The code reformatting can be done manually, via a command line tool, via the IDE or not at all. My mention of using an IDE to reformat text doesn't create the same IDE dependency you refer to.
This is one thing I never quite get about python criticism. Sure, whitespace is significant, but I've never had it break easily or be "brittle" as you say.
Anytime you refactor stuff, or modify something even somewhat nested, especially in a 'dumb text editor', it's a pain in the ass.
Anytime you need to pass code snippets via email, forums, etc... well... you just don't because its a total waste of time.:)
Its also easy to barf all over code going into word processors, pdf files, and so forth. Its nice to be able to copy-paste some C out of a PDF file or an email, or off a forum, and then tell the ide to just reformat it.
erhaps the use of whitespace isn't the real issue many people have with python, but rather delineating blocks using whitespace exposes a bit of an inherent flaw in the way they structure their program's flow.
No. Because we use whitespace / indenting in our C / C++ etc projects too. We even have standards requiring it, and our IDEs / toolchains may even be set up to reformat it just-so before commits. We want all the benefits of well formatted code.
We just like the IDE to do all the work actually formatting it, and reformatting it as neccessary.
Either way, having a proper IDE
Is how you lose the argument. Everyone but python groupies agrees that any programming language worth considering MUST have its programs represented as plaintext files, with no proprietary / binary stuff that can only be accessed with specialized tools. Requiring an IDE is the sign of a bad language.
Python passes this test, but it can be pretty hideous to use with an arbitrary text editor. And really, even brainfuck wouldn't be too bad with the right IDE, right?
Python is readable and readable code is easier to fix.
True and true. But Python's use of semantic whitespace is also very brittle very easy to break, and a huge pain in the ass to fix compared to languages that use braces, or keywords to define 'blocks'.
But that's not even terribly relevant here, because this article is about the source code used for the python interpreter, which is C, not python.
i fixed this problem on my project using javascript closures.
How does that fix anything? Every time I visit your project, I must rely on your java script. The fact that it is correct today does nothing for me tomorrow.
A secure solution requires that there is nothing you can do to get my key.
You could simply change the java script on your site tomorrow, and slurp the key next time I visit.
Essentially one has to decouple the client from the service, so that I use a client YOU DON'T CONTROL. That is the only way I can secure the key from you.
In terms of a web service, all I can think of is to have your java script is audited by me or someone i designate and then it's signed BY ME (since I can't trust a 3rd party signer won't be NSA-coerced into signing your malware updates), and then you aren't allowed to change it, without it being re-audited by me or someone i designate.
Its saying that of the subset of those with suspicious backgrounds one in five is "linked" to terrorism.
We don't know how big that 'subset' is. It could be (and probably is) quite small. Of 5000 applicants, there might be 20 with "suspicious backgrounds", and of that 20 there might be 4 who they linked to terrorism. The "1 in 5 with links" are of the 20 that were already flagged as suspicious, not the entire pool of applicants.
Other people would invest but get unlucky and lose their entire investment (and it could be you)
This! a 1000 times this. People DO NOT GET THIS.
They think that if they "invest wisely", diversify, invest in index tracking funds, pay attention, and do all the right things, that they will be fine.
And this is idiotic. Statisically, yes, this will pan out. But investment is still a calculated risk. If this "do everything right strategy" yielded a 99.99% chance that you would have sufficient money for your retirement and everyone followed it there would still be several hundred thousand people who didn't.
Doing everything right does not guarantee a positive return. It maximizes the chances of a positive return, but a negative return is still entirely possible, and its going to happen to people, even people who did everything right.
Besides, what happens without social security?
Crime. Because the people who don't have enough to survive aren't going to just roll over and die, they'll try to take what they need any way the can from anyone they can.
In other words : No US-based cloud service can really fight the NSA;
The key to fighting the NSA is to provide a completely transparent API.
And then rely on 3rd parties to deliver software that uses the API.
Even if the NSA knows that I have account with the cloud service, they don't know what client I use, (and even if i do, the client is on my equipment not "service based" there is no easy target to send a gag order too.
Essentially, dropbox, skydrive etc are all perfectly suitable cloud services.
What we need is them to do isopen them up wide open to 3rd party client development.
Although, it not really any different to the fact that you don't need a drivers license to operate a bicycle, and most states don't require one even for an electric one provided its sufficiently low power.
And allow Google and the US government to scan all of my mail?
Well, routing it outside of gmail keep gmails hands off it, well the half that doesn't originate with them to start with. But i think you'll need to do quite a bit more to keep the us govt out of it.
No its wrong as in a cars performance is measured in alot more than horsepower.
Most people can name maybe 3 stats about their car... some sort of fuel economy figure, displacement (if its part of the model number or just badged on to the side of the car) and horsepower.
The problem i have is that he is intelligent enough as is, there is no need to make quirky wrong statements about subjects he doesnt know
Do you really think he doesn't know enough about cars to make an intelligent statement about this? Or is it more likely he just tweeted some vaguely-science related joke he heard some comic do at evening at the improv?
(Admittedly, the sole purpose of which is the sort of phenomena you cynically labelled the "circle-jerk with his fans")
I always liked Sagan and Feynman the most.
Feyman... I mean, *I* know the name Richard Feynman and what he did and what not... but I honestly can't think of him in terms of regular public awareness / celebrity at all... it really doesn't help that he's been dead for 25 years now.
Sagan has much better name recognition, although he's fading now too. Being dead does that.
There is no Right to Drive in the US, where driving is a rather a privilege.
The privilege of operating a motor vehicle on public roads, and the right to be a passenger in one are VERY VERY different things.
Similiarly I don't think anyone is especially outraged that the government restricts who can fly a plane. (That would be anyone without a pilots license in good standing, which is most people, including me.) The contentious issue is restricting who can be a passenger in one.
asking why we measure a car performance in horsepower (already wrong on so many levels)
Wrong in that its exactly one of the most prominent performance metrics anyone looks at, while also being completely absurd.
. But seems to completely forget we measure a rockets performance in Pounds of thrust,
That's a far less arbitrary unit than horsepower. Admittedly its still a stupid unit... im not a rocket scientist though, but I'd have hoped rocketetry was largely done with SI units... thrust in Newtons, Specific Impulse in seconds, mass flow rate in kg/s, etc... and the conversion pounds thrust was just what gets shoveled out in press releases to have big numbers. That's what I'd have hoped... I'm prepared to be disappointed.
If this guy stopped spending his day trying to get circlejerked from his "fans" by posting idiotic shit all the time, i could probably take his opinions to mean something worthwhile.
Engaging with idiots is the nature of celebrity; and if your worst complaint is some cornball jokes that's not much of a complaint. Neil's done more good for science and space awareness than any actual physicist or rocket engineer I can think of.
In many respects getting regular people to think about and care about space is just as important for space exploration as actually doing the hard science. We need both.
but how much it costs to aquire a well known company vs. build a competing product in house.
They mostly bought the userbase not the product.
Google churned out Google Talk / Hangouts.
Know many people that use "Hangouts" for business? Or would be willing to pay actual money to use "Hangouts" for anything? I sure don't. As a free service, yeah I know some people using it, and although I have at least 3 active gmail accounts and an android phone with it pre-installed (2 even linked to google apps for enterprises, I've still never fired up hangouts.
if the ocean is constantly moving then you can't actually measure if it's rising or falling. Because it would need to stop moving to measure it.
So when im filling a pool from a hose while the kids are playing in it its impossible to determine that levels are rising, because of the waves and turbulence?
When "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" was released, there was a noticeable drop in real world crime for several weeks. The most plausible explanation was that the potential criminals were at home playing.
Followed by several weeks of elevated crime, as the potential criminals finished the game and were now inspired to shoot seagulls, dine and dash, rob hookers, then pimp them, then drive them across town at break neck speeds in stolen cars, and spray painting graffitti, all the while dealing with that annoying cousin who keeps phoning them with another job he should just do himself?
Oh, and Starbucks noted an increase in the sales of hot coffee.:p
If most people OCD read/reply the minute they hear it beep the fact that's its technically async is sort of beside the point.
It IS technically async, but most people don't seem to treat it like that. I've seen lots of people prioritize texting over a call they are actually in the middle of.
SMS for a LOT of people is the human equivalent of a non-maskable hardware interrupt.
Most people consider text messaging to be asynchronous communication to be responded to when the receiver is able.
Says someone who has never seen how people actually obsessively compulsively read texts during dinner, at movies, while driving, or using a toilet.
Not saying you are wrong on it being technically asynchronous, or about where the liability is. I think you are right.
But most people I see out in the world treat texting as 'talking on the phone without dialing'. And with texting systems like BBM where you can see if its delivered, or read... a lot of people get very irate if they see its delivered, read and not immediately responded too, and only slightly less irate if its delivered but not read.
The group that consider texting to be asynchronous and ok to be responded to at leisure is I think the minority.
A car racing game with guns so he can shoot his enemies -- doh that goes back to DeathTrack and Car Wars.
How about... a car racing game with guns but the car turns into a boat and motorcycle... hmm... Spyhunter
How about a car racing game where you destroy your enemies by jumping on them. Oh wait... that's SpeedRacer. Dammit. This is hard.
I have it, you race transforming insect robots with weapons, jumping, drifting, dart throwing, and the ability to grab a tree and smash another racer with it,... ExciteBots? Really?
The trouble with all caps on a loan application, is that a lot of people work with forms, or accounting, or financial systems that DO require all caps.
The accounting system at one of the companies I work with, is old, and it is policy to all caps everything that goes into it. Its old enough that the search and sort functionality treats upper and lower case as separate. So all the staff are all trained to all-caps it.
Similarly a lot of forms out there, especially ones that are designed for OCR and have a little box for each character, and often instruct users to fill it out all caps.
When I went into the bank to renew my mortgage, the staff there filled out all the paperwork for me... all of it in all-caps. Per the bank's policy and training.
So its not necessarily a sign of poor education, it could also be attributed to familiarity with a common requirement of this particular type of paperwork.
It would suck to decline someone a loan, simply because they were some low level outsourced clerk working for a bank doing data entry filling in mailed in loan applications all day and knew exactly how they were entered into the computer: In all caps.
Now if the instructions said, clearly, "Do NOT use all-caps" that would be an entirely different story.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Blaming Python because you don't have a rudimentary coding editor is like blaming math because you don't have a calculator with a cosine button.
I don't have the luxury of designing "math". Irrational numbers, periodic functions, and so forth aren't optional.
But we do have the luxury of designing programming languages, and semantic white space is a choice.
*cough*
The code reformatting can be done manually, via a command line tool, via the IDE or not at all. My mention of using an IDE to reformat text doesn't create the same IDE dependency you refer to.
This is one thing I never quite get about python criticism. Sure, whitespace is significant, but I've never had it break easily or be "brittle" as you say.
Anytime you refactor stuff, or modify something even somewhat nested, especially in a 'dumb text editor', it's a pain in the ass.
Anytime you need to pass code snippets via email, forums, etc... well... you just don't because its a total waste of time. :)
Its also easy to barf all over code going into word processors, pdf files, and so forth. Its nice to be able to copy-paste some C out of a PDF file or an email, or off a forum, and then tell the ide to just reformat it.
erhaps the use of whitespace isn't the real issue many people have with python, but rather delineating blocks using whitespace exposes a bit of an inherent flaw in the way they structure their program's flow.
No. Because we use whitespace / indenting in our C / C++ etc projects too. We even have standards requiring it, and our IDEs / toolchains may even be set up to reformat it just-so before commits. We want all the benefits of well formatted code.
We just like the IDE to do all the work actually formatting it, and reformatting it as neccessary.
Either way, having a proper IDE
Is how you lose the argument. Everyone but python groupies agrees that any programming language worth considering MUST have its programs represented as plaintext files, with no proprietary / binary stuff that can only be accessed with specialized tools. Requiring an IDE is the sign of a bad language.
Python passes this test, but it can be pretty hideous to use with an arbitrary text editor. And really, even brainfuck wouldn't be too bad with the right IDE, right?
Python is readable and readable code is easier to fix.
True and true. But Python's use of semantic whitespace is also very brittle very easy to break, and a huge pain in the ass to fix compared to languages that use braces, or keywords to define 'blocks'.
But that's not even terribly relevant here, because this article is about the source code used for the python interpreter, which is C, not python.
i fixed this problem on my project using javascript closures.
How does that fix anything? Every time I visit your project, I must rely on your java script. The fact that it is correct today does nothing for me tomorrow.
A secure solution requires that there is nothing you can do to get my key.
You could simply change the java script on your site tomorrow, and slurp the key next time I visit.
Essentially one has to decouple the client from the service, so that I use a client YOU DON'T CONTROL. That is the only way I can secure the key from you.
In terms of a web service, all I can think of is to have your java script is audited by me or someone i designate and then it's signed BY ME (since I can't trust a 3rd party signer won't be NSA-coerced into signing your malware updates), and then you aren't allowed to change it, without it being re-audited by me or someone i designate.
No. You misread it.
Its saying that of the subset of those with suspicious backgrounds one in five is "linked" to terrorism.
We don't know how big that 'subset' is. It could be (and probably is) quite small. Of 5000 applicants, there might be 20 with "suspicious backgrounds", and of that 20 there might be 4 who they linked to terrorism. The "1 in 5 with links" are of the 20 that were already flagged as suspicious, not the entire pool of applicants.
Other people would invest but get unlucky and lose their entire investment (and it could be you)
This! a 1000 times this. People DO NOT GET THIS.
They think that if they "invest wisely", diversify, invest in index tracking funds, pay attention, and do all the right things, that they will be fine.
And this is idiotic. Statisically, yes, this will pan out. But investment is still a calculated risk. If this "do everything right strategy" yielded a 99.99% chance that you would have sufficient money for your retirement and everyone followed it there would still be several hundred thousand people who didn't.
Doing everything right does not guarantee a positive return. It maximizes the chances of a positive return, but a negative return is still entirely possible, and its going to happen to people, even people who did everything right.
Besides, what happens without social security?
Crime. Because the people who don't have enough to survive aren't going to just roll over and die, they'll try to take what they need any way the can from anyone they can.
In other words : No US-based cloud service can really fight the NSA;
The key to fighting the NSA is to provide a completely transparent API.
And then rely on 3rd parties to deliver software that uses the API.
Even if the NSA knows that I have account with the cloud service, they don't know what client I use, (and even if i do, the client is on my equipment not "service based" there is no easy target to send a gag order too.
Essentially, dropbox, skydrive etc are all perfectly suitable cloud services.
What we need is them to do isopen them up wide open to 3rd party client development.
That's true.
Although, it not really any different to the fact that you don't need a drivers license to operate a bicycle, and most states don't require one even for an electric one provided its sufficiently low power.
And allow Google and the US government to scan all of my mail?
Well, routing it outside of gmail keep gmails hands off it, well the half that doesn't originate with them to start with. But i think you'll need to do quite a bit more to keep the us govt out of it.
No its wrong as in a cars performance is measured in alot more than horsepower.
Most people can name maybe 3 stats about their car... some sort of fuel economy figure, displacement (if its part of the model number or just badged on to the side of the car) and horsepower.
The problem i have is that he is intelligent enough as is, there is no need to make quirky wrong statements about subjects he doesnt know
Do you really think he doesn't know enough about cars to make an intelligent statement about this? Or is it more likely he just tweeted some vaguely-science related joke he heard some comic do at evening at the improv?
(Admittedly, the sole purpose of which is the sort of phenomena you cynically labelled the "circle-jerk with his fans")
I always liked Sagan and Feynman the most.
Feyman... I mean, *I* know the name Richard Feynman and what he did and what not... but I honestly can't think of him in terms of regular public awareness / celebrity at all... it really doesn't help that he's been dead for 25 years now.
Sagan has much better name recognition, although he's fading now too. Being dead does that.
At least Neil's got breathing going for him. :)
There is no Right to Drive in the US, where driving is a rather a privilege.
The privilege of operating a motor vehicle on public roads, and the right to be a passenger in one are VERY VERY different things.
Similiarly I don't think anyone is especially outraged that the government restricts who can fly a plane. (That would be anyone without a pilots license in good standing, which is most people, including me.) The contentious issue is restricting who can be a passenger in one.
Yeah, skype has that too. And with integration into office, and active directory, its probably going to be more streamlined to set and administer.
Google Voice will sell you a number for incoming and caller id
And last I checked they don't offer that service in obscure places like Canada or all of Europe.
Google's stuff just doesn't measure up.
Pretty much.
asking why we measure a car performance in horsepower (already wrong on so many levels)
Wrong in that its exactly one of the most prominent performance metrics anyone looks at, while also being completely absurd.
. But seems to completely forget we measure a rockets performance in Pounds of thrust,
That's a far less arbitrary unit than horsepower. Admittedly its still a stupid unit... im not a rocket scientist though, but I'd have hoped rocketetry was largely done with SI units... thrust in Newtons, Specific Impulse in seconds, mass flow rate in kg/s, etc... and the conversion pounds thrust was just what gets shoveled out in press releases to have big numbers. That's what I'd have hoped... I'm prepared to be disappointed.
If this guy stopped spending his day trying to get circlejerked from his "fans" by posting idiotic shit all the time, i could probably take his opinions to mean something worthwhile.
Engaging with idiots is the nature of celebrity; and if your worst complaint is some cornball jokes that's not much of a complaint. Neil's done more good for science and space awareness than any actual physicist or rocket engineer I can think of.
In many respects getting regular people to think about and care about space is just as important for space exploration as actually doing the hard science. We need both.
Where I work, it's either Hangouts or ye olde fashioned phone calls.
But do they pay anything to use it?
but how much it costs to aquire a well known company vs. build a competing product in house.
They mostly bought the userbase not the product.
Google churned out Google Talk / Hangouts.
Know many people that use "Hangouts" for business? Or would be willing to pay actual money to use "Hangouts" for anything? I sure don't. As a free service, yeah I know some people using it, and although I have at least 3 active gmail accounts and an android phone with it pre-installed (2 even linked to google apps for enterprises, I've still never fired up hangouts.
Skype is pretty ubiquitous by comparison.
if the ocean is constantly moving then you can't actually measure if it's rising or falling. Because it would need to stop moving to measure it.
So when im filling a pool from a hose while the kids are playing in it its impossible to determine that levels are rising, because of the waves and turbulence?
Strictly speaking,
You are a terrible scientist?
And what if it's going the wrong way across a bridge?
What's the wrong way to cross a bridge? Sideways?
When "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" was released, there was a noticeable drop in real world crime for several weeks. The most plausible explanation was that the potential criminals were at home playing.
Followed by several weeks of elevated crime, as the potential criminals finished the game and were now inspired to shoot seagulls, dine and dash, rob hookers, then pimp them, then drive them across town at break neck speeds in stolen cars, and spray painting graffitti, all the while dealing with that annoying cousin who keeps phoning them with another job he should just do himself?
Oh, and Starbucks noted an increase in the sales of hot coffee. :p
The minority in this case are in the right.
Being "right" isn't the issu.
If most people OCD read/reply the minute they hear it beep the fact that's its technically async is sort of beside the point.
It IS technically async, but most people don't seem to treat it like that. I've seen lots of people prioritize texting over a call they are actually in the middle of.
SMS for a LOT of people is the human equivalent of a non-maskable hardware interrupt.
Most people consider text messaging to be asynchronous communication to be responded to when the receiver is able.
Says someone who has never seen how people actually obsessively compulsively read texts during dinner, at movies, while driving, or using a toilet.
Not saying you are wrong on it being technically asynchronous, or about where the liability is. I think you are right.
But most people I see out in the world treat texting as 'talking on the phone without dialing'. And with texting systems like BBM where you can see if its delivered, or read... a lot of people get very irate if they see its delivered, read and not immediately responded too, and only slightly less irate if its delivered but not read.
The group that consider texting to be asynchronous and ok to be responded to at leisure is I think the minority.
Wow. Just wow. That has got to be the most ridiculous bit of epic I have ever seen.
A car racing game with guns so he can shoot his enemies -- doh that goes back to DeathTrack and Car Wars.
How about... a car racing game with guns but the car turns into a boat and motorcycle... hmm... Spyhunter
How about a car racing game where you destroy your enemies by jumping on them. Oh wait... that's SpeedRacer. Dammit. This is hard.
I have it, you race transforming insect robots with weapons, jumping, drifting, dart throwing, and the ability to grab a tree and smash another racer with it, ... ExciteBots? Really?
I give up.
The trouble with all caps on a loan application, is that a lot of people work with forms, or accounting, or financial systems that DO require all caps.
The accounting system at one of the companies I work with, is old, and it is policy to all caps everything that goes into it. Its old enough that the search and sort functionality treats upper and lower case as separate. So all the staff are all trained to all-caps it.
Similarly a lot of forms out there, especially ones that are designed for OCR and have a little box for each character, and often instruct users to fill it out all caps.
When I went into the bank to renew my mortgage, the staff there filled out all the paperwork for me... all of it in all-caps. Per the bank's policy and training.
So its not necessarily a sign of poor education, it could also be attributed to familiarity with a common requirement of this particular type of paperwork.
It would suck to decline someone a loan, simply because they were some low level outsourced clerk working for a bank doing data entry filling in mailed in loan applications all day and knew exactly how they were entered into the computer: In all caps.
Now if the instructions said, clearly, "Do NOT use all-caps" that would be an entirely different story. :)