I used Haskell (and a subset called Gopher) for 3 years while at uni. In all that time I wondered if it would ever be at all usefull in the "real world". I have been in the "real world" for 5 years now, and only once had I wished I could use haskell. For the most part nowadays I write small database apps with 1 - 5 clients, and my language of choice is VB. I'd dread to think what it would be like to use Haskell for the things I use VB for.
Anyway, I think the reason why FP hasn't taken off is that it is the right tool for a only certain subset of jobs - just like each and every other language. It's great for maths, list processing, hardware simulation, and interpreters, I've even seen a defender game written in it. However, I think it's a bit too "matematical" for a lot of programming tasks and for a lot of programmers as well. I think most people I've ever worked with would shudder if I starting talking about lamda calculus - the branch of maths FP is based on. Saying that, most of them would shudder if I mention relational calculus and they use relational databases quite effectively, though the field of FP seems to be more imbued with maths than the field of RDBs.
Maybe that's what FP needs - to loose it's "academics only - this is hard" feel that it has. A good professional quality IDE, easy to read documentation that doesn't feel like a doctoral thesis and painless integration with existing systems might just bring FP greater mindshare. I admit it's been five years since I last used haskell so maybe it has some of these things already, but from the posts I've read so far I doubt it.
Of course copyright is a monopoly, that's what its meant for - to give the author of easily copyable works a way of actually recieving fair compensation for what they have produced. If you didn't have copyright (and hence a monoply over what you have produced) how exactly would you get paid? We live (like it or not) in a capitalist society. If the author is not paid for what he/she has created, then how eactly is the author suppossed buy food, pay the rent, support the alcohol/drug habit, etc.? Secondary products like posters and tshirts? Wait a second, these are also protected by copyright. Touring? I think you'll find that quite often a tour ends up as loss paid for by sales of CDs/T-Shirts/Posters etc.
If it wasn't for the 'monopoly' garunteed by copyright, then exactly what incentive is there to carry on producing music? Please don't answer 'I do it for the music', yes that will get you so far, but try balancing a day job with rehearsing, recording and touring - most people would burn out pretty soon. Yes people do do this, most of them with the hope that one day they could concentrate solely on the music.
Why exactly is it immoral? For a start, your not owning an idea, your owning an expression of an idea that you have produced. I can't copyright love songs, but I can copyright a love song that I have actually spent my time to produce. Why is that any more immoral than me owning a physical item that I have produced? Is it immoral because it is a 'monopoly'? Why? I think limited and well defined 'monopolies' can be completly moral. It's not as though I have a monopoly on all music ever created, only on what I have produced myself. Why is it 'economically unsound'? Because there is no real secondary market? Do you mind telling me what the secondary market of resteraunts is? I think fair competition (which in this case is all the available artists wanting me to buy thier works) is more important than any secondary market.
This is even more important when it comes to the European Commision. The Commission isn't elected. They're a bunch of failed polticians and civil servants. While I think they have to be OK'd by the European Parliment before they can begin thier jobs, they don't realy answer to anyone.
Fortunatly, the commision can come up with all the useless rules, regulations and taxes they want to. The European Parliament would have some say about (though not much, as being the only directly elected part of the EU, thier powers have been kept to a minimum). More importantly, The Council Of Ministers would have to vote on it, and as it's a matter of taxation, all 16 member states would have to vote yes for it to go through, which would probably be somewhat unlikely. Though saying that, the commission have been able to get some of the most absurd rules and regulations passed before, which might explain the high levels of dissatification held towards the EU by citizens who live in member states that actually bother to implement said rules and regulations.
If they want a truely level playing field
on
EU Web Tax Proposed
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· Score: 1
If they want a truely level playing field, why can't they eliminate VAT on electronic purchases within the EU? It would make more sense with VAT rates still differing to an extent inside the EU (I think books are still VAT free in the UK, when they're not in most of the rest of the EU for example). The EU, for once, could give the over taxed and over regulated citizens of Europe (and European commerce in general) a break.
If anything, this is just going to give yet more ammunition to those in the UK who want out of the EU. And with unenforcible tax raising non-sense like this, who can blame them for wanting out.
At least there is one moderately funny side note, I love it when the one country that oversteps it's borders with regulations and laws with alarming regularity (the US of A, if you were wondering) gets a small taste of it's own medicine.
Most DVD players in the UK are modified when you buy them, or are quite inexpense to modify (about 40 pounds). Not only that, but most of the low end machines don't need to be modified, they are either region free straight from the factory, or have so called "software hacks" that usually involve either a certain sequence of buttons pressed on the remote control, or in some cases pressing a button on a remote control from an entirely different piece of hardware (a cassette deck for example) will allow you to change regions. I know that last "hack" seems a bit strange, but it is true (I believe it's some of the Samsungs that have this sort of hack).
Basically, regional coding is a bit of a joke in this country. Even government ministers have said that if the movie industry woke up and released titles at the same time and at a similar price on both sides of the pond, then people would be less likely to import (my words, but that was the gist of what he was saying). Of course, if they did that, then they would never have needed RC in the first place.
Re:The Real Problem: Exchange Rates
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 1
But Boo were in the UK, and therefore using the pound and not the Euro. The pound is quite strong compared to both the dollar and the euro, which while causeing no end of misery for the manufacturing industry in the UK, means imports are quite cheap. Of course, while this also means that it would be more difficult for boo to export out of the UK, they should still have been able to offer the UK consumer better value than they did.
As a software engineer, I don't expect the users to understand on a technical level what I'm doing. However, they have every right to complain when something I write goes wrong or just does not do what they wanted it to do. Do I say to them that they have no right to comment on the program because they can't program themselves? No, I want their comments so I can write a better program. By the People, for the people sort of thing. I thought law in a democracy was something like that as well.
You don't have to be an expert on patent law to tell that it's not working the way most of the people who it's been designed for think it should work. And everyone has a right to say how it should work, be they bookseller or lawyer.
Is it just me, or do the lawyers seem to be saying "You know nothing about the law, so keep quiet". So because we have not "passed the bar" (or whatever they call it when you officially become one of the most disliked people on the planet) we have no right to complain about something that affects us all. Exuse me? I thought even the most dim witted individuals (even lawyers) had a say in what should be law and what should not. Or has democracy become the preserve of the few and no one bothered to tell me.
While it would be difficult to fill niche channels 24 hours day, they can still do a better job serving targeted audience than any of the 5 big channels. Look at the difference between the way Sci Fi channel and Channel 4 deal with Babylon 5. On Sci Fi, its one of there big shows that gets good ratings, On channel 4 they can't even be bothered to tell people when it's on and will pull it in favour of gardening/cooking/interior decorating/whetever happens to be the most popular cheap show of the moment, and it gets dismal ratings.
Not necessarily. A channel can focus down to a particular niche, like Sci-fi fans or housewives, and can give advertisers the people they actually want to reach, as oppossed to a general channel that has to cater to everyone. So while there are fewer viewers per channel, the advertisers are willing to pay more because there reaching the right people.
It's not just the BBC who are doing widescreen. Channel 4 broadcast a fair number of programmes in widscreen along with thier Film 4 offshoot channel, and Sky have a widscreen movie channel and box office channel. Neither of them get anything from the licence fee. And if you think about it, most people get digital BBC thanks to two commercial companies: Sky and OnDigital. You don't see the BBC giving away free set top boxes. It's those two companies, not the BBC, who are leading the drive to digital, which will lead to more widescreen programmes.
Anyway, if the BBC can afford to bear the losses than why does it want 24 pounds a year extra from digital TV viewers for channels (showing mostly widescreen programmes) no one asked for and very few people seem to want.
The cheapest widescreen set I've seen was 299 (in Tescos of all places), and I think they're about 400 - 500 in Comet/Dixons etc. so they are not really that much more expensive than a normal TV.
Slashdot Mirror
I used Haskell (and a subset called Gopher) for 3 years while at uni. In all that time I wondered if it would ever be at all usefull in the "real world". I have been in the "real world" for 5 years now, and only once had I wished I could use haskell. For the most part nowadays I write small database apps with 1 - 5 clients, and my language of choice is VB. I'd dread to think what it would be like to use Haskell for the things I use VB for.
Anyway, I think the reason why FP hasn't taken off is that it is the right tool for a only certain subset of jobs - just like each and every other language. It's great for maths, list processing, hardware simulation, and interpreters, I've even seen a defender game written in it. However, I think it's a bit too "matematical" for a lot of programming tasks and for a lot of programmers as well. I think most people I've ever worked with would shudder if I starting talking about lamda calculus - the branch of maths FP is based on. Saying that, most of them would shudder if I mention relational calculus and they use relational databases quite effectively, though the field of FP seems to be more imbued with maths than the field of RDBs.
Maybe that's what FP needs - to loose it's "academics only - this is hard" feel that it has. A good professional quality IDE, easy to read documentation that doesn't feel like a doctoral thesis and painless integration with existing systems might just bring FP greater mindshare. I admit it's been five years since I last used haskell so maybe it has some of these things already, but from the posts I've read so far I doubt it.
Of course copyright is a monopoly, that's what its meant for - to give the author of easily copyable works a way of actually recieving fair compensation for what they have produced. If you didn't have copyright (and hence a monoply over what you have produced) how exactly would you get paid? We live (like it or not) in a capitalist society. If the author is not paid for what he/she has created, then how eactly is the author suppossed buy food, pay the rent, support the alcohol/drug habit, etc.? Secondary products like posters and tshirts? Wait a second, these are also protected by copyright. Touring? I think you'll find that quite often a tour ends up as loss paid for by sales of CDs/T-Shirts/Posters etc.
If it wasn't for the 'monopoly' garunteed by copyright, then exactly what incentive is there to carry on producing music? Please don't answer 'I do it for the music', yes that will get you so far, but try balancing a day job with rehearsing, recording and touring - most people would burn out pretty soon. Yes people do do this, most of them with the hope that one day they could concentrate solely on the music.
Why exactly is it immoral? For a start, your not owning an idea, your owning an expression of an idea that you have produced. I can't copyright love songs, but I can copyright a love song that I have actually spent my time to produce. Why is that any more immoral than me owning a physical item that I have produced? Is it immoral because it is a 'monopoly'? Why? I think limited and well defined 'monopolies' can be completly moral. It's not as though I have a monopoly on all music ever created, only on what I have produced myself. Why is it 'economically unsound'? Because there is no real secondary market? Do you mind telling me what the secondary market of resteraunts is? I think fair competition (which in this case is all the available artists wanting me to buy thier works) is more important than any secondary market.
This is even more important when it comes to the European Commision. The Commission isn't elected. They're a bunch of failed polticians and civil servants. While I think they have to be OK'd by the European Parliment before they can begin thier jobs, they don't realy answer to anyone.
Fortunatly, the commision can come up with all the useless rules, regulations and taxes they want to. The European Parliament would have some say about (though not much, as being the only directly elected part of the EU, thier powers have been kept to a minimum). More importantly, The Council Of Ministers would have to vote on it, and as it's a matter of taxation, all 16 member states would have to vote yes for it to go through, which would probably be somewhat unlikely. Though saying that, the commission have been able to get some of the most absurd rules and regulations passed before, which might explain the high levels of dissatification held towards the EU by citizens who live in member states that actually bother to implement said rules and regulations.
If they want a truely level playing field, why can't they eliminate VAT on electronic purchases within the EU? It would make more sense with VAT rates still differing to an extent inside the EU (I think books are still VAT free in the UK, when they're not in most of the rest of the EU for example). The EU, for once, could give the over taxed and over regulated citizens of Europe (and European commerce in general) a break.
If anything, this is just going to give yet more ammunition to those in the UK who want out of the EU. And with unenforcible tax raising non-sense like this, who can blame them for wanting out.
At least there is one moderately funny side note, I love it when the one country that oversteps it's borders with regulations and laws with alarming regularity (the US of A, if you were wondering) gets a small taste of it's own medicine.
Most DVD players in the UK are modified when you buy them, or are quite inexpense to modify (about 40 pounds). Not only that, but most of the low end machines don't need to be modified, they are either region free straight from the factory, or have so called "software hacks" that usually involve either a certain sequence of buttons pressed on the remote control, or in some cases pressing a button on a remote control from an entirely different piece of hardware (a cassette deck for example) will allow you to change regions. I know that last "hack" seems a bit strange, but it is true (I believe it's some of the Samsungs that have this sort of hack).
Basically, regional coding is a bit of a joke in this country. Even government ministers have said that if the movie industry woke up and released titles at the same time and at a similar price on both sides of the pond, then people would be less likely to import (my words, but that was the gist of what he was saying). Of course, if they did that, then they would never have needed RC in the first place.
But Boo were in the UK, and therefore using the pound and not the Euro. The pound is quite strong compared to both the dollar and the euro, which while causeing no end of misery for the manufacturing industry in the UK, means imports are quite cheap. Of course, while this also means that it would be more difficult for boo to export out of the UK, they should still have been able to offer the UK consumer better value than they did.
As a software engineer, I don't expect the users to understand on a technical level what I'm doing. However, they have every right to complain when something I write goes wrong or just does not do what they wanted it to do. Do I say to them that they have no right to comment on the program because they can't program themselves? No, I want their comments so I can write a better program. By the People, for the people sort of thing. I thought law in a democracy was something like that as well.
You don't have to be an expert on patent law to tell that it's not working the way most of the people who it's been designed for think it should work. And everyone has a right to say how it should work, be they bookseller or lawyer.
Is it just me, or do the lawyers seem to be saying "You know nothing about the law, so keep quiet". So because we have not "passed the bar" (or whatever they call it when you officially become one of the most disliked people on the planet) we have no right to complain about something that affects us all. Exuse me? I thought even the most dim witted individuals (even lawyers) had a say in what should be law and what should not. Or has democracy become the preserve of the few and no one bothered to tell me.
While it would be difficult to fill niche channels 24 hours day, they can still do a better job serving targeted audience than any of the 5 big channels. Look at the difference between the way Sci Fi channel and Channel 4 deal with Babylon 5. On Sci Fi, its one of there big shows that gets good ratings, On channel 4 they can't even be bothered to tell people when it's on and will pull it in favour of gardening/cooking/interior decorating/whetever happens to be the most popular cheap show of the moment, and it gets dismal ratings.
Not necessarily. A channel can focus down to a particular niche, like Sci-fi fans or housewives, and can give advertisers the people they actually want to reach, as oppossed to a general channel that has to cater to everyone. So while there are fewer viewers per channel, the advertisers are willing to pay more because there reaching the right people.
It's not just the BBC who are doing widescreen. Channel 4 broadcast a fair number of programmes in widscreen along with thier Film 4 offshoot channel, and Sky have a widscreen movie channel and box office channel. Neither of them get anything from the licence fee. And if you think about it, most people get digital BBC thanks to two commercial companies: Sky and OnDigital. You don't see the BBC giving away free set top boxes. It's those two companies, not the BBC, who are leading the drive to digital, which will lead to more widescreen programmes.
Anyway, if the BBC can afford to bear the losses than why does it want 24 pounds a year extra from digital TV viewers for channels (showing mostly widescreen programmes) no one asked for and very few people seem to want.
The cheapest widescreen set I've seen was 299 (in Tescos of all places), and I think they're about 400 - 500 in Comet/Dixons etc. so they are not really that much more expensive than a normal TV.