When you compare C to some of its predecessors like lisp and apl it is pretty clear that C was designed more for efficient compilation and low overhead than for fancy computer science constructs. It is great for its intended purpose, writing system code, which is why it's still used today.
----
"C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.
And limiting your project to C means that people don't screw that up, and also means that you get a lot of programmers that do actually understand low-level issues and don't screw things up with any idiotic "object model" crap."
-- the ever-tactful Linus, Sep-6-2007, on gmane.comp.version-control.git
A data structure is not a data type. Carry bits have been around for a while, too.
When you compile C the assembly code looks like the C code. You can do it yourself at least as well as gcc, usually better. Subroutine calls and stack frames follow standard, simple rules and leave a lot of room for optimization. Structs and unions are just a list of offsets and bookkeeping. There's basically nothing in the compiled code that you don't write in the C source code or include in a very straightforward way from a library except for the standard initialization and exit code.
If you tried to hand-compile perl code (for example) I think you would get lost in a hurry due to dynamic typing and sizes, hashes, references being more than pointers, garbage collection, etc. Its the invisible runtime environment and services that make virtual machine languages HLLs and those are very far from the hardware features of the computer.
C only has the data types supported by the hardware, so it is not a high-level language. A high level language is one which provides an abstract view of the machine.
"I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.... My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged."
-- George W. Bush
If we take that as a guideline for punishment, approved by the DOJ, for a serious crime, then I think that the damage to Jammie Thomas' reputation would be penalty enough for a finding of copyright infringement of 24 songs.
A free-market economy precludes auctioning off a public resource to be used by a single entity without compensation.
In this case, how did the government acquire ownership of the spectrum? Did it buy it from somewhere? Why should the government keep the fees for taking and selling a public property?
That would be implied by the aggregate 24G bytes/sec later in the article. So I guess they are still keeping the 32 I/O pins that the previous generation used and not quite doubling the speed. The article is also missing the size, which is a spec that hardware designers frequently wish to see, but I think it's probably still 512 Mbit or we would have heard about it.
It's fairly easy to write a perl email filter. One thing I've been playing with is doing a wget >/dev/null on random links chosen from inbound spam. This has negligable effect on the occasional false positive mail or legitimate link stuck into spam, but would crush spam product websites on limited webservers if a lot of people did it.
The justification for not releasing the names of Cheney's Energy Policy group members was that the Administration didn't think they had to, even though the FACA has been on the books since 1972. However the court ruled that they did in April 2004, so we expect those names any day now.
Ummm. Did you look on his website where he describes disassembling the game and even has a listing of the code? Also, its not a defense when you're the plaintiff, its offensive.
Of course the law applies to big corporations. Sony will be able to sue this guy for violating their EULA by disassembling their game. You don't buy a game from a big company, you just buy a license to use it under their terms and conditions. See? All legal.
"they refused to help me acquire a new phone when I lost mine"... unlike every other business which is happy to replace your lost items. I can't tell you how many times Dell has cheerfully replaced my lost laptops and Sears gave me a new pair of Dockers after I spilled paint on mine. Not.
As for Verizon Wireless, you can buy any cdma phone and connect it to your account for free via their website. I've done it. They say up front that if you want a deal on a phone, you get it with a new activation or contract extension.
It's not psychology. Small companies depend on repeat business and word of mouth. They can't afford to get a reputation of screwing customers. Large companies depend on advertising and just being no worse than the next large company. They can't spend any time on individual customers, just on providing the same quality to everyone, bad or good.
When my ISP screwed up I called the VP of Operations because I have his cell phone number. That's the advantage of using small businesses.
"There is plenty of reason to keep civilian time on solar terms. I've been reading a lot of research lately on the importance of circadian phase to human health. We need a civilian standard consistent with civilian health."
If keeping the time constant for health was at all the reason, then making "noon" the constant point of time doesn't make sense. There is no sensory mechanism attuned to the Sun being directly overhead. You should keep dawn or dusk constant and vary the day appropriately.
and it isn't just tectonic motion where UTC falls down. It also fails to consider the periodic variation in the Earth's rotation due to tidal forces from the moon.
The justification for leap seconds is inadequate for the benefit. They don't have to wait for a whole hour to correct, though. Every 20 or 30 years they could do a leap minute. That would be a reasonable compromise.
Computer time is just seconds since some arbitrary fixed date (Jan 1, 1970 for Unix). There are two standards for converting that to human readable. Posix ignores leap seconds, while UTC includes them. The advantage of Posix time is that I can calculate it into the future. UTC changes when the bulletin is published declaring whether there is or is not a leap second so two different UTC calculations may not match.
The rule for computer programs is to do all calculations in computer time and only use human time for display. Also, the display should inform the user whether or not it is UTC.
Anyway, UTC only fixes the exact time for 0 longitude. My continent is drifting relative to that and the UTC standard fails to take that into account for my local time. You only have to move about 1000 feet E/W to be off by a second at my latitude.
It's true all right. Here is the FBI's letter. "neither scientists nor bullet manufacturers are able to definitively attest to the significance of an association made between bullets in the course of a bullet lead examination."
Slashdot Mirror
When you compare C to some of its predecessors like lisp and apl it is pretty clear that C was designed more for efficient compilation and low overhead than for fancy computer science constructs. It is great for its intended purpose, writing system code, which is why it's still used today.
----
"C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot
of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much
easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if
the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,
that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.
And limiting your project to C means that people don't screw that up, and
also means that you get a lot of programmers that do actually understand
low-level issues and don't screw things up with any idiotic "object model"
crap."
-- the ever-tactful Linus, Sep-6-2007, on gmane.comp.version-control.git
A data structure is not a data type. Carry bits have been around for a while, too.
When you compile C the assembly code looks like the C code. You can do it yourself at least as well as gcc, usually better. Subroutine calls and stack frames follow standard, simple rules and leave a lot of room for optimization. Structs and unions are just a list of offsets and bookkeeping. There's basically nothing in the compiled code that you don't write in the C source code or include in a very straightforward way from a library except for the standard initialization and exit code.
If you tried to hand-compile perl code (for example) I think you would get lost in a hurry due to dynamic typing and sizes, hashes, references being more than pointers, garbage collection, etc. Its the invisible runtime environment and services that make virtual machine languages HLLs and those are very far from the hardware features of the computer.
"Where's that guy who shills for wikipedia, I'd love to hear his take on this"
I think he's the one modding your post Flamebait.
C only has the data types supported by the hardware, so it is not a high-level language. A high level language is one which provides an abstract view of the machine.
Start small. You can get a few bucks for being a shill on slashdot.
By the way, have any of you played Super Columbine Massacre RPG? It's awesome!
"Who is stupid enough to go to Youtube for authoritative information about anything?"
Both the Republican and Democratic parties?
Technology is based on the earlier Delfonics, who used vacuum tubes.
"I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison. ... My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged."
-- George W. Bush
If we take that as a guideline for punishment, approved by the DOJ, for a serious crime,
then I think that the damage to Jammie Thomas' reputation would be penalty enough for a
finding of copyright infringement of 24 songs.
Not quite:
A free-market economy precludes auctioning off a public resource to be used by a single entity without compensation.
In this case, how did the government acquire ownership of the spectrum? Did it buy it from somewhere? Why should the government keep the fees for taking and selling a public property?
That would be implied by the aggregate 24G bytes/sec later in the article. So I guess they are still keeping the 32 I/O pins that the previous generation used and not quite doubling the speed. The article is also missing the size, which is a spec that hardware designers frequently wish to see, but I think it's probably still 512 Mbit or we would have heard about it.
But for an extra $50 they will name a star after you!
It's fairly easy to write a perl email filter. One thing I've been playing with is doing a wget >/dev/null on random links chosen from inbound spam. This has negligable effect on the occasional false positive mail or legitimate link stuck into spam, but would crush spam product websites on limited webservers if a lot of people did it.
Q. Why is a botherd like his staff?
A. They're both crooks.
The justification for not releasing the names of Cheney's Energy Policy group members was that the Administration didn't think they had to, even though the FACA has been on the books since 1972. However the court ruled that they did in April 2004, so we expect those names any day now.
Ummm. Did you look on his website where he describes disassembling the game and even has a listing of the code? Also, its not a defense when you're the plaintiff, its offensive.
Of course the law applies to big corporations. Sony will be able to sue this guy for violating their EULA by disassembling their game. You don't buy a game from a big company, you just buy a license to use it under their terms and conditions. See? All legal.
"they refused to help me acquire a new phone when I lost mine" ... unlike every other business which is happy to replace your lost items. I can't tell you how many times Dell has cheerfully replaced my lost laptops and Sears gave me a new pair of Dockers after I spilled paint on mine. Not.
As for Verizon Wireless, you can buy any cdma phone and connect it to your account for free via their website. I've done it. They say up front that if you want a deal on a phone, you get it with a new activation or contract extension.
It's not psychology. Small companies depend on repeat business and word of mouth. They can't afford to get a reputation of screwing customers. Large companies depend on advertising and just being no worse than the next large company. They can't spend any time on individual customers, just on providing the same quality to everyone, bad or good.
When my ISP screwed up I called the VP of Operations because I have his cell phone number. That's the advantage of using small businesses.
Which is why marketing types are now out there editing Wikipedia pages to point to their company.
"There is plenty of reason to keep civilian time on solar terms. I've been reading a lot of research lately on the importance of circadian phase to human health. We need a civilian standard consistent with civilian health."
If keeping the time constant for health was at all the reason, then making "noon" the constant point of time doesn't make sense. There is no sensory mechanism attuned to the Sun being directly overhead. You should keep dawn or dusk constant and vary the day appropriately.
and it isn't just tectonic motion where UTC falls down. It also fails to consider the periodic variation in the Earth's rotation due to tidal forces from the moon.
The justification for leap seconds is inadequate for the benefit. They don't have to wait for a whole hour to correct, though. Every 20 or 30 years they could do a leap minute. That would be a reasonable compromise.
Computer time is just seconds since some arbitrary fixed date (Jan 1, 1970 for Unix). There are two standards for converting that to human readable. Posix ignores leap seconds, while UTC includes them. The advantage of Posix time is that I can calculate it into the future. UTC changes when the bulletin is published declaring whether there is or is not a leap second so two different UTC calculations may not match.
The rule for computer programs is to do all calculations in computer time and only use human time for display. Also, the display should inform the user whether or not it is UTC.
Anyway, UTC only fixes the exact time for 0 longitude. My continent is drifting relative to that and the UTC standard fails to take that into account for my local time. You only have to move about 1000 feet E/W to be off by a second at my latitude.
It's true all right. Here is the FBI's letter. "neither scientists nor bullet manufacturers are able to definitively attest to the significance of an association made between bullets in the course of a bullet lead examination."
... because we lost.
You know. Stuff.