This is a pretty good troll, but on the off chance you're serious...
Patents were designed to stimulate progress
Setting aside the question of whether this has ever been true, it is manifestly untrue in the sphere of software. The Internet stands or falls on free, unpatented software: the DNS system and bind. Email stands or falls almost exclusively on free, unpatented sendmail. The WWW and hyperlinking could have been patented. Any programming language, regex engine, or spell-checker could have been patented. So could text processors (a la awk/sed), and image processors.
I could go on, but the point is simple: innovation has in NO way been stifled in ANY of these domains by the fact that patents have not been applied and enforced in them. In short, your argument doesn't hold water from the very start.
There is ONE way in which patents have "stimulated progress" in the realm of software: organizations and individuals outraged over software patents have gone on to create BETTER software in order to circumvent them (I'm thinking here of Unisys and their ridiculous GIF licensing). Somehow I don't think that's what you meant.
It is a preposterous ad hominem to suppose that the people who are opposed to Amazon's actions are nothing more than a bunch of pirates. If they were, they would not be outraged by the patents, because their activities would be unaffected by them. Secondly, your irresponsible insinuation is trumped by Tim O'Reilly himself: a man who actually stands to lose money by upsetting one of his customers.
your behavior is both unethical (as defined by the Bible) and illegal
Your argument is without merit, and so your conclusion suffers the same defect. You tar the Slashdot community with one brush. Your characterization of that community cannot bear even a moment's scrutiny.
Amazon is the hypocritical party here: they whine and moan about protecting their "Intellectual Property" and yet their very existence is dependent upon free and UNPATENTED software.
In the first place all that is required to nullify another's patent is demonstrable prior art. So to say that getting patents is a defensive measure is the height of absurdity. It is an offensive measure (in both senses of the term when it comes to software).
So it's part of modern business. Big deal. Shall we cynically suck it up, or shall we protest this idiocy? Whatever you might think, frivoulous patents like this must be fought. Or are you blind to the ultimate effects such things have on both software and the Internet?
Katz the Drooler is at it again. He has no concept of what he's talking about, and has the nerve to pontificate as though he has something worth saying.
Perhaps I missed it, but precisely where does Katz the Drooler condemn the violence perpetrated by some of the protesters? I find this comment, which is more of an excuse than a condemnation: "the birth of political movements is usually neither pretty nor coherent". Elsewhere Katz excuses these brutes thusly: "Small wonder the protesters were furious." Great, Katz.
Katz fancies himself a social commentator, and he may suppose that as such he need not condemn that upon which he comments. But given his eager readiness to condemn other things with which he disagrees (e.g., the "corporatism" which he attacks throughout this column, or those who hold to anything resembling a Judeo-Christian ethic -- whom he attacks in almost everything else I've ever seen that he wrote), I can't help but wonder about this omission.
So tell us, Katz: do you condemn violence or not?
The protestors in Seattle made some telling, nearly irrefutable arguments.
And which ones were those, Katz? The ones where they were destroying public and private property, or the ones they made while protesting peacefully?
Corporatism has, in fact, damaged the environment by creating incalculable amounts of products that pollute and trash the earth.
Tell us, Katz: do they just litter the countryside with those products, or are they purchased by someone? And if they are purchased by someone, that suggests that the corporations provide a product that someone wants, doesn't it? Tell us Katz: Are YOU buying any of these products? You are? What does that tell us about your moral standing for criticizing those who produce what YOU want, Katz?
controversial, profane, sexual or other "controversial" cultural offerings from books to movies to music are eliminated or pushed to the margins so that safer products can be mass-marketed.
Is this why a supermajority of the movies coming out of Hollywood are rated R or PG-13, while only a tiny handful get the "safer" rating of G? Katz, do you think at all before you spew this stuff?
Younger workers are forced into dead-end and poorly paid positions with little chance of advancement or meaningful work
Is there any conceivable way there could be an actual REASON for this, Katz? Like this: maybe those "younger workers" are typically so inexperienced and underqualified that they cannot get the hot jobs.
The roots of the demonstrations lie in the notion that companies are behaving immorally.
What's this? Katz is complaining that someone is behaving immorally? I thought that Katz the Drooler resented all those who have systems of morality to guide their behavior. Let me check...yes, he surely does despise them. This is some remarkable hypocrisy here, Katz. You condemn the Christian, yet here you are trying to impose your OWN morality on corporations. Very nice indeed. You set a good example for your children (if any).
Corporatism is a civic menace. It pushes the individual aside. It spawns greed, passivity and conformity.
I'm happy that you're such an impartial commentator, Katz. Now tell us: do you condemn the violence in Seattle or not?
For the sake of argument, I'm going to dissect one of your premises:
A democracy protects the interests of a minority against the will of a majority.
This sounds very noble, but it doesn't work. Why? Because business owners are a minority in this nation too. Only a small fraction of people actually employ others.
Where is their protection, hmm?
The result of what you are saying is this: a bazillion (that's a technical term for "lots and lots":-) little "minority groups" all seeking protection from the will of the majority. This is a recipe for grinding a free society to a pulp. It can't work, and we shouldn't try to make it do so.
By its very nature a democracy -- i.e., direct majority rule by the people themselves (which we do NOT have here in the U.S., by the way) -- ALWAYS tramples on whoever's not in the majority. ALWAYS. It's inescapable.
Without having a copy handy to cite chapter and verse, at the very least the 5th Amendment (prohibitions against property seizure) rests upon an obvious presumption that our property is ours and can only be taken from us under certain circumstances (taxation being one of them).
Secondly, in terms of intent of the authors: you will not find any of them ever arguing that the Constitution does not protect private property. This issue was in fact critical (though it wasn't the only issue) in inciting the War for Independence.
The founders -- elites though they were -- were cut from a rather different cloth than the elitists of today. Our modern elitists think they know better than you and I how we ought to live. The founders did not share such an arrogant conceit, but it is this hubris which explains why our modern snobs don't have a problem with shoving the ADA and like legislation down the throats of the people. "We know better" is their refrain. It's garbage.
My original post (which you jummped all over) mearly stated that...
Well, you *also* said (and this is what I jumped all over -- at least, this is what set me in a foul mood because I misunderstood you):
You may like to think that laize-fair (SP?) economics is an constitutional right, but it isn't.
But anyway, this is neither here nor there. As for me not objecting to a state ADA-type law: I would not object on the grounds of the U.S. Constitution, no. But I would *strongly* object to it if I lived in such a state. Aside from the question of whether states may constitutionally do so, it is a broken and defective goal as I've stated in other posts. It's both economically and potentially technically impossible to so arrange any business so that literally anyone having any "disability" whatsoever can access it as "easily" as those without disabilities. It is therefore irrational and foolish. Nor do I see how it is a "reasonable" regulation of any business to dictate to them whom they must accept as either customers or employees.
"Its [sic] the states that pass the accesibility [sic] laws you moron...which jive with your crack-induced rants regarding the consittion [sic]."
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal law. It is unconstitutional.
I know it's bad form to attack one's spelling, but given the facts that a) you call me a drug user and b) you call me a moron and c) your particular screed was laced with rather egregious errors, I decided to meet the ad hominem with an ad hominem. No more offense intended than you intended for me.:-)
You're missing the point - you're leaving the protection of the disabled to market forces. This isn't how society works. This is also why we don't let "market forces" determine if you can let blacks eat in the same restaurants as whites.
I know that many of the less subtle readers of Slashdot will conclude from the following that I'm a racist, but I can't help it. This has nothing to do with racism. The Constitution guarantees our rights of free association and assembly. As abominable as segregation was (and the segregation laws were even worse), the Constitution does not support the noxious pattern of federal civil rights laws which abridged Constitutionally guaranteed rights of association. You're not going to find in the Constitution any support for it.
Don't misunderstand me: I am grateful that segregation has ended. The means (coercion by federal mandate) was illegitimate.
So: at this point you will probably stop listening, having falsely concluded that I'm a bigot. I can't help that. Saying that the Constitution doesn't support something that I personally would endorse -- namely, the end of segregation -- may look bad, but it's a question of the rule of law. If we don't like the Constitution, there are constitutionally defined procedures for amending it. Apart from that, I don't see how the federal government can constitutionally justify the federally coerced end of segregation (to be distinguished from requiring the abolition of segregationist *laws*). The 14th Amendment forbids the states from doing anything that might "abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States", and one might make an argument from this for abolishing the states' segregationist laws, but the 14th Amendment says NOTHING about the people and their right to choose -- however noxiously -- the people with whom they'll do business. It's just not there.
And with respect to democracy: you (or some other AC??) said that a "primary objective" of the Constitution was to establish a democracy. The Preamble declares the purposes of the Constitution. The fact that the founders established a republic for the purpose of achieving their stated goals (as found in the Preamble) does not mean that a "democracy" was a "primary objective".
And if you can't tell the difference between a republic and a democracy, I can't help you.
And we're still waiting for some indication of a text of the Constitution that grants the federal government the power to dictate whom I will do business with or whom I will employ. Barring that, the 10th Amendment should rule (and the noxious ADA should be repealed).
People who are functionaly disabled in our society did not enter the market force in 1780.
Proof please. Of course they did. The extent to which they did so was much less than today.
Firstly, medical science could not get them to adulthood. Secondly, if they were lucky to get to that age, they were left to the whims of their family.
The first is true -- far fewer of the disabled lived so long as they do today. The second is mostly true, in that charity was private rather than public -- oh that we could return to that system! But the suggestion that none of them were able to work at all is simply ridiculous.
Drop your comparisons to the eighteenth century - they make no sense whatsoever.
Then perhaps I wasn't clear. The point is this: there were people in the 18th century who would have been in the exact same economic predicament as our present class of disabled people. The founders of this country surely knew this. Knowing this, they could have actually written a constitution which includes the powers that the feds illegally assert today in the ADA.
But they didn't do so.
I'm amazed by your antipathy to historical argument. Don't you think that history has anything to say about our present conditions?
I suggest you do not open a business in the United States
Too late:-)
you will find that your statement is entirely false.
I made a number of assertions. Which one is false? All of them? Ha!
Your vision of a pure, unregulated market
What "vision" of mine is that, pray tell? Have you not been reading? I have said three times before in this thread (this is the fourth) that I do NOT advocate what you call a "pure, unregulated market." Nor do I care particularly what Teddy Roosevelt did in this particular discussion. My point has been this: the ADA is unconstitutional. Read the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the staes respectively, or to the people."
In other words: if the Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to dictate the terms under which employers hire employees, then the federal government may not do so. If the Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to dictate to businesses who their customers will be and how those businesses will serve their customers, then the federal government may not do so. End of discussion -- unless you can provide for us the text of the Constitution which does provide that power.
But you can't, because it's not there.
I wish you people would stop quarrelling with these idle opinions about what seems right to you. I might even agree -- you'll never know. That's not the point. The point is what the Constitution says it permits. And it does not permit the federal government to pass idiot noxious laws like the ADA.
The constitution is simply there to tell you what basic rules any new laws have to follow.
You don't know what a constitution is, do you? Well, sadly, you're not alone. Our fine government schools have failed to pass on even this rudimentary knowledge about our form of government. A constitution is the set of rules that a government must follow. A constitution gives said government only the powers it specifically declares, unless it states otherwise. And in this case, the U.S. Constitution most definitely states otherwise. Here, for your edification, is the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. (empasis added)
Get that? The Constitution says: if it ain't in here, it belongs to the states and to the people. So what you said is not just wrong. It is EXPLICITLY wrong.
Consequently, unless you can demonstrate for us all where it is in the Constitution that your "government mandates of handicapped accesiblilty" [sic] may be found, you have no case. None. The Constitution FORBIDS it unless it's in the Constitution. And the "power" (described in the ADA) to force business owners to "accommodate" the disabled is most definitely NOT in the Constitution. Period.
If Jefferson were alive today, he would waste no time in organizing an effort to bring the consitution up to date, particularly with reference to guns.
Ha Ha! That's funny! Oh...you were serious. Hmmm. Unfortunately, you also don't understand the 2nd Amendment and the arguments that were made for it at the time.
government protection of the handicapped is abstractly inferred by the observence of inalienable rights for American cicitzens
Those inalienable rights (found in the Declaration of Independence and not in the Constitution) were these: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. From which of these do you infer the notion of government protection of the handicapped?
which I think fairly imply that the handicapped should be able to use a public washroom in dignity.
I have no problem with this. I have a problem with the federal government attempting to impose this on the whole country. It's unconstitutional. If the states want to do so, that's a different thing -- but the federal government has no such constitutional power.
the principle of protection for the disabled is exactly rooted in the democratic principles you are extolling.
The disabled have the same rights protected by the Constitution as everyone else -- no more, no less. The Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to interfere in intrastate commerce (which the ADA does). The Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to dictate the terms under which a business owner makes hiring decisions. This is a form of statism and it is utterly antithetical to the Constitution.
If an otherwise disabled person has skills which would be useful in my business, then I have an economic decision to make: whether it will be profitable for my business to make such accommodations as are necessary for that person to be employed by me. I do not hire people primarily for their benefit. I hire people primarily for the benefit they will provide to my business.
If (whether because I judge the costs of accommodation to be too high, or because I'm a bigot) I choose not to hire the disabled person, I forgo the benefits that I might have enjoyed from their talents, and I face the prospect of my competition gaining a potential competitive edge. In short, I suffer at least one (and possibly two) economic losses.
If I am able to find an able-bodied person capable of performing at the same level as the disabled person, then I am free to hire either one. Right? You don't mean to suggest that I have some sort of ethical responsibility to prefer the disabled person, do you?
The Constitution affords the disabled person the same right to compete with other potential employees. The Constitution does NOT grant the federal government the power to force potential employers to hire *anyone*.
The freedom to employ someone implies the freedom to NOT employ someone, doesn't it?
Please note: I am not intending to say anything about the ethics that employers ought to consider in there hiring practices. My point is that the Constitution doesn't make the kind of promises that the ADA does, and so the ADA is unconstitutional. They had disabled people in the 1780s. The founders knew it. They could have said it if they meant it. They didn't. The constitution could be amended if people don't like it, but ignoring it is tantamount to overthrowing the rule of law.
You're ranting so eloquently about the constitution that you forget the primary objective of its own foundation
No I haven't. The primary objective is found in the Preamble (note the words "in order to": they indicate purpose). And what does the Preamble say "We the People...do ordain and establish" the Constitution for?
to form a more perfect union
establish justice
insure domestic tranquility
provide for the common defense
promote the general welfare (note to social liberals: this does not mean the welfare state)
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
Now, under which of those heads do you find "democracy"? It's not there. Nice try though.
A democracy protects the interests of a minority against the will of a majority.
And what about protecting the majority from the will of a minority? Really now, wasn't that precisely what the Revolutionary War was fought over -- getting out from under the tyrannous behavior of a British king? You can't get a smaller minority than one person! But anyway, this is all moot since your original point about the primary objective of the Constitution was incorrect.
In a nutshell, it means you need to build a wheel chair ramp even though only one person might ever use it.
First -- carried to its logical conclusion, this is an argument for society making "accommodations" for literally *every* form of disability in the world. So when do we start making the workplace safe for the boy in the plastic bubble?
More seriously though: 1) the costs of doing so -- remember, for literally every disability, even if only one person might need it -- is impossibly high. It can't be done. Further, people have disabilities which "conflict" with the disabilities of others. How exactly will you "accommodate" the agoraphobe *and* the claustrophobe (yes Virginia, mental conditions have been covered by the ADA)? 2) There is not a shred of support in the Constitution for this. None. So even if it were feasible -- either economically or by the laws of physics -- there is no constitutional authority for it.
the majority cannot knowingly marginalize a minority or refrain from providing a decent and acceptable basis of opportunity (meaning someone in a wheelchair who is a great programmer cannot be overlooked for employment at your company because he can't climb the stairs - you need to give him a decent and reasonable basis of opportunity to compete with able-bodied programmers).
In the first place: if I forgo the opportunity to hire a highly-skilled individual, then I suffer a loss -- both in terms of the skills I don't have at my disposal, and in the fact that one of my competitors may very well benefit from hiring that person. But this should be MY choice -- and I'd have to live with the consequences of my decision.
Secondly, what is this word "cannot"? Obviously I *can* do it. Are you saying it's immoral? Are you saying that a business owner doesn't have the right to choose on his own terms the people he will hire? On what grounds?
Lastly -- I'm certainly not saying that AOL shouldn't "accommodate" these folk. The choice should be theirs, though. The ADA is illegitimate and unconstitutional and needs to be repealed. It's far more noxious than Prohibition (another bad law) ever was.
The offensive tone you take in claiming that you made no such implication is a common troll tactic.
I'll be willing to grant that I misinterpreted your remarks in your first post as what I called it: a cheap, dumb, debating tactic. I apologize for that. As for the rest of my tone: it was reserved for a flaming AC who couldn't make an argument. I'll try to behave in your case.
I and the AC pointed out that the constitution makes no mention of a right to unfettered commerce.
And the problem here is that you are misunderstanding me and the Constitution. For the third time: I do not advocate commerce without *any* regulation whatsoever.
With respect to the more important issue of misunderstanding the Constitution: I said that it guarantees the right to private property, which is the basis of a free market (note: the word "unfettered" appears nowhere in that sentence). There is no such thing as a free market where there is no right to private property. There is no such thing as private property when there is no free market, either. In the U.S. we have what has been called a "mixed" economy.
The critical issue has to do with the sort of regulation of interstate commerce that the founders intended. It has to do with what is meant by the term "interstate commerce." I can guarantee you that they would have considered the ADA a blatant usurpation of power not granted by the Constitution. Those men were not socialists. They weren't welfarists. They were not social liberals. *No* constitutional scholar of any standing at all attempts to defend the modern welfare state in terms of what the founders intended with the Constitution. They don't do so because it can't be done. Instead, they resort to "re-interpreting" the Constitution. They call it a "living" document. Either that or they say that it's outdated and far too old to have anything relevant to say to modern society.
Sorry, but this doesn't wash. There's nothing new under the sun. The Romans (and who knows who else before them?) tried the welfare state: "bread and circuses" and all that. It's broken. It doesn't work. The founders knew it.
And even if these Constitution-haters were right: this does not excuse the blatant and lawless disregard for the Constitution -- the law of the land -- that prevails among those self-same re-interpreters. Oh, they'll keep that First Amendment, but they don't want anything to do with the rest of it if it means checks on federal power.
Again, in summary: the right to private property is guaranteed by the Constitution. The states may make whatever silly laws they want about it. The federal government may regulate interstate commerce, but there is no possible way that can legitimately extend to the ADA -- not when the feds claim that it applies even to businesses which have nothing whatever to do with said interstate commerce (but as I said, there's no chance that Madison, Jefferson, et. al. would have countenanced this mad bureaucratic regulation).
The AC did a very good job of responding to this rant
Not hardly.
Only when you make a commercial building/website/etc. do govenment rules apply.
So privately held enterprises somehow lose their rights to private property? Is that what you mean to suggest?
The constitution may protect private property rights but it does not give the right to unfettered commerce.
Yes, yes. As I said to the AC: Duh. No one (including me) has suggested otherwise. This is infinitely far from saying that the ADA is legitimate.
If a state can charge sales tax, then why can't that state also make other demands? You may not like it, but it's the same use of authority.If it were a state that invented the ADA I wouldn't be complaining about its constitutionality. But it's not, and the rules are different. Just because New York can impose its own version of ADA has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the federal government can impose such a noxious burden on business.
As to the suggestion that the federal government has certain powers from which we may "infer" other "powers": sorry. That doesn't work when you have a Constitution. By its very nature a constitution defines the powers of an organization, so that it does not have *any* powers outside of what its constitution provides. And there is simply no way that one can rationally interpret the U.S. Constitution as to even suggest that the federal government has the right to impose an idiotic burden like the ADA -- not even in the name of an alleged regulation of interstate commerce.
We can choose to have the state use it's power to protect the disabled, or we could choose to have the state keep out of it. The power has always been there, the ADA just uses it in a new way.
Well no. This is not true. The U.S. Constitution defines the powers of the United States Government. "Protecting the disabled" (as something other than citizens) is simply not among the powers the Constitution provides. The fact that the feds "can" do it has nothing to do with having any ethical or constitutional grounds for doing so.
those little shrieking noises that you love to make are, sadly, in direct opposition to the spirit of the Constitution (which you really should read; it's an interesting document -- though not a law of nature)
Oh goody, I've touched a nerve.
The U.S. Constitution does not support the welfare state. The only people who pretend that it does are fabulists who call it a "living document". Not even Lawrence Tribe would be so stupid as to suggest that the founders of the United States would be considered statists. Pray tell, however: what exact *text* of the Constitution is it that you misinterpret so as to defend the idea that (as I wrote) "the state somehow has a 'duty' or 'obligation' to improve the lifestyle of the disadvantaged at the expense of those who are not similarly disadvantaged"? Enough blather, AC: how about an actual citation of an actual section of the Constitution that supports your raving? Hint: the commerce clause ain't it.
And while the Constitution is not a law of nature, and certainly isn't perfect, it is still (hypothetically anyway, here at the end of the 20th century) the law.
You missed the point, moron. She was talking about "laissez-faire" nonsense, which is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of a free market.
Duh. It's a reductio that fails, even ignoring her inability to spell it. It was a failed effort to demonize the original poster. She was blatantly insinuating that anyone opposed to the ADA -- an immoral law -- is somehow also opposed to any restrictions upon the market at all. It was a cheap, dumb, debating trick that you seem to be defending.
The right to own property does not imply that the government is forbidden to regulate commerce
Again: Duh. I never said otherwise. Why not deal with what I said rather than with these straw men you keep setting up? Is it easier for you? You'll note -- if you actually bother to read my post -- that I said the Constitution guarantees the right to private property; I said nothing about an utterly unfettered one. It seems that you have a problem sticking to the topic.
The Federal Government is granted the power to regulate interstate commerce by the Constitution.
Which fact only demonstrates the immoral and tyrannical (not to mention unconstitutional) nature of the ADA. Precisely how does a private shopkeeper (in a town of 500 who makes baskets from materials he grows himself) engage in "interstate commerce"? And yet this abominable "law" is said to apply to him.
And I haven't even touched upon the ludicrous lengths to which idiot judges, lawyers and congressmen go in stretching the commerce clause so that it applies to whatever they find convenient to regulate. They have abandoned the very spirit of the Constitution. "You breathe air, and air moves freely from state to state. Therefore your business is subject to federal laws under the commerce clause." Right. This is an absurdity -- for now. But I am not holding my breath that it won't be tried by some raving leftist judge with delusions of grandeur, with idiot dreams about how he "knows better" than the rest of us how we ought to live our lives.
Will commercial artists be forced to create braille descriptions of all their works?
This is precisely why the ADA is a regulatory abomination. It is an evil, immoral "law." It is tyranny.
Will public pools be forced to provide for their use by quadriplegics and amputees?
Will rock musicians and orchestras be forced to provide a means for the deaf to enjoy their concerts?
Will video arcades be forced to supply some means other than joysticks for those with no hands to enjoy their games?
Will NBA teams be forced to accommodate players in wheelchairs?
How will airlines "accommodate" agoraphobes?
The whole thing is preposterous. The simple and unpleasant fact is that people have different abilities and disabilities. That's life. It is not the responsibility of any government to FORCE me or anyone to change how we do business/live our lives for the sake of "accommodating" people with *any* disability whatsoever.
You and I are (or should be) free to *choose* to make accommodations for those with disabilities. It is tyrannical to stick a gun to my head and compel me to do it.
Or we can require accessability so that diabled people can live some sort of independent life.
So -- it's legitimate for government to do this? Says who? On what philosophical basis is this sort of nonsense thinking founded?
This sort of nonsense thinking is founded upon the preposterous notion that the state somehow has a "duty" or "obligation" to improve the lifestyle of the disadvantaged at the expense of those who are not similarly disadvantaged. This is insane.
You may like to think that laize-fair (SP?) economics is an constitutional right, but it isn't.
Actually you'd be mistaken there. The right to own private property IS a constitutional one, and it is this that is the foundation for the free market.
On the other hand, your ridiculous premise that the state must "require accessability so that diabled people can live some sort of independent life" is NOWHERE to be found in the U.S. Constitution.
Let's review: private property rights are raped by the ADA, which has no constitutional foundation.
I was driving home from work at ~1am or so Pacific time when the first report came over the wire. It said (I distinctly remember this): "The CIA has reported..."
According to the first news story broadcast in Seattle concerning the crime, it was the CIA who made it public. All subsequent reports I heard omitted this fact, citing instead other sources for the information.
The significance of this fact is left as an exercise in conspiracy theorizing for the reader.:-)
compiler: Strictly speaking, a program that munches up another program and spits out yet another file containing the program in a more executable form, typically containing native machine instructions. The perl program is not a compiler by this definition, but it does contain a compiler that takes a program and turns it into a more executable form (syntax trees) within the perl process itself, which the interpreter then interprets...
The point: Perl's compilation ain't machine code, and it ain't assembler. It's certainly fast -- but let's not pretend it's anything other than what it is: an interpreted language.
And that puts it at a disadvantage, performance-wise, against C++/C code which is as well-optimized as the perl interpreter.
Having said all that, I work with interpreted languages all day, and I would not even consider trying to re-implement those programs in C++ or C -- not until I was convinced that I could do it faster/better than the interpreter -- which is *highly* optimized for speed.
The obvious tradeoff here is in development time. Perl's here and ready to use, and it's easy -- so why not use it? On the other hand, I suspect it wouldn't be hard to come up with scenarios where someone might want to do CGI in a language like C++ or C -- in spite of the extra development time required.
So write it as an Apache module. Database connections aren't going to be any slower in C++, and if you can keep the database connection open in Perl you can obviously do it in C++ too, hmmm?
Ah, yes, if can't code your way out of a paper bag, and for everything you need to do you need someone elses work, you might need 15 CPAN modules.
It's called "code reuse." Unless you're actively learning how to program, why on earth should you do it all yourself -- unless of course you're convinced you can do it better than anyone else?
I can do lots and lots of useful things, without having the need to pull in a single module. Now, try to do anything useful in C, without pulling in a single library.
Sorry, but I don't get the "virtue" in this. I'd *much* rather use a library or module or whatever of tested/debugged/optimized code written by someone else than spend my time doing it all over again.
I'm not badmouthing Perl here at all; the fact that so much can be done in it is a strength. My point is that I'd rather not waste time reinventing the wheel.
Slashdot Mirror
Patents were designed to stimulate progress
Setting aside the question of whether this has ever been true, it is manifestly untrue in the sphere of software. The Internet stands or falls on free, unpatented software: the DNS system and bind. Email stands or falls almost exclusively on free, unpatented sendmail. The WWW and hyperlinking could have been patented. Any programming language, regex engine, or spell-checker could have been patented. So could text processors (a la awk/sed), and image processors.
I could go on, but the point is simple: innovation has in NO way been stifled in ANY of these domains by the fact that patents have not been applied and enforced in them. In short, your argument doesn't hold water from the very start.
There is ONE way in which patents have "stimulated progress" in the realm of software: organizations and individuals outraged over software patents have gone on to create BETTER software in order to circumvent them (I'm thinking here of Unisys and their ridiculous GIF licensing). Somehow I don't think that's what you meant.
It is a preposterous ad hominem to suppose that the people who are opposed to Amazon's actions are nothing more than a bunch of pirates. If they were, they would not be outraged by the patents, because their activities would be unaffected by them. Secondly, your irresponsible insinuation is trumped by Tim O'Reilly himself: a man who actually stands to lose money by upsetting one of his customers.
your behavior is both unethical (as defined by the Bible) and illegal
Your argument is without merit, and so your conclusion suffers the same defect. You tar the Slashdot community with one brush. Your characterization of that community cannot bear even a moment's scrutiny.
Amazon is the hypocritical party here: they whine and moan about protecting their "Intellectual Property" and yet their very existence is dependent upon free and UNPATENTED software.
So it's part of modern business. Big deal. Shall we cynically suck it up, or shall we protest this idiocy? Whatever you might think, frivoulous patents like this must be fought. Or are you blind to the ultimate effects such things have on both software and the Internet?
In my defense, though, g++ doesn't handle them right yet either. So std::printf("Blah\n"); and printf("Blah\n"); are effectively equivalent.
Actually, I also mistook your point. I thought your point was that the equivalent C++ program was exactly the same length as the C version.
Sigh. Some days it doesn't pay to nitpick...
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
printf("Hello, World!\n");
}
Don't you really mean something like this?
#include <cstdio>
int main()
{
printf("Hello World!\n");
return 0;
}
Perhaps I missed it, but precisely where does Katz the Drooler condemn the violence perpetrated by some of the protesters? I find this comment, which is more of an excuse than a condemnation: "the birth of political movements is usually neither pretty nor coherent". Elsewhere Katz excuses these brutes thusly: "Small wonder the protesters were furious." Great, Katz.
Katz fancies himself a social commentator, and he may suppose that as such he need not condemn that upon which he comments. But given his eager readiness to condemn other things with which he disagrees (e.g., the "corporatism" which he attacks throughout this column, or those who hold to anything resembling a Judeo-Christian ethic -- whom he attacks in almost everything else I've ever seen that he wrote), I can't help but wonder about this omission.
So tell us, Katz: do you condemn violence or not?
The protestors in Seattle made some telling, nearly irrefutable arguments.
And which ones were those, Katz? The ones where they were destroying public and private property, or the ones they made while protesting peacefully?
Corporatism has, in fact, damaged the environment by creating incalculable amounts of products that pollute and trash the earth.
Tell us, Katz: do they just litter the countryside with those products, or are they purchased by someone? And if they are purchased by someone, that suggests that the corporations provide a product that someone wants, doesn't it? Tell us Katz: Are YOU buying any of these products? You are? What does that tell us about your moral standing for criticizing those who produce what YOU want, Katz?
controversial, profane, sexual or other "controversial" cultural offerings from books to movies to music are eliminated or pushed to the margins so that safer products can be mass-marketed.
Is this why a supermajority of the movies coming out of Hollywood are rated R or PG-13, while only a tiny handful get the "safer" rating of G? Katz, do you think at all before you spew this stuff?
Younger workers are forced into dead-end and poorly paid positions with little chance of advancement or meaningful work
Is there any conceivable way there could be an actual REASON for this, Katz? Like this: maybe those "younger workers" are typically so inexperienced and underqualified that they cannot get the hot jobs.
The roots of the demonstrations lie in the notion that companies are behaving immorally.
What's this? Katz is complaining that someone is behaving immorally? I thought that Katz the Drooler resented all those who have systems of morality to guide their behavior. Let me check...yes, he surely does despise them. This is some remarkable hypocrisy here, Katz. You condemn the Christian, yet here you are trying to impose your OWN morality on corporations. Very nice indeed. You set a good example for your children (if any).
Corporatism is a civic menace. It pushes the individual aside. It spawns greed, passivity and conformity.
I'm happy that you're such an impartial commentator, Katz. Now tell us: do you condemn the violence in Seattle or not?
Ain't going back to Egypt. No, no.
A democracy protects the interests of a minority against the will of a majority.
This sounds very noble, but it doesn't work. Why? Because business owners are a minority in this nation too. Only a small fraction of people actually employ others.
Where is their protection, hmm?
The result of what you are saying is this: a bazillion (that's a technical term for "lots and lots" :-) little "minority groups" all seeking protection from the will of the majority. This is a recipe for grinding a free society to a pulp. It can't work, and we shouldn't try to make it do so.
By its very nature a democracy -- i.e., direct majority rule by the people themselves (which we do NOT have here in the U.S., by the way) -- ALWAYS tramples on whoever's not in the majority. ALWAYS. It's inescapable.
Secondly, in terms of intent of the authors: you will not find any of them ever arguing that the Constitution does not protect private property. This issue was in fact critical (though it wasn't the only issue) in inciting the War for Independence.
The founders -- elites though they were -- were cut from a rather different cloth than the elitists of today. Our modern elitists think they know better than you and I how we ought to live. The founders did not share such an arrogant conceit, but it is this hubris which explains why our modern snobs don't have a problem with shoving the ADA and like legislation down the throats of the people. "We know better" is their refrain. It's garbage.
Well, you *also* said (and this is what I jumped all over -- at least, this is what set me in a foul mood because I misunderstood you):
You may like to think that laize-fair (SP?) economics is an constitutional right, but it isn't.
But anyway, this is neither here nor there. As for me not objecting to a state ADA-type law: I would not object on the grounds of the U.S. Constitution, no. But I would *strongly* object to it if I lived in such a state. Aside from the question of whether states may constitutionally do so, it is a broken and defective goal as I've stated in other posts. It's both economically and potentially technically impossible to so arrange any business so that literally anyone having any "disability" whatsoever can access it as "easily" as those without disabilities. It is therefore irrational and foolish. Nor do I see how it is a "reasonable" regulation of any business to dictate to them whom they must accept as either customers or employees.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal law. It is unconstitutional.
I know it's bad form to attack one's spelling, but given the facts that a) you call me a drug user and b) you call me a moron and c) your particular screed was laced with rather egregious errors, I decided to meet the ad hominem with an ad hominem. No more offense intended than you intended for me. :-)
I know that many of the less subtle readers of Slashdot will conclude from the following that I'm a racist, but I can't help it. This has nothing to do with racism. The Constitution guarantees our rights of free association and assembly. As abominable as segregation was (and the segregation laws were even worse), the Constitution does not support the noxious pattern of federal civil rights laws which abridged Constitutionally guaranteed rights of association. You're not going to find in the Constitution any support for it.
Don't misunderstand me: I am grateful that segregation has ended. The means (coercion by federal mandate) was illegitimate.
So: at this point you will probably stop listening, having falsely concluded that I'm a bigot. I can't help that. Saying that the Constitution doesn't support something that I personally would endorse -- namely, the end of segregation -- may look bad, but it's a question of the rule of law. If we don't like the Constitution, there are constitutionally defined procedures for amending it. Apart from that, I don't see how the federal government can constitutionally justify the federally coerced end of segregation (to be distinguished from requiring the abolition of segregationist *laws*). The 14th Amendment forbids the states from doing anything that might "abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States", and one might make an argument from this for abolishing the states' segregationist laws, but the 14th Amendment says NOTHING about the people and their right to choose -- however noxiously -- the people with whom they'll do business. It's just not there.
And with respect to democracy: you (or some other AC??) said that a "primary objective" of the Constitution was to establish a democracy. The Preamble declares the purposes of the Constitution. The fact that the founders established a republic for the purpose of achieving their stated goals (as found in the Preamble) does not mean that a "democracy" was a "primary objective".
And if you can't tell the difference between a republic and a democracy, I can't help you.
And we're still waiting for some indication of a text of the Constitution that grants the federal government the power to dictate whom I will do business with or whom I will employ. Barring that, the 10th Amendment should rule (and the noxious ADA should be repealed).
Proof please. Of course they did. The extent to which they did so was much less than today.
Firstly, medical science could not get them to adulthood. Secondly, if they were lucky to get to that age, they were left to the whims of their family.
The first is true -- far fewer of the disabled lived so long as they do today. The second is mostly true, in that charity was private rather than public -- oh that we could return to that system! But the suggestion that none of them were able to work at all is simply ridiculous.
Drop your comparisons to the eighteenth century - they make no sense whatsoever.
Then perhaps I wasn't clear. The point is this: there were people in the 18th century who would have been in the exact same economic predicament as our present class of disabled people. The founders of this country surely knew this. Knowing this, they could have actually written a constitution which includes the powers that the feds illegally assert today in the ADA.
But they didn't do so.
I'm amazed by your antipathy to historical argument. Don't you think that history has anything to say about our present conditions?
Too late :-)
you will find that your statement is entirely false.
I made a number of assertions. Which one is false? All of them? Ha!
Your vision of a pure, unregulated market
What "vision" of mine is that, pray tell? Have you not been reading? I have said three times before in this thread (this is the fourth) that I do NOT advocate what you call a "pure, unregulated market." Nor do I care particularly what Teddy Roosevelt did in this particular discussion. My point has been this: the ADA is unconstitutional. Read the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the staes respectively, or to the people."
In other words: if the Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to dictate the terms under which employers hire employees, then the federal government may not do so. If the Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to dictate to businesses who their customers will be and how those businesses will serve their customers, then the federal government may not do so. End of discussion -- unless you can provide for us the text of the Constitution which does provide that power.
But you can't, because it's not there.
I wish you people would stop quarrelling with these idle opinions about what seems right to you. I might even agree -- you'll never know. That's not the point. The point is what the Constitution says it permits. And it does not permit the federal government to pass idiot noxious laws like the ADA.
The constitution is simply there to tell you what basic rules any new laws have to follow.
You don't know what a constitution is, do you? Well, sadly, you're not alone. Our fine government schools have failed to pass on even this rudimentary knowledge about our form of government. A constitution is the set of rules that a government must follow. A constitution gives said government only the powers it specifically declares, unless it states otherwise. And in this case, the U.S. Constitution most definitely states otherwise. Here, for your edification, is the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. (empasis added)
Get that? The Constitution says: if it ain't in here, it belongs to the states and to the people. So what you said is not just wrong. It is EXPLICITLY wrong.
Consequently, unless you can demonstrate for us all where it is in the Constitution that your "government mandates of handicapped accesiblilty" [sic] may be found, you have no case. None. The Constitution FORBIDS it unless it's in the Constitution. And the "power" (described in the ADA) to force business owners to "accommodate" the disabled is most definitely NOT in the Constitution. Period.
If Jefferson were alive today, he would waste no time in organizing an effort to bring the consitution up to date, particularly with reference to guns.
Ha Ha! That's funny! Oh...you were serious. Hmmm. Unfortunately, you also don't understand the 2nd Amendment and the arguments that were made for it at the time.
government protection of the handicapped is abstractly inferred by the observence of inalienable rights for American cicitzens
Those inalienable rights (found in the Declaration of Independence and not in the Constitution) were these: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. From which of these do you infer the notion of government protection of the handicapped?
which I think fairly imply that the handicapped should be able to use a public washroom in dignity.
I have no problem with this. I have a problem with the federal government attempting to impose this on the whole country. It's unconstitutional. If the states want to do so, that's a different thing -- but the federal government has no such constitutional power.
the principle of protection for the disabled is exactly rooted in the democratic principles you are extolling.
The disabled have the same rights protected by the Constitution as everyone else -- no more, no less. The Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to interfere in intrastate commerce (which the ADA does). The Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to dictate the terms under which a business owner makes hiring decisions. This is a form of statism and it is utterly antithetical to the Constitution.
If an otherwise disabled person has skills which would be useful in my business, then I have an economic decision to make: whether it will be profitable for my business to make such accommodations as are necessary for that person to be employed by me. I do not hire people primarily for their benefit. I hire people primarily for the benefit they will provide to my business.
If (whether because I judge the costs of accommodation to be too high, or because I'm a bigot) I choose not to hire the disabled person, I forgo the benefits that I might have enjoyed from their talents, and I face the prospect of my competition gaining a potential competitive edge. In short, I suffer at least one (and possibly two) economic losses.
If I am able to find an able-bodied person capable of performing at the same level as the disabled person, then I am free to hire either one. Right? You don't mean to suggest that I have some sort of ethical responsibility to prefer the disabled person, do you?
The Constitution affords the disabled person the same right to compete with other potential employees. The Constitution does NOT grant the federal government the power to force potential employers to hire *anyone*.
The freedom to employ someone implies the freedom to NOT employ someone, doesn't it?
Please note: I am not intending to say anything about the ethics that employers ought to consider in there hiring practices. My point is that the Constitution doesn't make the kind of promises that the ADA does, and so the ADA is unconstitutional. They had disabled people in the 1780s. The founders knew it. They could have said it if they meant it. They didn't. The constitution could be amended if people don't like it, but ignoring it is tantamount to overthrowing the rule of law.
No I haven't. The primary objective is found in the Preamble (note the words "in order to": they indicate purpose). And what does the Preamble say "We the People...do ordain and establish" the Constitution for?
Now, under which of those heads do you find "democracy"? It's not there. Nice try though.
A democracy protects the interests of a minority against the will of a majority.
And what about protecting the majority from the will of a minority? Really now, wasn't that precisely what the Revolutionary War was fought over -- getting out from under the tyrannous behavior of a British king? You can't get a smaller minority than one person! But anyway, this is all moot since your original point about the primary objective of the Constitution was incorrect.
In a nutshell, it means you need to build a wheel chair ramp even though only one person might ever use it.
First -- carried to its logical conclusion, this is an argument for society making "accommodations" for literally *every* form of disability in the world. So when do we start making the workplace safe for the boy in the plastic bubble?
More seriously though: 1) the costs of doing so -- remember, for literally every disability, even if only one person might need it -- is impossibly high. It can't be done. Further, people have disabilities which "conflict" with the disabilities of others. How exactly will you "accommodate" the agoraphobe *and* the claustrophobe (yes Virginia, mental conditions have been covered by the ADA)? 2) There is not a shred of support in the Constitution for this. None. So even if it were feasible -- either economically or by the laws of physics -- there is no constitutional authority for it.
the majority cannot knowingly marginalize a minority or refrain from providing a decent and acceptable basis of opportunity (meaning someone in a wheelchair who is a great programmer cannot be overlooked for employment at your company because he can't climb the stairs - you need to give him a decent and reasonable basis of opportunity to compete with able-bodied programmers).
In the first place: if I forgo the opportunity to hire a highly-skilled individual, then I suffer a loss -- both in terms of the skills I don't have at my disposal, and in the fact that one of my competitors may very well benefit from hiring that person. But this should be MY choice -- and I'd have to live with the consequences of my decision.
Secondly, what is this word "cannot"? Obviously I *can* do it. Are you saying it's immoral? Are you saying that a business owner doesn't have the right to choose on his own terms the people he will hire? On what grounds?
Lastly -- I'm certainly not saying that AOL shouldn't "accommodate" these folk. The choice should be theirs, though. The ADA is illegitimate and unconstitutional and needs to be repealed. It's far more noxious than Prohibition (another bad law) ever was.
The offensive tone you take in claiming that you made no such implication is a common troll tactic.
I'll be willing to grant that I misinterpreted your remarks in your first post as what I called it: a cheap, dumb, debating tactic. I apologize for that. As for the rest of my tone: it was reserved for a flaming AC who couldn't make an argument. I'll try to behave in your case.
I and the AC pointed out that the constitution makes no mention of a right to unfettered commerce.
And the problem here is that you are misunderstanding me and the Constitution. For the third time: I do not advocate commerce without *any* regulation whatsoever.
With respect to the more important issue of misunderstanding the Constitution: I said that it guarantees the right to private property, which is the basis of a free market (note: the word "unfettered" appears nowhere in that sentence). There is no such thing as a free market where there is no right to private property. There is no such thing as private property when there is no free market, either. In the U.S. we have what has been called a "mixed" economy.
The critical issue has to do with the sort of regulation of interstate commerce that the founders intended. It has to do with what is meant by the term "interstate commerce." I can guarantee you that they would have considered the ADA a blatant usurpation of power not granted by the Constitution. Those men were not socialists. They weren't welfarists. They were not social liberals. *No* constitutional scholar of any standing at all attempts to defend the modern welfare state in terms of what the founders intended with the Constitution. They don't do so because it can't be done. Instead, they resort to "re-interpreting" the Constitution. They call it a "living" document. Either that or they say that it's outdated and far too old to have anything relevant to say to modern society.
Sorry, but this doesn't wash. There's nothing new under the sun. The Romans (and who knows who else before them?) tried the welfare state: "bread and circuses" and all that. It's broken. It doesn't work. The founders knew it.
And even if these Constitution-haters were right: this does not excuse the blatant and lawless disregard for the Constitution -- the law of the land -- that prevails among those self-same re-interpreters. Oh, they'll keep that First Amendment, but they don't want anything to do with the rest of it if it means checks on federal power.
Again, in summary: the right to private property is guaranteed by the Constitution. The states may make whatever silly laws they want about it. The federal government may regulate interstate commerce, but there is no possible way that can legitimately extend to the ADA -- not when the feds claim that it applies even to businesses which have nothing whatever to do with said interstate commerce (but as I said, there's no chance that Madison, Jefferson, et. al. would have countenanced this mad bureaucratic regulation).
I hope that's less offensive. :-)
Not hardly.
Only when you make a commercial building/website/etc. do govenment rules apply.
So privately held enterprises somehow lose their rights to private property? Is that what you mean to suggest?
The constitution may protect private property rights but it does not give the right to unfettered commerce.
Yes, yes. As I said to the AC: Duh. No one (including me) has suggested otherwise. This is infinitely far from saying that the ADA is legitimate.
If a state can charge sales tax, then why can't that state also make other demands? You may not like it, but it's the same use of authority.If it were a state that invented the ADA I wouldn't be complaining about its constitutionality. But it's not, and the rules are different. Just because New York can impose its own version of ADA has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the federal government can impose such a noxious burden on business.
As to the suggestion that the federal government has certain powers from which we may "infer" other "powers": sorry. That doesn't work when you have a Constitution. By its very nature a constitution defines the powers of an organization, so that it does not have *any* powers outside of what its constitution provides. And there is simply no way that one can rationally interpret the U.S. Constitution as to even suggest that the federal government has the right to impose an idiotic burden like the ADA -- not even in the name of an alleged regulation of interstate commerce.
We can choose to have the state use it's power to protect the disabled, or we could choose to have the state keep out of it. The power has always been there, the ADA just uses it in a new way.
Well no. This is not true. The U.S. Constitution defines the powers of the United States Government. "Protecting the disabled" (as something other than citizens) is simply not among the powers the Constitution provides. The fact that the feds "can" do it has nothing to do with having any ethical or constitutional grounds for doing so.
Oh goody, I've touched a nerve.
The U.S. Constitution does not support the welfare state. The only people who pretend that it does are fabulists who call it a "living document". Not even Lawrence Tribe would be so stupid as to suggest that the founders of the United States would be considered statists. Pray tell, however: what exact *text* of the Constitution is it that you misinterpret so as to defend the idea that (as I wrote) "the state somehow has a 'duty' or 'obligation' to improve the lifestyle of the disadvantaged at the expense of those who are not similarly disadvantaged"? Enough blather, AC: how about an actual citation of an actual section of the Constitution that supports your raving? Hint: the commerce clause ain't it.
And while the Constitution is not a law of nature, and certainly isn't perfect, it is still (hypothetically anyway, here at the end of the 20th century) the law.
You missed the point, moron. She was talking about "laissez-faire" nonsense, which is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of a free market.
Duh. It's a reductio that fails, even ignoring her inability to spell it. It was a failed effort to demonize the original poster. She was blatantly insinuating that anyone opposed to the ADA -- an immoral law -- is somehow also opposed to any restrictions upon the market at all. It was a cheap, dumb, debating trick that you seem to be defending.
The right to own property does not imply that the government is forbidden to regulate commerce
Again: Duh. I never said otherwise. Why not deal with what I said rather than with these straw men you keep setting up? Is it easier for you? You'll note -- if you actually bother to read my post -- that I said the Constitution guarantees the right to private property; I said nothing about an utterly unfettered one. It seems that you have a problem sticking to the topic.
The Federal Government is granted the power to regulate interstate commerce by the Constitution.
Which fact only demonstrates the immoral and tyrannical (not to mention unconstitutional) nature of the ADA. Precisely how does a private shopkeeper (in a town of 500 who makes baskets from materials he grows himself) engage in "interstate commerce"? And yet this abominable "law" is said to apply to him.
And I haven't even touched upon the ludicrous lengths to which idiot judges, lawyers and congressmen go in stretching the commerce clause so that it applies to whatever they find convenient to regulate. They have abandoned the very spirit of the Constitution. "You breathe air, and air moves freely from state to state. Therefore your business is subject to federal laws under the commerce clause." Right. This is an absurdity -- for now. But I am not holding my breath that it won't be tried by some raving leftist judge with delusions of grandeur, with idiot dreams about how he "knows better" than the rest of us how we ought to live our lives.
This is precisely why the ADA is a regulatory abomination. It is an evil, immoral "law." It is tyranny.
The whole thing is preposterous. The simple and unpleasant fact is that people have different abilities and disabilities. That's life. It is not the responsibility of any government to FORCE me or anyone to change how we do business/live our lives for the sake of "accommodating" people with *any* disability whatsoever.
You and I are (or should be) free to *choose* to make accommodations for those with disabilities. It is tyrannical to stick a gun to my head and compel me to do it.
So -- it's legitimate for government to do this? Says who? On what philosophical basis is this sort of nonsense thinking founded?
This sort of nonsense thinking is founded upon the preposterous notion that the state somehow has a "duty" or "obligation" to improve the lifestyle of the disadvantaged at the expense of those who are not similarly disadvantaged. This is insane.
You may like to think that laize-fair (SP?) economics is an constitutional right, but it isn't.
Actually you'd be mistaken there. The right to own private property IS a constitutional one, and it is this that is the foundation for the free market.
On the other hand, your ridiculous premise that the state must "require accessability so that diabled people can live some sort of independent life" is NOWHERE to be found in the U.S. Constitution.
Let's review: private property rights are raped by the ADA, which has no constitutional foundation.
Which means that you are wrong.
According to the first news story broadcast in Seattle concerning the crime, it was the CIA who made it public. All subsequent reports I heard omitted this fact, citing instead other sources for the information.
The significance of this fact is left as an exercise in conspiracy theorizing for the reader. :-)
The point: Perl's compilation ain't machine code, and it ain't assembler. It's certainly fast -- but let's not pretend it's anything other than what it is: an interpreted language.
And that puts it at a disadvantage, performance-wise, against C++/C code which is as well-optimized as the perl interpreter.
Having said all that, I work with interpreted languages all day, and I would not even consider trying to re-implement those programs in C++ or C -- not until I was convinced that I could do it faster/better than the interpreter -- which is *highly* optimized for speed.
The obvious tradeoff here is in development time. Perl's here and ready to use, and it's easy -- so why not use it? On the other hand, I suspect it wouldn't be hard to come up with scenarios where someone might want to do CGI in a language like C++ or C -- in spite of the extra development time required.
So write it as an Apache module. Database connections aren't going to be any slower in C++, and if you can keep the database connection open in Perl you can obviously do it in C++ too, hmmm?
It's called "code reuse." Unless you're actively learning how to program, why on earth should you do it all yourself -- unless of course you're convinced you can do it better than anyone else?
I can do lots and lots of useful things, without having the need to pull in a single module. Now, try to do anything useful in C, without pulling in a single library.
Sorry, but I don't get the "virtue" in this. I'd *much* rather use a library or module or whatever of tested/debugged/optimized code written by someone else than spend my time doing it all over again.
I'm not badmouthing Perl here at all; the fact that so much can be done in it is a strength. My point is that I'd rather not waste time reinventing the wheel.