America should probably do what the French have done and ban the teaching of religion in schools. They teach philosophy instead and leave religion and other superstitions out of it.
Personally I don't see how anyone can advocate teaching "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution. How do dinosaurs fit into ID, and if we're talking about theories why not bring in the tooth fairy and scientology as well?
"If it were not for MS, the average computer price would be outrageous. MS helped drive down the cost of computers to where the average person can afford them."
This is nonsense. For one thing there used to be plenty of cheap personal computers that were competing with the x86. For another, the commoditisation of the x86 was due to IBM making the PC around standard components so that Compaq only had to reverse engineer the BIOS in order to make a clone. Microsoft had nothing to do with either.
This is what I'd assumed it was doing (a bit like this).
Wouldn't it be cool if you could serach for images in a similar fashion. You could have a 10x10 grid where you could place different colours ("The image I'm looking for was light blue in the top half and green in the bottom half")...
Yahoo's been doing a lot of cool stuff recently (eg their Creative Commons Search) but for some reason they don't seem to get the recognition that Google has.
Ah,/. seems to screw up the query string in the link for some reason. Here's the summary from the bottom of the page comparing Java with C++ g++ for all benchmarks:
Java better - C++ g++ better
Full CPU Time: 2-9 (C++ wins) Memory Use: 0-11 (C++ wins) CPU Time: 2-9 (C++ wins) Code Lines: 9-1 (Java wins)
If I'd used the (very good) Intel C++ compiler the results would have been even more in C++'s favour.
I think games are a bit different to other apps in that they are closer to media like films and music than they are to other types of software.
If a way exists of making money from selling software on Linux I think it's more likely to be through selling games than selling any other kind of program.
In the UK there's currently a really stupid and nasty "craze" called happy slapping which started as a form of bullying in schools but progressed onto the high-street. Many people think that happy slapping was inspired by a TV program called Trigger Happy TV and I can imagine a lot of people in the UK getting upset that a game like this might encourage more of the same.
For some reason I find myself reminded of A Clockwork Orange...
Fair point, but if he knows he's not going to use that code in a thread isn't this okay - he can always change it later if he ever rewrites the code to use threads.
Isn't the use of static variables a good thing if the alternative is to use global variables. If he was using C++ he would probably encapsulate these and have a method using a private attribute, but given that he's using C isn't it okay?
Because the European countries have evolved seperately over the last couple of thousand years they all have different legal systems, and that situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. As a result it is not possible to pass exactly the same law in every country and this is where directives come in.
A directive is a specification of a new law. That specification must then be implemented in each member state's legal framework. It's a bit like a C coder, a LISP coder and a COBOL coder all implementing a spec in their respective languages - the code will be completely different but the user shouldn't be able to tell the difference.
"most of them do programming without having an idea of what they actually do"
Could you be more precise? If they are programming without knowing they're programming it sounds like they're writing Excel macros or something similar. If that's the case don't you think "C-based hacks or puzzles" will be too difficult for them?
This was the last time I looked at the default RedHat and SuSE desktops (both brand new installations), so any daemons or applets would have been the ones that those distros run as default.
As usual I was unimpressed with both, and in this case replaced them with Slackware.
I know that my computer runs 10 times slower when using KDE or GNOME (and that's without any applications running). Reusable code is all well and good but why are these DEs so slooow?
"By the way, you *do* know that having the choice of which desktop to run is one of the great things about Linux, right? Don't like KDE? Run GNOME. Don't like GNOME? Run KDE. Don't like either? Run another Window Manager like Fluxbox or IceWM."
"Technically, it makes sense to make a file-browser and a web-browser use the same code"
How does it make technical sense for a file-browser and a web-browser to "use the same code"? I've never heard a good reason for this and believe that KDE just copied Windows in this respect. Microsoft made Windows behave this way so that they could more easily make the claim that IE was an integral part of Windows and could not be removed.
Slashdot Mirror
America should probably do what the French have done and ban the teaching of religion in schools. They teach philosophy instead and leave religion and other superstitions out of it.
Personally I don't see how anyone can advocate teaching "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution. How do dinosaurs fit into ID, and if we're talking about theories why not bring in the tooth fairy and scientology as well?
"If it were not for MS, the average computer price would be outrageous. MS helped drive down the cost of computers to where the average person can afford them."
This is nonsense. For one thing there used to be plenty of cheap personal computers that were competing with the x86. For another, the commoditisation of the x86 was due to IBM making the PC around standard components so that Compaq only had to reverse engineer the BIOS in order to make a clone. Microsoft had nothing to do with either.
The vikings discovered America 500 years before Columbus.
This is what I'd assumed it was doing (a bit like this).
Wouldn't it be cool if you could serach for images in a similar fashion. You could have a 10x10 grid where you could place different colours ("The image I'm looking for was light blue in the top half and green in the bottom half")...
Yahoo's been doing a lot of cool stuff recently (eg their Creative Commons Search) but for some reason they don't seem to get the recognition that Google has.
Whoops, hadn't thought of that. I was thinking more about the sort of program your average /. reader had a chance of making.
Ah, /. seems to screw up the query string in the link for some reason. Here's the summary from the bottom of the page comparing Java with C++ g++ for all benchmarks:
Java better - C++ g++ better
Full CPU Time: 2-9 (C++ wins)
Memory Use: 0-11 (C++ wins)
CPU Time: 2-9 (C++ wins)
Code Lines: 9-1 (Java wins)
If I'd used the (very good) Intel C++ compiler the results would have been even more in C++'s favour.
I think games are a bit different to other apps in that they are closer to media like films and music than they are to other types of software.
If a way exists of making money from selling software on Linux I think it's more likely to be through selling games than selling any other kind of program.
Ahh, that explains why so many recent games have been written in Java ;)
"If the original was written in C++, you'll probably have comparable speed."
Riiight.
C++ is considerably faster than Java according to the Computer Language Shootout Benchmarks
Next time, try clicking the "Read More..." link below each story summary on the front page.
In the UK there's currently a really stupid and nasty "craze" called happy slapping which started as a form of bullying in schools but progressed onto the high-street. Many people think that happy slapping was inspired by a TV program called Trigger Happy TV and I can imagine a lot of people in the UK getting upset that a game like this might encourage more of the same.
For some reason I find myself reminded of A Clockwork Orange...
Ah, I just looked at the code. That's quite pointless actually isn't it?
Fair point, but if he knows he's not going to use that code in a thread isn't this okay - he can always change it later if he ever rewrites the code to use threads.
Isn't the use of static variables a good thing if the alternative is to use global variables. If he was using C++ he would probably encapsulate these and have a method using a private attribute, but given that he's using C isn't it okay?
"In the Soviet Union there were few benefits to inventing or excelling"
Unless of course Stalin was threatening to have you killed - it brings new meaning to the phrase "innovate or die"!
Because the European countries have evolved seperately over the last couple of thousand years they all have different legal systems, and that situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. As a result it is not possible to pass exactly the same law in every country and this is where directives come in.
A directive is a specification of a new law. That specification must then be implemented in each member state's legal framework. It's a bit like a C coder, a LISP coder and a COBOL coder all implementing a spec in their respective languages - the code will be completely different but the user shouldn't be able to tell the difference.
"most of them do programming without having an idea of what they actually do"
Could you be more precise? If they are programming without knowing they're programming it sounds like they're writing Excel macros or something similar. If that's the case don't you think "C-based hacks or puzzles" will be too difficult for them?
Alternatively you could take a look at COBOL For GCC
Also, who's going to buy anything from a company that's going to go bust in a year or two and get stuck without any customer support?
As has been said before: does "Hans" sound Canadian?
Danish name, Danish island.
"they are using their classic method of producing superior software by catering to the needs of the user"
LOL! - sounds like this review was written by a Microsoft shill to me, as almost everything was a reimplementation of features in FireFox.
I liked the combined back/foward list, but this seems to be the only feature it has that FireFox misses...
This was the last time I looked at the default RedHat and SuSE desktops (both brand new installations), so any daemons or applets would have been the ones that those distros run as default.
As usual I was unimpressed with both, and in this case replaced them with Slackware.
"invariably have no idea what "bloat" means"
I know that my computer runs 10 times slower when using KDE or GNOME (and that's without any applications running). Reusable code is all well and good but why are these DEs so slooow?
It is normally better to annoy some power-users a little bit rather than baffle newbies.
Which is why Linux newbies all use GNOME or KDE at first and typically move to a lightweight window manager once they become power-users.
"By the way, you *do* know that having the choice of which desktop to run is one of the great things about Linux, right? Don't like KDE? Run GNOME. Don't like GNOME? Run KDE. Don't like either? Run another Window Manager like Fluxbox or IceWM."
Amen brother.
"Technically, it makes sense to make a file-browser and a web-browser use the same code"
How does it make technical sense for a file-browser and a web-browser to "use the same code"? I've never heard a good reason for this and believe that KDE just copied Windows in this respect. Microsoft made Windows behave this way so that they could more easily make the claim that IE was an integral part of Windows and could not be removed.