"Still, I have to wonder how many of the problems lie with the platform, and how many lie with developers not really understanding what they're working with"
You're absolutely right, this is really the fundamental problem, it's become easier to wrtie some software - PHP has simplified web development, and writing mobile apps is fairly easy as there are some decent tools available.
It's also great, it means we get news stories about how some 6 year old has released an app and made a million dollars off it, it means everyone can develop.
But just as with Visual Basic in it's pre-NET incarnation, bringing development into the reach of everyone and anyone was great to a point, but when those people then try and do something out of their depth it comes back to the bite them and they blame the platform, not their inherent lack of knowledge of the topic at hand.
The arguments in the topic aren't new, anyone whose developed games in something like C++ and DirectX/OpenGL on the PC, and before that even using direct access to cards has faced exactly the same issues.
The problem is simply that cross platform (and by platform, I mean hardware platform) development isn't an easy task, but when many thousands of people have done it just fine before you, and in a financially healthy manner, recognise that it's not the fault of the platform per-se, but simply that you're not yet at a level where you're competent enough to deal with cross-platform development. The people behind this game need to recognise their limitations and stick to that, moaning about it wont change things, the only thing that will is if they choose to invest time in becoming a little more competent at multi-platform development.
It's absolutely true that a platform with less differences is going to be easier to target, I don't think anyone's arguing that. Even now though it's not as if the iOS platforms offer a single unified set of hardware - there are are growing number of configurations to handle there. There's nothing to stop a developer supporting just the most popular and numerous Android handsets in much the same way as an iOS developer likely wont bother with the earlier iPhone models nowadays.
If you're going to try and target absolutely every single Android device you're bound to run into some problems because Android's strength is that it can run on everything from the highest end handsets like the £500 Samsung Galaxy S II, to the cheap budget £80 ZTE Blade, because the ecosystem is so varied. This is obviously even more the case if you don't have a good grasp of writing portable software in the first place.
This is yet another story of "Developer gets out of his league, fails to understand the technology, fucks up business model, blames the technology".
I'm not defending the situation, but regarding your comment here:
"The language is crafted to imply a sense of fairness and balance, however, civil liberties and human rights are enshrined at the highest levels in law. Weather the ideology of Intellectual Property should hold equal standing should be an issue of vigorous debate and not an issue to be taken at face value."
Be very careful when arguing this, Article 27 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."
Hence IP protections are in facted founded in human rights law. The problem is not that they aren't enshrined at this level, but that the efforts now being taken to protect IP grossly infringe on and conflict with other elements of human rights law such as those governing rights to fair trial, and those governing the right to privacy, no arbitrary interference in family life and so forth. The issue is that IP protection has simply gone well beyond the fundamental protections afforded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I'm not preaching, just speaking from experience. I don't think I've ever heard of anywhere doing such a thing - as I say, many interpreted languages don't even have such a feature. If companies want that level of confidence in their code they just use a compiled language in the first place, interpreted languages aren't really designed for the sort of situation where you'd care about that level of confidence. As I say, some of the popular interpreted language don't even offer such a tool, so what exactly do you stick on your checklist then?
Languages are always about the right tool for the job, interpreted languages just aren't the right tool for solid scalable applications - they're the right tool for rapid development, and certainly for prototyping but trying to hack them to work for something they're just not brilliant for is silly when a number of tools that are designed for the job are already out there.
What history is that? I can't think of any component Apple has managed to retain a stranglehold on for more than a few months at best before the competitors start churning it out in an often even higher specced form.
For all the talk of Apple controlling component markets and so forth I've yet to see any sign that competitors have been able to source equivalent or better components pretty quickly, sometimes even having them ready before Apple itself has.
I think Apple's advantages are probably in the prices it can bargain for rather than in it's ability to control supply.
Yep, which is a great feature, but not all scripting languages have this and even fewer developers use it when it is available. With a compiler you don't even get anything to execute until you've fixed the most glaring errors so it's enforced.
You still don't seem to get it, the fact is compilers reduce errors that might confront the user at runtime. They're not some magical foolproof solution, but they do produce more solid code on average simply by virtue of the fact that at least some major areas are forced to be caught and dealt with before the end product even reaches the client. You're still trying to make the implication that the amount of problems that can get past a compiler is equivalent to the amount of problems an uncompiled language will face which is blatantly not true.
The reason there's a perception, rightly or wrongly, that scripting languages allow coders to be lazy is because the compiler forces you to deal with many classes of problem - you can't be lazy and just ignore them, whereas in scripting languages developers may simply do just that - ignore them and hope they don't cause a problem.
There's also the point that in many scripting languages you don't declare your types, this means you can lazily stick any data anywhere which can have some large implications. Many compiled languages are statically typed and so you have to plan and declare your intentions for variables - this is another reason that builds the perception that interpreted languages breed laziness vs. compiled languages, because it often (but of course not always) is also a case of dynamic vs. static typing.
"Yeah, and? Did I claim otherwise? No, I just called bullshit on bullshit statements."
Re-read what you actually wrote, I'll requote it for you (what was that about not being able to follow a discussion?):
"And flexibility in regards to variables and types is only a problem if you lost track of what you're doing to begin with, and in that case I doubt more hand holding by the compiler will help."
I was pointing out that this makes no sense in the context of most professional development, I was calling bullshit on YOUR bullshit. If you think that there's no circumstance in which a talented programmer would be aided by being able to trivially keep track of what data, and what types of data are stored in what variables then you're merely demonstrating a massive lack of professional development experience. It's good that you admit that, but realise that in admitting that you're accepting you're an amateur trying to argue with vastly more experienced professionals.
You're right that any language can have bad code, but the point still remains that with compiled languages there is a baseline as to how bad the code can be because the compiler enforces that baseline, whereas with scripting languages there simply is no baseline.
There's a good reason companies like Microsoft have focussed on things like support for strongly typed views in ASP.NET MVC and so forth - because strong typing that allows for compile time checking simply allows for inherently less scope for problems to arise later on at runtime. The same simply cannot be said for a language like PHP even with some of the better frameworks like Zend.
I'm not even arguing against scripting languages, merely pointing out that your arguments were dishonest and not based on the facts. You were intentionally ignoring important points to try and make your point and it was pretty blindingly obvious. That might work with the growing number of younger devs on Slashdot who were brought up in the PHP era, but those with a bit more experience in a wider variety of languages aren't that stupid.
Still, stick to your O'RLY's, emotes and trolls if you want, that's a sure fire way to tell someone is out of their depth - when they have to jump to that kind of defensive reaction. I'm not sure why you really got so stressed about it, it's a post on Slashdot, not a big deal, I think you probably need to lower your blood pressure if you get angry and feel the need to troll when someone points out that you're wrong.
It's a disease I like to call noobitis, and if I'm honest, I suffered for it myself for sometime.
It stems from the recognition that many of the most popular languages - C#, PHP, C, C++, Java etc. all have the same basic constructs like for, if, while, and so on that let you do the same things across each language. With these basic statements you can do a lot, everything you'd probably expect to do as a novice developer.
But as you state, there are more to languages - even those that share similar syntax as those listed above, things like lambdas, LINQ, expression trees and so forth in C# add a lot of additional tools that aren't available in some of the other listed languages (though that's changing of course with new versions).
The viewpoint is one that demonstrates a novice programmer who doesn't know as much as he thinks he knows. It's a trait born of the fact that you can actually hack away with the basic common fundamentals of such languages and get roughly what you want, it's naivety towards the fact that these languages have many tools that go beyond that, that let you do what you wanted to do more efficiently and better.
With a move towards more multi-threaded programming due to the rise of the cores, it's only becoming more and more prominent - different languages and toolsets are offering different solutions to the multi-threaded problem, and whilst you could use pre-existing libraries just as easy using the basic tools available, you'll fail to take advantage of the fact that the new multi-threaded support in languages will let you write code that is much less bug free, likely more efficient, and do it faster to boot.
If you're one of those people that thinks that pretty much all languages are the same, then do yourself a favour - consider that you might be wrong, and pick up an advanced book for your language, such as C# in Depth if you're a C# dev, or books on things like template metaprogramming if you're a C++ dev, or just learn about things like lambda expressions, hell, learn scheme even. You'll soon realise that there's a whole world of features out there that you wish you'd known about and used all this time. You'll kick yourself for thinking you'd reached some level at which point there's simply no more to learn - there's always more to learn.
"Where is the difference between "I can just compile, if I missed something I'll get warnings" and running the script? Zero."
What an absolutely terrible misunderstanding of the benefits of compiled code. You don't just get warnings with compilers, you get errors, which completely block compilation.
Scripting languages do not give such errors until a user stumbles across them. The developer may or may not stumble across them when developing and so may or may not fix them before release, with a compiled language they must always be fixed for release.
Your argument lies on the blatantly false premise that all compilers do is produce warnings and then proceed to produce compiled object anyway. Obviously that's not true, they produce errors, which prevent compilation.
"And flexibility in regards to variables and types is only a problem if you lost track of what you're doing to begin with, and in that case I doubt more hand holding by the compiler will help."
This basically screams "I've never worked on a large system, or had to take over someone elses code".
Sorry, are you actually implying Fox DOESN'T put a spin on world affairs more so than other news agencies?
The best way for you to come to the realisation that it does is to watch the Keiser Report on Russia Today. Watching it will either make you laugh or cry, depending on your perspective because it's so full of shit. Now understand that it's basically Fox News in reverse, it's just as sensationalist and full of shit, but in a politically opposite direction.
Fox News was still telling the world that Iraq actually had WMDs, implying it was fact long after the BBC had got in trouble and lost it's head over the fact it was daring enough to point out that the WMD thing might actually be a load of bullshit embarassing the then Blair government.
"Are you saying that Saddam was allowing free inspections of the sites where he used to keep tons of VX gas (for example), but that Fox was saying otherwise?"
I can't speak for him, but certainly Fox was reporting "reports" of WMDs long after the rest of the media had established the whole WMD thing was bullshit. So if you're asking if he's saying Fox outright reports something other than the truth, and he's saying exactly that then yes, he's absolutely right whereas you are not.
To try and suggest organisations like the BBC are no better than Fox is laughably ignorant. There's a number of moderate fairly reasonable news agencies out there - the BBC, Al Jazeera and so forth, and then there's the bullshitters - Russia Today, Press TV, Fox News. The former aren't in anyway comparable to the latter as the former try to focus on the facts, whilst the latter intentionally focus on pushing a political agenda. The former aren't perfect, but they at least try to be objective, whilst the latter don't even try, on the contrary they're intentionally not objective where it suits their political agenda.
If it's about missile range then it's their missile programme they'd need to infiltrate, the IAEA is only concerned with development of a viable explosive device, whether that's a missile tip or the famed suitcase bomb. It's not the missile programme the IAEA inspectors have requested and been refused access to but a militarised underground enrichment and possible explosives research plant.
There's nothing stopping Iran building long range missiles, so the IAEA has little business there, it's creation of nuclear tipped warheads the IAEA would be looking out for.
Besides, figuring out the capabilities of Iran's missile programmes doesn't require that kind of infiltration, these things have to be tested and it's kind of hard to hide a long range missile test from eyes in the sky.
I sympathise entirely with your point, I think that describes the current status quo perfectly.
But my point is that simply as with the boy who cried wolf tale, there is another point to it - that in the end, the boy wasn't wrong, and that's the danger.
Ultimately there's little we can do to tell when government is right or wrong about these things and all too often it's only history that can eventually be the judge, but there are at least some indicators. Take Iraq - even US allies like France were staunchly against it, the large international uproar over it from even US allies were a good indicator it was misguided. Afghanistan was probably just, but failed because it was poorly executed, a plan to go in and rebuild the country from the outset would've almost certainly worked because the US did have popular support at first, but by the time they stopped being distracted by Iraq and turned their attention back to Afghanistan the insurgency had all but turned the war back around due to lack of progress. Iran? well, support for military action is a little short still, but the fact even countries like Russia and China at very least support sanctions and have refused to continue to supply arms to Iran gives the impression that it's far more than just US, British, and Israeli intelligence agencies this time round that have deep concerns.
"If you're doing nothing wrong- you wouldn't mind the police routinely searching your home without a warrant. Or you Sig Other going through your cell phone call list/web history routinely."
But it's not really the same, part of being a signatory to the NPT is you agree to exactly that, and Iran is a signatory to the NPT. You're right I wouldn't like the police doing as you say, but if I'd signed a legally binding document and they asked to do it and told the judge or whoever I wasn't cooperating by letting them then should I really have a leg to stand on when the judge chastises me for not letting them do what I've legally agreed to let them do?
The problem is we're not talking about inspections of just some random person's belongings, we're talking about the most destructive weapons mankind has ever created.
It's worth noting that in some countries the above analogy isn't too unrealistic either, in some countries if you want to keep guns in your house you have to keep them in a secure locker, and as part of being allowed to do that the police can do checks once a year or so, if you prevent them coming to do those checks you lose the right to keep guns in your house.
Right, so what is your point about exactly? A lash out at the fact you were lied to 9 or 10 years ago? Great, I'm annoyed at that too.
But this particular topic has everything to do with right and wrong, if the reason is just - that Iran does indeed a pose a viable nuclear threat then there's no need to lie to you again. If it's established that this time there is actually a threat after all then lying is simply not necessary this time around if military action is the chosen option.
Of course there's also a reasonable discussion to be had as to whether war is ever the answer, quite possibly not, but that's not the discussion here, so again, what point are you trying to make exactly? Unless you're asserting that we're definitely being lied to again despite offering no evidence to that effect then I really don't get what point you're trying to make. If that is the point you're trying to make then please, feel free to explain what evidence you think there is to demonstrate that we're being lied to again but if you are going to do that, please make sure said evidence can be substantiated and isn't just a load of conspiracy theorist tosh.
"There war against Iran is already going, just undeclared, USA/Israel are undoubtedly hungry for precise info about the buildings, the equipment and the personal, which you can get only with direct inspections of said places, so they know what and how exactly they should bomb, what to hack into and whom to blown out on street."
Yes, because those nations believe Iran is building a nuclear weapon. If it was clear they weren't, there'd be really little for them to care about there. You're confusing cause and effect.
"The thing is, Iran can't invalidate the non-compliance claim, it amounts to proving non-existence of something and this is practically impossible, especially if the other side has no interest in clearing you."
This simply isn't true, your theory implies the IAEA is some puppet organisation of the US and it's absolutely not. It's been extremely restrained in it's accusations towards Iran relative to the dicking about it's received.
"If not then why exactly should Iran open their civilian nuclear and non-nuclear military facilities to USA and Israel inspections?"
Ah so here it is, you're basing your viewpoint on nothing more than paranoia. You do realise that Iran banned 38 inspectors back in 2007 because it did not like their nationality? You do realise that having done this the remaining inspectors of nationalities Iran was happy with still have claimed they're unable to confirm Iranian compliance? How does this fit in with your conspiracy theory? the fact that Iran already restricted what nationalities could inspect it's facilities for them to still find it non-compliant?
Enough of the conspiracy theories, the inspections aren't some US/Israeli infiltration plot. If Stuxnet was anything to go by it didn't seem like the US/Israel needed the cover of the IAEA if they were really determined to get access to Iranian facilities.
Yeah to an extent it is, there are differences though but even if there weren't it's false logic to assume that they were wrong last time, so they must be wrong this time.
In terms of the differences the inspectors on the ground for the most part were given a lot more access than is granted in Iran, and many, as well as people like Hans Blix were saying "There just aren't any WMDs here". It was somewhat hard for their voices to be heard because WMDs can be quite wide ranging in features, things like chlorine factories can be pretty dual purpose for example.
In the case of Iran inspectors have much less freedom, but they're fairly unanimous in the view that they don't have access to confirm that there isn't a nuclear weapons programme. Because the focus is much smaller than the broad nature of WMDs in general there's also far less ambiguity as to what they are looking for - features of a nuclear weapons programme stand out from the rest of a civilian programme and when elements of such a programme have been spotted by the IAEA or Iran can't or wont give a reason for their existence then the IAEAs claim that they can't determine that such elements are not for a weapons programme is quite valid, and obviously not in dispute.
Again, this doesn't mean Iran does have a nuclear weapons programme, but whilst there are parallels with Iraq it's still quite different. An underground fortified militiarised nuclear site that was kept secret until exposed by foreign nations and which has a number of pieces of evidence suggesting at least some kind of weapons research at some point has gone on is a lot more suspicious than an unguarded chlorine factory that has a comprehensive paper trail demonstrating legitimate customers with legitimate uses. Whether that suspicion alone is enough for varying types of action is a fair question, and precisely what the international community is at odds over. Much of the world felt Iraq didn't have WMDs based on the evidence but America and Britain went ahead as if it did anyway, in contrast the number of nations who believe Iran probably has a nuclear weapons programme is much larger and sanctions over the issue have been agreed by such classically Western opponents as Russia and China to boot - countries that wont even agree to a response over Syria despite it's blatant murder of civilians right now.
"IAEA don't have the right to go anywhere they want anytime they want"
Of course they don't, but similarly if they aren't given access to what they need access to to determine compliance then they can't determine compliance.
The effects of that can be quite wide ranging, and that's the choice Iran has to deal with - whether any supposed fears of spying are outweighed by the benefits of being deemed not compliant.
It's unlikely spying is a real rational concern for Iran, their nuclear programme has been fed by the Russians and long before that, the Germans anyway, so none of their technology is really top secret home grown stuff - it's stuff the rest of the world already long figured out.
I don't know why people keep parroting this, it's simply not true. It had some validity to it a few years back, but even then the IAEA has always had some concerns.
In recent years though the IAEA's stance if that they've found some evidence that Iran did continue a nuclear weapons programme, and has made it quite clear that Iran is not giving it the access and information it needs to confirm that it is in compliance. Whilst this doesn't mean Iran is not in compliance, it is certainly not the case that it is in compliance - Iran wont let the IAEA confirm that it's compliant, make of that what you will, but I suspect if a country was in compliance there'd be absolutely no reason to not let the IAEA confirm that to be the case. The fact they wont let the IAEA confirm whether they are or are not compliant is a cause for concern in itself and is in itself a breach of the NPT.
A bit of America/Israel bashing is all well and good, god only knows they've done enough to deserve it, but this attitude of defending Iran as an extreme anti-Israeli/US stance is even more absurd. A lot of people here go on about how Iran is an innocent peaceful nation that's never attacked anyone and so forth, but that's also complete rubbish, sure they may not directly declare war but they absolutely do carry out war by proxy (where the proxy is usually groups like Hamas, Hezbollah) and they do carry out clandestine ops. When you point this out people jump in and say "but the US does that too!", sure they do, but that doesn't somehow make it right. Keep in mind that even the staunchly anti-US Russia has in recent years refused to make itself some money selling Iran new military hardware - this is because Russia is concerned that Iran has links to groups in Chechnya and so forth too. The fact is, even if Iran doesn't declare war directly, everyone knows what it gets up to.
So hate Israel/America all you want, god only knows I've had enough of their actions, but to then jump to the extreme of defending Iran is just fucking idiotic. Iran is as much of a problem as Israel is that's for sure, and I'd argue with Iran's destabilisation of Lebanon so they can have their own proxy army on Israel's doorstep, they're worse. The only flip side to it all is that Iran is largely incompetent at this sort of thing, so when their bombers succeed in little more than blowing their own legs off in Asia, it's almost comical, Mossad in contrast gets the job done which, depending on your viewpoint on things either makes them better, worse, or just as bad.
Really, the fundamental reality of the situation is that Iran, Israel, the US and so forth are all as bad as each other. My personal view is that if Israel/US attack Iran then I have little sympathy for Iran, it's a game they chose to play, and when you choose to play a game, you can't really cry when you lose. They still have every opportunity to bow out gracefully.
Re:advantages of multiple inheritance
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PHP 5.4 Released
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Sorry, you've lost me, is this meant to be an example of multiple inheritance being used or abused? I get the intention you feel it's the former, but the reality is it's the latter.
Your example proves the point precisely - multiple is never necessary, hardly ever useful, and even people like yourself who greatly believe in it seem to completely miss the fact that you've used it for something that could've been done far better without it.
Your anecdote doesn't speak in favour of multiple inheritance - on the contrary, it's an example of why it's a problem, it gets used for things it simply shouldn't. Your example is a fine demonstration of poor architecture and a failure to properly achieve separation of concerns.
Where did I criticise IP? You seem to be going off on quite a tangent there to dodge the key point here.
The point is the US is no longer a trustworthy guardian of DNS because it is abusing it's position to push it's ethnocentric worldview on the rest of the world and it's crippling legitimate foreign businesses.
Look at an alternative scenario, imagine China had responsibility for administering international domains, what would your thoughts be if China one day decided to seize google.com or apple.com? Would you be content for international domains to continue to be administered by China?
There was an argument before that the US should retain the role of administering these domains because it was a trustworthy protector, but the US has now crushed that argument because it's no longer trustworthy. There is hence no longer really a good reason for the US to retain sole responsibility for administering international domains. As others have said, China may be bad but at least it only censors in it's own border, the US in contrast is trying to force it's censorship on everyone else which is much much worse.
For what it's worth your argument about international bodies handling technical matters also has plenty of counterexamples, the very existence of the ITU and the fact it's done such a good seamless job over the years demonstrates that. An agreement that the net is managed like international post and telephony - i.e. in a depoliticised, hands-off way, which is likely to be how it would happen, because you'd never get political agreement from the various opposing factions for anything else would be far superior to the current status quo. The plans for custom tlds for anyone who has the money is not technically sound as it destroys the whole hierarchial structure of DNS, so the idea that ICANN is currently somehow more technically competent is also false.
Nothing you pasted contradicts anything I've said, your quote merely reiterates that the US administers them and has recently decided to start applying it's laws to them, this doesn't inherently mean they're not international domains though. Rather than repaste the same thing, see shutdown -p's comment here:
Note how.com,.net and.org are listed as generic tlds, whilst others such as.gov and.mil which are US tlds are sponsored?
All IANA's documentation also refers to them as international and as I've said elsewhere, even the US government would likely accept they're international, the only dispute is about who administers them.
Your whole argument is based on the fallacy that because the domains are under the US, they therefore should remain under the US. This is a circular argument and nonsensical, your argument is meaningless.
The fact is the domains are recognised as international in nature, and whilst they are indeed managed by the US currently this is the fundamental problem - they are international domains managed by the US, when they should instead be international domains, managed by the international community.
If you wish to argue the domains should not be international in nature, that's fair enough, but as officially as can be, they're recognised as international domains.
If you contrast them to.edu and.mil which are widely recognised as formal US tlds then you'll notice the fundamental difference with.net,.com, and.org that clearly place them as international domains.
Face it, your argument is weak and based merely on some patriotic view or whatever, you don't want the US to lose them because you believe the US is the best country to control them - that's a fair argument if it's what you believe, but stop trying to pretend they're not international domains based on some arbitrary technicality that only you recognise as some defining technicality that makes them not in fact international domains, it's fucking ridiculous. I'd wager even the US government would admit they're international domains, with the only point of contention being who controls them.
"No, your completely wrong..com,.net,.org are, and always have been, US domains"
I suggest you update your knowledge on the subject. It used to be true, but it hasn't been for some time.
You're perhaps confusing the fact that the US still manages registration of them, but that doesn't change the fact that the formal definition of them is now as domains for international organisations.
You're absolutely right about national firms using the country code domains, that's precisely why.us exists because that is the US' tld.
Slashdot Mirror
"Still, I have to wonder how many of the problems lie with the platform, and how many lie with developers not really understanding what they're working with"
You're absolutely right, this is really the fundamental problem, it's become easier to wrtie some software - PHP has simplified web development, and writing mobile apps is fairly easy as there are some decent tools available.
It's also great, it means we get news stories about how some 6 year old has released an app and made a million dollars off it, it means everyone can develop.
But just as with Visual Basic in it's pre-NET incarnation, bringing development into the reach of everyone and anyone was great to a point, but when those people then try and do something out of their depth it comes back to the bite them and they blame the platform, not their inherent lack of knowledge of the topic at hand.
The arguments in the topic aren't new, anyone whose developed games in something like C++ and DirectX/OpenGL on the PC, and before that even using direct access to cards has faced exactly the same issues.
The problem is simply that cross platform (and by platform, I mean hardware platform) development isn't an easy task, but when many thousands of people have done it just fine before you, and in a financially healthy manner, recognise that it's not the fault of the platform per-se, but simply that you're not yet at a level where you're competent enough to deal with cross-platform development. The people behind this game need to recognise their limitations and stick to that, moaning about it wont change things, the only thing that will is if they choose to invest time in becoming a little more competent at multi-platform development.
It's absolutely true that a platform with less differences is going to be easier to target, I don't think anyone's arguing that. Even now though it's not as if the iOS platforms offer a single unified set of hardware - there are are growing number of configurations to handle there. There's nothing to stop a developer supporting just the most popular and numerous Android handsets in much the same way as an iOS developer likely wont bother with the earlier iPhone models nowadays.
If you're going to try and target absolutely every single Android device you're bound to run into some problems because Android's strength is that it can run on everything from the highest end handsets like the £500 Samsung Galaxy S II, to the cheap budget £80 ZTE Blade, because the ecosystem is so varied. This is obviously even more the case if you don't have a good grasp of writing portable software in the first place.
This is yet another story of "Developer gets out of his league, fails to understand the technology, fucks up business model, blames the technology".
So is that a "no" in answer to his question then?
I'm not defending the situation, but regarding your comment here:
"The language is crafted to imply a sense of fairness and balance, however, civil liberties and human rights are enshrined at the highest levels in law. Weather the ideology of Intellectual Property should hold equal standing should be an issue of vigorous debate and not an issue to be taken at face value."
Be very careful when arguing this, Article 27 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."
Hence IP protections are in facted founded in human rights law. The problem is not that they aren't enshrined at this level, but that the efforts now being taken to protect IP grossly infringe on and conflict with other elements of human rights law such as those governing rights to fair trial, and those governing the right to privacy, no arbitrary interference in family life and so forth. The issue is that IP protection has simply gone well beyond the fundamental protections afforded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I'm not preaching, just speaking from experience. I don't think I've ever heard of anywhere doing such a thing - as I say, many interpreted languages don't even have such a feature. If companies want that level of confidence in their code they just use a compiled language in the first place, interpreted languages aren't really designed for the sort of situation where you'd care about that level of confidence. As I say, some of the popular interpreted language don't even offer such a tool, so what exactly do you stick on your checklist then?
Languages are always about the right tool for the job, interpreted languages just aren't the right tool for solid scalable applications - they're the right tool for rapid development, and certainly for prototyping but trying to hack them to work for something they're just not brilliant for is silly when a number of tools that are designed for the job are already out there.
What history is that? I can't think of any component Apple has managed to retain a stranglehold on for more than a few months at best before the competitors start churning it out in an often even higher specced form.
For all the talk of Apple controlling component markets and so forth I've yet to see any sign that competitors have been able to source equivalent or better components pretty quickly, sometimes even having them ready before Apple itself has.
I think Apple's advantages are probably in the prices it can bargain for rather than in it's ability to control supply.
Yep, which is a great feature, but not all scripting languages have this and even fewer developers use it when it is available. With a compiler you don't even get anything to execute until you've fixed the most glaring errors so it's enforced.
You still don't seem to get it, the fact is compilers reduce errors that might confront the user at runtime. They're not some magical foolproof solution, but they do produce more solid code on average simply by virtue of the fact that at least some major areas are forced to be caught and dealt with before the end product even reaches the client. You're still trying to make the implication that the amount of problems that can get past a compiler is equivalent to the amount of problems an uncompiled language will face which is blatantly not true.
The reason there's a perception, rightly or wrongly, that scripting languages allow coders to be lazy is because the compiler forces you to deal with many classes of problem - you can't be lazy and just ignore them, whereas in scripting languages developers may simply do just that - ignore them and hope they don't cause a problem.
There's also the point that in many scripting languages you don't declare your types, this means you can lazily stick any data anywhere which can have some large implications. Many compiled languages are statically typed and so you have to plan and declare your intentions for variables - this is another reason that builds the perception that interpreted languages breed laziness vs. compiled languages, because it often (but of course not always) is also a case of dynamic vs. static typing.
"Yeah, and? Did I claim otherwise? No, I just called bullshit on bullshit statements."
Re-read what you actually wrote, I'll requote it for you (what was that about not being able to follow a discussion?):
"And flexibility in regards to variables and types is only a problem if you lost track of what you're doing to begin with, and in that case I doubt more hand holding by the compiler will help."
I was pointing out that this makes no sense in the context of most professional development, I was calling bullshit on YOUR bullshit. If you think that there's no circumstance in which a talented programmer would be aided by being able to trivially keep track of what data, and what types of data are stored in what variables then you're merely demonstrating a massive lack of professional development experience. It's good that you admit that, but realise that in admitting that you're accepting you're an amateur trying to argue with vastly more experienced professionals.
You're right that any language can have bad code, but the point still remains that with compiled languages there is a baseline as to how bad the code can be because the compiler enforces that baseline, whereas with scripting languages there simply is no baseline.
There's a good reason companies like Microsoft have focussed on things like support for strongly typed views in ASP.NET MVC and so forth - because strong typing that allows for compile time checking simply allows for inherently less scope for problems to arise later on at runtime. The same simply cannot be said for a language like PHP even with some of the better frameworks like Zend.
I'm not even arguing against scripting languages, merely pointing out that your arguments were dishonest and not based on the facts. You were intentionally ignoring important points to try and make your point and it was pretty blindingly obvious. That might work with the growing number of younger devs on Slashdot who were brought up in the PHP era, but those with a bit more experience in a wider variety of languages aren't that stupid.
Still, stick to your O'RLY's, emotes and trolls if you want, that's a sure fire way to tell someone is out of their depth - when they have to jump to that kind of defensive reaction. I'm not sure why you really got so stressed about it, it's a post on Slashdot, not a big deal, I think you probably need to lower your blood pressure if you get angry and feel the need to troll when someone points out that you're wrong.
It's a disease I like to call noobitis, and if I'm honest, I suffered for it myself for sometime.
It stems from the recognition that many of the most popular languages - C#, PHP, C, C++, Java etc. all have the same basic constructs like for, if, while, and so on that let you do the same things across each language. With these basic statements you can do a lot, everything you'd probably expect to do as a novice developer.
But as you state, there are more to languages - even those that share similar syntax as those listed above, things like lambdas, LINQ, expression trees and so forth in C# add a lot of additional tools that aren't available in some of the other listed languages (though that's changing of course with new versions).
The viewpoint is one that demonstrates a novice programmer who doesn't know as much as he thinks he knows. It's a trait born of the fact that you can actually hack away with the basic common fundamentals of such languages and get roughly what you want, it's naivety towards the fact that these languages have many tools that go beyond that, that let you do what you wanted to do more efficiently and better.
With a move towards more multi-threaded programming due to the rise of the cores, it's only becoming more and more prominent - different languages and toolsets are offering different solutions to the multi-threaded problem, and whilst you could use pre-existing libraries just as easy using the basic tools available, you'll fail to take advantage of the fact that the new multi-threaded support in languages will let you write code that is much less bug free, likely more efficient, and do it faster to boot.
If you're one of those people that thinks that pretty much all languages are the same, then do yourself a favour - consider that you might be wrong, and pick up an advanced book for your language, such as C# in Depth if you're a C# dev, or books on things like template metaprogramming if you're a C++ dev, or just learn about things like lambda expressions, hell, learn scheme even. You'll soon realise that there's a whole world of features out there that you wish you'd known about and used all this time. You'll kick yourself for thinking you'd reached some level at which point there's simply no more to learn - there's always more to learn.
"Where is the difference between "I can just compile, if I missed something I'll get warnings" and running the script? Zero."
What an absolutely terrible misunderstanding of the benefits of compiled code. You don't just get warnings with compilers, you get errors, which completely block compilation.
Scripting languages do not give such errors until a user stumbles across them. The developer may or may not stumble across them when developing and so may or may not fix them before release, with a compiled language they must always be fixed for release.
Your argument lies on the blatantly false premise that all compilers do is produce warnings and then proceed to produce compiled object anyway. Obviously that's not true, they produce errors, which prevent compilation.
"And flexibility in regards to variables and types is only a problem if you lost track of what you're doing to begin with, and in that case I doubt more hand holding by the compiler will help."
This basically screams "I've never worked on a large system, or had to take over someone elses code".
Sorry, are you actually implying Fox DOESN'T put a spin on world affairs more so than other news agencies?
The best way for you to come to the realisation that it does is to watch the Keiser Report on Russia Today. Watching it will either make you laugh or cry, depending on your perspective because it's so full of shit. Now understand that it's basically Fox News in reverse, it's just as sensationalist and full of shit, but in a politically opposite direction.
Fox News was still telling the world that Iraq actually had WMDs, implying it was fact long after the BBC had got in trouble and lost it's head over the fact it was daring enough to point out that the WMD thing might actually be a load of bullshit embarassing the then Blair government.
"Are you saying that Saddam was allowing free inspections of the sites where he used to keep tons of VX gas (for example), but that Fox was saying otherwise?"
I can't speak for him, but certainly Fox was reporting "reports" of WMDs long after the rest of the media had established the whole WMD thing was bullshit. So if you're asking if he's saying Fox outright reports something other than the truth, and he's saying exactly that then yes, he's absolutely right whereas you are not.
To try and suggest organisations like the BBC are no better than Fox is laughably ignorant. There's a number of moderate fairly reasonable news agencies out there - the BBC, Al Jazeera and so forth, and then there's the bullshitters - Russia Today, Press TV, Fox News. The former aren't in anyway comparable to the latter as the former try to focus on the facts, whilst the latter intentionally focus on pushing a political agenda. The former aren't perfect, but they at least try to be objective, whilst the latter don't even try, on the contrary they're intentionally not objective where it suits their political agenda.
If it's about missile range then it's their missile programme they'd need to infiltrate, the IAEA is only concerned with development of a viable explosive device, whether that's a missile tip or the famed suitcase bomb. It's not the missile programme the IAEA inspectors have requested and been refused access to but a militarised underground enrichment and possible explosives research plant.
There's nothing stopping Iran building long range missiles, so the IAEA has little business there, it's creation of nuclear tipped warheads the IAEA would be looking out for.
Besides, figuring out the capabilities of Iran's missile programmes doesn't require that kind of infiltration, these things have to be tested and it's kind of hard to hide a long range missile test from eyes in the sky.
Actually rightly or wrongly, it's not, which is precisely why it doesn't have to cater to IAEA inspections.
I sympathise entirely with your point, I think that describes the current status quo perfectly.
But my point is that simply as with the boy who cried wolf tale, there is another point to it - that in the end, the boy wasn't wrong, and that's the danger.
Ultimately there's little we can do to tell when government is right or wrong about these things and all too often it's only history that can eventually be the judge, but there are at least some indicators. Take Iraq - even US allies like France were staunchly against it, the large international uproar over it from even US allies were a good indicator it was misguided. Afghanistan was probably just, but failed because it was poorly executed, a plan to go in and rebuild the country from the outset would've almost certainly worked because the US did have popular support at first, but by the time they stopped being distracted by Iraq and turned their attention back to Afghanistan the insurgency had all but turned the war back around due to lack of progress. Iran? well, support for military action is a little short still, but the fact even countries like Russia and China at very least support sanctions and have refused to continue to supply arms to Iran gives the impression that it's far more than just US, British, and Israeli intelligence agencies this time round that have deep concerns.
"If you're doing nothing wrong- you wouldn't mind the police routinely searching your home without a warrant. Or you Sig Other going through your cell phone call list/web history routinely."
But it's not really the same, part of being a signatory to the NPT is you agree to exactly that, and Iran is a signatory to the NPT. You're right I wouldn't like the police doing as you say, but if I'd signed a legally binding document and they asked to do it and told the judge or whoever I wasn't cooperating by letting them then should I really have a leg to stand on when the judge chastises me for not letting them do what I've legally agreed to let them do?
The problem is we're not talking about inspections of just some random person's belongings, we're talking about the most destructive weapons mankind has ever created.
It's worth noting that in some countries the above analogy isn't too unrealistic either, in some countries if you want to keep guns in your house you have to keep them in a secure locker, and as part of being allowed to do that the police can do checks once a year or so, if you prevent them coming to do those checks you lose the right to keep guns in your house.
Right, so what is your point about exactly? A lash out at the fact you were lied to 9 or 10 years ago? Great, I'm annoyed at that too.
But this particular topic has everything to do with right and wrong, if the reason is just - that Iran does indeed a pose a viable nuclear threat then there's no need to lie to you again. If it's established that this time there is actually a threat after all then lying is simply not necessary this time around if military action is the chosen option.
Of course there's also a reasonable discussion to be had as to whether war is ever the answer, quite possibly not, but that's not the discussion here, so again, what point are you trying to make exactly? Unless you're asserting that we're definitely being lied to again despite offering no evidence to that effect then I really don't get what point you're trying to make. If that is the point you're trying to make then please, feel free to explain what evidence you think there is to demonstrate that we're being lied to again but if you are going to do that, please make sure said evidence can be substantiated and isn't just a load of conspiracy theorist tosh.
"There war against Iran is already going, just undeclared, USA/Israel are undoubtedly hungry for precise info about the buildings, the equipment and the personal, which you can get only with direct inspections of said places, so they know what and how exactly they should bomb, what to hack into and whom to blown out on street."
Yes, because those nations believe Iran is building a nuclear weapon. If it was clear they weren't, there'd be really little for them to care about there. You're confusing cause and effect.
"The thing is, Iran can't invalidate the non-compliance claim, it amounts to proving non-existence of something and this is practically impossible, especially if the other side has no interest in clearing you."
This simply isn't true, your theory implies the IAEA is some puppet organisation of the US and it's absolutely not. It's been extremely restrained in it's accusations towards Iran relative to the dicking about it's received.
"If not then why exactly should Iran open their civilian nuclear and non-nuclear military facilities to USA and Israel inspections?"
Ah so here it is, you're basing your viewpoint on nothing more than paranoia. You do realise that Iran banned 38 inspectors back in 2007 because it did not like their nationality? You do realise that having done this the remaining inspectors of nationalities Iran was happy with still have claimed they're unable to confirm Iranian compliance? How does this fit in with your conspiracy theory? the fact that Iran already restricted what nationalities could inspect it's facilities for them to still find it non-compliant?
Enough of the conspiracy theories, the inspections aren't some US/Israeli infiltration plot. If Stuxnet was anything to go by it didn't seem like the US/Israel needed the cover of the IAEA if they were really determined to get access to Iranian facilities.
Yeah to an extent it is, there are differences though but even if there weren't it's false logic to assume that they were wrong last time, so they must be wrong this time.
In terms of the differences the inspectors on the ground for the most part were given a lot more access than is granted in Iran, and many, as well as people like Hans Blix were saying "There just aren't any WMDs here". It was somewhat hard for their voices to be heard because WMDs can be quite wide ranging in features, things like chlorine factories can be pretty dual purpose for example.
In the case of Iran inspectors have much less freedom, but they're fairly unanimous in the view that they don't have access to confirm that there isn't a nuclear weapons programme. Because the focus is much smaller than the broad nature of WMDs in general there's also far less ambiguity as to what they are looking for - features of a nuclear weapons programme stand out from the rest of a civilian programme and when elements of such a programme have been spotted by the IAEA or Iran can't or wont give a reason for their existence then the IAEAs claim that they can't determine that such elements are not for a weapons programme is quite valid, and obviously not in dispute.
Again, this doesn't mean Iran does have a nuclear weapons programme, but whilst there are parallels with Iraq it's still quite different. An underground fortified militiarised nuclear site that was kept secret until exposed by foreign nations and which has a number of pieces of evidence suggesting at least some kind of weapons research at some point has gone on is a lot more suspicious than an unguarded chlorine factory that has a comprehensive paper trail demonstrating legitimate customers with legitimate uses. Whether that suspicion alone is enough for varying types of action is a fair question, and precisely what the international community is at odds over. Much of the world felt Iraq didn't have WMDs based on the evidence but America and Britain went ahead as if it did anyway, in contrast the number of nations who believe Iran probably has a nuclear weapons programme is much larger and sanctions over the issue have been agreed by such classically Western opponents as Russia and China to boot - countries that wont even agree to a response over Syria despite it's blatant murder of civilians right now.
"IAEA don't have the right to go anywhere they want anytime they want"
Of course they don't, but similarly if they aren't given access to what they need access to to determine compliance then they can't determine compliance.
The effects of that can be quite wide ranging, and that's the choice Iran has to deal with - whether any supposed fears of spying are outweighed by the benefits of being deemed not compliant.
It's unlikely spying is a real rational concern for Iran, their nuclear programme has been fed by the Russians and long before that, the Germans anyway, so none of their technology is really top secret home grown stuff - it's stuff the rest of the world already long figured out.
I don't know why people keep parroting this, it's simply not true. It had some validity to it a few years back, but even then the IAEA has always had some concerns.
In recent years though the IAEA's stance if that they've found some evidence that Iran did continue a nuclear weapons programme, and has made it quite clear that Iran is not giving it the access and information it needs to confirm that it is in compliance. Whilst this doesn't mean Iran is not in compliance, it is certainly not the case that it is in compliance - Iran wont let the IAEA confirm that it's compliant, make of that what you will, but I suspect if a country was in compliance there'd be absolutely no reason to not let the IAEA confirm that to be the case. The fact they wont let the IAEA confirm whether they are or are not compliant is a cause for concern in itself and is in itself a breach of the NPT.
A bit of America/Israel bashing is all well and good, god only knows they've done enough to deserve it, but this attitude of defending Iran as an extreme anti-Israeli/US stance is even more absurd. A lot of people here go on about how Iran is an innocent peaceful nation that's never attacked anyone and so forth, but that's also complete rubbish, sure they may not directly declare war but they absolutely do carry out war by proxy (where the proxy is usually groups like Hamas, Hezbollah) and they do carry out clandestine ops. When you point this out people jump in and say "but the US does that too!", sure they do, but that doesn't somehow make it right. Keep in mind that even the staunchly anti-US Russia has in recent years refused to make itself some money selling Iran new military hardware - this is because Russia is concerned that Iran has links to groups in Chechnya and so forth too. The fact is, even if Iran doesn't declare war directly, everyone knows what it gets up to.
So hate Israel/America all you want, god only knows I've had enough of their actions, but to then jump to the extreme of defending Iran is just fucking idiotic. Iran is as much of a problem as Israel is that's for sure, and I'd argue with Iran's destabilisation of Lebanon so they can have their own proxy army on Israel's doorstep, they're worse. The only flip side to it all is that Iran is largely incompetent at this sort of thing, so when their bombers succeed in little more than blowing their own legs off in Asia, it's almost comical, Mossad in contrast gets the job done which, depending on your viewpoint on things either makes them better, worse, or just as bad.
Really, the fundamental reality of the situation is that Iran, Israel, the US and so forth are all as bad as each other. My personal view is that if Israel/US attack Iran then I have little sympathy for Iran, it's a game they chose to play, and when you choose to play a game, you can't really cry when you lose. They still have every opportunity to bow out gracefully.
Sorry, you've lost me, is this meant to be an example of multiple inheritance being used or abused? I get the intention you feel it's the former, but the reality is it's the latter.
Your example proves the point precisely - multiple is never necessary, hardly ever useful, and even people like yourself who greatly believe in it seem to completely miss the fact that you've used it for something that could've been done far better without it.
Your anecdote doesn't speak in favour of multiple inheritance - on the contrary, it's an example of why it's a problem, it gets used for things it simply shouldn't. Your example is a fine demonstration of poor architecture and a failure to properly achieve separation of concerns.
Yes.
Where did I criticise IP? You seem to be going off on quite a tangent there to dodge the key point here.
The point is the US is no longer a trustworthy guardian of DNS because it is abusing it's position to push it's ethnocentric worldview on the rest of the world and it's crippling legitimate foreign businesses.
Look at an alternative scenario, imagine China had responsibility for administering international domains, what would your thoughts be if China one day decided to seize google.com or apple.com? Would you be content for international domains to continue to be administered by China?
There was an argument before that the US should retain the role of administering these domains because it was a trustworthy protector, but the US has now crushed that argument because it's no longer trustworthy. There is hence no longer really a good reason for the US to retain sole responsibility for administering international domains. As others have said, China may be bad but at least it only censors in it's own border, the US in contrast is trying to force it's censorship on everyone else which is much much worse.
For what it's worth your argument about international bodies handling technical matters also has plenty of counterexamples, the very existence of the ITU and the fact it's done such a good seamless job over the years demonstrates that. An agreement that the net is managed like international post and telephony - i.e. in a depoliticised, hands-off way, which is likely to be how it would happen, because you'd never get political agreement from the various opposing factions for anything else would be far superior to the current status quo. The plans for custom tlds for anyone who has the money is not technically sound as it destroys the whole hierarchial structure of DNS, so the idea that ICANN is currently somehow more technically competent is also false.
Nothing you pasted contradicts anything I've said, your quote merely reiterates that the US administers them and has recently decided to start applying it's laws to them, this doesn't inherently mean they're not international domains though. Rather than repaste the same thing, see shutdown -p's comment here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2700853&cid=39213127
You can also see the IANA's official list:
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/
Note how .com, .net and .org are listed as generic tlds, whilst others such as .gov and .mil which are US tlds are sponsored?
All IANA's documentation also refers to them as international and as I've said elsewhere, even the US government would likely accept they're international, the only dispute is about who administers them.
Your whole argument is based on the fallacy that because the domains are under the US, they therefore should remain under the US. This is a circular argument and nonsensical, your argument is meaningless.
The fact is the domains are recognised as international in nature, and whilst they are indeed managed by the US currently this is the fundamental problem - they are international domains managed by the US, when they should instead be international domains, managed by the international community.
If you wish to argue the domains should not be international in nature, that's fair enough, but as officially as can be, they're recognised as international domains.
If you contrast them to .edu and .mil which are widely recognised as formal US tlds then you'll notice the fundamental difference with .net, .com, and .org that clearly place them as international domains.
Face it, your argument is weak and based merely on some patriotic view or whatever, you don't want the US to lose them because you believe the US is the best country to control them - that's a fair argument if it's what you believe, but stop trying to pretend they're not international domains based on some arbitrary technicality that only you recognise as some defining technicality that makes them not in fact international domains, it's fucking ridiculous. I'd wager even the US government would admit they're international domains, with the only point of contention being who controls them.
"No, your completely wrong. .com, .net, .org are, and always have been, US domains"
I suggest you update your knowledge on the subject. It used to be true, but it hasn't been for some time.
You're perhaps confusing the fact that the US still manages registration of them, but that doesn't change the fact that the formal definition of them is now as domains for international organisations.
You're absolutely right about national firms using the country code domains, that's precisely why .us exists because that is the US' tld.