I had to write some code using the Mathematica API once, and it hurt. It provides a pipe of tokens, but if you ask for the wrong token, it hangs. You can peak at the front of the queue, but it's still the case that every time you want to read in a token you have to write code to expect any of a million different types of token for all the crazy error messages you never knew you might get.
Also, the GUI is awful. That notebook metaphor just does not work. You want to remove a buggy line of code somewhere but it might be attached to another block so it's really hard to get hold of it. The navigation keys (pg up, end and so on) don't work as you'd expect in an editor so you become very mouse reliant, which is awful for anybody used to working in a programming environment.
In my experience, Matlab is far superior although as others have pointed out, I'd still rather be working in Python. Numpy anybody?
Re:Voices from the Hellmouth
on
American Nerd
·
· Score: 1
I think part of being a "nerd" is that society has to hold you in slight contempt, no matter what your achievments.
Since leaving school, I still occasionally run into the cool kids from there. Even though I make more money, am cleverer, have a more fulfilling job, have a beautiful wife and could probably kick their arses in a fight, they still act vaguely superior. WTF is that all about?
The BBC Have Your Say debates are evidence that this phenomenon is not confined to angry teenagers. Those guys seem to be able to spew bile about everything in the name of honest dissent or political protest. It's actually pretty sad.
They also forced Russel Brand to resign from Radio 2, even though only 2 people actually complained about his obscene phone calls:
I was looking at buying a new gaming rig recently but I refuse to buy an operating system that hobbles the performance. Most of the benchmarks show that Vista is just slower than XP. These reports don't make future versions look that hopeful either.
It's pretty hard to buy a non-Vista machine these days. Am I going to have to blag an XP license from work to get a proper OS for gaming? How long am I going to have to hang on to these licenses before Microsoft releases a decent product or games companies start supporting Linux?
Yes, I know, buy a console. I still prefer PC gaming for many types of game.
Other use cases where a "fuck off" key would be useful:
- You are trying to download a file: cancel/allow (defaults to allow)
- Millions of overlapping windows and popups (defaults to return to desktop)
- This application has shat itself. Would you like to file a bug report (that will probably crash as well.) (Defaults to "no thanks")
and of course the number 1 case:
- You seem to be trying to type a letter, would you like some help with that? (defaults to hunting down the clippy developer and stabbing them with a rusty spoon)
(apologies if my phrasing is wrong - I hardly use Windows these days)
When I used to use Windows, I found Acrobat to be the most intrusive software ever because of its auto-update. Pretty much every time you try to open a document it's in your face demanding you allow it to update itself and then it often requests a reboot (a reboot? For a PDF viewer??)
This seemed to happen every other week, even if appeased it by letting it do its thing. I suspect this update would be one possible attack vector.
Yet another case in which a "fuck off" key would be a useful addition to the Windows keyboard.
The hardest part about this kind of project is getting a critical mass of users to make it work. This is as much a marketing problem as a technical one.
Still, it's a worthy project so I wish you the best of luck.
(Incidentally, I think pimping on Slashdot is totally appropriate, especially when your technology is a bit more mature.)
This is a good idea. Base it on a standard description of each concept like an old fashioned text book, but also allow:
- Discussion threads with students and teachers. (moderated, Slashdot style?)
- Contributed examples, again by students and teachers. You could do something like the PHP documentation, where the best contributed examples are prominently displayed at the bottom of the relevant page.
- Interactive tools to illustrate particular concepts.
- Copious linkage to similar resources.
A successful project like this could easily spawn similar projects for the other sciences.
Businesses involved in delivery of digital content?
Right, so what you're saying is that existing business may not benefit that much from fatter pipes, but new businesses can spring up (or existing business can diversify) that use them to deliver content that was previously impossible.
Really? Does business really suffer from slow broadband speeds? Occasionally, I have to wait an extra 30 seconds for a file download but it's hardly impacting my productivity. What kind of business needs a really fat pipe to prosper?
At some point, perhaps the early 20th century, people associated unions with fair working conditions, organised work forces and workers rights.
Now, most people seem to associate them with belligerent leadership, intransigence, unreasonable demands and striking at the drop of a hat.
After the 7/7 bombings in London the moron head of the underground rail drivers union came on TV and said that the bombings would not have happened if only they'd had more staff on the platforms.
He was using the deaths of 50 people to campaign for more money. That pretty much sums up unions for me.
Standards can be wrong or incomplete but they are still completely vital to the proper functioning of modern computing.
If Microsoft's dodgy dealings have managed to invalidate trust in one of the main standards bodies, thereby making less people adhere to standards, this will be a serious blow to interoperable computing in the future.
It would be easier to admire the gall if they weren't picking on people who are (a) often young and a bit naive (b) usually pretty skint (c) trying to forward the cause of human knowledge.
Professors are often complicit, too, which is appalling since they must know what it was like to be a postgrad. It's like the prefect system - you spend your younger years getting bullied and picked on and then you feel it's your right to to the same to the next generation.
Maybe PhD students should unionise. At the moment, it's pretty clear that nobody is looking out for them.
Universities used to be about learning and donating knowledge that would benefit mankind back to the creative commons.
Now, Universities are having to survive in a cut-throat commercial environment. In the UK, they do this by gouging international students on fees for their education, but also by having teams of commercialisation droids hovering over post-docs and PhD students, waiting to make money out of their ideas.
It's particularly sad because the vast majority of PhD students I meet are not commercially minded at all. They just want to do good science. These are the people who don't realise that the IP agreement they're signing means that the University now owns their thoughts, dreams and lives.
2) Because Python forces a particular style on you. Woop-de-doo. If Perl forced you to format your code in a certain way, I'm sure it'd be a bit more readable, too.
I like the way you say "I'm sure if Perl did some of the things Python did, it would be more readable" as part of your argument about why Perl is just as readable. That's funny.
I see this claim all the time - "it's not Perl, it's that people write bad Perl."
Well then, why is bad Python a million times easier to read?
I also hear that Perl is great because you can write things quickly. This completely disregards the fact that you can write quickly in many other languages, that do not have the same "ball of mud" tendencies.
I also think that those Perl mantras: "laziness impatience and hubris" are not virtues and nor is having a thousand different ways to do things - this just leads to code that can only be read by one person.
Being methodical, aiming for clarity and simplicity, avoiding obscure functionality - this is what leads to code that can be maintained. Perl does not encourage any of these virtues.
It's absolutely shameless how they play on people's ignorance of science to make the claims they do in their adverts. In particular, Nivea DNAge which implies that it repairs your DNA to stop you aging.
The tinfoil hat in me wonders whether these people are funding disruptive education legislators to make sure the new generation are ignorant, fearful, insecure and therefore ready to become Nivea consumers.
This is from the same school of "reality" as those cosmetics commercials where the model has had 6 hours of makeup and artificial eyelashes in order to look like that.
The more we force life to look perfect, the more we'll be disappointed by what we actually get. There is a great Charlie Brooker skit on aspirational television and how believing that we should be as beautiful and stylish as the cast of Friends and Sex and the City is actually making everybody miserable.
I would also say that the bumps of imperfection are an important part of our humanity. Examples:
- Over produced music sounds rubbish because if we can't hear the strumming it doesn't sound like a human being was playing it.
- If you cook Chilli from a recipe it may come out "perfect every time" but it will also get pretty dull.
- A sunny day is a much greater joy in Scotland, where it's a rarity.
Slashdot Mirror
I had to write some code using the Mathematica API once, and it hurt. It provides a pipe of tokens, but if you ask for the wrong token, it hangs. You can peak at the front of the queue, but it's still the case that every time you want to read in a token you have to write code to expect any of a million different types of token for all the crazy error messages you never knew you might get.
Also, the GUI is awful. That notebook metaphor just does not work. You want to remove a buggy line of code somewhere but it might be attached to another block so it's really hard to get hold of it. The navigation keys (pg up, end and so on) don't work as you'd expect in an editor so you become very mouse reliant, which is awful for anybody used to working in a programming environment.
In my experience, Matlab is far superior although as others have pointed out, I'd still rather be working in Python. Numpy anybody?
I think part of being a "nerd" is that society has to hold you in slight contempt, no matter what your achievments.
Since leaving school, I still occasionally run into the cool kids from there. Even though I make more money, am cleverer, have a more fulfilling job, have a beautiful wife and could probably kick their arses in a fight, they still act vaguely superior. WTF is that all about?
I have mod points, but can't find the "smack-down" option.
The BBC Have Your Say debates are evidence that this phenomenon is not confined to angry teenagers. Those guys seem to be able to spew bile about everything in the name of honest dissent or political protest. It's actually pretty sad.
They also forced Russel Brand to resign from Radio 2, even though only 2 people actually complained about his obscene phone calls:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7694989.stm
I was looking at buying a new gaming rig recently but I refuse to buy an operating system that hobbles the performance. Most of the benchmarks show that Vista is just slower than XP. These reports don't make future versions look that hopeful either.
It's pretty hard to buy a non-Vista machine these days. Am I going to have to blag an XP license from work to get a proper OS for gaming? How long am I going to have to hang on to these licenses before Microsoft releases a decent product or games companies start supporting Linux?
Yes, I know, buy a console. I still prefer PC gaming for many types of game.
I might have to extend my tinfoil hat to some kind of head-mounted lead telephone box.
This one?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/28/1711237
Other use cases where a "fuck off" key would be useful:
- You are trying to download a file: cancel/allow (defaults to allow)
- Millions of overlapping windows and popups (defaults to return to desktop)
- This application has shat itself. Would you like to file a bug report (that will probably crash as well.) (Defaults to "no thanks")
and of course the number 1 case:
- You seem to be trying to type a letter, would you like some help with that? (defaults to hunting down the clippy developer and stabbing them with a rusty spoon)
(apologies if my phrasing is wrong - I hardly use Windows these days)
When I used to use Windows, I found Acrobat to be the most intrusive software ever because of its auto-update. Pretty much every time you try to open a document it's in your face demanding you allow it to update itself and then it often requests a reboot (a reboot? For a PDF viewer??)
This seemed to happen every other week, even if appeased it by letting it do its thing. I suspect this update would be one possible attack vector.
Yet another case in which a "fuck off" key would be a useful addition to the Windows keyboard.
There should seriously be a moderation tag for "sarcasm impaired".
The hardest part about this kind of project is getting a critical mass of users to make it work. This is as much a marketing problem as a technical one.
Still, it's a worthy project so I wish you the best of luck.
(Incidentally, I think pimping on Slashdot is totally appropriate, especially when your technology is a bit more mature.)
This is a good idea. Base it on a standard description of each concept like an old fashioned text book, but also allow:
- Discussion threads with students and teachers. (moderated, Slashdot style?)
- Contributed examples, again by students and teachers. You could do something like the PHP documentation, where the best contributed examples are prominently displayed at the bottom of the relevant page.
- Interactive tools to illustrate particular concepts.
- Copious linkage to similar resources.
A successful project like this could easily spawn similar projects for the other sciences.
Businesses involved in delivery of digital content?
Right, so what you're saying is that existing business may not benefit that much from fatter pipes, but new businesses can spring up (or existing business can diversify) that use them to deliver content that was previously impossible.
Really? Does business really suffer from slow broadband speeds? Occasionally, I have to wait an extra 30 seconds for a file download but it's hardly impacting my productivity. What kind of business needs a really fat pipe to prosper?
At some point, perhaps the early 20th century, people associated unions with fair working conditions, organised work forces and workers rights.
Now, most people seem to associate them with belligerent leadership, intransigence, unreasonable demands and striking at the drop of a hat.
After the 7/7 bombings in London the moron head of the underground rail drivers union came on TV and said that the bombings would not have happened if only they'd had more staff on the platforms.
He was using the deaths of 50 people to campaign for more money. That pretty much sums up unions for me.
Do insects have hands?
Standards can be wrong or incomplete but they are still completely vital to the proper functioning of modern computing.
If Microsoft's dodgy dealings have managed to invalidate trust in one of the main standards bodies, thereby making less people adhere to standards, this will be a serious blow to interoperable computing in the future.
It would be easier to admire the gall if they weren't picking on people who are (a) often young and a bit naive (b) usually pretty skint (c) trying to forward the cause of human knowledge.
Professors are often complicit, too, which is appalling since they must know what it was like to be a postgrad. It's like the prefect system - you spend your younger years getting bullied and picked on and then you feel it's your right to to the same to the next generation.
Maybe PhD students should unionise. At the moment, it's pretty clear that nobody is looking out for them.
Universities used to be about learning and donating knowledge that would benefit mankind back to the creative commons.
Now, Universities are having to survive in a cut-throat commercial environment. In the UK, they do this by gouging international students on fees for their education, but also by having teams of commercialisation droids hovering over post-docs and PhD students, waiting to make money out of their ideas.
It's particularly sad because the vast majority of PhD students I meet are not commercially minded at all. They just want to do good science. These are the people who don't realise that the IP agreement they're signing means that the University now owns their thoughts, dreams and lives.
2) Because Python forces a particular style on you. Woop-de-doo. If Perl forced you to format your code in a certain way, I'm sure it'd be a bit more readable, too.
I like the way you say "I'm sure if Perl did some of the things Python did, it would be more readable" as part of your argument about why Perl is just as readable. That's funny.
I see this claim all the time - "it's not Perl, it's that people write bad Perl."
Well then, why is bad Python a million times easier to read?
I also hear that Perl is great because you can write things quickly. This completely disregards the fact that you can write quickly in many other languages, that do not have the same "ball of mud" tendencies.
I also think that those Perl mantras: "laziness impatience and hubris" are not virtues and nor is having a thousand different ways to do things - this just leads to code that can only be read by one person.
Being methodical, aiming for clarity and simplicity, avoiding obscure functionality - this is what leads to code that can be maintained. Perl does not encourage any of these virtues.
You have to love cosmetic companies.
Grudgingly respect? Perhaps. Love? No.
It's absolutely shameless how they play on people's ignorance of science to make the claims they do in their adverts. In particular, Nivea DNAge which implies that it repairs your DNA to stop you aging.
The tinfoil hat in me wonders whether these people are funding disruptive education legislators to make sure the new generation are ignorant, fearful, insecure and therefore ready to become Nivea consumers.
This is from the same school of "reality" as those cosmetics commercials where the model has had 6 hours of makeup and artificial eyelashes in order to look like that.
The more we force life to look perfect, the more we'll be disappointed by what we actually get. There is a great Charlie Brooker skit on aspirational television and how believing that we should be as beautiful and stylish as the cast of Friends and Sex and the City is actually making everybody miserable.
I would also say that the bumps of imperfection are an important part of our humanity. Examples:
- Over produced music sounds rubbish because if we can't hear the strumming it doesn't sound like a human being was playing it.
- If you cook Chilli from a recipe it may come out "perfect every time" but it will also get pretty dull.
- A sunny day is a much greater joy in Scotland, where it's a rarity.
Bah, humbug.
Amen, brother.
I like the link on the right: people who read also read:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=896790&rec=1&srcabs=998565