You make a valid point, but some of your examples....
char is 8 bits, or that a NULL pointer is represented internally by an all-zeros bit pattern
'char' is 8 bit. Always. Everywhere. Any other chars are broken by definition. See also: wchar_t.
NULL is a "#define NULL 0" - because C has two different 0s: (1) zero as number 0 in arithmetic operations and (2) zero as a NULL pointer which C is obliged to present to program as 0 regardless of how pointers are implemented in underlying architecture.
bogus assumptions about the size of primitive types, or about conversion between types
True. It's still beyond me why people frown at <stdint.h> and <inttypes.h>.
If you want to develop a cross platform application that has a GUI and runs on multiple platforms, that can be done with many languages, but not as well as java.
Cross platform GUI in Java is easy - as long as the platform is Windows.
My colleagues develop and maintain (for very long time now) internal GUI application written in Perl/Tcl/Tk. In past 10 years there were no single OS where they couldn't run it or integrate it well with OS.
With Java, you get the same - M$Windows - look and feel regardless of a platform. It looks kinky on Linux/*NIX and totally bogus on Mac OS X.
It has also been around for 38 years, and programs written in 1972 can still be compiled in 2010.
is not so true. Finding now a compiler for anything different from ANSI C/C90 or C99 is quite hard if possible at all.
C may be the past, but it's also very much the present and will probably be the future as well.
C imo is perpetuated by the business-driven evolution of programming languages, making it sole remaining language for any kind of system programming. One still has to have OS/drivers/etc to run all the cool and modern programming languages.
I live in Germany. There is a state insurer - AOK - and unless I have some other insurance, either employer or unemployment office would automatically sign me up with AOK. (AOK is not really a state insurer, but highly regulated.)
Health insurance is compulsory. Costs quite a lot: I pay around $200 per month for AOK which is one of the most expensive. (Or more precisely: employer pays it automatically from my salary, just like taxes.)
Private insurance differs in that that one can choose to pay bill himself - instead of getting the higher rates from insurer. And from what I heard private insurers in Germany also allowed to not to cover everything. (With AOK AFAIK everything is covered and rate is flat.)
Health care here might be not the best, but otherwise it is rather comforting to know that whatever happens I'm covered.
But do not take my word for it: I'm not a native German and do not know all of the peculiarities. I have to deal with the insurance briefly and only few times when I was changing jobs and moving from one land to another (every land has its own AOK).
Re:A false choice, of course...
on
Health Care Reform
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The federal government simply doesn't have a good resume [...]
Very true. And that is valid for any country.
Though on other side, the question all Americans should be asking themselves is: do private insurers have better resume???
One can easily bash gov't - bashing health insurers might backfire (who like all the big businesses have their hand in pretty much everything). And if gov't does shitty job, one can always vote for opposition/independent - you rarely if ever have much choice when dealing with health insurers.
Is this what you are saying: artists make trash these days because that way they can make money, so let's make it impossible for them to make any money at all and they will have to switch back to making real art purely for the sake of art (and starving)?
I sincerely hope for return of maecenas (or sponsors). Problem with actual model that artists do not own their art anymore: they stripped of everything (except of authorship) by labels.
What is preventing those same artists (all the Joyces, Mozarts and Shakespeares who, according to you, are wasting their talents in a movie studio somewhere) from making real art now, of the kind that you approve of and vast majority of people dislike (hence it doesn't sell)? Do you really think it is the corrupting power of dollar signs in their eyes that prevents them from taking even a little bit of time away from frantically making as much trash as they can and make some genuine masterpieces? Does it occur to you that this is completely ridiculous?
**AA have established channels for content delivery and if you are an indie without a huge money bag for promotions, you can forget about getting onto the channels. And most consumers know only of the established content delivery channels and thus do not even suspect about all the things around them.
That's why Internet and P2P are so important: they allow all artists to promote themselves on cheap.
Even if it wasn't, what right do you think you have to manipulate the system in a way that you think will make those artists more valuable to you and to what you think "society" needs, even though the artists themselves will end up being worse off, not to mention that most people will be deprived of the "trash" that they actually like?
Friends of mine, artists, getting pissed on me for saying it (though most of them do understand that it is true) but here it goes again:
Empty stomach is the most important factor contributing to the development of a talent.
And about artists being better off now. That is also not true. The point is that unless they conform to mainstream standards, they would never get a contract with labels. Many many talented people avoid going artists solely because they would loose the freedom by being forced into the mainstream conformance cage.
I think that you and people like you are misunderstanding the world around you and the great era of plenty (when it comes to just about everything, including art) that you live in in a pretty spectacular way.
Well... I'm one of those who prefer to own things - rather than being owned by things. More is not always better: what is the point of having so many choices, when regardless what one picks, it is the same generic carp?
However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C.
In my experience time limits are there to prevent students using primitive algorithms (the ones with exponential asymptotic performance).
N.B. I would have recommended Perl instead - but I'd refrain:)
Python should be and is in fact fast enough for most tasks. Taking algorithms into account, C gives only marginal advantage: bubble sort would suck even if you'd write it in assembler.
P.S. If that is still concern, one can allow interpreted languages to have e.g. twice more time compared to compiled languages.
the Japanese Astronauts, the Chinese Taikonauts and the Indian Hehenauts live and work in their respectable moon-bases, we Americans are still stuck in the bottom of the gravity well.
In times of national economic crisis, I think your Mr.Pres. does fine job. Though it seems that most gringos already forgot that the crisis is out there - probably TV news don't cover it anymore...
... a vision to rebuild the Web as a foundation for applications
The day I as user would not be able to resize browser window, adjust font size or copy-paste any random text from a page, will be the death of the web as I concerned.
Indexed DB/etc is OK - but rest of the carp they do under the guise of making web seamlessly integrating with the desktop is a huge leap back.
Some people has to sit for a moment and recall why web applications started winning over desktop applications.
They'll just slice it and pass it piece by piece through all the possible loopholes, avoiding any vote by elected officials.
When in the EU something happens, all become aware of it only as a post factum, when it is too late to influence anything.
When in the EU nothing happens... well, you see such news. IOW, any news from Brussels can be safely ignored, "real business" there happens behind closed doors.
The Core i5-750 is only $200. If you're not willing to spend $200 on your CPU, you have no business building a PC instead of buying one.
B.S.
What the point of wasting $200 on CPU when you can get for >$100 a CPU which performs in real world >5-10% slower?? And most applications (even games) are pretty happy even with half/quarter of the performance???
I'm not per se against the Intel CPUs. Some of their CPUs are cheaper and faster than the AMD ones. But for whatever reason, at least in Europe, the MBs for Intel CPUs are on average 10-25% more expensive than those for AMD CPUs. And upgrade-ability of the AMD systems is magnitudes better: one can get cheap CPU today and upgrade it few years later.
Heck, one can get decent GPU for $100-150, meaning that by going cheaper with the rest of components, one can also get himself a decent gaming machine for about $400-600.
Now I can't even name a single PC component which is a must have and can't be found new for less than $100.
As long as you understand what you write, it's fine.
The problem is with the newer generation of Java/C# who: can't write their own algorithms thus inevitably depend on libraries, manage to have problems integrating the libraries together and (worst) do not understand how/why the stuff works.
the BIOS, bootloader, operating system, libraries and editor
That's a misconception about the "real programmers".
The difference between the "new programmers" and the "real programmers" is that later were still taught math and computer architecture - former were taught only syntax of a sandboxed programming language. Later know why/how software/hardware works at least in general, former have to rely on book which tell them that it would works.
Those who are actually try to reinvent "the BIOS, bootloader, operating system, libraries and editor" are not "real programmers": those are last remaining artifacts of the DOS times, the times when it all fit 64K.
Slashdot Mirror
You make a valid point, but some of your examples....
char is 8 bits, or that a NULL pointer is represented internally by an all-zeros bit pattern
'char' is 8 bit. Always. Everywhere. Any other chars are broken by definition. See also: wchar_t.
NULL is a "#define NULL 0" - because C has two different 0s: (1) zero as number 0 in arithmetic operations and (2) zero as a NULL pointer which C is obliged to present to program as 0 regardless of how pointers are implemented in underlying architecture.
bogus assumptions about the size of primitive types, or about conversion between types
True. It's still beyond me why people frown at <stdint.h> and <inttypes.h>.
If you want to develop a cross platform application that has a GUI and runs on multiple platforms, that can be done with many languages, but not as well as java.
Cross platform GUI in Java is easy - as long as the platform is Windows.
My colleagues develop and maintain (for very long time now) internal GUI application written in Perl/Tcl/Tk. In past 10 years there were no single OS where they couldn't run it or integrate it well with OS.
With Java, you get the same - M$Windows - look and feel regardless of a platform. It looks kinky on Linux/*NIX and totally bogus on Mac OS X.
The GP was talking about deeper OS integration. Stuff like properly integrating with Mac OS X menu system or Windows taskbar/tray or KDE or GNOME.
That is not part of Java and is not portable.
Java programs are portable only to the platforms which are supported by JRE.
And the list is very very short. Especially compared to the list of architectures supported by e.g. GCC.
So you have to pardon me for claiming that C is more portable than Java.
I agree with the sentiment in general, but:
It has also been around for 38 years, and programs written in 1972 can still be compiled in 2010.
is not so true. Finding now a compiler for anything different from ANSI C/C90 or C99 is quite hard if possible at all.
C may be the past, but it's also very much the present and will probably be the future as well.
C imo is perpetuated by the business-driven evolution of programming languages, making it sole remaining language for any kind of system programming. One still has to have OS/drivers/etc to run all the cool and modern programming languages.
Those are all non-rival, non-excludable services. Having the government run them makes sense. Health insurance is both rival and excludable.
You seem to miss something. Health insurers compete not for providing better health care, they are competing for making more profits.
I'd rather not let my health being a subject of the financial gambling.
That saves money by preventing health care system extorting money from you.
Let's face it, in a dire condition one would agree to pay anything and everything to get the health care.
The point of compulsory health insurance is that .. it is already all paid for.
And it works both ways: patients are guaranteed access to the care and doctors are guaranteed to be paid for the work. Regardless.
Have no wage slip with me, but I think my employer pays something too.... Found slip - but nothing listed.
On other side just found out I pay now 290€/month for the health insurance. So the 200€ figure wasn't accurate.
I wonder how those who don't have one rate it...
US' handling of recent financial crisis suggests otherwise.
And the bill AFAIK doesn't even contain public option - it contains mostly stronger regulations.
I'm no fan of government programs too, but heck it works somehow with education, police and fire departments...
If this is put in place, it will finally be impossible for anyone to live "off the map" without having to check in with the federal government.
And how many of such "off the map" places left in the USA?
At least they can't make me buy insurance, on pain of imprisonment.
If you are living "off the map" alone, have no relatives - or never leave the basement - then it is OK.
Otherwise let's be honest: nobody wants to be prevented from going to a doctor.
I live in Germany. There is a state insurer - AOK - and unless I have some other insurance, either employer or unemployment office would automatically sign me up with AOK. (AOK is not really a state insurer, but highly regulated.)
Health insurance is compulsory. Costs quite a lot: I pay around $200 per month for AOK which is one of the most expensive. (Or more precisely: employer pays it automatically from my salary, just like taxes.)
Private insurance differs in that that one can choose to pay bill himself - instead of getting the higher rates from insurer. And from what I heard private insurers in Germany also allowed to not to cover everything. (With AOK AFAIK everything is covered and rate is flat.)
Health care here might be not the best, but otherwise it is rather comforting to know that whatever happens I'm covered.
But do not take my word for it: I'm not a native German and do not know all of the peculiarities. I have to deal with the insurance briefly and only few times when I was changing jobs and moving from one land to another (every land has its own AOK).
The federal government simply doesn't have a good resume [...]
Very true. And that is valid for any country.
Though on other side, the question all Americans should be asking themselves is: do private insurers have better resume???
One can easily bash gov't - bashing health insurers might backfire (who like all the big businesses have their hand in pretty much everything). And if gov't does shitty job, one can always vote for opposition/independent - you rarely if ever have much choice when dealing with health insurers.
Disclosure: not a U.S. resident.
Is this what you are saying: artists make trash these days because that way they can make money, so let's make it impossible for them to make any money at all and they will have to switch back to making real art purely for the sake of art (and starving)?
I sincerely hope for return of maecenas (or sponsors). Problem with actual model that artists do not own their art anymore: they stripped of everything (except of authorship) by labels.
What is preventing those same artists (all the Joyces, Mozarts and Shakespeares who, according to you, are wasting their talents in a movie studio somewhere) from making real art now, of the kind that you approve of and vast majority of people dislike (hence it doesn't sell)? Do you really think it is the corrupting power of dollar signs in their eyes that prevents them from taking even a little bit of time away from frantically making as much trash as they can and make some genuine masterpieces? Does it occur to you that this is completely ridiculous?
**AA have established channels for content delivery and if you are an indie without a huge money bag for promotions, you can forget about getting onto the channels. And most consumers know only of the established content delivery channels and thus do not even suspect about all the things around them.
That's why Internet and P2P are so important: they allow all artists to promote themselves on cheap.
Even if it wasn't, what right do you think you have to manipulate the system in a way that you think will make those artists more valuable to you and to what you think "society" needs, even though the artists themselves will end up being worse off, not to mention that most people will be deprived of the "trash" that they actually like?
Friends of mine, artists, getting pissed on me for saying it (though most of them do understand that it is true) but here it goes again:
Empty stomach is the most important factor contributing to the development of a talent.
And about artists being better off now. That is also not true. The point is that unless they conform to mainstream standards, they would never get a contract with labels. Many many talented people avoid going artists solely because they would loose the freedom by being forced into the mainstream conformance cage.
I think that you and people like you are misunderstanding the world around you and the great era of plenty (when it comes to just about everything, including art) that you live in in a pretty spectacular way.
Well... I'm one of those who prefer to own things - rather than being owned by things. More is not always better: what is the point of having so many choices, when regardless what one picks, it is the same generic carp?
However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C.
In my experience time limits are there to prevent students using primitive algorithms (the ones with exponential asymptotic performance).
N.B. I would have recommended Perl instead - but I'd refrain :)
Python should be and is in fact fast enough for most tasks. Taking algorithms into account, C gives only marginal advantage: bubble sort would suck even if you'd write it in assembler.
P.S. If that is still concern, one can allow interpreted languages to have e.g. twice more time compared to compiled languages.
Go ahead and have a look - how much is out there for disability, old age retirement, medicare... even student loans have gone bezerk..
What - if you were familiar with economics and macro economics - isn't necessarily such a bad thing.
More coverage equals more cost, period.
The only way universal care could actually cut costs is to limit services.
The B.S. you have said might have made sense - only if we hadn't the whole Europe of counter-examples.
the Japanese Astronauts, the Chinese Taikonauts and the Indian Hehenauts live and work in their respectable moon-bases, we Americans are still stuck in the bottom of the gravity well.
Let me give you a hint: check out the news.
In times of national economic crisis, I think your Mr.Pres. does fine job. Though it seems that most gringos already forgot that the crisis is out there - probably TV news don't cover it anymore...
The day I as user would not be able to resize browser window, adjust font size or copy-paste any random text from a page, will be the death of the web as I concerned.
Indexed DB/etc is OK - but rest of the carp they do under the guise of making web seamlessly integrating with the desktop is a huge leap back.
Some people has to sit for a moment and recall why web applications started winning over desktop applications.
They'll just slice it and pass it piece by piece through all the possible loopholes, avoiding any vote by elected officials.
When in the EU something happens, all become aware of it only as a post factum, when it is too late to influence anything. ... well, you see such news. IOW, any news from Brussels can be safely ignored, "real business" there happens behind closed doors.
When in the EU nothing happens
The Core i5-750 is only $200. If you're not willing to spend $200 on your CPU, you have no business building a PC instead of buying one.
B.S.
What the point of wasting $200 on CPU when you can get for >$100 a CPU which performs in real world >5-10% slower?? And most applications (even games) are pretty happy even with half/quarter of the performance???
I'm not per se against the Intel CPUs. Some of their CPUs are cheaper and faster than the AMD ones. But for whatever reason, at least in Europe, the MBs for Intel CPUs are on average 10-25% more expensive than those for AMD CPUs. And upgrade-ability of the AMD systems is magnitudes better: one can get cheap CPU today and upgrade it few years later.
I second.
Heck, one can get decent GPU for $100-150, meaning that by going cheaper with the rest of components, one can also get himself a decent gaming machine for about $400-600.
Now I can't even name a single PC component which is a must have and can't be found new for less than $100.
"The gap between a biological effect and an adverse health effect is a big one."
IMO the gap not as big as some scientists try to paint. And heck, that was about food, stuff which is digested by our stomach on a chemical level.
The radiation which directly influences the organs? Hell yes.
The "real programmers" can sneer at us, [...]
That's not about it.
As long as you understand what you write, it's fine.
The problem is with the newer generation of Java/C# who: can't write their own algorithms thus inevitably depend on libraries, manage to have problems integrating the libraries together and (worst) do not understand how/why the stuff works.
the BIOS, bootloader, operating system, libraries and editor
That's a misconception about the "real programmers".
The difference between the "new programmers" and the "real programmers" is that later were still taught math and computer architecture - former were taught only syntax of a sandboxed programming language. Later know why/how software/hardware works at least in general, former have to rely on book which tell them that it would works.
Those who are actually try to reinvent "the BIOS, bootloader, operating system, libraries and editor" are not "real programmers": those are last remaining artifacts of the DOS times, the times when it all fit 64K.