Good comments are written first, before the code, describing what the following code does.
That's some of the worst advice I have seen wrt. code commenting. Comments should never describe what the code does. If it is not obvious from the code, it should be refactored.
The strategy of verbose and essentially redundant comments are bound to end up in outdated and/or useless comments. If such a practice is employed in industry, forcing people to comment every loop, etc. as you describe, I'm certain there would be a lot of useless comments.
People will simply not do something, which they cannot see how they would later benefit from. Classic CSCW problem.
Until some moron starts harassing his ex-girlfriend from his work
account and you company gets sued for umpteen million dollars. Then it
would've made a lot of sense!
I don't really care about what "makes sense" from a company's point of
view, when the result is a restriction of my free speech.
If it's true that there is drop in computer science students (and it's my impression too), I think that's good.
We want peoply genuinely interested in the subject matter taking these courses, not people just in it for the money. I expect a drop in CS students will equal a rise in the general skill level of the graduates.
I remember reading that Einstein was considered a "slow learner" back in school
Urban legend. Einstein was an outstanding student.
From Wikipedia:
Though he built models and mechanical devices for fun, he was considered a slow learner, possibly due to dyslexia, simple shyness, or the significantly rare and unusual structure of his brain (as seen following his death). He later credited his development of the theory of relativity to this slowness, saying that by pondering space and time later than most children, he was able to apply a more developed intellect. Another, more recent, theory about his mental development is that he suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a disorder related to autism.
When Stallman talks about proprietary art being ok, he's refering to the consume-and-forget style of gameplay that currently dominates the gaming industry.
Do you have any sources to indicate that? Thought not. It's pure speculating and misrepresentation of Stallman's views.
As a general rule, I don't believe that it is essential for people to have permission to modify all sorts of articles and books. The issues for writings are not necessarily the same as those for software. For example, I don't think you or I are obliged to give permission to modify articles like this one, which describe our actions and our views.
So what is your beef with people making decisions for themselves?
I believe you should be free to make your own decisions on this matter. I am not advocating that proprietary software should be forbidden. I am trying to convince you and others to reject proprietary software on ethical grounds.
Most of all, I believe in freedom. This means people should be free to use proprietary software. However, if people agree that freedom is the most important thing, they would reject that choice because it takes away crucial freedoms.
Stallman believes that music, etc. ("art") may be treated differently than software, as in not being under the GPL or the GFDL. None of his essays are under the GPL, for instance.
He argues that software is useful to modify, making it different than most art and creative writings, which usually are quite personal.
He does believe, however, that these non-software works should be freely distributable.
He mentions these opinions many places, for example in this interview.
Just because the article gives an apposing viewpoint doesn't make it a 'troll'.
True. But the article is still a troll, because it totally ignores the ethical arguments that RMS and the FSF use. It's very common to do this, popularized by the Open Source Initiative with ESR as the leading figure. But trollish nonetheless.
Jamie Zawinski deserves a nomination. Among many other things, he was
instrumental in the creation of Lucid Emacs (now XEmacs), bringing
many innovations to the Emacs world.
On another note, the list is stupid. I mean, why choose the creator
of SOAP, yet another (little-known?) protocol, over so many others? And who is Ann Winblad?
Eric Raymond (however controversial) definitely also deserves to be in the list.
This so-called exploit may work in all graphical browsers. I don't know, because I generally don't use any of those. My main browser is Emacs-w3m, and it's not affected. Perhaps the article poster should be educated about that fact that not all browsers have "pop-up" windows. In a console setting, this is just not possible.
He also fails to account for screen readers, which is also a form of
browsing. Basically, the Web is not (just) a graphical medium.
I agree that a certain degree of punishment is called for in most cases. But it is not something one should love doing, especially because most criminals are really just victims too. You may write that off as leftist crap, but it's the plain truth. Hardened criminals, even the top crime bosses, are not happy people.
Of course, you may disregard CEO's, Free masons, presidents, etc. That's a different kind of criminal, a socially-accepted criminal. An entirely different ball game.
sentances must be strict enough to deter the crime
That argument is useless. If strict sentences meant no or very little crime, why are there still so many murderers in Texas (a state with the death penalty, and not afraid to use it)? The truth is that there's just no evidence to suggest harsh crimes can be avoided with stricter sentencing.
He gets 9 years? I think that's very extreme. In Denmark, my country, murderers can get less than that (IIRC, 16 years is max. penalty for any crime, incl. manslaughter).
Seriously, think about getting 9 years cut off your life. It's a very long time. And he only sent out some bulk advertising.
The issue here is how cultures and nations view people. In Denmark, the focus is on treatment of both criminals and their victims -- it's not just an issue of retaliation against the criminal. In the same spirit, noone (or only a miniscule minority) in Denmark wants the death penalty, it's totally against the danish way of thinking.
This is one of the reasons I like living in Denmark. In my mind, it's the mark of a modern nation to make an effort to resocialize criminals -- it's backwards to only say 'an eye for an eye'.
Slashdot Mirror
That's some of the worst advice I have seen wrt. code commenting. Comments should never describe what the code does. If it is not obvious from the code, it should be refactored.
The strategy of verbose and essentially redundant comments are bound to end up in outdated and/or useless comments. If such a practice is employed in industry, forcing people to comment every loop, etc. as you describe, I'm certain there would be a lot of useless comments.
People will simply not do something, which they cannot see how they would later benefit from. Classic CSCW problem.
I don't really care about what "makes sense" from a company's point of view, when the result is a restriction of my free speech.
We want peoply genuinely interested in the subject matter taking these courses, not people just in it for the money. I expect a drop in CS students will equal a rise in the general skill level of the graduates.
...leisure suits!
(Apologies to Mr. Laffer.)
Not really. It can also indicate a dislike of the whole idea of a leader, or a hierarchical organization for that matter.
Anarchists, for example, are against voting at all. They prefer consensus-based decision-making.
I don't think you can assert that.
From Wikipedia:
How is it behind? For a lot of things, it's a very good choice. And it's Free Software.
Do you have any sources to indicate that? Thought not. It's pure speculating and misrepresentation of Stallman's views.
Here's a quote, summing up his thoughts on the matter (from Free Software and Free Manuals:
I believe you should be free to make your own decisions on this matter. I am not advocating that proprietary software should be forbidden. I am trying to convince you and others to reject proprietary software on ethical grounds.
Most of all, I believe in freedom. This means people should be free to use proprietary software. However, if people agree that freedom is the most important thing, they would reject that choice because it takes away crucial freedoms.
He argues that software is useful to modify, making it different than most art and creative writings, which usually are quite personal. He does believe, however, that these non-software works should be freely distributable.
He mentions these opinions many places, for example in this interview.
(I personally agree with him.)
True. But the article is still a troll, because it totally ignores the ethical arguments that RMS and the FSF use. It's very common to do this, popularized by the Open Source Initiative with ESR as the leading figure. But trollish nonetheless.
It's the World Wide Web.
RMS has dealt with this argument time and time again, explaining why he thinks that freedom is the highest goals of all. And I agree with him.
The world needs more thoughtful idealists like RMS, and even more people who listen to what they say.
If news sites like Slashdot are also counted as blogs, I'm not surprised the number is increasing.
Personally, I don't read personal blogs much. Most are low quality.
On another note, the list is stupid. I mean, why choose the creator of SOAP, yet another (little-known?) protocol, over so many others? And who is Ann Winblad?
Eric Raymond (however controversial) definitely also deserves to be in the list.
He also fails to account for screen readers, which is also a form of browsing. Basically, the Web is not (just) a graphical medium.
I agree that a certain degree of punishment is called for in most
cases. But it is not something one should love doing, especially
because most criminals are really just victims too. You may write
that off as leftist crap, but it's the plain truth. Hardened
criminals, even the top crime bosses, are not happy people.
Of course, you may disregard CEO's, Free masons, presidents, etc.
That's a different kind of criminal, a socially-accepted criminal. An
entirely different ball game.
Ah, 1 year sounds more reasonable.
That argument is useless. If strict sentences meant no or very little crime, why are there still so many murderers in Texas (a state with the death penalty, and not afraid to use it)? The truth is that there's just no evidence to suggest harsh crimes can be avoided with stricter sentencing.
He gets 9 years? I think that's very extreme. In Denmark, my country, murderers can get less than that (IIRC, 16 years is max. penalty for any crime, incl. manslaughter).
Seriously, think about getting 9 years cut off your life. It's a very long time. And he only sent out some bulk advertising.
The issue here is how cultures and nations view people. In Denmark, the focus is on treatment of both criminals and their victims -- it's not just an issue of retaliation against the criminal. In the same spirit, noone (or only a miniscule minority) in Denmark wants the death penalty, it's totally against the danish way of thinking.
This is one of the reasons I like living in Denmark. In my mind, it's the mark of a modern nation to make an effort to resocialize criminals -- it's backwards to only say 'an eye for an eye'.
I hereby declare today a worldwide day of mourning. The American voters have brought shame on their once-great country.
It is not a problem that repetitive tasks are being done by a computer. That's what they're for.
In other news, factory robots are a bigger threat than outsourcing. Let's do everything manually, there's more jobs that way.
Stop your whining and adapt. It's fucking pathetic.
This is not true. FSF has in fact ended the boycott.