To this day I am happy that I was able to have those two years of C, letting me get close to the guts of the OS, forcing me to think about what I was doing every step of the way. There is no question in my mind that it made me a better programmer in general, regardless of the language.
This is dumb. Very dumb.
A programmer needs to think about what he is doing every step of the way, regardless of the language he is using. You know, to implement an algorithm (the steps). On the other hand, memory management is an implementation detail. If the problem at hand isn't about memory management, having to think about it is in fact a handicap. I know that I would rather focus my mental powers on solving the problem at hand than wrangling pointers, or allocing and freeing memory. If I'm learning about recursion, I don't care what the kernel is doing, or how the compiler and linker resolve memory addresses, or function pointer syntax. In fact, I want all that implementation crap abstracted away, a la Lisp and Scheme, or Ruby and SmallTalk, or even Java.
Granted, there is a time and place for things like C. College isn't it, unless it's for a course in operating systems, compilers (though I'd prefer Scheme for this purpose), or some kind of electronics engineering, where stuff like memory management is actually relevant to the subject. And even then, the essentials can be taught in less than a week. Assembly programming alumni at your school probably decried C's introduction to the curriculum. Too dumbed down. Access to system libraries and "low level" (ha!) system calls and powerful APIs is too easy. Etc ad nauseum.
Me? I started with Perl, of all things. My first project was a data analysis tool for a friend's Linguistics thesis as a college senior -- rather fitting. Moved on to Ruby (with ATLAS C libraries) for research in data mining algorithms. Later moved on to Scheme for an introduction to functional programming, and Erlang for more work in distributed data mining algorithms. Picked up some C and PPC Assembler somewhere. I'm not even defending Java in the classroom. I don't have any particular opinion about it, except that I dislike statically typed languages. Mere preference.
"The SIMMs out of the Sun Ultra 5 that I ignorantly gutted and want to put into my cheap wintel clone to run 'doze on _seem_ like they're the right size to go in the slot..."
Jeez, no way.
I'd give them a big stick of ram for a Sun Ultra 5.
You might control how to deal with frustrations. But you can't control frustrations by definition. If you could, they would no longer be frustrations. In any case, you can't control your heart rate or blood pressure, no matter how much you will it.
I dunno...I have to say "Welcome to the real world".... I'll admit...my generation (early X) had a great deal of this too...but, not quite as bad as it seems the youth coming into the workforce now have.
Here, I've swapped 80% of the lights in my house for CFL's, and I burned 10 bucks worth of electricity last month (with an electric heater and 4x computers in the house no less!) does make me green enough to spare some processor cycles now?
Depends. Is it winter there? Is it cold? How much do you spend on heating?
I said this elsewhere: I've often compiled Gentoo for OS X during the colder days this winter. The "waste" heat isn't wasted. And while I do use Gentoo on occasion, any of the @Home's would be a better use of my idle processor/heater. In fact I'm looking into F@H right now.
Outside of that, @Home's are rather wasteful. Not to say that you shouldn't help, but your help is coming directly out of your pocketbook.
Uh, so can VLC. MPlayer and VLC both use ffmpeg. Also, there's no point in using a codec pack with either MPlayer or VLC. They can both already play just about everything including Quicktime and older Real files.
You need a cluster of G5's (or Cell processors) and a lot of RAM. Use whatever software you're comfortable with -- the hardware is the biggest factor here.
What does linux doing it's job as a unix kernel well have to do with being innovative?
Nothing, which is why I said bringing Linux into the discussion is a RED HERRING.
The Linux kernel doesn't have to innovate, even though as a matter of fact it is innovative internally. No kernel has to innovate, except to keep up with hardware support. Linux has done a fine job there. Linux does not use a 30 year old model. Linux is user space agnostic. There are plenty of embedded machines out there running Linux with no hint of a unix user space. Linux does, however, provide a POSIX interface, into which a unix user space happily hooks. The WNT kernel does this too, with a patch. Does that make it "omg completely devoid of innovation!!!!!!"?
As I have said SEVERAL times now, kernels are boring scaffolding. Their job is to provide access to the hardware. That is all. Extra features might be nice, but there are often good technical reasons for offering those in user space. Once a kernel has reached a point where it can run a reasonably capable user space, there is no need to do ANYTHING to the kernel except add support for new hardware, because the user space can handle the rest. This is good for stability and security. User space is where major innovation happens, both in the proprietary and open source worlds.
Open source hasn't come up with any kernel innovations,
Open source is not an organization. The Linux Kernel Team maintains the Linux kernel. If you want to blame someone, blame them. But doing so would be stupid. The kernel is constantly changing its architecture internally, to ease supporting new hardware. New features are added with every release, often including innovative file systems and schedulers. The one constant is the external interface, and that is a good thing.
If you consider OSX innovative due to it's NeXT roots, you've given yet another example of a commercial closed source team coming up with innovation.
So? That doesn't negate the fact that OS X isn't innovative because of its kernel. An apples to apples comparison would compare Cocoa to Squeak, or QT/KDE, or Gnome. Not Linux (a kernel) to OS X (a kernel + a unix user space + very nice unix compatible user space libraries).
Yes and no. In short, you don't know what you're talking about. (I don't blame you -- I didn't know what it was either and assumed it was a typo)
The US Government limits phones to 1.6W/kg SAR. This unit is known as the "Specific Absorption Rate", and is a human tissue density normalized version of W/kg. The energy used was commensurate with a modern cellular phone.
Because the list is a waste of time, amounting to the phrase "I don't want one". It is a rhetorical technique to show just how unimportant their reasons are.
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Has Vista even been selling for a year? Nobody I know uses that shit.
To this day I am happy that I was able to have those two years of C, letting me get close to the guts of the OS, forcing me to think about what I was doing every step of the way. There is no question in my mind that it made me a better programmer in general, regardless of the language.
This is dumb. Very dumb.
A programmer needs to think about what he is doing every step of the way, regardless of the language he is using. You know, to implement an algorithm (the steps). On the other hand, memory management is an implementation detail. If the problem at hand isn't about memory management, having to think about it is in fact a handicap. I know that I would rather focus my mental powers on solving the problem at hand than wrangling pointers, or allocing and freeing memory. If I'm learning about recursion, I don't care what the kernel is doing, or how the compiler and linker resolve memory addresses, or function pointer syntax. In fact, I want all that implementation crap abstracted away, a la Lisp and Scheme, or Ruby and SmallTalk, or even Java.
Granted, there is a time and place for things like C. College isn't it, unless it's for a course in operating systems, compilers (though I'd prefer Scheme for this purpose), or some kind of electronics engineering, where stuff like memory management is actually relevant to the subject. And even then, the essentials can be taught in less than a week. Assembly programming alumni at your school probably decried C's introduction to the curriculum. Too dumbed down. Access to system libraries and "low level" (ha!) system calls and powerful APIs is too easy. Etc ad nauseum.
Me? I started with Perl, of all things. My first project was a data analysis tool for a friend's Linguistics thesis as a college senior -- rather fitting. Moved on to Ruby (with ATLAS C libraries) for research in data mining algorithms. Later moved on to Scheme for an introduction to functional programming, and Erlang for more work in distributed data mining algorithms. Picked up some C and PPC Assembler somewhere. I'm not even defending Java in the classroom. I don't have any particular opinion about it, except that I dislike statically typed languages. Mere preference.
Nevermind the thin size. It is significantly lighter than even the MacBook. It's plenty fast. And it looks like it could get you laid.
"The SIMMs out of the Sun Ultra 5 that I ignorantly gutted and want to put into my cheap wintel clone to run 'doze on _seem_ like they're the right size to go in the slot..."
Jeez, no way.
I'd give them a big stick of ram for a Sun Ultra 5.
You might control how to deal with frustrations. But you can't control frustrations by definition. If you could, they would no longer be frustrations. In any case, you can't control your heart rate or blood pressure, no matter how much you will it.
I dunno...I have to say "Welcome to the real world". ...
I'll admit...my generation (early X) had a great deal of this too...but, not quite as bad as it seems the youth coming into the workforce now have.
You officially sound like your father.
You're asking him to commit a felony. Indeed, a capital crime.
Even if that's true, it's still far cheaper than Windows, and getting cheaper all the time. The better Debian and Ubuntu get, the cheaper it becomes.
Still, I'd rather OS X. But happily I use Kubuntu at work.
It says "post", Mr. Dyslexic.
This is silly though. Web services only need one "user" -- the user that connect to the database on behalf of the server.
Frist opst
Here, I've swapped 80% of the lights in my house for CFL's, and I burned 10 bucks worth of electricity last month (with an electric heater and 4x computers in the house no less!) does make me green enough to spare some processor cycles now?
Depends. Is it winter there? Is it cold? How much do you spend on heating?
I said this elsewhere: I've often compiled Gentoo for OS X during the colder days this winter. The "waste" heat isn't wasted. And while I do use Gentoo on occasion, any of the @Home's would be a better use of my idle processor/heater. In fact I'm looking into F@H right now.
Outside of that, @Home's are rather wasteful. Not to say that you shouldn't help, but your help is coming directly out of your pocketbook.
This is a good idea. I've been compiling Gentoo for OS X for that purpose during the colder days this winter.
Uh, so can VLC. MPlayer and VLC both use ffmpeg. Also, there's no point in using a codec pack with either MPlayer or VLC. They can both already play just about everything including Quicktime and older Real files.
There is a neutral position between being opressed and opressing someone else.
No there isn't. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can embrace your freedoms and join the rest of America in the American dream.
You need a cluster of G5's (or Cell processors) and a lot of RAM. Use whatever software you're comfortable with -- the hardware is the biggest factor here.
I'd change out of this tshirt if I had a washer and dryer. :-(
That depends on the screen and its internals. My iMac/Gamecube combo does just fine.
I dislike Ron Paul, so I'm going to support him just like you.
Why is this rated insightful? Lots of people get headaches when exposed to sunlight. And burns. And heatstroke.
Ruby? Python? SmallTalk?
What does linux doing it's job as a unix kernel well have to do with being innovative?
Nothing, which is why I said bringing Linux into the discussion is a RED HERRING.
The Linux kernel doesn't have to innovate, even though as a matter of fact it is innovative internally. No kernel has to innovate, except to keep up with hardware support. Linux has done a fine job there. Linux does not use a 30 year old model. Linux is user space agnostic. There are plenty of embedded machines out there running Linux with no hint of a unix user space. Linux does, however, provide a POSIX interface, into which a unix user space happily hooks. The WNT kernel does this too, with a patch. Does that make it "omg completely devoid of innovation!!!!!!"?
As I have said SEVERAL times now, kernels are boring scaffolding. Their job is to provide access to the hardware. That is all. Extra features might be nice, but there are often good technical reasons for offering those in user space. Once a kernel has reached a point where it can run a reasonably capable user space, there is no need to do ANYTHING to the kernel except add support for new hardware, because the user space can handle the rest. This is good for stability and security. User space is where major innovation happens, both in the proprietary and open source worlds.
Open source hasn't come up with any kernel innovations,
Open source is not an organization. The Linux Kernel Team maintains the Linux kernel. If you want to blame someone, blame them. But doing so would be stupid. The kernel is constantly changing its architecture internally, to ease supporting new hardware. New features are added with every release, often including innovative file systems and schedulers. The one constant is the external interface, and that is a good thing.
If you consider OSX innovative due to it's NeXT roots, you've given yet another example of a commercial closed source team coming up with innovation.
So? That doesn't negate the fact that OS X isn't innovative because of its kernel. An apples to apples comparison would compare Cocoa to Squeak, or QT/KDE, or Gnome. Not Linux (a kernel) to OS X (a kernel + a unix user space + very nice unix compatible user space libraries).
Yes and no. In short, you don't know what you're talking about. (I don't blame you -- I didn't know what it was either and assumed it was a typo)
The US Government limits phones to 1.6W/kg SAR. This unit is known as the "Specific Absorption Rate", and is a human tissue density normalized version of W/kg. The energy used was commensurate with a modern cellular phone.
You got your units backward. 1.4W/kg comes to 112W at 80kg. It's hopefully a typo.
Because the list is a waste of time, amounting to the phrase "I don't want one". It is a rhetorical technique to show just how unimportant their reasons are.