that's the matter of taste. one thing I hate about the IE is smooth scrolling (which sucks a lot). other then that I don't want ANY browser interface, I want to see web pages. the interface should be as minimal as possible. I would include only one toolbar, no menu, on toolbar I would like to have bookmark button, location field and menu button (possibly back/forward/reload/stop buttons). of course not everybody would want the same setup so - it should be completely configurable.
regarding: "I was a faithful Navigator user up until version 4. I continued to use Navigator for a while after it was released, but fewer and fewer sites looked correct and I had to switch to IE."
what are you talking about??? I use netscape almost all the time (I very rarely use IE, usually if it is called by some program) and I do not see any major problems with webpages.
erik
well, quite a few printers are supported, I have epson 740 (I hope I got the number right) which is fairly OK cheap printer and it is supported (ghostscript). other epson printers are supported as well. maybe not all of them but I don't see the problem in this area. simply check wich printer is supported and buy one of those.
erik
I often use both altavista and google. altavista is better 'precise' tool (it find everything, and I can precisely specify what&how) while google seem to have better heuristics in finding relevant web pages, so if altavista returns lots of URLs and most seem irrelevant (and I can't think of better search expression) I use google and it often returns more relevant results. I think there is place for both approaches (deterministic and heuristic).
there is no place for lycos approach in search engines. if they want to give customers edited content, do that using portal, after all that's what the portals are for.
erik
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. If that doesn't sum up GPL'd software, I don't know what does. "
you miss the point so badly that it is hard to explain where you went wrong.
from each according to his ability:
everybody can contribute as much as he WANT not as much as he CAN, and, more importantly, nobody has to provide it for free, there's nothing in GPL that says you cannot sell the software you create (RMS does so himself).
to each according to his need:
in software realm everybody can get not only what he needs, everybody can get it ALL. you don't get to have a share of software, you get it all, all the software you can get (talking about the free software). so your needs don't have any relationship to what the 'community' delivers to you.
no, your saying does not sum up GPL, it is not even relevant.
erik
>
the point is, that it is all done by the compiler, not you, if you would try to implement good inheritance (multiple, public/private etc.) it would not be all that easy and not that easy to use (if you want polymorphism).
>
it's not about trust. you want to make it known, which functions/members are internal and which are for general use. objects have internal mechanizms (change with time) and external interfaces (should not change in time). you want to differentiate between these.
>
they generate one function for each different value of template parameters, the macros are simple peices of code inserted everywhere where the macro is called.
----------------------------------------
you seem to be missing that all the programming languages generally do the same, everything that you can implement in one of them, can be implemented in machine code. yet we have different languages for different purposes. the computer languages are for people. OO is much easier to do if the language supports it (like C++) or even mandates it (like Smalltalk).
erik
> Patents != capitalism.
> no-patents != communism
in support of this - lot (maybe all) of the 'real-world' communist countries (USSR, rest of east-european countries) had patent laws, not very different from patent law in capitalist countries.
erik
even in sarcastic mode you should not forget that MS did not write DOS, they bought it.
erik
> there aren't any hybrids (half man/half
... all you need... :-) I digress, but I hope you got my point anyway
> ape) around
well, the gorilla is genetically closer to human then to orangutan.
while the coverage of the monkey-ape-human specie-space is not continuous we have it pretty much covered. you can say that ape is half monkey/half human:-) you can say that gorilla is half orangutan half human:-) but: nothing you can say that can't
erik
----------------------
1) Performance due to missing and wasted functionality. The "scroll" problem is because unlike Windows & Mac, X does not support a nice scrolling functions like "copy block up and only redraw the bottom line" like Windows does.
----------------------
how do you exaplain that I can scroll netscape under X without any problems?
since I do not have problems on my machine, I believe it is more problem of the specific implementation of X server (and of course, the graphic card used) then the problem of X itself.
btw I have voodoo3 and Daryll's accelerated server. the X windows are fast like hell...
erik
"Look at fvwm. It is relatively stinky when compared with even the Windows 95 UI."
:-))
the default configuration is not nicest/best but you can configure it to your heart content and make it look like anything else (almost) and make it do whatever you want.
for example - what do you click in win9x so that the window goes behind all other windows? there's no sloppy focus in win9x. there's a lot of other examples of what can you do in fvwm (or other decent WMs) that you cannot do in win9x.
you can even have the blue screen (just use the xscreensaver), of course, when you move the mouse/hit the key the blue screen goes away, unlike that of win9x...
when talking fvwm I mean fvwm2 (current version).
erik