You shouldn't look at it so much as what language (singular) you should teach, but what languages (plural). Jave is a great language for an intro course, because it removes some of the stumbling blocks that make C/C++ difficult and frustrating for the student, while letting them concentrate on the basics. (Ie design, thinking abstractly, implementing an algorithm.) It doesn't matter that it is too slow/bloated/lame base classes/whatever. That isn't the point!
By the time the CS student graduates, they should have experiance with a wide variety of languages... after all, the programming language is just the tool you use to get the job done. Even if you go on to get a job working in just C, you'll benefit from being exposed to other languages. The student should see everything from assembly (at a minimum, write some program involving recursion in assembly), to functional languages (ML), to lisp.
It is your opinion that nothing good may come of drug use. Fine, many people will agree with you. Many people also disagree with you.
My point is that it is wrong for one person to force their opinion on another person. Everyone has the right to form their own opinions, be they right or wrong (or as right or wrong as an opinion can be), as long as they are not making victims out of innocent bystanders...
For example person A might have the viewpoint that murder is ok, but by acting on that view and killing someone, s/he has limited the freedom of someone else... person B might have the viewpoint that certain drugs are ok, and while they may or may not be doing damage to themselves, if they aren't harming anyone else, what right do we have to judge? I am all for laws that encourage responsible use of things that could potentially be mis-used, for example age limits for driving a car, or using drugs (including alcohol), as well as funding unbiased research so that people can make informed decisions, but I am agains laws that don't let people make those decisions for themselves.
Historically, you start running in to problems when people "know" their viewpoint is right. For example, hitler "knew" he was right, and he forced his opinions on others, which out consideration to the fact that he might be wrong, and was impacting other people's freedoms by doing so. Yes, this is an extreme example, but people really need to think about their viewpoints from the point of view that they might actually be wrong.
Have to disagree here. I've seen way too many people who's lives have been adversely
affected by drug use. What they don't realize is that just because they aren't out shooting and
killing people, that doesn't mean that people's lives are not being affected by their choice of
living. There may be a few exceptions, yes, but the large majority of drug users don't do any
good by their drug use.
you are confusing drug *use* and drug *abuse*.
Yes there are lots of people who screw up their lives *abusing* drugs. There are also people who eat too much junk food, have the associate health problems that being overweight brings... this doesn't mean we should make junk food illegal, nor does it mean that drugs should be illegal. We need to spend more effort treating the problem, both of which are personal medical problems rather than social problems, instead of just saying "drugs are baad, mm-kay", and passing another law.
The US was founded on principles of personal freedom. The way I like to think of it is "my freedom to punch you in the nose ends where your nose begins", ie you should be free to do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the freedom of someone else.
Murder and rape are crimes with victims. I don't think anyone in their right mind can argue for legalization of murder and rape!
Drug use is a different issue. Yes there are negative sides to drug *abuse*, but casual drug *use* is a very different thing. There are many drugs that we all use on a day to day basis. Caffine. Nicotine. Alcohol. As best I can tell, the distinction between legal and illegal drugs is arbitrary. For some reason alcohol is legal, and pot is illegal. (And you can make a *very* good argument that alcohol is much worse for society than pot and other recreational drugs, but that is a whole differnt topic.)
I know that drug *abuse* is a problem to society, but it is a medical problem, not a legal problem. Without the war on drugs, there would be no black market for drugs, with all it's associated evils, and the only victims of drug *abuse* would be the users themselves (well, and there family, etc.).
If we look at it from the point of view of how does the WoD impact my person freedoms, it seems to limit them... increase in crime from black market trade ruins neighborhoods, etc. It seems to me that the WoD is much worse for society than the problem of drug *abuse* ever was.
The WoD has obvious victims, ie the folks who are locked up for non-violent crimes, the fella who got his car stereo stolen, etc. I think the WoD itself should be illegal!
You'd think we would have learned from the prohibition, but I guess not.
IMO, you are missing some of what makes scheme (and lisp) great... it's elegance is it's simplicity. If you haven't noticed, a scheme program is itself a text representation of a data structure, ie a list. This is a fairly powerful concept once you get it. It also makes it really easy to write a scheme interpreter... the part about being properly tail recursive is a bit more tricky, but still dead simple compared to something like C.
Another thing to think about is scheme's macro system... a scheme macro re-writes a part of the program, but because the simple form of the program, macros are far more powerful than what you are used to from CPP. A scheme interpreter can be implemented by only implementing 5 (or 4... define and set! can be the same) built in language constructs (define, set!, lambda, if, quote), and implementing the rest as macros. Let's see you do that with the c preprocessor!
Hmm, I use remote display on a daily basis... in fact much of what I use my desktop at work for is as a glorified xterminal. Perhaps some of you out there who just use linux/bsd/etc on the pc at home don't realize that the power of unix and of x11 is the network.
Hmm, from what I have seen, there is some good, some bad, and some ugly... just like in the commercial world. The only difference is that we get the src code, so we can see how bad it is.
I am not saying we shouldn't encourage higher standards in OSS, just that commercial code is not necessarily any better.
1) cvsup to sync your/usr/src tree from one of the CVS servers. (Also, cvsup/usr/ports every now and then...) search around the freebsd web site for info on using cvsup.
I have a hard time believing this... as much as I like linux, irix is just *way* more advanced when it comes to big iron, like NUMA architectures... unless they are planning on porting unicos to the mips. I just think that it is a little simplistic to think that SGI will drop irix on it's high end mips boxes in favor of linux.
Re:Was is meant to be a joke?->Canada less clueles
on
New Cyberlaws
·
· Score: 1
Promoting and selling drugs does in no way fall into the category of free speech. The day that you lose a love one or more due to drug you will realize that drugs is an issue that will not go away and that we as parents will support our government in keeping those drug dealers out of business.
Drug abuse is a medical problem, not a legal problem, and should be dealt with as such. Prohibition has cause more problems than it has solved. (You'd think that we would have learned that lesson in the '20s)
Yes abuse of certain controlled substances is a problem, but making criminals of the addicted is not the solution. And prohibiting the free flow of information is definately not the solution.
Re:Free information, anyone?
on
New Cyberlaws
·
· Score: 1
Cause if you try drugs and it fucks you up who the hell do you think will be called to support you? Fricking tax payers. And don't feel like paying for your experiments.
The point is that people should be free to find out the information themselves, and make there own decision. If the only drug info that people are exposed to is the standard DARE (Mr Mackee style) "Drugs are baaad, mm-kay" line, then they can't make reasonable decisions themselves... one day they try weed, and discover it ain't so bad, and then assume that all they have heard about drugs is bogus... then they go out and try harder drugs. It would be better to let people find out the real risks and benefits associated with substances, and then make an informed decision.
Re:Free information, anyone?
on
New Cyberlaws
·
· Score: 1
Some people in law enforcment would like to see it become illegal to publish any information on illegal drugs. This addatude comes from people who are desprate to find a way to stop illegl drug use and feal the freedom of speech is getting in the way. However no one is going to give up THAT MUCH freedom for anything.
Freedom of speech should never be given up to to help law enforcment, because guess what? Not all laws on the books are good laws, and if you don't give people a chance to discuss the relative good and bad points about some topic, we will never have a chance to repeal those bad laws. I think we have very good reason to be concerned about these laws!
I image that it would be possible to set up an encrypted loopback fs... then even if someone rebooted your box, they still wouldn't have access to your data. Anyone ever try this?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad at least one person read the linked page before posting! I think you might be the only one who did. Geesh!
so if Jim Allchin perjured himself, is that grounds for declaring a mistrial on that whole anti-trust trial?
You shouldn't look at it so much as what language (singular) you should teach, but what languages (plural). Jave is a great language for an intro course, because it removes some of the stumbling blocks that make C/C++ difficult and frustrating for the student, while letting them concentrate on the basics. (Ie design, thinking abstractly, implementing an algorithm.) It doesn't matter that it is too slow/bloated/lame base classes/whatever. That isn't the point!
By the time the CS student graduates, they should have experiance with a wide variety of languages... after all, the programming language is just the tool you use to get the job done. Even if you go on to get a job working in just C, you'll benefit from being exposed to other languages. The student should see everything from assembly (at a minimum, write some program involving recursion in assembly), to functional languages (ML), to lisp.
Or use /* comments like
* this
*/
plus some .emacs treachery to automatically format your comments for you...
I don't know how far along it is, but there is a ppc port of open office in the works... check out http://linuxppc.org for info.
It is your opinion that nothing good may come of drug use. Fine, many people will agree with you. Many people also disagree with you.
My point is that it is wrong for one person to force their opinion on another person. Everyone has the right to form their own opinions, be they right or wrong (or as right or wrong as an opinion can be), as long as they are not making victims out of innocent bystanders...
For example person A might have the viewpoint that murder is ok, but by acting on that view and killing someone, s/he has limited the freedom of someone else... person B might have the viewpoint that certain drugs are ok, and while they may or may not be doing damage to themselves, if they aren't harming anyone else, what right do we have to judge? I am all for laws that encourage responsible use of things that could potentially be mis-used, for example age limits for driving a car, or using drugs (including alcohol), as well as funding unbiased research so that people can make informed decisions, but I am agains laws that don't let people make those decisions for themselves.
Historically, you start running in to problems when people "know" their viewpoint is right. For example, hitler "knew" he was right, and he forced his opinions on others, which out consideration to the fact that he might be wrong, and was impacting other people's freedoms by doing so. Yes, this is an extreme example, but people really need to think about their viewpoints from the point of view that they might actually be wrong.
Have to disagree here. I've seen way too many people who's lives have been adversely
affected by drug use. What they don't realize is that just because they aren't out shooting and
killing people, that doesn't mean that people's lives are not being affected by their choice of
living. There may be a few exceptions, yes, but the large majority of drug users don't do any
good by their drug use.
you are confusing drug *use* and drug *abuse*.
Yes there are lots of people who screw up their lives *abusing* drugs. There are also people who eat too much junk food, have the associate health problems that being overweight brings... this doesn't mean we should make junk food illegal, nor does it mean that drugs should be illegal. We need to spend more effort treating the problem, both of which are personal medical problems rather than social problems, instead of just saying "drugs are baad, mm-kay", and passing another law.
The US was founded on principles of personal freedom. The way I like to think of it is "my freedom to punch you in the nose ends where your nose begins", ie you should be free to do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the freedom of someone else.
Murder and rape are crimes with victims. I don't think anyone in their right mind can argue for legalization of murder and rape!
Drug use is a different issue. Yes there are negative sides to drug *abuse*, but casual drug *use* is a very different thing. There are many drugs that we all use on a day to day basis. Caffine. Nicotine. Alcohol. As best I can tell, the distinction between legal and illegal drugs is arbitrary. For some reason alcohol is legal, and pot is illegal. (And you can make a *very* good argument that alcohol is much worse for society than pot and other recreational drugs, but that is a whole differnt topic.)
I know that drug *abuse* is a problem to society, but it is a medical problem, not a legal problem. Without the war on drugs, there would be no black market for drugs, with all it's associated evils, and the only victims of drug *abuse* would be the users themselves (well, and there family, etc.).
If we look at it from the point of view of how does the WoD impact my person freedoms, it seems to limit them... increase in crime from black market trade ruins neighborhoods, etc. It seems to me that the WoD is much worse for society than the problem of drug *abuse* ever was.
The WoD has obvious victims, ie the folks who are locked up for non-violent crimes, the fella who got his car stereo stolen, etc. I think the WoD itself should be illegal!
You'd think we would have learned from the prohibition, but I guess not.
tail recursion is a good thing.
call-with-current-continuation is a trip
Hmm, I always thought the context free grammar was easier to understand... I would rather read someone else's scheme code than perl!
IMO, you are missing some of what makes scheme (and lisp) great... it's elegance is it's simplicity. If you haven't noticed, a scheme program is itself a text representation of a data structure, ie a list. This is a fairly powerful concept once you get it. It also makes it really easy to write a scheme interpreter... the part about being properly tail recursive is a bit more tricky, but still dead simple compared to something like C.
Another thing to think about is scheme's macro system... a scheme macro re-writes a part of the program, but because the simple form of the program, macros are far more powerful than what you are used to from CPP. A scheme interpreter can be implemented by only implementing 5 (or 4... define and set! can be the same) built in language constructs (define, set!, lambda, if, quote), and implementing the rest as macros. Let's see you do that with the c preprocessor!
Hmm, I use remote display on a daily basis... in fact much of what I use my desktop at work for is as a glorified xterminal. Perhaps some of you out there who just use linux/bsd/etc on the pc at home don't realize that the power of unix and of x11 is the network.
Hmm, couldn't alpha support be modelled after the xshape extension? ie rather than using a 1bpp alpha mask, use an 8bpp mask?
I didn't know /. had a WAP page... what is the URL?
Also, you can go through the google search engine, which will translate the site into wml...
Hmm, from what I have seen, there is some good, some bad, and some ugly... just like in the commercial world. The only difference is that we get the src code, so we can see how bad it is.
I am not saying we shouldn't encourage higher standards in OSS, just that commercial code is not necessarily any better.
From memory...
/usr/src tree from one of the CVS servers. (Also, cvsup /usr/ports every now and then...) search around the freebsd web site for info on using cvsup.
/usr/src
1) cvsup to sync your
2) cd
3) make buildworld
4) switch to single user mode
5) make installworld
FreeBSD advantages:
o doesn't suck as an NFS server
o softupdates are cool
Linux advantages:
o more drivers
o more software (for the most part, this is a moot point, because FreeBSD will run most linux binaries.)
if you are building a system to be a server, use FreeBSD, and make sure you get hardware that is supported.... (most is, just not as much as linux)
if you want to run on that computer that is collecting dust in the corner, and FreeBSD doesn't have the drivers, try linux.
my $0.02
Are you sure that it isn't just your phone getting warm...
I have a hard time believing this... as much as I like linux, irix is just *way* more advanced when it comes to big iron, like NUMA architectures... unless they are planning on porting unicos to the mips. I just think that it is a little simplistic to think that SGI will drop irix on it's high end mips boxes in favor of linux.
Promoting and selling drugs does in no way fall
into the category of free speech. The day that
you lose a love one or more due to drug you will
realize that drugs is an issue that will not go
away and that we as parents will support our
government in keeping those drug dealers out
of business.
Drug abuse is a medical problem, not a legal problem, and should be dealt with as such. Prohibition has cause more problems than it has solved. (You'd think that we would have learned that lesson in the '20s)
Yes abuse of certain controlled substances is a problem, but making criminals of the addicted is not the solution. And prohibiting the free flow of information is definately not the solution.
Cause if you try drugs and it fucks you up who the hell do you think will be called to support you? Fricking tax payers.
And don't feel like paying for your experiments.
The point is that people should be free to find out the information themselves, and make there own decision. If the only drug info that people are exposed to is the standard DARE (Mr Mackee style) "Drugs are baaad, mm-kay" line, then they can't make reasonable decisions themselves... one day they try weed, and discover it ain't so bad, and then assume that all they have heard about drugs is bogus... then they go out and try harder drugs. It would be better to let people find out the real risks and benefits associated with substances, and then make an informed decision.
Some people in law enforcment would like to see it become illegal to publish any information on illegal drugs.
This addatude comes from people who are desprate to find a way to stop illegl drug use and feal the freedom of speech is getting in the
way.
However no one is going to give up THAT MUCH freedom for anything.
Freedom of speech should never be given up to to help law enforcment, because guess what? Not all laws on the books are good laws, and if you don't give people a chance to discuss the relative good and bad points about some topic, we will never have a chance to repeal those bad laws. I think we have very good reason to be concerned about these laws!
but I fail to see how crippling our software actually does any good. If you can't get your crypto here, you can get it somewhere else...
I image that it would be possible to set up an encrypted loopback fs... then even if someone rebooted your box, they still wouldn't have access to your data. Anyone ever try this?
Well, you get the governement you pay for... :-)
:)
Hmm, I think mine's broke... can I take it back and get a refund?