Exceptions come in two flavors, and the difference is simple. Checked exceptions must be caught, Unchecked exceptions don't. If you call a method that throws a checked exception, you must catch that exception, or the compiler flags it as an error. If the exception is unchecked, you can call the method outside a try-catch block without complaint from the compiler.
java.lang.Error is effectively an unchecked exception.
Stay cool. The chance of getting hit by a terrorist attack is smaller than the chance of getting hit by a 4WD because the driver was so afraid of being hit by a terrorist that he/she was not paying attention.
Even in peacetime, 35000 people die in automobile accidents on US roads every year. That's the same level of suffering as the WTC attack every two months and yet nobody bats an eyelid.
The only way to make this effective is to also make non-encrypted binary attachments in email illegal. Because there is no easy way to differentiate an encrypted message from an attached data file, eg a gzipped file.
Anyway, who needs encryption - given that the FBI is currently trying to recruit Arabic speakers, all the terrorists have to do is send their messages in Arabic plain text.
The World Trade Centre outrage was co-ordinated on the internet, without
question. If Washington is serious in its determination to eliminate
terrorism, it will have to forbid internet providers to allow the
transmission of encrypted messages - now encoded by public key ciphers that
are unbreakable even by the National Security Agency's computers - and close
down any provider that refuses to comply.
Uncompliant providers on foreign territory should expect their buildings to
be destroyed by cruise missiles. Once the internet is implicated in the
killing of Americans, its high-rolling days may be reckoned to be over.
Re:Because Ruby Rocks! :-)
on
Why not Ruby?
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· Score: 1
1.Everything is an object. Seriously. Even if you're not an all-out OO hippie, it gives great consistency:
Ok, I'm a Brit and these were contracts, but I've
had three jobs in Europe, one in Brussels, one in
Amsterdam (cool) and one in Munich. I don't speak any foreign language but this wasn't a problem. Lots of software companies have English as the project language - meetings are held in English, the code comments and docs are in English. Nearly all Dutch people speak English and in Brussels it forms a perfect compromise between the Dutch and French speakers. Also if the company has resorted to employing foreigners, you almost certainly won't be the only one. At Siemens in Munich, half the project were English or American.
I'm not saying don't bother learning a language, obviously you'll get far more out of your stay if you do, but it's surprisingly easy to get by without one.
It doesn't matter which course you choose. According to one popular interpretation of QM there are multiple versions of you in parallel universes taking every possible combination of courses.
Seriously though, don't you think you're jumping the gun just a tad? It's not clear at this point whether working quantum computers can ever be built.
Re:.NET may signal the demise of Linux
on
Perl and .NET
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· Score: 1
.Net is the strategy that gets OS companies and platforms around this because it allows companies to group computers and information together in ways that nobody has ever done. That's why.Net is important. That's why Microsoft is supporting it, and that's why Linux needs to support it.
Can anyone point me at the definition of MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language)? I can find plenty of overviews of it but no detailed definition such as would be required to write a Linux back-end for it.
What if the nearest, most benevolent alien civilisation in the universe... talks like static? We could be bathed in signals from all directions but can't see it through all the legitimate static.
Modems already sound like static except when they're dialing up. If a little green man heard that how on earth could he distinguish (say) intelligent discourse on slashdot from meaningless static?
This story appeared in the London Evening Standard a few weeks ago. Bear in mind though that this is the UK where anything geek related is considered very uncool.
Re:Apple's statement on x86 OS X : help us
on
No Love For Darwin?
·
· Score: 1
Back in the day, NeXT supported "fat binaries." The idea was that any binary could contain object code for multiple types of processors. The loader looked at the binary and knew which part of the object file to load and execute. The NeXT development tools used a GCC-based cross-compiler to generate fat binaries that ran on NEXTSTEP/SPARC, NEXTSTEP/PA-RISC, NEXTSTEP/x86 and the original black hardware. All in a single build, by simply checking a couple of extra check boxes.
I believe fat binaries are still supported as part of Darwin, and thus are also part of MacOS X. If Apple can convince vendors to ship PowerPC/x86 fat binaries when they first start shipping MacOS X, it would allow Apple to start selling x86 hardware with a large installed base of software right from the start.
BTW: Why doesn't Linux support this kind of thing?
There is no mention of Linus anywhere on the chart or the web page. Furthermore, the diagram itself is not, as near as I can tell, about giving credit for anything. It merely tracks code forks.
Details indeed! The point of the picture is to show inheritance and it portrays Linux as being a standalone branch with no connection to what went before. The kernel is just a tiny part of the OS but one that gets a disproportionate amount of attention. The majority of what makes up Linux is shared/inherited with other branches of Unix, but the diagram doesn't reflect this. Just think of bash - inherited from AT&T's Korn shell, or X-Windows.
Re:The Artwork of Pinball Machines
on
Is Pinball Dying?
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· Score: 1
Pinball - The Lure Of The Silver Ball by Gary Flower and Bill Kurtz has lots of nice pictures.
It was given to me by a friend who used to get the high score in the local pub whilst tripping on LSD.
I wasn't trying to prove it by writing a program, the program was meant more as an analogy to demonstrate what I think is flawed visualization with regard to infinity. Setting it down as a program brings home the point. I've read a bit about infinity - it appears that even amongst mathematicians some of the uses of it are not universally accepted.
I've always had a problem with "proof"s like this. They pretend, like you do, that there is an end/bottom of the list whereas surely the point of infinity is that there isn't. It's easier to see expressed as C loops. It's a bit like saying: for (int i = 0; ; i++) { for (int j = 0; ; j++) { add_to_list[i + j]; } } and then pretending that the inner loop actually completes, you get a different (bigger) type of infinity from: for (int i = 0; ; i++) { add_to_list[i]; } In your mind you effect a closure of the inner loop, wrap it up in a box. But seen as a C program it's clearly absurd. I guess people imagine it more as: for (int i = 0; i infinity; i++) { for (int j = 0; j infinity; j++) { add_to_list[i + j]; } }
In a world where all the information you need is just a click away, what's the point of education? Why download that info into local storage, ie your already overloaded brain? Just leave it where it is and only access it on demand. The availability of online universities in a way makes obtaining a degree from them redundant.
The best book on this subject IMO is The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. It came out a few years ago. It is basically a critique of AI, but to get there he discusses the theory of computing, Godels Incompleteness theorem, Quantum Mechanics and much much more. The aim of the book is to argue that there are certain things a human mind can do that a computer can never do. Roger Penrose is himself a top mathematician and although the book is aimed at the general public it's not for the faint hearted. Having said that though it is simply stunning, it is a tour of all the major scientific ideas of the last century, and is incredibly stimulating. If you want to read a book on the subject, read this one.
Information is relative
on
The Regulon
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· Score: 2
There is no such thing as absolute information. Information is only relative to you as a person and your subjective needs. Which means it's impossible to get overwhelmed by information - you take what you need, what is meaningful to your life. 99.99% of the "information" out there is junk to me although it might be useful to someone else.
By the year 1000AD there was already more information available than any one person could ever hope to assimilate. Have you ever read (and understood, because there's more to information than just scanning it) the complete works of Plato? Probably not. But do you feel threatened by the mere presence of those unread words? Again probably not. So what's changed in modern times? How much really valuable information is there?
The other day I wanted to read up on the history of Britain before 1000AD. Rather than read a history book with all it's interpretations, I thought it would be cool to take a "clean room" approach and read the original documents that described Britain before 1000AD. Naturally I assumed they'd be out there on the Web by now. But guess what? Not only are they not on the Web, there isn't even a way to get a list of what manuscripts exist via the Web.
I just think that's kind of an interesting contrast, you feeling overwhelmed by junk information about the present whilst the most basic information about the past isn't even accessible electronically!
Not worth getting worked up about, it'll never see the light of day. Academic types like to work on cool projects regardless of how realistic or cost-effective they are. So they've persuaded their bosses that this is the way to go. Satellites! Digital maps! State-of-the-art or what. Beats just making use of the speedo info they already have access to. Actually come to think of it this is not limited to researchers. Just about every computer project I've ever worked on has been way over-engineered. Why use a pen, appointments book and phone when you can spend millions on an object-oriented distributed booking system which ends up going over budget and getting cancelled?
the more we prop these people up, the more they are going to have more poor starving children... Is there anything wrong with having pride in your species?
Are "these people" part of a different species to you then?
Dear oh dear, what is this "score 5, insightful" nonsense? How come any old "Open Source is rilly cool" comment gets moderated up, regardless of the evidence. Slashdot is beginning to resemble some wacky fundamentalist cult. The only way something as complex as natural language translation could become Open Source is if an academic institution just gave away their source. The last time I checked about a year ago, the only decent software out there was either commercial or it was released by universities as binary only. Suddenly here's a story about an Open Source translator. So you go check on google to learn more about the history of gpltrans. No hits. Same story on DejaNews. A large-scale Open Source development that nobody's ever talked about before? Yeah right.
If it can happen with DVD then presumably it will happen with Digital TV soon. What is going to stop people from downloading illegal decryption software for STB's or TV cards?
How about slashdot employ some kind of hype-recognition program to filter out this kind of guff? Pure marketing bullshit. Have you ever seen any of those images from CCTV's? Very poor, very low resolution. The villain's mum would have difficulty recognising her son from the quality of those shots, never mind a computer. Just think of the difficulty of first even recognising that there's a face in shot at all, then figuring out what angle it's looking at, building a 3D model, rotating it, taking into account light source, etc etc etc. Sure it kind-of works in the demo, and they were probably able to sucker some technically illiterate council IT manager into a pilot scheme. But really. I once spent months writing an OCR program. This stuff is seriously _hard_.
Slashdot Mirror
java.lang.Error is effectively an unchecked exception.
Even in peacetime, 35000 people die in automobile accidents on US roads every year. That's the same level of suffering as the WTC attack every two months and yet nobody bats an eyelid.
Not sure what you mean by "guideline" but if you
mean testsuite then the latest release of gcc has
a testsuite which runs under DejaGnu.
Anyway, who needs encryption - given that the FBI is currently trying to recruit Arabic speakers, all the terrorists have to do is send their messages in Arabic plain text.
> 65.chr
"A"
What would that do on an ebcdic platform?
I'm not saying don't bother learning a language, obviously you'll get far more out of your stay if you do, but it's surprisingly easy to get by without one.
That's like saying ascii is just data. You can encapsulate behaviour in XML if you want to.
Seriously though, don't you think you're jumping the gun just a tad? It's not clear at this point whether working quantum computers can ever be built.
Can anyone point me at the definition of MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language)? I can find plenty of overviews of it but no detailed definition such as would be required to write a Linux back-end for it.
Thanks!
Modems already sound like static except when they're dialing up. If a little green man heard that how on earth could he distinguish (say) intelligent discourse on slashdot from meaningless static?
This story appeared in the London Evening Standard a few weeks ago. Bear in mind though that this is the UK where anything geek related is considered very uncool.
BTW: Why doesn't Linux support this kind of thing?
It does. It's called Java bytecode.
Details indeed! The point of the picture is to show inheritance and it portrays Linux as being a standalone branch with no connection to what went before. The kernel is just a tiny part of the OS but one that gets a disproportionate amount of attention. The majority of what makes up Linux is shared/inherited with other branches of Unix, but the diagram doesn't reflect this. Just think of bash - inherited from AT&T's Korn shell, or X-Windows.
It was given to me by a friend who used to get the high score in the local pub whilst tripping on LSD.
The storm is coming, return to your homes!
I wasn't trying to prove it by writing a program, the program was meant more as an analogy to demonstrate what I think is flawed visualization with regard to infinity. Setting it down as a program brings home the point. I've read a bit about infinity - it appears that even amongst mathematicians some of the uses of it are not universally accepted.
I've always had a problem with "proof"s like this. They pretend, like you do, that there is an end/bottom of the list whereas surely the point of infinity is that there isn't. It's easier to see expressed as C loops. It's a bit like saying: for (int i = 0; ; i++) { for (int j = 0; ; j++) { add_to_list[i + j]; } } and then pretending that the inner loop actually completes, you get a different (bigger) type of infinity from: for (int i = 0; ; i++) { add_to_list[i]; } In your mind you effect a closure of the inner loop, wrap it up in a box. But seen as a C program it's clearly absurd. I guess people imagine it more as: for (int i = 0; i infinity; i++) { for (int j = 0; j infinity; j++) { add_to_list[i + j]; } }
In a world where all the information you need is just a click away, what's the point of education? Why download that info into local storage, ie your already overloaded brain? Just leave it where it is and only access it on demand. The availability of online universities in a way makes obtaining a degree from them redundant.
The best book on this subject IMO is The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. It came out a few years ago. It is basically a critique of AI, but to get there he discusses the theory of computing, Godels Incompleteness theorem, Quantum Mechanics and much much more. The aim of the book is to argue that there are certain things a human mind can do that a computer can never do. Roger Penrose is himself a top mathematician and although the book is aimed at the general public it's not for the faint hearted. Having said that though it is simply stunning, it is a tour of all the major scientific ideas of the last century, and is incredibly stimulating. If you want to read a book on the subject, read this one.
By the year 1000AD there was already more information available than any one person could ever hope to assimilate. Have you ever read (and understood, because there's more to information than just scanning it) the complete works of Plato? Probably not. But do you feel threatened by the mere presence of those unread words? Again probably not. So what's changed in modern times? How much really valuable information is there?
The other day I wanted to read up on the history of Britain before 1000AD. Rather than read a history book with all it's interpretations, I thought it would be cool to take a "clean room" approach and read the original documents that described Britain before 1000AD. Naturally I assumed they'd be out there on the Web by now. But guess what? Not only are they not on the Web, there isn't even a way to get a list of what manuscripts exist via the Web.
I just think that's kind of an interesting contrast, you feeling overwhelmed by junk information about the present whilst the most basic information about the past isn't even accessible electronically!
Not worth getting worked up about, it'll never see the light of day. Academic types like to work on cool projects regardless of how realistic or cost-effective they are. So they've persuaded their bosses that this is the way to go. Satellites! Digital maps! State-of-the-art or what. Beats just making use of the speedo info they already have access to. Actually come to think of it this is not limited to researchers. Just about every computer project I've ever worked on has been way over-engineered. Why use a pen, appointments book and phone when you can spend millions on an object-oriented distributed booking system which ends up going over budget and getting cancelled?
Are "these people" part of a different species to you then?
Dear oh dear, what is this "score 5, insightful" nonsense? How come any old "Open Source is rilly cool" comment gets moderated up, regardless of the evidence. Slashdot is beginning to resemble some wacky fundamentalist cult. The only way something as complex as natural language translation could become Open Source is if an academic institution just gave away their source. The last time I checked about a year ago, the only decent software out there was either commercial or it was released by universities as binary only. Suddenly here's a story about an Open Source translator. So you go check on google to learn more about the history of gpltrans. No hits. Same story on DejaNews. A large-scale Open Source development that nobody's ever talked about before? Yeah right.
If it can happen with DVD then presumably it will happen with Digital TV soon. What is going to stop people from downloading illegal decryption software for STB's or TV cards?
How about slashdot employ some kind of hype-recognition program to filter out this kind of guff? Pure marketing bullshit. Have you ever seen any of those images from CCTV's? Very poor, very low resolution. The villain's mum would have difficulty recognising her son from the quality of those shots, never mind a computer. Just think of the difficulty of first even recognising that there's a face in shot at all, then figuring out what angle it's looking at, building a 3D model, rotating it, taking into account light source, etc etc etc. Sure it kind-of works in the demo, and they were probably able to sucker some technically illiterate council IT manager into a pilot scheme. But really. I once spent months writing an OCR program. This stuff is seriously _hard_.