First really useful links I've seen yet, thanks. Looks like the patent is with respect to using an exception frame pointer on the stack. Other implementations I've seen such as this one merely maintain their own global stack.
Sun's patent looks a lot more broad, and is more recent, but it also seems to use an external stack with setjmp/longjmp, for which DEC's implementation beats 'em by a decade. Not quite as featureful as Sun's, but the same core idea is in there.
Good point. George Lucas is big on stereotypes of course, so swords it was.
From this my opinion has evolved, and I believe I can now synthesize the definitive explanation for lightsabers that is all of scientifically, historically, and socially relevant:
By the time ANH was around, before GL had gotten around to writing his excreble excuse for "background" and "history" of a greater SW universe and there was just the movie, the jedi had already been nearly wiped out, and now regarded as throwbacks... noble and brave, sure, but obsolete and dangerous to keep around. This is exactly how the samurai ended, and it's no coincidence. Even the egotist GL credits Akira Kurosawa for the basic plot and characters of ANH.
Anyway, there's stil some use for melee weapons. Blasters shoot straight out in a line, and if you can't quite get pointed in the right direction at the right time, you miss. Lightsabers, you sorta swing in the general direction and make roasted filets out of your opponent. I personally liked Andromeda's treatment -- the captain's weapon was basically both a melee weapon and blaster (it would extend out, and the rods were "charged" with some kind of energy, or it could stay collapsed and just shoot force blasts)
> The iMac is a good example; where exactly do you go from an all in one LCD?... do you simply make cosmetic changes now and again to keep it fresh?
You upgrade the internals, make some accessories standard (like airport) and make a cosmetic change. I personally consider the switch from the gumdrop with the screen-on-a-stick to the new form factor to be a step back.
As for the iPod, giving them replaceable batteries would be a nice start. OLED screen would be pretty damn neat, though unlikely for the current generation. Bluetooth might be an obvious feature, so you could play it on your car stereo by just having it in the car (assuming you have the expensive wheels to go with the lifestyle, i.e. you're in Apple's core market demographic).
Almost the entire consumer sector is based on incremental improvements to commodities -- Apple need be no different. Think Different, but not too different.
No, I mean the application. This happens to not be beyond my abilities. I'll admit, there are possibly traces left in the registry, and it's likely to come back with IE7... where I probably won't bother removing it. Because it just doesn't come up.
Windows update. That's about it. Actually it's non-microsoft apps that are bad about not respecting your registered protocol handlers. Even Windows Media Player opens your preferred browser now.
> Lookout will stay hidden away in there anyway.
I have no trace of Outlook or Outlook Express on my system. Before I removed OE, I never ran it nor did it ever come up unbidden. I guess its mere presence before I removed it is enough to give you fits?
Go learn something and try some real arguments next time.
> IBM have more legal experience and probably more lawyers than the rest of the IT industry put together.
United States vs. IBM: IBM lost, operated under consent decrees for many years.
United States vs Microsoft: Microsoft "lost". Slapped on wrist.
IBM also knows that taking on Microsoft's lawyers will make the duration and cost of the SCO case look like seconds and pennies. If they won, it would still be a very pyrrhic victory.
I mean, it's useful...but it's called chungles. It could be exactly what I'm looking for. But it's called chungles. You've maybe even read my posts, which I've written several times, about how naming shouldn't be a barrier to acceptance, that a PHB who dismisses a product by its name alone probably wasn't serious about it, that the names are whimsy but the product should be evaluated on its merits...
But it's called chungles.
My boss is very much not a PHB, and is very easy going and technically oriented. But I am not recommending to him or my co-workers that they install something named chungles.
That would be tramp. I use it every day from my windows box. It's not the most robust thing in the world, but it is damn convenient, since it also works with plink (NOT recommended, it can corrupt data) and pscp (seems reliable)
> HAH! You think a publisher would ever agree by contract to perpetually publish anything online?
You think a writer would take action if the online archives were all still available in their entireity but with their writings purged specifically? You betcha. Might they have a case? Who knows. Does the publisher want to risk it? No.
Facts aren't just whatever supports your righteous cause. She's gone, good triumphed over sleaze. Move the hell on, because this is tilting at windmills.
Re:Maintainability of Perl code?
on
Perl Medic
·
· Score: 1
The true spirit of #perl is also not to suffer idiots or bend over backwards for those who just won't use their brains.
Sorry you had so much trouble with the comprehension.
> So basically he's telling me to live in a shack in the woods like the Unabomber if I want security.
Go read "Beyond Fear". That's precisely the opposite of what he's saying. He's saying security is not a binary all-or-nothing thing, and that for the vast majority of people, there really is such a thing as "secure enough". Not that the current state of the art is anywhere close to that, but that it's not some platonic ideal, it's in fact quite reachable now.
How about the fact that the PHP parser just exits if there's a syntax error in an eval. Yes, pass malformed code to eval and it will unconditionally abort the parent script. Nice parser.
Perhaps PHP5 is more sane. PHP5 looks reasonable, though I suspect it still inherits all the silly 3000+ global functions of its parent, and still requires you to bracket even commandline scripts with <?php ?>
Re:Maintainability of Perl code?
on
Perl Medic
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Not going to intersperse your points with mine, since I really hate that style, so I'll just go in order.
1. No one will argue against perl having too much punctuation. It's a hell of a noisy language, and you can really play some perl golf with sigils if you try. Sometimes you even have to, but rarely.
2. The "magic" also makes things easier to read. "open $file or die" anyone? Sure beats checking whether it returns nonzero, don't it?
3. Then use one of the Class:: modules. Personally, I rather LIKE that I can have a subclass with a polymorphic constructor, which you can't really get with languages that hardwire the constructor. What the hell is a class factory? Don't need that idiom in perl.
4. It only becomes insane when you start dealing with prototypes and @foo is suddenly an array and not a list. Otherwise this is idiom that anyone can get used to. Frankly, I find it a nitpick -- you want really shitty data models, pick on the insane "scalar" thing, where the string "0" is false in an if statement.
5. This is actually just false. You use BEGIN for compile-time stuff and an import method for import-time semantics. Hard, eh?
Perl 5 is over 10 years old, and showing its age in various ways, but it can still take criticism and even a lot of kicking gracefully. It's the language everyone loves to hate, but when rubber meets the road, it's what you find people using anyway. It's an inelegant crock, it's shell, sed, and awk duck-taped together, but it's exactly what people asked for.
Spare me the bondage of enforced "elegance". If you want Java, you know where to find it.
> Is there some contract that forces the publisher to display O'Gara's tripe?
It could be construed as a breach of the publishing agreement. I'm sure it's even been done, and there's probably been lawsuits over it, but I wouldn't know the case law... try asking Groklaw.
Just cool down. She's gone. If she continues to control your responses, she's still a successful troll.
There have been donation drives to buy out an app and make it open source. Well, one, and that was Blender. I think it was more Tom Roosendaal wanting to see how many people were serious, and he used the money to start the Blender Foundation. It's certainly benefited since then.
Nlnet recently dropped 70 grand on the Perl Foundation for work on Parrot.
I don't think paying for individual features is really what you want. If the developer didn't have it in their roadmap, chances are the app wasn't designed to have that feature, or just wasn't designed at all. Support development, not code.
Removing old material opens them up to possible legal action. Time will shove it all aside. There is no sense or practical benefit to "unpersoning" O'Gara.
Works in what language? It's some sort of cross between python and perl, but not valid for either. I suppose there's something revealing about a geek's background and perhaps their psyche in studying their off-the-cuff pseudocode...
Slashdot Mirror
First really useful links I've seen yet, thanks. Looks like the patent is with respect to using an exception frame pointer on the stack. Other implementations I've seen such as this one merely maintain their own global stack.
Sun's patent looks a lot more broad, and is more recent, but it also seems to use an external stack with setjmp/longjmp, for which DEC's implementation beats 'em by a decade. Not quite as featureful as Sun's, but the same core idea is in there.
Good point. George Lucas is big on stereotypes of course, so swords it was.
From this my opinion has evolved, and I believe I can now synthesize the definitive explanation for lightsabers that is all of scientifically, historically, and socially relevant:
they got style
Actually, the light saber is an aluminum rod attached to some kind of pipe connector, and the glow and sound effects are added in post-production.
Do you really think there was a sound methodological scientific explanation for the things at the time?
The jedi were samurai. It's really that simple. Samurai. George Lucas is a huge Kurosawa fan.
By the time ANH was around, before GL had gotten around to writing his excreble excuse for "background" and "history" of a greater SW universe and there was just the movie, the jedi had already been nearly wiped out, and now regarded as throwbacks ... noble and brave, sure, but obsolete and dangerous to keep around. This is exactly how the samurai ended, and it's no coincidence. Even the egotist GL credits Akira Kurosawa for the basic plot and characters of ANH.
Anyway, there's stil some use for melee weapons. Blasters shoot straight out in a line, and if you can't quite get pointed in the right direction at the right time, you miss. Lightsabers, you sorta swing in the general direction and make roasted filets out of your opponent. I personally liked Andromeda's treatment -- the captain's weapon was basically both a melee weapon and blaster (it would extend out, and the rods were "charged" with some kind of energy, or it could stay collapsed and just shoot force blasts)
I dunno about you, but that'd be a great product name.
The Nokia Spork.
Don't think we'll see it happen tho.
> The iMac is a good example; where exactly do you go from an all in one LCD? ... do you simply make cosmetic changes now and again to keep it fresh?
You upgrade the internals, make some accessories standard (like airport) and make a cosmetic change. I personally consider the switch from the gumdrop with the screen-on-a-stick to the new form factor to be a step back.
As for the iPod, giving them replaceable batteries would be a nice start. OLED screen would be pretty damn neat, though unlikely for the current generation. Bluetooth might be an obvious feature, so you could play it on your car stereo by just having it in the car (assuming you have the expensive wheels to go with the lifestyle, i.e. you're in Apple's core market demographic).
Almost the entire consumer sector is based on incremental improvements to commodities -- Apple need be no different. Think Different, but not too different.
I'm a right-hander but .. hey wait, I am not going to have this discussion...
> You have no trace of the icons you mean..
... where I probably won't bother removing it. Because it just doesn't come up.
No, I mean the application. This happens to not be beyond my abilities. I'll admit, there are possibly traces left in the registry, and it's likely to come back with IE7
> IE will still open from Microsoft apps
Windows update. That's about it. Actually it's non-microsoft apps that are bad about not respecting your registered protocol handlers. Even Windows Media Player opens your preferred browser now.
> Lookout will stay hidden away in there anyway.
I have no trace of Outlook or Outlook Express on my system. Before I removed OE, I never ran it nor did it ever come up unbidden. I guess its mere presence before I removed it is enough to give you fits?
Go learn something and try some real arguments next time.
This might come as a surprise to you, but I don't use my name on slashdot at work.
But oh hey aren't you clever ha ha.
I forgot another one: IBM v. Compaq
Being big doesn't necessarily make you good.
> IBM have more legal experience and probably more lawyers than the rest of the IT industry put together.
United States vs. IBM: IBM lost, operated under consent decrees for many years.
United States vs Microsoft: Microsoft "lost". Slapped on wrist.
IBM also knows that taking on Microsoft's lawyers will make the duration and cost of the SCO case look like seconds and pennies. If they won, it would still be a very pyrrhic victory.
... it's called chungles.
...but it's called chungles. It could be exactly what I'm looking for. But it's called chungles. You've maybe even read my posts, which I've written several times, about how naming shouldn't be a barrier to acceptance, that a PHB who dismisses a product by its name alone probably wasn't serious about it, that the names are whimsy but the product should be evaluated on its merits...
.
I mean, it's useful
But it's called chungles
My boss is very much not a PHB, and is very easy going and technically oriented. But I am not recommending to him or my co-workers that they install something named chungles.
I have my limits as well.
That would be tramp. I use it every day from my windows box. It's not the most robust thing in the world, but it is damn convenient, since it also works with plink (NOT recommended, it can corrupt data) and pscp (seems reliable)
> HAH! You think a publisher would ever agree by contract to perpetually publish anything online?
You think a writer would take action if the online archives were all still available in their entireity but with their writings purged specifically? You betcha. Might they have a case? Who knows. Does the publisher want to risk it? No.
Facts aren't just whatever supports your righteous cause. She's gone, good triumphed over sleaze. Move the hell on, because this is tilting at windmills.
The true spirit of #perl is also not to suffer idiots or bend over backwards for those who just won't use their brains.
Sorry you had so much trouble with the comprehension.
> So basically he's telling me to live in a shack in the woods like the Unabomber if I want security.
Go read "Beyond Fear". That's precisely the opposite of what he's saying. He's saying security is not a binary all-or-nothing thing, and that for the vast majority of people, there really is such a thing as "secure enough". Not that the current state of the art is anywhere close to that, but that it's not some platonic ideal, it's in fact quite reachable now.
How about the fact that the PHP parser just exits if there's a syntax error in an eval. Yes, pass malformed code to eval and it will unconditionally abort the parent script. Nice parser.
Perhaps PHP5 is more sane. PHP5 looks reasonable, though I suspect it still inherits all the silly 3000+ global functions of its parent, and still requires you to bracket even commandline scripts with <?php ?>
Oh crap! See parent!
Not going to intersperse your points with mine, since I really hate that style, so I'll just go in order.
1. No one will argue against perl having too much punctuation. It's a hell of a noisy language, and you can really play some perl golf with sigils if you try. Sometimes you even have to, but rarely.
2. The "magic" also makes things easier to read. "open $file or die" anyone? Sure beats checking whether it returns nonzero, don't it?
3. Then use one of the Class:: modules. Personally, I rather LIKE that I can have a subclass with a polymorphic constructor, which you can't really get with languages that hardwire the constructor. What the hell is a class factory? Don't need that idiom in perl.
4. It only becomes insane when you start dealing with prototypes and @foo is suddenly an array and not a list. Otherwise this is idiom that anyone can get used to. Frankly, I find it a nitpick -- you want really shitty data models, pick on the insane "scalar" thing, where the string "0" is false in an if statement.
5. This is actually just false. You use BEGIN for compile-time stuff and an import method for import-time semantics. Hard, eh?
Perl 5 is over 10 years old, and showing its age in various ways, but it can still take criticism and even a lot of kicking gracefully. It's the language everyone loves to hate, but when rubber meets the road, it's what you find people using anyway. It's an inelegant crock, it's shell, sed, and awk duck-taped together, but it's exactly what people asked for.
Spare me the bondage of enforced "elegance". If you want Java, you know where to find it.
> Is there some contract that forces the publisher to display O'Gara's tripe?
... try asking Groklaw.
It could be construed as a breach of the publishing agreement. I'm sure it's even been done, and there's probably been lawsuits over it, but I wouldn't know the case law
Just cool down. She's gone. If she continues to control your responses, she's still a successful troll.
There have been donation drives to buy out an app and make it open source. Well, one, and that was Blender. I think it was more Tom Roosendaal wanting to see how many people were serious, and he used the money to start the Blender Foundation. It's certainly benefited since then.
Nlnet recently dropped 70 grand on the Perl Foundation for work on Parrot.
I don't think paying for individual features is really what you want. If the developer didn't have it in their roadmap, chances are the app wasn't designed to have that feature, or just wasn't designed at all. Support development, not code.
Removing old material opens them up to possible legal action. Time will shove it all aside. There is no sense or practical benefit to "unpersoning" O'Gara.
Works in what language? It's some sort of cross between python and perl, but not valid for either. I suppose there's something revealing about a geek's background and perhaps their psyche in studying their off-the-cuff pseudocode...