Interesting, but usually when people say 'at least', they mean it in the most extreme sense, "atleast 10 years, at most a couple hundred". Nothing new, everyone is aware that this stuff is going to come along eventually, though some speculate famine, plague, world war three and the end of civilization before the unspoken uper limits of these guestimations. Ive taken this with 'at least' a grain of salt, I'd advise 'at least' some of you to follow suit.
It is cool stuff, but it isn't news. Medicine benifits from all kinds of experimental science, but the science needs to be thoroughly understood before the snake oil is sold. Im not buying. I'll most likely die at around 80 years old despite all of the moore's law optimism.
Maybe you should try applying the scientific sense of it to a historical reconstruction. Which is the theory of evolution most people are talking about in this thread. The not-so-scientific one.
Evolution is interesting, and so are allot of creationist ideas. But evolutionism is not empirical in any way. By being a theory, it is the opposite of empirical. Im a pretty science oriented person, and though people do have some hard practical knowledge of genetics and biology, that doesn't make sweeping generalisations truth. It never will. Such sweeping generalizations' usefulness has nothing to do with total correctness, its that abstract ideas can be applied to complex information to make it easier to understand.
Truth (for example) is a useful abstraction of understanding. But it's not the only useful abstraction. Nor is its application nessesarily the most useful/correct in a lot of things that people wish to understand. Two examples being both of these THEORIES.. evolution and creationism. Both have their place, and neither place has anything to do with empiricism or absolute truth. Id say the argument is stale and misguided, but argue it if it makes you feel better. $0.02
Programming is a serious technical "art", when you approach it that way. The author doesn't in the context of this book. I usually don't. Not everyone needs to all of the time. Also, the book isn't finished. It was announced on the ruby newsgroup, but i don't think its far enough along to have been announced on slashdot. I don't see how anyone can seriously criticise an unfinished book. But its nice to see that someone thought enough of it to/. it in the first place. I think its a good start, ruby needs this kind of thing. Wether curmudgeons, and people who frequent slashdot do or not, is a completely different story:P. They tend to camp on the outskirts of things that look like language advocacy, for obvious understandable reasons. I think the important thing though, is the initiative, and enthusiasm, which will undoubtedly be passed on to the readers. Which seems to be the authors direction.
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Interesting, but usually when people say 'at least', they mean it in the most extreme sense, "atleast 10 years, at most a couple hundred". Nothing new, everyone is aware that this stuff is going to come along eventually, though some speculate famine, plague, world war three and the end of civilization before the unspoken uper limits of these guestimations. Ive taken this with 'at least' a grain of salt, I'd advise 'at least' some of you to follow suit. It is cool stuff, but it isn't news. Medicine benifits from all kinds of experimental science, but the science needs to be thoroughly understood before the snake oil is sold. Im not buying. I'll most likely die at around 80 years old despite all of the moore's law optimism.
Maybe you should try applying the scientific sense of it to a historical reconstruction. Which is the theory of evolution most people are talking about in this thread. The not-so-scientific one.
Evolution is interesting, and so are allot of creationist ideas. But evolutionism is not empirical in any way. By being a theory, it is the opposite of empirical. Im a pretty science oriented person, and though people do have some hard practical knowledge of genetics and biology, that doesn't make sweeping generalisations truth. It never will. Such sweeping generalizations' usefulness has nothing to do with total correctness, its that abstract ideas can be applied to complex information to make it easier to understand.
Truth (for example) is a useful abstraction of understanding. But it's not the only useful abstraction. Nor is its application nessesarily the most useful/correct in a lot of things that people wish to understand. Two examples being both of these THEORIES.. evolution and creationism. Both have their place, and neither place has anything to do with empiricism or absolute truth. Id say the argument is stale and misguided, but argue it if it makes you feel better. $0.02
Programming is a serious technical "art", when you approach it that way. The author doesn't in the context of this book. I usually don't. Not everyone needs to all of the time. Also, the book isn't finished. It was announced on the ruby newsgroup, but i don't think its far enough along to have been announced on slashdot. I don't see how anyone can seriously criticise an unfinished book. But its nice to see that someone thought enough of it to /. it in the first place. I think its a good start, ruby needs this kind of thing. Wether curmudgeons, and people who frequent slashdot do or not, is a completely different story :P. They tend to camp on the outskirts of things that look like language advocacy, for obvious understandable reasons. I think the important thing though, is the initiative, and enthusiasm, which will undoubtedly be passed on to the readers. Which seems to be the authors direction.