Thank you, astroturfman! If it weren't for you, we'd have to rely on real grass!
Re:Nice to have on the bookshelf...for a few of us
on
The New C Standard
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· Score: 1
Lisp continues to have a dedicated user base 40 years after its creation. A paper praising its use, over C, has even been written.[398]
Ahhh LISP... When I first encountered it (in its incarnation as guile scheme), I thought "Wow, I have never seen a cleaner, more elegant language." My favorite feature is the treatment of functions as first-class objects. The only thing is, I think car and cdr ought to have names which more obviously reflect their function.
Re:Why would you use this?
on
The New C Standard
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
maintainability and enhanceability, at least, are entirely dependent on the quality of the programmer. I'm working on extending a package here at work, most of which is written in java. It is very poorly organized and I'm being forced to completely rethink the design. If it were well designed, I ought to be able to copy a couple of files and change some constants and be done. (the extension is nothing more than adding a new version of a particular custom electronics board while continuing to use the old board as well.)
Using java does not automagically give you all of these benefits. In the hands of a competent programmer, they may be easier to acheive with java. However, in the hands of an incompetent programmer, the best you might get would be portability and mobility. That is, as long as you stick with virtual machines and class libraries from one vendor.
You just gave a nearly inerrant description of my girlfriend's brother. How amusing.
Of course, you failed to mention that whenever their internet connection fails, he wanders around downstairs until it is fixed saying "I could be killing people right now. Think of how many people I would have killed if the internet were working". How could you have missed this detail?
Amazingly enough, the game's authors disagree with you, it is in fact Façade (yes, including the italics and the capital F). It always pays to back up your anti-pedantry pedantry with RTFA.
Actually, I use linux on my desktop because it allows me to customize the desktop in all kinds of ways that simply are not available on other platforms. I started using linux partly because it was unique, and partly because I was just flat out fed up with windows (98 at the time). I find that I have a much better desktop experience than I ever did with windows. Not necessarily a "great" desktop experience (is there such a thing? if so, what is it?), but better nonetheless.
I know why I run linux, and it's not to make a statement. Don't ever even try to put words in my mouth again, thank you very much.
Developers: Please write a computer program that can read the end user's mind and know exactly what they want.
What end users want is often impossible, or contradictory, or extremely difficult to implement. Additionally, end users are notoriously bad at articulating, even actually knowing, what they want.
The plea for end users to become developers comes about for a couple of reasons. One, there simply aren't enough developers out there to write what everyone (or maybe anyone) wants. Two, users who know enough about the system to be able to do even a small amount of development work are far better at communicating (and knowing) what they want.
What do your parents and grandma and little sister (or you) want in a computer? maybe if they (or you) would tell developers, it would have a chance of being implemented! No guarantees, but I'd still recommend that you give it a shot.
I actually wasn't referring to the entire meta-data feature, but only the "virtual list" feature. No, a meta-data implementation is not trivial, and I did not mean to imply that it was. My apologies for the lack of clarity.
That was really quite well written. I am quite impressed. It actually reminded me rather strongly of some of the best of ESR's writings, which I have recently discovered, and been working my way through. You have my commendation, what little value it might have. Keep writing.
Anyway this chatcord is a nice project for this weekend!! heee!:P
Whoa buddy. Calm down there. Nice, big, easy breaths. Think happy, slow, thoughts. Now give me the mountain dew. Yes, all of it. I'll let you have it back when you're done with the soldering iron.
The operating system lets you create virtual lists based on these attributes so that, for example, you can see every photo on your system or all Microsoft Word files, regardless of where they are stored and without having to explicitly search for them.
I think this could be implemented in a couple hours, if that, with some shell scripting, symlinks, and tar. A "pretty" GUI to go along would take a few more hours. So, lets see, this feature accounts for one man-day of microsoft's time....
When I was four, we moved to house just North of Dalls. On the other side of the alley behind our house was a big green box. It could be opened, if you had a key. We (me and my neighboorhood friends) used to use it as a stage, a castle, a mountain, a thing-to-be-defended-from-everyone-else-in-today's -game, etc. Our parents always told us not to play around it, but we ignored them, as the only reason we could see for this was the continual prescence of a small fire-ant nest at one corner of the base of the thing.
Several years later, we (my family and I) were eating breakfast together (yes, we really did that), when all of a sudden there was a loud "BOOM!" that shook the whole house, and instantly, the lights went out, all over the neighboorhood. Well, an hour later, a truck from the electric company shows up, and goes to unlock this big green box. It was the power transformer for our whole neighboorhood, which was why our parents told us to stay off it. Well, the power repair guys opened it, looked at for a minute, and then closed it back up. They drove off.
An hour later, we still have no power, but the truck comes back. This time they have shovels. They open the transformer back up, and begin shoveling a large portion of the transformer's volume worth of dirt and dead fire ants...
Eventually, they got the whole nest cleaned out of there, and fixed the transformer (turns out that the ants had somehow chewed through the insulation or something and managed to short the thing). Then, finally, that pesky ant nest at the corner was gone. Too bad we had all outgrown playing on it anyway. However, a few weeks or months later, there was another nest starting up in about the same place...
There do exist people in the world (myself being one of them) who have the opposite problem from "The Average American"... I cannot keep enough weight on to stay healthy... If my BMI were to go down, then I probably wouldn't have enough reserve fat to survive from one meal to the next. And before anyone says "Boy I wish I had your problem", no you don't. Trust me. Being constantly on the edge of dangerously underweight is not fun, healthy, good for one's social life, etc. etc. etc. It is a less common problem, but it is no less of a problem. In fact, I dare say that in many poor third world countries, being overweight would be looked on just as being underweight is here.
My mom used to work at Bell Labs in the late 70s (as an apps programmer/maintainer, she's no Ken Thompson), and her group was the only one in their building that didn't work overtime on a fairly regular basis. Furthermore (according to her at least) they were always on time with their deadlines, whereas many of the other groups were late. The key: apparently one of the only good managers to ever exist (he was a programmer too, though, which goes a long way to explaining it.). His mantra was "we work smart, we don't work long."
A first grader was giving a report on the moon. He explained how people used think the moon was made of cheese, but then the astronauts got there, and it was all just rock. "That's what happens to cheese when you leave it out too long."
Good heavens, fire ants are terrible! I'm from Texas, and there is no greater pestilence than fire ants there.
Incidentally, you remember the Super Conducting Super Collider project that congress cut funding from in the 90s? Well, it was to be in Texas, and they had already built a lot of the tunnels for the collider. Then, when congress pulled funding, one of the reasons listed in their official report (or so I've heard) was that fire ants are attracted to electricity (which they are, I have an anecdote about that if you like) and had already moved into the tunnels.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you, astroturfman! If it weren't for you, we'd have to rely on real grass!
Ahhh LISP... When I first encountered it (in its incarnation as guile scheme), I thought "Wow, I have never seen a cleaner, more elegant language." My favorite feature is the treatment of functions as first-class objects. The only thing is, I think car and cdr ought to have names which more obviously reflect their function.
maintainability and enhanceability, at least, are entirely dependent on the quality of the programmer. I'm working on extending a package here at work, most of which is written in java. It is very poorly organized and I'm being forced to completely rethink the design. If it were well designed, I ought to be able to copy a couple of files and change some constants and be done. (the extension is nothing more than adding a new version of a particular custom electronics board while continuing to use the old board as well.)
Using java does not automagically give you all of these benefits. In the hands of a competent programmer, they may be easier to acheive with java. However, in the hands of an incompetent programmer, the best you might get would be portability and mobility. That is, as long as you stick with virtual machines and class libraries from one vendor.
There is no silver bullet.
You just gave a nearly inerrant description of my girlfriend's brother. How amusing.
Of course, you failed to mention that whenever their internet connection fails, he wanders around downstairs until it is fixed saying "I could be killing people right now. Think of how many people I would have killed if the internet were working". How could you have missed this detail?
There exists a google pagerank extension for firefox.
Well, the GNU project was what ESR was specifically talking about when he mentioned cathedrals.... and what did Michelangelo paint?
Amazingly enough, the game's authors disagree with you, it is in fact Façade (yes, including the italics and the capital F). It always pays to back up your anti-pedantry pedantry with RTFA.
It sounds like the ostrich head-in-the-sand argument. I can't see it, hence it doesn't exist.
No, no, no. The ostrich's argument is, I can't see you, therefore you can't see me, therefore I don't eNO CARRIER
Just imagine, a traveling skynet of these things...
Beowulf is beginning...
In Soviet Russia, Robots create cheap swarming YOU!
But the real question is... can it run linux?
Feel better?
Actually, I use linux on my desktop because it allows me to customize the desktop in all kinds of ways that simply are not available on other platforms. I started using linux partly because it was unique, and partly because I was just flat out fed up with windows (98 at the time). I find that I have a much better desktop experience than I ever did with windows. Not necessarily a "great" desktop experience (is there such a thing? if so, what is it?), but better nonetheless.
I know why I run linux, and it's not to make a statement. Don't ever even try to put words in my mouth again, thank you very much.
Developers: Please write a computer program that can read the end user's mind and know exactly what they want.
What end users want is often impossible, or contradictory, or extremely difficult to implement. Additionally, end users are notoriously bad at articulating, even actually knowing, what they want.
The plea for end users to become developers comes about for a couple of reasons. One, there simply aren't enough developers out there to write what everyone (or maybe anyone) wants. Two, users who know enough about the system to be able to do even a small amount of development work are far better at communicating (and knowing) what they want.
What do your parents and grandma and little sister (or you) want in a computer? maybe if they (or you) would tell developers, it would have a chance of being implemented! No guarantees, but I'd still recommend that you give it a shot.
I actually wasn't referring to the entire meta-data feature, but only the "virtual list" feature. No, a meta-data implementation is not trivial, and I did not mean to imply that it was. My apologies for the lack of clarity.
That was really quite well written. I am quite impressed. It actually reminded me rather strongly of some of the best of ESR's writings, which I have recently discovered, and been working my way through. You have my commendation, what little value it might have. Keep writing.
Anyway this chatcord is a nice project for this weekend!! heee! :P
Whoa buddy. Calm down there. Nice, big, easy breaths. Think happy, slow, thoughts. Now give me the mountain dew. Yes, all of it. I'll let you have it back when you're done with the soldering iron.
The operating system lets you create virtual lists based on these attributes so that, for example, you can see every photo on your system or all Microsoft Word files, regardless of where they are stored and without having to explicitly search for them.
I think this could be implemented in a couple hours, if that, with some shell scripting, symlinks, and tar. A "pretty" GUI to go along would take a few more hours. So, lets see, this feature accounts for one man-day of microsoft's time....
That's a good idea. The next virus I write will use that Orrin Hatch feature that destroys your computer if you have mp3s.
what really amuses me is that rpiquepa (which sounds like the name of a pokemon IMO) has 94 freaks, and only 7 fans... a much hated man.
:-p
OTOH, prostoalex has 31 fans, and only 1 freak... Sounds like someone needs to take lessons.
Add to that:
4. Not having stupid users
True. It is really just a minor pet peeve for me, so I spouted off.
Ok, you got it.
s -game, etc. Our parents always told us not to play around it, but we ignored them, as the only reason we could see for this was the continual prescence of a small fire-ant nest at one corner of the base of the thing.
When I was four, we moved to house just North of Dalls. On the other side of the alley behind our house was a big green box. It could be opened, if you had a key. We (me and my neighboorhood friends) used to use it as a stage, a castle, a mountain, a thing-to-be-defended-from-everyone-else-in-today'
Several years later, we (my family and I) were eating breakfast together (yes, we really did that), when all of a sudden there was a loud "BOOM!" that shook the whole house, and instantly, the lights went out, all over the neighboorhood. Well, an hour later, a truck from the electric company shows up, and goes to unlock this big green box. It was the power transformer for our whole neighboorhood, which was why our parents told us to stay off it. Well, the power repair guys opened it, looked at for a minute, and then closed it back up. They drove off.
An hour later, we still have no power, but the truck comes back. This time they have shovels. They open the transformer back up, and begin shoveling a large portion of the transformer's volume worth of dirt and dead fire ants...
Eventually, they got the whole nest cleaned out of there, and fixed the transformer (turns out that the ants had somehow chewed through the insulation or something and managed to short the thing). Then, finally, that pesky ant nest at the corner was gone. Too bad we had all outgrown playing on it anyway. However, a few weeks or months later, there was another nest starting up in about the same place...
Yeah. That's my story. And I'm stickin' to it.
There do exist people in the world (myself being one of them) who have the opposite problem from "The Average American"... I cannot keep enough weight on to stay healthy... If my BMI were to go down, then I probably wouldn't have enough reserve fat to survive from one meal to the next. And before anyone says "Boy I wish I had your problem", no you don't. Trust me. Being constantly on the edge of dangerously underweight is not fun, healthy, good for one's social life, etc. etc. etc. It is a less common problem, but it is no less of a problem. In fact, I dare say that in many poor third world countries, being overweight would be looked on just as being underweight is here.
"working smarter" that reminds me:
My mom used to work at Bell Labs in the late 70s (as an apps programmer/maintainer, she's no Ken Thompson), and her group was the only one in their building that didn't work overtime on a fairly regular basis. Furthermore (according to her at least) they were always on time with their deadlines, whereas many of the other groups were late. The key: apparently one of the only good managers to ever exist (he was a programmer too, though, which goes a long way to explaining it.). His mantra was "we work smart, we don't work long."
Gasses obey the laws of fluid mechanics. Thus, they are fluids.
I don't remember where I heard this, but:
A first grader was giving a report on the moon. He explained how people used think the moon was made of cheese, but then the astronauts got there, and it was all just rock. "That's what happens to cheese when you leave it out too long."
Good heavens, fire ants are terrible! I'm from Texas, and there is no greater pestilence than fire ants there.
Incidentally, you remember the Super Conducting Super Collider project that congress cut funding from in the 90s? Well, it was to be in Texas, and they had already built a lot of the tunnels for the collider. Then, when congress pulled funding, one of the reasons listed in their official report (or so I've heard) was that fire ants are attracted to electricity (which they are, I have an anecdote about that if you like) and had already moved into the tunnels.