So, as a resident of Montreal, I have to ask, does anyone know how well electric cars are supposed to fare in cold-weather conditions? How about hybrids?
I would agree that it's too bad there could be vulnerabilities in the package manager of several systems.
But on the other hand, it's pretty cool to think of the package manager as being a kind of bottleneck for attack vectors. In other words, though it may allow for some possible attacks, it's interesting to think that attacks could be concentrated there, and thus extinguished in one fell swoop --- once the package manager is "perfected" and all vulnerabilities taken care of, you could argue that the system as a whole is incredibly more secure for having discovered and destroyed the main source of them.
This could be compared to systems without package management (*cough* we know who you are *cough*), where EVERY SINGLE installed program has its OWN attack vectors that come with it, since every program comes with its own installer, running native, unmanaged, and often priviledged code.
I think the summary (and article) are somewhat poorly written, but that doesn't shadow the fact that functional languages are becoming more and more interesting these days with concurrency becoming so important.
I'd like to learn one, but there are several out there.. What I'd like to see is a good in-depth comparison of different concurrent functional languages: why would I choose Haskell, or Erlang, or OCaml, for example? Are they all interpreted? (Does one exist that compiles?) Which ones support concurrency? What language features do they boast, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of these features? Do they have a complete set of libraries?
Anyone know of an article like this? I've been searching for a while. Every article on functional languages I've found seems to concentrate on a particular one, but I can't find something helping me decide which one is most worth learning.
I've been often using XULRunner as a way of hosting some native widgets with an embedded HTML-driven interface. Obviously XUL can do more than that, it's just how I've been using it.
I've been playing with XULRunner quite a bit lately and though I haven't yet applied it to a "real" application, I have to say it's pretty nice and convenient to be able to design a cross-platform GUI for a local application using HTML and CSS. The trouble of course is that your application looks like a web page. (This is getting less important now that it supports native widgets of course.)
If this is open-sourced in a license-compatible manner with XULRunner, it might make for some very interesting, user-friendly (i.e., pretty), and completely cross-platform local applications.
I think part of the success of some open source projects like Linux is due to the hardheadedness of the principle author. I think that generally releasing early and often is a good thing, but if you do it, you have to be prepared to be extremely honest about your intentions, and STICK to them.
That is, if people come crying to you for features, you have to remember that you have other priorities, and you can't be scared of telling people to show code or step back. Basically, TFA here is talking about feature requrests that will start appearing before the project has the infrastructure (developer momentum) to support them. In that case you have to simply say, "this feature will be available when someone gets around to coding it, I'M working on this other thing over here." In other words, you've got to stick to your guns, you can't let your users own you.
It takes a certain amount of jadedness to realize this, I think. At the onset of a new project, people want to attract attention and make potential new users happy, because they think this will help the project. But it won't; it will even be detrimental if you get "users" too early. Keep the *project's* health in mind, forget the users.. until the project reaches a level of maturity. At that point, if it's useful, it'll sell itself.
You are making a false assumption that the only thing that comes out of the project is a robot that plays the clarinet. There are several other outputs:
First, some students learned how to build a robotic system. This has applications far beyond artistic works. Often sound and art is a very good excuse to spend time learning things that can be used for "real" applications later. For instance, would you prefer students build a clarinet playing robot or a robot that throws beer? There are plenty of examples of "useless" projects undertaken by undergrads -- but they then move on to produce useful results later in life.
Secondly, there is the psychological / human-centric part of the work: building robotics to mimic human gesture and human expression teaches us a lot about how we work.
This is called "basic" research: it doesn't necessarily consist of making something that DOES something, but it allows us to learn more about ourselves. Learning what techniques are needed for expressive clarinet playing implies that we know what those techniques are-- it implies we know what "expression" is, and that we understand much of the physics behind airflow and reed action.
This is interesting stuff. You say it is a clarinet that is "not being played very well." Well, WHY is it not being played very well? What can be improved in the playing technique? Why can humans do it better? Is it the lack of "expression" in playing (cognitive), or is something wrong with the airflow-reed interaction (physics). Or both?
This is physics and engineering and psychology all rolled into one amusing project. How can you say it's useless?
Except the part where if you heavily advocated a solution outside the mainstream... But, what's the difference between this and choosing, say Borland C++ over Visual Studio? Still going outside the "mainstream", but now it has nothing to do with FOSS vs. proprietary. I think you're confusing two separate issues.
Never underestimate the mess that is corporate politics... True.
I wanted to create an extension once that uses ssh to store and sync files on a personal shell/sftp account. Never got around to figuring out how to do it, seeing as ssh isn't supported in Firefox's javascript. Now I know it could probably be done with an XPCOM component, but I've started using del.ici.us since then. Then I realized I pretty much don't use my bookmarks anymore. Google works better.
Oh wait. They have a terminal, emacs, gcc, perl, shell, python, ruby, and a bunch of command line development tools. So that can't be the reason why linux is your thing, can it? Gee, you got me, you're right. I just like it I guess, what's your *point*?
And some prima-donna developers will presumably find themselves without a job after a couple of resignations based on the code-editor they were required to use. Okay I'll just say it... Maybe I'm just horribly inexperienced, but I'll just say it... I've *never* heard of a programming job where the boss requires you to use a specific code editor.
The appeal, I think, is that Mac provides a pretty unique development environment. Not *my* favorite, mind you (I do prefer using a terminal to XCode, so emacs and Linux are my thing), but I definitely see the appeal of the Objective C thing.
Only, I wish those same people putting all that work into OS X applications would instead redirect their efforts to improving GNUStep, making Linux a place that can have the same set of appeals. Right now it's pretty ugly, but it has so much potential.. it seems to only lack developers. I'd love to see it go somewhere.
You should check out Octave and Maxima. I just recently completed a course in discreet control engineering used these two programs extensively, they were both extremely useful.
Octave, I think, still needs lots of improvements in the plotting department, but it's amazing how much functionality it has. Maxima's great for inverting symbolic matrices..:) Python is of course becoming a very popular free replacement for Matlab as well.
Thanks for the KOffice link, I've been looking for something like that. I personally don't like Evolution much anyways. It's actually quite hard to find quality application-level software that runs on Linux but not on Windows, isn't it?
And yet, as someone who's done quite a bit of cross-platform programming, I know that it's still a TOTAL PAIN IN THE ASS to keep in mind all the broken Windows behaviour while programming. Ah, to live in a world where we can depend on POSIX behaviour completely.
While I think this is sorta cool, I find their choice of applications a little odd. Here's the list from their web page:
Firefox (Flash & Java): runs on Windows
OpenOffice.org: runs on Windows
KPdf: Probably will run on Windows when KDE4 is out?
Kopete: Same as above?
Skype: Runs on Windows
Thunderbird + Enigmail: runs on Windows
Gimp and Digikam: Gimp runs on Windows
Inkscape: runs on Windows
Scribus: runs on Windows
So.. granted, I personally think many of these applications run better and more naturally on Linux, but still it's kind of funny to see this list. (Not sure what will happen with the KDE applications.)
If they wanted to show off Linux applications that don't have Windows ports they might have chosen maybe "KOffice", or "Gnumeric", or "Evolution". I dunno.
"Since Bell is engaging in traffic "shaping" across its network-in other words, providing the same service to both its own customers and to independent ISPs-it does not appear that Bell is currently engaging in a practice of anti-competitive acts contrary to the Act."
I'm fairly certain that Bell Sympatico users are *not* being throttled. That's the whole reason everyone's pissed off. I have had at least one friend tell me they aren't throttled on Sympatico, but it would be nice to collect some statistics. What Bell is doing is almost _certainly_ anti-competitive.
"Bell is required to provide access to their DSL network to independent ISPs at regulated rates and terms of service. If the CRTC finds Bell or any other network operator to be in violation of these terms or otherwise engaging in unjust discrimination or undue preference, the CRTC has the power to address these issues under the Telecommunications Act."
Then why did you just say above, "consumer Internet services are not regulated by the CRTC"? Man, a factual error and a self-contradiction in the same letter. I hate politicians. Shit, I think I'll write my own MP.
What would be great though would be to set up a site that automatically measures throttling (maybe using a torrent tracker) and collects IP addresses and matches them to ISPs. That would make it easy to collect some unbiased statistics. (Provided, of course, Bell doesn't find out about it and magically "unthrottle" connections to that particular tracker.)
I find it interesting that they chose to base this off of Ubuntu rather than Debian, the latter being known for being quite strict about license, while the former tends to be more liberal about allowing proprietary or 3rd-party software to coexist more easily.
Does it say something about Debian that they are more willing to strip down Ubuntu?
I'd _like_ to stop using C++, frankly, but I don't seem to have a choice. A lot of my work depends on real-time capability, the kind of speed that is still only really possible on natively compiled languages that don't do dynamic typing.
I don't even mean hardcore real-time mechanical nano-second control of knife-wielding deathbots, just simple, This Must Run As Fast or Faster Than The Rate At Which It Will Be Converted To Analog. Python and Java still don't replace C in this area. (Mainly audio, video, and high-speed mechanical control.) And when it gets complex and you need to get into object oriented models to simplify the programming, there is unfortunately no real alternative other than C++. Combine this with that fact that there are a bunch of great libraries out there written in C++ that would be very difficult to replace, and you're stuck with it.
(I sort of oscillate between liking C++ and hating it, but I'm preferring straight C more and more these days. But like I said, I don't always have the luxury of choice, depending on what libraries I need to use.)
All these other languages mentioned (Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl, etc) do not compile to native code, and all do dynamic memory management. Hell, that's exactly what makes them *good*. But unfortunately they're not so good for real-time tasks.
For real-time, you need deterministic memory management, and native speed. I've been looking at some other languages that compile to native code these days, like D, or Vala, but I haven't really decided yet whether I can start using them on serious projects.
I'd really like to learn more about functional programming in this area, too, but there seem to be very few functional languages that are designed for real-time. FAUST is one, but it's only for audio.
Anyone know any other good natively-compiled languages that actually have well-implemented modern features?
I wish it were possible to have a compiled version of Python, for example, but there are many dynamic features it depends on. (Some stuff could be done in Pyrex, which is a pretty cool little project, but so far I've only used it to make bindings to C libraries.)
Slashdot Mirror
So, as a resident of Montreal, I have to ask, does anyone know how well electric cars are supposed to fare in cold-weather conditions? How about hybrids?
I would agree that it's too bad there could be vulnerabilities in the package manager of several systems.
But on the other hand, it's pretty cool to think of the package manager as being a kind of bottleneck for attack vectors. In other words, though it may allow for some possible attacks, it's interesting to think that attacks could be concentrated there, and thus extinguished in one fell swoop --- once the package manager is "perfected" and all vulnerabilities taken care of, you could argue that the system as a whole is incredibly more secure for having discovered and destroyed the main source of them.
This could be compared to systems without package management (*cough* we know who you are *cough*), where EVERY SINGLE installed program has its OWN attack vectors that come with it, since every program comes with its own installer, running native, unmanaged, and often priviledged code.
Does that make any sense? It's late...
I think the summary (and article) are somewhat poorly written, but that doesn't shadow the fact that functional languages are becoming more and more interesting these days with concurrency becoming so important.
I'd like to learn one, but there are several out there.. What I'd like to see is a good in-depth comparison of different concurrent functional languages: why would I choose Haskell, or Erlang, or OCaml, for example? Are they all interpreted? (Does one exist that compiles?) Which ones support concurrency? What language features do they boast, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of these features? Do they have a complete set of libraries?
Anyone know of an article like this? I've been searching for a while. Every article on functional languages I've found seems to concentrate on a particular one, but I can't find something helping me decide which one is most worth learning.
I've been often using XULRunner as a way of hosting some native widgets with an embedded HTML-driven interface. Obviously XUL can do more than that, it's just how I've been using it.
I've been playing with XULRunner quite a bit lately and though I haven't yet applied it to a "real" application, I have to say it's pretty nice and convenient to be able to design a cross-platform GUI for a local application using HTML and CSS. The trouble of course is that your application looks like a web page. (This is getting less important now that it supports native widgets of course.)
If this is open-sourced in a license-compatible manner with XULRunner, it might make for some very interesting, user-friendly (i.e., pretty), and completely cross-platform local applications.
I think part of the success of some open source projects like Linux is due to the hardheadedness of the principle author. I think that generally releasing early and often is a good thing, but if you do it, you have to be prepared to be extremely honest about your intentions, and STICK to them.
That is, if people come crying to you for features, you have to remember that you have other priorities, and you can't be scared of telling people to show code or step back. Basically, TFA here is talking about feature requrests that will start appearing before the project has the infrastructure (developer momentum) to support them. In that case you have to simply say, "this feature will be available when someone gets around to coding it, I'M working on this other thing over here." In other words, you've got to stick to your guns, you can't let your users own you.
It takes a certain amount of jadedness to realize this, I think. At the onset of a new project, people want to attract attention and make potential new users happy, because they think this will help the project. But it won't; it will even be detrimental if you get "users" too early. Keep the *project's* health in mind, forget the users.. until the project reaches a level of maturity. At that point, if it's useful, it'll sell itself.
You are making a false assumption that the only thing that comes out of the project is a robot that plays the clarinet. There are several other outputs:
First, some students learned how to build a robotic system. This has applications far beyond artistic works. Often sound and art is a very good excuse to spend time learning things that can be used for "real" applications later. For instance, would you prefer students build a clarinet playing robot or a robot that throws beer? There are plenty of examples of "useless" projects undertaken by undergrads -- but they then move on to produce useful results later in life.
Secondly, there is the psychological / human-centric part of the work: building robotics to mimic human gesture and human expression teaches us a lot about how we work.
This is called "basic" research: it doesn't necessarily consist of making something that DOES something, but it allows us to learn more about ourselves. Learning what techniques are needed for expressive clarinet playing implies that we know what those techniques are-- it implies we know what "expression" is, and that we understand much of the physics behind airflow and reed action.
This is interesting stuff. You say it is a clarinet that is "not being played very well." Well, WHY is it not being played very well? What can be improved in the playing technique? Why can humans do it better? Is it the lack of "expression" in playing (cognitive), or is something wrong with the airflow-reed interaction (physics). Or both?
This is physics and engineering and psychology all rolled into one amusing project. How can you say it's useless?
Are you referring to McBlare?
Different strokes, indeed.
Cool, I didn't know they were starting a record label. What kind of music are they into?
I think you're confusing two separate issues. Never underestimate the mess that is corporate politics... True.
I wanted to create an extension once that uses ssh to store and sync files on a personal shell/sftp account. Never got around to figuring out how to do it, seeing as ssh isn't supported in Firefox's javascript. Now I know it could probably be done with an XPCOM component, but I've started using del.ici.us since then. Then I realized I pretty much don't use my bookmarks anymore. Google works better.
The appeal, I think, is that Mac provides a pretty unique development environment. Not *my* favorite, mind you (I do prefer using a terminal to XCode, so emacs and Linux are my thing), but I definitely see the appeal of the Objective C thing.
Only, I wish those same people putting all that work into OS X applications would instead redirect their efforts to improving GNUStep, making Linux a place that can have the same set of appeals. Right now it's pretty ugly, but it has so much potential.. it seems to only lack developers. I'd love to see it go somewhere.
You should check out Octave and Maxima. I just recently completed a course in discreet control engineering used these two programs extensively, they were both extremely useful.
:) Python is of course becoming a very popular free replacement for Matlab as well.
Octave, I think, still needs lots of improvements in the plotting department, but it's amazing how much functionality it has. Maxima's great for inverting symbolic matrices..
Thanks for the KOffice link, I've been looking for something like that. I personally don't like Evolution much anyways. It's actually quite hard to find quality application-level software that runs on Linux but not on Windows, isn't it?
And yet, as someone who's done quite a bit of cross-platform programming, I know that it's still a TOTAL PAIN IN THE ASS to keep in mind all the broken Windows behaviour while programming. Ah, to live in a world where we can depend on POSIX behaviour completely.
So.. granted, I personally think many of these applications run better and more naturally on Linux, but still it's kind of funny to see this list. (Not sure what will happen with the KDE applications.)
If they wanted to show off Linux applications that don't have Windows ports they might have chosen maybe "KOffice", or "Gnumeric", or "Evolution". I dunno.
I'm fairly certain that Bell Sympatico users are *not* being throttled. That's the whole reason everyone's pissed off. I have had at least one friend tell me they aren't throttled on Sympatico, but it would be nice to collect some statistics. What Bell is doing is almost _certainly_ anti-competitive.
Then why did you just say above, "consumer Internet services are not regulated by the CRTC"? Man, a factual error and a self-contradiction in the same letter. I hate politicians. Shit, I think I'll write my own MP.
What would be great though would be to set up a site that automatically measures throttling (maybe using a torrent tracker) and collects IP addresses and matches them to ISPs. That would make it easy to collect some unbiased statistics. (Provided, of course, Bell doesn't find out about it and magically "unthrottle" connections to that particular tracker.)
I did chuckle, I hope you did too. :)
I find it interesting that they chose to base this off of Ubuntu rather than Debian, the latter being known for being quite strict about license, while the former tends to be more liberal about allowing proprietary or 3rd-party software to coexist more easily.
Does it say something about Debian that they are more willing to strip down Ubuntu?
Well damn, if only there were some mechanism by which independent artists could register to get paid when other people play their stuff...
Alright, I know it's not all that effective..
I'd _like_ to stop using C++, frankly, but I don't seem to have a choice. A lot of my work depends on real-time capability, the kind of speed that is still only really possible on natively compiled languages that don't do dynamic typing.
I don't even mean hardcore real-time mechanical nano-second control of knife-wielding deathbots, just simple, This Must Run As Fast or Faster Than The Rate At Which It Will Be Converted To Analog. Python and Java still don't replace C in this area. (Mainly audio, video, and high-speed mechanical control.) And when it gets complex and you need to get into object oriented models to simplify the programming, there is unfortunately no real alternative other than C++. Combine this with that fact that there are a bunch of great libraries out there written in C++ that would be very difficult to replace, and you're stuck with it.
(I sort of oscillate between liking C++ and hating it, but I'm preferring straight C more and more these days. But like I said, I don't always have the luxury of choice, depending on what libraries I need to use.)
All these other languages mentioned (Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl, etc) do not compile to native code, and all do dynamic memory management. Hell, that's exactly what makes them *good*. But unfortunately they're not so good for real-time tasks.
For real-time, you need deterministic memory management, and native speed. I've been looking at some other languages that compile to native code these days, like D, or Vala, but I haven't really decided yet whether I can start using them on serious projects.
I'd really like to learn more about functional programming in this area, too, but there seem to be very few functional languages that are designed for real-time. FAUST is one, but it's only for audio.
Anyone know any other good natively-compiled languages that actually have well-implemented modern features?
I wish it were possible to have a compiled version of Python, for example, but there are many dynamic features it depends on. (Some stuff could be done in Pyrex, which is a pretty cool little project, but so far I've only used it to make bindings to C libraries.)