Another one that missed the point. Boy, we're on a roll, uh?
Read my comment again, I did not claim that vim or emacs is better than an IDE. I talked about my personal preference, but also mentioned that I had used IDEs too. They have their place and some of them are actually very good. I wasn't deriding any one who uses IDE for the sake of using one, just those that claimed that it is impossible to be productive without one. Read further up in the thread and you'll find plenty of comments claiming this.
No, but you should start worrying as soon as it learns how to play Tic-Tac-Toe with itself. From there on, it's just a quick step into Global Thermonuclear War!
Way to miss the point, there; that takes skill. I was deriding those who feel a necessity to say that it is impossible to be productive without using an IDE.
And, yes, in my experience, those who make such claims are typically inexperienced people who have not really tried other tools, hence my "IDE kids" remark.
I personally feel you can be productive with whatever tools you feel comfortable.
I didn't mean run "vim" as "vi", I meant the profile aliases the command "vi" to "vim", so whenever a user types "vi" they are actually running "vim" (in "vim" mode), and some don't know the difference.
>> There just isn't anything as powerful in a single cohesive package.
Wow! That's a pretty bold statement. You should go out and look around more. Seriously!
If you want to take my words, as someone who has actually worked with various different packages (including your beloved VisualStudio), I find VisualStudio slow, unstable, and bloated, and too obtrusive for real work. Let's see, the Delphi IDE, to me at least, seems more powerful and versatile (and it even does C++ and C#, too!). And how about C++Builder from Borland? Even Eclipse seems to be at least comparable with VisualStudio (even to the slow and bloat level). And if you concede that Delphi is at least as good as VisualStudio, then you must say the same for Lazarus, which is an open source clone of it intended for FreePascal. And this is not even getting into using plain-old developer's text editors with plug-in support (such as EditPlus), which can easily integrate with external tools.
VisualC++ is certainly not evil, but--and I say this from experience--it is not the only integrated development environment, nor even the best one, for C++ out there. It is just the only one most Windows developers know about.
And let me just end by saying, as I always do, to each his own-- just don't go claiming that your favorite pet system is the best in breed just because you like it.
I don't know about emacs, but in vim I can open multiple windows at a time (not to mention multiple buffers!), and switch between them rather effortlessly.
Look, most of use defending vim and emacs are not saying that it is impossible to use an IDE to be productive; just that it isn't necessary. I certainly believe that each person should work with whatever tools they feel comfortable.
However, the "IDE kids" keep categorically rejecting the notion that you can be productive in anything but a large, bulky (and yes, maybe even bloated) integrated system. They would do good not to be so narrow-minded.
I've used both and, although I see value in some IDEs, I personally prefer using the leaner, smaller tools. Sometimes all those windows and automatic wizards and code injectors just get my way.
In most Linux installations, and even in Cygwin, "vi" is aliased to "vim" in the default Bash profile; hence the confusion of some people regarding the two.
I used "vi" in Solaris and BSDi (csh) back in the mid 90s, and years later discovered "vim"; and I can attest to the differences between them, in features and usability!
No, that is not at all what I am saying. And, more to the point, I am not the one making the patent claims, though I did read the application.
A "simple regex" requires a complete input (otherwise how do you match against the "^" and "$" anchors?). Also, when the pattern fails, it typically flags the entire field as invalid. The claim is more along the lines of a "masked edit" field.
There certainly may be prior art, but it is not as common on web applications as you think it is.
The patent application describes a system where a pattern representing a valid version of the input is specified by the developer, and this pattern is expanded and compared with the user input in real-time.
Typical regular-expression validation engines in JavaScript work on the completed input, not on a character-by-charcter basis. If you specify a regular-expression as/^\d{3}-?\d{2}-?\d{4}$/ and the user entered a single digit, the validation will fail as it is expecting more than one digit. And when it fails, typically, it will flag the whole field as invalid, but won't tell you which specific character caused the failure.
This is the nature of their claim: a real-time validation system that, pressumably, can interpret a pattern describing the valid format (such as a regular expression) and with visual cues to guide the user into entering the proper input.
As such it works more like a "masked input" field than a regular expression validator. The summary is disingenuous when it mentions that IBM claims a patent on a regular expression for social-security numbers.
They are not patenting a regular expression to validate social-security numbers, they are patenting an entire validation system for web application, in which there is an API for a developer to specify a regular expression, and the framework will then validate the user input in real-time, while the front-end highlights the specific characters that caused the failure. The particular problem they are trying to solve is the user confusion when they submit a form which tells them that a field was rejected without telling them what's wrong with the input.
This is not to say that there isn't prior art for that, but as you can see it is much more than just a patent on a simple reg-exp pattern.
Maybe the definition in Wikipedia is in flux. I just checked my Webster's Third International Dictionary and it still says the same definition it did back when I was in high-school.
Slashdot Mirror
Quick, someone mod the parent up!
+1 Dead-on-balls accurate.
-dZ.
>> But, crappy journalism with continue unabated.
Sad, but true. *sigh*
-dZ.
Hey! On Sundays you get much more than Garfield--and you get it in color!
-dZ.
It depends on whether Bill Gates participates in the publicity campaign.
-dZ.
That's the important question, and none of the press releases linked here have an answer.
Try binging it...
sorry,
-dZ.
Actualy it's:
They're still in step 3.
-dZ.
Just curious: how, in your opinion, is the VC++ integrated debugger different than, say, the Delphi or BDS integrated debugger?
-dZ.
So does your computer currently do what you say?
Mine, I can barely get it to do what I type!
-dZ.
Another one that missed the point. Boy, we're on a roll, uh?
Read my comment again, I did not claim that vim or emacs is better than an IDE. I talked about my personal preference, but also mentioned that I had used IDEs too. They have their place and some of them are actually very good. I wasn't deriding any one who uses IDE for the sake of using one, just those that claimed that it is impossible to be productive without one. Read further up in the thread and you'll find plenty of comments claiming this.
-dZ.
No, but you should start worrying as soon as it learns how to play Tic-Tac-Toe with itself. From there on, it's just a quick step into Global Thermonuclear War!
-dZ.
Way to miss the point, there; that takes skill. I was deriding those who feel a necessity to say that it is impossible to be productive without using an IDE.
And, yes, in my experience, those who make such claims are typically inexperienced people who have not really tried other tools, hence my "IDE kids" remark.
I personally feel you can be productive with whatever tools you feel comfortable.
-dZ.
Wow! what a smart comment. I'm impressed. Did you write that yourself, or was there a wizard for it?
-dZ.
I didn't mean run "vim" as "vi", I meant the profile aliases the command "vi" to "vim", so whenever a user types "vi" they are actually running "vim" (in "vim" mode), and some don't know the difference.
-dZ.
>> There just isn't anything as powerful in a single cohesive package.
Wow! That's a pretty bold statement. You should go out and look around more. Seriously!
If you want to take my words, as someone who has actually worked with various different packages (including your beloved VisualStudio), I find VisualStudio slow, unstable, and bloated, and too obtrusive for real work. Let's see, the Delphi IDE, to me at least, seems more powerful and versatile (and it even does C++ and C#, too!). And how about C++Builder from Borland? Even Eclipse seems to be at least comparable with VisualStudio (even to the slow and bloat level). And if you concede that Delphi is at least as good as VisualStudio, then you must say the same for Lazarus, which is an open source clone of it intended for FreePascal. And this is not even getting into using plain-old developer's text editors with plug-in support (such as EditPlus), which can easily integrate with external tools.
VisualC++ is certainly not evil, but--and I say this from experience--it is not the only integrated development environment, nor even the best one, for C++ out there. It is just the only one most Windows developers know about.
And let me just end by saying, as I always do, to each his own-- just don't go claiming that your favorite pet system is the best in breed just because you like it.
-dZ.
I don't know about emacs, but in vim I can open multiple windows at a time (not to mention multiple buffers!), and switch between them rather effortlessly.
Look, most of use defending vim and emacs are not saying that it is impossible to use an IDE to be productive; just that it isn't necessary. I certainly believe that each person should work with whatever tools they feel comfortable.
However, the "IDE kids" keep categorically rejecting the notion that you can be productive in anything but a large, bulky (and yes, maybe even bloated) integrated system. They would do good not to be so narrow-minded.
I've used both and, although I see value in some IDEs, I personally prefer using the leaner, smaller tools. Sometimes all those windows and automatic wizards and code injectors just get my way.
-dZ.
Wow, indeed. Next time we'll try a hammer.
-dZ.
In most Linux installations, and even in Cygwin, "vi" is aliased to "vim" in the default Bash profile; hence the confusion of some people regarding the two.
I used "vi" in Solaris and BSDi (csh) back in the mid 90s, and years later discovered "vim"; and I can attest to the differences between them, in features and usability!
-dZ.
No, that is not at all what I am saying. And, more to the point, I am not the one making the patent claims, though I did read the application.
A "simple regex" requires a complete input (otherwise how do you match against the "^" and "$" anchors?). Also, when the pattern fails, it typically flags the entire field as invalid. The claim is more along the lines of a "masked edit" field.
There certainly may be prior art, but it is not as common on web applications as you think it is.
-dZ.
The patent application describes a system where a pattern representing a valid version of the input is specified by the developer, and this pattern is expanded and compared with the user input in real-time.
Typical regular-expression validation engines in JavaScript work on the completed input, not on a character-by-charcter basis. If you specify a regular-expression as /^\d{3}-?\d{2}-?\d{4}$/ and the user entered a single digit, the validation will fail as it is expecting more than one digit. And when it fails, typically, it will flag the whole field as invalid, but won't tell you which specific character caused the failure.
This is the nature of their claim: a real-time validation system that, pressumably, can interpret a pattern describing the valid format (such as a regular expression) and with visual cues to guide the user into entering the proper input.
As such it works more like a "masked input" field than a regular expression validator. The summary is disingenuous when it mentions that IBM claims a patent on a regular expression for social-security numbers.
-dZ.
You didn't read the patent application, did you?
They are not patenting a regular expression to validate social-security numbers, they are patenting an entire validation system for web application, in which there is an API for a developer to specify a regular expression, and the framework will then validate the user input in real-time, while the front-end highlights the specific characters that caused the failure. The particular problem they are trying to solve is the user confusion when they submit a form which tells them that a field was rejected without telling them what's wrong with the input.
This is not to say that there isn't prior art for that, but as you can see it is much more than just a patent on a simple reg-exp pattern.
-dZ.
You mean:
^\d{3}[ .-]?\d{2}[ .-]?\d{4}$
Maybe the definition in Wikipedia is in flux. I just checked my Webster's Third International Dictionary and it still says the same definition it did back when I was in high-school.
-dZ.
It's not unnessicary bolding, it's very much nessicary bolding; if it wasn't so nessicary I wouldn't have to respond so nessicarily.
-dZ.
Ha! I get by with just duct-tape and a swiss-army knife. Anything else is superfluous.
-dZ.
Haha! Right, because all the other measures they have concocted and put in practice do work?
-dZ.